Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men

  tHE zOMBIFICATION OF

  aMANDA hACKENSACK

  "I WANT you to neigh for me," she said.

  I had no idea who was talking to me.

  I'd already figured out where I was, from the smell of manure and the rustle of wood shavings beneath my sweaty running shoes.

  She was giggling while she said it; I couldn't see anything but I could definitely hear it, the kind of chuckle the cool girls in high school use on pretty much every other girl to keep them in their place.

  I used to do it, too. I was doing it just a few months ago.

  I missed high school already.

  "This isn't funny," I told her. "I can't see a thing."

  "That'll wear off, stupid. Gawd."

  "How can you know?"

  There was a pause; I know she rolled her eyes right then. "It's so much easier dealing with men. You muffin-top girls are a waste of time."

  "Is that supposed to be an insult?" I asked. "Like there's something wrong with not having a spray tan or a silver spoon crammed up my ass?"

  "I think my nose is being thrown the biggest insult here. You smell like hog manure. Seriously."

  I stepped towards her and felt my knee slam against a metal stall.

  "You're locked in, stupid," she said.

  "What? Why are you even doing this?"

  Another pause, but I didn't sense an eye roll. "I'm not doing this to you, Amanda. You did this to yourself."

  I heard her hard-heeled boots walking back down the concrete hallway.

  Then it was quiet. And still completely black.

  I think it was only twenty minutes or so before I started seeing light in my eyes. It was just a lighter shade of dark at first, but then it was like when you close your eyes and you're facing the sun. Then there were splotches, then blobs, and then I was in a box stall in a well-lit stable, at one end of what seemed almost an endless expanse of empty horse stalls.

  The stall was like a prison cell, with iron bars running from the half wall up to the ceiling, and a heavy padlock on the gate.

  I'd been shivering from the start in the wet air, still dressed in my basketball gear, and still unsure of what had come after I'd walked into the changeroom after skills. Did the other girls end up here, too? There was no one else in the stable with me, but since I'd never been locked into a horse stall before, I didn't have much of a frame of reference.

  If I was living in a teen sitcom, I'd be the star player on the championship team, kidnapped by ne'er do wells from the other school just before the big game. Of course, I'm only on the team because there are hardly any girls in Dover who play basketball at all, and it's nice to be "good" at something; we've got one girl from Finland who'd never even heard of the game before we signed her up for skills camp. And Sayra's from Guatemala and has yet to figure out the meaning of man-to-man.

  There's really no reason why anyone would want to kidnap me, some off-white girl from the poorer side of town who doesn't even know who her father is. I'm like the worst possible candidate for getting a ransom.

  She came back after an hour or so, dressed in red jodhpurs and matching boots, along with a man who was dressed somewhere between a farrier and a farm vet. He was carrying a large duffel bag and a long yellow wand.

  "See?" the girl said. "I don't think she's responded to any of it."

  The man walked up to my stall and put his bag on the floor. And then he stared at me.

  "Who the hell are you?" I asked.

  He kept staring. "She's quite aware of her surroundings," he said. "Quite aware."

  He took a key from his pocket and opened the padlock on the metal gate.

  "Watch her," the girl said.

  The man bent down and unzipped his bag. "I have ways to control you," the man said to me. He held up the yellow wand. "For beef cattle and crowd control. You'll be good, won't you, darling?"

  I nodded. I always lie when I'm planning on kicking someone in the balls.

  He opened the gate.

  I went at him.

  He stabbed the wand at my chest. The shock ran through my body, every muscle convulsing. I fell.

  "Don't do that again," he said without any hint of surprise.

  I nodded again. I meant it.

  He checked me over, inspecting me more like a prized mare than a person, even checking my teeth like all I really needed was a good deworming.

  "Do you know where you are, Amanda?" he asked me.

  "In a horse stall," I said.

  "Yes. A horse stall. In Vermont. Only a short drive from Rutland. Do you know where that is?"

  "Not really. I've never been to Vermont."

  He smiled. "And now you live here. There's a trail that runs north of here that takes you right over Gorham Bridge. It was built in 1842."

  "Why should I care?"

  "I don't expect you to," he said. "I'm just seeing if you're paying attention." He turned to the blond girl in the rich girl suit. "She's immune," he said. "Ms. Shannard was right about her."

  "You're kidding," the girl said. "Like for real, immune? She'd said the same thing about how many others, but look where they'd all ended up."

  "Immune. You can pump her full of however much fluid you'd like, but she won't become suggestive at any point. She'd be dead long before."

  "Dead? How much would that take?"

  "That is not how we do things, Cadance."

  "Then what am I supposed to do with her?"

  "Feed her to the pigs."

  Cadance bobbed her head up and down. "Like... just throw her in alive and everything?"

  "Can you guys stop talking like I'm not even here?" I asked.

  The man sighed. "That was meant to be a joke. Ms. Shannard wanted me to bring her confirmation before she gives me further instructions."

  "I don't care about her stupid instructions," the girl said. "You should be talking to my father."

  "No, you should be letting me go," I said.

  "Your father isn't in charge," the man said. "It won't be up to him. Just keep an eye on this one."

  "I'm not a babysitter."

  "No, you're a grown-up now, Cadance. Try to act like one."

  He stared at me for a moment. He licked his lips and stared a little more.

  He opened the stall and walked out, grabbing his duffel bag as he left.

  He hadn't closed the gate.

  I ran out past Cadance and turned towards the nearest door, the opposite way from where the man had gone. I pulled the sliding door open and stepped outside.

  I looked back to Cadance, who was following me, but about as slowly as a person could walk. She looked more disgusted than worried; I'm tall but I'm not really that scary looking.

  I kept running anyway, heading past two huge trucks and horse trailers, toward paddocks teeming with well-bred warmbloods.

  I opened the first gate I came to, pushing past a few curious horse noses and continuing towards the distant tree line. I knew enough about Vermont to know that if i kept running long enough I'd end up somewhere with a crowd of syrup-guzzling tourists and their cell phones.

  Cadance was still behind me, but the gap was widening quickly.

  Something didn't seem right.

  I climbed over the fence into another paddock, one field closer to the woods.

  I didn't want to think about the muck that was collecting on my shoes.

  I reached the end of the paddock, only a few feet from the trees.

  And then I saw the real fence.

  It was at least ten feet tall, and it bent inward at the top like the ones you'd see on National Geographic prison shows. I didn't have to figure out a way of squatting sideways and peeing on it to know that it was electrified.

  That's why Cadance had no reason to hurry.

  "There's nowhere to go," she said to me once she caught up. "You're locked in, Amanda."

  "Where am I?"

  "Gawd. You're in Vermont. What ar
e you, like mentally challenged?"

  I basically growled at her. "I might not be able to escape... but there's nothing stopping me from kicking your ass, princess."

  "I have a cattle prod, too," she said.

  I looked her over. "Where?"

  "Dammit. The tack room..."

  I'm not proud of it, but it did feel good.

  I gave Cadance Snobbybritches probably the worst beating of her life. Like almost to a needing stitches level.

  Well, okay... it was more like two punches to the mouth. But I've never hit anyone before. Usually a glare and some kind of huff is enough to send the right message.

  I left her hunched up on the paddock fence and I made my way back towards the stables. There were six buildings in a row, with gray brick walls and a general look of despair. It was like some kind of horsey Auschwitz; I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to board their horse in a place like that. I picked a different stable building to check, using my nose to find the semi-sweet smell of manure. Just hay and water, as my aunt used to say.

  As I neared I could hear the snorts and hooves. There was something calming about the sounds.

  There was a large 'D' painted on the door with blood red paint.

  I opened the sliding door slowly, hoping that whoever was inside wouldn't notice. Of course, that's near impossible in real life, and it squeaked like a field mouse on a hard diet of performance enhancing drugs. I stopped opening it about halfway, which was probably a useless gesture.

  There were at least a half dozen men inside. But not one was looking over to me.

  They were mucking the stalls, slowly and methodically and in complete silence, all dressed in old t-shirts and ratty blue jeans with holes in all the wrong places.

  I don't know how to put this, but a couple of them looked like they could work in a barn, like illegals maybe, like the Fitzsimmons' have working for them at their barn up by Pine Plains. The rest didn't seem to fit in, two black guys, two whites and a very large man who was probably Chinese.

  Most of the grooms my aunt had hired were teenage girls who couldn't quite afford the boarding fees. Working in a stable is like gymnastics with horse poop, whatever the opposite of a sausage fest happens to be. Some kind of party with hot dog buns...

  I watched them work for a minute as I stood half in the door; they were acting like robots, picking up the manure and the soiled shavings and throwing them in the long wooden cart, without so much as a grunt. It's unnerving to see mucking without the chatter; I don't know what guys talk about when they work together, but I figured they'd talk about something.

  I didn't feel frightened by the men... I felt more unnerved. I slowly walked towards the first stall being mucked, by one of the black guys. He was wearing a Florida Marlins t-shirt and jeans with an unexpected flare at the bottom.

  He didn't seem to notice me standing beside him.

  "Excuse me... sir," I said, trying not to sound condescending to the man with a shovel-load of horse shit.

  No response. I figured he was just waiting for me to just get on with it.

  "I need some help," I said. "I've gotten myself a little turned around in here."

  He didn't even look at me.

  I turned to look at the others. No one was bothering to acknowledge that I exist. I'm an eighteen year old girl; I'm not used to older men ignoring me outside of church.

  "Hello? Are any of you guys going to talk to me?"

  Nope.

  I walked on past him, toward the other end of the stable.

  Usually a girl in basketball shorts gets some kind of notice, like a guy or two checking out her ass, at the very least. I'm not a volleyball player, but still.

  For a moment I almost thought I saw the Chinese guy glancing at the back of me as I walked by, but when I turned to look he was still scooping horse poop like before.

  At about four guys deep, the other door opened and another woman stepped in, maybe around twenty or so. She was dressed in breeches and boots.

  "What are you doing in here, missus?" she asked, looking at me. "You shouldn't be in here alone. And why are you dressed like a rugger?"

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Hold on a tick... who are you?"

  I didn't know what to say. About who I was, or why she was speaking like she was British with a New England accent.

  "Uh... who do you think I am?" I asked.

  "You're not a boarder. Why the devil are you here?"

  "I was just leaving."

  She started walking toward me. I wondered if I was going to have another mouth to punch.

  "Don't be daft," she said with a smile. "I've gotten all to cock in here sometimes. I'll help you find your way back."

  "Uh... thanks."

  We walked together down the aisle, the men still paying no attention to me. They didn't seem to notice her, either.

  "These blokes are on work release," she said. "Minimum security and all that, but it's still not a terribly smart idea to be in here by yourself."

  "You were about to come in here by yourself."

  "Oh, I can handle these lags. I know the tricks."

  "Where are you from, anyway?"

  She smiled. "From right here. I'm trying to sound posh... you know?"

  "I guess."

  She glared at me. "Well I didn't ask for your opinion, did I?"

  "Sorry."

  She opened the sliding door and led me into another well-lit hallway, but one without any horse stalls. The one wall was lined with a row of metal doors like self-storage units.

  We turned right and kept walking.

  "Are you a friend of Cadance's?" the girl asked. She seemed friendly again.

  "Acquaintances," I said.

  "I could see that."

  We came to a final metal door that looked just like the others, except that it seemed like a push instead of a pull. The girl took out a key card out of her pocket and held it up to a small reader box. The door beeped and she pushed it open, and then we stepped out to a well-kept yardsite. There was a large two-story house that looked just like what you'd expect to see in the Vermont countryside, painted shutters on the windows and a perfectly arranged ring of red and blue flowers in painted white beds.

  "Is your car over there?" the girl asked.

  "Maybe..."

