The White Rabbit Chronicles

by Gena Showalter

  “I am,” I admitted, “but I can’t tell you anything more.”

  Absolute hurt flashed over her features. “You don’t trust me?”

  “I do, but these secrets belong to a group of people. I can’t betray them.”

  “But I’m your friend.”

  “You are. And so are they.”

  “Ali—”

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t,” I repeated.

  She’d left in a huff.

  I spent the rest of the night in a daze, roaming the house, checking doors and windows, with weapons strapped all over my body. After all those years of doubting him, I’d become the image of my father.

  There was no reason to sneak out. Cole and the boys were out there, checking traps and patrolling the area. There was no reason to stay up, either, but I couldn’t force myself to sleep.

  Pops and Nana had forbidden me from seeing him. For real this time, they’d said. And they meant business. Nana was sleeping on the couch in the living room.

  Something had to be done.

  The next morning, I texted him. Can U come over for dinner tonight? My grandparents would come to love him if they got to know him.

  His reply was immediate. Yes. Everything OK?

  Just need U.

  About X. C U.

  X must mean “time.” I grinned. Then, while I had my phone out, I decided to text Kat. I’M SORRY. I hated that I’d hurt her feelings.

  I wasn’t expecting a reply until much later, if ever, but only a few minutes passed before I heard that telltale beep. No, I’m sorry. I was pushy & U know I’m never pushy.

  A chuckle left me. Kat had a gift. She could make me laugh, no matter the circumstances. Friends?

  Best.

  Feeling as if a weight had lifted from my shoulders, I stripped off the weapons and went down to breakfast. Nana had already set the table, and Pops occupied his chair. His shoulders were hunched, his clothes wrinkled. He hadn’t bothered combing his hair over, just let the remaining strands hang limply over his temples. The circles under his eyes had darkened. His palms were flattened on the tabletop, and he was staring at them, lost in thought. Maybe he’d contracted some kind of virus while in the hospital.

  “Pops,” I said gently.

  He jolted as if I’d slapped him, his bloodshot gaze whipping up. “Yes?” There was a raspy quality to his voice, one he’d never before possessed.

  “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”

  “I’m fine,” he murmured.

  Nana carried in a big pan of eggs, steam rising from the top; ham and cheese scented the air. I took my place on Pops’s left. After Nana had scooped us each a portion and claimed her own seat, we ate in silence. At least she and I did. Pops pushed his food around his plate with his fork, not taking a single bite but grumbling under his breath.

  “You need to eat something,” Nana told him.

  He stopped grumbling and stared at her. Really stared, as if he were transfixed by her.

  “What?” she asked, shifting in her chair. “Do I have something on my face?”

  He said not a word.

  Her gaze flipped to me, silently asking me the same question. I shook my head no, then returned my attention to my grandfather. His fingers were digging into the tabletop, his knuckles bowed up, as if he were trying to hold himself back.

  From...attacking?

  His lips pulled back, baring his teeth. A low growl rumbled from him. Every muscle in his body tensed.

  Just as he sprang to his feet, I sprang to mine. He dove for Nana; I dove for him. I caught him just in time, and we jetted to the floor, slamming hard. Nana screamed.

  “Taste,” Pops snarled, bucking and straining in an attempt to dislodge me to get to his wife.

  Taste? Only zombies wanted to— Oh, no. No, no, no. He was alive. He couldn’t be...wasn’t...

  I tried to pin his arms but failed. He was stronger than he appeared. Then my calm, sweet grandfather punched me in the cheek once, twice, and I stopped trying. Pain exploded through me, and only my lessons with Cole kept me lucid.

  “What are you doing, Carl? Stop! You’re hurting her!”

  I hated to do it, but I punched him back. Nana rushed over, probably thinking to help me, but all she did was agitate him, making him fight me even harder in an effort to get to her.

  “Get my phone,” I shouted. “It’s in my room. Call Cole. Please, Nana. Please. Only Cole. He’ll help us. Please!”

