Undead with Benefits (21 page)

“Olly olly oxen free!” he hooted.

I glanced at Cody in time to see his brow knit in confusion.

“That means he saw us,” I whispered.

“Shoot,” Cody lamented.

He climbed back to his feet and I stood up too, because, solidarity. Tara stayed prone on the ground. A quick peek over my shoulder revealed Lucy and Roy weren't in any rush to show themselves either.

“Don't look back,” Cody hissed. “You'll give them away.”

Cody pulled his makeshift spear out from behind his back, doing so with a flourish definitely meant to intimidate. In response, anorexic Bender raised his hands defensively.

“Whoa, hoss!” he shouted over to us. “I don't want any trouble now.”

“He's a liar,” Cody whispered to me, I guess using those immaculate first-impression skills of his, or maybe reasoning that anyone driving around with a decomposing pig's head couldn't be trusted. To the zombie, he yelled, “What do you want?”

“Lord Wesley's got me looking for a couple young ladies,” the zombie called. He glanced down at the palm of his hand, reading. “Amanda and Cass.”

Cody shot me a look. My stomach turned over.

“I don't got a picture or nothing,” the zombie continued, smirking. “Their friend's looking for 'em, though. We got a tight-knit community, right? We help each other.”

Jake must've said something to his new friends in Des Moines and now they were out here looking for us. I couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. It would've worked out great for Amanda had she stuck around, but as a tasty human morsel I wasn't too keen on an escort into zombie central.

“You seen them?” the zombie pressed, shielding his eyes to stare at me. “Won't be any problems if you have. Everybody gets a pass today.”

“You don't, uh,
want
to go with this guy, do you?” Cody asked me out of the side of his mouth.

“Um, no.”

“Don't matter,” Cody whispered. “Whether you go or not, I can tell this one'll be back to try eating the rest of us.”

“You whisper a lot!” the zombie yelled cheerily. He pointed at us. “Those my girls? Don't make me come over there and check IDs.”

I glanced down at Tara, who looked completely oblivious, gazing up at the clouds. I figured she'd be as safe stretched out in the field as anywhere else.

“So, you've got a plan, right?” I hissed through my teeth.

“Kill him,” Cody replied, taking me by the upper arm.

“Oh. Easy enough.”

“Follow my lead.”

I didn't know how much help I'd be in the killing department, but I could follow just fine. We marched toward the road, Cody keeping me out in front of him. I pretended to struggle a little and Cody hovered the point of his stake by my neck. Cody outweighed the scrawny denim enthusiast by at least forty pounds and looked to be in much better shape, which meant it'd be a fair fight even if the zombie went into freshly turned feral mode.

The zombie didn't seem all that concerned we might try to fight, making no move for the nasty-looking bowie knife that hung from his hip as we approached. Instead, he unclipped a military-grade walkie-talkie from behind his back.

“Boss, I think I got one out here,” he said into it, then looked at us. “Which one are you?”

“This is Cass,” Cody told the zombie as we closed the distance, shaking me by the arm for emphasis. “You can have her. I don't want any problems.”

“Sure, guy,” the zombie replied absently, more interested in looking me up and down. “I'll treat you better than this redneck,” he said to me, all suave. “You're worth a month's rations, baby.”

“Wow,” I said, rolling my eyes. “How many rodents is that?”

He snickered. “Nah, honey. We're talking the good stuff. The Lord's got this contraption where he deep-fries an ar—”

Before I could hear more about Des Moines's wonderful cuisine, the zombie's walkie-talkie came to life with a burst of static.

“You forgot to say
over
, stupid,” a brusque voice chided. “Where you at?
Over
.”

He raised the walkie-talkie. “I'm—”

And that's when Cody lunged.

The walkie-talkie clattered to the ground. Cody drove the stake right into the zombie's open mouth, angled upward, trying to jam it straight up and into his brain.

He missed. The stake poked through the back of the zombie's neck, just at the base of his skull.

The zombie went pale, veins on his bald head pulsing with thick, black blood. His eyes went sharp and kill-crazy even as the rest of him took on that saggy, decomposed look. He bit down hard on the broom handle, and a couple yellowed teeth popped out of his mouth.

