Undead Much

  What had I ever do­ne to ma­ke him and Kitty so re­ady to be­li­eve I’d ra­ised tho­se we­ird zom­bi­es? The­re had ne­ver be­en a Set­tler con­vic­ted of using black ma­gic, so why we­re they as­su­ming I was go­ing to be the first? I might not ha­ve be­en the most eager lit­tle pu­pil, but I’d do­ne my best to ma­ke them pro­ud. I’d tra­ined my ass off and stu­di­ed un­til my bra­in felt li­ke it was go­ing to le­ak out of my ears, yet still, he­re we we­re.

  It had to be my stu­pid su­per-Set­tler po­wer get­ting me in tro­ub­le aga­in. That was the only exp­la­na­ti­on that ma­de sen­se. I was a sus­pect be­ca­use I was ca­pab­le of do­ing things the ave­ra­ge Set­tler co­uldn’t, not be­ca­use I’d ac­tu­al­ly do­ne anyt­hing.

  “Did you find anyt­hing?” Kitty as­ked.

  “No. It was cle­an.” Bar­ker didn’t so­und as happy abo­ut that as he sho­uld ha­ve. He pro­bably tho­ught I had stas­hed the evi­den­ce of my evil so­mew­he­re el­se. The jerk.

  “Thanks.” Kitty sto­od up and tur­ned to fa­ce my mom and El­der Tho­mas, who had co­me to stand be­si­de her so­me­ti­me du­ring the in­ter­ro­ga­ti­on. “Ple­ase un­ders­tand that we all ca­re very much abo­ut Me­gan and yo­ur fa­mily. But as it stands-”

  “As it stands, Me­gan is in­no­cent. She didn’t ra­ise tho­se zom­bi­es.”

  “May­be not. We’ll ha­ve to wa­it for all the lab work to co­me back to be su­re,” El­der Tho­mas sa­id. “But we both know she co­uld ha­ve. Don’t we, Jen­ni­fer?”

  It was exactly the tho­ught I’d had a se­cond ago, but for so­me re­ason it ma­de my mom suck in a shoc­ked bre­ath, then dart a qu­ick lo­ok in my di­rec­ti­on be­fo­re tur­ning back to El­der Tho­mas. Li­ke it was news I was we­ird? We’d known this for a whi­le now. “That’s… I tho­ught we… This is crazy, Me­gan is in­no­cent.”

  “Me­gan may be in­no­cent, but mis­ta­kes ha­ve be­en ma­de-”

  “Are you sug­ges­ting… I can’t…” Mom tur­ned her back on me and drop­ped her vo­ice to a whis­per. “You know what? I’m not ha­ving this con­ver­sa­ti­on. No one in this ho­use did anyt­hing wrong, and I re­fu­se to call that de­ci­si­on a mis­ta­ke.”

  “I think we both know that-”

  “Get out.” Mom po­in­ted a tremb­ling fin­ger at the do­or. The words we­re soft but in­fu­sed with mo­re ra­ge than I’d ever he­ard in my mot­her’s vo­ice.

  “We’ll be in to­uch.” El­der Tho­mas he­aded to­ward the do­or, fol­lo­wed by a rat­her em­bar­ras­sed-lo­oking Kitty and a still sad-clown-fa­ced Bar­ker. The front do­or slam­med se­conds la­ter and our ho­use was sud­denly dis­tur­bingly qu­i­et.

  But for so­me re­ason, I was af­ra­id to bre­ak that si­len­ce. May­be it was the fact that my mom was star­ting to cry, si­lent te­ars that le­aked down her wor­ri­ed fa­ce. Or may­be it was the fact that, du­ring her and El­der Tho­mas’s de­ci­dedly odd con­ver­sa­ti­on, I’d se­en the lo­ok in Mom’s eyes. It hadn’t be­en an­ger or con­fu­si­on I’d re­ad the­re-it had be­en fe­ar.

  She was af­ra­id of so­met­hing. Af­ra­id that El­der Tho­mas was right abo­ut me go­ing over to the dark si­de? Af­ra­id of wha­te­ver this “mis­ta­ke” was? Af­ra­id that the En­for­cers wo­uld na­il me to the wall whet­her I was in­no­cent or not? I co­uldn’t gu­ess, and she didn’t stick aro­und to exp­la­in her­self.

  “Go to bed, Me­gan. We’ll talk abo­ut this in the mor­ning.”

