Wicked Hungry

by Jacobs, Teddy

  I’ve got the door open now, just a little, and it’s letting in the cold and the wet. But there’s another little meow, and I look down. Max is there. For a moment he looks at me, and we lock eyes, and I think we’re friends again.

  It’s a wonderful moment. I’m all ready to call out to Josh to tell him I’ve found his cat and everything is going to be okay.

  But then my stomach rumbles, my face twitches, and everything changes.

  I swear I reached down to hold the cat, not to harm him.

  But he hisses at me and he’s out the door into the weather before I can blink.

  “Crap,” my mother says as she looks out into the dark.

  The door remains cracked open, letting in cold air. I need to get over to Enrique’s, but my mother is looking at me.

  “What?” I say. “He’ll come back in. He’s a house cat. He’s afraid of outside.”

  She shakes her head. “What just happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw this flicker in your eyes. You changed for a moment, and then Max bolted.”

  “Maybe it was just the streetlights flickering...”

  She tries to stare me down, but I stare right back.

  “You really think Max will be all right?” she asks, breaking the staring contest.

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” I say.

  She nods, biting her lip, as I wave goodbye. Then I’m out the door, holding my backpack in front of me, running hunched over from our side porch to Enrique’s front door. It’s maybe sixty feet max, but I’m slipping and sliding all the way, and lightning flashes above, lighting up the sky. Before I can even ring the bell, Enrique ushers me in.

  “¿Quién es?” asks Enrique’s mother.

  “Es Stanley, Mamá,” he shouts to her, in the other room.

  “What’s up?” I ask him.

  He puts a finger to his lips, shakes his head, and brings me upstairs into his room. Jonathan is already there, sitting on the floor, and the Ouija board is out, illuminated by the flickering flames of two candles.

  “What’s going on?” I ask again, after Enrique has shut the door and turned the bolt.

  “They’re out there,” Enrique says, pointing to his window.

  “Who?” I ask, feeling stupid.

  “Shamblers,” Jonathan says. “Got to be. You can tell just by the way they move.”

  “Hold on, zombies? What are you talking about?”

  “You heard what Morgaine said,” Jonathan says. “Most of those kids at school, taking the supplements ... they’re not like us. They aren’t turning into animals. They’re just...”

  “Turning into zombies?” I ask.

  He nods.

  I move towards the window, but Jonathan grabs my arm. “Uh-uh, you don’t want to look out there. It will just get them interested. They got all animated when they saw me and Enrique looking.”

  “How many are there?” I ask. “What do they look like?”

  “They keep on drifting in,” says Jonathan. “Last I checked there were eight or so. They’re dressed like vegan anarchists, but they don’t move like them. They’re all jerky. Spastic.”

  “Is Zach there?”

  Jonathan shrugs. “We’re not sure. But someone has to be controlling them.”

  “You think they’re watching us?” I ask.

  “I know they’re watching us,” Jonathan says.

  “Can I take a little peek?” I ask.

  They exchange a look. “If you think it’s worth the risk, Stanley,” Jonathan says. “Just be careful.”

  I take a quick look and see half a dozen kids dressed in black. They’re motionless, and then they start to jerk and quiver. Can they sense me looking at them?

  They’ve chalked something on the street. It takes me just a moment to read it.

  “LANSFELD, IT’S TIME FOR A CLEANSING.”

  I sit down on the floor.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “That’s not all, either,” Jonathan says, and nods at Enrique.

  “My jaguar,” Enrique says. “Feel it.”

  He holds it out and I put my fingers on it. It’s hot, almost burning, and glows softly in the dim light of the room.

  “What does that mean?”

  He shakes his head. “We need to call my great grandmother, now. And consult the book. You brought the book?”

  I nod. “I have it right here.”

  “Good,” he says, smiling for the first time since I arrived. “Then sit down next to Jonathan and we’ll get this thing started.”

  “You sure you want to do this with your parents awake?” Jonathan says.

  “And hey,” I say, “what about trick-or-treating?”

