Undead with Benefits (34 page)

I just wasn't sure about Jake.

It was late afternoon when the pair of school buses trundled down the road toward our gas station. It was such a strange sight, we forgot to even hide. If the zombies were using buses to escape from Iowa in large tour groups, well, they could just go right ahead and eat me, because the world was stupid.

The two buses pulled into the parking lot. They were packed with people. Not zombies. Real people. I'm not sure how I could tell—maybe the lack of crazy costumes—but more likely the ever-present fear on their faces, the tear streaks, the sticky, red cuts on their faces and hands.

The door of the lead bus opened and out stepped Jamison.

It was like a race between Tom and me to see who could make it to him first. I felt pretty lucky we didn't accidentally step in one of the bear traps scattered throughout the parking lot.

I won. I think I surprised the big brute with the force and velocity of my hug. I never thought that I'd see him again. I clung to his neck and squeezed, noticing too late the bandages all up his arms and shoulders. Jamison didn't seem to mind. He picked me up and squeezed back.

“It's all good,” Jamison whispered, wiping tears off my face that I hadn't realized had shaken loose. “We're all good now.”

“Wow,” Tom said. “That's a much better reception than I got.”

Tom and Jamison shook hands, then hugged awkwardly. At the buses, a few bedraggled folks were warily setting foot in the parking lot.

“He said you'd be here,” Jamison said with a mix of admiration and surprise. “I didn't really believe him, but here you are.”

“Who?” I asked, even though I already knew.

“The kid. Jake.” Jamison nodded toward the buses. “He helped set these people free. Although I don't know where the hell we're gonna go next. Already had some bad run-ins with some soldiers—must've thought we were zombies.” His look darkened. “I started out with three buses.”

Tom patted Jamison's shoulder. “I've got us a way out,” he said. “We can get them out of Iowa. After that, I think we're all pretty much on our own.”

“What about Jake?” I butted in. “What happened to him?”

Jamison frowned, his face deeply lined, eyes cast down. I realized it was his sympathetic look. I'd never seen it before. My heart sank.

He walked back to the bus and retrieved a large metal safe from the space next to the driver's seat. Grunting as he lifted it, Jamison carried the box over to me.

“He helped me tear this out of the floor. Said to give it to you,” Jamison said.

One corner of the safe had been sheared off during its removal, so I could see the contents within. Vials upon vials of Kope Juice, ready for injection, more than I could've hoped for.

“He also said to tell you he's sorry.”

JAKE

I DIDN'T KNOW WHERE I WAS HEADED. I TRUDGED FORWARD, the toes of my sneakers darkening with dirt and ash, one lace broken and untied, crusted with dried blood.

Outside Des Moines, on one of the dusty rural routes that twisted through emerald-green fields of corn, the ghouls kept me company. I guess they still had enough sense to flee the burning city. I came across one of the bedraggled things every few miles, their wide, yellow eyes always looking at me with disappointment. I'm sure they would've appreciated me taking the cure. They were starving, and with just one quick injection I could've been fresh meat.

Plenty of practical reasons to remain a zombie. Plenty of moral reasons to turn back into a human.

I'd thought about my species conundrum a lot during my timeout in the Kope Brothers subbasement and hadn't come to any decision.

After I helped him pry Reggie's safe out of the floor (Red Bear's hatchet came in handy for leverage), Jamison told me to wait in the basement until he'd escorted the last Iowan topside, then to count backward from one thousand. After that, he said, I could do whatever I wanted, but if he saw me again, we'd have problems.

I listened. The counting was almost like meditating, except I kept losing my place whenever my brain skipped off on its own. I'm assuming that's what meditating is like anyway. I've never actually done it. I tried not to think about Amanda or Cass, but thinking about not thinking about them was basically the same as thinking about them. I tried to just clear my mind, but that made it really hard to count.

Anyway, I lingered in the deserted basement longer than a 1,000 count. It probably wasn't the worst idea to stay out of the carnage for a bit. Especially since I had no idea what to do next.