Unable to bite him, the zombie crashed into Cody. They fell to the ground, Cody on the bottom, still clutching the stake in front of him. The landing caused the stake to slide the rest of the way through, popping out the back of the zombie's neck. The fresh hole emitted a smell that combined bad breath with moldy spinal fluid.

Trying not to gag, I lunged forward, grabbing the blood-slick stake from where it'd fallen beside the wrestling pair.

Cody screamed.

I wasn't quick enough. The zombie had already sunk his teeth into Cody's cheek.

JAKE

“HERE COME SOME OF THOSE THEATRICS I WAS TELLING you about,” Reggie said to me, keeping his voice low so the others wouldn't hear. “Just be cool.”

I could barely hear him over the thumping bass of Ludacris's seminal rap song “Move Bitch.” The song shook loose from Red Bear's ridiculous homemade sound system—a boom box hooked to multiple speakers, mounted by duct tape to a shopping cart, and powered by a pair of car batteries.

“Let's do this!” screamed Red Bear, and pushed his cart forward, knocking open the doors of the looted sporting-goods store we'd been sequestered within. He was greeted by a wild cheer from outside.

This mall was packed with zombies.

Cheyenne strutted after Red Bear, holding up a giant card with a menacing rendering of Reggie's face, like one of those boxing-match-ring girls. With her gone, it was just Reggie and me in the store, listening to Red Bear's beats and the fired-up crowd. I peeked my head outside, eyes widening.

“Damn,” I said. “Iowans have way too much unprotected sex.”

Reggie gave me a screwed-up look. “It's not like that, man. I need to explain some shit to you.”

I opened my hands, ready for some enlightenment.

“Not right this second, obviously,” Reggie said, waving to the door. “Go, man. I gotta come out last.”

So I stepped out onto the mall's second-floor concourse, where the railings were lined with more than a hundred Deadzone zombies, partying it up. A puzzled ripple went through them as they caught sight of me—I didn't look much like them in my jeans and Chairman Meow Communist Kitty T-shirt. Someone lit a bottle rocket and it whistled past me before exploding in front of a cinnamon-bun kiosk.

I hustled to catch up with Red Bear and Cheyenne, trying to take everything in. Most of the zombies were the leather-heavy, overly pierced types I'd seen on the border. There were other cliques among them, though—some were dressed like British punk rockers, others like wood sprites or elves or some mythological crap with lots of twigs and tights, a few like urban graffiti kids with bandanas covering their mouths, and a couple even looked totally normal, like me. I got the feeling those were other recent arrivals, judging by how uncomfortable they seemed. I guess it took a little while to decide what costume you were going to wear here in the afterlife. Most of the zombies skewed young and angry, although I saw a few that were my parents' age, and one lady that had to be eighty years old, crowded in with the punks, her saggy boobs slipping out of a Sex Pistols crop top as she tried to jump up and down.

Yeah. Total freak show.

“LET THE GAMES BEGIN!”

I spun around as Reggie's voice boomed out of a megaphone. Last night, he'd been my new best friend. Today, he was the Lord of Des Moines.

 

In the limo, on the way to the mall, he'd still been Reggie. He'd come downstairs just in time to get Red Bear off me, then ushered me into the back of the limousine. Red Bear rode up front with Cheyenne, the two of them shouting giddily whenever the snowplow ran over a ghoul, which was often. Reggie and I had the huge backseat area all to ourselves—a stocked minibar, a flat screen, lots of buttons. I might've enjoyed myself more if I wasn't feeling tricked and a little panicked.

Watching me closely from the opposite end of the limo, Reggie hit a button on the ceiling and raised the privacy screen.

“Dude,” I said immediately, in a way that singularly communicated my confusion.

“Sorry Red Bear jumped you,” Reggie said. “He flies off the handle sometimes.”

“Uh, yeah, I don't care about that tool,” I replied. “Why didn't you tell me you're, like—?”

“America's first zombie warlord?” Reggie suggested, laughing. “I don't know, man. It never came up.”

“It did come up,” I insisted, remembering our walk to his apartment. “I was asking
you
about
you
.”

