The Queen of Hearts was back on her feet, her face red and hard.
“This isn’t over!” she shouted.
Cinderella got in the queen’s face. “Pity the fool who tries to stand in our way.”
Cinderella then did a double reverse flip, landed on her feet, and somersaulted off the stage. She plowed through the incoming crowd of zombies still searching for the bloodied dagger.
Caitlin examined her forearms and hands while she held the scepter. Her skin had bled white. Hairline fractures were forming on her flesh.
“I need a blood transfusion!” Caitlin pleaded.
Rapunzel sighed. “Too late. For all of us. The queen raised the scepter. The Green Spectrum is dying.”
“But it’s not dead yet!” Caitlin cried out. “Amethyst said we have till sunrise.”
Rapunzel’s right eyebrow sharpened. She picked a cocktail fork off a table. She pricked the tip of her thumb, drawing blood. Caitlin took the fork and did the same.
They swabbed bloody thumbs. Rapunzel said, “Blood sisters.”
The Queen of Hearts bellowed with an operatic shrill, “Trance interruptus!”
Fifteen hundred ruby-eyed zombies froze.
“After them!”
Fifteen hundred heads swiveled in Caitlin’s direction. All eyes burned fire. Not one, not two … but every single ghoul in the ballroom lunged at once.
“Run, Caitlin!” Rapunzel screamed. “Run!”
Caitlin’s legs pumped with fury as she rocketed toward the exit. She glanced up at a corner of the ceiling.
One, two, thr—forget it!
She rocketed out of the ballroom, racing to stay ahead of the undead. The girls followed close behind, restraining the struggling Natalie as they fled.
The chili pepper faced backward. Snow and Beauty immobilized her arms and sandwiched her thrashing torso between theirs. They held her off the ground as her legs kicked wildly.
Their footsteps echoed with each slap on the stone floor as they hustled down the corridor.
Seven filthy zombie dwarfs were already after them. Along with a bloodthirsty Hansel and a ghoulish Gretel. Belle was right behind. She let out an ear-piercing war cry.
“Oooh-owowowow!”
Caitlin ignored the scream as she scrambled full throttle, like a young doe fleeing a hungry lion.
“We need to get out of this castle, fast.”
“But how?” Snow asked, panting. “There’s a ghoul guarding every exit.”
“We need to surprise them,” Rapunzel said.
“I have an idea!” Caitlin shouted. “When we reach the door, bend over. Ready … ”
The guard was poised. He held his staff crossed over the doorway, barring their exit. The girls reached the threshold.
“Now!” Caitlin screamed.
They crouched and bent forward, sending the maniacally kicking legs of the flailing Natalie into the guard’s jaw and knocking him out cold.
They exploded out the castle door and fled into the moonless night. The air was thick and humid. Low-hanging black clouds looked like clumps of black coal set against a dark, deep-purple sky.
Cawing crows dipped beneath the cloud cover, giving chase like feathered beasts from hell. Then the clouds began to release black rain.
“Careful you don’t slip,” Rapunzel warned as they hightailed it across the wet rear lawn.
Rapunzel turned to Natalie and then back to Caitlin. “We must get you and Natalie home before sunrise.”
“Unless we can shut down the scepter,” Beauty shouted from the rear.
Caitlin had no clue how to do that, and they had no time to stop and figure it out.
They raced across the rotted lawn. It dead-ended at a wide, ominous-looking maze of tall, dark-green hedges encrusted with moldy leaves. They rose twelve feet high above the mud-soaked ground.
“We can’t go in there!” Beauty shouted, blinking hard as raindrops splashed her eyes.
Cindy threw up her hands. “The maze is too wide to go around.”
The drum of galloping feet grew louder.
“There has to be a way out on the other side,” Rapunzel said.
“Yeah, but we might get stuck in that snarl for hours—maybe days,” Beauty cried. “Caitlin and Natalie will miss the portal.”
The relentless cadence of running feet drew closer.
Caitlin’s expression hardened. She wiped rain from her face with a forearm. “No choice. Let’s go.”
She ducked into the maze. The rest followed.