  She hesitated, backing up only a few feet, her expression dark with horror and uncertainty. Pops punched me again and again, a battering of his fists. I grappled with him, knowing releasing him would make everything worse. I couldn’t fight him and shield Nana.

  “Now!” I shrieked. “And don’t come back in here. Pops isn’t himself. He’ll harm you.”

  “Ali, I—”

  “Go!”

  At last she took off, disappearing around the corner. Without her presence, the full force of Pops’s rage switched to me. No longer was he content to punch me. Instead, he clawed and bit at me. Forget grappling. There was no longer any need to hold him, and I sprang away from him.

  “Calm down, Pops. Okay? You don’t want to do this.”

  He jumped up—only to go lax, his body collapsing to the floor. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. He stilled.

  I watched in horror as his spirit rose from his body.

  Horror—because I knew. A zombie had bitten him. Had infected him. Had killed him.

  He was dead.

  But he would live on.

  He looked just as sickly as he had while inside his body, yet there was now a deeper cast of gray to his skin. His gaze swept through the room, never quite landing on me. He sniffed, licked his lips and moved toward the only door.

  “Pops,” I said, and stepped out of my own body.

  Instantly his attention locked on me and he forgot about tracking Nana. He stalked me throughout the room. When he lunged for me, I hopped out of the way. There were no Blood Lines in the house, so we both ghosted through the table, the food.

  A pattern formed. We would circle each other. He would propel toward me. I would dive out of the way. The process would begin all over again. I had a dagger in my boot, but I couldn’t bring myself to stab him. I just couldn’t bring myself to disable him. Then I’d have to try to ash him, and I didn’t have the heart.

  A scowling Cole finally strode into the room, Mackenzie, Bronx and Mr. Holland behind him. Mr. Holland demanded to know where my grandmother was, and after I told him, he took off. Bronx kicked the doors shut. I purposely avoided Cole’s eyes. This was the first time I’d seen him today, and I couldn’t afford a vision right now.

  “Don’t kill him,” I said. “Please. There has to be another way.”

  “Quiet,” Cole said. “Watch your confessions.”

  Pops sniffed the air and licked his lips. “Taste.”

  My friends stepped out of their bodies and surrounded him, quickly subduing him by pinning him to his stomach, his hands locked behind his back, his ankles tied with a glowing length of rope.

  “Maybe we can...” I began, only to press my lips together and look down when Cole’s violet eyes swung to me. Our gazes locked—

  —Cole was standing in front of me, his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry. It had to be that way. The man you loved would not have hit you like that. I don’t know when he was bitten, only that he was. What you saw today was a shell. Only a shell.”

  “Then how was he able to come inside the house,” I asked as tears streamed down my cheeks, “with the Blood Line around the property?”

  “Permission overrides the Blood Line. His house. His rules.”

  My heart broke inside my chest. I should have checked for bite marks. I’d smelled the scent of rot the night of the break-in. “If I’d had more time, I could have figured out a way...”

  “There was no other way,” Cole insisted, his tone ragged. “He had to die. To my knowledge, no one’s ever come
back from this.”

  He would know, wouldn’t he. He’d watched his own mother die this way—

  “—Taaasssste.”

  My grandfather’s voice broke through the vision. The world returned to normal. Cole was across the room, holding Pops down.

  “Give me permission, Ali,” he gritted out.

  I realized the power of my words had stopped him from acting before now—just as the power of his words nearly unhinged my jaw to get the right words out. I resisted.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Nana cried from outside the closed doors. “Why did he do that to Ali? That’s not like him. He’s a good man.”

  “I told you things are dangerous down here, Mrs. Bradley,” I heard Mr. Holland say.

  Mackenzie stepped back into her body. “We just need a few minutes more,” she called.

  “Ali,” Cole prompted.

  I couldn’t dump this burden on him. “I’ll...I—I will do it.”

  He studied me before nodding stiffly. “Can you?”

  I looked down. Obstacle one: my hands were perfectly normal. Beyond a doubt, I could light up. The question was, could I do it on command?