  “But Mom-”

  “Just go to bed. Ple­ase.” She fled in­to her and Dad’s ro­om and slam­med the do­or, but I co­uld he­ar it when she star­ted to cry even har­der. Then Dad mumb­led so­met­hing in his de­ep vo­ice and the sobs we­re muf­fled. Pro­bably by his chest. He was pro­bably gi­ving Mom a hug, and tel­ling her everyt­hing was go­ing to be okay.

  Me­anw­hi­le, I was out in the kitc­hen with no one, fe­et tang­led in my over­tur­ned cha­ir. Alo­ne, the vil­la­in in this night’s dra­ma even tho­ugh I’d do­ne ab­so­lu­tely not­hing wrong. For a se­cond, I tho­ught abo­ut cal­ling Et­han and beg­ging him to co­me over and let me sob on his chest, but re­ali­zed it wo­uld be use­less. No do­ubt he was still busy with Pro­to­col duty and wo­uld be for the rest of the night. And even when he was fi­nal­ly dis­mis­sed, he might ha­ve be­en gi­ven or­ders not to see me. Girlf­ri­end or not, I was ap­pa­rently now a sus­pect in a fe­lony, and su­rely SA wo­uldn’t want one of the­ir cops fra­ter­ni­zing with the enemy.

  In fact, I wo­uldn’t be surp­ri­sed if I le­ar­ned we we­re on a re­la­ti­ons­hip ti­me-out un­til this mess was sor­ted out. The­re wo­uld be no Et­han hugs, no Et­han kis­ses, no Et­han com­mon-sen­se talks that al­ways ma­de me fe­el so much bet­ter-not even a big, warm Et­han hand to hold.

  The tho­ught bro­ke down the last of my up­per-lip stif­fness. By the ti­me I got to my bath­ro­om and tur­ned the sho­wer on, I was crying li­ke so­me­one had di­ed.

  How co­uld I ha­ve got­ten in so much tro­ub­le for so­met­hing I hadn’t do­ne? Why was I the only sus­pect when I knew they had no evi­den­ce to pro­ve I’d ra­ised tho­se RCs? Su­re I was the only su­per-po­we­red Set­tler in our part of the co­untry, but the­re had to be so­me­one el­se who co­uld ha­ve do­ne this, be­ca­use so­me­one el­se did do it. I co­uldn’t be­li­eve Kitty, at le­ast, hadn’t star­ted to con­si­der ot­her sus­pects.

  And what the heck was up with Mom and her “mis­ta­ke” and this fe­lony I’d sup­po­sedly com­mit­ted? Trying to kill so­me­one with zom­bi­es was a fe­lony char­ge, but I was the one they’d be­en trying to bi­te! But then, the zom­bi­es wo­uld ha­ve tri­ed to bi­te me if I was the one who ra­ised them and a Set­tler had wor­ked a re­ver­to spell on them-a re­ver­to spell sends them back to the­ir ma­ker for a bi­te of the blo­od that sum­mo­ned them from the­ir gra­ve. So may­be that was why Kitty tho­ught I was gu­ilty.

  Still, the­re had to be so­met­hing mo­re or ever­yo­ne wo­uldn’t be so su­re I was the only one who co­uld ha­ve do­ne it.

  The­re we­re ob­vi­o­usly things go­ing on I didn’t un­ders­tand. And wha­te­ver tho­se things we­re, I was go­ing to ha­ve to fi­gu­re them out-fast. Su­re, Mom se­emed de­ter­mi­ned to stick up for me, but then, she was al­so with­hol­ding so­me kind of in­fo and in her own ro­om crying ins­te­ad of in he­re rub­bing my back. That just wasn’t nor­mal Mom be­ha­vi­or. And if I co­uldn’t co­unt on her for so­met­hing as small as a back rub, how co­uld I trust that she was go­ing to ke­ep me from go­ing to SA pri­son for a cri­me I didn’t com­mit?

  The ans­wer was, I co­uldn’t, which ma­de me cry even har­der.

  Wed­nes­day mor­ning daw­ned bright and hor­rib­le. My he­ad felt li­ke it was go­ing to exp­lo­de and my pa­rents we­re still ac­ting to­tal­ly we­ird. I did my best to ma­ke a bunch of no­ise in the kitc­hen ma­king bre­ak­fast, but even the smell of cof­fee per­co­la­ting didn’t sum­mon the be­asts from the­ir la­ir. Mom was usu­al­ly a fre­ak abo­ut me drin­king cof­fee, in­sis­ting it wo­uld dec­re­ase my bo­ne den­sity and in­fu­se my cells with to­xins and blah blah blah, but ap­pa­rently she was too ex­ha­us­ted to worry abo­ut my vul­ne­rab­le ado­les­cent ske­le­ton.