When I finally made it to zero, I left the emptied Kope Brothers building behind and started walking. The helicopters were gone, but a sizable portion of Des Moines appeared to be on fire. The air stung to breathe and I kept getting flecks of ash in my eyes. I covered my mouth and nose with my T-shirt and kept downwind.

Besides getting the hell out of Des Moines, I didn't really have a destination in mind. That seemed okay.

I wasn't going to Truncheon's place. That much I knew for sure.

It wasn't fear of Jamison that stopped me from keeping my meeting with Cass. With his hand around my neck, I'd hurriedly explained to him how Cass and I were friends, how she was waiting for me, and how I knew where he could score a metric buttload of zombie cure. I guess that's when he decided not to bash my head in.

When I finished helping him with the safe and told Jamison
he
should be the one to go meet Cass, he gave me a look I'd only seen once before. It was at the grocery store when I ran into Mr. Tremens, father of my ex-girlfriend Sasha, approximately two weeks after we'd broken up. It was a look that managed to convey both
You're a dirtbag
and ask
What's wrong with my daughter?

Point is, I think he would've been okay with taking me to meet Cass. I guess my recent Silver Star heroism outweighed his zombie prejudice. Temporarily, at least. Until I needed to eat again.

I conveniently left out that I possessed a couple vials of Kope Brothers' No More Rotting Funtime Formula. I didn't want to answer any pesky questions from the zombie hunter about why I hadn't gone ahead and cured myself. He could go right on assuming I was Captain Altruism, saving edible prisoners and selflessly giving up my chance at restored humanity.

Hell, maybe I was Captain Altruism. I could be that guy, if I chose. The world—however much on fire it happened to be—was wide open. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, but being Captain Altruism didn't seem so bad.

Except I'd need a cooler name. Something that could compete with whatever villainous alter ego Reggie settled on in his next city.

The King of Good Intentions and Broken Hearts. That could be me.

I had time to figure my alias out. It was a long walk out of Iowa.

 

At scattered intervals, big, canvas-covered military trucks and some blocky Humvees zipped up and down the road. I made sure to duck into the corn whenever I heard one coming. Once, I watched from between the stalks as they slowed down just long enough to blow the head off a ghoul greeting them with grasping arms. I knew I didn't want to be seen.

Other things I knew:

I couldn't be with Cass. Not right now anyway. I'd thought a lot about that dream we shared and admitted to myself that her whole plan sounded pretty incredible. Sunshine, fish tacos, all that shit. And she liked me. She gazed into my mess of a mind and still decided she wanted me.

But I knew hardly anything about her. The gap between us seemed unfair. I hadn't gone rummaging through the secret drawers of
her
mind and I didn't want to. Because weren't we more than the sum of our thoughts? Didn't action count for something? The me that she wanted, assembled by whatever notions and private thoughts of mine she'd spied on, he didn't really exist except in the space between our brains. Whatever thoughts of mine she'd gotten attached to, they were post-zombie thoughts. The guy she liked hadn't existed two weeks ago and he probably wouldn't exist two weeks from now.

No. It was too complicated. It made my head hurt.

I missed Amanda. That I knew for sure.

I missed the impossibly consistent fruity smell of her hair. I missed the mean way she talked, especially when I could tell it was just a put-on. I missed the way she smiled at me when she didn't think I was looking.

We knew each other, for real. We'd shared something. We'd grown together. It'd been special. Or at least I thought it had.

I pictured her making out with that cow-milking lothario—an image burned into my mind courtesy of Cass, I realized—and my stomach went into a tumble-dry motion that rivaled the quaking pangs of zombie hunger.

I decided that I'd walk until this feeling went away.

I heard a vehicle coming and ducked into the corn to hide. It wasn't soldiers, though. The brakes were way too squeaky and there wasn't any clanking of military-grade metal plating. I inched forward in time to make out the familiar dents in the passenger side as the Maroon Marauder slowly drove by, bound for Des Moines.

I hesitated. What was I going to do? Run into the road and wave my arms, make a big scene, and get dumped again in person? No thanks.

Before I could even successfully choose inactivity, the car stopped a few yards up the road and Amanda practically leapt out of the passenger seat. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled.

