by Stacey Jay
I felt the tip of said knife poke against my ribs as I handed over my phone. "Jess, please," I said, sounding as freaked as I felt. "Why are you-"
"Get inside, Megan. Then I'll be happy to tell you why." She shoved me forward and I almost fell before regaining my footing. Jess was way stronger than I'd ever anticipated. Even without the knife she would probably have been able to take me. "I'll answer every question your tiny little brain can come up with. Then, when we're all done with our little chat, you will die. The way you should have died a long, long time ago."
She kicked me square in the back, and I fell into the open door and onto the cold, rotting floorboards. I barely managed to get back to my feet when the door slammed behind me and a light came on at the opposite corner of what had probably once been a quaint little country church back at the turn of the century, before it was sprayed with graffiti and covered in mouse turds.
"Took you long enough. Jesus, I was starting to get bored." Beth Phillips had a knife in her lap and a length of rope in her hand. A rope that was attached to the wrists and ankles of a bound and gagged and very pissed-looking Monica Parsons.
Oh. Smack. The plot had just thickened.
CHAPTER 17
How did you-I thought you-" I stammered, not sure what I could or couldn't say anymore. "But I-"
"Is she always this stupid, Jess?" Beth asked as she came toward me with more rope. "I mean, seriously, how did you fake being her friend for five years? I would have killed her year one and gotten it over with."
"Hold out your hands, Megan," Jess said.
For a second I thought about making a run for it, but then her knife was pressed against my back again. She would kill me. I had no doubt about that. So I held out my arms to Beth, silently vowing to wait for another opportunity to haul ass. I was going to have to find a way to escape. Otherwise, it was over. Jess wasn't going to let me out of here alive.
"She just got a text from Ethan. Looks like he was trying to warn her that you had busted out of Settler prison."
"Honestly, it was easier than sneaking out of my bedroom," Beth said. Jess laughed as Beth tied my wrists together and then shoved me down to sit on a rickety bench beside Monica before going to work tying my ankles.
"Oh, and get this," Jess said, scrolling further down the message on my phone. "They think you 'may have an accomplice.' It took them this long to figure out one artist couldn't raise all those corpses on their own?"
Beth rolled her eyes in agreement. "Yeah, you can't even work the clone spell without a partner. Stupid zombie freaks."
I'd known those clones weren't my fault. In your face, Settlers' Affairs! Not that the information was going to do me a lot of good now.
"They shouldn't be allowed to live in the same world as normal people," Jess said, her eyes shining in the dim light with a rage too scary to be for me and me alone. She must be one of those fundamentalist terrorist-type people who wanted to annihilate things that violated their beliefs. It was totally weird to think about Jess that way, but at least it gave me something to work with.
"Please, Jess, I can understand that what Monica and I are might seem weird or wrong," I said in my most reasonable voice. "But I swear to you, we don't hurt people. We're not-"
"Liar! You're such a freaking liar, Megan!" She screamed the words loudly enough to make me flinch. "You're a murderer. You have been since you were a kid."
She was totally nuts. Still, I had to keep trying. "No, I swear, Jess, I-"
"I was there-I saw you do it. You and Monica," Jess said, looking like she was about to cry. "You turned the zombies on her, and they chased her into the woods. She didn't know the spell to make them stop after just a taste of her blood." She sucked in a breath and the tears standing in her eyes rolled silently down her cheeks. "So they ate her alive before they went back to their graves."
Whatever she was talking about, she had the last part dead wrong. "But Jess, you don't need a spell. Once a Reanimated Corpse gets a taste of the blood of the one who raised them, they go back to their graves. I swear, that's-"
"Bullshit! By the time I found her, the only things left were bones and… her hair."
Jess reached into her front pocket and pulled out a tiny braid of blond hair. "I kept it all these years, waiting until I was strong enough to work the spell I wanted to use for you and Monica. That way, it wouldn't just be my revenge-it would be Mom's too."
