Gravediggers (22 page)

“Mirror,” I say breathlessly.

“Over here,” says Kendra, leading me to my dresser.

The mirror on top of my dresser shows a hilariously cinematic sight. My skin is perfectly pale, my eyes slowly going white in their deep, shadowy perches. The lines in my face seem even stronger, like canyons in my skin. Even my lips have gone slowly dark, threatening to turn a full unholy black. As much as I don't bear the urge for viciousness or brutality, I look like the creatures in the movies—sallow, stark, ready to set fear in the hearts of men.

Someone knocks at my door, and everyone but me starts. “PJ?” calls Kyra. “Are you okay?”

This won't do.

“I'm fine,” I say, trying to sound as
fine
as possible. “Just . . . need some more time.”

“I have no idea what to do,” whispers Kendra.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch my monster makeup kit, the cosmetic-filled tackle box I've been using for my werewolf movie. Digging through it, I find an underused product beneath the prosthetic gashes and rigid collodion—a pat of foundation I stole from my mother, meant to be the color of plain flesh. Normally, I use it to help blend in latex wounds to people's skin.

“O'Dea,” I say, “can you make me look human?”

My friend smiles sympathetically, but then says, “PJ, I'm sorry, I just can't . . . you're a—”

“I got it,” says Ian. He takes the sponge and dabs at my face. Doesn't even say anything about being a dude putting makeup on his best male friend, or about O'Dea not being able to touch me because of what I am. I can't blame anyone for feeling weird. This
is
weird. Every time Ian's hand comes to my face, I have to remind myself that he's not food.

As he applies makeup, I can't help but smile. This is kind of hilarious in a bizarre way, isn't it? That has to be acknowledged—here is PJ Wilson, the world's first self-aware zombie, having his Living Guy makeup applied by his best buddy who's also destined to kill him. That's absolutely ridiculous. Truly absurd.

It would be a shame to go undocumented.

“O'Dea,” I say, “get the camera. Kendra, can you upload the footage from the cave onto my computer?”

“On it,” she says, snatching up the flash drive and bringing it over to my desk.

O'Dea takes the camera and tentatively peers into the viewfinder, mumbling, “All right, red circle's there. You're rolling.”

“How's the light?” I ask.

“Pretty good,” she says. “A little stark.”

“That's fine, kind of appropriate. Okay, October thirtieth, Halloween eve,” I say, training my pale eyes on the camera lens. “This is the life of Undercover Zombie, day one. Ian Buckley, our perpetual protagonist, is applying my makeup. Say hi, Ian.”

“Yo,” mumbles Ian, trying not to smile.

Kendra flies her way around my computer, opening the footage to the sounds of crunching and screams. Ian pushes my head to one side to smear makeup onto my dead ears. In the dark, under the eye of my camera, I talk about zombies while trying to feel like a human being.

It all feels surprisingly normal.

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About the Author

CHRISTOPHER KROVATIN
is the author of the Gravediggers series as well as the young adult novels
Heavy Metal and You
and
Venomous
. He is also a contributing writer to
Revolver
magazine and a lifelong devotee to the zombie genre. He lives in Brooklyn.

 

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Books by Christopher Krovatin

Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones

Gravediggers: Terror Cove

Credits

Cover art © 2014 by Cliff Nielsen

Cover design by Joel Tippie

Copyright

Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

Gravediggers: Entombed

Copyright © 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Krovatin, Christopher.

    Entombed / by Christopher Krovatin. — First edition.

        pages    cm. — (Gravediggers ; [3])

    Summary: “In this final installment of the series, Ian, Kendra, and PJ face their most dangerous zombie-fighting mission of all, deep in the caves of Indonesia” —Provided by publisher.

    ISBN 978-0-06-207746-2 (hardback)

    EPUB Edition JULY 2014 ISBN 9780062077486

    [1. Zombies—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Horror stories.] I. Title.

PZ7.K936En    2014

2013047950

[Fic]—dc23

CIP

AC

14   15   16   17   18      CG/RRDH      10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

FIRST EDITION