Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) (18 page)

“Where the hell have you
two been?” said Jenny, scanning the tent. Sully's chests had
been upended, contents spilling all over the ground. His cot was on
its side, sliced down the middle, as though they'd been looking for
something.

Trix and Abel watched her. Trix looked
disinterested, while Abel was curiously studying Jenny's face.
Jenny shook her head, confused. “What the fuck is
this?”

“If you didn't know, you wouldn't be
here,” said Abel. He walked over to her, a cocky smile
spreading across his face. “You know who this shithead is,
don't you? It's all in that pretty little head of yours.” He
touched her nose playfully and Jenny had her knife at his throat
before he could say another word. Abel raised his hands in
surrender, the smile disappearing.

“I think you've mistaken me for someone
who cares if you live or die,” said Jenny.

“Jesus, Jenny,” Abel said
hoarsely.

Trix snorted. “Relax, cheerleader. We're
on the same team.”

“There are no teams,” said
Jenny.

“Bitch, you have no idea what's going on,
do you?” said Trix. She gestured at Abel. “This fucker
works for your bitch mother.”

“What?” said Jenny. Abel squirmed
out from under the knife and stood beside Trix, rubbing his
throat.

“You're strong,” he said, the fake
charm gone. “I didn't expect that.”

“I get that a lot,” said Jenny. She
looked at Trix. “What the fuck are you talking
about?”

Trix rolled her white eyes. “Jesus, you're
slow, cheerleader. You didn't really think your mom was dead, did
you? Casey's story about her just disappearing. You think that was
an accident?”

“She wouldn't leave Casey,” said
Jenny.

“Really?” said Trix. “Just
like she wouldn't let you get tortured by your pervert granddaddy?
And like she wouldn't ever think of experimenting on children, let
alone her own kids?”

“Fuck you, Trix. Like your family's
perfect.”

Abel laughed and Jenny glared at him.
“She didn't exactly leave on her own,” he said after a
moment.

“What are you saying?” said Jenny.
“That you kidnapped my mom?”

“Not me,” said Abel. He was silent,
his eyes, so clear and not-dead, bore into her. It seemed he was
trying to decide what to tell her.

Jenny gritted her teeth and
stepped toward him with the knife. “
Who
?” she said harshly. “Talk.
Now.”

“Put that away,” said Trix, curling
her lip. “Fucking calm down. You're like a yappy little dog
sometimes.” She walked over to the cot and righted it,
sitting on the edge where it wasn't cut. Trix looked up at Abel.
“Just fucking tell her.”

“Fine,” said Abel. He sat on one the
upside-down trunks. “You might want to sit down,
Jenny.”

“I'd rather stand.”

“Whatever,” said Abel, picking up
Sully's tobacco box and opening it. “There's shit going on
that you don't know about.” He started to roll a cigarette,
his fingers moving deftly.

“What kind of shit?” said Jenny.
She'd lowered the knife, but still held it at her side.

“This world you live in,” said Abel.
“All of this. Expo, Heathens, Righteous, fucking rotters.
It's real, but it's also not real.”

“That makes no sense. What are you, an
existentialist now?”

“Aren't we all?” said Abel.
“But what I mean is, there are people who make a great deal
of effort to keep things the way they are. To keep people busy
fighting and surviving and dying with absolutely no idea about
what's really going on.”

“And what
is
really going on?” said Jenny
mockingly.

“They took your mother because she knew
how to fix things. She had a plan for a cure. That's why she holed
up in the bunker in Colorado. She was working on something. And all
she had to do was find you, Jenny. Then she'd be able to stop
it.”

“Stop what?” said Jenny. “The
rotters?”

“Yeah,” said Abel. “You were
the only missing piece.”

“How was she going to do that?”
Jenny glared at him, but she was listening.

“I'm no scientist,” said Abel.
“And she didn't confide in me.”

“If you knew my mom at the bunker,”
said Jenny, “then why didn't Casey know you?”

“I didn't say I was at the bunker,”
said Abel. “I found her later.”

