Undead with Benefits (14 page)

God, why was I thinking so much about the crickets? There's that cliché about time slowing down, but that wasn't the case here—things were happening. Moves were being made.

Amanda took a long step away from the door of our car and walked slowly to the side, her glare boring into Truncheon as she flanked him. Stalked him. I'd seen her do this before, when Tom caught up with us back in Michigan. She crouched low, made herself as small a target as possible.

Jake moved toward Truncheon's opposite flank. They wanted to make it hard for Truncheon to keep both zombies in his sights. Jake didn't quite have the predatory grace Amanda did; he took big, exaggerated tippy-toe steps, like someone trying to be sneaky in a cartoon. It would've made me laugh if this situation hadn't spiraled so rapidly out of control.

I stood rooted in place, feeling like an innocent bystander in one of those old-timey westerns.

“Is this a joke?” Truncheon asked, looking more amused than threatened. He hadn't even raised his rifle yet. In fact, he was leaning on it. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, down the road. “Did you miss me wax that ghoul at two hundred yards? And you two are gonna what? Bum-rush me? You're confident in that strategy?”

Jake shot an uncertain glance over at Amanda, but she was too busy creeping up on Truncheon to notice.

“I shoot you first,” Truncheon said, pointing at Amanda. “It'll be in the face, which is a goddamn crying shame, but easy come, easy go, I guess.”

“Okay, hold on—” I said, finding my voice at last. I sounded small and squeaky.

“If you don't flinch or collapse into hysterics, and assuming you time it right, you'll close on me the second after I've blown the head off your fuck buddy,” Truncheon continued, ignoring me and turning to Jake. “After that, unless you're some kinda secret Karate Kid, odds are I'll beat you to death.”

Jake and Amanda had spread out on Truncheon about as far as they could without stepping into the cornfield. They both had wide angles on him, but they didn't look so eager to charge anymore.

“I like to do this thing after,” Truncheon continued nonchalantly, “where I rip a zombie's head off and see how far I can punt it. I've got a measuring tape and everything.”

“He's bluffing,” Amanda said without her usual confidence.

“It's like amateur hour out here,” Truncheon grumbled, then glanced in my direction. “I'm losing patience with this bullshit, kid. You gonna get your pets in line or what?”

“What,” I replied, and shot Truncheon in the groin with my stun gun.

If I'm being cool about it, which is how I intend to play it if I ever tell this story in a social situation, like if we're playing Never Have I Ever and someone says, “Shot somebody,” I just pulled like a gunslinger and squeezed the trigger. Didn't even need to aim because I'm such a natural.

In reality, it was a lucky shot on pretty much every level. The stun gun caught on my shirt when I pulled it out, hitching it up, and screwing up any rudimentary aiming I might've done. But maybe that confused Truncheon—it must've looked like I was about to flash him—because he didn't duck, or raise his rifle, or do anything that even remotely lived up to all his badass talk. A sizzling blue arc of electricity flew from my fist and right into his nethers, which he managed to clutch only for a moment before all the spasming and mouth foaming took over and he fell to the ground.

Jake and Amanda both looked at me. I ran a hand through my hair, which felt tingly with static.

“Wow,” Jake said, walking over with his hands up.

“Can we talk like people now?” I asked them. “Just for a second and then you can eat him if you want. Although I'd definitely wash him first.”

“How long have you had that thing?” Amanda asked, pointing at the stun gun. She'd uncoiled somewhat from her pounce-ready combat posture, but still looked tense.

“He gave it to me outside the wall,” I replied.

“Can we shoot him again?” Jake asked, watching Truncheon convulse.

“And you were keeping it hidden from us why?” Amanda kept on, looking from the stun gun to my face and back. “In case we got out of hand and you needed to use it?”

“Jeez, dude,” Jake cut in, sounding a little exasperated. “You know she just saved our bacon, right?”

“Saved my—” Amanda shook her head. “No. I don't have any bacon to save.”

“It's an expression. The point is, Duke Douche 'Em over there was pretty convincing about how he'd have killed us. I mean, I was buying it.”

