Undead with Benefits (6 page)

“It's totally cool,” Amanda said, smiling. “I do klutzy stuff like that all the time.”

“Say, maybe I could buy you a coffee to apologize,” Tim said hopefully.

“That's okay,” Amanda replied, gesturing at our table. “I'm here with my boyfriend.”

Tim looked momentarily crestfallen but then, remembering something, reached into his back pocket and pulled out a flier. He thrust it at Amanda and she plucked it from his hand with two fingers, avoiding the part he'd sweated on.

“If you're not doing anything tomorrow, you should come by the demonstration,” Tim said as he backed toward the door. “I'll be running the drum circle. Well, as much as one can run a drum circle.” He chuckled awkwardly.

“Awesome!” Amanda declared with faux enthusiasm. “Except I have a noise allergy to bongos, soooo . . .”

I'm sure Amanda forgot about Tim the moment he was out the door. Poor guy was just a means to an end. Meanwhile, Tim would go home, gradually come to the realization that he'd given his laptop away, and live the rest of his life with the humiliation of that time in a coffee shop when he'd been grifted by a bimbo and then stupidly asked her out. It didn't seem fair.

“You're good at that,” I said quietly to Amanda, my gaze tracking across the coffee shop to Jake. “Conning nerds.”

“Huh?” Amanda replied, distracted by Tim's flier. “Are you talking?”

She breezed back to our table before I could respond. Jake watched her coming with a grin, making grabby baby hands at the laptop. I sighed and followed.

“It's like Christmas!” Jake exclaimed, yanking the laptop out of its bag. “I hope you asked that dude about the graphics card.”

“No, dork, I did not.” Amanda thrust the flier at him. “Look at this.”

Jake hardly glanced at the flier. He shrugged. “Cool. A drum circle.”

“Can I see?” I asked, tired of being out of the loop.

Jake handed me the flier. The thing was cluttered with images, like the people who made it couldn't decide which activist iconography they liked the best. There was the Guy Fawkes mask, a bunch of faceless soldiers marching in lockstep, and a headshot of the president with his eyes blacked out. Also, for some reason, a ton of lightning bolts. Sandwiched between all the clip art:
CITIZENS DEMAND ANSWERS TO SECRET GOVERNMENT AGGRESSION IN IOWA! TRANSPARENCY! NONVIOLENCE! DRUM CIRCLE! NOON @ CITY HALL
.

A few weeks ago, what I held in my hand would've been unthinkable. Protestors marching in a major city, asking questions to which the answer was,
Uh, zombies . . . ?
A public-relations nightmare for the Necrotic Control Division.

“Containment isn't working,” I breathed, realizing only then that Amanda and Jake were both staring at me.

“Containment?” Jake asked.

“Is that some kind of gestapo term?” added Amanda.

“We're not the—I mean, they're not that . . .” I sighed and pushed my hands through my hair, frustrated with myself. My first reaction had been to defend the NCD. “Yeah, it's an NCD thing.”

“What does it mean?” Jake asked.

Both zombies were looking at me with obvious curiosity. Feeling awkward and more than a little ashamed by my association with an organization so easily compared to evil secret police, I scanned the coffee shop for an out. It didn't seem like the best place to leak government secrets.

“We should get out of here,” I suggested. “Laptop Guy might realize we scammed him and come back.”

Amanda frowned at me, but Jake nodded.

“Good call. We gotta keep a low profile,” he said. “You're a natural at the fugitive lifestyle.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

“But I still want to hear more about your life as a secret agent,” he added with a disarming smile. “Let's debrief.”

 

I spent plenty of nights in three-star hotels like Omaha Suites during my time with the NCD. My squad would rest up after a successful day of zombie hunting in the starchy beds, and Harlene would lead briefings in the musty conference rooms over freshly microwaved continental breakfasts.

We never used the pools.

All the lights were off except for the ones built into the rectangular pool's underwater walls; they bathed the whole room in a soothing, aqua-tinged glow. The pool's filter buzzed, a gentle ripple passed through the water, and shadows twisted across the stucco ceiling.

“Cannonball!”
Jake screamed, the slapping of his bare feet across the rubber deck a sort of drumroll before he flung himself into the air, curled up, and plunged into the deep end.

