Undead with Benefits (25 page)

I swallowed. “Who?”

“The men with guns,” she replied. “They'll be here tomorrow. He says you're running out of time.”

With that, Tara slipped out of my cot and returned to her own. I lay there with my arms across my chest, trying to process everything. Jake didn't have enough of this so-called Kope Juice. He didn't have an angle on getting more that didn't involve me marching into zombie-controlled Des Moines and having coffee with a fanboy despot who probably wanted to eat my brains to try assuming my powers or some fantasy crap. And time before Iowa—already a festering hellhole—became a bloody, bombed-out war zone was running out.

Obviously, I couldn't go back to sleep.

I stood up, stretched, and stepped outside my partition. The faintest hint of gray light squeezed under the crack of the shelter's door. It was early, yeah, but I was going to need every minute to come up with some kind of plan.

Lucy was stationed next to the bunker's door, sitting on the stool I expected Cody to be occupying. She raised her eyebrows, surprised to see me up, and yawned into the back of her hand. Her other hand rested comfortably on the stock of the rifle I'd given her last night. She'd chilled out considerably on the whole “trouble” thing after I'd armed her.

Oh, right. While she was sleeping, I'd liberated the weaponry from Amanda. I'd given Truncheon's rifle to Cody's group and stashed my stun gun under my pillow. Remembering it, I slipped back behind my partition to shove the weapon into the back of my pants. If I had to throw myself on the mercy of a zombie warlord, at least I'd be armed with a slightly stronger-than-normal Taser.

“You're up early,” Lucy said to me as I approached. Everyone else was still in bed—Roy snoring, Cody curled into a surprisingly tight fetal position, Tara probably practicing creepy faces under her blankets.

“Lot to do,” I said, slipping past Lucy to quietly open the door's hatch. The Maroon Marauder was still out there, although the windshield was too dew-covered to see if Amanda was awake.

“Lot to do,” Lucy repeated, deadpan. “In the zombie wasteland. You serious?”

“Anything I can help with?”

It was Cody, sitting up in the cot nearest the door. It looked as if that missed sleep had finally caught up with him; his hair was all mussed, his temples wet with sweat, and he looked a little peaked.

“Um . . .” I did a mental run-through of the ramshackle plan I hadn't even realized I'd been forming. “Not right this second.”

Cody started to reply, but hiccupped instead. His eyes widened in embarrassment and he put a hand on his stomach.

“Yup, well, let me know,” he said quickly. “I think I ate something bad. I'm gonna rest awhile longer.”

“It could be internal bleeding,” Lucy put in, a little of yesterday's panic back in her voice. “Maybe you're hurt worse than you know.”

“Jeez, Lucy, don't say that,” Cody muttered, rolling over on his side.

Before I could address the superinteresting digestive problems of my favorite Iowan survivors, I heard the Marauder's door open outside. I peeked through the hatch and watched Amanda first stretch her legs and then start methodically brushing out her hair.

“Okay, guys, be right back,” I told Lucy and Cody, then unbarred the door and stepped out into the cool morning air.

I'd figured one thing out for sure. I wasn't going to freaking Des Moines.

Amanda tossed the brush back in the car when she saw me coming. The vulnerability I'd seen from her last night was wiped away; a night's sleep had apparently restored her reservoir of iciness. We stood facing each other. She was giving off an angry vibe, so I went for the opposite, cool and deadpan.

“Sleep well?” I asked, a little surprised by my own tone. It was harsh.

She snorted. “You took my guns.”

“Yeah, it's fairer this way,” I explained with faux diplomacy. “You get to eat people and basically come back from the dead. So, we get the guns in case someone needs to shoot you.”

“Whatever,” she said after a moment. “It's way too early in the morning for this.”

“What're you still doing here?” I asked her.