“After she got kidnapped,” said
Jenny. “And this is supposed to make me trust you?”

“Don't get me wrong,” said Abel.
“I was planning on killing her. At first. I looked for her
for years. I was going to kill the bitch that had done this to me.
I was so angry in those days. It didn't occur to me that if it
wasn't for her, I'd just be another rotter. In my mind it was all
her fault. Everything. That was back when I still thought she'd
caused all this. That she'd spread the disease.”

“You think she's innocent?” said
Jenny, forgetting to be skeptical for a moment.

“I know she is,” said Abel.
“Old Franklin Bierce, too.”

“Now I know you're full of shit,”
said Jenny. “My grandfather was a sadist.”

“That might be so,” said Abel.
“But he sure as shit didn't plant the plague in that
subway.”

“Maybe it was an accident,” said
Jenny.

“Oh, it was no accident,” said Abel.
“Someone put it there very purposefully, that you can count
on. It just wasn't anyone in your family.”

“Who then?” said Jenny.

“Who else worked in that lab?” said
Abel. “Had access to everything, including information on
when and where they were conducting epidemic
experiments?”

“Sully,” said Jenny.

“Fucking Sully,” said Trix.

“Why would he do that?” said Jenny.
“He said my mom was his friend.”

“Sully says a lot of things,” said
Abel. “You really think any of them are true?” He
handed Jenny one of the three tightly-rolled cigarettes he had made
while they'd been talking. Trix lit hers and Abel pulled out a box
of matches and lit Jenny's for her. Jenny let him, studying his
face over the light of the match as she forced the smoke into her
dead lungs. It still felt good to smoke. Abel sat down and looked
at her. He lit his own cigarette, the smoke wreathing around his
face, giving him an angelic look.

“Why would Sully plant the plague in a
harmless experiment?” said Jenny. She walked over to the cot
and sat opposite Trix. She took another drag of the cigarette.

“Sully didn't really have a choice, from
what I understand,” said Abel. “Plus, there were no
downsides for him sending civilization crumbling into chaos. Not
with his proclivities.”

“What do you mean?” said Jenny.

“Seriously?” said Trix. “Are
you stupid?”

“The murders?” said Jenny.
“That was Sully? How can you be so sure?”

“Sully had a thing for human
experimentation, from what your mother says,” said Abel.
“For cutting. It started with cadavers, but then she had to
order him to stay away from the kids. That's before you and your
brother came along. The reason he wasn't allowed around the test
subjects is because he enjoyed that shit.” Abel nodded to a
chest in the corner that hadn't been upended. “Take a
look.”

Jenny walked over to the chest, keeping an eye
on Abel at the same time. She reached in and felt cold metal.
Looking down she saw what she had touched. Dozens of railroad
spikes filled the bottom of the chest. There were three bundles of
cloth sitting on top of the spikes. Jenny looked at Abel.

“Open them,” said Abel. “How
will you ever know for sure if you don't? After all, I could be
lying to you. Setting Sully up. Am I right?”

“I don't want to look,” said
Jenny.

“Just fucking look,” said Trix.
“What are you, a debutante? Don't be such a pussy.”

Jenny picked up the first bundle. She untied it,
unrolling it in her hand. It was a makeshift bag and when she
opened it, Jenny relaxed slightly. It wasn't ears or teeth or other
souvenirs. It was just full of leather strips.

“That's what he uses when he ties them
up,” said Abel. “Even the rotters. It used to be just
rotters he went after. But that's all changed now. He's starting in
on the living. Like your friend. What was her name?”

“How do you know about that?” said
Jenny. The harmless looking black leather strips suddenly felt
heavier in her hand. She remembered Sully taking the leathers from
the kids looking for car parts. She had thought at the time that he
was just being kind. But this was what he'd really wanted them
for.

“We saw you,” said Trix.

“You were following me? Was there anyone
who wasn't spying on me that day?”

“You were tight with Sully,” said
Abel. “I had to make sure you weren't involved. Go ahead,
look at everything.”