Mom. Her mom. Oh my God. It couldn't be…
I suddenly felt as if my entire world had been turned inside out, like I'd stepped through the looking glass and was living in an alternate reality. Jess's mom was the woman who'd run away when we were ten years old after I was attacked in the cemetery. Right after Monica and I had joined power to work the reverto spell. That had to be the answer. It was the only time Monica and I had ever combined forces to do anything.
"Your mom was the one who raised the corpses the night I almost died," I said, my lips feeling weirdly numb as I forced the words out. I sort of suspected I might be going into shock or something but didn't have time to worry about it since Jess was stalking slowly toward me with her knife.
"See, Beth, she's not stupid. Slow on the uptake, but not stupid."
"Please, Jess, we didn't mean to hurt your mom. I've never heard of someone who raised zombies being eaten alive. But even if we'd known that would happen, she was the one raising the dead when she shouldn't have been," I said, thinking fast. "And she was using your blood to do it, right? The blood of the innocent needed for the spell? I mean, that's not something she should have been doing. You were her kid; she should have--"
"Shut up! Mom was doing what she had to do to get rid of Clara. My dad was cheating on her, getting ready to ruin our lives. She was acting out of love for our family. We all would have been fine if you hadn't killed my mother!"
"No, please, I-" My words ended in a gurgle as Jess fisted her hand in my hair and wrenched my head back. I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes, waiting for her to slit my throat.
I was going to die. I was really going to die, right here, right-
"I'm not going to kill you yet," Jess whispered in my ear as she ran the knife across my jawline with enough force to pierce the skin. It stung like nobody's business but wasn't nearly as bad as a zombie bite and not deep enough to scar, let alone kill. "I just need a bit of your blood, Meggy. Monica's won't do. Everyone knows she hasn't been innocent since eighth grade."
The blood of the innocent. She was going to use my blood for the spell.
"Now, you're sure she and Josh didn't do anything?" Beth asked as Jess released my hair and carried the knife with my blood on it to a big black pot sitting where the pulpit would have been. "He told me the other night that they… you know."
What! Josh was such a freaking pig! I couldn't believe he was spreading lies like that. Maybe that was why all the girls had been giving me the cold shoulder last week. They thought I had… that I'd- ugh, I didn't even want to think about it. And on the first date, no less. I was so going to kill Josh Pickle. If I didn't get killed first.
"She's never even let a guy get to second base. Trust me. Josh is a liar," Jess said.
"Josh is a liar, but Ethan's not," I said, going with my first instinct. If Beth and Jess thought they didn't have the blood of an innocent, they'd have to go looking for one. It might buy Monica and me just enough time to escape. "He was my first time, Jess. That's why I was so upset when he went after Monica."
"Oh yeah? When was this?"
"The other night, after he kidnapped me from the corn maze." The lie came quickly and easily. I was apparently much better with falsehoods when in life-or-death situations.
"You're lying," Jess said, though she hesitated before putting the knife in the pot. "You would have told me."
"I'm not lying. Ethan and I did it. And I can prove it," I said, a brilliant plan forming. "Let me text him about it, and-"
"How stupid do you think I am?" Jess laughed and dipped the knife into the
pot. Whatever was inside glowed faintly green for a second, which apparently satisfied Jess that she had been right to call my bluff.
"Jess, you could have ruined the entire spell!" Beth sounded pissed. "For the summoning of the corpses to work, the ingredients have to be perfect. Right?"
"I knew she was lying. She always looks to the left when she's lying."
Argh! Having an enemy who used to be your best friend sucked! She knew me entirely too well. But then… I knew her pretty well too.
"So you've planned to kill me for five years," I said in my most disdainful voice. "Seems like you would have gotten it right the first time in the corn maze instead of screwing up so badly Beth ended up in SA custody."
Jess spun away from the pot, which I guessed was their makeshift cauldron for the ritual they were getting ready to perform. "We did get it right. We weren't trying to kill you. I just wanted to play with you for a while, scare you a little before we got down to business."