I was angry too, I realized. Or desperate. Maybe a little scared. Some nasty soup of those emotions portioned just right to make a boiling sensation bubble through me. In the moment, I tried to self-analyze why I felt this sudden uptick in animosity. Impending doom for my mom, me, and everyone else seemed like a good place to start. Also, maybe an overcorrection on the sympathy I'd felt for Amanda last night. Or maybe the nagging knowledge that she didn't understand Jake like I did, but got to sit around dramatically pining while he shopped for freaking perfume and totally failed to get me the cure.

So, yeah. Add a splash of jealousy to the mix too. I'm not proud of it.

“I'm waiting for you,” Amanda answered me like this was obvious, like she was bored. “Do your whole astral-plane thing and let's go find Jake.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked, crossing my arms.

Amanda squinted at me. “I don't understand your question. Like, what the fuck else are you going to do?”

“Have you considered that maybe he met someone else while he was lost out there?” I asked her. “A zombie with better taste in music?”

A shadow passed across Amanda's face. “Um, what're you saying?”

And just like that, my plan crystalized. Divide and conquer, like one of those mean girls from high school.

“He ditched you,” I told Amanda. “He met someone else and ditched you. Well, both of us. But mostly you.”

“Bullshit,” she said, and took a step toward me.

“It's true,” I replied. “I was in his head
all
the time. You know how often he wished he'd gotten stuck with one of the less-shallow girls from your high school? Which, I guess would've been pretty much any of them? Like, every day.”

“Shut up.”

“This new girl gets his references. She's a nerd like him and he doesn't have to explain everything to her. It was a total meet-cute.” I shrugged. “He screwed us over. Just like Chazz, right?”

Amanda didn't reply. She took another step toward me.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I'm pretty over hanging with zombies after this. So you should probably bail before I have my friends inside shoot you.”

Amanda fixed me with a slow, predatory smile.

“You know how I know you're lying?” she asked.

“Just go away, Amanda.”

“Because you're standing here like normal, dicking around, instead of bawling your eyes out and making a mixtape or something.”

My face scrunched up. “What is
that
supposed to mean?”

“If he dumped me for some slutty hipster zombie, then he basically dumped you too.”

I scoffed. “Um, he's your boyfriend. Er, was.”

“Oh please. You're
into
him. I saw it when he first dragged your frumpy ass into that farmhouse. You
loved
it. That was like a dream come true for you.” Amanda cocked her head at me, something occurring to her. “You really do spend a ton of time in his head, don't you?”

I tried to keep my composure, but I must've flinched. I took a step back.

“I mean, only when I was tracking him . . .” I said, feeling somehow weakened by her pompous smile.

“You love it in there,” she replied, practically grinning. “I get it now. You're like some creepy psychic stalker. Don't worry, perv. Your secret's safe with me.”

That smile. Like she'd figured me out, like she pitied me. I tried to keep my eyes from filling with tears, but it always happened when I felt humiliated.

“So what?” Amanda continued, studying me. “Why're you bullshitting so hard, huh? Did he already make it into Des Moines? Did he find the cure?”

I recovered myself and took a step toward Amanda, jabbing a finger into her chest. That surprised her.

“That's all you really care about, isn't it? The
cure
.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Come
on
. Is this your new angle?”

I kept going. “I always wondered why you stuck with him in the first place. To have someone carry you out of trouble, like on that first day? So you wouldn't have to do all the driving? Was it temporary? Just until another, better-looking, stronger zombie came along? You seemed pretty broken up about Chazz. He was a real missed opportunity, huh?”

“You're embarrassing yourself.”

Without even trying, I plucked a memory from the front of her mind.

“Or was it because of your low self-esteem?” I asked. “You need him to tell you you're pretty when you go all corpsey and your hair falls out, right?”

She shoved me away from her. I'd struck a nerve.

“You don't know shit,” she hissed. “We're in love.”

“Aww! In love!” I laughed at her. “You didn't even know he existed two weeks ago! I probably know him better than you do.”

“Yeah, because you're a freak,” Amanda sneered. “A stalker.”

I stepped back into her face. “I know you too. You'll throw him away when you're done with him.”

“Fuck off, Cass.”

