Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) (15 page)

“What the hell took you
so long?” said Grayson. “I've been stuck here for
hours.”

“Ran out of gas,” said Jenny.

“Among other things,” said
Casey.

Jenny walked past Grayson and into the room that
now resembled a lab more than Miss Haversham's bedroom. Sully was
polishing a microscope he'd taken apart on the now-clean counter.
He looked up when she entered.

“Jen,” he said, looking pleased to
see her. “Did you get it?”

“Get what?” she growled.

He frowned. “The centrifuge. Is everything
okay?”

Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump
thump thump.

Jenny walked toward him slowly and he slid off
his stool and backed away from her. She felt like the anger had
sharpened her, made her better. There were worse monsters out there
than her. Sully backed into the wall. Jenny could hear his heart
beating, the blood rushing through his veins. She could smell the
meat of him.

She reached out slowly, her movements almost
gentle. His throat was hot to the touch. He clawed and struck at
her as she squeezed, but she barely felt it. There was a rushing in
her ears. She had him pinned hard against the wall by the throat.
His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. He was
flopping around like a dying fish, too, his eyes wide and
bloodshot. His face went from pink to red to purple.

“I keep wondering about you,” Jenny
said, her voice low and calm. “I am so tired of being lied
to, Sully. You can't even imagine how tired I am. So I want
answers. Now. Or I am going to put my teeth in your tenderest
places. And then do you know what I'm going to do?” She
snapped her teeth together. “I'm going to bite down. And I'm
not going to be able to hear your screams, Sully. Or maybe I won't
care. Because I'm a monster. I'm not Jenny. Not anymore. I'm
something else now. And if you tell me one more lie, you're going
to find out exactly what I am.”

“Jenny, what the fuck?” Casey said
from behind her.

Jenny let go of Sully's throat and took a step
back as he pitched forward onto the floor, coughing and gasping for
air. Jenny crouched down next to him.

“Did you tell Declan to go to that
lab?” she said.

“What lab?” he wheezed, tears
streaming down his face.

“The basement lab, Sully. How did you know
where we were going?”

“Was it a secret?” he said, his eyes
darting around the room.

Jenny narrowed her eyes. “Declan was
there, asshole. Why was Declan there? What are the odds he would be
there at the exact same time that you just had to have a fucking
centrifuge?”

“You think I did that?” Sully said,
pushing himself up with his hands. “You give me way too much
credit. Besides, that bastard wants to kill me.”

“You planned for me to die,” said
Jenny.

“Oh, and I suppose I should have planned
for getting kidnapped by a bunch of undead kids?” he said. He
managed to stand and leaned one hand shakily on the counter.
“I heard about it somewhere, okay? Come to think of it, your
brother told me about it. I might have mentioned it, but not to
Declan.”

Jenny looked around at Casey who was standing
with everyone else. They had apparently gathered to watch the show.

“Did you?” she asked Casey.

He looked like a deer in the headlights.
“I might have,” he said.

“You said no one else knew about that
place. Just you.”

“He mentioned it in passing,” said
Sully. “And I remembered. It's not his fault.”

“Who did you tell?” said Jenny.

“I told Lucy about it. She's always
interested in trading. I told her if there was anything useful
there that I would make it worth her while. Bartering, Jen. It's
what I do.”

“So it was all a big coincidence,”
said Jenny.

“You're damn straight it was a
coincidence,” said Sully.

Jenny looked around. “Give us a minute,
would you?” she said. Everyone started to back out of the
doorway, including Casey, though he looked apprehensive.

“Whoa, whoa,” said Sully.
“Come on, Jen. I told you the truth.”

“Shut up, I'm not going to kill
you,” said Jenny. She closed the door after everyone else was
gone. Then she walked over to Sully. He flinched when she got
close.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I had
to be sure.”

“It's fine,” he sighed.
“Whatever. You don't trust me. I get it. I wouldn't trust me
either.”

“I just watched my friend die,” she
said.

Sully was massaging his throat. He stopped and
looked at her. “One of Munro's crew?”

“No. Someone else.”

Sully sat down on the stool he'd been perched on
when Jenny had entered. She walked over and sat on the counter next
to him.

“What do you want, Jenny?” Sully
said. He wasn't angry or irritated. He was really asking her.

“You hear things,” she said.
“Information.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I hear a lot of stuff.
Some real, some bullshit. Heathens are like a bunch of old hens
gossiping over the fence, you know? You never know what's real.
Gotta take it with a grain of salt.”

“What do you know about the rotters on the
poles?”

“Oh,” said Sully.

“You've heard something?” said
Jenny.

“I don't know,” Sully said.
“It's probably not true. I hear a lot of weird
shit.”

“Who's doing it?”