  "You're good to go?"

  "I think so. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it."

  "No worries. I know what it's like to be new around here."

  I nodded as I kept moving toward the gravel parking lot.

  The girl smiled and turned back toward the stables.

  "What are you doing, Tiara?" a voice called out. The man with the duffel bag.

  "What's wrong?" the girl said.

  "That girl there... she's one of the new hires."

  "New hires?" She looked back over to me. "Blimey. So that's why she was in the back."

  "My god you're an idiot."

  "Bugger off," she said. And then she started running after me.

  I started to run, too; I was relieved to see that I was able to move quite a bit faster. I was out of the lot and up the road before she'd even cleared the parked cars.

  "You've got the controller, Gary," she yelled. "Close the bloody gate!"

  I saw the gate as I rounded a bend in the road. And true to my luck, it was closing.

  I didn't bother trying to speed up. It was closed long before I could have reached it, and the fence it sealed off was almost as high as the one in the back paddocks.

  I sat down on the grass and waited.

  Tiara and the man with the duffel bag arrived soon enough.

  "This is one of the new hires?" she asked.

  "Obviously."

  "We're using girls now? And why the hell isn't she drugged?"

  "I already told Cadance. She's immune."

  "Bullocks."

  "Please stop saying that."

  She jabbed a finger into his sh
oulder. "Don't push me, Gary. I'm pretty sure you work for me."

  "I work for your father, who works for Ms. Shannard."

  "And she isn't here... so I'm it."

  "You don't want to cross her, darling."

  "I'm not scared of Kathleen Shannard," Tiara said.

  "You should be."

  She laughed. "Oooo... I think I just pissed myself."

  The man sighed and looked at me. I didn't feel that much sympathy for the man who'd shot an electrical current into my boobs.

  "You can't keep me here," I said.

  "We can't let you go," Gary said. "So what are the alternatives?"

  "As long as she digs her own fecking grave," Tiara said.

  "What are you actually expecting from me?" I asked. "Am I supposed to live in a horse stall and shovel muck all day?"

  "Among other things," Gary said. "That was the main point of bringing you here, yes."

  "And drugging the seven shades of shit out of her," Tiara said. "But you couldn't get that part right, Gary."

  "Do you understand the concept of immunity?"

  Tiara knelt down and grabbed me by my chin. She stared into my eyes for a moment. "Take her back to the table," she said. "Drug her again."

  "I'm not doing that. She's immune."

  "You'd better be sure of that," Tiara said. "What if you're wrong? What will Ms. Shannard say then?"

  "I'm not wrong," he said.

  "You sure?"

  "Well... it might kill her."

  "I hope it does," someone else said. Cadance knelt down beside me, her mouth cut and still bleeding. "Do you see what this bitch did to me?"

  "She kicked your ass," Gary said.

  "Shut up. And pick her up."

  "She's gotta weigh one-forty."

  "Shut up," I said.

  "If she dies on the table," Tiara said. "Well... problem solved, I guess."

  "I suppose," Gary said.

  He lifted me up and threw me over his shoulder.

  I decided not to bother kicking my legs like an idiot. I knew I had no way to escape. They'd drug me again, whatever that meant. And I wasn't sure whether it would be a good thing for those drugs not to work.

  So far the other options didn't sound too good.

  They took me back into the long building that connected the stables, Gary carrying me past over a dozen doors before they found the right one, completely identical to the others.

  Tiara unlocked it and Gary brought me to what I'm pretty sure was an operating table for horses, with a motorized crane hanging overtop and a bench with more padding than you'd expect.

  My wrists and ankles were bound to the four poles at each corner of the table, with my head hanging ever so slightly off the edge. I'd expected them to strip me down, probably from seeing too many bad cartoons of alien probing, but that didn't happen. That's a good thing, what with my Hello Kitty underwear; it always looks a lot cooler in the store.

  "I'm not dealing with the mess if she dies," Gary said as he put on a pair of latex gloves.

  "Don't worry," Cadance said, "we'll feed her to the pigs."

  "Again, Cadance... that was a joke. You'd better not poison my pigs with all the crap I'm about to shoot into this girl."

  "You're not making me feel good about this," I said.

  "It could be worse," Tiara said.

  "It will be worse," Cadance said. "I'll make sure of that."

  "Hold her by the neck," Gary said. "You, Cadance. And Tiara... try to pin her elbows. She needs to be still."

  The girls held me down and it hurt like hell.

  I didn't fight it. I've given enough blood to know that there's no upside to making someone miss your vein.

  Gary took out a syringe and injected a light green fluid into my arm.

  I laid on the table and waited, not that I had any other choice.

  He watched me. I wasn't sure what he was expecting to see.

  He licked his lips again.

  Cadance kept her grip on my neck, pressing harder than she needed to but apparently a tiny bit less than it'd take to kill me.

  "Now what?" I gasped.

  "Nothing," Gary said.

  No one did anything for almost a full minute, aside from Cadance's continuing squeeze on my airway.

  "Yup," Gary said. "Nothing. I told you, Tiara. This girl's immune to the toxin. Just like Ms. --"

  "How can you be so sure?" Tiara asked. "I mean, honestly..."

  "Well, she's still awake... she hasn't vomited... she hasn't soiled herself..."

  "Can I go now?" I asked as Cadance loosened her grip on my throat.

  "You're not winning us over," she said.

  "We can't let her go," Gary said. "Ms. Shannard's told me what to do."

  "We're supposed to kill her?"

  "I won't tell anybody," I said. "Just let me go and I'll forget all about it."

  "Now you're just pissing us off," Cadance said.

  "You can't just kill me."

  "I'm open to suggestions," Tiara said. "Give me something I can use to change their minds."

  "We have to kill her," Gary said. "She's more dangerous than you girls realize."

  Tiara stomped her feet like an eight-year-old. "You're not in charge," she said. "I'm in charge."

  "So we should give Ms. Shannard a call to ask who's running things here? Come on, Tiara... your father's already hanging on a thread here."

  "You're on a thread, buddy," Cadance said.

  "Look," Gary said, "it's simple. Ms. Shannard gives the orders. She told me to bring these girls here and she told me to watch this one for immunity. So that's what I've done. And Amanda here is immune, just like she expected."

  "So she got one right," Cadance said.

  "We need zombies," Gary said. "That was the point of this. Amanda is not a zombie."

  "A zombie?" I said.

  "You really are mentally challenged," Cadance said.

  "Is that what's wrong with those guys mucking stalls? You've drugged them up so they act like zombies?"

  "They are zombies," Gary said. "In the vodou tradition."

  "This is crazy."

  "The pigs are getting hungry," Cadance said.

  "Still a joke," Gary said.

  "I know. I can be funny, too."

  "I can be a zombie," I said.

  For some reason that led Cadance to start squeezing my neck again. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

  "You want mindless slaves to do your bidding. I can do that. My father's a lifelong Republican."

  "You're no good to us." She tightened her grip a little.

  "It won't work," Gary said. "You can't just pretend to be a zombie."

  "No," Tiara said, "It might work. I mean, I guess it might... you know, since no one even told me that we're changing our entire business model."

  "That's not the plan," Gary said. "We'll go with the other two girls. We'll just have them work harder."

  "This whole thing is a stupid idea," Cadance said. "We can handle the men; we should have just gotten another load from Sugarbush."

  "Tell that to Rarity," Gary said.

  Cadance let go of my throat. "Rarity was stupid," she said. "She let them take her."

  "Rarity was our sister," Tiara said. "Don't you even care?"

  "Wait," I said. "Rarity is a person's name?"

  "It's a nickname," Cadance said. "From My Little Pony... gawd. Seriously. Mentally challenged."

  "You know, just because you call someone 'mentally challenged' instead of 'retarded' doesn't make it any less offensive."

  "You're offensive."

  "The decision's been made," Gary said. "I'll handle it."

  "And how are you planning on doing that?" Tiara asked.

  "I'll take her with me. I'll dump her in Lake George. I've had practice."

  "You're not taking her," Tiara said.

  "He can have her," Cadance said.

&n
bsp; "No, he can't."

  "I'm taking her," Gary said. He walked over to the table and looked me over. "Ms. Shannard told me to handle it. So I'll... handle it."

  I knew what was coming. He licked his lips again.

  "You're a sicko, Gary," Tiara said. "And you're not taking her. If she wants to play zombie, I say we let her. It's not like she's going to escape. So we hold onto her for a few days and then you tell little Ms. Shannard that we've chosen to keep her."

  "So you're not going to let her out again?" Cadance said.

  "If she tries to run or she tries to screw us, we kill her."

  Cadance smirked. "We feed her to the pigs."

  "It doesn't work that way," Gary said. "I need to report back to say I've done it. I need to take her with me."

  "You do and you're fired," Tiara said. "I'll see to it."

  Gary walked up to Tiara. He had a good twelve inches on her, not to mention the hundred and fifty pounds. "One of these days I'm going to take you to Lake George, Tiara."

  She didn't flinch. "You'd like that," she said with a grin. "I'll let my father know about your friendly invitation."

  Gary shook his head. "You know what? Do what you want. When Ms. Shannard asks me, I'll tell her the truth, that you wouldn't let me do my job. And then if your father still has his job when he gets back, he can kick me out of mine."

  "Fallon Allen can't be fired," Cadance said. "This is our barn. Our great, great grandfathers fought the British browncoats on this very site."

  "I've got work to do," Gary said, walking out of the room.

  "I'll take care of this one," Cadance said. "If you can handle the rest, Tiara. They're in Stable A. Try to keep a few of them from escaping for once..."

  Tiara rolled her eyes and left.

  I was still tied to the operating table.

  Cadance looked me over.

  "How are you going to untie me?" I asked. "Aren't you worried I'm going to beat on you again?"

  "That would be a bad idea," she said. "Not very zombie-like."

  "So I should bite you? Isn't that what happened to Rarity?"

  She slapped me across my left cheek. "Shut up," she said. "Don't you talk about my sister. I'll squeeze your goddamn throat until your poop-brown eyes pop out."

  "I'd like to see that."

  She grabbed me by the neck and started to squeeze.

  For a moment I thought about letting her kill me. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of an apology. But I didn't like the idea of nourishing Gary's pigs, or of dying in general.

  I'm sure I have something to live for; for one thing I won't get kicked off the team until I'm twenty, as long as I take Introductory Japanese by correspondence.

  "I'm sorry," I gasped.

  She kept squeezing.

  I wasn't able to say anything else.

  I woke up in what seemed like a different horse stall, lying in the shavings in a puddle of my own drool. Not my proudest moment.

  I realized I wasn't alone. There were two other girls lying in the stall, dressed in basketball shirts and shorts. Julia and Sayra. They'd been with me when we were taken; was it all because of me?

  "Are you guys okay?" I asked.

  I went over to check on them. Julia was asleep, but Sayra was staring into blank space.

  "Sayra... are you alright?"

  She didn't answer. She didn't acknowledge me. She might as well have been wearing a Florida Marlins t-shirt and flared-out jeans.

  I grabbed Julia by the shoulders and began to shake her.

  "Julia... wake up..."

  Her eyes opened and she was looking right at me.

  "Julia..."

  She blinked.

  "Julia."

  She was looking right through me.

  "Be glad they haven't noticed you," Cadance said.

  I hadn't realized she was watching me from the hallway.

  "When they notice you," she continued, "that means they mean you harm."

  "Mean me harm? What does that even mean?"

  "We don't understand how it works. It's not like Gary's the witch doctor. He's a disgraced pharmacist from Long Island."

  "You don't really believe in this voodoo stuff."

  "My father told me about Papa Doc Duvalier and his Tonton Macoutes. And about the Marinette macoutes, the zombie army, and the sorcerors. It all sounded pretty fucking real."