  They look at me like I’m crazy.

  “Dude,” Jonathan says. “You want to trick-or-treat for candies while zombies are surrounding Enrique’s house?”

  “Maybe it’s not the best idea,” I admit.

  “I need to contact my great grandmother,” says Enrique. “Can’t you feel it?”

  I shrug. “It’s hard to feel anything with those zombies across the street.”

  I sit with Jonathan and Enrique. We form the three points of a triangle, and the center point is the Ouija board.

  “Is there a reason we’re sitting like this?” I ask.

  Jonathan nods. “A triangle is basic form of protection. If it was a bad spirit, we would draw a pentagram. But to call a friendly spirit, like Enrique’s great grandmother, shouldn’t require more than this. I hope.”

  “What if something else comes instead of his grandmother?”

  Enrique shakes his head. “She will come. And we are not summoning her, just talking with her.”

  “How do you all know so much about this?” I ask. “I thought I was the one with the book.”

  Jonathan smiles. “Dude, I never showed you what I bought before you all came in, did I? And anyways, I’ve been into this stuff for a while.”

  Enrique nods. “Jonathan is our expert here.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “What does that make me?”

  “You’re our boss, Wolf Man,” Jonathan says. “You know that.”

  And when he says it, I realize it’s true.

  Enrique nods. “Yeah, ever since we went to that shop.”

  “And you, Enrique?”

  “I guess I’m your protection. Your backup.”

  “Protection from what?”

  “Those zombies out there, for one. My jaguar here might come in handy.”

  I nod. “So what are we doing here with the board?”

  Enrique shrugs. “My grandfather showed me how to use it. In our culture we respect and welcome the dead; we do not fear them. Downstairs, my parents have put up an altar, for el día de los muertos. The Day of the Dead. That was yesterday and today. So there is no better time to contact my great grandmother. She is already moving about, visiting her descendants.”

  There’s a knock at the door. “¿No necesitas nada, m’ijo?”

  “No, mamá, todo está bien. Solo necesito un poco de tiempo en paz.”

  “Les dejo, entonces.”

  Enrique lowers his voice. “Now we have a little time. My mother will leave us alone. I don’t think she knows what I’m doing, but she trusts me.” He looks at the jaguar. “If only my jaguar wasn’t glowing, I wouldn’t worry about doing this.”

  Jonathan pulls out a book. “Maybe we should do a circle of protection. I have two or three different ones we could try.”

  “Circle of protection?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

  Enrique smiles. “I told you he was our expert.”

  “This one is pretty easy,” Jonathan says, pointing into his book at a blue circle that seems to shimmer as we look at it. It gives me a headache, and I turn away.

  Enrique shakes his head. “But I have to put my hand on the board. How can I touch the board and keep myself safe?”

  “What about us?” Jonathan asks.

  Enrique sighs. “Are you afraid?
We must all be touching hands to do this.”

  “Didn’t you say something about the triangle?” I ask Jonathan.

  He nods. “Dude, triangles and circles go together. There are lots of reasons you find triangles in every building you look at that have nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with the supernatural.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like for protection, or containment,” Jonathan says. “Or gathering strength. I’ve been reading for a while about this. But Enrique wants to get started.”

  He’s right: Enrique has opened the box and unfolded the board, and he’s staring at us expectantly.

  “Ready?” he asks.

  We nod.

  “Then join hands and put a hand on my knee while I convene with the board.”

  Chapter 25: A MESSAGE FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

  The candles around us make up the five points of a pentagram, five triangles locked together. They flicker as Enrique closes his eyes. Then he opens them again. “One last thing,” he says. He takes the glowing jaguar and puts it on top of the Ouija board.

  The candles around us burn brighter as the black jaguar glows in the dim light, giving off heat that warms my face. Enrique sighs and closes his eyes, and then I feel it. Something cold that flits across my face, past my arm. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and Jonathan’s hand tightens on mine. I can feel the tension in Enrique, too, through his knee. I close my eyes for a moment, then open them. Something is happening on the board. The jaguar is ... moving.