  “I don’t want to hurt him,” I said, my chin trembling. Obstacle two: my love for the man.

  No, not a man. Not any longer.

  “He won’t feel a thing, I promise you.”

  Pops struggled for freedom, and I began to cry. He wanted to destroy Nana, and I couldn’t let him. So, really, there were no obstacles. I closed my eyes, dug deep inside myself and found a reservoir of determination.

  “Yes,” I said, and I believed it with all my heart. “I can.”

  Something inside me shattered, and heat exploded through my hands, up my arms, pooling in my shoulders. My eyelids popped open. Both of my arms were totally and completely lit up, from the tips of my fingers all the way to my collarbone.

  Cole, Mackenzie and Bronx were staring at me with shock and awe.

  I stumbled to my grandfather before I lost my nerve, crouched beside him, and waited until Cole had flipped him over. Pops nipped his teeth in my direction. Shaking, avoiding his gaze, I flattened my palm over his chest.

  Within a single heartbeat of time, he was gone and ash was floating through the air. I gazed at my arms in bafflement. Cole had said it would take some time.

  “Ali,” my grandmother called. “Ali, are you okay? Talk to me!”

  Cole jumped back into his body. “Ali. Don’t touch anything else.”

  “Ali!” Panic now laced Nana’s voice. “I am your grandmother and I demand you talk to me.”

  But I had to touch my body. I had to return, had to respond to my grandmother.

  “No,” he shouted as I reached out.

  Spirit fingers brushed natural fingers. I gasped as the two halves of myself connected. The glow vanished, but I could feel remnants of the heat, little buzzes of lightning snapping and sizzling.

  “Are you okay?” he demanded.

  “Yes.” I called, “I’m fine, Nana.” But Pops isn’t. A fresh spring of tears cascaded down my cheeks. “How did I do that?” I asked Cole.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I was afraid you’d burn your body when you touched it. Next time, listen to me. I can’t take another scare like that.”

  “Ali?” Nana said shakily. “I need to see you for myself.”

  I peered at Cole pleadingly, silently begging for permission to tell her what had just happened. She deserved to know.

  He nodded.

  “The truth?”

  Mackenzie protested, but Cole said, “Yes.”

  I opened the dining room doors and Nana rushed inside, Mr. Holland close to her heels. Both of them scanned the room.

  “Carl!” Nana gasped, throwing herself on top of Pops’s motionless body, as if to act as his shield from further damage. “Wake up. You have to wake up.”

  I had to choke back my sobs. “He can’t, Nana. He’s...he’s gone.”

  “No. He’ll wake up. He will.”

  Eventually, though, she realized the truth and cried all the harder.

  Cole helped her to her feet and led her to one of the chairs he’d righted. “There’s something Ali wants to tell you before the authorities arrive.”

  I sat next to her. I was shaking, breathing so shallowly I knew I’d hyperventilate if I failed to calm down.

  Though I feared she would decide I was crazy, that we were all crazy, I told her about the zombies. About Dad’s ability, and now mine. I told her that people trying to control the zombies had broken into the house, that somehow a zombie had bitten and infected Pops.

  Zombies had changed Pops. Killed his body—and I’d had to destroy his spirit.

  With every sentence I spoke, she released a pained moan, and each of those moans choked me up. By the end I could barely understand myself.

  “This is...this is...” She couldn’t quite make herself say the words that would condemn me, but I knew she was thinking them. She had to be.

  “Unbelievable, I know,” Mr. Holland said, picking up the slack. “But she’s telling you the truth. This is why she’s been gone so much. This is why she’s been bruised. This is why she snuck out that night.”

  Cole crouched between us, his solemn gaze on Nana. “It’s time to call 911. You can’t wait any longer, or there will be questions. Tell them he collapsed.”

  I knew why he wanted that. The authorities would do an autopsy and decide Pops had died of that “rare” disease.