“Hang on tight to that scepter,” Rapunzel warned. They glided around a corner, hydroplaning on the mud as they raced into the complex tangle of hedges.
“Oh my goodness,” said Snow, “it’s not what I expected.”
Cindy’s eyes sprung wide open.
This was no ordinary maze. It appeared to be some sort of bizarre … closet? The queen’s closet?
“She’s a borderline loon,” Cindy said. “And quite the hoarder.”
Along the insides of the hedges hung closet bars five rods high, overflowing with gowns, shirts, skirts, pants, blouses, coats, and capes. Packed boxes and trunks stuffed with all kinds of merchandise lined the dirt at ground level.
“That loon looted the Kingdom,” Rapunzel said.
Snow White placed her hand on the nearest hedge and closed her eyes, concentrating. “We should head south. It’s our best way out of here.”
They veered around a sharp bend, and found themselves surrounded by twelve-foot-high shelves. The shelves were stocked with a selection of hats and handbags—enough to fill the best Parisian department store.
Natalie squirmed to break free. She kept screaming one word over and over again: “Hungry!”
Caitlin felt a twinge in her heart. She missed Girl Wonder’s copious vocabulary.
The girls banked another corner.
They ran flat into a wall of shoes that climbed up to the sky. There were purple, pointy princess heels; raw-silk pumps; leopard-print wooden mules; gold ballet flats; pointe shoes; black, strappy sandals; ankle-strap, six-inch wedges; snakeskin stilettos; velvet-bowed peep-toes; corkies; and even flip-flops.
“Cindy, stop staring!” Beauty yelled as she and Snow struggled to contain Natalie. “A little help over here, huh?”
Caitlin spotted the raging flesh-eaters charging after them from the far end of the shoe corridor. They were in hot pursuit with one single-minded purpose. Dinner!
A man in aged leather and dyed-green wool now led the hunt. He wore a chaperon hat and had a quiver strapped to his back.
Robin Hood?
He pulled out a wooden bow. Then a polished tin arrow. He handed the arrow to a strange-looking fellow galloping beside him, who sported a bow tie and a silk high hat.
The Hatter!
Mad as a hatter he must’ve been, because he suddenly stabbed himself in the gut with the tin arrow. He yanked it back out without breaking stride and returned it to red-eyed Robin Hood. The glistening arrowhead was smeared in hot blood.
Contaminated blood!
Robin Hood took aim.
These fiends are utterly evil!
Rapunzel clutched Caitlin tight under her arm.
“Ouch—you’re bruising me!” Caitlin cried.
The legendary outlaw drew back the bowstring.
Rapunzel catapulted Caitlin directly in front of her with a swing of her arm. “You don’t want that infected glob of blood inside of you.”
Right!
Caitlin crouched slightly as she hurtled along the path using Rapunzel as cover. “But what about you?”
Robin Hood fired. The arrow shot like a bullet, cutting raindrops in half midair.
Caitlin heard a swoosh. Rapunzel’s hands gripped her shoulders and shoved her to the left.
Blood sprayed both girls’ cheeks when the arrow whizzed by, barely missing them.
“Wash the blood off!” Rapunzel screamed.
Caitlin swung her hand in the air to catch some drops of rain
. She splashed it on her face.
Caitlin glanced back. The zombie archer was aiming a second arrow. He pulled back. This time, though, his target was not Rapunzel and Caitlin.
Swoosh!
The arrow closed in on Natalie, who was dangling between Snow and Beauty.
A strike won’t turn her eyes red. It will kill her!
Cinderella dove in front of the projectile just before it sliced into the back of Natalie’s neck.
Cindy went down.
Everyone skidded to a stop.
Blood bubbled from the wound in Cindy’s shoulder. The arrow had pierced her flesh.
Her crown had also fallen from her head.
Caitlin ran over to her.
“Stay back,” Cindy growled as she groveled along the dirt. The whites of her eyes glazed over with blood. Her silver-tone skin cracked like ice. Then her face contorted as if some dark, primal force had taken possession of her.
“Leave me!” Cindy snarled. “And run!”
Her voice had changed and its new tone chilled Caitlin.
Rapunzel suppressed her sorrow as she seized Caitlin’s wrist. “We gotta leave. Or the Cinderella that we love will have died in vain.”
