Undead with Benefits (23 page)

And then something changed, like a switch flipping. Doug rolled onto his back, panting, his bloodshot eyes staring up at the mall's skylight. Those splotches of dead, gray skin hadn't faded. He looked like an extra from a horror movie that hadn't finished getting into makeup.

But man, puke-covered and all, I wanted to eat him.

“Check the meat,” Reggie said to Red Bear.

With casual grace, Red Bear unhooked his hatchet from his belt and swung it down at Doug. The guy was so out of it that he didn't even flinch when the blade opened a shallow cut on his shoulder. A cut that glistened wet and red, with no signs of turning moldy, zombie gray.

Doug was human. Alive.
Un
-undead.

“All good,” Red Bear said.

Reggie's eyes landed right on me. For a moment, crazy as he looked in the Lord of Des Moines regalia, I caught a glimpse of the regular guy I'd hung out with last night. Maybe the Germans have a word for what I felt. Conflicted, for starters. In the middle of the Venn diagram between mystified, revolted, and hungry.

Reggie rolled his eyes and shrugged at me, like,
What can ya do?

“LET'S EAT!” he screamed into the megaphone.

CASS

HIS BODY WAS SURPRISINGLY LIGHT. ROY LET GO OF THE armpits at the same time that I let go of the ankles, and he crumpled like a loose-limbed doll into the trunk of the police car.

“I used to have a jean jacket just like that,” Roy said, peering down at the zombie. “The eighties were great.”

“They always seemed like fun in the movies,” I replied absently, staring down at the hole in the zombie's head, a blackened pit surrounded by flaps of dried, gray skin. “Cool music. No cell phones. Not so much cannibalism.”

Gently, Roy eased me away from the trunk and closed it.

We stood on the side of the road and watched the sun dip steadily below the horizon. Out here, everything turned gold during the sunset. It was like living inside one of those whole-grain cereal commercials. It would've struck me as beautiful, except my gaze kept getting drawn back to the dried blood on the pavement.

“You haven't seen a lot of this kinda stuff, have you?” Roy asked, mopping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

“I thought I had,” I replied. “These last couple days have been on a whole new level of screwed up, though. And everyone's just so casual about it.”

“You get used to it,” Roy said resignedly. “You start to forget they're people.”

“But they
are
people,” I snapped. Zombie personhood was still a sore subject with me. The whole reason I'd left the NCD was because I'd recognized humanity in Jake. Humanity and, you know, other attractive qualities. Sure, I'd liked him, but it'd also seemed like the right thing to do. And yet, I hadn't really cared when Truncheon sniped that ghoul on the road, or when Cody did his staking. Did that make me a hypocrite? Or did morality just not apply in Iowa?

“I don't mean just the zombies,” Roy said, chastened, peering over the crest of his belly to look at his feet. “Everybody that dies. You see enough dismemberments, even of people you know, and it starts to get like . . . I don't know. Like the weather.”

I blinked at him. Well, Cody
had
called him a pessimist. I guess this was his version of a pep talk.
You'll get desensitized eventually, Cass!
Great.

“Come on,” I said, wanting to skip any further philosophical gems. “It's getting dark. Let's get this done.”

I ducked into the cop car's driver-side window. The zombie's keys still dangled from the ignition, but I didn't use them. One ghoul had already stumbled through the fields and toward the bunker, drawn by the noise of today's fracas. Roy'd been forced to begrudgingly bash her head in with a shovel. We didn't want to draw any more attention, so I put the car in neutral and we started to push.

 

When Cody was pinned under the zombie, I hesitated. I'd never actually killed one before. The undead were lucky, in a way. They blacked out during their first kills and were driven by pure animal need. They came to with gory bits stuck under their fingernails and that emotional-hangover feeling of having done something bad, but they didn't have to live with all the mental pictures. They didn't have to
think
about it. In contrast, my first brain gouging was going down in the moment. You hear about those people spurred to heroic action who just ride through harrowing moments on instinct and adrenaline. Not me. My inner monologue was going over stuff like proper stake grips and which part of the skull was supposed to be the softest.

Of course, that hesitation almost cost me.

