by Stacey Jay
"Come on, come on," I muttered under my breath as I dashed through the trees, dodging flaming zombies. I spied my bike on the ground but didn't dare stop. I was faster on foot than most Reanimated Corpses, so if I could just keep pulling hard toward the street, I-
I screamed again as two more RCs lurched from the trees in front of me. I skidded to a stop, flailing my arms to get my balance before falling on my ass on the cold, wet ground. "Exuro!" I flung the flame command at the two creatures in front of me as I hurried to my feet, but this time nothing happened. I tried again and again, forcing the power out through my fingers no matter how exhausted I was becoming, but the things kept shuffling toward me without so much as a hair on their chins catching flame.
Behind me, I could hear the other corpses getting closer, so I cut to the left, running fast through the trees. I made it over a small hill and was really putting some distance between me and the things behind me when I realized I'd made another big mistake. Possibly a deadly one.
"No!" I smelled the water a few seconds before I splashed into it. The duck pond! I'd totally forgotten it was here, and there wasn't time to go around. I'd just have to try to swim across and hope RCs wouldn't follow.
Indian summer or not, the night temperatures had been getting down in the forties, and the water was frigid. My toes started to numb immediately, but I pushed on as fast as I could go. I was up to my waist, shivering madly despite the adrenaline rushing through my system, when I heard the splashes of first zombies entering the water behind me.
I churned my legs even faster, certain I would make better time walking than swimming since my best stroke was my dog paddle, and that sure didn't get you anywhere very quickly. I pushed myself to move faster and faster, finally getting my arms into the act as the water reached my chest. I swiped cold lake out of my way, completely focused on reaching the beach at the other side… when it happened.
Preternaturally strong hands closed around my arm and I went under screaming. My mouth filled with ice-cold fluid and I began to choke, but still I fought, kicking and squirming, finally managing to tear free of the fingers locked around my elbow. I had broken the surface with a gasp, gagging and dizzy from the cold water, struggling to figure out which way I needed to go, when another zombie tackled me from the side.
Teeth tore into the hand I held up to block my face, but I didn't have time to scream this time before I fell under. The zombie, who didn't need to breathe, didn't loosen its hold for a second. It only tore into the flesh of my palm even deeper while another RC grabbed my leg, pulling it to the surface before sinking its teeth into my calf.
Under the cold black water, I cried out in pain, unable to help myself even though I knew I was wasting the last of my air.
There were scarier things than being chased by zombies, I realized-things like knowing you were going to die and that, the next morning on their way to school, all the kids would see what was left of your body floating facedown in the Perkins Park duck pond.
CHAPTER 14
When I woke up, the clock on the wall said it was four in the morning. I was in a beige room, lying on a bed too firm and narrow to be mine. The lights were dimmed, but the night-light across the room was bright enough for me to see my mom curled up in a chair in the corner and my dad stretched on the tile floor near her with his St. Louis Cardinals ball cap over his face. They were both snoring, loudly. I always take my iPod on family vacations where we'll be sharing a hotel room so I can plug my ears and tune out the 'rents because they both cause some major noise.
But at that moment, I didn't want to tune them out. I was just so inexpressibly glad to see them. My throat got tight and I could feel tears pricking at the backs of my eyes.
"Mom? Dad?" My voice was hoarse and scratchy sounding and not very loud, but I guess anxiety had suddenly turned my parents into light sleepers.
"Megan?" Mom vaulted out of the chair and was on her way to me before her eyes even opened all the way. "Honey, are you okay?"
I reached my arms toward her like I used to do when I was tiny and she bent over my bed for a hug. I buried my face in her wonderful, familiar-smelling hair and gave in to the urge to bawl.
Horrible, racking sobs shook my body, making my already achy chest hurt like nobody's business. But I didn't care. I was alive. Somehow, some way, I was alive.
I didn't think I'd ever take that fact for granted again.
