Bad Taste in Boys (17 page)

I sprinted across the yard instead, drenching my shoes and nearly falling twice. The barn loomed over me, a dark and creaky structure that only served to intensify my hysteria. I heard a clatter, followed by a pained moan as Mike fell down the porch steps.

I bolted the barn door behind me, which was great except now the barn was pitch-black and superspooky. I opened my phone and used the dim light from the display to find a light switch and flick it on. Big mistake.

The barn was suddenly awash in red light. The walls glistened like they were painted with blood.

“Ahhhh!” I screamed some more, and I wasn’t the only one. The damp air filled with howls and wails, accompanied by a chorus of dramatic violins and screeching doors.

I shut my mouth abruptly, and the screaming and screeching in the background carried on through the speaker above my head.

The haunted house from the fund-raiser. The Luziers had left it up. This realization made me feel slightly better. Only slightly.

I got out a syringe and snapped a vial into place. The door rattled against my back as Mike threw himself against it. I gulped, trying to reassure myself that I wasn’t scared witless. I’d pop the syringe into his thigh and be back out of range in a flash. It would be easy.

A little voice in my head asked if he was really worth curing. I could run for the car and get the hell out of here. Why should I risk myself for Mike Luzier, of all people?

But I needed to know if the injection worked. Besides, the stubborn part of me refused to abandon him. I couldn’t leave him to die just because he was a tool. I’d had to do that with Coach, and once was enough.

I took a deep breath before opening the door, or trying to, anyway. I couldn’t find the handle. Either it had fallen off or the Luziers had removed it on purpose, which totally ticked me off, and not just because it was a fire hazard. Peachy. The only way out was to go through the haunted house.

The entryway was enclosed by tall plywood walls on which were scrawled the words
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
Very original.

I squeezed through the narrow corridor leading into the maze, which was a little claustrophobia-inducing but otherwise okay. Slick plastic lining the passage reflected the red light and made the walls look like they were covered with blood but also made the squeezing part easier. When I turned the corner, my foot triggered a blast of cold air right in my face. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Still, livable. I could deal with air compressor attacks.

Moments later, a wall-mounted speaker let out a massive wail right in my face. The volume was cranked up so high it made my head throb. I started searching for an off switch and knocked the speaker off the wall by mistake. The screaming was now
accompanied by a constant high-pitched whine from the damaged sound equipment.

I turned, and a grotesque figure leapt into my path. I lifted my syringe to strike as it loomed over me. It was bottom-heavy, bulbous. I realized what I was doing about five seconds before I stabbed my reflection in one of those fun-house mirrors. Talk about overreacting.

I was still berating myself when the clown jumped at me.

A dummy with a painted face sailed down its wire straight at my head, arms outstretched and teeth bared. His mouth was rimmed in red; it looked like blood. A voice from a speaker to my left started cackling maniacally; lights flashed in a staccato rhythm all around the narrow corridor. The clown shook from side to side. I knew it was fake, but I swore it was reaching for me.

I freaked out.

My syringe plunged into its eye. I yelled when I did it too, like I was in a martial arts movie. Or maybe I was screaming and hoped to make myself feel less like an idiot by calling it something else in my head. The clown, thankfully, was a dummy on a pole. It didn’t mind being stabbed in the eye; it just kept shaking and cackling. I should probably have taken the syringe out, but I couldn’t make myself approach the thing. I left it wobbling there to scare the crap out of the next person who walked this stupid maze. I still had a few doses left.

I moved forward cautiously instead, another syringe at the ready. Mike could have come in the other side, or there might be
more clowns. But I managed to push open the door and emerged back into the misty gray yard without being accosted by anything icky-faced or dead.

I returned to the front of the house. No Mike. I saw the big divot in the ground where he’d fallen off the porch and an uneven line running past the barn door and into the trees, like he had dragged his twisted foot through the grass the whole way there. A big stretch of woods bordered the house. Mike’s trail led inside.

I ran to the car. If I flashed the lights and honked the horn, it would attract Mike’s attention. I could wait for him in the car and roll the window down to inject him from the safety of the interior.

It was a great plan. Unfortunately, when I pressed on the gas pedal, the car didn’t go anywhere. I put it in reverse. Then I tried drive. The only result was a furious whir of tires and lots of mud flying around. I reluctantly got out to see what was wrong. The two rear tires were sunk in a mud pit.

My dad had prepared me for situations like this, because we were that kind of family. I kept a bunch of emergency materials in my trunk. So if this had been my car, I would have wrestled a big bag of sand out of the back. Or, more likely, I would have tried to pick it up, realized I was too big of a wuss, and carted the sand out one plastic cup at a time. But I would have gotten the car out one way or another.

Rocky, unfortunately, had a very different kind of family. Her trunk was full of unsold Girl Scout cookies.

I was stuck here. At least I had a year’s supply of Thin Mints.

*   *   *

I considered my options. I couldn’t call Rocky or Jonah for help, because it was smack in the middle of third period. I didn’t really want to call Dad. And I couldn’t drive anywhere.

I’d just have to go on a zombie hunt.

I decided to check the house first, just in case. The front door still stood wide open; I nudged it with my foot. Mike might have snuck back inside while I wasn’t looking.

