Undead Much (25 page)

  “You’ve got to-”

  “Wait a second.” I turned, already praying I wasn’t smelling what I thought I was smelling. But it was there, the scent of grave dirt and rotted corpse, mingling with the smell of funnel cakes frying in the food tents.

  Zombies. Real zombies-not the coma kind this time-and they were hella close, if the faint groans were any indication.

  “I have to go.”

  “No! You can’t fight them!”

  “Well, I’m not going to feed them a human heart.”

  “They’re not the zombies you have to worry about!” Cliff yelled after me, but I ignored him, hurrying toward the ice as fast as my clumsy feet would carry me. “You have to get down to the river, by the bridge! There’s no time to waste.”

  I stumbled over a fallen tree and hit the ground, but was up again a second later. Cliff was right, there was no time to waste. Screams suddenly sounded from the ice-raw, terrified screams.

  “No, Megan. Don’t fight them,” Cliff called after me.

  Sorry, Cliff, but I couldn’t leave over a dozen people vulnerable to zombie attack.

  I burst onto the ice so fast I nearly fell down again, but managed to regain my balance in time to glide to the left, getting out of the path of a couple of CHS kids who were running screaming from the ice. Behind them, I caught a glimpse of the unholy heck that had broken loose in the past few minutes.

  The ice that was once clean and unmarked except for the tracks made by a few eager skaters was already spattered with blood. Two patches of crimson stained the pond, horrific roses blooming larger and larger as the zombies ripped into their victims. They were real zombies this time, dozens of them. Their eyes glowed red, pus dripped from the edges of their mouths, and the stench of rotted flesh filled the air, mingling with the scent of hot dogs, making gorge rise in my throat.

  But there was no time for yacking or people were going to die. Again.

  Thankfully, my Settlers’ Affairs tail was already out of her car and on the job,
pax frater corpus
-ing one of the two zombies who had managed to get its mouth into living flesh. Kitty’s tiny hands flashed as she struck the feral corpse with her silver knife and chanted the words that would put it down and keep it down until a Protocol team could come remove the body.

  “Megan! Get the other one, while I call for backup!” she screamed as she pulled her cell from her back pocket. I nodded and turned toward the other RC, a part of me elated to see that Kitty still had some faith in me.

  Refusing to think about the unique challenges of taking down the Undead on ice, or my epic klutziness, I raced toward the other RC. It was a she, judging by the remnants of her dress, but she’d long ago lost most of her flesh. The face that snapped up to growl at me as I interrupted her feast was skeletal, with only a few leathery flaps of skin clinging to cheek and jaw bones.

  “Help me! Help!” The man beneath her screamed and clutched at his right thigh, which already sported a huge hole.

  “
Pax frater corpus, potestatum spirituum!
” The momentum from my punch carried me over the RC I’d just whacked in the face and sent me spinning out of control a few feet away-Kristi Yamaguchi I obviously was not, but it got the job done.

  By the time I steadied myself, the zombie was sacked out, looking as dead as she truly was. Across the ice, Kitty was off the phone and headed toward another patch of zombies. Hopefully that meant backup wasn’t too far away, and Protocol officers would be here soon to snatch both the corpses we’d put down and take them away. I couldn’t take the time to dispose of the bodies myself. There wasn’t even time to help the man my RC had nearly made a snack of, other than to urge him to apply direct pressure to his wound while he waited for the paramedics before racing away.

  There were too many of the Undead for Kitty to handle alone. Dozens already covered the ice, and dozens more poured from the woods, shuffling relentlessly toward the few completely freaked-out living still trying to flee toward the parking lot. The only bright spot was that most of the skaters had escaped, and the cheerleaders and pom squad had also vacated the premises, so there were very few human eyes to observe as I commenced kicking zombie tail.

  “
Inmundorum ut eicerent eos et curarent,
” I chanted, continuing the
pax frater
spell as I cut a quick diagonal across the pond, whacking a zombie on my left and a couple on my right as I went.

