looming toward us on the ice — “I would have refused to be involved!”
I reach her, panting.
“You didn’t know about the Veggie Juice?”
She shakes her head. “Of course not. My team sold me out — at least,
Grace, Michael, and Shaq did — too young and stupid to know anything
else but greed. They gave Xanthro the stimulant. Xanthro made the juice
to conduct a controlled outbreak, to see how it would spread. Now that
their experiment is over, they’re on their way to destroy the evidence.”
“Newsflash, we’re the evidence!” shouts Smitty, catching up to us.
“Precisely,” says my mother. “The only thing that will keep us all
safe is that antidote.” She points to the cooler on my shoulder. “Xanthro
doesn’t have Osiris 17, and as long as we do, we can bargain with them.”
“Some breaking news here, too, you freakazoids!” Alice warns from
behind me. “Zombies ahoy!”
I glance back at the tunnel entrance; our basement friends are here.
And by the looks of things, they’ve been joined by others.
“Let’s move!” my mother shouts, and we hurry toward the jetty.
“There are hundreds!” Alice is scanning the loch. “Over there!” She
points to a different place on the ice where a new mob is heading toward
us, shambling and horrible, with bloodied drool and broken, clutching
hands. “And there!” She turns to my mother, frantic. “Where are they all
coming from?”
My mother doesn’t answer, just nods grimly and runs out onto the
jetty toward the ATVs.
But Alice is transfixed. “Shut. Up,” she says, though no one is talking.
“They’re disappearing.”
“You seeing things?” Smitty peers through the fading light. Alice is
right. Whole groups of Undead are vanishing into the loch. It takes me a
moment to realize what’s happening.
“Ha-ha!” Smitty laughs, victorious. “They’re sinking through the ice!
Lard arses! Suh-weet!”
Pete clears his throat. “Er, yeah. And if they’re too heavy, what about
five of us on quad bikes?”
My mother takes charge. “The ice is thickest the way I came.” She jabs
a gloved finger in the direction away from the castle. “We go now, we
make it.” She points to a rickety gate at the end of the jetty. “Close that behind you!”
“Amazing,” mutters Alice. “Because that will totally do the trick.”
“It’ll hold them for a few minutes.” My mother’s bionic hearing is
working well. She descends the steps and makes her way across the ice
to where the ATVs are parked. “Can you drive one of these?” she shouts
up at Smitty. “Accelerator, brake, gear change.” She turns keys to fire up the headlights.
“Hakuna Matata.” Smitty bundles Pete down onto the ice and depos—
its him on the bike.
“Oh, give me a break.”
At first I think Pete is protesting the idea of riding Girlfriend behind
Smitty, but then I see he is squirming on his seat, looking down at the
ice around him.
“You might want to check this out!” he adds, lifting his feet high off
the ice.
Smitty looks down, incredulous. “No flippin’ way.”
There, below the ice, like freak show specimens in mason jars, are
the hordes. They might have fallen into the loch, but they’ve continued
on their mission to reach us. Their commitment to the cause would be
admirable, really, if their end goal wasn’t to kill me. They thump at the
ice with blue hands, trying to break out. In the shallows, they are crawling, their backs pressing up against the ice, cracking it.
“Could this be any more messed up?” Alice is jumping up and down on the jetty. “We! Need! To! Go!”
“Then get your butts down here!” Smitty urges us, mounting the quad
bike with Pete on it. “Let’s roll!”
As I look at him, there’s a massive cracking noise and the bike lurches
forward, throwing Pete clear onto the ice. Smitty clings to the handlebars, his face frozen with shock and fear. But it’s OK, the ice holds, he’s all right. He lets out a relieved laugh.
“Woo-hoo! What a ride —”
A second crack, deafening — like hell itself has opened up — and both
bikes are swallowed whole beneath the ice.
“Smitty!”
I run to the edge of the jetty. The bike bobs up in the water, but
he doesn’t. Pete skitters on the ice toward my mother, and they throw
themselves up the steps to safety.
Then I see it. A hand, Smitty’s hand, reaching out of a dark patch
in the water, clutching the air. And then his head comes up, white and
terrified, mouth open and snatching at breath. Head, shoulders, and the
other hand, hauling himself out of the frigid water onto the ice.
And then I see the third hand.
Bloated and flabby and blue, rising high above Smitty, clamping
down on his head, and pushing him back below again.
I look around desperately — need something to help!
Smitty comes up for another breath, launching himself like a breach—
ing whale, high into the air. But not high enough. His arms stretch
across the ice, but he slips back. Our eyes meet for a second and I’m filled with the hopelessness of his gaze. And then his face hardens, trying to be brave, trying to make one last effort to be strong — strong enough to save himself, and save me from seeing him slip away into the deep.
The blue hand comes again — and then another and another —
grasping for Smitty as he rolls though the water as slippery as an otter,
striking out with legs and arms, fighting the good fight with everything
he has. But it may not be enough.