“No, you're right,” I said to Amanda, meeting her still slightly meat-hungry gaze and hoping like heck I wasn't misjudging this situation. “That is why I had it. As a precaution. You're scary. Does that offend you?”

Amanda stared at me, evaluating, and the crickets paused again. It was like she made some kind of mental calculation in that brief moment of silence. When the chirping resumed, Amanda shook her head once and walked toward Truncheon.

“Whatever. I don't even care,” she said, sounding abruptly drained of all her killer energy. “We've got other shit to deal with.”

“Thanks for shooting him instead of us,” Jake said, standing next to me with his hands in his pockets.

I nodded. “You're welcome.”

“Right in his little truncheon too,” he said wonderingly. “Blistered the ol' billy club.”

“Not on purpose.”

“Sizzled the shillelagh.”

I smirked at him. “Got a lot of these?”

“I'm running out,” he replied, and paused. “Cooked the . . .”

“Cudgel,” I finished.

“Nice.”

Except for the occasional twitch, Truncheon's spasms had subsided. His body was clenched into an uncomfortable-looking
C
position, but the opposite of how you'd think. Standing over him, Amanda sniffed haughtily.

“You're lucky I'm not hungry,” she told him. “And that there's not enough powdered sugar on the planet.”

Amanda crouched down and tried to angle herself to catch Truncheon's gaze, but his eyeballs had rolled partly back in his head.

“Where are your keys, dick?”

Truncheon made a clicking tongue-stuck-in-throat sound. Amanda sighed and started going through his half million belt pouches.

“So,” Jake said, turning to me. “You were trying to talk to me about something before. It seemed important.”

I took a deep breath and recalled my plan to play this whole thing as honestly as possible. I'd been inside Jake's mind. I knew him. He'd do the right thing.

“Yeah, um, so,” I said haltingly, not really sure how to start, and then opting for maximum blurting. “My old boss from the NCD is holding my mom hostage and he wants me to bring him the zombie cure or else he'll kill her.”

Jake blinked at me. “Well, shit, between you and Amanda now I'm worried the NCD is dangling my family over a vat of lava or something.”

I glanced at Amanda, still rifling through Truncheon's pockets, but totally listening. Jake caught my look and explained.

“Her brother is, like, a political prisoner or something,” he said, lowering his voice a fraction. “He's a zombie truther, so they locked him up. What'd your mom do?”

I felt an unwelcome wave of sympathy for Amanda, we of the endangered loved ones.

“Nothing,” I answered. “She didn't do anything. Doesn't even know why it's happening to her.”

“Damn,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Your people are into some messed-up stuff.”

“They aren't her people anymore,” Amanda yelled over. When I looked in her direction, her gaze was softer than before. Maybe we'd finally found some tragic common ground. “You're done with them, right? This smelly bastard included.”

“Right.”

Jake waved his hand, like he didn't need to hear any more. “Cool, so we'll share the cure with you so you can save your mom. Unless you hate your mom.”

“No, I definitely do not.”

“Great! So, we'll share. Deal? Deal.”

“If we ever find it,” Amanda added, pausing her search to tick off caveats on her fingers. “If it exists at all. As long as there's enough. And assuming it's even something we can share.”

Jake furrowed his brow. “Why wouldn't we be able to share it?”

Amanda shrugged. “What if it's a secret recipe or something?”

“We'll photocopy it,” he replied. “Duh.”

“Whatever. Found 'em.” Amanda stood up holding Truncheon's keys. “I need, like, a bucket of hand sanitizer.”

“He have anything cool in that belt?” Jake asked. “Smoke bombs? Batarangs?”

“He's got a pocket filled with teeth,” Amanda replied.

“So . . . that's a no?” Jake frowned.

Amanda nudged Truncheon with her toe. “Help me move him out of the way.”

Jake groaned dramatically, but eventually helped Amanda to drag Truncheon by his wrists and ankles and dump him a few yards away on the side of the road. I kept my stun gun pointed at him; I wasn't sure how long the shock would last and wouldn't have really minded having another shot at him. Shooting someone turned out to be kind of cathartic.

