by Logan Keys
My gaze snaps to Reginald.
The Skulls, or whoever is with them, are at our doorstep already.
Had he seen them?
But Reginald’s lighting another cigar and hasn’t noticed.
Nonchalantly, he says, “My son has always fancied himself a poet. The day he gave me his first book of poetry, do you know what I did?”
I force myself not to glance at the window again, even though it’s like a burning ache in my sternum to ignore the visual proof of freedom at our gates.
“I threw it into the fire,” he continues. “After reading every single word, I burned it, and then I sent him to be purged. That book. The fire. It’s what gave me the idea. His first poem even said ‘poison in the veins.’ He’s a brilliant boy, even if he is willful.”
Reginald laughs haughtily and slaps his thigh.
“Is that what you’ll do to me?” I ask, trying to distract him.
“Certainly,” he says. “One way or another. Do you know what the purging is?”
Curiosity drives me to reply. “Some say it’s spider venom.”
He scoffs. “Oh, no. That would be … useless. Let me explain. Have you seen any of the resuscitated dead up close, what they really look like? The idea is to basically short circuit the brain, except for a few parts. Despite the rumors, they’re not as dead as we’d like to believe. It only seems that way because they fight a constant battle of rigor mortis.” He grimaces, and my stomach spins. “Nasty business.”
Then, Reginald holds up one finger, like his points need help being made. “But! If you’d seen it in the small stages, the early infections … Oh, how to explain … This mutation of cells, whenever it happens in a microscope, it’s like lightning in a bottle—in a body. The change happens like that.” And he snaps his fingers. “So, I got to thinking: what if there was a way to slow down this process? This, I wanted to know most of all. So we tried it by purposefully introducing it into the bloodstream a bit at a time through breaking the virus down to almost nothing.”
My jaw drops.
“Sure, we learned it has side effects, that the patient will eventually turn into a zombie at a much later date. But at just the right ratio … ah well, it’s certainly a thing of beauty. Loss of pain, lack of resistance, and stiffening. Best of all, incredible strength. Almost impossible to kill.”
I grip my face, hands shaking. “What do you mean they turn into a zombie … ?”
He shrugs, as if it’s no consequence. “They always turn eventually, no matter what.”
“Even after one time?” My middle is hollow and echoes with each word.
His smile is nothing short of evil. “Even after one drop, my dear. Shall I give you a demonstration?” He gestures to the guard who was holding my arms before. “Remove your helmet.”
My eyes spring open. I’ve never seen them without helmets, except for that one who’d attacked me, but he was already a zombie. This one’s unlatching the black visor with a pop, lifting it to release a familiar thatch of floppy brown hair that just touches his brow.
Eyes of purple haze watch me impassively.
Chapter Seventy
Tommy
The world burns. Orange skies blend into purple ones, while the ocean laps peacefully in the distance. I walk into the soothing green.
But what I thought was the ocean turns out to be the lake by my farm. Somehow, I’m back home again.
I roll my pants up and wade out.
“Tommy,” my sister calls to my back. “Dad’s gonna be mad if you don’t go help them with the well.”
I shrug.
After she leaves, I take in the tranquility with a sigh. It feels like forever since I’ve truly been at peace, and this is serene. The sun’s almost set, and the sky has turned a perfect blue, like time has rolled all the way back.
“Remember this?”
I pivot to find Daisy standing there, only she’s not a zombie anymore but her old self. The other had been the dream.
This version’s true.
She grabs my hand. “We used to hang out here for hours. I never wanted to go home, and you never wanted to do chores.”
“It was perfect.”
“Yeah.”
I frown down at the water. Something feels missing, some important puzzle piece I should know about, yet when I focus too hard, it flits away.
Daisy pulls me around to face her, linking her other hand with mine. “But we aren’t here, Tommy, and we never will be again. You need to wake up. Please. Wake up.”
I stare back in confusion as her face greys, her lips turn blue, and red blossoms around her green irises again.
“Wake up!”
My eyes snap open. Vero’s sitting over me. She’s panting while blood drips from her face and onto mine. “Wake up, Tommy! Wake up!”
Behind her lurch zombies, too many to count.
And fire.
Pain, a relentless sizzling, biting pain jolts like lightning through my legs, my neck, my stomach, and my back.
It peaks, and my vision shrinks.
“No, no, no!” Vero shakes me. “Wake up!”
I do, and the pain is gone, replaced by a feeling of freezing over. I’m so cold.
I tell her this, and she places a hand to my cheek, eyes filling with tears, mouth moving so fast nothing comes out of it.
I feel as though I’m smiling.
I want to touch her face, but can’t seem to move.
She kisses my forehead, and even though I can’t feel it, I’ll never underestimate that gesture again. Warmth spreads into that spot and down through me like hot cocoa.
That’s when I realize it’s her Special; her hands are lit up.
“No,” I manage to say.
She draws her lips close to my ear. “Let … me … help,” she chokes out. “I love … you.”
When the heat dissipates, Vero slumps over, head on my lap, blood oozing from a gash on her head. I sit up and grab her by the shoulders. She has too many scrapes and bites to count, and her eyes are closed, mouth softly open.