  "I guess that's why you're not a scientist," I said.

  "I don't care what you believe. Either way, the toxins work most of the time as long as you keep injecting them regularly."

  "They didn't work on me."

  "Obviously. Gawd." Another eye roll. "But sometimes their system gets messed up or whatever and they go a little off."

  "Off?"

  "So if you see one of your friends looking at you, that means you either grab a cattle prod or you run. Oh... I guess you don't get a cattle prod."

  "I'll just pick yours up the next time you leave it lying around."

  "You know what? I hope one of your friends eats you."

  "Eats me? What the hell?"

  "Yeah. That's what happens." She smirked. "Have a good sleep, Amanda." She walked down the hallway to the door. "Lights out."

  And then she flicked the switch.

  Obviously I didn't sleep, since there was something unnerving about the idea of the team's center and point guard nibbling on my elbows in the middle of the night.

  I didn't know what the drugs were doing to them, if it was something that'd be permanent. Were they as good as dead? Or was there a chance we'd all be back at Cousins in a few days, humming and hawing over whether or not we should get dessert?

  I could see them both lying there, staring into nothing, their blank eyes shining in the dark.

  I started to cry.

  "Don't cry," someone said. A man's voice; I didn't recognize it.

  I looked out to the hallway, but I didn't see anyone there.

  "Who are you?" I asked.

  "I'm a friend," he said.

  "You expect me to buy that? Some creepy guy's watching me sleep and I'm supposed to be happy about it?"

  "You don't remember me. Florida Marlins t-shirt. Ugly ass pants."

  "What? But you're supposed to be a zombie."

  "I just play one on TV," he said. "My friends call me Pouchon."

  "So you guys are just faking it? Is this some kind of prank?"

  "I'm faking it. The other guys probably aren't."

  "Probably?"

  "How the hell should I know? They certainly act like zombies."

  "So you're saying you're immune to those toxins or whatever?"

  "I guess so."

  "So they kidnapped you, too?"

  Pouchon chuckled. "Not really," he said.

  "What?"

  "I really am on some sort of work release program. Sugarbush Correctional Centre. Private prison equals business opportunity."

  "You're a convict?"

  "I accidentally killed a man over a decade ago. They got me for first-degree and decided I shouldn't get out pretty much ever."

  "So they sent you here?"

  "It's a good deal for the corporation. They still have me on the books so they still get paid, plus a nice little cut of the profits from this place."

  "Profits? But this is a horse barn."

  "There are other activities."

  "Like marijuana or meth or something?" I asked.

  He chuckled again. "Nah. Counterfeit teddy bears."

  It felt good to laugh.

  "That's not a joke," he said. "There's big money in teddy bears. And free zombie labor is a lot cheaper than trying to keep Chinese factory workers from killing themselves. All that suicide netting ain't cheap."

  "But why have you come here? How did you get in here?"

  "I have a keycard. Cadance loses hers about once a month, and they don't bother deactivating the old codes. I guess they don
't think a zombie would have had the brains to use them."

  "So what do you want from me?"

  "I don't want anything from you. I want to help you escape."

  "Why?"

  "I'm not a bad person, girl. I don't want you to rot in here."

  "What about my friends? Can you help them?"

  He paused. "I don't think I can. I don't think there's any way for them to come back from that. If you'd seen what I have... what happens when the macoutes need to feed..."

  "Something doesn't add up," I said. "If you've had that keycard for however long, why haven't you escaped already? Why are you still here?"

  "You're a smart girl. I'm a convicted felon. If I show up in town with some crazy story about zombies and phony plushes no one's gonna believe me. But they'll believe you. I need you to come with me, to tell them what happened here."

  "I can't leave without my friends."

  "You need to."

  "We need to bring them with us. End of discussion."

  "There's no way we can sneak two zombified teenagers out of here."

  "Why not?"

  "Our best bet is to get out of here and get help for them."

  "What if these assholes kill them? Once we escape they'll want to cover their tracks."

  "That's a fair point," Pouchon said. "Tonight might be our best chance, actually. It's Saturday night. The big man's out of town until sometime tomorrow, and Kathleen Shannard never drops in on Sunday mornings.

  "What's so special about that woman?"

  "Just be glad you won't get to meet her."

  "What about her?" I asked.

  "I was locked up for nine years with the worst criminals in Vermont... that's scarier than it sounds."

  "I'll bet."

  "Those guys are nothing compared to Kathleen Shannard."

  "She sounds lovely. But... the plan?"

  "Gary's probably gone home for the night, since like the rest of humanity he hates being around those girls longer than he has to. If we can immobilize those two twits we should be able to get help before anyone else realizes what's happened."

  "Immobilize?"

  "Don't worry... I'm not a murderer. Uh... anymore. We'll restrain them. Give them a taste of their own medicine."

  "We're not drugging them."

  "Figure of speech. Now let me find something for that padlock."

  We made our way to the house, armed with the best weapons we could find in the tack room. Pouchon had a shavings fork and a small knife, while I carried a stack of leather reins and a roll of black electrical tape.

  The house was dark aside from one small lamp light coming from upstairs.

  "The kitchen door," Pouchon said. "They always leave it open with just the screen."

  "You pay close attention," I said.

  "Sometimes they put us to work out here, too. Maybe it's a test, to see if we're really as docile as we look."

  "Test didn't work, I see."

  "I've been waiting for this chance for a long time."

  We snuck into the dark kitchen. Pouchon had us pause for a moment to adjust from the lack of moonlight inside.

  We climbed up the stairs slowly; Pouchon seemed to know just where to step to minimize the creaking. I followed his footsteps as closely as I could.

  We split up, Pouchon grabbing a couple of reins and heading left towards the bedroom that had light peeking under the door. I headed to the right. I opened the bedroom door and saw Cadance, asleep in her bed with a stuffed My Little Pony clutched in her arms.

  I took the leather straps and walked into the bedroom. I was at least six inches taller a good thirty pounds heavier, but I was worried that my nerves would make me hesitate.

  It was hard to think of the teenage girl with the pink horsey as a monster, but she'd held me down while they'd drugged me. She'd wanted to see me turned into a brainless monster.

  She deserved it.

  I put the electrical tape on the dresser and snuck up beside the bed. I grabbed Cadance by the neck and awkwardly flipped her onto her front. I had her wrists bound before she'd even figured out what was happening. I bound her ankles next, and pulled them up to meet her hands.

  I'd hogtied Cadance in less than thirty seconds. I'd missed out on a career in rodeo.

  I heard a woman's scream from the other room. It was loud but muffled. It frightened me despite me being in on the plan.

  She kept screaming, for almost a minute. She was in pain.

  Pouchon wasn't doing what I'd thought he'd be doing. He'd lied.

  "Oh, god," Cadance said. "My sister..."

  "She must be putting up one hell of a fight," I said. "Don't worry... he doesn't want to hurt her."

  "Why are you doing this to us?"

  "I'm saving my friends. You did this to yourself."

  "Come on... this wasn't my fault. You can't do this."

  "And so why us, then?" I asked. "What did we do to deserve this?"

  "We needed you. That's... that's all it was."

  "Why?"

  "You already know why. We needed new workers to replace the macoutes."

  "What makes us good workers? You just head over state lines to grab a handful mediocre high school basketball players?"

  "Yes."

  "How did you even find us?"

  "Uh... YouTube. You guys did a video, that cinnamon challenge thing. We saw the uniforms so we knew where to find you. Shannard saw it and she got all weird about it... three dumb girls... strong and fit, but not strong enough to be dangerous."

  "Dumb girls?"

  "Well... cinnamon challenge..."

  Pouchon strode into the room.

  "That girl is worthless," he said.

  "Did you hurt her?" I asked.

  "She's okay." He took a minute to check my work. "Nice job... this little bitch isn't going anywhere."

  "Easy, Pouchon," I said. "You've scared her enough as it is."

  "There's no such thing as being too scared."

  "That's not funny."

  "Yeah, okay... now it's your turn."

  "What?"

  "Hands behind your back."

  "What are you talking about?"

  He pushed me onto the bed.

  For some reason that was the moment Cadance started to cry.

  "I wrote a story, Amanda," Pouchon said as he rolled me onto my stomach. "I've had two months in this place to plot it out."

  He bound my wrists with one of the reins he still had. He hadn't used them on Tiara.

  "Please don't," I said.

  "Please," Cadance said. "Oh god... please..."

  "Shut up," Pouchon said. "1:33 AM. Two of the macoutes escape when their cell is left unlocked by Cadance being careless. No surprise there." He started to bind my ankles. "2:14 AM. The sound of a girl's screams brings Tiara down to the stable to investigate. She discovers that two of the young girls have been attacked and eaten by the two macoutes."

  "That won't work," I said. "You can't just throw a couple of zombies into a stall and hope they eat whoever's inside." At least I hoped it didn't work that way.

  "My first draft had Tiara screaming but then escaping for a second round. I was under the impression that she had... more star power? But I've decided to rewrite that part."

  "What does that mean?" Cadance asked.

  "What do you think it means? The zombies are going to eat her."

  "Or so you're hoping," I said.

  "Don't worry about it, Amanda. I'm a do-it-yourselfer."

  "What?"

  "Who do you think ate Rarity?"

  "Oh my god..." I said.

  Cadance started to sob.

  Pouchon tied my ankles and wrists together. "3:01 AM. Cadance comes to the stable to look for her missing sister. She discovers the scene and decides that she needs to rescue that one poor girl who wasn't zombified." He tapped the back of my head. "That's you. She lets you out and the two of you run to the
house, carelessly leaving the door to the stables open."

  "That's a lot of carelessness," I said. "Pretty big plot holes."

  "5:22 AM. The two macoutes eventually find their way to the house and discover the two girls cowering in a bedroom. The zombies do what zombies do." He grinned. "That's the part where I get to eat you."

  "Then what?"

  "Doesn't matter as far as you're concerned."

  "Indulge me," I said. "Maybe the extra terror of the story will make me that much tastier."

  "You're being ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous." He shook his head. "Either way, Gary shows up in the morning and chomp. Then Daddy gets home a little later and, well, chomp chomp chomp."

  "And so then the zombies run off into the night and you disappear. But won't they just think you're one of the three escaped zombies?"

  "I guess I left out the part about the safe buried under the round pen and the millions of dollars in ill-gotten teddy bear money. Did I not mention the teddy bear money?"

  "You inferred it earlier. I guess that was enough."

  "Ha! I like you, Amanda."

  "Then try not eating me."

  "Oh god," Cadance said again.

  "I'm a murderer," Pouchon said. "You know... a murderer who eats people."

  "I don't get why these idiots would've picked you for this," I said.

  "That's an endemic problem in the US Penal System. Some inmates learn how to be better lockpickers or gang bangers... I perfected a different skill. You know... I'll bet they don't churn out monsters like me in Scandinavian prisons."

  "I'll be sure to set up a Facebook page about that if you let me live."

  He chuckled again. I felt like I was trying to survive based on pure entertainment value. It was a better strategy than Cadance's "sob till you pass out" approach.

  "Take the money," I said. "We'll rewrite the story. You'll be the hero who saved me and tied up these girls so I could run and get help. Then you felt you had to run away; they won't look too hard for you."

  Pouchon looked me over for a minute. "Maybe that could have worked," he said, "but it won't work now."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I already took a big honking bite out of Tiara."

  "Why?" Cadance screamed. "Why are you doing this to us?"

  "Shut up," Pouchon said. He pulled a pink sock from his flared-pants pocket and shoved it in her mouth. "Do you know what they were going to do, Amanda? They were going to kill us."

  "Kill you? Why?"

  "Because they knew it was just a matter of time before the macoutes attacked again."