There’s a coil of rope hanging from the end of the jetty. I grab it;
it’s frozen into curls and only just better than useless, but it’s all I have.
Hurriedly abandoning the cooler, I step off the end of the jetty onto
the ice.
“Bobby, no!”
I ignore my mother’s cries, not quite daring to run but taking giant,
sliding strides, urging myself toward Smitty’s brave face. He’s wedged
himself between chunks of the ice to stop them from pulling him below.
“I’m coming!” I shout — so feeble — but he hears me and I see a glint of
hope in his eyes. Then fear, fear for me.
“The ice . . . ,” he gasps. “Thin . . .”
I know it. I get down onto all fours and slide like a baby giraffe toward
him, looking below, looking through the ice to see what it is that is pulling him down. There they are, the people that were, a writhing mess of limbs and grotesque, puffy, gray heads. I pull my gaze away and focus
on the hole.
“Here!” I throw the rope. Pathetically. It goes nowhere. I’m going to
have to get closer. I scrabble forward, lie flat, and throw again, with
more force. Smitty leaps toward it, and he’s caught, a prize fish on my
line. I edge backward, but it’s obvious I can’t pull him clear.
“Just hold it!” he cries through a mouthful of ice water. I anchor the
rope between my legs and up around my shoulder and lie flat and heavy
on it, clenching with both hands. There’s a massive wrench as Smitty
levers himself up, the hands grabbing after him. I brace myself against
the rope and hope
it will be enough.
It is.
He is suddenly beside me, drenched and gasping.
And then Mum’s there, gripping my legs, anchoring me as I anchor
Smitty.
There is no energy for words. We crawl back to the jetty, helping each
other. By the time we’re there, Smitty has found his strength again and
climbs it first, but my legs buckle at the last impossible hurdle, and I
crumple. He reaches down for me, seizes my jacket, and yanks me up,
Mum pushing me from below. And then we’re there, on solid ground
at last.
As we lie panting, I notice that Smitty’s jeans are torn away at the knee.
And in the pale of his flesh are three jagged and angry bites.
2 9
Smitty sits up jerkily and begins to shiver. I pull off my ski jacket and put it around him, feeling tears prick the corners of my eyes.
Alice shakes me. “We have to get out of here — they’re at the gate!”
She stares down at Smitty, seeing his leg. “Oh, sugarama.” Her bottom
lip starts to tremble.
“Leave me!” Smitty commands us. “Go!”
“Enough with the Martyrdom!” I scream at him. “Get on your feet
and get moving!” The tears are running down my face.
“They got me, Bobby. I’m going to turn!”
“Grow a pair!” I clutch his arm and hoist him to his knees. “We’re
doing this together.” I give him my utmost hard-boiled look. “And if you
turn, I’ll go apeshit on your ass.”
“Me, too, you flippin’ wuss,” sobs Alice.
“Count me in!” shouts Pete. “With knobs on!”
“You’re all such total lamers,” Smitty snickers, in spite of the shakes
wracking his body. “Why did I have to get stuck with you?” He may be
freezing to death, but he’s not turning yet — he wouldn’t dare. He tries to stand but cries out in pain and falls back, his body arching against the ground.
I look up at my mother. “Help me move him!”
Her face is glacial. “Leave him.”
I stare at her.
“He’s been bitten, Bobby. You know what will happen.”
“Help me help him!” I shout at her, thinking frantically. Alice and I
will not be able to take Pete and Smitty far without help. “He’s fine!”
“He’s infected.” She refuses to look at him.
“I hate you.” The anger fuels my attempts to get Smitty on his feet.
But Smitty’s not helping.
“Listen to your ma, Bob.” His eyes narrow. “We haven’t got this far
only to have it all go FUBAR now. Scram.”
I feel the panic building, like an old wound freshly exposed. I turn on
my mother.
“I’m so dumb, aren’t I? Why would I expect you to care about Smitty?
You never care about anything but your work. You never even cared
about Dad.”
“Of course I did,” my mother says, her voice trembling. “Osiris was
about trying to help him.”
My heart falls several stories. “What do you mean?”
She pulls my arm. “We don’t have time for this!”
“Have to agree!” Pete says.
“Bobby, just go!” Smitty yells at me. “I’m finished!”
And then I remember.
I have the antidote.
“Over my dead body.” I shake off Mum’s arm and stagger to the cooler
where I left it on the jetty.
Mum clocks me. “Bobby, no!”
“I’m saving him, Mum!” I shout at her, unzipping the cooler. I’ve
got the syringe in my freezing fingers. “Don’t try and stop me!”
She leaps toward me, arms outstretched, but I dodge out of the way
behind Smitty.
“They’re so completely here, people!” Alice is frozen in place by the jetty gate, and the dozen drooling fiends now pressing against it. The wooden bars are beginning to bend.
My mother takes a step toward me. “That is the only antidote, Bobby.