  I had a hu­ge to-go cup of French ro­ast in my hand when I ope­ned her do­or and sa­id go­odb­ye. All she did was mumb­le, “Be ca­re­ful” and so­met­hing abo­ut se­e­ing me la­ter, and then roll over to hug Dad-who was al­so still abed even tho­ugh he sho­uld ha­ve left for work at the air­port a go­od thirty mi­nu­tes ago. He was ne­ver la­te and Mom ne­ver slept in. It was stran­ge. And scary.

  My mo­od was fo­ul be­fo­re I even ar­ri­ved at scho­ol and only grew fo­uler as the day wo­re on. I was so not in the mo­od for ac­ting nor­mal. Eng
­lish and world his­tory se­emed ut­terly po­int­less. Why did I ne­ed to le­arn abo­ut po­pu­lar trends in twen­ti­eth-cen­tury li­te­ra­tu­re or the evo­lu­ti­on of Is­la­mic cul­tu­re when I co­uld end up in ja­il for the rest of my li­fe?

  And who ca­red abo­ut the bril­li­ant fund-ra­ising event Mo­ni­ca and Lon­don had or­ga­ni­zed for Fri­day night? Swe­et­he­art ice ska­ting was not a gid­dy-ma­king idea when you might ha­ve lost yo­ur swe­et­he­art. Et­han hadn’t cal­led or sent a text all mor­ning, and he had to know what went down. If he was al­lo­wed to con­tact me, he wo­uld ha­ve do­ne it by now.

  By lunch­ti­me I ha­ted my li­fe and all the pe­op­le hap­pily chat­te­ring in the ca­fe­te­ria. I ha­ted ra­ind­rops on ro­ses and whis­kers on kit­tens and all that crap. I al­so ha­ted ra­vi­oli and gre­en be­ans from a can and brow­ni­es that we­ren’t he­avy eno­ugh. A brow­nie sho­uld be thick and we­ighty, not light and fluffy li­ke so­me sort of ca­ke. Brow­ni­es are NOT ca­ke!

  “Put the brow­nie down and step away from yo­ur lunch tray.” He was whis­pe­ring, but I wo­uld ha­ve known that vo­ice anyw­he­re.

  “You’re he­re!” I jum­ped off the cha­ir I’d cla­imed in an aban­do­ned cor­ner of the lunch­ro­om and flung myself in­to Et­han’s arms, squ­e­ezing un­til he gro­aned in pa­in. God, he smel­led so go­od, li­ke that spicy so­ap he used and sha­ving cre­am and boy. My boy, my boyf­ri­end who hadn’t be­en told not to see me af­ter all!

  “I’m he­re, but I’m not sup­po­sed to be, so let’s sne­ak whi­le the sne­aking is go­od,” he sa­id, le­aning down to grab my back­pack when I fi­nal­ly re­le­ased my de­ath hold.

  “You’re not sup­po­sed to be?”

  “No­pe. Go­od thing I’m not a com­pul­si­ve ru­le fol­lo­wer any­mo­re.” He smi­led and grab­bed my hand, but I co­uld tell he wasn’t fe­eling any mo­re light­he­ar­ted than I was. “Co­me on, I’m par­ked at the bot­tom of the hill. If we hust­le, we’ll blend in with the rest of the pe­op­le he­aded out to lunch.”

  Only se­ni­ors we­re sup­po­sed to go off cam­pus for lunch, but I didn’t he­si­ta­te when Et­han pul­led me out in­to the bright Janu­ary day. My co­at was still in my loc­ker, but I didn’t ca­re abo­ut fre­ezing my butt off eit­her. All I ca­red abo­ut was be­ing with Et­han and away from scho­ol.

  “You know what? I don’t want to co­me back,” I sa­id, a spring co­ming in­to my step as we ma­de it past the te­ac­her on duty wit­ho­ut at­trac­ting at­ten­ti­on. “I’m go­ing to skip the rest of my clas­ses.”