  "But it wasn't the macoutes. You're the psycho face chomper."

  "Ironic, isn't it?"

  "I'm not sure..."

  "Once they had you girls up and working, they were going to starve us to death in those concrete cells."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "They talked about it right in front of me. Big bad Kathleen Shannard herself, on and on with every damned detail. But why not? I was just a brainless zombie, remember?" He grabbed Cadance by the hair and jerked her head off the mattress. "Remember?"

  "Don't kill her," I said. "She's just a kid."

  "That's a slippery slope, Amanda. You're pretty much a kid, too. Hell, you can't even drink a beer yet. And that tasty dish in the other room isn't much older..."

  "Come on..."

  "She deserved it. And so does this little bitch. They took us from that prison and brought us here, and strapped us to that table and injected us with that poison..."

  "Then you know what you should do? Rewrite the goddamn story. Take this little bitch down to the stables and strap her to that table. Let's pump her full of enough of that green piss that she turns into a leprechaun. Make her feel it, Pouchon."

  He started to laugh. "Inmate doesn't mean idiot, Amanda. Do you think I'm going to fall for some stupid distraction?"

  "I don't have a lot of options here."

  "No... you really don't." He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. "I like you, Amanda."

  "You said that already."

  "This isn't about you... or about this little twit. It's about me taking out every one of those animals. It's about me taking a chunk out of Kathleen Shannard's neck."

  "A little lab work won't get in the way of that," I said.

  He grinned. "I think you're right."

  He left the room.

  I twisted my body over to get my hands as close to Cadance's knots as I could. I couldn't see the rope and I'd barely found the loop to start pulling apart when Pouchon came back into the room clutching Tiara in his arms. She was bound with silk scarves but hogtied like us, or like Cadance, really, since she had the matching sock.

  He dropped her onto the bed.

  The right side of her face was bloody, but her eyes were open and she was conscious, a gaping red tear where her ear had once been.

  "She's still alive," I said.

  "You're a smart one," Pouchon replied. "It's not time yet. I had a schedule."

  "So the medical examiner will wonder why her ear was chomped off an hour before your alleged zombie attack."

  "Yeah... you're right," Pouchon said. "Good thing you're giving my script a little polish."

  "Are you going to bite off my ear, too?"

  "I don't want to..."

  "Then don't."

  He grabbed Cadance and picked her up. "She's nice and light," he said. "You girls be good, okay? Seriously... if you try to escape I'll cut your tongues out and make them into toffee or something."

  He carried her out of the room.

  I waited a couple of minutes, in case he was testing us.

  I heard Tiara spit out her sock.

  "He'll do us in for certain," she said.

  "Oh, ya think?"

  She started scuttling over to me. "We best hurry, Amanda."

  "Yeah. In two shakes of a lamb's tail would be best, right guvna?"

  She started pulling at my knots.

  I tried to do the same to hers.

  We both sucked at it.

  "Cadence has a pair of scissors in her nightstand," Tiara said.

  "Why?"

  "Scrapbooking. Does it really matter?"

  "I hope I made it into her zombie collage."

  "I'll see if I can get the drawer open." She dragged herself over to the nightstand and started to fiddle with the knob.

  She knocked it over.

  "I'll do it," I said.

  I rolled off the bed. I got the knob open pretty easily, and then I felt around in the drawer until I found the metal shears. I started dragging the leather reins against the edge of the scissor blade.

  "Hurry up," she said.

  "Do you know how long this is going to take me? Sawing through leather with a pair of scrapbooking scissors?"

  "Feck you. Have you seen my ear?"

  "Yeah... that sucks... sorry."

  "We should cut these scarves on me first."

  "I don't think so." I kept rubbing my wrists against the scissors.

  I wasn't getting anywhere.

  "Okay," I said, "we'll try the scarves."

  She hopped down and took my place.

  "It's working," she said after a few seconds. "It's cutting."

  After another minute she'd freed her wrists. She untied her ankles and stood up.

  "Okay... hurry up and untie me," I said.

  She shook her head. "There's no time."

  "You're joking."

  "You're right. I wouldn't cut you loose if I had a bloody fortnight."

  "Enough with the Brit talk already."

  "Enough with the chitter chatter. I don't need you tattling on me to what's-that-bloke. Have a sock."

  She grabbed the pink sock and stuffed it in my mouth; there's nothing quite like tasting fabric that's been pre-soaked in another person's drool. Then she grabbed the roll of electrical tape I'd left on the dresser and wrapped
it around my head a couple of times.

  "That's how you keep a sock in," she said.

  And then she left the room.

  I started wiggling back to the pair of scissors. I didn't know how much time I had.

  I heard a gunshot before I'd sawed through the leather straps.

  Just one. I didn't know what that meant.

  I freed my wrists and untied my ankles. I pulled off the electrical tape and threw the pink sock on the floor. I didn't have time to fantasize about sticking it back in Tiara's mouth after a slight detour through the toilet bowl.

  I didn't know who'd been the one to pick up a gun, but I made a guess that Tiara had the best chance at knowing where to find one.

  I ran back to the long concrete building.

  But then I realized that there was really no reason for me to go in there.

  I could leave. I could run through the parking lot and up the driveway, and find some way over the gate. There were plenty of trees; I could climb up and jump right over. Better a pair of broken legs than a slowboat tour of Pouchon's digestive tract.

  Cadance and Tiara weren't anywhere near innocent.

  But Pouchon's story didn't just involve them. There was Julia, and Sayra, and the other three girls who'd thought "post it on YouTube? why not?"

  I pulled on the door handle. The door was locked. I didn't have an access card.

  I ran back towards the house. I'd call the cops. Then I'd find a way over that gate and I'd pray to god that the next person I ran into wouldn't enjoy the taste of earlobe or be named after My Little Pony.

  "Turn your arse around."

  I stopped. "I will only turn around if you stop with the 'arses', Tiara."

  "I'll just shoot you, then?"

  I turned around. She was holding a shotgun. I was no expert, but I knew it was easy enough to kill someone with one of those.

  "You must have known I'd be coming back for you," she said. "I left you with the scissors."

  "Are you going to shoot me?"

  "Come inside."

  "The house?"

  "The stables. You really are dead from the neck up."

  "I hate you." It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say to a woman with a gun.

  She marched me back to the metal door, staying a good ten feet behind me.

  "Pick it up and swipe in," she said.

  "Pick what up?"

  "Look behind you."

  I looked and saw the access card on the ground a few inches behind me.

  "Do it slowly," she said.

  "You really think I'm going to try and jump you?"

  "Just do it."

  I knelt down slowly and picked up the card. I swiped it and opened the door.

  "Don't kill me," I said as I slowly stepped through the doorframe.

  And then I slammed the door behind me.

  "Dammit!" she cried through the closed door. "Now I am definitely going to kill you."

  "But I'm in here and you're out there."

  "I have a spare access card at the house. Idiot."

  "Better hurry," I said. "Before the zombies get loose."

  I ran over to the lab, not sure who'd I find strapped to the table. I swiped the card and pulled open the door.

  "Did you find her?" Cadance said as she turned around.

  I punched her in the mouth. I've always loved the classics.

  Pouchon was tied on the table. He didn't look like he'd been shot, but there was blood pouring from the left side of his head. Someone had taken his ear.

  "Untie me, Amanda," he said. "These girls are insane."

  "Yeah, right." I punched Cadance again.

  "Stop hitting me," she said.

  "Then sit down on the floor. Hands on your head or something."

  She sat down and clamped her hands behind her head. "Where's Tiara?" she asked. "Did you hurt her?"

  "That depends... how many ears did she have when you last saw her?"

  "You're an asshole."

  "Listen Cadance... you need to tell me where there's a phone."

  "There used to be one in the lab here," she said. "But my father took it out because it was a separate line from the house phone and the phone company's just started raping everyone who still has a landline."

  "I don't care. Where is there a phone now?"

  "I told you. At the house."

  "And I'll bet your cellphone's at the house, too?"

  She nodded. "It's charging."

  "Okay... we need to talk this out. What will it take for all three of us to walk out of here?"

  "You want to let him go?"

  "No. He can wait here for the cops. I meant you, me, and Tiara."

  "No cops."

  "Whatever. I don't care. I just need to know that Tiara won't shoot me."

  "Yeah... I'm pretty sure she's going to shoot you. I mean... you know too much, obviously."

  "Well that's just stupid," I said. "So now I'm going to have to kill her."

  "Let's kill her together," Pouchon said. "Untie me and we can set up some kind of ambush. Like old times."

  I laughed.

  It didn't take me long to realize that Pouchon had the right idea.

  When Tiara got the outer door open she didn't bother being quiet. She called out my name along with some very English words that sounded dirty enough to me.

  I stood by the door to the lab, behind where it would swing open, holding a steel bedpan. I was tempted to try and fill it up before it was time to use it.

  Cadance was trying to call out, but the latex glove I'd shoved in her mouth was muffling her well enough for Pouchon's unsettling laughter to drown out the sound.

  He was loving every second of having a naked woman tied overtop of him, yet another reason why there's something just not right with the guy who keeps trying to eat people.

  Tiara stepped into the room and screamed. "What the hell are you doing, Cadance?" she said. "Get off him!"

  Then she noticed the gauze wrapped around her sister's face. She ran up to the table, the shotgun hanging over her shoulder by its strappy thing.

  I stepped out from behind the door and swung the bedpan at Tiara's head.

  She fell against the table, trying to brace herself without touching anyone.

  "Ow," she said.

  I'd expected her to be dazed, at least.

  She shoved me and I dropped the bedpan before I had a chance at a second swing. She reached for the shotgun.

  I decided to run. If she chose to untie her sister before chasing me, I knew I might be able to make it out.

  "Get that thick arse of yours back here, Amanda," she said. "Or I'll shoot your friends."

  "What friends?" I called back. And then I remembered.

  "If you think leaving them behind would feel right awful, imagine how it'll feel to leave them to be shot and buried under the hay shed."

  I didn't slow down. It wasn't like Tiara was going to spare my teammates just because I gave myself up. Their only chance was for me to get help.

  I reached the outside door and swiped the access card, panicked for a moment that it might not work.

  But the red light went green, and I pushed the door open and ran outside.

  It looked like the sun was still a few hours from rising; I hoped that meant that I wouldn't run into Gary and his cattle prod on my way out.

  I didn't have time to go into the house and look for a phone; Tiara would be coming for me again. I made my way through the empty parking lot and up the driveway.

  The gate was wide open, and I wondered if my luck had changed.

  Then I saw Gary lying in the middle of the road, a small plastic remote lying beside him. There wasn't much blood, but enough that I didn't expect him to be getting up right away.

  I knelt down to check his pulse, or more realistically, to see if I even knew how to check someone's pulse.

  I felt a hand clamp over my mouth and pull. M
y whole body was lifted upward, and I automatically started trying to kick whoever it was that was holding me.

  "Who are you?" the man asked me.

  "Health inspector?"

  He let go of my mouth and I'm pretty sure I dropped more than a foot down to the ground, falling onto my knees in the process. I turned around to see the large Chinese man who may or may not have been checking out my ass in Stable D.

  "I thought you were one of Fallon's daughters."

  "I guess you're another fake zombie?" I asked.

  "In a manner of speaking... except I'm not one to eat people."

  "So you know about that."

  "People like to talk in front of the apparent undead. Believe me, not every convicted felon has the same disregard for human life. I'm really sorry about that."

  "You're probably the nicest murderer I've met all day," I said as I slowly stood up.

  "I'm not a murderer."

  "My apologies." I decided not to draw any attention to the possibly dead body lying at my feet.

  "I woke up two days ago," the man said. "I don't recall anything that happened after I was transferred here in June. Not the work release program I'd anticipated."