The second bundle was made of canvas. It clinked
when she unrolled it. It was lined with compartments, like a tool
belt. In each compartment was a tool: scalpels of different sizes,
syringes, little bottles of liquid, and a smaller version of a
handsaw. The saw appeared to be covered in rust, but when Jenny
touched it, the brown flaked off revealing shining metal
underneath. Blood. Jenny dropped it on the ground. She picked up
her cigarette and smoked the last of it, while staring at the last
bundle.

“Are you afraid, cheerleader?” said
Trix.

“I don't want to see,” Jenny
said.

“But you need to,” said Abel.
“So you don't start feeling sorry for this guy. He used to be
your friend, right?”

“I don't know,” said Jenny.
“He was nice to me.”

“Yeah, I'm not sure what his angle was
there,” said Abel.

“I think he had a thing for you,
cheerleader,” said Trix. “You were his own personal
Black Dahlia. He was saving you special.”

Abel looked at Jenny, the third bundle in his
hand. “The perfect victim,” he said. “The girl
who won't die, no matter what you do to her.”

“Fucking serial killer in a zombie
apocalypse,” said Trix. “Just adds insult to
injury.”

“If that was true, why me?” said
Jenny. “There are plenty of us running around. He knew about
the Thirteen. Why would he wait for me?”

“You know the old story,” said Abel.
“Boy meets pretty girl, gets obsessed, wants to murder her,
but gets her turned into a zombie so he can do it over and over
again. It's the oldest story in the book.”

“You're hilarious,” said Jenny.

“I like that story,” said Trix.

Abel unwrapped the third bundle. It was another
bag like the first one. Abel opened it up for her to see. Jenny
didn't want to look but she did anyway. It was hair. Chunks of
hair. Some was held together with a piece of scalp still attached,
others were tied with string or thread. Most of it was bloody.
Jenny turned her face away. Sully had killed Lily. And he hadn't
had the decency to do it quickly. He'd let the rotters do it for
him.

“This can't be right,” said Jenny.
“Sully was with us when Lily died.”

“Maybe he had someone else do it,”
said Abel. “A partner maybe. Or a group.”

“Do you think the Righteous are
involved?” said Jenny.

“Could be,” said Abel. He nodded to
the other side of the room. “We found another trunk full of
guns and ammo.”

Jenny shrugged. “That's no surprise. He's
a vendor. He trades that stuff for a living.”

“Two trunks are missing,” said
Trix.

“How do you know?” said Jenny.

“Marks in the ground,” said Abel,
nodding toward the corner. “Those trunks were heavy. Someone
dragged them out.”

Jenny looked at the ground and saw what he
meant.

“Sully killed all those people in the
subway,” she said.

“I don't know anything about that,”
said Abel. “But I feel like a bunch of guns missing from a
serial killer's tent is probably a bad thing.”

“What the hell?” Jenny looked over,
still holding the bag of bloody hair. Declan had entered, his hand
on the ax shoved into his belt.

“It's Sully,” said Jenny.

“What about Sully?” said Declan,
eying Trix and Abel. Abel licked his lips.

“He's the killer,” said Jenny.
“I think Casey might be in a lot of trouble.”

“Why?” said Trix, her head whipping
toward Jenny. “Why is Casey in trouble?”

“Because we took Sully yesterday,”
said Jenny. “He's at the museum. With Grayson, Fisher...and
Casey. We have to go. Now.”

Declan shifted in the passenger seat, casting
looks into the backseat. “Was it necessary to bring
them?” he said, nodding to Trix and Abel. Abel grinned at him
wolfishly.

“They're just like me,” said Jenny.
“And if Sully is who we think he is, something bad is going
on.”

Trix leaned forward. “You know this creepy
motherfucker only eats evil pieces of shit, right?”

“Don't tell people that,” Abel
hissed.

“Why? Are you afraid people will think
you're a pussy?”

“It just ruins things. Makes people think
I'm some kind of hero.”

“Oh,” said Declan, “I don't
think you have to worry about that.”