  “So­unds go­od,” he sa­id, tho­ugh usu­al­ly Et­han wo­uld be the last one to en­co­ura­ge ditc­hing scho­ol. It was just anot­her re­min­der that I was in a heck of a lot of tro­ub­le. “That will gi­ve us mo­re ti­me.”

  “Mo­re ti­me for what?”

  “I fi­gu­red we sho­uld do so­me in­ves­ti­ga­ting of our-hey, are you okay?” Et­han as­ked as he ope­ned the pas­sen­ger’s do­or of his car.

  “Not re­al­ly. But I’m bet­ter now that you’re he­re. I as­su­me you he­ard the news.”

  “I did, and it’s ri­di­cu­lo­us. I can’t be­li­eve they think you had any part in ra­ising wha­te­ver tho­se things we­re.”

  “Thanks. It’s ni­ce that so­me­one still be­li­eves in me.” The­re we­re te­ars stin­ging the cor­ners of my eyes, but I suc­ked them back in­to whe­re­ver te­ars co­me from. Te­ar ducts, I gu­ess? “Kitty and Bar­ker and El­der Tho­mas think I did it.”

  “They’re in­sa­ne. Of co­ur­se you didn’t,” he sa­id, le­aning down to gi­ve me the sof­test lit­tle kiss. He clo­sed the do­or and ran aro­und to the dri­ver’s si­de, whi­le I smi­led and tri­ed even har­der not to cry. I re­al­ly did ha­ve the best boyf­ri­end in the world. “But li­ke I sa­id.” He slid in­to the dri­ver’s se­at and star­ted the car. “I fi­gu­red we sho­uld do so­me in­ves­ti­ga­ting of our own to help pro­ve what we al­re­ady know.”

  “Won’t that get you in tro­ub­le at work?” I as­ked, as Et­han pul­led in­to the li­ne of cars he­ading out of the par­king lot.

  “Pro­to­col got kic­ked off the ca­se last night aro­und mid­night by the En­for­ce­ment te­am. Ap­pa­rently they don’t want a bunch of small-town lo­sers scre­wing up the­ir in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on. So it’s not a di­rect conf­lict of in­te­rest.”

  “But I tho­ught you sa­id you we­ren’t sup­po­sed to-”

  “The El­ders ha­ven’t sa­id anyt­hing out­right, but Kitty cal­led and strongly ad­vi­sed me to stay away from you un­til you’re cle­ared of sus­pi­ci­on.” He pul­led for­ward, ta­king a left out of the par­king lot. “She ma­de it so­und li­ke a re­qu­est, but I got the or­der vi­be lo­ud and cle­ar. I ha­ve a fe­eling I won’t be in­vi­ted back to tra­ining if I get ca­ught hel­ping you.”

  “Then ta­ke me back to scho­ol.” I grab­bed my back­pack and po­in­ted to a go­od pla­ce to turn aro­und. “I don’t want you to ru­in yo­ur chan­ces to do so­met­hing you lo­ve.”

  “I lo­ve you, Schmeg,” he sa­id, using the old nick­na­me that used to dri­ve me ab­so­lu­tely in­sa­ne. Now it se­emed kind of swe­et and ma­de me want to cry aga­in. But then, what didn’t? “It’s just work. You’re my girlf­ri­end.”

  I fi­nal­ly lost the te­ar bat­tle and star­ted sob­bing. Et­han lo­ved me, he re­al­ly lo­ved me. It was won­der­ful. I was so lucky! So why was it ma­king me ha­ve a ma­j­or, snotty co­me-apart?

  “Meg, you okay?” Et­han as­ked, lo­oking a lit­tle gre­en to be trap­ped in a car with a sob­bing girl, even one he lo­ved. I nod­ded, but the te­ars didn’t se­em to want to stop. “I think the­re are so­me nap­kins left over from So­nic in the glo­ve com­part­ment.”

  So­nic! The si­te of our first pre­tend da­te months ago! Re­mem­be­ring how I’d be­en crus­hing on Et­han that night, and how I’d be­en cer­ta­in he’d ne­ver think of me as anyt­hing but an an­no­ying lit­tle-sis­ter type, hel­ped me pull myself to­get­her.

  The im­pos­sib­le had hap­pe­ned. The pro­of was sit­ting in the dri­ver’s se­at, tel­ling me he lo­ved me. And pro­ving my in­no­cen­ce wasn’t im­pos­sib­le eit­her-it just felt li­ke it be­ca­use I didn’t know what was go­ing on. Ho­pe­ful­ly, by the ti­me Et­han and I we­re do­ne to­day, that wo­uld no lon­ger be the ca­se.