  Or at least it’s not where I remember it being when I closed my eyes. And isn’t it glowing more brightly?

  “Bisabuela? Are you there? ¿Estás allí?” Enrique asks.

  His hand moves over the board.

  “S-I.”

  “¿Qué nos está pasando?” he asks. “What is happening to us?”

  “D-A-N-G-E-R.”

  “What kind of danger?” Enrique asks.

  “O-U-T-S-I-D-E.”

  “The zombies?” Enrique asks.

  “S-I.”

  “What do they want?”

  “G-A-T-E-W-A-Y”

  “What kind of gateway?”

  “T-O O-T-H-E-R-L-A-N-D.”

  “What other land, bisabuela? What does that mean?”

  The candles flare around us, and heat buffets my face, from the jaguar but also from Enrique, and then his face seems to change, scrunching up as his mouth closes, then opens again.

  “Mucho peligro,” he says, but the voice is foreign, an old woman’s voice. “They gather outside for a show of force. Las pilulas. Un sacrificio. Purificación. A boy who is not as he seems. To reenter his world, he will rid our world of all humanity.”

  I want to pull away and go to the window, but Jonathan holds me firm.

  “What do they want? Why?” asks Jonathan.

  “Through the gateway. Down deep in the Earth. They will call los ancianos. The old ones. Here, but also in the other world. An ancient evil. Un mal tremendo.”

  “But where?” Jonathan asks, as Enrique’s knee trembles under my hand and Jonathan’s fingers tighten in mine. “Where is this hill? This gateway?”

  “Aquí cerca. Not far away. Here. Past el cemeterio. Un centro commercial. They are building. A mall.”

  I realize my eyes are closed. I open them, and then there is a whooshing sound and thunder outside, and the room is suddenly freezing cold.

  Enrique scrunches his face up in fear and panic. “They pull me away. Watch out. Warn Enrique. Beware the pills. They will lead you to the truth, but others to lies. Beware the changeling boy, beware the piper and his flute. Beware the zombies that walk among you and those that are yet to come. Tengo que irme. I must go.”

  The jaguar figurine starts to glow brighter than the candles and suddenly its head moves, roars, and Enrique goes still, his eyes rolling. Then he’s blinking, looking at us.

  The jaguar has gone back to glowing softly in the candlelight, and the heat is gone.

  “What happened?” Enrique asks. “Did she go? The last I remember was asking her about the other land, and then I blacked out or something.”

  “Dude,” Jonathan says. “You were your great grandmother. Her spirit came into you. I could almost see it, like this big silvery thing. And then it was in you.”

  “Really?” Enrique asks. “What did she say? What did I say?”

  “There’s a gateway,” I say. “At the mall they’re building here in Lansfeld. Into some kind of other world.”

  “And there’s danger from there,” Jonathan says. “The zombies we’ve seen. Great evil, but also great good, your great grandmother said.”

  “Did she say anything about the Whelans? Or Zach?” Enrique asks.

  “She mentioned the pills,” Jonathan says. “And some boy who isn’t what he seems.”

  “Zach, definitely,” I say.

  “Or Gary,” Enrique says.

  “It sounded like she was scared,” I say. “What do we do now?”

  “It’s time for a little more studying,” Enrique says. “And then we’ll run, if we can get past those zombies.”

  I take out the grimoire, Jonathan takes out a book of his own, and then Enrique surprises me by pulling out his own tiny book. “This is from my great grandmother. But it’s all in Spanish and Latin.”

  So we spend the next half hour looking through the books, looking for anything about gateways. Every once in a while we take turns taking a peek outside at the shamblers. There are at least two or three more there. Big guys. They look like offensive linemen from our football team.

  And there’s a new message.

  “LANSFELD, IT’S TIME FOR A DETOX.”

  Why are they writing this here? Or are they writing messages all over town?