  "Yeah... I heard about that. Sorry. So why are you still here?"

  "I don't know where I'm going."

  "Well, Tiara could show up any minute, so I know where I'm headed."

  "Be careful. They'll be looking for you. She'll be looking for you."

  "Kathleen Shannard? Have you seen her?"

  "I've only heard of her," he said. "You should have heard old Gary here when he started on about her. Like she's Satan's mother-in-law. Just... be careful."

  I gave him a nod before I started walking, because that's what you do, even when some guy's lying motionless on the ground; my parents raised me right.

  I walked out to the main road and considered my options. I had no idea where I was. Near Rutland or something? Which in theory was in Vermont, which matched the license plates I'd seen yesterday.

  And it matched the license plate of a silver sedan that was idling on the shoulder.

  "Is this your ride?" I asked him.

  "That was the plan."

  "Well if you're not using it..."

  "No, I'll be using it. I guess."

  "Oh. Okay."

  "Head to your left," the Chinese man said. "That'll take you into town."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm a Green Mountain Boy, born and bred."

  I took him at his word. "Thanks," I said. "I don't mean to butt in, but is there any way you could avoid killing those two idiots?"

  "I'm not a murderer," he said. "I'll do what I can."

  "Uh... thanks."

  I started walking up the road. I checked back every minute or so, but no one was following me. The car was still sitting on the shoulder, its headlights on and I assumed its motor still running.

  It was cold by then, the wind chilling my bare legs. It's amazing how much that can slow a person down. It was dark and the moon was covered in cloud, and the road was completely empty.

  I didn't know how long a walk I had.

  I couldn't help but feel guilty for leaving my teammates behind. If the Chinese guy was able to snap out of the macoute thing somehow... that meant I wasn't just turning my back on some brainless zombies.

  I kept walking.

  The first house I found along the road had some lights on upstairs; I rang the doorbell and a dog started barking.

  A woman with long red hair answered the door. She was in a housecoat, but her face was caked in white makeup; she reminded me of that English queen who pasted herself up... Cate Blanchett.

  "You poor thing," she said. "You must be freezing in that getup."

  Soon I was invited inside and lent a pair of sweatpants and given a cup of the world's worst instant coffee.

  They were a youngish couple, maybe early thirties, the husband a slightly overweight man dressed in hipster plaid. Their house was classic Vermont, with country french wallpaper and oil paintings of red barns and roosters, and a beautiful hardwood curio with a collection of antique tea sets. It's the kind of look you can only pull off if you actually live over there.

  The man seemed panicked, his hands shaking as he dialed the numbers on his cell phone; the woman was calmer, like she knew that her tranquility was exactly what I needed.

  "Your friends will be alright," she said. "The Sheriff's Department is good at what they do."

  The man walked out of the kitchen with the cell phone, closing the sliding door behind him.

  "It's okay," I said. "I'm not traumatized or anything."

  "You're in shock," she said. "But that's good. You need time to process what happened."

  "Maybe..."

  "It's terrible what they did to you. I can't believe that the Allens would do something like this. Their family's been here for generations."

  "So that makes them less likely to own slaves?" I said. And then I felt like an ass. "Sorry."

  "It's okay... we'll chalk that up to the shock." She smiled.

  The man came back into the kitchen.

  "They've been dispatched to the Allens," he said. "They'll send someone over here when they get the chance. They told me to make sure you eat something."

  "We have muffins," the woman said.

  "Wow," I said. "You guys have quite the home here. Beautiful furniture and... uh... teapots, and fresh-baked muffins."

  "They're from Costco."

  "Oh. Sorry."

  "Maybe just stop talking," the woman said. She seemed to catch herself, and smiled again. "You know... the shock and everything."

  "So I'm going to go out and check on the chickens," the man said.

  "You guys have chickens?" I said. "That's awesome. I'd love to see them."

  "Just shut up, already," the woman said.

  "Maybe I should wait outside."

  "Good idea. Mike... take her outside."

  "But I have to check on the chickens," the man said. "I need to make sure they're safe."

  "I can see myself out," I said.

  "No one cares about the goddamn chickens," the woman said. "I hope they eat every last one of those filthy, stinking birds."

  "You don't like chickens," I said. "I can see that."

  She was sweating and her face was changing; the caked-on makeup was running a little, and I could see what was underneath. A scar that ran from the edge of her lips up to her right temple. You'd expect to see old stitches scarring around it, like some kind of Frankenstein's monster cross-stitch... but it was just a gash, like something had cleaved open her head but she'd just stuck it back together with plastic cement.

  "You're staring right at it," she said. "Don't you have any manners?"

  "I'm sorry... it's just..."

  She bent her head forward pulled back her hair. "Take a look... take it all in, sweetheart..."

  She was missing her left ear.

  "We don't have time for this," the man said. "It's two AM already. We have to get started. Fallon will be back before dawn."

  "Shut up, Mike," the woman said.

  "You shut up, Kat."

  I stood up from my chair.

  "Hold on," Mike said.

  "I'm going to try the next house," I said. "You guys are busy."

  He grabbed my elbow. I wasn't sure I could win in a fight.

  "So you're Kathleen Shannard," I said. "Now I get why you hate me."

  "I hate you because you've insulted me since you arrived."

  "By accident, maybe." I didn't feel like apologizing. "So that wasn't the Sheriff's Deparment..."

  "No, it was. You won't believe how high this conspiracy goes. All the way to the top."

  "You're kidding."

  "Yes. I am. Now go outside with Mike while I get dressed."

  Mike led me out the side door and took me into the garage. He pulled out his keys.

&nbsp
; "Get in the trunk," he said as he pressed the button.

  I climbed in, making sure I knew where the inner release lever was in case I got the chance to run.

  He slammed the trunk closed above me.

  I listened to him walk around to the drivers side and get in.

  He turned on the car and the stereo.

  The garage door was still closed. The evidence was starting to mount that Mike was an idiot.

  I waited a minute or so, and then I pulled the lever.

  I climbed out of the trunk.

  Mike didn't seem to notice.

  I walked over to the overhead door and pressed the automatic button. I looked over to see him watching me.

  "Carbon monoxide," I said.

  He nodded.

  I walked back to the trunk and climbed back in.

  Mike didn't bother getting out to close it.

  "Why the hell is the trunk open?" Kathleen asked as she stepped into the garage. She glared at me before slamming it shut. "I'm driving," she said. "You drive like an old Chinese woman."

  Mike didn't say anything, but I heard and felt him awkwardly climbing over to the passenger seat.

  Soon we were on our way.

  "I called Davis," Kathleen said. "Told him to get started without us."

  "We should head there first," Mike said. "Deal with the Allens after."

  "And what if they leave?"

  "We'll catch them. You need to be there to load the trailers."

  "They've got the goddamn prods for that. If Davis can't figure out how to get them loaded... ugh... whatever... try calling Cadance. Tell her we're coming to help. Keep her there."

  "Her phone's still charging," I called out from the trunk.

  "And then call Fallon again, find out when he'll get there. I swear he knows something's up."

  I heard the squeal of tires and the rev of an engine.

  "Oh my god," Mike said.

  The slam of metal was louder than I'd expected, and I felt my head slam hard against the steel frame. It hurt like hell.

  I heard the car doors open, along with what must have been the sedan's.

  "Shit!" Kathleen yelled.

  There were boots scraping along the gravel shoulder, and then a gunshot.

  I heard a woman scream.

  I stayed in the trunk.

  It was quiet for over a minute. Then I heard the sound of knocking, echoing in the distance. Three long knocks. Two short knocks. A pause. Two long knocks. Another pause.

  I pulled the lever and slowly climbed out of the trunk.

  The two cars had hit almost head on; it looked like Kathleen had tried to veer onto the shoulder, but whoever had been driving the silver sedan had reached us first.

  I walked towards the banging, still tapping along in a pattern that made no sense. It was coming from the trunk of the sedan.

  "Who's in there?" I asked.

  Two more knocks. Whoever it was couldn't talk.

  I ran to the open drivers door of the sedan and found the trunk release. By the time I'd reached the trunk again Cadance and Tiara were already climbing out.

  "Why didn't you say something?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Cadance said. "I was trying to do 'SOS' or whatever."

  "Are you two okay?"

  "We're okay," Tiara said.

  "Good."

  I took a look at where her ear had been bitten off. Someone had done a pretty good job of bandaging up the area.

  "That was Arty," Cadance said.

  "Arty?"

  "The big Chinese guy. The one who took the shotgun and shoved us in the trunk."

  "He seems nice."

  "Are you going to hurt us?" Tiara asked.

  "I wish," I said. "But seriously... we need to get out of here."

  "We aren't safe," Cadance said.

  "We can take my old banger," Tiara said. "It's back at the livery stable. If we can get there --"

  "You mean your car?"

  "Yes."

  I sighed. "I'm kinda hoping that Pouchon will find a way to bite off your tongue."

  "Hate me later," she said. "Right now we should all be focused on staying alive."

  We started walking back towards the stable, both Tiara and Cadance glancing from one side of the road to the next, like they expected Pouchon to come crashing out from the trees for a midnight snack.

  There was another gunshot.

  "He told me he wasn't a murderer," I said. "Of course, Pouchon said that, too."

  "They're all murderers," Cadance said. "That's why we chose them."

  "Because you're all idiots?"

  "Because it's justice," Tiara said. "They take a life, and we take theirs."

  "And where's my justice?" I asked.

  "Anyone who performs the cinnamon challenge should be considered a write-off."

  "I'm glad you're going to prison."

  "Nothing's set in stone."

  "Quiet," Cadance said.

  We all stopped walking and listened.

  There was a car coming up behind us. The silver sedan.

  "We should cut through the woods," I said. "Get off the road."

  "Go ahead," Cadance said. "We'll wait here for Arty."

  "Am I missing something? You want him to shove you back in the trunk?"

  "Better than getting eaten alive."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Nothing."

  "Fuck me," I said. "What's out there in those woods?"

  "Zombies," Tiara said.

  "Wait... so Arty let them out? Those guys are wandering around out there?"

  "Wrong zombies."

  "What are you talking about?"

  The sedan drove up beside us.

  "Get in," Arty said, the shotgun propped up beside him.

  "No trunk?" I asked.

  "Trunk's full. I killed them... I didn't know what else to do with the bodies..."

  The three of us climbed into the back seat.

  Arty started turning the car around.

  "We need to go back to the stables," I said.

  "We're going to Derby Line," Arty said. "Easiest way into Canada. Once we're across you girls can do what you want."

  "What about the bodies?"

  "We'll dump them somewhere on the way... I don't know... I'll figure it out."

  "Did you get the money?" I asked.

  "Shut up," Cadance said.

  "What money?" Arty asked.

  "I can get it for you," I told him. "Millions of dollars, I heard. Take us to the stables and we can split it."

  "Is this some kind of trick? Am I going to find Fallon Allen and several of his friends waiting for us?"

  "No deception. Fallon will want me just as dead as he'll want you."

  "Okay," he said. "But I get half just for me. You girls can split the other half."

  "Oh..."

  "You weren't going to split it," Cadance said.

  "We're stealing it from you," I said. "Why would you get a cut?"

  "There won't be any splitting," Tiara said. "He'll just do us in once he's got his hands on the quid."

  "She's still doing that stupid British thing?" Arty asked.

  "Won't take the hint," I said.

  Arty took us back towards the stables. The gate was still open, but Gary had disappeared from the driveway.

  "Did you kill him or what?" I asked.

  "I'm not a murderer."

  "Yeah, well you probably should have started with him."

  Arty parked in the lot and the four of us climbed out.

  "So where's the cash?" Arty asked.