“Oh yeah.” He shrugged and looked out one of the tinted windows. “Guess I didn't feel like doing the whole undead-despot thing. It gets exhausting.”

I stared at him, not sure where to begin. The limo bounced over something crunchy.

“So should I call you, like,
your lordship
?” I asked. “Lord Wesley?”

“Please don't.”

“Where does the
Wesley
even come from?”

“Uh, it's my last name?” Reggie held out a hand, like a king waiting for his ring to be kissed. “Lord Reginald Butler Wesley, Jr. I was trying to get
your grace
to catch on a few months back, but that was pushing it.”

I snorted and looked out the window, still feeling misled.

“You know,” Reggie began hesitantly, “I don't hang out with a lot of people.”

“Wow, dude,” I groaned. “I feel so honored.”

“I didn't mean it like that,” he replied. “I mean, everyone around here's gotten sorta intense.”

“Uh, you call yourself the Lord of Des Moines,” I reminded him.

“I told you I was good at the zombie thing, right? Well, I'm so good, other zombies drive me around in limos. I can't control my talents.” He sighed. “I'm just trying to explain. . . . Sometimes I do normal stuff as a change of pace.”

“A change of pace from
lording
? Shit, dude, you, like, conquered a city,” I said, not sure whether to feel amazed or frightened. “I mean, it's a suckhole city, but still. How does that happen?”

Reggie chuckled and lightly touched the puckered scar on his forehead. “Come look at this.”

I hesitated for a second, then scooted along the backseat until I was close enough to examine the purple knot of skin. Reggie poked it, moving around something still lodged underneath.

“Gross,” I observed.

“This was right when everything started. I was running with some guys—Red Bear, for one—just trying to stay alive, find people to eat, that kinda shit. This was back when the fat local cops still thought they could make a difference.”

I glanced out the window. In daylight, I could make out all the bullet holes and bloodstains on the buildings.

“One night,” Reggie continued, “I got shot in the head. We'd all seen people go down from headshots, so we knew how it worked. My crew left me behind. But I survived.”

“Obviously.”

“I told you I'd been sick my whole life,” Reggie went on. “Well, when I was in high school, my brain swelled and they cut a hole in my skull to give it space. Once I was better, they replaced the bone they'd taken out with a titanium plate.”

Reggie knocked on his forehead. I didn't hear any metal noise, but I guess you wouldn't with all the skin and stuff. I shook my head in disbelief.

“You're like a half-ass Wolverine.”

He smirked. “Anyway, when I showed back up, the others thought I'd walked away from a headshot, that I was unkillable or some ignorant shit. Legend spread.” Reggie shrugged. “I let it. People started wanting to run with me and, like I said, I had some ideas. Turns out I'm like the Sun Tzu of postapocalyptic politics. Pretty soon, the Lord was born.”

Reggie took a deep breath and looked at me expectantly.

For the record, the nerd in me was totally carving a bronzed statue for Reggie to commemorate his achieving great power through fanboy tendencies. But the part of me trying to make responsible decisions with an eye toward a future that didn't involve eating people? That part was feeling pretty cheated. We'd come here because the Lord of Des Moines posted on a message board. Sure, maybe that wasn't the best source of information, but it was still disappointing to find out the whole thing was just some dork living out a fantasy. Amanda would've ripped his metal-plated head off.

“Well,” I said, scooting back to my side of the limo, “it's a great supervillain origin story, I guess.”

“Supervillain,” Reggie repeated, frowning at the thought. “That
is
how it always goes, huh? The bitter loser gets extraordinary powers and tries to take over.”

“Yeah, that's pretty much you,” I said, then remembering this was a zombie warlord I was dealing with, quickly added, “No offense.”

Reggie waved me off, looking more crestfallen than angry. I guess there wasn't a whole lot of time for self-reflection in the Deadzone, but it seemed like he was doing some now. We bumped along for a few minutes in silence.

“Boss, I think I got one out here,” a tinny voice interrupted from inside Reggie's overcoat.

Reggie produced a heavy-duty commando-in-the-jungle walkie-talkie.