  “I’m bet­ter.” I dab­bed at my no­se and eyes and to­ok a de­ep bre­ath. “Whe­re are we star­ting this in­ves­ti­ga­ting?”

  “I dro­ve by Kro­ger on my way. Lo­oks li­ke the En­for­ce­ment te­am fi­nal­ly pul­led out of the wo­ods be­hind the par­king lot. I fi­gu­re it’s as go­od a pla­ce to start as any.”

  “Right, so­unds go­od,” I sa­id, but it didn’t, not re­al­ly. I didn’t want to go back in­to tho­se wo­ods. Still, what cho­ice did I ha­ve? Le­ads we­re few, and Et­han was right, the best pla­ce to start was at the sce­ne of the cri­me… wha­te­ver that cri­me was. “Did Pro­to­col get any in­for­ma­ti­on on why the­se zom­bi­es we­re so dif­fe­rent? I me­an, I know using black ma­gic is a fe­lony char­ge, but the­re’s got to be so­me re­ason the En­for­cers think I’m the only one who co­uld ha­ve do­ne this. I’m gu­es­sing it has so­met­hing to do with ha­ving mo­re po­wer than the ave­ra­ge Set­tler, but that’s abo­ut as far as I’ve got­ten.”

  “That’s what I fi­gu­red too. It’s the only thing that ma­kes sen­se.”

  “Right. But may­be if we can find out what’s so spe­ci­al abo­ut the RCs-”

  “They co­uld be Set­tler-Re­sis­tant Un­de­ad,” Et­han sa­id, his to­ne ma­king it cle­ar he’d rat­her not sha­re this in­for­ma­ti­on with me if he co­uld ha­ve hel­ped it. “Our Pro­to­col task for­ce le­ader sa­id he’d he­ard abo­ut SRU at­tacks in Euro­pe in the f
o­ur­te­enth cen­tury that wi­ped out en­ti­re towns. Back then the Set­tlers’ Af­fa­irs pe­op­le bla­med the de­aths on the pla­gue to ke­ep hu­mans from fre­aking out abo­ut zom­bi­es.”

  “Ge­ez. That’s… very bad.” And Me­gan wins the Un­ders­ta­te­ment of the Ye­ar award. “But why-”

  “And no one ever fo­und out whe­re they ca­me from, who had ra­ised them, or why Set­tlers co­uldn’t cont­rol them. They just kind of di­sap­pe­ared in mo­dern ti­mes. Un­til now, may­be?”

  “Which wo­uld exp­la­in why the En­for­cers are fre­aking out, but wo­uldn’t exp­la­in why they think I did this.” Must ke­ep thin­king lo­gi­cal­ly, must not start ima­gi­ning zom­bi­es swar­ming over the en­ti­re town of Ca­rol.

  “So we ne­ed to find out mo­re abo­ut the­se SRUs, so­met­hing that will help us start a list of re­al sus­pects.”

  “I don’t know much, but I did he­ar Smythe and Bar­ker sa­ying so­met­hing abo­ut chec­king the hos­pi­tals in Lit­tle Rock. They shut up pretty fast when they re­ali­zed I was stan­ding clo­se eno­ugh to he­ar, but still, it’s so­met­hing.” He tur­ned in­to Kro­ger and pul­led aro­und to the back of the sto­re. “If we don’t find anyt­hing in the wo­ods, we can start sno­oping aro­und hos­pi­tals and see if we spot anyt­hing unu­su­al,” he sa­id, par­king be­si­de a Dumps­ter.

  I co­uldn’t think of any con­nec­ti­on bet­we­en the Un­de­ad and a hos­pi­tal, but I hadn’t slept very well last night. Still, the who­le si­tu­ati­on se­emed so overw­hel­ming.

  As if sen­sing my angst, Et­han tur­ned and grab­bed my hand be­fo­re I co­uld open my do­or. “We’re go­ing to fi­gu­re this out, Me­gan. I pro­mi­se. Everyt­hing is go­ing to be fi­ne.”

  After that I just had to kiss him for a mi­nu­te or two. Even if he was just sa­ying it to ma­ke me fe­el bet­ter, it was won­der­ful ha­ving a boyf­ri­end who knew exactly what to say.