“No one knows. I heard it was some kind of
Righteous that went crazy.”

“Crucified,” said Jenny.

“Yeah, real fucking piece of work, that
guy must be,” said Sully.

“You think it's one guy?” said
Jenny.

“I don't know,” said Sully.
“All I know is, whoever it is, he finds rotters and nails
them to poles and shit. They can't get loose until they're nothing
but bones. By that time they're dead. They say rotters can't
suffer, but...” he shook his head. “That shit's brutal,
Jen. I've seen a few. Fucking things are just giving off this whine
by the end. Like a dog who's been kicked too many times. I don't
like rotters any more than the next guy, but no creature deserves
that.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” said
Jenny.

“You're no rotter,” said Sully.

“Maybe,” she said. “But I'm
not living either.”

“Why did you ask about the rotters? What's
that got to do with your friend?”

Jenny looked away. “Because the same thing
happened to her. He did that to Lily. She's dead. She's fucking
dead.” She felt a twinge behind her eyes like she was going
to cry, but it was gone in an instant. She closed her eyes.

“Are you sure?” Sully said. There
was something about his voice. Something strange. She opened her
eyes and looked at him. He was pale as a sheet.

Thumpthumpthumpthump.

“Positive,” said Jenny. “I
just watched her die. I put a knife into her brain so she wouldn't
change. She was just a girl.”

“Was she...”

“She wasn't one of us,” said Jenny.
“Whatever we are. She was alive. Jesus, she was so
young.”

“Fuck,” said Sully. “What
happened? Fuck.”

“He nailed her to a telephone pole,”
said Jenny, narrowing her eyes at him. “These big railroad
spikes. I could hear her broken bones grinding against the metal
when she moved.”

“So he didn't kill her?” said
Sully.

“The fuck he didn't,” said Jenny.
Sully shrank back. “He nailed her to a post and left her
there. It only took one rotter. That baby would never have had a
chance anyway. Not here.”

Sully swallowed hard. “Baby?”

“She was pregnant. First thing the rotter
did was rip that baby out of her.”

“A baby,” Sully said, as if he
couldn't quite understand the word.

“What else do you know about this
guy?” said Jenny. “Why are you so upset? Your heart is
racing.”

“Of course I'm upset,” said Sully.
He cleared his throat. “Someone you loved died in a horrible
way. Maybe I'm afraid the same thing will happen to me.”

“Maybe,” said Jenny.

“Did she say anything else?” said
Sully. “Your friend.”

“No,” said Jenny, deciding to keep
everything else to herself. “I'm going to catch this guy. And
when I do, I'm going to take a page from Abel's book.”

“What does that mean?” said
Sully.

“It means I'm going to follow my
instincts,” said Jenny. “I'm going to do what nature
intends. Lily was everything that was good. I've never met anyone
so good. So I'm going to find this evil motherfucker and when I'm
finished, he'll have felt every tear, every pain of every nerve,
every broken bone. If I can, I'm going to make him as afraid as she
was. If I can, I'm going to scare him to death.”

“I don't think you have any worries
there,” said Sully. “You're scary as shit
already.”

Jenny eyed him. “Good.”

“Any chance I could get some sleep?”
he said. “I'm feeling pretty worn down.”

“Let's draw the blood first,” said
Jenny. “Then you can sleep. I got syringes.”

“I can prepare the slides,” said
Sully, “but the blood's going to go bad.”

“Then I guess we'll have to draw more
later,” said Jenny.

One by one they came in and Sully helped guide
the needle to the vein. Casey first, the thick black slime in the
syringe looking more like tar than blood. Grayson and Fisher were
the same. When it was Jenny's turn, she watched the needle go into
her arm, expecting the same dark matter to get sucked into the
syringe. Sully jumped and nearly ripped out the needle when it
happened.

“What the hell?” Jenny said, looking
at Sully in confusion. “Why is it--”

“Red,” said Sully, a note of awe in
his voice. “Jenny, your blood is red.”

“I can fucking see that,” she said.
“Why?”

He filled up the syringe and pulled it out. A
drop of bright red appeared where the needle had made a hole. She
looked at Sully again. He was looking at the syringe with a dreamy
look on his face.

“What's going on, Sully?” she
said.

He looked up at her, visibly shaken. “I
don't know,” he said, “but I'm ready to find
out.”

It was easy to slip out when Casey went to the
basement to eat. Fisher and Grayson had gone out to find some
canned food for Sully. It was a longer walk than a car ride, but it
was easy now that she didn't have to worry about the hordes of
rotters. Sometimes the loners would sense her and start following
her around and she'd have to lose them, but other than that, it was
a nighttime stroll.