With Truncheon relocated, Amanda bent down and grabbed his rifle. She gave me a pointed look, like
now we're both packing
, and slung it over her shoulder. I guess we weren't going to be doing trust falls with each other anytime soon, but at least she wasn't actively screwing me over.

“I think we should chain him up,” Jake suggested, eyeballing Truncheon. “That'd be some poetic justice, right?”

“You think we can fit him next to the guinea pigs?” Amanda replied.

Jake shrugged. “Probably.”

I walked over to the van door. “Um, are we going to let these people out? Or at least take the sacks off their heads?”

While Jake retrieved some chains from our car, Amanda unlocked the van door. The guy that made a break for it was still unconscious on the floor, but the other captives greeted us with a synchronized barrage of gagged
mmmf-mmmf
s. I wondered how much they'd heard. Enough that we were being greeted as heroes. All of them were clad in filthy clothes, yellowed and crusty from sweat. The KO'd escape artist, another guy with a prodigious beer belly, and two women.

“We should probably make sure he's not dead,” I said, and pulled the hood off the prisoner Truncheon had struck.

The guy had a bloody half-moon cut on his forehead from Truncheon's rifle butt, and my first thought upon seeing it was that it'd leave a scar and that he'd probably make it look good. He was preposterously handsome, the kind of country hunk you see tossing bales of hay in jean ads but don't think actually exists in the real world. His dark-blond hair was sweaty and matted from the hood, yet this cut-jaw dimple face made hostage hair look like lightly tousled bedhead.

I glanced over at Amanda. We'd both been staring at this guy for a moment longer than appropriate. “He's, um . . .”

“Alive,” Amanda finished for me, fingering the strap of Truncheon's rifle.

Jake cleared his throat. He'd stopped behind us to check on the prisoner, his arms full of chains. I think Amanda and I both jumped.

“Okay, I'll say it,” Jake said. “
Hello, nurse
. We found freakin'
High School Musical
over here.”

I had the nonsensical urge to put the handsome captive's hood back on. I guess those NCD secrecy instincts die hard. I turned to the conscious prisoners still bound and gagged in the back, and lowered my voice.

“So, um, what are we going to do with them?” I asked.

Amanda bit her lip. “Yeah, I'm not sure how many humans I want to be responsible for out here. No offense.”

“None taken,” I replied. “We can't leave them like this, though.”

“We can at least let them loose,” Jake insisted, then raised his voice to address the prisoners. “You sack people aren't secretly murderous Wastelanders, are you? If there were, say, friendly zombies out here willing to set you free, you wouldn't reward them by trying to bash out their brains, would you?”

Two out of the three heads shook back and forth vehemently; the other just rolled listlessly side to side. Jake shrugged.

“Good enough for me! Let's ge—whoa!” Jake dropped his load of chains and shoved me into the back of the van, right on top of the good-looking prisoner, just before the grasping fingers of a little zombie girl would've wrapped around my leg.

She must've slunk out of the cornfield while we were talking. The girl couldn't have been more than eight when she necrotized—she was so little, wearing a cute, frilly dress covered in rust-colored bloodstains. Her hair was pulled into pigtails that had amazing staying power considering she'd likely been out here rotting for months. The same couldn't be said about her scalp; it'd split open where her hair parted, exposing a yellowed expanse of skull.

“This is really gross!” Jake shouted. He held the slavering zombie girl at bay with one hand on her forehead, a move he'd probably trotted out a few times with his younger sister. Zombie girl wasn't the least bit interested in him—she just kept staring at me and the van denizens with wide, watery eyes, clawing at the air with chubby purple fingers.

“Don't yell,” I said, scrambling to my feet inside the van and trying not to step on Hunkalunk. “Truncheon said the noise could draw them.”

“Oh,
now
you want to listen to Truncheon,” Jake complained, but it seemed to give him an idea. He looked down the road to where we'd left Truncheon.

The burly survivalist looked more alert than he had a minute ago. He was trying to crawl into the cornfield, but his limbs, alternately droopy and twitchy, weren't cooperating. At the sound of his name, he lolled his head around to look at us.