The horde of zombies was moving in.
The rain was beginning to taper off.
Caitlin’s lower lip trembled. She stared helplessly at Cindy.
She literally saved Natalie’s life.
Caitlin wanted to thank her, but the words froze in her throat.
Rapunzel pulled her back. Caitlin was numb inside as she and the girls took flight again.
They galloped onward. Tears had begun to water Snow White’s eyes. Beauty’s face was waxen and sullen.
“I never foresaw this happening to her,” Beauty mourned. “I could’ve prevented it.”
Rapunzel suddenly slammed on the brakes.
The rest of them screeched to a standstill, churning up a spray of mud.
They had reached a dead end.
There was no other place to go.
A huge zombie werewolf stood over Cinderella as the throng of ghouls crowded around.
“Another Big Bad Wolf?” Caitlin asked in shock.
“That first one hunted Little Red Riding Hood,” Beauty said. “This one stalks the Three Little Pigs.”
“Pray that Cindy is a full-fledged Blood-Eyed now,” Rapunzel said as she peered back.
Caitlin’s brow creased in confusion.
“If she hasn’t turned yet,” Rapunzel continued, “they’ll eat her alive.”
Caitlin’s emotions seesawed as she saw a fiery red glow emerge from Cinderella’s eyes. She rose from the dirt and fell in behind the wolf.
Caitlin pressed her fist hard against her mouth as she fought back grief. Cindy was now one of them. Caitlin couldn’t allow herself to imagine Natalie turning completely.
The Blood-Eyed wolf proceeded to take a slow, heaving breath.
“What’s he doing?” Caitlin asked.
The wolf exhaled. He drew in a second, deeper breath.
“I think that first one was a huff,” said Beauty. “Which means this one’s the puff … ”
The wolf unleashed a gale-force gust of breath, deep from his gut. He blew forth a violent windstorm of spit, saliva, chewed food, and bile.
Rapunzel grimaced and ducked. “Brace yourselves!”
They were walloped by a wet, foul wind that sent them tumbling to the ground and that showered them in a froth of slobber.
Caitlin and the girls picked themselves up and wiped off the phlegm and mucus from their hair, faces, and clothes. Beauty and Snow struggled to restrain Natalie.
The wolf, a decomposing Pinocchio, drooling dwarfs, and a savage gang of other ghouls were closing in for the final kill.
At first, the Blood-Eyed advanced toward them in a cruel, merciless, unhurried manner.
A moment later, their ruby eyes brightened and they broke out in a run.
Caitlin’s blood ran cold. She tried to mount a wall. “Let’s climb these hedges! Or maybe we could—”
Before she finished, another gust of wind nearly knocked her over. But this one didn’t come from the lungs of the wolf.
“You lovely ladies need a lift?”
Caitlin looked up.
IT’S JACK! JACK!
Her heart swelled.
He was airborne, riding some kind of giant … insect?!
Its colossal, flapping wings were producing these new wind gusts.
How’d he get into this world? How’d he find me? And where did he get that mammoth purple moth?
“Grab on,” Jack shouted, “before you’re dinner for dwarfs.”
The purple insect swooped down, and Jack scooped up Caitlin.
Caitlin tucked the scepter under one arm and grabbed on to Jack’s forearm with the other.
“What about Natalie?” Caitlin screamed.
He lifted her up as the butterfly ascended into the sky.
“She’s next.”
Caitlin swung her legs around and straddled the torso of the winged insect, settling in behind Jack. She wrapped one arm around his waist and held the scepter in the other.
“Hold tight,” he said.
She turned her head to the side and pressed her cheek against his warm back to shield her from the winds. It felt nice—so nice she forgot about her fear of flying.
Until the humongous butterfly turned sharply at a steep angle. They were making a rapid descent. The contents of Caitlin’s stomach leaped into her chest as the aeronautically talented insect swooped back down toward the girls on the ground.
The insect hovered low, like a rescue helicopter, waiting for Jack to retrieve the rest of the girls.
The Blood-Eyed ghouls were closing in.
“Leg it, ladies!” Jack said. “The wolves are at the door.”