“You've been chewing people up and spitting them out
way
longer than you've been a zombie, you conceited bitch.”

That did it.

Amanda grabbed me around the throat and I didn't even notice, too busy basking in the joyous feeling of punching her right in the face. She reeled backward, still holding me, and I fell into the grass on top of her. I hit her again, this time in the side of the head, and realized this was probably a terrible idea because she was so much stronger than me and, you know, ate people.

She rolled us over, still holding me around the neck with one hand. I felt the stun gun jab into my lower back. Yep. Should've used that. Her nose was bleeding, but she still looked pretty fresh. In control. Straddling me, she cocked her fist back.

“Tell me where he is before things get worse for you,” she said.

A gunshot rang out.

Amanda's grip slackened as we both turned our heads toward the shelter. I expected to see Lucy standing there, having fired off a warning shot, but instead there was Tara, sprinting in our direction. She wasn't armed. At first, I thought she was coming to help me fight off Amanda, her scream like a battle cry.

Then the zombie tackled Tara from behind and bit down hard on the back of her neck. The screaming stopped.

JAKE

IT WAS NOON. OR PROBABLY AFTER, AFTER NOON. IT felt like a Saturday and I guess it actually could've been. Weird that a side effect of becoming undead was a total loss of basic calendar skills. Anyway, it was one of those lazy, quiet days where it seemed like everything could wait.

I used to have a lot of those. Before.

So maybe I'd backslid a little bit since coming to Des Moines.

I sat on Reggie's impossibly comfortable couch and turned the two injectors of Kope Juice over in my hands. I wished they'd glow or something. Fizz and bubble like the test tubes in a mad scientist's laboratory. But no, they looked as badass as the insulin shots my grandma squeezed into her side flab after Sunday dinner.

I should go find Amanda.

First, I should talk to Reggie. Try to finagle a third injector for Cass. Maybe I'd have to cat-burgle one from wherever he stashed the meds.

Was I up for cat burgling?

Was I up for getting off this couch?

A random memory from a couple years ago hit me. It'd been around Christmastime and I was chilling in the basement playing some shooter when my dad came clamoring down the steps. This was a really unusual occurrence because it was like 1:00 a.m., and my dad was not in the habit of watching me play video games. He didn't actively take a stand against the time I spent achievement whoring and leaderboard grinding, but I could always tell he was sorta pissed I'd quit, well, everything extracurricular. He never came right out and said anything about it, except this one time he stuck a column from some old movie critic to the fridge that went on and on about how video games could never be art. No duh, dude, but you can't shoot space terrorists in a painting, now, can you?

Anyway, Dad came all staggering downstairs and I remembered that his office holiday party had been that night, so he was totally bombed. I'd had my own first drink just a couple weeks earlier, stolen from his liquor cabinet, in fact, so I was a recently anointed expert on what wasted behavior looked like.

Those were the days, man. Raiding parental liquor storage with Henry and Adam, not a care in the world. Is it weird to feel nostalgic for sixteen when you're eighteen? I'm going to say no, but only if you've been shot multiple times by a shotgun, stabbed with a pitchfork, and eaten a bunch of people during those two middle years. Simpler times and shit.

Anyway, my dad stood behind the couch, swaying and breathing heavy—kinda zombielike, although that's not a metaphor that would've occurred to me at the time. I didn't pause my game or anything. I figured he'd drift away eventually.

“Son,” he declared, slurring a little, “one day you're gonna wake up and realize the best years of your life have passed by and you didn't even realize it.”

“Okay, Dad,” I replied, my token response for all sentimental fatherly advice. “Whatever you say.”

“Keep your frickin' eyes open is what I'm saying,” he continued, ruffling my hair like he used to when I was little. “Have the good sense to notice when that time comes along and enjoy it.”

“I am enjoying it,” I said, waving my controller at the TV screen.

“Oh good Christ, not this,” he replied, appalled I could confuse an Xbox all-nighter for these mythological best years of my life. “It'll be way better than killing pretend things in the basement. Trust me.”