“No, Vero, no, don’t do this! Please wake up!”
I pull her close.
“Vero, don’t go.”
But when I search for a pulse, I find none.
And that’s when I start to transition.
Chapter Seventy-One
Blackness swallows me, and I let it.
Wind on my face. I’m running. He’s running, the monster.
A warm splatter.
Then … nothing.
I come to myself feeling wet. My cheek scratches on a gritty surface, and my body moves without effort. Liquid flows over my face, into my nose and mouth—I choke on it.
Salt burns my sinuses.
I wake, sputtering and coughing. It’s long past dark on the beach and I’m lying on my side on the sand.
The water rushes toward me, and I’m submerged again.
I let it roll me out, and then back in again.
My ragged memory fills in the blanks: The ship. Joelle. The fight. Vero. She’d sacrificed herself for me. I sit upright with a choked sound; my legs are too weak to stand. The shoreline’s empty. No idea how long I’d been in transition.
A distant explosion on the water erupts, then a bright light floats so far off, it’s a mere dot.
Takes me a moment to realize what it is.
Our ship has been blown up!
Uselessly, I gather enough strength to wade farther into the water, and even swim out, until a wave tumbles my weak body back toward the shore. I try again and again while water fills my lungs.
After another huge wave tosses me back to land, I hunch over in defeat, arms shaking, barely enough strength to stay sitting. I pound the sand with my fists, coughing up salt water.
The ship is nothing but a fading burn of wreckage in the distance.
“Joelle … ” I say, over and over. “God, why!”
Home was supposed to be wonderful, a new beginning. It’s been a death sentence for ever
yone I care about in what’s left of this rotten place.
“Tommy … ?”
I clench my eyes shut against the weird dreams that threaten to take me.
“Tommy.”
Her voice is as clear as a bell.
“I’m so sorry, Joelle,” I mutter into my hands.
“Don’t be.”
I flinch, glance up.
Dressed in all white, like the ghost that she is, Joelle stands in the water. First Daisy, and now her.
Will I only have ghosts to keep me company?
She walks forward, and once she’s near enough, Joelle, as pale as crystal, reaches out to touch my shoulder. Her black eyes find mine, staring at me with so much sadness. When her freezing cold skin brushes against me, I try to edge away.
She snags my wrist and, lifting it to her face, Joelle rubs it like a kitten. Momentarily, I relax … until I feel stinging needles in my arm.
I crawl backwards on the beach. “What are you doing!” I’m so torn between excitement that she’s alive and fear that this is a trick, plus confusion over her wanting to bite me.
“Tommy, I’m sorry!” Joelle holds out her hands, trying to calm me. “I’m just so hungry—I didn’t mean it. I was happy to see you, but then … I keep thinking about … food—”
“You’re real?”
She nods, and the spell’s broken. I drunkenly leap to my feet to rush over and pull her into my arms. “How?” I ask, but I don’t really care.
I crush her to me.
“I was on the ship when it got gunned down,” Joelle says, muffled against my ripped shirt. “The water was cold, black, and terrifying. I sunk to the bottom, but even the crushing depths didn’t faze me, so I simply began to walk.”
I shudder at the image, hugging her again.
“Tommy …” Her voice is as reedy as ribbons. “I need to eat.”
Right then I realize just how close she is to my throat. I inch back. “I know, Jo, I know. We’ll figure it out. Let’s get out of here first. The Authority’s probably already scouring the area for survivors.”
And like magic, a spotlight appears on the water nearby. We jerk our gazes skyward to the helicopter. Authority insignias glow on each side.
“What do we do, Tommy!”
“Run.”
We make it to the boardwalk before zombies head us off, forcing Joelle and me to slide between buildings and down alleyways, trying to dodge the chopper. Joelle’s faster than I am, but having gone this long without food, she’s not half as quick as usual. We aren’t long for this race, and we dive into an empty building to decide what’s next. The searchlight shines around the windows, but at least this place has no undead inside.
“Wait—shhh.” I lay a hand on Jo’s arm. “Do you hear that?”
“What?—oh, yes I do!”
“It’s a radio. The team’s around here.”
The chopper follows us as we check each window in a weird game of pop goes the weasel. My gaze darts to Joelle, then to the chopper and back, weighing my options. “I’m gonna count to three,” I tell her. “You start running and don’t look back.”
“Why? What’re you going to do, Tommy?”
“Just listen to me, will ya?”
She nods, and I count. When I get to three, she jumps out the window and is gone like the ghost I’d thought she was, slipping between the buildings.
But I don’t follow.
I turn the other way to ensure the chopper has me in its sights first … then I head toward the beach.
Once I’m out on the sand, I cringe, knowing they’ll start firing on me at any moment.
But they don’t.
I run inside the searchlight’s circle, but nothing happens.
When the first bullet strikes my back, I grunt in surprise, tumbling to the ground.
Something shiny flies off and lands next to me. A dart?
Authority guards rappel from the sky, but I’m too paralyzed to do anything except watch.