There were no zombies behind the door, or anywhere else in the living room, for that matter. But the place was a mess. A moldy plate of half-eaten food sat on the coffee table, bugs swarming over it. The floor was strewn with clothes, smelly shoes, and random bits of paper; the cushions hung half off the sofa. The TV blasted some random cooking show. Some chef was chopping carrots at the speed of light. I stabbed the power button and the screen went dark.

I didn’t see the body slumped in the hallway until I tripped over it. I jumped back and held my hands up like I knew karate. I didn’t, but the zombies didn’t know that. The lump on the floor remained motionless, though. I edged forward, turning the light on to get a better look. I instantly regretted that.

I couldn’t remember what Mike’s mom looked like, but I assumed this was her. She looked really young. Maybe it was the dreadlocks.

She was slumped facedown in the corner, the dreads spread out around her head like rays of the sun in a preschooler’s drawing. I
was a little nervous about touching her, because maybe this was all a trap and she was going to try to bite off the part of my lip her son had missed. So I flipped her over and jumped back before I even got a good look at her.

The jump? Completely unnecessary. She was very dead. Her eyes bulged from their sockets, and her face was riddled with bite marks. I clamped my hands over my mouth and backed away. I couldn’t bear to look at her again. There was nothing I could do for her now, and I was going to have nightmares as it was.

If Mike was going all cannibalistic, there was an awfully good chance the rest of the defensive line was doing the same or would be soon.

This did not bode well.

No way was I going to chase Mike through the woods now, not if he was a murderer. I needed another test subject. I still wasn’t thrilled about the idea of using Jonah to test the cure, but it was a better choice than playing hide-and-seek in the woods with a killer.

I stepped over the body and walked into the linen closet by accident before I figured out which door led to the garage. And there was exactly what I needed.

Mike’s 4×4, keys in the ignition.

orty minutes later, I swung into my driveway. I smacked the vials into the syringes with the practiced motion of a gunslinger in a bad Western and slipped them into my belt, one on either side. Then I stepped out of the SUV, squared my shoulders, and marched through my front door.

Or at least, I tried to.

It was locked, and I ended up fumbling around in the depths of my backpack. I couldn’t find my keys. It completely ruined the mental picture I had of myself as an action heroine.

When I finally managed to get inside, the house was silent. I snuck down to the basement. The lights were off, but I wasn’t willing to take it for granted that Jonah wasn’t there. I crept down
the stairs and swung around the corner at the bottom, a syringe held high. But there were no zombified little brothers in the basement. Normally, I would have been relieved by this, but under the circumstances I was disappointed.

I methodically worked my way through the first floor. No Jonah in the kitchen, living room, study, or dining room. He wasn’t hiding in the downstairs bathroom. (No big surprise; that bathroom was tiny, but I checked it anyway to be thorough.) I went upstairs and crept down the hall to Jonah’s bedroom door. It was barely cracked; I kicked it open with the heel of my foot and leapt inside, a syringe in each hand. The room was empty, except for about fifty dollars’ worth of empty soda cans and enough dirty laundry to clothe our high school for a month.

“If I was Jonah, where would I go?” I mumbled, walking outside. I’d have to try to track him, although you could write what I knew about outdoorsy stuff on the back of a postage stamp and still have room left over. I started at the side of the house where we’d been waiting for the bus, followed the path of mass destruction through the garden, and emerged in the backyard.

Bang!

The loud noise scared me so badly that I tripped over one of the lawn chairs.

Bang!

I ducked behind the table. We didn’t have a privacy fence, so our neighbors had a clear line of sight to our backyard. Maybe
someone had seen Jonah; maybe he had attacked someone and now they were shooting at him. If that was the case, I couldn’t afford to wait. I stood up and waved my arms.

“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop shooting. He’s just sick. I can cure him!”

Bang! Bang!

This time, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye; I whirled in that direction. The shed door hung loose. As I watched, a burst of wind slammed it against the frame.

I sprinted for the shed. That door always stayed locked, because some idiot had taken our riding mower for a joyride one year and driven it into the lake down the street. There was only one person who could have unlocked it, and I was searching for him so I could stab him with a syringe.

I flung the door open. I was prepared for a lot of things: Jonah injured, Jonah aggressive, Jonah grunting in monosyllables. I was not prepared to find him duct-taped to a lawn chair.

Thick bands of silver wrapped around his torso, fastening it to the sturdy metal back. His hands were bound in his lap, his ankles to the legs of the chair. Strips of tape crisscrossed his mouth. He was whipping his body back and forth, but there was too much tape and it was stuck tight. The only way he was breaking out of this was if the ghost of Harry Houdini materialized out of the ether and possessed him.

When he saw me, his eyes bugged out.

“Uuuungh!” he grunted through the mouthful of tape.

“Jonah!” I exclaimed, ripping the tape from his mouth.

He lurched in my direction, straining against the tape. The chair tilted, slamming him to the floor. “Hungry!” he snarled, closing his jaws on my foot.

I should have been expecting this, but it still took me by surprise. I fell backward, nearly impaling my head on a rake. The fall put me face to face with him, an arrangement I immediately regretted. His eyes were empty of both reason and recognition. It frightened me more than anything else had so far; Jonah and I might have made each other’s lives miserable, but we still had each other’s backs and always would. Or at least, we always had before he’d gotten zombified.