Undead with Benefits (15 page)

Jake turned the zombie child in Truncheon's direction and pushed her off with a kick to the butt. Seeing an easier victim, the zombie shuffled off.

“Fu-fu-fu—” was all Truncheon could spit out in his condition. I think we all got the gist.

“Yeah,” Jake said, “you were going to punt my head, so I'd say you've got this coming, dude.”

“Hey, guys . . . ,” Amanda said, pointing.

On the other side of the road, two more ghouls stumbled out of the cornfield. Man-sized ones this time, both clad in filthy denim overalls that hung loose from their decomposing bodies. The skin on their shoulders and the tops of their heads was black and peeling from weeks of sunburn. The broken shaft of a pitchfork jutted out of one's abdomen, the pointy end sticking out of his back. They staggered slowly toward the van, which must've looked like a human buffet with me and the prisoners back there.

“Maybe—uh, maybe we should get moving,” I said, trying to sound mellow as I dragged Hunk Hostage away from the van doors.

“Probably a good idea,” Jake said.

“I'll drive the van. You drive the car,” Amanda said to Jake. She glanced at me. “You hide back here, I guess.”

I wasn't going to argue. I handed Jake the car keys. Amanda ran to get the van started and Jake hustled over to the car. I reached out to slam the van door closed and that's when Truncheon screamed.

The little girl ghoul had collapsed across his legs and was gnawing greedily at his jeans. Truncheon tried to kick her off, but he was still uncoordinated from the stun-gun blast, so it wasn't going well. I watched as the girl used her back teeth to tear off a strip of denim along with a sizable chunk of Truncheon's shin, tossed back her head, and gulped it down like a bird.

That moment of hesitation was all it took for Pitchfork Ghoul to close in on me. He got one yellow-nailed, three-fingered hand braced against the van doorway, and then his hairless and peeling head was snapping at me. I fell backward and kicked him in the chest. My foot actually hit square on the pitchfork handle, driving it farther through the zombie with a sound like slurping pasta.

“OOF!” It was a distinctly unghoul shout of pain.

I scrambled to my knees and stared out of the van.

“Oh crap!” I cried. “Sorry!”

Jake had come running back to help me; he'd wrapped his arms around the ghoul and tried to wrestle him away. And I'd inadvertently kicked a pitchfork into his stomach, creating an accidental zombie shish kebob or the world's most gruesome conga line.

“Uh, no worries,” Jake said as he gritted his teeth and pushed on the zombie's shoulders, trying to pry himself loose from the pitchfork.

“Oh crap, oh crap,” I repeated, torn between trying to help Jake and my screaming sense of self-preservation. There were more ghouls appearing from the cornfield now, staggering toward Truncheon's continued screams. Some of them broke off and ambled in our direction, arms outstretched.

“Jake?” I heard Amanda yell from the driver's seat. “What's going on back there?”

“Just—just go!” he yelled back. He wasn't having much luck budging the pitchfork. “Keep them safe! I'll meet you back at Truncheon's garage! I lo—gah!”

The other farmer-ghoul was close now. Jake managed to stick out his leg and trip him. He met my eyes, looking exasperated and a little scared.

I opened my mouth to say something. The only thing that came to mind was a swooning
my hero
. So, I didn't say anything.

“You should close that door,” Jake said, trying to sound Zen, but his words were slurring. I noticed the skin on his neck was turning a swampy gray. “I'm, uh . . . we're all kinda hungry out here.”

The van rumbled and we were pulling away. I found my words.

“Stay alive!” I shouted to Jake. “I'll find you! Whatever happens, I'll find you!”

Jake stared at me with fierce, hungry eyes. He tossed the ghoul away from him with new strength, the pitchfork's prongs tearing loose a coil of intestine. He started to chase us.

I yanked on the van door just as Amanda sped into a bump. It flew back at me with more force than I'd anticipated, hit me square in the forehead, and knocked me off my feet.

My last thought before I lost consciousness was the realization that I'd just quoted the romantic part of
Last of the Mohicans
to Jake.

I'm such a loser.

JAKE

REALLY WISH THIS KIND OF THING WOULD QUIT HAPPENING to me.