She couldn't let Casey come
with her. She had to do this on her own. Jenny couldn't shake the
thoughts buzzing around in her head like angry bees. It took her a
long time to come to the realization that all the places Sully had
mentioned, all the spots she remembered hearing about the Righteous
nailing rotters to posts, were places she had been. Correction:
places she had been
with Declan.
And
if Declan had killed all the people in the Underground, it couldn't
be a coincidence that Lily had ended up on a post.

She couldn't believe it was Declan. He would
never be so cruel. He wouldn't knowingly taunt her with her
grandfather, and he wouldn't nail a pregnant girl to a pole. But
Jenny wanted to be sure. She wanted to know without a doubt that
Declan wasn't nuts.

It made her feel like even more of a monster
when she thought about suspecting Declan. She wanted to disprove
that he could do such a thing, but what if she couldn't disprove
it? What would that mean? It was all a lie? Everything beautiful
she had thought about the world? She didn't believe it. She wanted
to run away and never talk to any of The Thirteen again, to bury
herself in a cave somewhere and never come out. But if Declan was
killing people, she had to know the truth. She couldn't run.

Jenny stood in front of the subway entrance for
a long time. A putrid stench drifted out of the tunnel. It didn't
make her gag any longer. She was starting to find the smell oddly
comforting. At least there were no living. She wound the crank on
the flashlight she'd stolen from Fisher's room. She wanted to
examine every detail.

Her feet crunched on gravel as she walked down
the tunnel, the sound echoing hollowly off the cement arches. She
shone the light to her right and the train cars came into view. She
tried not to look at them as she passed. She had no reason to be
afraid any longer, but looking at those cars, she felt strange. She
didn't feel angry or hungry. She felt afraid. She felt...human.
Jenny froze with the realization. She should just keep walking. She
should ignore the feeling. Human is not what she needed now. Jenny
needed to feel invincible. But she couldn't help it. She felt
afraid and anxious and shaky, and it was wonderful.

Training the flashlight on the car at the front, she
heard her steps echoing without even realizing she was taking
them. The broken window. The door that had been locked but was now
completely torn off its hinges and lying innocently on the floor.
She could smell the rot of things old and dead coming from inside.
It was different from the putrid scent wafting from the Underground
camp. It was dustier, earthier. Jenny stood there looking at the
car for what seemed a very long time.

“This is stupid,” she muttered to
herself. She turned to go, then paused in midstep. A noise. She was
sure she heard it. It had come from inside the train car. She
pulled out her knife and walked to the door.

“Is someone there?” she said. The
last time she had said that, it had gotten her locked in with a
bunch of hungry rotters. She looked around, even though she knew no
one was here. She would have sensed them. Whatever was inside, it
wasn't alive. Jenny shook her head, feeling stupid.

“
Heeeelllp meee.
” The voice was soft, almost a whisper.

“Fuck it,” Jenny said. And she
stepped into the car.

It was just as she'd left it. Bones littered the
floor, along with scraps of fabric and other refuse. She had a
light this time, though. She didn't have to feel around. She looked
down the car towards the end with the broken window. That was where
she'd found Casey. She stared at the spot where he had sat for a
long time. She moved the flashlight down the length of the car
until it rested on the other end. Something was there. Someone.

Jenny walked toward the shape, leaving the light
focused on it. Slowly, it moved. A hand, decayed and looking like
something from a horror movie, moved from its lap and up to its
face. It was shielding its eyes from the light. Jenny squinted at
the shape. Wispy hair, mostly gone from his head, white eyes,
decayed skin that was gone in patches on his cheeks.

A rotter. Just a rotter. She lowered the light.
She had sworn she had heard words. She headed back to the door.

“
Doon't goooo...
”

A shiver that she hadn't felt in a long time
went up Jenny's spine. She shot the light back at the dead man. He
had lowered his desiccated hand, but moved his face away from the
light. Jenny approached him.

“What is this?” she said, Her voice
shook when she said the words.

“
Deeeaaad,
”
said the rotter, his jaw moving as the dusty words came out.
“
But noooow, not deeead.
”

“You look dead to me,” she said.
“You look like you shouldn't be moving any more, even for a
rotter.”

“
I rememberrr.
”

“Remember what?” said Jenny sharply.
“Why can you talk? You're not like us.”

“
Yooouuu weeere here,
” said the creature. “
I'm...
” The rotter stopped, looking up at her, into the
light even though it seemed to pain him. “
I'm sooorrrry.
”

Jenny walked toward him until she was right next to him.
She switched off the flashlight and crouched down. When her eyes adjusted, she looked at the rotter's face. He stared back, but
after a time, looked away with a dusty noise that may have been a sob.

“I know you,” Jenny whispered. She
looked down at the rotters legs. One shinbone was completely gone,
the jagged stump of a bone glowing white in the darkness. She had
broken that leg. She had forgotten about him until it was too
late.