"Right," I said, rolling my eyes like I didn't believe her, even though I knew Josh and Ethan had been the targets of the first attacks. Jess was a total freak about being right and doing things perfectly. If I could get her talking, trying to justify her mistakes, I might be able to find out what she had planned for tonight in time to do something to stop it.
"We just wanted to make sure neither of you had a date to the dance so there would be no obstacle to getting you out here for the eclipse. No boyfriends wondering where their dates had gone and getting a bunch of parents on the warpath. This was the plan all along."
So the eclipse definitely had something to do with this. That meant they weren't going to kill us until nearly ten! That gave me at least forty-five minutes to figure a way out of here. "Okay, so the clones and the attack in Perkins Park weren't meant to kill me. Whatever."
"No, they were. And they would have killed you if you hadn't gotten lucky," Jess said, practically spitting the words. "Ethan kept hanging around, asking one of you to the dance and then the other. It looked like we were going to have to kill him too, so we knew we had to get rid of either you or Monica beforehand just to even the odds."
"Two of us versus two of you; anything else wouldn't really have been fair," Beth said.
Jess nodded as if we were picking teams for beach volleyball, not some weird life-or-death game she and Beth were playing by their own rules. "We decided to go for you since you were the younger and most likely weaker one and we didn't have the power of the eclipse until tonight."
"Jess wanted to change the plans and try to get Monica that night at the bonfire," Beth added. "But I told her it was too late. I already had all the graves prepped and there wasn't time to switch out the totems."
"Yeah, I really wanted to save you for tonight," Jess said.
"She's been looking forward to watching you die up close and personal," Beth added from where she sat on the floor, stretching out like we were getting ready for dance practice, not discussing killer zombies.
Up close and personal. Whatever they were planning, it was probably going to go down here, in this church, where they would be guaranteed a good view. "So it was you on the phone the night the clones attacked," I said to Jess.
"It was, and I meant every word. I really didn't want to take you out before tonight. I'm glad that you survived the other attacks and that Ethan broke it off with Monica this afternoon."
Ethan broke up with Monica! I knew he would come to his senses.
Too bad he had to do it right before the dance, thus ensuring that Monica and I were both free for Jess and Beth's little party.
"Everything is working out perfectly." Jess smiled and turned back to the pot, giving it a peaceful little stir. "It just goes to show that my mom is out there looking out for me, making sure you two get what you deserve."
"You think your mom is helping you from beyond the grave?" I asked, unable to hold back my outrage. "She was a black artist, Jess; her soul is dead and gone. Forever. And that's exactly what will happen to you if-"
"Oh, shut up, I'm tired of hearing you whine. Can I gag her now, Jess?" Beth asked, already on her feet and headed toward me.
"Might as well-we don't want either of them to be able to talk when the zombies get here. Just in case they can cast spells without using their hands."
"Why not? You said two against three wouldn't be fair; how is it fair to make sure Monica and I can't command the dead if you and Beth-"
"Oh, shut up, Megan." Beth tried to stuff the sock in her hand in my mouth. I dodged it by flipping my braid around to hit her hand and kept talking.
"Screw you, Beth. Why are you even here? Jess at least has a good reason for being a nutcase. What's your excuse?"
"I am not a nutcase!" Jess screamed.
Oh yeah. I was getting them riled up now. I should have started calling names sooner. The more upset they got, the more likely one of them was to make a mistake.
"Mmmph yrrr rrre!" Monica grunted the words around the gag in her mouth, but even I could understand what she was saying. She was totally on the Megan bandwagon for once.
"You're the one who's nuts if you think running your mouth is going to change what's going to happen tonight," Beth said, not at all miffed by being called a psychopath. "You and Monica are going to be eaten alive. Then I'm going to lure our friends down to snack on the people at the homecoming dance with a little pig blood."
"Pig blood?"
"We've been prepping the ground for weeks to form a trail straight to the gym," Jess said.