It’s indescribably valuable.” She moves again, and the two of us dance
around Smitty. “It has the potential to save millions of lives!”
“What about Smitty’s life?” I shout, holding the syringe out of reach.
“I thought you were all about healing people.” I shake my head, laughing.
“No wonder you couldn’t save Dad.”
She looks at me as if in sympathy — my own eyes staring back at me
from her face, filling with tears.
“He was infected.”
The world falls away from me.
“Dad was . . . one of them?”
My mother shakes her head. “No, he was a carrier. One in a million.
But then he got sick and nothing could make him better . . .” Her
voice cracks.
“Not even this?” I cry, holding up the syringe.
My mother’s face crumples. “We ran out of time. It was too late
for him.”
“Not for Smitty.” I push the syringe into Smitty’s hand, then rush at
my mother in the strangest of embraces, to keep her off him.
Smitty hesitates only a second, then pops the needle free. “Yeah. I’m
so much sexier alive. Woo!” He sticks himself in the leg and pushes the
plunger. “Rock ’n’ Roll!”
“No!” my mother howls, throwing my arms off her.
There’s a crash, and the gate that was holding back a dozen zoms is
shattered.
“Time’s up!” Pete shouts.
“This way!” My mother swallows her tears, the leader again. She pulls
Smitty up, and together we all scramble down the steps back onto the
ice, moving painfully slowly around the hole thick with hideous zombie
soup, not daring to race too fast, not daring to linger. The headlights
from the quad bikes still burn bright from their watery graves deep in
the loch, illuminating the squirming bodies from below. I don’t want to
look down. I focus on the other side, blocking out the pain and the cold,
blocking out the fear of ice cracking, of grasping hands and sharp teeth.
Alice and Pete forge ahead, following the tracks to the far bank, and we
follow. It’s not too far, but far enough with a drunken Smitty heavy on
my shoulder. Mum is under his other arm, and together we heave him
across the ice. She wanted to get her hands on the antidote, but I guess
not quite like this. Smitty is her precious cargo now.
We reach the other side just as the night finally closes in. My mother
leads us to a path through the trees; she seems to know the way in spite of the darkness. I take what I hope is a last look back; the castle is a tiny speck of light in the distance. Who knows what’s going on inside there now?
Maybe the whole place will burn to the ground before Xanthro arrives.
We emerge through the trees onto a road. I’m gazing into the
distance with my thousand-yard stare — and there’s something . . . A
yellow glow in the distance, hovering. At first I think nothing of it. My
mind is fried, I’m probably delusional. But then Alice stops.
“What’s that?”
“You see it?” Smitty murmurs.
“I do,” Pete says.
Maybe we’re all tripping. Or maybe we all actually died back on the
loch and this is the light at the end of the tunnel, and our nearest and
dearest are waiting to welcome us into heaven. I sink happily to my
knees. I’m going to see Dad again.
Smitty falls down beside me. He knows it,
too. The light gets closer.
It’s coming toward us. I love it. I can almost feel its warmth. This is the entrance to the afterlife, and I’ll finally get some peace. Alice and Pete kneel, too. I hope God won’t be miffed that Mum stays on her feet; it’s not very respectful of her. Still, he probably knows she’s a bit like that.
I’ll bring him around.
“Stand up!” Mum tries to lift me.
But I’m comfortable here in the snow.
The light’s blinding, and there’s a rumble on the ground.
“Get up!” Mum screams, pulling me, but I’m stuck here. She runs out
in front of the light, arms waving. There’s a screeching noise and the
light stops just in front of her. Weird. She runs back to me and throws her arms around my shoulders. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”
Great, nearly went to heaven and Mum screwed it up. Typical.
I glance at Smitty. He’s squinting into the light. And then he sees
something, and a huge grin spreads across his face. His hands shoot
up into the air, and he throws his head back, whooping like a madman,
double rainbow crazy.
“It’s the bus again,” Alice says dully. “It found us.”
I pull myself to my feet.
There’s a familiar hissing noise of a door opening, and the crunch
of feet on snow. And then there’s a middle-aged man with a flashlight.
Definitely not God.
“Wot you doin’ in the middle of the bloody road?” He shines the flashlight in my eyes. “Could have killed the lot of you!”
I shut my eyes and slump into the snow once more. There are plenty
of voices now, all around. Bona fide humans. Live ones. Score.
“It’s going to be all right, Bobby.” Mum in my ear again. “I love you,
we’re going home safe, and you don’t need to fight anymore.”
And then I feel hands lift me and help me up steps and into the warm
bus. Not our bus, of course, but just like it. Dozens of faces are staring at us, eyes wide.
Kids.
On a school trip.
There are the popular girls with the pastel-colored skiwear, there’s
the rebel at the back with the attitude, and the loner sitting behind the
teacher, earbuds in place, wishing she was anywhere else but here.
“Flashback City,” says Alice.
“Fresh Meat,” says Pete.
“More than enough room for you all,” the driver is saying as we
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