“Is that him?” one asks.
“Where’s the girl?”
“Gone.”
I smile, knowing Jo-Jo’s gotten away as their sedative knocks me unconscious.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Liza
A breaking inside of me folds each of my heart valves together like paper mȃché. The origami of my soul shrivels. Doesn’t matter that the Skulls have arrived. Doesn’t matter that our liberators are but a breath away. My sweaty palm runs the ink that I’ve protected until I could see him again.
It’s erasing the proof of his love. Just like he’s been erased.
Reginald Cromwell is speaking, but his voice is drowned out by the sound of ice breaking and my falling through it into an empty abyss. Here, Jeremy stands in front of me, that much is clear, only … it isn’t him at all.
The thing that stares back … no light shines in the purple. Nothing but inky dots float in the violet—a dimmed, dull lifelessness.
He loved me.
Past tense.
Now, he focuses on nothing. The passivity of his gaze is like the desert—vast and barren.
The hand … my hand with the writing on it, I’ve pressed it to where my heart is, smearing what’s left of the ink on my pretty red dress. Breath sucks in like I’ve been kicked in the gut.
The Mouse King’s voice snaps me out of my trance. “The America you know has been laid to rest along with them. Jeremy, as you can see, has returned to the fold.”
“No …” I whisper, broken and lovesick.
“Show her, son,” says Reginald. “Show her what’s left of you. Why don’t you give her some of your poetry? Or maybe you’d like to comment on my burning of your demands.”
More ugly crying. “No …”
Jeremy stares blankly ahead.
My words trip over one another. “Jeremy, you remember me, don’t you? You … have … to.” I hiccup on choked and painful gulps.
But Jeremy focuses his attention on his father, waiting for his next command.
“Jeremy!” Hysteria rings, and the smeared hand reaches impotently for him.
“Well, go on,” Reginald says in a voice laced with boredom. “Like we’d planned.”
In one smooth move, Jeremy pulls his gun from its holster while at the same time I grab onto his shoulders.
There’s a glimmer in the purple, but it’s soon gone, swallowed up by the poison. By the zombie side.
“Jeremy―”
Pop.
Fire flares through my stomach.
Jeremy watches without remorse as I’m forced back, hand at my middle now, holding the hole, trying to plug it uselessly. The ink of what had been “I love you” is now splattered with the blood of the loved one.
And the red is gushing onto the carpet in earnest.
Agony. Pure agony.
Jeremy’s expression … it’s like he’s already a zombie.
Please … is what I want to say, but my tongue is bound in a groan of pain.
Seeing the unnatural shine against the white of my skin … it’s like my blood is tainted.
Reginald carries on. “And the end game is, that all of you … you rebellious ones … ”
What Reginald had said before about those who had been purged: Incredible strength.
Buckets of my blood, like the wine, have spilled onto his carpet. My mind is spinning.
Jeremy isn’t looking at me though, just his master.
Reginald continues, “We pride ourselves in squashing any uprising. None of these tactics or partnerships will work.… ”
It’s as if the blood has filled the room and I’m now drowning in a luminous red tint that’s like oil on seawater.
Pretend Man, he’d done the same to me, a sort of purge. Incredible strength.
Reginald laughs at something he’s said. “I’d see every patriot die a slow and painful death, Liza, than let them infect our civilization again.”
A gagging noise is the only answer I can force out, and blood follows i
t, pouring out of my mouth.
His glee at my struggle is a gurgle not unlike my own. “No, my dear. I feel that death is the only purge that’ll truly work for you.”
Incredible strength. Almost impossible to kill.
That’s what he’d said.
Edging my pain is anger, white and hot.
Fight, my father had said. Fight, Liza.
Jeremy stands close, unwavering, towering. Using him to steady myself, I lean heavily against his body before sliding down in a loss of control, leaving a shiny, invisible smear of blood on the black of his outfit.
But something catches me: the gun, back in its holster.
I pull it out, slippery in my slimy grip, and Jeremy’s latched onto my arm, realizing what I’ve done. But I pluck it from him, incredibly strong, as well.
He’s too late.
He can’t stop me.
The gun goes off.
Bam!
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
Click.
Click.
And when the sound stops, Reginald’s heart is full of holes. Broken now, too.
He sits behind his desk as surprised as a startled peacock.
I collapse onto my side with the loss of my remaining strength.
And Jeremy stands over me, motionless, his eyes still the same, but maybe …
“Please,” I whisper. “Please remember.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
The ground won’t stay still beneath me. Yet I simultaneously float on a hardness. My last moments will be full of the uprising’s explosions. There’s a small amount of satisfaction in this.
Jeremy.…
Yelling and pandemonium surround me, breaking glass, people running. “Bar the doors!”
Through the chaos, someone draws near. “Get Crystal. She’ll want to see this. And someone secure … him.”
A voice drops near my ear. “Oh no, Liza … can you hear me?”
Crystal … I want to say, but my body won’t respond.
“Is she dead?”
“I don’t know … Oh, Liza, hang on. Don’t you give up on me.”