I glanced down at the three holes in my abdomen, quarter sized but torn jagged from the way I yanked out the pitchfork. Listen, if you're ever stabbed or impaled, the natural reaction is to tug that sharp something out of your soft body. Don't do it! Because you could pull something important loose. Like the wad of gray intestine that hung from my centermost puncture, looking like frosting being squeezed out of a pastry bag.

Mmm. Cake. Remember cake, Jake?

Cake Jake. Ha-ha. Rhymes.

What was I thinking about?

LET'S EAT SOME PEOPLE! WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!

Oh, and I was running. I chased Truncheon's van like a dog that'd gotten off the leash. There were people in there. People in sacks.

INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED! SINGLE SERVING!

Cass.

Cass was in there. I didn't want to eat her. I didn't want to eat any of them. That's what had gotten me the pitchfork in the guts, wasn't it? Being heroic. Being stupid.

I put on the brakes. It was hard. It was like going against my own instincts, like when you try to touch your own eyeball without blinking. My vision had that red hunger tinge to it and, once I'd managed to stop my feet, both my arms reached out toward the van of their own volition. My hands were that cold-oatmeal color.

I groaned as the van went around a bend, the sound gurgling and inhuman to my own ears. I had a brief vision of chasing the ice-cream truck as a kid, waving a crisp dollar bill, shouting to get the driver's attention—

AND YANKING HIM THROUGH THAT TINY TRUCK WINDOW AND BITING HIS FACE AND HIS LITTLE WHITE HAT OFF EAT

Nope. That's not how it went. He drove off and I didn't get any ice cream and I got a grip.

Get a grip, Jake.

I turned around and realized that pitchfork zombie had followed me down the road, albeit at his slower, baked-ghoul pace. He too watched the van disappear with a forlorn look on his rotten features. His empty eyes met mine and he let out a dry, frustrated belch.

Were we buddies now? I punched him in his stupid face, heard his brittle cheekbone crack, and watched him topple over. The pitchfork struck the pavement like a kickstand and propped him up there.

Well, that didn't solve anything.

LUNCH

Amanda would come back for me. Once they were safe and once she realized what happened, she'd come find me. She wouldn't let me become one of these ghouls. She wouldn't let me get sunburn on my exposed cranium. I just had to wait. Not give in to the zombie urges, not wander too far.

Oh shit. I'd staggered back down the road. Back toward—

LUNCHEON.

Truncheon. He'd never made it into the cornfield. He'd stopped screaming, but he was still alive. Breath whistled wetly out of his mouth. Pigtails had done a number on his right leg, stripping off the meat below the knee, and now she'd gone to work on the other leg, greedily gnawing a piece of calf muscle. One of the other zombies had fallen on him too, ripping open his abdomen, digging into the guts.

There were other ghouls closing in too. Drawn by the smell or the noise or whatever drives them.

Us. Drives
us
.

Oh god. I didn't want to become one of them. Lost, wandering, hungry forever.

THEN EAT

They'd already taken so much of him. I hoped there was enough left to straighten me out. I just needed enough so I could work some car keys. Get the guinea pigs. Find Amanda. Save humanity.

Just a little bit.

Too much to share.

I grabbed Pigtails, lifted her over my head, and flung her into the cornfield. The other ghoul glanced up and I kicked him across the face, sent him spinning into the road with a head that couldn't look straight anymore. The other approaching ghouls seemed to hesitate, watching me, moaning plaintively.

I'm the fucking alpha male.

ZOMBIE HOOOWWWWLLLL

And then I'd straddled Truncheon's chest, pinning his weakly flailing arms. Jammed my thumbs into his eye sockets.

Lift, slam.

Lift, slam.

Lift, slam.

BRAINS.

CASS

I DREAMED THAT I WAS BEING GENTLY CARRIED IN A pair of big, strong arms; my head nestled against pectoral muscles with the perfect firmness and support of one of those airplane neck pillows. I felt protected. Somehow, I thought, Jake had returned from his latest necrotization all ripped up and muscular. Everything was fixed—he was cured, my mom was saved, and he'd let Amanda down gently. He was carrying me somewhere safe, where we wouldn't be bothered, where we could finally get to know each other for real.