  No matter how disturbing its origins, at the moment I was thankful for my super-Settling power. Any other Settler would have had to speak the entire spell to disable one zombie
and
pierce the Undead’s flesh with something metallic while they were at it, making the process both tedious and dangerous. But all I needed was a snippet of the spell, tightly focused energy, and a moment of forceful physical connection-aka a mean right hook or a well-placed kick-to take out my target.

  “
Omnem languorem et omnem infirmitatem!”
I was finishing with a couple of male zombies when I caught a glimpse of Ethan and Monica.

  Ethan! He was still here, and in danger. I had to get over and help him, to make sure we had the chance to make up before either one of us died. Not something normal couples had to worry about, but we were far from normal-the past few days had proved that to me in a way even the mess in September hadn’t.

  He and Monica were standing back-to-back
pax frater
-ing a crowd of Undead who had cornered them on the far end of the ice. There were two or three zombie asses to kick on the way over to their side of the pond, but the largest concentration of RCs seemed to be coming from the woods behind them. Rolling Meadows Cemetery was less than a half a mile on the other side. That had to be where our black artist had raised these corpses.

  “Megan! The skate rental! There were kids in there.” Monica caught my eye as I moved toward them. She pointed frantically toward the skate-rental tent before turning back to the zombies.

  Executing a one-eighty that would have made the Ice Capades proud, I skated back in the direction I’d come. I hated to leave Ethan and Monica, but Kitty was headed their way and there were more SA officials running in from the parking area. They could definitely hold their own, and my unique talents were probably better for fighting in close quarters. I might have the best chance of getting the kids out unharmed.

  Just imagining zombies feasting on people too little to even think of defending themselves had my heart racing triple-time as I ran off the ice and awkwardly trotted the few feet to the entrance of the tent.

  “Oh shit.” The cuss word escaped before I realized I was in the presence of children and should probably watch my language. But then again, these boys and girls were being exposed to something a whole lot worse than my potty mouth.

  Three zombies had commanded control of the tent, cornering five kids and Penny-who had volunteered for skate-rental duty to avoid the nerve-racking experience of selling couples’ skate tickets. Penny was fending them off with a pair of skates turned around blade-first, but she was well on her way to being overwhelmed. The two older boys were trying to join the fight, but they couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven and were no match for the supernatural strength of fully grown zombies.

  The only thing that had saved them-or the three little kids cowering beneath the benches where they had been trying on skates before the Undead descended-was that Penny was the one bleeding. RCs were usually raised with a specific target in mind but were easily distracted by the energy emitted by blood, and Penny was providing plenty of that. Crimson streamed down her pale, freckled face from a gouge in her scalp. It didn’t look like a zombie bite, so she must have been injured some other way.

  Not that it mattered-the zombies would still finish her off if I couldn’t get them away from her. Fast.

  “Penny, this way! Run to me!” We needed to get the zombies away from the kids, and I needed the zombies out of that crowded corner if I was going to make sure I took care of all three of them before they took care of me.

  “Megan!” Penny’s wide, frantic eyes darted to mine, relief and terror mingling on her face. “Oh God, please, go get help!”

  “Help us,” the boy next to her yelled, his words turning into a horrified scream as he barely deflected a lunging zombie with the skate in his hand.

  “Mama! Mama!” The little girl under the bench wasn’t the only one wailing for her mother, but she was definitely the loudest. She was making so much noise I had to scream to be heard.

  “Come on, Penny, run to me!”

  “I can’t,” she moaned, screaming again as the zombie directly in front of her got one hand around her arm and leaned toward her face.

  She whacked him with the skate in her other hand, slamming it into his face again and again with a strength I hadn’t known she possessed, but it wasn’t going to be enough. The others were closing in, and running was no longer an option.

  I ran toward them, scrolling through my options as I went. I couldn’t work the
exuro
spell and risk burning everyone alive. I wasn’t even sure it was safe to invoke the
reverto
command-assuming it might work with so many zombies raised at once-in such close quarters. Penny or one of the kids would definitely get in the path of the spell, and I didn’t know what that would do to human flesh.