The zombie bit into Cody's cheek, but then must have sensed me standing there contemplating his demise, maybe even remembered via some guttering ember of rational thought that I was the one he'd come for, because he sprung away from Cody and lunged at me in a way that looked a lot like that worm-dance move.

I cried out and fell backward, scraping my palms on the asphalt. Dropped the stake. Not my finest moment, obviously.

Cody tangled his legs with the zombie's, preventing him from getting at me. They were both still on the ground, almost spooning, just a few feet from me. I kicked the stake in Cody's direction, and he snatched it up and plunged it into the back of the zombie's head.

The assisted zombie kill. That was way more my comfort zone. Even AWOL from the NCD, I still thought of myself as noncombat personnel.

Blood trickled down Cody's neck from the fresh ring of teeth indentations on his cheek. He took a deep breath, leaning against the lifeless zombie.

“Gosh,” he said, smiling at me. “Close one.”

 

“We aren't going to stay here another night, are we?”

Roy and I trudged backed into the bomb shelter just in time for Lucy's question. Her voice was an octave higher than it'd been earlier, that no-nonsense crack-reporter exterior crumbled. She'd been too busy meticulously applying disinfectant to Cody's bite wound to help Roy and me with the car; at the time I assumed she just wanted to get out of manual labor, but now I realized she was spooked. It really had been a close one.

“I don't see why not,” Cody replied, and flashed her the same cavalier smile he'd trotted out for me after he killed the zombie. It lost some of its effect with one of his dimples hidden behind a bulky gauze pad, and he grimaced at the cheek usage. “Ow.”

“Your dad's rule was to leave a place once they'd gotten a whiff of it,” Lucy countered. “It's a good rule.”

“He also had a rule about not traveling after dark,” Roy put in, flopping down on a bunk.

Cody looked to me, his eyebrows raised imploringly. “Besides, we killed that zombie before he could give away our location. Right, Cass?”

I nodded, meeting Lucy's narrowed gaze. “Yeah. Cody even smashed his walkie-talkie. So they can't . . . what was it?”

“Triangulate us,” Cody said proudly.

I didn't bother explaining that triangulation wasn't really a thing with walkie-talkies—hey, I'd picked up some stuff during my G-woman days—or that it might've been beneficial for us to have an open channel into the Lord of Des Moines security network. All points I should've made back in the road when Cody was stomping the walkie, instead of mutely staring at his fresh disfigurement. Anyhow, like Cody, I didn't want to leave the bomb shelter. It seemed like the safest place to wait while Jake tracked down the cure. I'd gotten a glimpse of what being on the road in Iowa could be like, and it wasn't for me.

“Besides,” Cody continued, trying to sound all blasé. “We need to wait for Cass's friend to get back.”

I suddenly began reconsidering my position on staying put.

“Oh, I get it,” Lucy said dryly, picking up on Cody's smitten tone just like I had. She turned to Roy, pointing at me. “Aren't you at all concerned that the freaking Lord of Des Moines himself sent a goon out here to find her?”

Roy bunched his shoulders, staring at the floor. “Eh, she's all right, Lucy.”

Lucy faced me. “I'm sorry, but we don't know anything about you or your perky zombie friend that's currently off doing god knows what.”

“Well,” I replied, “we saved you from getting sold as zombie food. For starters.”

Lucy snorted. “You know how many times in the last month Roy or Cody has saved my ass or vice versa? That's just what we do around here. So thanks a bunch for saving me
yesterday
, girl, but I'm worried about you getting me killed
tomorrow
. You've got this aura of craziness about you that I just know is going to screw us.”

I frowned. Did I really have an aura of craziness? I mean, my recent life decisions didn't exactly scream
I've-got-my-crap-together!
but I'd hoped to not exude chaos.

“She's not being literal.” Tara spoke up from her spot on the back bunk, where she sat cross-legged, eating canned peaches with her fingers. “She can't actually see your aura. Your aura's just peachy, Cassandra.”

Oh well, that was a relief. According to my burnt-out fellow psychic, I was totally fine.

“This one too,” Lucy added, jerking her thumb at Tara while appealing to Cody. “Both of them. They just scream trouble, Cody.”