  "We'll need shovels," I said. "Right, girls?"

  Cadance nodded. "I'm not doing any of the digging."

  "You are so digging," I told her. "Oh, but while we're here you should pick up your purse."

  She stared at me. She didn't know what I was up to.

  "She
doesn't need her purse," Arty said.

  "Are you telling me she wasn't bitching to you about her goddamn pills? She wouldn't stop."

  "You do need those pills," Tiara said. "Explosive diarrhea is no laughing matter."

  "That is decidedly nasty," Arty said.

  Cadance still looked confused. "I think it's in Stable B," she said.

  "There should be shovels in the tack room there," Tiara said. "All in one stop."

  "We need to hurry," Arty said.

  We moved up the pace on our way to Stable B. I made sure I was front of the pack as we reached the tack room door. I went in and started grabbing the shovels, scanning the room for a yellow wand.

  I saw a pink My Little Pony backpack. It was nowhere near being a purse, but it had a cattle prod leaned up against it.

  I reached down and grabbed the prod. "I think I found your purse," I said.

  "I'm freezing," Tiara said. "My trousers are wet. I'd be better off just in my knickers."

  "What are you talking about?" Cadance said.

  "You know what? I think I'm going to take them off."

  I walked out to see Tiara pulling down her pants.

  Naturally Arty didn't see me coming.

  Once I'd stuck him with the cattle prod I dropped it and grabbed the shotgun. I'm not dumb enough to let Tiara take it again.

  Cadance and Tiara tied him up with at least a half dozen straps of leather, before tossing him in one of the stalls and closing the padlock behind him.

  Cadance picked the cattle prod up off the concrete floor.

  "You can't trust those girls," he said to me.

  "I don't trust you," I said. "You're too nice. It's kind of suspicious, you know?"

  We left him in Stable B and made our way outside.

  We headed over to the first stable, where the other girls and I'd been locked away; I made sure to be at the back, just in case one of Fallon Allen's daughters decided to try anything.

  Cadance opened the door, and she and Tiara stepped inside.

  "Are they okay?" I asked.

  "See for yourself," Tiara said.

  I walked into the stable, trying to hold the shotgun like I knew how to use it.

  I pointed it at the two men standing in the aisle in front of us. One of them was Pouchon. The other was fifties, white, and surprisingly fit.

  "Put the gun down," the older man said. "You just look silly holding it like that."

  "Doesn't matter," I said. "I'll still blow your head off."

  "Sure you will."

  Pouchon stepped towards me.

  I didn't know what to do.

  I felt the jolt of the cattle prod on my ass.

  Cadance laughed as I stumbled forward.

  Pouchon took the shotgun out of my hands as he steadied me. "Sorry, Amanda. You're in over your head."

  "Ya think?"

  He smiled. "I still like you."

  "Put them in the stall with the others," the older man said.

  Pouchon looked surprised. "All three of them?"

  "Deaf and ugly... wow."

  Pouchon opened the nearest padlocked stall, where I could see Julia and Sayra sitting in the straw. He nodded to me.

  "Does he know you eat people?" I asked as I stepped into the stall.

  "I'm an open book," Pouchon said.

  I sat down beside Sayra.

  She was looking at me. And so was Julia.

  "Are you alright, Amanda?" she asked. Her speech was halting and a little slurred, but I had not trouble understanding.

  I leaned in and wrapped my arm around her. "Oh, Sayra... I'm so glad you guys are okay."

  "Now you girls get in the stall," Pouchon said, grabbing onto Cadance's elbow with one hand. He yanked the yellow cattle prod out of her hands with the other.

  "This is a joke," Cadance said. "Dad... what is going on?"

  "Don't call me that," the older man said. "You know I don't like it when you call me that."

  "Then fuck you, Fallon," Tiara said.

  I almost thanked her for not saying "feck".

  "Please get in," Pouchon said. "Don't make me bite off another ear."

  The two Allen girls stepped into the stall.

  Pouchon closed and locked the gate.

  "Now go get a shovel," Fallon said.

  Pouchon started walking towards the tack room.

  I stood up and walked over to the locked gate. "How can you do this to your own daughters?" I asked.

  "Step-daughters," Fallon replied. "There's no blood here. Just two whiny anchors around my neck that I'll be shaking off momentarily."

  "Congratulations," I said. "So what about the rest of us? Have you given any thought to letting us go?"

  He laughed. "I see why Pouchon keeps talking about you, Amanda, why he almost fucked up the entire plan just because he thinks you're cute."

  "I was thinking on my feet," Pouchon called out from down the aisle. "Maybe if you'd been around to help, Captain Alibi."

  "Zombie or no zombie, you were supposed to kill her with the others."

  "Haven't you noticed? None of these girls are zombies anymore. I'm guessing someone forgot to give them their shots."

  "I missed a couple days," Cadance said. "It happens."

  "That wasn't supposed to happen anymore," Fallon said. "I'm so glad you won't have another chance to fuck things up."

  "This isn't fair," Cadance said.

  "I think it is," Fallon said.

  Pouchon walked back down the aisle carrying two shovels.

  "Yeah, sure," Fallon said. "Like I'm going to be shovelling."

  "It'll take twice as long if it's just me," Pouchon said. "That safe is under six feet of clay."

  "Good point, man. We've got half a dozen macoutes locked in their cells doing nothing. Let's go grab them."

  "Let's hope Cadance has been giving them their shots," Fallon said.

  "I remembered them," Cadance said. "I wish I hadn't."

  "We'll be back, girls. You've probably got an hour or two before it happens. You should play charades or something."

  The two men walked out of the stable, closing the door behind them.

  I heard Fallon curse. The stable door opened up again.

  "Where the hell are the trucks?" he asked.

  "What do you mean?" Tiara said.

  "Both trucks are missing. Trailers, too. What the hell did you girls do?"

  "I don't know what happened. They were here this afternoon..."

  "Goddamn Kat..." he said as he slammed the door shut.

  "I think we're screwed," Cadance said. "Even if the drugs have worn off on those guys..."

  "Of course they're wearing off," I said. "That's how Arty came to, isn't it?"

  "Yeah... so what do we do?"

  She was looking right at me. They all were.

  "I don't have any ideas," I said.

  "I don't understand," Tiara said. "Why is our stepfather chumming around with the asshole who bit my fecking ear off?"

  "And killed Rarity," Cadance said.

  "God..."

  "Are they really going to kill us?" sayra asked.

  "Probably," I said.

  "If we're lucky he might ship us to the barracks instead," Tiara said. "Maybe we can convince my father to let us live."

  "Your stepfather," I said. "What are the barracks?"

  "It's where we keep the real zombies," Cadance said. "The guys we have here are step one in the process."

  "Step one?"

  "Three months of observation," Tiara said. "To see if the treatment is working... to check if they're suggestible enough. Then they're sent to Kathleen at the barracks... for training."

  "Training for what? Mucking stalls? Making teddy bears?"

  "There are no counterfeit teddy bears, you idiot," Cadance said. "And you girls are supposed to be in charge of mucking stalls after this batch."

  "Then what's the training f
or?"

  "She's building an army."

  "An army? What for?"

  Cadance rolled her eyes. "What do you think she'd use an army of zombies for?"

  "Beating back crowds on Black Friday?"

  "To take over the government. Gawd."

  "But some of them escaped," Tiara said. "Things have gotten right pear-shaped of late."

  "Escaped?"

  "Yeah... two of them, hiding out somewhere in the woods."

  "So even if we get out of here, there's a chance we'll get attacked out there?"

  "I would have expected them to hear us when we were out on the road," Tiara said.

  I sat down in the straw, leaning my head against the wall. "Fuck... me..." I said. I didn't know how anything could work out. Everything felt completely hopeless, but I was too tired to cry.

  And then I was asleep.

  Sayra woke me up, shaking my shoulders.

  "What the hell is going on?" I asked.

  "We don't know," Sayra said. "Something horrible. There were gunshots and screaming."

  "So we're locked in a horse stall waiting to die and things may have just gotten worse?"

  The stable door opened.

  "Get out," Fallon said. He was frantically flapping his arms at us.

  "No way," Tiara said. "We're not doing anything you tell us to do."

  "Then sit here and get eaten. The macoutes are attacking."

  "The escaped zombies?" I asked.

  "All of the zombies," Fallon said. "A goddamn army of them."

  "So that includes the escaped zombies?"

  "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  "How did they get here?" Tiara asked.

  "Well, they brought back my horse trailers," Fallon said. "Thanks for that. Pouchon's trying to block the front door, but they'll get through sooner or later." He pounded his hand against the metal gate. "Shannard planned the whole thing."

  "She probably did," I said. "One big dress rehearsal. But don't worry... her body's stuffed in Gary's trunk."

  "Why would Gary kill her and stuff her in his trunk?"

  "Gary may or may not be dead in the woods."

  "She's not dead," Pouchon said. "She's not so easy to kill."

  "We don't have time for this," Tiara said. "Remember? Zombies?"

  "We can just hide in the stall," I said. "I'll bet they won't even find us."

  "Those macoutes can hear your goddamn heart beating. They'll find us. If they have to pry these metal bars apart they'll get in here."

  "So what exactly is your plan?"

  "You girls will block them at the door. Hell, there's a chance some of you might even get out of here."

  "That's stupid," I said. "There must be another way out. How do you get the horses out of here? They can't fit through the front door."

  "I'm not an idiot. But I'm not leaving until I can get into that safe."

  "And how's that going? Get any help with that?"

  "Almost had my skull bashed in, actually." He grabbed Cadance by the shoulders and pushed her against the wall. "Thanks for that."

  "I was hoping they'd kill you," Cadance said.

  "Someone else might," Fallon said. "But I'm sure you'll get yours first." He threw her down into the straw. "And we're out of shells thanks to you. Pouchon had to kill three of them by hand."

  "Poor guy," I said.

  "You girls need to get over to the front door."

  "Why should we listen to you?" I asked. "Why wouldn't we just bash your skull in like you seem to be asking for, and head out the back?"

  "Because Kathleen Shannard's men will hunt you down and kill you."

  "They'll kill you, too."

  "That's why I need to get into that safe."

  "The guns," Tiara said. "That's what he needs from it."

  "There are guns in that safe?" I asked.

  Tiara nodded.

  "Then I guess we'd better get digging."

  We took turns, two girls digging, one girl resting, and two girls holding Fallon down in the dirt.

  Pouchon had made a start before, but it was almost ten minutes before we struck the top of the safe.

  We heard gunshots.

  "I thought Pouchon was out of ammo," I said.

  "Do zombies shoot guns?" Sayra asked as she continued to dig.

  "These ones can," Tiara said, her knee still embedded into her stepfather's shoulder blade.

  "You people are seriously the biggest dumbasses on earth," I said. "Let's drug people up and turn them into zombies. Then we'll give them guns and see what happens."

  "Most of them probably have machetes," Fallon said. "In Haiti they gave machetes to the Marinette macoutes, since zombies have terrible aim. It's much easier for them to just start swinging."

  "We should see if we can pull the safe up," Julia said.

  "You should be put on that, Amanda," Cadance said. "You're about the same size as a draft horse."

  Sayra and I started working to pry the safe up out of the ground, while Julia stood by to try and help lift it once it was high enough.

  "Let me help," Fallon said.

  Tiara looked over to me.

  I nodded.

  She climbed off of her stepfather.

  He reached down into the hole. "We bolted on a couple handles," he said. "We're not idiots."

  "Zombies with guns," I said. "You're an idiot."

  We pulled out the safe.

  "What's the combination?" I asked.

  "I'll just do it," Fallon said. He started spinning the lock.

  I held a shovel up over my head.

  "What?" he said, looking up at me.

  "I'm going to bash your head in if you try anything."