According to hotel policy, there wasn't supposed to be any pool usage after 10:00 p.m. Even though it was well after midnight when we wandered down from our rooms, we didn't let any bold-font warnings about drowning get in our way. I'd felt a strange sense of accomplishment while watching Amanda and Jake jimmy open the pool's security door. I was one of the black hats now. The rules no longer applied. Debriefings didn't have to be boring anymore.

Amanda and I both took a step back from the pool to avoid Jake's splashing. She bent down to open the twelve-pack of spiked cherry soda they'd discovered on a trip to a nearby liquor store and presumably shoplifted without my assistance.

“Don't let him splash that,” Amanda warned, glancing up at me and the stolen laptop I held protectively in my arms.

I looked over to where Jake was lazily backstroking. “Why'd he want me to bring this anyway?”

She shrugged. “He wants to show you something. But he's also ADD and wanted to go swimming.”

I stepped around a pile of neon foam noodles and set the laptop down on a deck chair a safe distance from Jake's splash zone. When I turned back around, Amanda had stripped down to a black T-shirt and underwear and was swimming her way over to Jake. I watched him watch her, the way he puffed out his skinny chest a little more as she approached, and my stomach turned over.

I rolled up the legs of my jeans and kicked off my shoes. I sat down on the edge and dipped my feet in, trying to ignore the playful way Jake and Amanda were circling each other in the deep end.

The water was warm and for a moment I felt soothed enough to close my eyes and try to forget my status as awkward third wheel. I took in a deep breath through my nose, sucking in that hotel-pool smell of industrial-strength chlorine and damp feet, then sighed it out.

I'd never really gotten into drinking. The government was cool with emancipating psychic teenagers and using them to combat zombies, but they drew a hard line at underage boozing. Anyway, now seemed like a pretty good time to start. I reached over and grabbed one of the sweating glass bottles, twisted off the top, and took a swig. It tasted just like cherry cola except with an undercurrent of cough syrup. Not great.

Before I realized what I was doing, I'd chugged half the bottle.

“Whoa, easy there,” Jake said, laughing as he swam over.

A head rush fizzed through me, and it briefly occurred to me to worry how alcohol might interact with psychic powers. Then, I burped.

“Sorry,” I said, covering my mouth.

“You don't want to swim?” Jake asked, ignoring my belch and any of the other rookie-drinker signs I'm sure I was giving off.

I looked past him to where Amanda tread water a few feet away, watching us, the lower half of her face submerged, reminding me of an alligator.

“No, I don't have—” I realized not having a swimsuit was a pretty stupid excuse considering they were in their underwear. “No thanks,” I finished lamely.

“You're missing out,” Jake replied, and lifted himself over the pool's edge to grab a couple bottles, his pale butt-crack flashing as he stretched. I snorted, then felt myself blushing, glad for the low lighting. Amanda cleared her throat.

“So,” she began as she swam closer, “are you ever going to tell us about this Containment thing?”

“Yeah!” Jake jumped in, his enthusiasm echoing. “Tell us about the scary government.”

I took another quick swig from my bottle as I tried to decide just how much to tell them.

“Containment is the part of NCD that makes up cover stories for zombie attacks,” I explained.

“Like us being school shooters,” Amanda said, accepting a drink from Jake.

“Yeah. Like that.” I peered down at my toes, wiggling them in the water.

“Back up, though,” Jake said, pointing his bottle at me. “How do you even get to be a psychic?”

“Did any scientist guys ever come to your school and give you tests where they asked you to predict shapes and stuff? They probably said it was for an anthropological study or something.”

“I think I skipped that day,” Amanda said.

“Ugh, most boring assembly ever,” Jake groaned, then stared at me. “Wait, so those guys were for real?”

“Yeah,” I said, picking at my bottle's label. “I passed their test.”

“And they just took you out of school?” Amanda asked.

“Yeah.”

“Wow, that's demented,” Amanda said. Her voice had softened a bit, although it could've just been the alcohol.

Jake floated his bottle cap toward the pool's filter. “Okay, so, why do they want to keep the zombie plague a secret?”

“So they can enslave us,” Amanda declared.

