Undead with Benefits (33 page)

“Things got out of control back at that farmhouse,” he said.

“I feel that way all the time now,” I said. “Out of control.”

Tom handed me a cup of coffee, and raised his own in my direction in a deadpan cheers.

“Welcome to adult life,” he said.

I sipped the coffee and couldn't stop myself from a contented little rumble. It was the best thing I'd ingested in days. Even out here, Tom managed to make the best coffee. The pounding in my head eased back a smidgen.

“I don't blame you for doing what you had to do,” Tom was saying. “Well, what you
thought
you had to do. What you wanted to do. It was only slightly disconcerting waking up in the woods by myself, and the migraine went away eventually.”

“Jeez, all right,” I replied. “Easy on the guilt. I already feel like crap.”

Tom reached over to squeeze the back of my neck, partly out of affection and partly like he wanted to strangle me. He sighed.

“So, how did I find you.” He paused for a moment. “Well, I checked to see if you'd gone back home and—”

“Alastaire.”

Tom nodded grimly.

“Is my mom all right?” I asked, feeling my grip tighten dangerously around my dainty coffee cup.

“Define
all right
,” Tom replied. Realizing that maybe wasn't the most comforting answer, he revised. “She's fine, Cass. Unhurt. Just not totally with it.”

Before I could ask a follow-up, the trio of NCD grunts who'd escorted Tom into the Deadzone came filing through the access door. Or were they army commandos? I couldn't really tell the difference anymore; the traditional NCD jumpsuit had a new camouflage print, their weapons looked lethal, and all of them had severe buzz cuts. Government boys, any way you sliced it. I recognized one of them as the young dope I'd ordered around when we crossed through the wall. He was very careful not to meet my eyes.

The soldiers all snapped off salutes. Tom stood up so he could awkwardly return them.

“We're needed elsewhere, sir,” said the leader. “They're taking heavy losses in Cedar Rapids, and word is a chopper went down in Des Moines.”

“Wow,” Tom replied. “Okay?”

“Can you make it to the exfil point on your own?”

Tom glanced questioningly at me. I shrugged.

“I'll keep you safe,” I told him with a forced smile.

“Don't forget to steer clear of other units,” the leader added. “They haven't been briefed on your presence and mission parameters dictate—”

“Kill everything,” I finished for him.

The soldier eyeballed me, but Tom jumped in quickly.

“We'll be fine,” Tom said. “Be safe, guys.”

The trio synchronized another set of hasty salutes, then hustled downstairs. Tom wandered over to the edge of the roof to watch the grunts pile into their Humvee. I joined him. One of the soldiers paused for a second to slap a corncob bumper sticker, found in large quantities downstairs, onto the back of the vehicle. Then he hooted excitedly and clamored in with his buddies.

“Did we just get ditched?” I asked him.

“I guess the chance to kill some actual zombies is more exciting than babysitting us,” Tom replied.

I thought about Jake. It seemed so peaceful out here, but apparently there were aircraft crashing in Des Moines. I hoped he was safe.

“Are they really . . . ?” I hesitated, watching the dust kicked up by the soldiers' squealing rear tires. “They're going to what? Gun down everything that moves?”

“Supposedly,” Tom answered, shaking his head. “Seems like a disorganized mess to me. They had a bigger zombie-holocaust operation planned, but then Florida happened and—”

“Florida?”

“Oh right, you've been in here awhile.” Tom tightened his lips and furrowed his eyebrows, his bad-news face. “There was a major outbreak there a couple days ago.”

“How major?”

“All-over-the-news major. They're talking thousands.”

“The news? What about Containment?”

Tom shook his head. “They're done with that.”

I blinked. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “Anyway, forces are spread pretty thin. Between the army, the NCD, and every other government agency with initials, no one's really sure who's in charge. It's how Alastaire was able to get me hooked up with an army escort. Pulling strings while the world burns.”

Pretty soon the Humvee was out of sight and a stillness settled around us. In the silence, I studied Tom's face. He hadn't been keeping up with his shaving, but otherwise looked unchanged. I felt comfortable around him, more centered, like the me of the last few days had just been a bad dream. Even so, I still wasn't sure I could trust him.