“Shut up,” said Jenny. “We're
almost there. Get ready.”

“You sure about this?” said
Declan.

“Why wouldn't I be?” said Jenny.

Declan shrugged. “You always said that was
the line. We don't kill the living unless we have no other
choice.”

“I'm not that person anymore, I told
you,” said Jenny. “Besides. What choice do I have? He's
already killed me once. That I know about. ”

“I guess you don't really have a
choice,” said Declan. “But, maybe, you should think
about the source.”

“What, Abel?” said Jenny. “He
works for my mother.”

“He says.”

“You think he planted all that torture
shit in Sully's tent?” said Jenny.

“I'm just saying it's possible,”
said Declan.

“Do I get a say in this?” said
Abel.

“We didn't plant shit,” said Trix.
She leaned forward until she was close to Declan. “Say it
again, meat suit. I'll eat your soft bits first.” Declan's
grip tightened on the ax sitting at his feet. “You think you
can swing an ax in a car before I can rip your face off?”
Trix smiled.

“Leave him alone,” said Jenny. Trix
sat back in her seat, still glaring at Declan. Jenny looked at Abel
in the rear-view mirror. He looked surprisingly unworried by
Declan's accusation. “It wasn't a coincidence that you were
in Sully's tent the first time I found you,” she said.

Abel met her eyes in the mirror.
“Obviously,” he said.

“What were you doing there?” said
Jenny.

“Following orders,” he said, a smirk
surfacing on his face.

“Orders from who?”

“Whom,” Trix corrected. “Just
because we're dead doesn't mean we can't use correct fucking
grammar.”

“Fuck off,” said Jenny. She looked
back at Abel.

“It came to someone's attention that Sully
found you. We didn't know about the murders. My orders were to find
you and warn you. If that failed, I was supposed to kill Sully. By
the time I found you, you were already dead. So, in a way, you
saved his life.”

“But you didn't warn me,” said
Jenny.

“How the hell was I to know you'd bring
the bastard home with you?” said Abel. “Besides,
there's safety in numbers. You weren't in any danger as far as I
could see.”

“Someone,” said Jenny. “My
mother? She ordered you?”

“This goes higher than your mother,”
said Abel. “All the way to the top.”

“The top of what?”

“Everything.”

“Stop bullshitting me,” said Jenny.
“It pisses me off when people bullshit me.”

“There isn't anything that doesn't piss
you off,” said Trix.

“It'll pass,” said Abel. “It's
always the worst in the beginning.”

“So they keep telling me,” said
Jenny. “Who sent you?”

“Nothing you do to me,” said Abel,
“nothing anyone can do to me is worse than what they will do
to me if I answer that question. You have no idea what's really
going on. And it's better that way. I wish I didn't
know.”

“So you're saying my mom is involved with
a bunch of unnamed people who sent a zombie hybrid to save my
life.”

“I didn't say that,” said Abel.
“And I'm not a zombie.”

“Whatever,” said Jenny. “And
I'm supposed to trust you?”

“You're very important,” said Abel.
“I don't know why, but those motherfuckers want you
safe.”

“And my mother?” said Jenny.

Abel hesitated before answering. “Your
mother doesn't know I'm here. She was...unavailable when I tried to
get a message to her.”

“So you're a double agent
or some shit?” said Jenny. “Working for the
suits
and
the prisoner?”

“You make it sound so clandestine,”
said Abel.

“Perfect,” said Jenny. “Not
only is my life completely fucked, but I'm the center of a
conspiracy. And I thought that shit died with the
government.”

“If I were you,” said Abel, “I
would be very careful in assuming the world is so very much
different than it was before.”

“And why shouldn't we just kill
you?” said Declan.

“You can,” said Abel. “But I
think you're going to need my help before this whole thing is over.
And I think Jenny knows why she's not going to kill me. Or even
hurt me.”

Jenny ground her teeth. She felt Declan's eyes
on her.

“Yeah,” said Jenny.

“Jen?” said Declan. “What's he
talking about?”

“You are some kind of slow,” said
Trix. “He knows where to find her bitch mother.”