  Her chin trembled, tears continuing to track down her cheeks and leave red marks. She looked at me, taking in my battered face. “He was so ashamed. He told me only this morning that the people who broke in dragged him outside. He was so scared, thought they were going to kill him. But they took him past the fence, held him down, told him about the horrible things they were going to do to him. He said the more terrified he became, the more he felt little pricks of heat in his chest. He thought he was having a heart attack. Then he heard the sirens. They let him go, and he rushed back inside.”

  Rage bloomed inside me, white-hot, consuming. So. The people Justin worked with were responsible. They had forced my Pops past the Blood Line, had filled him with fear, an aphrodisiac to the zombies, and then watched as he was devoured.

  Maybe Justin and Jaclyn hadn’t known. Maybe they had. Either way, their leaders had expected Pops to infect me—to turn me into a zombie. What I wasn’t sure about was whether they wanted to experiment on me or end me.

  “I’m sorry, Ali,” Cole whispered, and I knew he’d arrived at the same conclusion I had.

  My life had just taken another terrible turn, and I had a sick feeling things were only going to get worse. And you know what? I’d had this feeling several times before...and not once had I been wrong.

  17

  A Nightmare of Zombie Proportions

  For the third time in less than six months, I attended a funeral. Unlike the others, this morning dawned bright and beautiful. The air was cold enough that I needed a coat, the wind a frenzy; it was the kind of day my dad had loved.

  This time, I wasn’t closed off from the proceedings. I couldn’t be. Nana needed me too desperately. I sat beside her and clutched her shaky hand. I let her cry on my shoulder, and then I cried on hers.

  Cole sat on my other side and held my other hand. He was my rock. He’d picked us up, not wanting either of us to drive while we were so emotional. We hadn’t had a vision, and that had surprised me, but I hadn’t had the energy to figure out why.

  An even bigger surprise—Cole had given me an iPod loaded with music he’d thought I would like. He’d noticed I was without one. I’d been crying too hard to say thank you. I know he felt bad about what had happened to Pops, and he was trying to make things better for me, but the fault was not his.

  “We’re digging into Anima Industries,” he’d said when I’d calmed. At my quizzical look he’d added, “The company Justin works for. We’ll find a way to take them down, on
ce and for all.”

  “Good.” The sooner the better.

  I watched as people walked past Pops’s casket to pay their respects—and saw Emma winding her way through them, the wind not touching her. No one else spotted her. Tears tracked down her cheeks. She stopped in front of me and placed her dainty little hands on my shoulders.

  I felt the slightest pinprick of heat.

  Cole stiffened. Could he feel her, too? See her?

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I thought that if I stopped warning you of the attacks, you would stop going out to hunt the zombies. Instead they got Pops, just like they got...”

  “Who?” I asked, and several people glanced over at me.

  Emma turned a sickly shade of white. “Ali, don’t make me...not here.”

  “Who,” I demanded, and Nana squeezed my hand to try and settle me down.

  “I... Ali, have you wondered what a witness is? It’s someone who has died, who lives in heaven and watches over the lives of those she loved. That’s what I do. I watch you. I cheer you on. I hurt when you hurt. Let this go.”

  “I can’t.”

  I thought she would leave me then, but she didn’t. She sighed and said, “I’d hoped to save you from this, but I can see your determination is too great. It’s...Daddy,” she whispered. “He’s out there, and he wants to turn you. They tried to get Mom, but she fought the evil and won. She’s up there with me, and she wants you safe, too. Let this go, Alice. For us.” With a sad, soft smile, she vanished.

  I could only reel. My father was a zombie. That’s what she’d tried to warn me about before, the thing that would hurt me worse than I’d ever been hurt. My father was a zombie, and there was nothing I could do to help him.

  He wouldn’t want my help anyway.

  He was coming for me. Hoped to kill me.

  I was still in shock when Cole dropped off Nana and me at home. His dad needed him to do something, he’d said, or he would have stayed with me. He’d told me what that something was, but I’d tuned him out. Nana retreated to her room and I retreated to mine. Kat called, but I let her go to voice mail. Cole called an hour after that, but I let him go to voice mail, too. I lay on my bed, lost in a nightmare I hadn’t known I was living in.