“So, you're working for
him
now?” I blurted.

Tom looked at me. “Aren't you?”

“Not by choice,” I replied. “You know that.”

“Yeah, well, me neither,” Tom said, shooting me a meaningful look. “I'm still your guardian, Cass. That hasn't changed.”

I smiled and leaned against him for a moment.

“So what? Did he come to you in a dream?”

Tom arched an eyebrow. “He can do that?”

I shrugged.

“Ew, no. We met in San Diego. He insisted on some cheapo Italian restaurant.”

I shuddered. It was probably the same place I used to work. I hoped a roach crawled across Alastaire's spaghetti.

“You know he's missing half an arm?” Tom asked. When I nodded, he continued. “Anyhoo, he told me where I could find you. He said you'd be ready to leave today.”

“He was right.”

“And that your zombie boy would be bringing you a cure for the plague,” Tom added, the skepticism rich in his voice.

I didn't say anything, just gazed off down the empty road that led away from the motor garage.

“So it's true?” Tom persisted.

“Which part?”

“The cure?”

“Apparently.”

“And your zombie boy?”

“He's not mine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We're just—it's complicated. Anyway, he won't be a zombie much longer.”

“Huh,” Tom said, that one syllable so laden with romantic judgment I almost dove off the roof. He still didn't approve, but I didn't care. He didn't know everything that'd happened. He didn't know Jake.

“Alastaire arranged an exit for us,” Tom said. “They aren't letting anyone through that wall thing, obviously, but he'll have some of his people manning it tonight. We need to be on the road by sunset.”

“Don't worry,” I replied. “He'll be here by then.”

Tom nodded, his smile shaky. “Can't wait to meet him. In a noncombat capacity.”

We stood in silence for a while, watching the wind blow through the weeds and the sky stay blue and empty. I lay down on the chaise and Tom paced. After a while, we traded.

“So,” Tom said. “What else have you been up to?”

I laughed; it was such a casual question. I tried to think of something I'd done over the last week that hadn't been awful. I thought of that hotel pool.

“I got drunk for the first time,” I told him. “That was . . . different.”

Tom clucked his tongue. “What a difference a week makes, Psychic Friend.”

He was about to say something more when we heard the motorcycles. Both of us rushed back to the edge of the roof to squint down the road. They were still a ways off; we could only hear the jagged snarling of the engines and see a steadily advancing cloud of dust.

“Is that him?” Tom asked nervously.

I swallowed hard and leaned into my headache, the dull pain doubling into a murderous throb as I slipped my skin. I found Jake's mind easily enough, but could only manage to linger there for a moment—he was staring at a spotless expanse of bright, white tile and counting slowly backward from one thousand. What the hell did that mean?

Well, for starters, it meant he wasn't riding a motorcycle.

“Gah,” I moaned, snapping back into my own body. Tom steadied me. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Not him,” I said.

“Crap,” replied Tom.

The vehicles were in view now. Six motorcycles all mounted by gaunt shapes in various leather costumes, one with a flapping cape, another with huge football shoulder pads. They rode in ranks of three on either side of a Humvee. I couldn't see the Humvee's bumper, but I bet it bore a freshly applied corncob bumper sticker.

“The soldiers,” Tom said hopefully.

“I don't think so,” I said, touching his shoulder. “We should probably hide.”

We ducked down behind the
GAS AND GARAGE
sign. From underneath his vest, Tom pulled out a shiny chrome handgun. I looked from the weapon to his face and he shrugged.

“After Illinois, I really started liking guns,” he explained, frowning with embarrassment.

“Wow, things
have
changed,” I replied.

Obviously, it was too much to hope for that whatever motorcycle gang had hijacked those soldiers' Humvee could just pass by without incident. They pulled into the gas station, cutting their engines in unison. I peeked over the edge of the building and watched as they started checking out the pumps. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but they sounded giddy and dangerous, like guys at my school used to sound in the lunchroom right before a fight broke out. Tom tugged at my sleeve.