“She doesn't exactly have a choice,”
said Abel.

Jenny tightened her grip on the steering wheel
until her knuckles were white. “He's right,” she said,
her voice a growl. “If I want to find out about this cure, I
have to find her. We need Abel to stay alive.”

“Shame,” said Declan. “I was
looking forward to knocking that smarmy look off his
face.”

“You know, that's funny,” said Abel.
“You are not the first person to say that.”

“Let's just get to the museum,” said
Jenny. “Hopefully everything's fine and I'm freaking out for
nothing. Sully's working in the lab, and everyone's
fine.”

“Right,” said Trix. “Because
an obsessed serial killer will use his manners when he's kidnapped
by dead kids. Good luck with that, cheerleader.”
“Just a burst of fucking sunshine, isn't she?” said
Abel.

Jenny drove faster.

“Jesus fuck,” said Declan. They
stared at Fisher. What was left of him anyway.

“Do you think he was conscious when he did
that?” said Trix, her voice uncharacteristically low.

“No,” said Abel. “There's no
way a living would be strong enough. He put the knife in his skull
first.”

Fisher hung on the wall like some kind of
off-kilter, macabre piece of art. Black sludge dripped out of a
wound under his chin where Sully had shoved a blade into his brain.
Probably the same blade that secured him to the plaster just above
the collarbone. But Sully had made some adjustments before he put
him there. Fisher's hands and feet were gone. And just like the
other rotter Jenny had seen, a smile had been carved on his
face.

“I'm going to eat this bastard for
dinner,” said Abel.

Jenny had to work to unclench her jaw before she
spoke. “Find Casey,” she said. No one argued with her.
They fanned out, calling Casey's name. Jenny backed away from
Fisher's body. She bumped against something. Her mind was foggy,
slow. Turning around, she realized she was up against the door to
the lab. She turned the doorknob and entered.

It was clean. The metal and white tile were so
bright they hurt her eyes. There was nothing out of place, and it
took her a moment to figure out why that was so odd. It looked like
nothing had been touched. Not a fingerprint, not a stool out of
place. Nothing under the microscope lenses. Jenny walked around,
disbelieving. Sully hadn't done anything. He hadn't even tried. She
looked down into a small garbage can in the corner. Something was
inside. She picked it up and stared. The syringes. All the
syringes. Full of all the blood Sully had taken. He had never
planned on helping them.

“Why the fuck did he agree to stay?”
Jenny muttered. She pulled the syringes out and looked at them
blankly. And realized her mistake. There were only three syringes
here, filled with black fluid. One was missing.

“Oh, fuck,” she said, dropping the
trashcan. It clattered, echoing around the empty room. She stared
at the blood samples in her hand. The missing syringe had been full
of her blood. She remembered the rotter who had bitten her in the
train car, and then come back to himself in a rotten brain with a
rotten body. “Oh, fuck,” she said again, pressing the
heel of her hand against her forehead. She felt dizzy. Her vision
was going red around the edges. She could feel something coming
closer. Something she could tear apart. She fought the urge, but
the red didn't retreat this time. It just got stronger.

Declan put his head through the door, his eyes
seeking her. Seeing her face, he straightened, frowning.
“What is it?” he said, stepping toward her.

“Don't come any closer,” she said,
her voice a raw whisper.

“Jenny...” he was reaching for her,
no fear in his eyes. She could just reach out and he would be hers.
She felt her lips retract as she bared her teeth. Declan stopped,
but it was too late. Jenny grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward
her. She grabbed him around the neck, dropping the syringes on the
floor, and pulled his face toward hers. She felt a low growl rise
in her throat. She imagined how the hot blood would feel running
down her throat, the flesh between her teeth so much warmer than
her cold body. She opened her mouth, then, with her last vestige of
control, she let go and pulled out her knife. The whole world was a
deep, dark red. She was going to hurt Declan.