  "Makes sense."

  He finished spinning and pulled open the safe.

  Inside were two black duffel bags, and on top of each bag was a handgun and a box of bullets.

  "Do any of you little girls even know how to shoot a gun?" Fallon asked.

  "It can't be that different from using a cattle prod," Cadance said. She reached in and pulled out a handgun.

  I grabbed it out of her hands. "You're not getting a gun," I said.

  "You think I'm going to waste bullets on your meaty ass?"

  "I can shoot," Julia said.

  I handed her the handgun and kept the other for myself.

  Julia ejected the magazine from her gun. "They're not loaded," she said. She reached in and grabbed a box bullets. "We'll need as many of these as we can carry." She started loading the bullets into the magazine, one at a time. She saw me staring at her and smiled. "My sister likes guns. A lot."

  I loaded my handguns the same way, with Julia checking things over before I popped the magazine back in.

  "Are you really going to shoot them?" Sayra asked. "They didn't ask to be zombies."

  "They'll kill us if they can," I said.

  We put the boxes of bullets in the duffel bags, on top of what were wrapped stacks of hundred dollar bills; I would've expected more twenties.

  "The keycards work on the back gate?" I asked.

  "They should," Tiara said.

  We hurried along the rutted dirt road that ran from the stables to the trees behind the paddocks. Fallon was with us; I wasn't about to shoot him.

  I glanced back and saw a wave of men running in our direction, rushing out of the stable doors. They ran in formation, like a zombie civil war reenactment. They were completely silent, most grasping machetes, a few with what appeared to be rifles.

  It was unnerving. They were on their way to kill us, but they didn't seem to feel anything about it one way or the other. No angry screams, no hesitation... just a line of macoutes moving swiftly toward us.

  "They've definitely seen us," I said.

  I turned and aimed my gun. I pulled the trigger and it fired. I almost tripped.

  "Don't waste bullets," Julia said. "You're not going to hit them from
this far away."

  "There aren't enough bullets either way," Fallon said. "You won't get a chance to reload."

  We reached the back gate, wide enough for a horse trailer and just as tall as the rest of the wall. There was a small box mounted on a steel pole, along with a heavy chain and a heavier padlock.

  Behind the gate were two pickup trucks, parked just outside like they were meant for something.

  "Tell me you brought the key for that lock," I said.

  "That's not our lock," Fallon said. "Or our trucks."

  "Bullshit."

  "That's not our lock," Tiara said. "They've locked us in."

  "I know what this is now," Fallon said. "It's a killing pen. No way out. They're going to see just how well this army can kill."

  "Not much of a test," I said. "A few dozen zombies against five girls and two handguns."

  "I don't think that's the test they're running," Tiara said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Six-man squads each spend three months mucking stalls. Testing to see if the chemicals are holding. Then off to the barracks for basic training. Then this, I guess... the last piece, to see just how suggestible they are."

  "How suggestible?"

  "Whether or not they're willing to kill a bunch of defenseless girls, and just how viciously they'll do it. That's the real test of an army, seeing how far they'll go to follow orders."

  "But we're not defenseless," Julia said.

  "I think they meant us to be," I said. "Too bad for Kathleen that she won't get to see the result."

  The passengers' side door opened on one of the pickup trucks.

  Kathleen climbed out.

  Her left eye was missing; the left side of her face was pocked and shredded like she'd fallen asleep in a food processor.

  She should have been dead. She probably was dead.

  But she was looking at us with the eye she had left. Looking right at me.

  And with binoculars hanging from her neck. She was here for the show.

  "You were supposed to be unarmed," she said.

  "You were supposed to be dead," I said.

  "Not the first time. Where is Pouchon?"

  "He's dead," Fallon said.

  "I didn't ask you for your medical opinion. I asked where he is."

  "Come on in here and I'll help you find him." He turned to me. "Just shoot her, already."

  I pointed the gun, following the sight marks along the top; I was pointing it right at her.

  "Don't waste your bullets," Kathleen said. "Do I look like I'm easy to kill?"

  A man walked up behind her. He was carrying an assault rifle.

  "Drop the handguns," Kathleen said. "Don't mess up our test."

  I put down my gun.

  Julia didn't move.

  "Come on," Kathleen said, "drop it."

  "Julia..." I said.

  Kathleen turned to the man behind her. "Take her down," she said.

  The man with the assault rifle took a shot.

  Julia fell to the ground.

  I wasn't the only one who screamed. I ran over to Julia.

  She'd been hit in the leg.

  "Not bad," Kathleen said. "We'll see if they'll kill a wounded girl. Maybe apply a tourniquet, Amanda, so she looks the part. And so she doesn't bleed out before the macoutes reach you."

  I took off my shirt, trying not to dwell on the sweat stains on my sports bra. I did my best to remember first aid, wrapping the wound as tightly as I could.

  "You girls should start running around a little," Kathleen said. "Spread out."

  "Are you going to get me out of here or what?" Fallon asked.

  "We don't need you anymore."

  "I'll kill you, Shannard."

  "That's not how it works, Fallon. Being killed by a zombie doesn't make you a zombie... it makes you dead."

  Fallon sat down on the ground. "I'm not going to run and hide," he said.

  "Whatever, Fallon. I don't really care, as long as you're dead and eaten at the end of this."

  I saw Fallon looking at one of the handguns lying on the ground. I knew what was coming.

  He somersaulted towards the gun.

  The man with the assault rifle started shooting.

  Fallon stopped moving.

  "Now go on, girls," Kathleen said. "Get moving."

  I helped Julia up, her arm wrapped along my shoulders. She was unable to use her right leg, but working together she and I were able to get her hopping on her left.

  We walked together as a group, along the fence, moving away from Kathleen and the assault rifle while trying not to get any closer to the oncoming zombies. But there wasn't really anywhere to go. With Julia we were slower than they were.

  "We need to make a run for the front entrance," Tiara said. "Maybe one or two of us will get through."

  "What about Julia?" sayra asked.

  "We need to run."

  "No," I said. "We should make a run for the horses. We'll have a better chance on horseback."

  I helped Julia over the fence into the nearest paddock, and a couple of old mares walked up to greet us.

  I boosted Julia up on one of the mares. She groaned from the pain, but she was able to hold on.

  "I've never ridden a horse," sayra said as she came up behind.

  "It's easier than you think to ride a horse," I said. "It's only near impossible to ride one well. I'll help you."

  I knelt down on one knee beside the other mare and made a step with both of my hands.

  "Climb up," I said.

  sayra hesitated for a moment, but then she stepped into my hands and I boosted her up. She almost went over the far side of the horse's back, but she soon steadied herself.

  Tiara and Cadance both climbed onto mounts of their own, Tiara hopping on from a jump and Cadance awkwardly climbing up the front of a Trakehner. I managed to find a quarterhorse, a short little chestnut that stood out among the taller warmbloods. I hopped on, and we started trotting our horses along the fence. If we were lucky we'd reach the stables.

  We were circling around the macoutes, but they'd been watching us, shifting direction and heading toward the stables as well. They weren't mindless; they were matching our moves.

  "We're going to make it," Julia said.

  "We need to speed up," I said. I brought my quarterhorse up to a gallop.

  The other horses did the same, with or without being cued by their riders; no horse wants to be the one that's left behind.

  I heard a scream, and turned to see sayra fall; she was clear of the mare's hooves, but I knew she wouldn't be able to catch her horse or get back on.

  I didn't know enough about riding bareback to turn around and help her. I'd have to either get off my horse or leave her.

  There was no way I'd be able to help her and still outrun the macoutes.

  I started slowing my horse.

  "I've got her," Tiara said. "Just keep going."

  She brought her horse around and pulled sayra up.

  "They're too close," I said. "They'll catch us when we dismount."

  "Then we don't dismount," Cadance said. "We need to ride up the stable aisles. There should be enough clearance."

  "Should be?"

  She brought her horse up to the front and kept pushing, arriving first at the stable door. She leaned over and pulled it open, still straddling her horse. She moved on to the stable beside it, as Julia's horse was catching up.

  "That's good, Cadance," I said. "Now ride up the aisle."

  She took her horse into the stable, slowing down to a trot.

  Julia's horse hesitated, but eventually followed.

  I waited for Tiara and sayra.

  The zombies had caught up to them.

  "Keep going," I called out. "You can make it."

  Tiara swung her right leg over and threw herself off the horse.

  The macoutes swarmed her. Her horse broke free with
sayra on its back, trotting toward the stable.

  Tiara didn't get back up. She was screaming.

  I knew sayra would make it inside. I had to see if I could save Tiara.

  I couldn't see what was happening to her; I took a few steps forward. She was crying, shrieking... and then it stopped.

  I saw it; the macoutes were feeding on her.

  I slowly started back toward the stable door, hoping they wouldn't notice me.

  But one of them was watching me. Then another.

  I turned to run.

  I reached the door and started to pull.

  I felt a hand grab my shoulder.

  One of the macoutes threw me to the ground. More of them surrounded me.

  They had me pinned, but not one had bitten me.

  A macoute stuck his face against my neck and sniffed.

  "Just do it," I said. "Just fucking eat me."

  But they didn't.

  They slowly climbed off of me. They still surrounded me, but as I pushed past them toward the stable they didn't try to stop me.

  I finished opening the door and walked inside, closing it behind me. The macoutes did not follow.

  Cadance led us into the hallway to the front door. We found the shotgun lying on the concrete floor. There was no sign of Pouchon.

  "Where's Tiara?" Cadance asked as she swiped her keycard.

  "She didn't make it," I said.

  She nodded. "Just like Rarity. But you made it, somehow."

  "I don't know why, Cadance. They let me go."

  "Maybe they just hate my family so much they wanted to see you make it out of here."

  She pushed open the door and stepped outside.

  The three of us followed behind, Julia clutching onto my shoulder.

  I didn't notice that Kathleen was out there waiting for us. Kathleen and the man with the assault rifle. And Gary, too, still looking a little dazed. And another guy, with yet another assault rifle.

  "It feels like you cheated," Kathleen said.

  "Where's Mike?" I asked.

  "He's dead, thanks."

  "We're not going back in there," I said. "You might as well just shoot us."

  "She doesn't speak for all of us," Cadance said. "I don't want you to shoot me."

  "No one needs to be shot," Kathleen said. "The test was a success."

  "But they made it out," Gary said. "How is that a success?"

  "Shut up. Tell me, girls... did you feel terrorized?"

  "Uh, yeah," Cadance said.

  "And the macoutes did eat your sister..."

  "Both her sisters," Gary said.

  "Again, Gary. Shut up." She looked over to me. "Tell me, Amanda, do you feel that these zombies would be effective as an instrument of terror?"

  "Yes," I said. "Your parents would be so proud of you."

  "Good. Then there's no need to feed more of you to the macoutes. Why that's a waste of good breeding stock." She turned to Gary. "Restrain them."

  "With what?" he asked.

  "With the plasticuffs... in your jacket pocket... remember?"

  Gary bound our wrists behind our backs, starting with me.

  "So what are you going to do with me?" Cadance asked. "Are you going to let me go?"

  "Do you have problems listening?" Kathleen said. "We're going to drug you up, like the other girls."

  "Oh... I thought you were talking about the other three."

  "Amanda's immune. Isn't that what Gary told you? So it would be pretty hard to turn her into a zombie if she can't be turned into a zombie. You following me so far?"

  "So what are you going to do to her?" Cadance asked.

  "Gary's taking her," Kathleen said. "Something about a trip to scenic Lake George."

  Gary licked his goddamn lips again.

  "I really think you should just shoot me," I said.