"Megan, you scared the hell out of your mother and me. What were you doing out by yourself?" Dad was on the other side of my bed, wrapping his arms around me and Mom, sounding like he was about to start crying too.
"I was stupid, so stupid. I'm sorry," I sobbed, not wanting to tell the truth-that I'd gone to the bonfire to see Ethan. I couldn't ever remember feeling so dumb in all my life.
Mom pulled back to look me in the eye. "If Barker hadn't realized you were gone, you would be dead right now, Megan. Do you understand that? Dead." Her eyes were tearing up, and I could tell how hard she was working not to lose it completely. "By the time he got rid of the Reanimated Corpses and pulled you out of the water, you weren't breathing. If he hadn't been there…" She let her words trail off, but I'd already gotten the message.
Seemed I owed Barker a really, really big thank-you.
"I know. I'm sorry, Mom." My voice was so small, it didn't even seem like it was coming from me.
"Sorry is not going to cover it," she said, the tears starting to fall. "You are never leaving the house by yourself again. Ever. Not even when you go to college, not even when you grow up and get married and have kids of your own."
Then she started blubbering big-time, and so did I, and Dad was stuck there, trying to comfort both of us. Though he'd never been big on Settlers' Affairs as an organization or the Elders as people, he actually looked relieved to see Elder Thomas and Elder Crane at the door to my room.
I was surprised to see them together at first since Elders do their best to pretend they don't know each other in public, but then I looked behind them and saw more bland beige walls. SA headquarters. I should have known I wasn't in a typical hospital, not with zombie bites that would be way difficult to explain to your average doctor.
"She's awake, I see," Elder Thomas said. She was by far my favorite of the Elders, a sweet, grandmotherly type who also happened to be the only woman on the Arkansas council at the moment. Big mistake on the council's part. They could really use more members with a softer touch. "Elder Crane, would you go fetch the nurse on duty? I'd like to get Megan checked out as soon as possible."
"Of course." Elder Crane looked irritated to be the one sent away, but since Elder Thomas was seventy years old and outranked him, he had to deal with it.
I, however, was very relieved. If I was going to get reamed, I'd rather hear the consequences of my stupidity from her than anyone else.
"How are you feeling, Megan?" she asked, sitting on my bed once Dad moved out of the way.
"Pretty good, considering." I sniffed mightily and did my best to quit crying.
In addition to the aching in my chest, I had a pretty serious headache, and the bites on my hand and leg were sore, but all in all, I was doing okay. I wasn't hooked up to an IV, so I assumed I hadn't lost a lot of blood.
"You were very lucky," she said, leveling me with her pale blue eyes. "But I'm sure you know that."
"Yes, ma'am." I nodded and did my best to maintain eye contact, though it hurt to see how disappointed Elder Thomas looked. "I'm really, really sorry. I just… wasn't thinking."
"Well, the good news is that you're okay," she said, smoothing the beige bedspread. Why was everything at SA headquarters beige? You'd think people privy to a secret paranormal world would be a little more creative. "The better news is that Barker was able to track down the person responsible for these attacks."
So much for the "soft touch" thing. My mouth grew dry and my empty stomach cramped. They'd caught the psychopath. I could hardly believe it.
"Who was it?" I asked before I could
control my mouth. Second-stage Settlers who had just caused big trouble didn't go around asking Elders direct questions, but I had to hear her say the words.
Monica Parsons, get ready to pay for your wicked deeds.
"Bethany Phillips, a little girl from right here in town."
What!
She tutted under her breath, obviously grieved by this discovery. "I never thought Carol would breed such a dark heart, especially in one so young."
Bethany Phillips. It took my muddled mind a few minutes to realize that Bethany must be Beth's full name. Beth Phillips had been raising the dead! Beth had been on my list of suspects, but still… the news was shocking.