“
Noooo!
” she
screamed at him, his shock and disbelief seeming to paralyze him.
Jenny raised the knife and he finally unfroze, his feet slipping on
the clean floor. But the knife wasn't for him. Jenny screamed as
she drove the blade into her left arm. Slowly the red in her vision
ebbed away, and after a moment it disappeared completely. Bright
red blood ran thickly from her arm onto the shining counter, and
dripped onto the bright floor. Red on white. She wouldn't meet
Declan's eyes. Her arm exploded with pain.

“I'm sorry,” she said through blurry
eyes and gritted teeth. “You have to go.”

“No,” he said. She looked at him.
His face was ashen and when he raised his arm to smooth his hair
back, his hand was shaking. He met her eyes. “I'm not leaving
you.”

“If you don't leave me, I'm going to kill
you,” Jenny said. “It's just who I am now.”

“Bullshit,” he said, rising to his
full height. “You are who you are. People don't change. Not
really.”

“You don't believe that,” she said.
The hunger was still there, sharp and cold and filling up her
insides, the pain in her arm helping her ignore it. But it wouldn't
be long before she couldn't ignore it any longer.

“I still love you, Jen. I always will.
Even if we can never be together. I'm not leaving.”

“Fuck you, Declan. You know what I'm
trying to do?”

“Push me away,” he said simply.

“No!” Jenny said, her voice loud and
echoing. She pulled the knife out of her arm and let it drop to her
side. It had stopped bleeding, but it was sticky from the blood and
throbbed like there was something alive inside of it. “I'm
trying to save your life.”

“Maybe I don't want to be saved,” he
said.

Trix and Abel appeared in the doorway.

“What the fuck did you do to her?”
said Trix, advancing on Declan. “You stupid living piece of
shit. I knew you couldn't be trusted.” Declan was backing
away from her.

“Trix,” said Jenny weakly. “I
did this. It wasn't him.”

“You?” she said, looking at Jenny.
“Why the fuck would you stab yourself?”

“Because she didn't want to kill
him,” said Abel, meeting Jenny's eyes. For a moment, an
expression like sadness crossed his face, but it was gone just as
quickly as it came. “You should go eat, Jenny. It'll take the
edge off.”

“Did you find Casey?” said
Jenny.

“No,” said Trix, glowering at
Declan. “He's gone. Weird, right? Like he had help or
something.”

Declan frowned. “How could I have helped
Sully? I was with you guys the whole time.”

“You were following Jenny,” said
Trix. “Maybe you had some of your asshole friends come and
bust him out.” She looked at the blood, seeming to see it for
the first time. “Why the fuck is your blood red?”

“Shut up, Trix,” said Jenny.
“And it wasn't Declan.”

“Then how?” said Trix. “How
the fuck does a living come in here, kill one of ours and take the
other?”

“One,” said Jenny, her eyes
widening. “Where's Grayson?”

Trix shook her head. “We didn't find
him.”

“You think he helped Sully?” said
Abel.

“I don't know if we can trust anything we
know anymore,” said Jenny.

“So this Grayson guy was one of you
guys?” said Declan.

“Yeah,” said Jenny. She looked at
Trix again. “You feel that?”

“What?”

“Ignore Declan and just feel.”

She looked at Jenny blankly for a moment, then
realization hit her. “Fuck!” Trix ran out of the
room.

“Did I miss something?” said
Declan.

“We can sense living things,” said
Jenny. “With you here, it sort of skewed our senses a
little.”

“Because I'm food?”

“Because you're alive,” said Jenny.
“It made it so we didn't notice anything else.”

“Such as?” said Declan. “You
feel something else alive around here?”

“More like something she doesn't
feel,” said Abel. “This lot doesn't eat people for
whatever fucked up reason. There used to be goats in the
basement.”

“Used to be?” said Declan.

“I can't feel them anymore,” said
Jenny. “They're either dead or missing.”

“What does that mean exactly?” said
Declan.

“It means, genius-boy,” said Abel,
“that our little group is going to have to get creative if
Jenny and Trix want to live.”

Declan looked at Jenny. “You're going to
have to eat someone?” he said.