The path by the track! It had to be part of their plan. Hopefully, Settlers' Affairs had disabled it so the zombies wouldn't be able to find their way to the gym, but I couldn't be sure. I had to get out of here!
"I'm going to dump the blood and let the undead swarm all over the homecoming court. It's going to be fabulous."
"You're kidding me. You're helping Jess work black magic because you didn't get voted onto the court?" I couldn't believe it. In a way, I'd been right all along. Jess had her own motives, but for Beth this was all about some stupid high school stuff.
I suddenly realized exactly why Ethan and the Elders had been so reluctant to believe me when I'd first posed that theory. After being faced with the possibility of dying so many times the past week, I thought Beth's motives were completely ridiculous. She'd lost a high school popularity contest. So. What.
Beth was willing to kill two people-well, more than two if you counted the attacks on Josh and Ethan and the plan to destroy the homecoming court-because she wasn't a homecoming princess? WTF?!
My thoughts must have shown on my face, because Jess leapt to her psycho friend's defense.
"It's not just the court," Jess said, coming to stand beside Beth, looping an arm around her waist. Standing there together, both of them so blond and delicate looking, it was hard to believe how completely evil they were. Just went to show that not every bad guy was ugly on the outside. "We're going to douse the entire gym. We've got to make sure a lot of people die."
"Why? Because the football team deserves to get theirs for using their votes for a prank?"
"Because we've got to make sure everyone believes we're dead too," Beth said. "Otherwise we'll never be free."
"Our parents will never accept us. We have to do this." Jess turned her eyes to me, as though she expected me to understand what she was talking about. "We have to run away."
"Run away? All this time, you've been planning to run away?" She nodded at me like I was the crazy one. "Then why were you so worked up about tryouts? You're not even going to be here to-"
"Anything worth doing is worth doing right, Megan. How many times have I told you that?" Jess rolled her eyes and sighed. "I mean, I feel bad about killing all those people, but it's the only way to do this right."
"It's okay, Jess. Most of those people are nothing but sheep anyway. Who cares if they're dead?" Beth smiled before she gave Jess a kiss on the cheek. Jess sighed and turned to Beth, and suddenly their kiss became a lot more t
han friendly.
God! My best friend was not only secretly evil, she was also secretly a lesbian! Why had she never told me? I could have been cool with it. Well, with the lesbian part, not the evil part. Obviously.
"Mmph frkgg gwds," Monica grumbled around her gag.
I was pretty sure Monica had called them gaywads, but I couldn't get up to defending Jess and Beth at the moment. Sure, I felt awful for Jess. Her mother dabbling in black magic and then getting herself killed had obviously messed her up big-time. I also felt bad for the two of them. I could almost understand why they felt they had to stage their own deaths and run away.
Their families were two of the richest and oldest in Arkansas. If either the Thompsons or the Phillipses found out their little girls liked other little girls, they would flip out. They'd probably have Jess and Beth committed to the psych ward for electroshock therapy to cure their gayness and would be damned sure never to let the two girls see each other ever again.
But at the same time, I hadn't done anything wrong. And neither had any of the people at the homecoming dance.
Jess's mom was going to use those zombies as a murder weapon, to kill Clara. Any way you sliced it, that was just wrong. Monica and I had only been defending ourselves. I was just a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. But luckily, with the help of a friend-or sort of friend, anyway-I'd used my power to save my life.
I wasn't going to feel bad about that or about using that same power to take down the girls in front of me, no matter what. They'd made that decision easy. I'd never been anything but a good friend to Jess, a loyal and loving friend whom she had betrayed as surely as her mother had betrayed her by dragging her to the graveyard that night five years ago.
So it was with very little regret that I invoked the exuro command, aiming it toward the black pot, knowing I would have to thank Kitty for the lesson in roasting turkeys.
CHAPTER 18
I'd done enough research on Reanimated Corpse spells to know there had to be something dead in that pot. Something dead that-thanks to Kitty-I knew how to make burn like a thousand white-hot suns.