Sweet Beth with her Barbie-blond hair, the girl who had been voted Best Personality both her sophomore and junior years and who had the intelligence of a sea slug had dipped her hands in the dark arts. Not only dipped them, submerged them. She had to have been practicing for years to be able to work so many complicated rituals in such a short time.
"She's in custody down at the Little Rock headquarters' containment center," Elder Thomas continued. "She'll be given a hearing, but the evidence against her is sufficiently damning. I have no doubt she'll be found guilty by any jury the High Council assembles. Her parents will no doubt be grieved to learn she's disappeared, but in a situation like this, there is little we can do."
I shivered at the reminder that Settlers aren't all sweetness and light and being there for dear, departed souls. SA had been dispensing its own brand of justice to those found guilty of practicing zombie voodoo for thousands of years. If you were using black magic and got on the wrong side of SA, you just disappeared. Forever.
"When Barker got to the graves of the corpses that had attacked you, Beth was still there, Megan. She had bites all over her body and…" Mom trailed off, then swallowed hard.
"And there were dolls that looked just like you all over the graveyard," Dad finished for her. "Thirty of them."
"Thirty," I whispered. I knew there had seemed like a lot of RCs in the woods, but thirty? That was insane.
"But how did she raise that many corpses in such a short time? Wouldn't she have to be working with someone? I mean, Monica Parsons was there too, and she's been acting really--"
"Megan!" Mom gasped, her eyes going round with shock. She exchanged a quick look with Elder Thomas, who was staring at me as if I'd sprouted a second head. A really ugly, crazy-talking second head. "You're accusing a fellow Settler of black magic. Do you understand how serious that is?"
"I know, Mom, but please hear me out. She was at the cornfield the other night when Beth wasn't, and she had this big bandage on her arm and-"
"I assure you, Monica is innocent of any wrongdoing," Elder Thomas said. "After her history, we were suspicious as well, but a thorough investigation revealed she had neither the time nor the opportunity to stage something of this magnitude."
"Her history?" I asked, even though I knew I was pushing it. Elder Thomas had been strangely tolerant of my questions so far, but my luck had to run out sometime.
She paused, taking a deep breath and folding her hands in her lap. "The business with Miss Parsons was a long time ago, when she wasn't much more than a child. She was reprimanded and learned her lesson. Now she's on her way to being one of our most promising young Settlers."
Promising young Settlers. Right. But she became promising after she'd been reprimanded for working black magic. I knew it! I knew she was the first Settler to go the way of the wicked. "But what if she hasn't learned her lesson? I know Monica could work the spell; she-"
"The matter is closed, Megan." Elder Thomas pressed her thin lips together, making it clear I had exhausted her limited patience. "Bethany Phillips is to blame and will be punished accordingly."
"But she couldn't have known I was going to be at the bonfire," I said, trying to sound reasonable instead of whiny. "And from the time she saw me at the Carlisle farm to the time I was attacked was only like… five minutes, maybe less. Could she have raised that many zombies that fast all by herself?"
"The location of your attack was immaterial. It was simply good luck that you wandered so close to the cemetery where Bethany was raising the corpses, thus giving Barker the opportunity to track the Reanimated Corpses back to their graves and capture her."
Good luck? Good luck that I almost died? Elder Thomas was so making her way onto my least-favorite-people list. "So the zombies would have come for me at home if I hadn't snuck out. But Barker would have been there to help stop them," I said, wondering how Barker had managed all those zombies by himself. "Enforcement must know some tricks we normal Settlers don't, I guess?"
Elder Thomas smiled at Mom. "Didn't I tell you she was a natural for Enforcement? A curious mind and a great talent. All she lacks is training and discipline."
And the will to be a creepy Enforcement person, I added silently. If I never ended up in another life-or-death situation, it would be too soon. Enforcement was not in my future if I had anything to say about it.
"Bethany has already confessed her plan to kill you, so you don't have to worry about any further attacks." Elder Thomas stood, making space for the nurse who came into the room. "She was deeply in love with a boy who was paying you attention and wished to remove you so that she and the boy could reconcile."