“JAKE! JAKE? ARE YOU OUT HERE?”

I stayed put and watched. She couldn't possibly have seen me while driving by. Did she sense me? Was our connection that deep? She looked exhausted with worry. I noticed some new dings in the back and sides of the car too. They looked like bullet holes.

I was about to show myself when Cody stood up from the driver's seat, nearly as broad-shouldered and good-looking as I'd built him up in my imagination.

“Mands,” he said. “Come on. He's not out here and it isn't safe. I'm not sure how many times I can outdrive these soldier guys.”

“Shut it, you,” Amanda snapped, shading her eyes and looking around. “We need to find him.”

“Okay, okay,” Cody said pacifyingly. “Gosh, though, I guess I don't really understand why.”

“Because I
want
to, okay?” Amanda hissed at him.

I'd eavesdropped enough. I stepped out of the corn. Cody saw me first and pointed.

“Hey, is it this guy?” he asked.

“Booya,” I said, and immediately regretted not coming up with a better line while hiding in the corn.

Amanda didn't seem to care. She rushed toward me and wrapped me in a hug that was really difficult for me not to reciprocate.

“Jake! I knew you'd be here!” Amanda exclaimed against my ear. “I, like, felt it in my bones!”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

She touched the front of my bulletproof vest with her fingers, eyebrows raised. “Um, this is pretty hot.”

I stepped back from her. “Who's your friend?”

Amanda looked at me strangely, hurt that I'd kept my hands to myself. She lowered her voice so Cody couldn't hear. “Okay, we, um, have to talk, but—”

Cody raised his hand in greeting. “Hi, Jake. I'm Cody.”

“I know who you are!” I screamed at him.

“Oh.” He looked baffled by the hostility. “You asked.”

“You looked better with a potato sack over your stupid face!” I yelled at him. “Dick! Fuckhead! Home-wrecker!”

“Oh my god,” Amanda said, her eyes wide with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment. The embarrassment was for me, I realized. “Jake, calm down—”

I turned to her. “Why are you even out here looking for me? Aren't you hooking up with this guy now? You want to rub it in my face?”

“Hooking up? Ugh, it was, like, second base one time and I don't even know why—” Amanda rubbed her temples like she had a headache. “How do you even know?”

“Were we planning on keeping it from him?” Cody asked Amanda, confused. “Jeez, are you two an item?”

“Cass told me,” I said to Amanda, ignoring Cody. “She
showed
me.”

“Showed you?” Amanda looked mortified. “How the hell does that work? She'd already taken off.”

My brow furrowed. I thought back to our astral-plane conversation the night before. In Cass's version, it was Amanda who did the taking off.

Meanwhile, it was Cody's turn to look hurt.

“I thought we had something special,” he said to Amanda, taking a few steps toward us. “New, but special.”

Amanda turned to him. “We
do
,” she insisted. “Well, we did.”

Whatever connection I'd been making about Cass was crushed beneath a new surge of wounded pride. “You
do
?”

“Yes, no, I don't know.” Amanda ran both her hands through her hair and held them there, ready to pull out a couple handfuls. “It's weird and complicated and I don't know what I'm feeling.”

“Do you still love me?” I asked her.

“Yes,” Amanda answered without hesitation, teary eyes looking right into mine. “Although you are seriously pissing me off right now.”

Cody cleared his throat. “What about us?”

Amanda stomped her foot. “Can we
please
just sort this out where there aren't soldiers shooting everything that moves?”

“Amanda's right,” Cody said, giving me a look. “This is very high school.”

“I'd like to duel you,” I replied, staring him down. “I'd like to find some pistols and fucking duel you.”

Cody started to laugh like I was goofing around, but cut it off abruptly when he noticed the intensity of my glare.

Or maybe because he noticed the Humvee careening down the road toward us. A soldier leaned out the window with an AK-47.

“Run!” Cody yelled, as if we weren't already.

The three of us took off for the corn. Amanda grabbed my hand and Cody grabbed hers and for a moment we made for a sprinting zombie chain. But then my grip slipped and Amanda stumbled toward Cody and the soldier started strafing the cornfield.