Pretty sure I was concussed.

I woke up on a cot, a musty-smelling sheet pulled over me. I tensed up, feeling disoriented. Once in a while it'd be nice if I could just fall asleep normally, instead of getting knocked out or pushing myself into a telepathy-induced stupor. I kept perfectly still, just in case something was nearby waiting to eat me.

To my left, on the other side of a flimsy partition, a man snored enthusiastically. Otherwise, the room was quiet.

If it was safe enough for some guy to be snoring, it was safe enough for me to climb out of bed.

The concrete floor was cool under my bare feet. Someone had taken my sneakers and socks off, and left them pushed under the edge of the cot. I slipped them back on carefully, still wary of making any noise.

I peeked around the partition to check out the snorer. He was a hefty, middle-aged dude with receding black hair that fled into a ponytail. Sleeping on his back, the guy's enormous belly raised up and down, those snores rumbling all the way from his diaphragm. I didn't recognize his face, but I remembered one of the van hostages carrying a major spare tire.

We'd made it . . . somewhere.

It was definitely underground; the walls were concrete with heavy wood support beams, and the space had that damp-basement feeling. It was pretty spacious for a cellar, though. There were other partitions farther into the room, separating a couple quieter sleepers. Candles flickered from built-in sconces, which I thought was kind of unusual for your average basement. After the eighteenth century we pretty much stopped designing rooms with torch positioning in mind, right? Even farther back, past the cots and partitions, I saw a wall entirely dedicated to canned goods and dry foods. And then, all the way at the back, a small chemical toilet with its own partition.

Well, I was going to have to hold it.

I guessed I was in a storm cellar. Or a bomb shelter. Or a really industrious combination.

“Psst.”

I turned toward the noise. Seated on a stool at the far end of the room, next to the stairs and dead-bolted cast-iron door that I assumed led outside, was the male model we'd rescued from Truncheon. He'd gotten a bandage for the gash on his forehead and had also changed into a fresh T-shirt and jeans. If he had clean clothes that fit so well, this must be his place.

Also, it must've been him I deliriously remembered carrying me. I nervously shoved a strand of tangled hair behind my ear. I walked over and he set aside the dog-eared copy of
The Sun Also Rises
he'd been reading by flashlight.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hey yourself,” he replied, reaching out for a gentle handshake. “I'm Cody.”

Of course. He looked like a Cody.

“Cass,” I said.

“How's your head?” Cody asked, and reached out to brush my hair away from my forehead, softly pressing a bump I hadn't realized was there. He seemed totally comfortable doing this, like we hadn't just met. I didn't mind. “We were worried. You've been out for a while.”

“I, um, yeah. I think I'm all right. What about you?”

He poked the bandage. “I've had worse, believe me.”

Sure, I believed him. Cody had an aura about him like he couldn't possibly tell a lie, like the pledges he'd taken in Boy Scouts had set him on the straight and narrow for life. He reminded me—and I mean this in the most complimentary way possible—of a really handsome golden retriever. He seemed like the kind of person that'd be really good at small talk.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Out in the country,” Cody replied. “Best to stay out here. Less trouble lurking.”

I didn't mention that all of Iowa seemed like country to me. Instead, I gestured to the wooden struts in the ceiling. “And this is like a bomb shelter?”

“Pretty much,” Cody said. “Most of the houses around here have something for the tornadoes. Some people, like whoever owned this place, sprung for the whole nuke-resistant whoop-de-do. I used to think people like that were nuts, but now . . .”

I took another look around. I hadn't noticed the hazmat suits piled in one corner.

“I guess sometimes being paranoid pays off,” I said. “You know the owner?”

“Naw, they're long gone,” Cody said, gazing down at his hands. They were weathered and scarred, way too messed up for a guy barely older than me. “It was the closest safe house I could think of. Mandy drove us out here.”

I blinked.
“Mandy?”

“Sorry. Been told I've got a nickname problem. Your friend Amanda. She took off for a while, but now she's back.”

I glanced back at the cots. “She's down here?”

Cody sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “The others were scared she might eat us, so they decided she had to sleep outside. Not exactly paying it forward, but I couldn't convince 'em otherwise.”