  In the books we find something about a hill and faeries that live under it. And that the hill itself can be a gateway for creatures from the rest of Faerie to enter. There is also a lot of information about werewolves in my book, and just a tiny reference to other types of shapeshifters. There are several pages about zombies. They are either drugged, or simple humans who take medicine meant for the fair folk. Like Eternal Cleanse, I figure. The zombies shamble along until they see something they need or like, at which point they can move fast. That’s if they aren’t under control of some wizard or faery.

  Faeries. The Fey. The Fair Folk. Apparently there are those who are wild and those of the court. And the two courts, the Seelie and Unseelie, balance each other out. Unless the balance gets upset, and then there’s war. Could someone be trying to start a war? That sounds ugly.

  I turn the pages, looking for anything else of use. Then I stop cold at a paragraph about vampires: “Lightning fast, incredibly strong, and cold to the touch, with sharp canines. They tend to mate for life, and mark their mates. Normally the enemies of all shapeshifters, they sometimes make allegiances with werewolves. They cannot stand zombies or the evil Fey.”

  Karen.

  “Dude, you look all upset,” Jonathan says. “What did you find?”

  “Vampires,” I say. “Morgaine is a vampire. And so is Karen.”

  “Karen Maloney, a vampire?” Jonathan asks, incredulous.

  “It all makes sense now,” I say. “How could I have been so stupid? She moved faster than I could see. She hissed at me, and she—”

  “Dude,” says Jonathan. “Why didn’t you, like, mention this a little earlier?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I wanted to tell you about it, but I forgot.”

  “You forgot?” Enrique asks. “Your friend is a vampire, and you forget this?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Actually, no, that’s not really true.”

  “What’s not true?” Jonathan asks.

  “She told me not to tell anyone,” I say.

  “She told you she was a vampire?” Enrique asks.

  I shake my head. “No,” I say. “It’s complicated.”

  “You should have talked to us,” Enrique says.

&n
bsp; “I wanted to, but she made me swear,” I say.

  “Yeah, but Stanley, we’re your friends,” Jonathan says. “You’ve got to talk to your friends.”

  “The truth is I got kind of distracted.”

  “What do you mean?” Jonathan asks.

  “Her eyes,” I say. “And Carolina too.”

  “I know what you mean,” Enrique says. “They look you straight in the eyes, and you forget what you are doing, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “It talks about that in my book,” he says. “Dangers of other shapeshifters. The power of the werewolf. Carolina, she’s a werewolf, like her father.”

  “They’re mentioned in mine, too,” Jonathan says. “It says werewolves and vampires can hypnotize you. With a werewolf, you forget everything and just see the forest. And with the vampire, it’s even worse. You just get caught in their gaze and you can’t turn away.”

  “Is there a way to protect yourself?” I ask.

  “Garlic,” says Jonathan. “You can chew it or put it around your neck.”

  “Basil too,” says Enrique.

  “I can just cover my neck with pesto,” I say.

  “Dude, that would keep any girl away, even if she wasn’t a vampire,” Jonathan says.

  “So,” I say, “are we worried about zombies or vampires?”

  Enrique and Jonathan look at each other over the light of the candles, then nod their heads in unison and say together, “Both.”

  “Why?” I ask. “You don’t think Karen would hurt us, do you? She’s nice.”

  Nice? Who am I fooling? If there’s anything Karen is, it’s not nice. Just for a moment I remember her lips on my neck...

  “Karen is nice?” Jonathan says. “To you, maybe.”

  “Not just me,” I say. “She’s all worried about what’s going on with the vitamins.”

  “Eternal Cleanse.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “She can’t figure out who Zach is getting it from. Or why he’s doing it. What’s in it for him?”

  “I’m not sure why he’s doing it, either,” says Jonathan. “He talks about cleansing. And now the chalkings and the warnings. He’s planning something big, but what?”

  “Wouldn’t we all like to know,” I say. “But anyhow, Karen is all right. She wasn’t always a vampire. She’s changing now, like us, right?”

  Jonathan nods. “What do you think we should do?”