“No, I think the cover-up started just so people wouldn't freak, and then it got out of hand,” I explained patiently. I'd given this some thought over the last couple days while trying to piece together what I knew about Iowa. “The whole enslavement thing was just a pet project of one high-ranking weirdo.”

“The guy with the bow tie,” Amanda said.

I nodded. “Alastaire. Anyway, if people are starting to protest, it means the NCD is losing control.”

“Cool, man. Conspiracy over!” Jake slapped the water excitedly, looking around at us. “That's a good thing, right?”

“What happens when they finally do lose control?” Amanda asked, way more serious than Jake. “Could it all go public?”

“I don't know,” I replied. “I wasn't exactly in those meetings. My last mission was chasing you guys. Not superhigh on the totem pole.”

“Hey,” Jake said, smirking. “We're important.”

“Well, yeah, as far as Initial Necrotization goes, you guys killed the most people. Like, ever.”

I don't know why I said it. It wasn't meant to be a dig or anything like that. It was just a statement of facts; brazenly public high-casualty necrotizations were a top priority for us. It didn't occur to me that mentioning the RRHS massacre might kill the almost-amicable mood that'd been developing.

Amanda drained the rest of her drink and let it drift away. Then she dunked her head under the water. Meanwhile, Jake blinked at me like I'd just peed in the pool.

“New—new record,” he joked weakly.

Amanda resurfaced abruptly, close to the edge. I flinched when she flipped her wet hair back, but she didn't even look in my direction.

“I'm going back to the room,” she said.

“Amanda . . .” Jake swam toward her, but she hopped out of the pool before he could reach her. Both of us watched her go.

“Hey,” I began lamely. “I'm sorry, I didn't—”

“Don't worry about it,” Jake replied quickly. He climbed out of the pool and wrapped a towel around his waist. “We don't like to talk about it. Uh, obviously.”

“I know you didn't mean to hurt anyone,” I said gently, thinking about all that time I'd spent in Jake's head. I'd felt his guilt firsthand, knew how painful it could be, and hadn't meant to go dredging it up. As he walked by me, I resisted an inappropriate urge to touch his hand. And an equally inappropriate urge to touch his mind. In a weird way, I missed being in there.

“It's cool,” he said hurriedly, desperate to get off the subject. He sat down in a deck chair and opened up the laptop. “Do you know why we're trying to get into Iowa? It's not just because it's the land of undead freedom. We heard it's pretty shitty, actually.”

“You think there's a cure,” I answered. Back at the farmhouse, Amanda talking up the cure to Chazz was what freed my mind from Alastaire's psychic assault. Just the mention of it had been enough to make my old boss flip out.

Jake waved me over. “We have proof.”

He'd logged in to the hotel's Wi-Fi and pulled up a grainy YouTube video. I watched it over his shoulder, trying to pay attention to the video instead of the chlorine smell on Jake's ear and neck. The screen was filled with the pockmarked face of an old man with wild, silver hair, like Einstein crossed with a lion. He was in a basement, I think, somewhere dark and dingy. He looked like the crazy old guy in horror movies who warns kids not to reopen the murder camp.

“Some guy calling himself the Lord of Des Moines posted this,” Jake explained. “I think he's the head zombie in Iowa and he's holding this old dude hostage.”

“Head zombie,” I muttered, disbelieving. “There's a head zombie?”

“Just watch,” Jake said, and pressed
PLAY
.

The old man on the screen came to life, all twitchy and erratic sounding, like he was barely keeping it together. I had to huddle close to the laptop to hear him, my face right next to Jake's.

“This is the Grandfather and this may be my last transmission. I remain stranded in Des Moines with no possibility of escape. If this is truly the end, there are two things you must know: First, the undead of Iowa grow bold and restless. It won't be long until they do something . . . uh-uh-uh . . .”

The video started to skip, like a DJ scratching a record. I glanced over at Jake, his eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.

“Uh-uh-AWESOME!” said a suddenly autotuned version of the Grandfather. Then a digital rainbow wiped across the screen, replacing the grim old man with a trio of French bulldogs riding skateboards. Some cheeseball C'mere Eyes song—“Wild Young Thangs,” I think, not that I ever listen to them—blared on the soundtrack.