“You killed me,” she said.
“How are you alive? Casey killed you, I saw it.”

“
Woke uuup
,”
he said. He raised his face so she could see the mark under his
chin. She shone the flashlight on it. A scar. A fucking scar right
where Casey had stabbed her knife into his skull. Rotters didn't
get scars. He lowered his face to look at her again and she lowered
the flashlight.

“How is this possible?” she
said.

“
Woke uuup. Healed.
Rememberrrred.
”

“Remembered what?” she said.

“
Everrrything. Death. Sooo many
lives.
”

“You remember everyone you killed?”
Jenny said.

“
I woke uuup. You woke me
uuup.
”

“When you bit me?” she said.

The dead man slowly nodded.
“
Nooot a murdererrrr. Had a family. I'm
sorry.
”

“It's not your fault,” she said.
“You were undead.”

“
You weren't the oooonly one
.
Soo much death.
Soo much.
” The dead man became smaller as he tried to pull his
arms and legs close to his chest. “
Pleeease. Kill meee.
”

“What's your name?”

He stared at her blankly for a
long time. “
Dooon't know. Been too long. Only
rememberrr my family. Liiillly.
”

Jenny stared at him. “What did you
say?”

“
Myyy daughter. Lilllly.
”

Jenny looked away. She pictured
Lily's pretty face smeared with blood as the life went out of her
eyes.
My baby,
she had said. Jenny
wanted to scream again. There was nothing fair or good in this
world anymore.

“I'm sorry,” Jenny said. “I'm
sorry I did this to you.”

“
I biit yoou. I killed yooou.
”

“It wasn't you,” said Jenny.

“
I waas a monster,
” he said. “
I deserve this.
”

“You didn't mean to,” Jenny said.
“You just did what was natural.”

“
I have a choice nooow. Kill
meee.
”

“No,” said Jenny. “What if you
get better? If you're like me, maybe you'll be okay.”

“
Tooo old. Caaan't move. Not
betterrr.
”

“You might, though,” said Jenny. She
should jump at the chance to kill him, after what he did to her.
But looking at the pitiful wretch on the floor, rocking back and
forth and waiting to die, she felt only pity. His memories of the
murders he'd committed while he was a rotter must have been
horrible. To wake up, rotted away and only your memories of doing
horrible things, must have been hell. She would have wanted to die
too.

“Okay,” she said.

“
Thaaank you.
”

“I hope you find your family,” said
Jenny. “If there's a Heaven. Or something.”

“
I won't,
”
he said. “
I'm going to buuurn in Hell for what I've
done.
”

“I don't think so,” said Jenny.
“I forgive you.”

What was left of the dead man's eyelids lowered
as he closed his eyes. He seemed to relax a little. Jenny brought
the point of her knife under his chin. She looked at the dead man's
face, grotesque and rotting away. Without opening his eyes, she
felt him give a little nod. He didn't make a sound as she shoved
the knife into his skull.

When it was done, Jenny leaned back on her
haunches, looking at him. It didn't feel right. Everything was off.
She dropped the flashlight and it echoed in the train car. It
rolled down to rest against the rotter's broken leg. Jenny reached
down to pick it up and her hand brushed something. She picked up
the flashlight and trained it to the spot.

Something white was under the rotter's bone.
Jenny fished it out, trying not to touch the broken appendage. It
wasn't that she was squeamish, it just seemed too personal after
her conversation with the pitiful creature. Her fingers touched
something that felt like paper. She pulled it out.

It was crumpled, but still in one piece. Jenny
opened it and smoothed it out. There was writing on it. She took up
the flashlight again and shone the beam on the paper. It looked
like some kind of list. She squinted at it.

Dear Jenny,
the top
read. She frowned. She scanned the page and made out Casey's name.
She recognized a few others, too.
Paul Fisher
was one.
Grayson Taylor. Trixie Jiang. Abel
Cruz.

“Holy shit,” Jenny
said. It was the list of The Thirteen. The one Casey had lost. She
looked at the bottom, at her mother's signature.
Sincerely, Anna Hawkins,
it said. The list was very clinical, just like her mother had been. It
was written in a neat, tidy hand. She looked at the short note
jotted at the top.

I don't know if you'll ever find this, but I
pray you do. Stay safe and stay alive, because
the world needs you. Protect Casey if you can. Attached is a list
of the survivors of the trials. Find them. Protect each other, but
above all, protect yourself. You are the cure. Survive.

The list followed, then the
signature. Jenny stared at the words. The way Casey had explained
it, the letter said they were all the cure.
You are the
cure,
it said.
Dear Jenny.
Jenny folded it up and put it in her pocket.