“Stay down,” he whispered urgently.

Too late for that.

“I see you up there,” a youngish voice called from below. “You might as well come out and say hi.”

My eyes widened. I looked at Tom.

“Damn,” he whispered, and chambered a round.

“Heard that too,” the voice called. “It's quiet as shit out here in the country.”

Tom and I exchanged a look, then stood up together. He kept his gun low, next to his hip, ready to fire. Like an idiot, I'd left my stun gun downstairs somewhere. I'm not sure it would've even had the necessary range to hit the lanky guy with the unkempt Afro grinning up at us. I recognized him from Jake's head.

“Hiya,” Reggie said, a malicious glint in his eye. “What you doing up there?”

“Leave us be,” Tom said warningly.

The zombies behind Reggie snickered. They'd given up on the gas pumps and now made a loose half circle around their Lord, all of them glaring up at us. Some of them had guns of their own slung over their shoulders.

“Guy who used to live here would do me favors. He knew ways across the border,” Reggie continued casually, like we were talking about the weather. “He around?”

“No,” Tom said.

“Huh.” Reggie folded his arms. “Can
you
do us any favors, man? Or should we just come up there and get on with it?”

I jumped in before Tom could reply or start shooting. “Cut it out, Reggie. We're waiting for Jake.”

Reggie's eyes flicked to me. His smile changed into something a little less homicidally Cheshire.

“Get out,” he said, more to himself than me. “So I get to meet the mutant after all. Small world!”

I bristled, but forced myself to wave. “Cass,” I said.

“Yeah, cool,” Reggie replied, appraising me. “You know, you should've come to Des Moines. I was going to convince you to be my psychic aide-de-camp. Would've even turned you to the good side. Could've been fun.”

“Yeah,” I replied dryly. “Sorry I missed that. Truly.”

Reggie laughed. “I can see why he'd be into you. Sarcasm. The whole grunge thing. It's a good look.”

I didn't have a
whole grunge thing
going, at least not purposely. I smoothed down my hair.

“He, um, said he was into me?”

Tom shot me a look like,
Really?
I shrugged. I was doing a lot better at not getting us eaten than he'd been.

“You, the hot one, I dunno,” Reggie said, waving it all away. “You know, he left before I did. If he's not here yet, that doesn't bode well.”

“He'll be here,” I insisted.

Reggie smirked. “You better hope so. This friend-of-a-friend shit isn't going to fly with anyone else out on the roads today.”

Reggie turned to his gang and made a spinning gesture with his finger. One by one, they begrudgingly stopped eyeballing me and Tom, and returned to their motorcycles. Reggie looked back at me.

“Hope it works out for you,” he said. “If he's actually alive, tell him I said what up.”

As we watched the remnants of the Lord of Des Moines's zombie empire disappear over the horizon, Tom put a hand on my shoulder.

“That freak said . . .” He paused. “You're sure Jake's coming?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I'm sure.”

 

He didn't come.

The day wore on. Tom had packed sandwiches and individually wrapped servings of baby carrots. I ate my portion greedily, and perhaps fearing cannibalism of the more traditional stranded-somewhere-bad variety, Tom handed over half of his own.

“Do you still go into his head?” Tom asked me over lunch. “All the time?”

I shook my head. “I try not to. I want it to be real.”

Tom nodded with the minimum amount of approval. “That's a step in the right direction, I guess.”

Of course, I didn't tell him about what I'd done to Amanda. I'd felt so vindicated by it last night, like I was setting the world on its proper course. And yet today, I couldn't admit it to my closest confidant. What did that say about my decision making?

A little later, Tom nudged me. “Maybe it wouldn't hurt to check on him just this one time.”

“My head hurts,” I told him.

It did hurt, but not enough that I couldn't have checked in on Jake. The truth is, I didn't want to know. I didn't want to know for sure if he wasn't coming. I know I should've been worried about the cure—about saving the country, my mom, humanity—but I wasn't. In fact, I'd been totally at ease about that since I'd briefly jumped into Jake's mind before. I'd picked up something—an intuition, I guess—that made me sure the cure was going to be here.