Snow White grabbed on to Caitlin’s ankles, Rapunzel held fast to Snow’s calf, and Sleeping Beauty grabbed on to one of Rapunzel’s feet with one hand. Beauty’s other hand secured Natalie by her underarm. Natalie hung between them, suspended by her arms, thrashing.
“Food!” Natalie grunted.
Half a heartbeat later, the wolf clawed at Beauty’s dangling ankle. He missed, narrowly.
And with a heavy flap, the purple moth or butterfly—or whatever it was—lugged the girls over the tall hedge and to safety.
Caitlin held Jack tight, her right cheek pressed against his warm back. At this awkward, painful moment, an untimely thought came from out of nowhere.
Imagine if Piper and her coven could see me straddling an oversized, winged insect with one arm around Jack.
“Where we headed?” Caitlin asked Jack.
“Back to the village. To the portal.”
“We gotta make it there before sunrise. Hurry!” Rapunzel shouted from below.
The butterfly panted. “I’m afraid our passenger load has surpassed my limit. I might have fractured a wing. I need to set you down before we tumble out of the sky.”
I know that voice.
“Uh-oh!” Rapunzel’s shouted.
The butterfly banked left and began his descent out of the dark night sky.
Of course! That voice belongs to the caterpillar! Lord Amethyst Bartholomew!
The last time Caitlin had seen him, they were tiptoeing as fast as they could away from the Big Bad Wolf. Amethyst had spun himself into a cocoon—he had obviously completed his metamorphosis. The bug had impeccable timing when it came to rescuing them from that maze. But even with his help, they were still on the verge of missing the portal.
Caitlin’s ears suddenly plugged up as Amethyst quickened his descent. She squeezed Jack’s waist tighter as the drop in altitude steepened.
A moment later the girls, still clinging to one another’s legs beneath the butterfly, gently touched down upon the grainy sands of a dune.
Jack grimaced as he helped Caitlin dismount from Amethyst’s torso.
The balmy night air smelled of salt and sea. A beaming cresc
ent moon and blinking stars lit a plum-black sky.
Caitlin opened her jaw to pop her eardrums. “Where are we?”
“Castle Beach,” Amethyst said. “I’m afraid we’re still hours away from the village.”
“Let’s run,” Caitlin said.
Amethyst shook his head. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to walk, either.”
“I don’t understa—”
Caitlin saw Jack limping. Then she saw why he was limping, and her mouth fell open.
“Oh my God, there’s a bone sticking out of your leg!”
“I’m fine.”
“Jack, what happened to you?” Caitlin cried.
“I’ll explain later.”
“Hey, take a look,” Rapunzel said. She was pointing to a single-mast sloop boat, bearing a black skull-and-crossbones flag, bobbing in the moonlight just offshore.
A pirate ship—and it looked abandoned. It reminded Caitlin of a ghost ship.
A seagull cawed softly from somewhere out to sea.
There was a distant roll of thunder.
“Is that a storm coming?” Jack asked.
“Skies are clear,” Snow replied, scanning the horizon.
Amethyst frowned. “That’s not impending weather you hear. It’s the rumbling of fifteen hundred Blood-Eyed running after us.”
“Don’t they ever stop?” Caitlin said.
Jack took hold of her hand.
A frothy wave lapped up at their toes. Amethyst fluttered upward to avoid getting wet. “I’ve sent out a distress signal. Alerted some friends to our situation,” he said.
Caitlin looked out upon the water. The light of the moon was like warm, golden syrup on the sea. It reminded her of summer camping trips the Fletchers had taken in the Adirondacks. To Lake Saranac. She could almost smell the pine trees. And the scent of a campfire, with its delightful pops and crackles of burning wood.
Her mom used to spray her with insect repellent to keep the mosquitoes at bay. She remembered being frightened of bees and wasps.
Caitlin glanced over at Natalie, who was still being restrained by Snow and Beauty.
“May I ask you something?” Caitlin said to Amethyst.
“Of course, my child.”
“Natalie and I were both infected. She’s pink-eyed and out of control. I’m not. Why?”
“Adolescence, my dear. Her will is not fully formed.”
The Color of Fear Page 19