  Allegedly, Settler magic doesn’t have much effect upon humans aside from a slight stinging sensation, but my powers weren’t of the average Settler variety. I had a freaky virus and had to be careful. I couldn’t risk electrocuting the people I was trying to save. The
pax frater
required direct contact with the RC, so I supposed it was my best choice. I’d just have to be sure not to touch anything but the zombies.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t really control who touched
me
.

  I hadn’t made it close enough for the punch I was throwing to connect with the nearest zombie when the little girl wailing for her mother darted from beneath the bench, launching herself at my legs.

  “
Pax frater cor-
” I swallowed the spell as fast as I could, sucking my power back inside myself, but it was too late.

  One second, pudgy little three- or four-year-old hands were latched onto my thigh; the next, the little girl was screaming. I saw smoke rising from her tiny red palms and reached for her, some part of me instinctively wanting to offer comfort. But she skittered away, crawling across the floor, the look in her wide brown eyes making it clear I was as much a monster as the slobbery rotten things behind me.

  The look would have been sufficiently crushing on its own, but a second later it got a whole lot of help from the SA officer at the entrance to the tent.

  “You’re coming with me, Berry,” Smythe said, the anger twisting his features making it clear he thought I’d hurt the little girl on purpose. “I’ll be back for you in two minutes.”

  “Just get the kids out,” I yelled, kicking a zombie away from Penny as Smythe gathered the littlest kids from beneath the bench and hustled them out the way he’d come.

  “I’ll be back,” he said, channeling the Terminator in true Smythe fashion.

  I turned back to the Undead, determined not to think about this latest injustice, and slammed my fist into the closest zombie. “
Pax frater crrpp-
” This time my words were cut off by a thick hand over my mouth.

  If I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t cast, which meant I was just about as helpless against the freakishly strong Undead as any sixteen-year-old girl. Whether the zombie behind me somehow knew that-doubtful, since it was your average drooly flesh-eater-or it was just dumb luck that its hand had connected with my mouth, I couldn’t say.

  All I could do was scream and struggle as teeth tore into my shoulder. It was the same shoulder where I already sported a zombie bite scar from when I was ten. Now it just remained to be seen whether I’d live to add another scar to my collection or bleed out right here in the skate tent, taken out by three measly RCs. I’d kicked the tail of at least four times this many at once in the past, but I guess that old saying is true-it only takes one.

  White-hot pain, sharp and fierce, cut through my body, shooting through my nerve endings until I was on agony overload. Tears leaked from my eyes and my knees buckled as I fell to the ground, my struggles growing weaker as the zombie’s teeth tore deeper into my skin, getting closer to the bone.

  Crap, it hurt so bad. Where was Smythe? Hadn’t he gotten the three little ones somewhere safe by now? Wasn’t he coming back for me? Or was he just going to let me and Penny and the two older boys die, therefore avoiding relocation and taking care of the “Wicked Megan” problem in one fell swoop?

  I screamed around the hand over my mouth as the zombie shook its head back and forth like a dog with a hunk of steak. Suddenly I couldn’t think, I couldn’t plan-all I could do was feel and pray wordlessly not to feel anymore. The pain had to stop-it just had to. I would do anything to make it stop, anything to-

  “Megan, lie down!” It was a male voice. It must have been Smythe, even though it didn’t sound like him. “Lie down now or you’re going to die! Do it! Lie down!”

  I did as I was told, falling flat, bringing the zombie on my shoulder along for the ride. Seconds later the air filled with a whirring sound and bits of flying flesh and bone. I squeezed my eyes closed and held as still as I could, realizing my life was in Smythe’s hands. If he didn’t pull away in time, whatever they were using to chop the zombie off my shoulder would chop my head off as well.

CHAPTER 19

  Strong hands appeared. The zombie on top of me was gone. The whirring sound ground to a halt and some sort of sanding machine fell to the ground beside me.

  “Skate sharpener,” I groaned, assessing the damage to my shoulder and deciding I would live. “Good call.”

  “God, Megan, are you okay?” Penny dropped to her knees and clutched at my hand. Tears still stained her face, but the only sniffling was coming from behind me. One of the two boys still in the tent was crying a little, but no one was screaming anymore. Smythe must have taken care of the other two zombies as well.