  "I won't get into it," she said. "Just trust me that I'll be a lot happier if your corpse is weighted down at the bottom of a lake. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some macoutes to round up." She turned back to Gary. "Put them in a cell. We need to count the corpses... there'd better be nine of them. Pouchon had better be there."

  "Pouchon was nothing," Gary said. "I'm sure he's dead."

  "You've always been too sure of things. I guess that's how you lost your pharmacist license."

  He bristled but didn't reply.

  They brought us into the building.

  "The macoutes must still be in the yard," Kathleen said. "I'm guessing you didn't give any of them access cards?"

  "We forgot," one of the gunmen said.

  "Dammit, Davis..."

  "Well you weren't there."

  She seemed surprised by the sharpness of his response.

  "I'm... I'm sorry," he said. "I really am."

  "Just open a cell," she said.

  He did as she asked, holding the door open.

  "Come on, girls," Kathleen said. "Time's a wastin."

  We walked inside.

  Davis closed the door.

  There was nothing we could do but wait.

  After about fifteen minutes, the door to the cell opened.

  We all stepped back.

  Arty appeared in the doorway.

  "Don't worry," he said in a whisper. "I'll get you girls out."

  He pulled out a small pocket knife and started cutting my cuffs.

  "Sorry about poking you with a cattle prod," I said.

  "I'm over it. Actually, no... if we get out of here I'm probably going to want to poke you back."

  I smiled. "I don't think you meant that the way it sounded."

  "We'll see," he said.

  Once the cuffs were all cut, he picked Julia up and threw her over his shoulder.

  "They're still looking for Pouchon," he said. "They can't find his body and they're worried."

  "Why are they worried?" I asked.

  "They think he's like her. That the macoutes can't hurt him."

  "Like they had a chance to kill him and they didn't?"

  "Yeah, but I think there's more to it."

  He led us out of the building and out to the parking lot.

  "We'll just have to keep walking," he said. "Unless one of you girls knows how to hotwire a truck."

  "They'll catch up to us," I said.

  "We'll split up... head into the woods."

  "Bad idea," Cadance said. "There are still two missing zombies out there."

  "There are dozens of zombies back there," I said. "I'll take the two."

  "We should stick together," Julia said from her perch. "Strength in numbers."

  "I doubt that'll help," Cadance said.

  "It can't hurt," I said.

  We went into the forest, moving into single file through the beech and yellow birch. Sunrise was starting, which made finding our way a little easier.

  Cadance was in front while Arty and Julia brought up the rear.

  It was quiet, aside from some bird or other, and it didn't feel like the kind of place you'd find a macoute lying in wait. It seemed like the kind of place you'd go on romantic walks with that guy you were sorta into, hoping he'd make up some lame excuse to brush up against your ass or something.

  I heard something crashing through the trees in front of us.

  Cadance veered to her left and started running.

  I stopped and motioned for everyone else to do the same.

  I saw the figures ahead of us. Two men moving quickly, their footsteps crunching on the undergrowth, moving after Cadance.

  They seemed too quick to be zombies.

  Cadance tripped.

  "Leave her," sayra said to me. "She's not worth it."

  The footsteps stopped. I couldn't see the men. I didn't know why they weren't moving.

  I heard Julia scream.

  I turned around.

  Two more men were behind us. They'd pulled Arty down, and Julia had gone down with him. Arty
was kicking and punching one of the men, but he was losing. I couldn't see Julia.

  I reached down and grabbed the biggest stick I could find. I wasn't sure what I was doing.

  I ran toward them.

  I shoved it at the nearest of the two men, aiming for his chest. It struck him and cracked. He punched me in the neck and I fell into the needles of an evergreen, slamming my head against the trunk.

  Julia started screaming.

  "Rete trankil!" a voice called out.

  The screaming stopped.

  I found my way out of the pine tree, pulling needles out of my hands. They'd impaled me with such force that my skin was broken and bleeding in places.

  The two men were still, standing over Arty and Julia.

  Behind them was Pouchon. His face was torn and bloody, but it seemed like he hadn't noticed.

  "Pati," Pouchon said.

  The two men walked into the trees and soon they were gone.

  "What the hell?" I said.

  "The escaped zombies," Pouchon said. "Hopefully they'll leave you alone now."

  I knelt down beside Julia.

  "I don't think I can walk," she said. "But that's nothing new. Oh... but the broken ribs are."

  "I think Arty's dead," Cadance said. She was standing over him, not close enough to help or anything.

  "Nice of you to come back," I said.

  "I thought we were all going to run. Sorry."

  Sayra came over and knelt alongside me. She gently put her finger to Arty's wrist.

  She didn't say anything.

  "Of course he's dead," Pouchon said. "The macoutes attacked him first because he was the biggest threat."

  "Smart macoutes," I said.

  "Not your grandpappy's zombies."

  "We need to get out of here," Cadance said.

  "We can't move her," I said.

  "We'll need to split up," Pouchon said.

  "How are you part of the 'we' on this?" I asked. "Don't you remember wanting to eat me?"

  "Oh, so you've got a choice all of the sudden? Unless you have the power to control the macoutes, you're pretty much stuck with me."

  "You're more dangerous than the macoutes," Cadance said.

  "I'm not a killing machine," Pouchon said. "People change. And I'm more than willing to come to an understanding."

  "Not interested," I said.

  "Why not?"

  "Because we can't trust you."

  "Fine. I'll call my friends back over here for breakfast." He cupped his hand over his bloody mouth. "Vini macoutes mwen," he called. "Vini."

  I couldn't see them yet, but I heard their footsteps.

  "What do you want us to do?" I asked.

  "Just you," Pouchon said. "I need you to go back with me."

  "Why?"

  "The money."

  "Are you serious?" I asked. "You want to walk back to a place where there are two guys with assault weapons and a woman who apparently won't die... and all for a little bit of walking around money?"

  "That money cannot be left behind for Kathleen Shannard," he said. "And I do what I'm told."

  "By who?"

  "By whom, you mean. By my master, Amanda. By our master."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You're a zombie, Amanda... a bokor macoute, a sorcerer in service... just like me."

  "I'm pretty sure I'd know if I was a zombie."

  He grinned. "That's the best part. You don't know. I didn't know either until I got the call." He looked over to Cadance. "That was thanks to you."

  "I guess eating people's made you a wee bit insane," I said.

  "I need to take your ear."

  "What?"

  "Mwen santi Bondye vire do ban mwen." He grabbed me by the neck. "Tout bagay pa la pou lontan."

  "Please..." I said. I jabbed him in the eye.

  He didn't seem to notice.

  "Tout koumansman genyen yon fen."

  He bit down on the lobe.

  I screamed. I felt like I would pass out from the pain, but I didn't. I was there. I was feeling it.

  And Pouchon was in no hurry. "Nou renmen ou," he said. "Ou va pou tout tan nan bra Papa sel?s la."

  And then it was off.

  He held the ear up for me to see. It didn't look like something that had been a part of me; it looked cold and shriveled.

  "Piga ou vire do ban mwen l? m'ap rele nan pye ou."

  I wasn't going to be able to wear my hair up anymore.

  "You're invincible now," Pouchon said. "She cannot hurt you."

  "Can you hurt me?" I asked.

  "No one can. Other than our master."

  "And who the hell is that?"

  "We need to go."

  "What about my friends?" I said. "And Cadance?"

  "They'll be safe," he replied.

  "Those two zombies will attack them the moment we are gone."

  "Those zombies are coming with us. Call them."

  "I don't speak voodoo," I said.

  "You know the words..."

  He was right; I did.

  "Vini," I said. I started to walk back to the stables.

  The two macoutes followed behind me, as did Pouchon.

  And somehow that didn't surprise me.

  We stepped out of the woods and into the parking lot.

  Kathleen saw us. She was standing with Gary. The two gunmen weren't there.

  "You've returned, Pouchon," she said. "You killed my men and you almost killed poor Gary here. I'm not about to forgive you for that."

  "I brought someone," he said.

  "I know. Another bokor macoute. How exciting for us all."

  "Yeah, I'm Amanda," I said. "We've met like a couple of times now."

  "I know who you are. I've known about you for a very long time. Why do you think I had them bring you here?"

  "The cinnamon challenge?"

  "Marinette can't stop me," she said, "no matter how many fat American whores she fills with the rotten seed of her sons."

  "This is starting to sound pretty personal."

  "Who is your father, Amanda Hackensack? Why don't you carry his name?"

  "It was a crazy time," I said. "Somalia, Tonya Harding, the last few seasons of Full House had really jumped the shark... there were a lot of bastards born back then."

  "Your father was a loa... a spirit."

  "I know what a loa is... um... apparently..."

  "That's what makes you a bokor macoute. Marinette asks for your left ear and in return she gives you power over your brothers in bondage."

  "My brothers?"

  "She means the other macoutes," Pouchon said.

  "So what's stopping me from ordering every zombie in a mile radius from ripping you to pieces?" I asked her.

  "What's stopping me from doing the same to you?" she replied.

  "So it's a Mexican standoff."

  "A vodou standoff," Pouchon said. "It happens more than you'd think."

  "My power is stronger," she said. "I am the mount of Kalfou, the Master of --"

  "Master of Crossroads," I said. "I'm aware." I wasn't sure how, but I decided just to roll with it.

  I turned to face my two macoutes. "Touye," I said, kill, the one command that would allow them to kill another of their kind. Of our kind.

  They ran toward Kathleen.

  "Rete trankil," she said.

  The macoutes stopped.

  "Was there a point to this, Pouchon?" I asked. "There's two of us and one of her... does that give us something?"

  "I'm here, too," Gary said.

  "Shut up, Gary," Kathleen and I said at pretty much the same time.

  "Yeah, there's a plan," Pouchon said. "Command them again."

  "Touye," I said.

  Pouchon launched himself at Kathleen, pushing her to the ground.

  And then he started to kiss her.

  She punched him in the face.


  He elbowed her temple. And then he kissed her again.

  And the two macoutes fell onto them.

  Kathleen couldn't command them to stop.

  She didn't even have a chance to scream.

  After a minute or so the macoutes had finished feeding, and Kathleen and Pouchon were a mix of torn clothes, chewed bones and a fleshy goo.

  "I didn't think she could be killed," Gary said. "I thought she'd outlive us all."

  "That's why you're nobody's bokor macoute," I said.

  And then I watched the zombies eat him.

  I locked my two pet macoutes in one of the trailers and found a cell phone in one of the trucks; I called 911 and told them I didn't know exactly what happened, but that people were dead and that my friend needed an ambulance.

  I found the girls where I'd left them, Julia in pain and shock but conscious, Cadance in tears over what was to come.

  "What's going to happen to me?" she asked me.

  "It's all about you, isn't it," I said. "My friend has a bullet in her knee. And she was our best player."

  "My sister's dead."

  "I know."

  "Will those men be okay?" sayra asked.

  "The ones who are zombies or the ones who were eaten by zombies?"

  "Julia and I got better... so maybe they can?"

  "I think so," I said. Actually, I knew. "There was a man in Haiti who got better after, like, twenty years."

  "What about you?" sayra asked. "Are you okay?"

  I felt the power of Marinette, the knowledge of thousands of years of magic from lands I'd never seen. I felt her speak to me, in thoughts more than words. My mistress could be cruel, she told me; she wasn't going to hide the truth from me. But she'd given me her power to do what I felt was right, and she'd honor my decisions. I'd never felt so empowered.

  And I was pretty hungry, and looking forward to a corner booth at cousins with the worst basketball team in Upstate New York.

  I still hadn't decided whether or not Cadance would be invited; I assume she'd probably have Sheriff's deputies to talk to or whatever.

  "Amanda," sayra said. "Did you hear me? Are you okay?"

  I smiled. "I'm doing fine," I said. "I'm pretty sure this'll work for me."