I wrinkled my brow at Elder Thomas but couldn't say anything, as the young, friendly-looking Settler nurse placed a thermometer under my tongue and then started checking my bandages. Josh hadn't even seemed interested in me the past week-not since I allegedly started going out with Ethan. But then, maybe he'd heard about our "breakup" and had said something that spurred Beth's attack tonight.
Maybe she'd been making dolls since the news of my split with Ethan broke at tryouts that afternoon. That would have given her time to get thirty assembled. She couldn't have known I was going to be at the bonfire, but like Elder Thomas said, it was just a case of being in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place, if you weren't into risking your life to catch a psychopath.
I was safe, I realized as the nurse removed the thermometer and announced me in near perfect health.
It was hard to believe. My mind was still freaked out and on guard, which made me keep asking questions, even though it looked like Elder Thomas might be about to leave my room without issuing any punishment.
"Um, Elder Thomas, did Beth say if she was the one who called me Wednesday night, the one who created those clones?"
"She may have called you, but the council was right about the clones," Mom said, the look she shot me making it clear I should shut up while I was still ahead. "Your power interacted negatively with the murder victim's, that's all. It's something you'll need to work on so it won't happen again. SA is looking into a good tutor-probably someone like Barker, who has experience manifesting at a higher-than-average capacity."
"But then what about Monica's attack? Why was she being chased by an RC if she wasn't Beth's target?" I asked before Elder Thomas could leave.
"It seems Monica was also in the wrong place at the wrong time," Elder Thomas said, finally looking less than amused by my "curious mind."
"She was foolish to respond to a prank call without contacting SA first."
"So did Beth call her too? I don't understand." I bit my lip as Elder Thomas sighed.
"The investigation is ongoing, Megan, but be assured you are safe. Beth is in custody, and Barker will be working with the rest of his team to make absolutely certain you aren't a danger to yourself or anyone else while you learn to control your power."
Oh no. Barker and his team! That meant I was still on the babysitting list. The big-time babysitting list.
"Barker reported eleven burned corpses in the woods, Megan." Elder Thomas smiled, but her smile wasn't comforting. It was actually kind of creepy and almost greedy looking, like she stood to cash in on the corpses or something totally weird. "That means your power is even greater than we assumed. This is a very exciting time for you and for Ca
rol. We mean to take very good care of you from here on out."
"I guess that means no going anywhere without a bodyguard, huh?" I asked Mom as soon as Elder Thomas left the room.
"You can go to school and back, and that's it. And we're going to be relocated to the compound down by the river for at least a few weeks."
"What? Why?"
"Because you've shown you can't be trusted to follow the rules, Megan," Mom said, sounding irritated despite the fact that she was back on my bed, holding on to my hand like she'd never let me go. "There hasn't been a teenager with your level of power in about seventy years. This is something for the Settler history books. It could mean a lot more funding for Carol's Settlers' Affairs division and Arkansas in general."
So I hadn't been imagining the greedy look. What a jerk Elder Thomas was. She was so not my favorite Elder anymore.
"But," Mom continued, "it's not so great if you make the Elders here look like idiots by nearly getting yourself killed. So we're all going to the compound for a while, until you've proven you can handle yourself and your power. Even Daddy's going to have to go."
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else but with you two," Dad said.
"Even if they don't let you go to work?" Mom asked. "Once we're in, there's no going in and out. It would draw too much attention. I had to fight to convince them that Megan has to go to school."
"What? That's complete-" Dad then proceeded to cuss colorfully about Settlers' Affairs, the Elders, and the undead in general, until the nurse popped her head in the door again.
"Um, Miss Berry, you've got a visitor. Since he's not family I figured I would ask first."
"Who is it?" Mom asked, obviously ready to take complete control of my life as punishment for the sin of my sneaking out.