“Humans stick together,” Cody replied firmly. “That was another of Dad's rules.”

“Yeah, but—”

Lucy cut herself off at the sound of a car driving up. For a moment everyone froze, totally silent, except for Tara slurping down a peach.

Closest to the door, I slowly pulled open the hatch and peeked outside. Cody jumped up from his spot on the bunk with a groan and crowded in next to me.

“Another patrol?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said, recognizing the Maroon Marauder. “It's Amanda.”

Cody immediately began slicking down his cowlicks.

“Great,” Lucy muttered. “More trouble.”

Ignoring her, I pulled open the bunker door and stepped outside, Cody right on my heels.

Amanda first pulled into the driveway, then drifted across the grass in our direction. The car wobbled slightly, like her grip was loose on the wheel, and creaked to a stop just a few yards from us. Cody stood up straighter and maybe puffed out his chest a little, self-consciously touching the bandage on his face.

“Hey there, Amanda,” he said, sounding more country than ever as he greeted her through the open driver-side window.

Amanda's head lolled as she looked at him, her eyes half-lidded. “Hey . . . you.”

It'd taken her less than a day to forget his name. Typical. And right back to the whole sex-kitten act too.

“Glad to see you back,” Cody kept on cheerily. “Everything turn out okay?”

As I looked her over, I realized Amanda wasn't trying to make gross succubus eyes at Cody. She was actually exhausted and having trouble keeping her eyes open. Her hair was as unkempt as I'd ever seen it, that preposterous glisten she somehow maintained even on the road faded to a greasy sheen. She had something stuck on her chin—a tuft of guinea-pig fur.

“Hush now,” Amanda said to Cody half-deliriously, pointing at me. “I need to talk to my friend Astral Pain.”

“Flirt later,” I muttered, elbowing Cody aside. “Give us some space.”

Cody stepped back a few feet, his hands shoved into his pockets. He looked like he didn't know what to make of this situation; was he scoring points here or not?

“Sorry,” he said to me, then craned his neck to look at Amanda. “I just wanted to say thank you again. For yesterday.”

Recognition flickered in Amanda's eyes. Maybe she was remembering her role as zombie heroine.

“It was no big deal, handsome,” she replied, totally on autopilot, but it made Cody beam on his way to the bunker. Finally, she focused on me. “What happened to his face?”

“Zombie bite,” I replied.

“Oh. Shame.”

“You've got something here. . . .” I brushed my own face in demonstration.

She sneered at me like I'd made her a sloppy eater, but eventually pawed awkwardly at the area around her mouth, missing on the first couple attempts.

“Gone?”

I nodded. “So, can I ask what the hell happened to you?”

“I can't find him,” Amanda moaned dramatically. “I've been checking all these smelly-ass ghouls for mohawks and he's just nowhere. He's
gone
.”

“Jeez,” I replied, shaking my head. “Have you been doing that since last night?”

Amanda nodded and when that nod finished, her forehead rested against the steering wheel. She'd been hunting for Jake for eighteen hours straight and looked completely drained as a result. I knew Jake's whereabouts were like my biggest piece of leverage and I hadn't forgotten how miserable Amanda made me on a regular basis, but still I felt a swelling of sympathy.

“He's fine,” I told her. “He's alive. Nonghoul. He's fine.”

Amanda turned her head to look at me. Her forehead, scrunched in confusion, had an ugly red indentation from the wheel.

“Then why didn't he come?” she asked me, hurt. “I kept checking the garage. Why didn't he come?”

My mouth hung open. Was I supposed to cover for Jake here? Tell Amanda that he'd gotten into Des Moines and was close to the cure? Or that he'd been playing video games and getting stoned while she drove around searching for him? I mean, I'd felt some tenderness before, but I wasn't ready to be playing relationship counselor between the meanest girl in America and the zombie I inappropriately desired.

“I thought it'd be different,” Amanda murmured as my silence stretched on. “Dating a nerd, you know? But even they stand you up and let you down.”

“He didn't—” I started a sentence I had no idea how to finish, but Amanda saved me the trouble by starting to snore.