Adrenaline rushes through me. I want to jump through the window, get out of there.
There’s one more knock, then we hear Enrique’s mother. “¿Hijo? You’ve scared your cousin. Ten seconds, and we are coming in.”
Ten seconds is barely enough time to change, but it’s enough time to go through an eternity of pain.
Esme is in first. She looks around fourteen, skinny but with wide hips and the beginnings of a nice bust and bottom. Her eyes are a beautiful green, and they are open wide with shock.
“Oh my God,” Esme says with a smirk.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Jonathan says, covering himself with a shirt from the floor.
“It really isn’t,” I say, hiding behind a desk. Although I have no idea what this looks like. No, wait—are there teeth marks on Enrique’s neck?
“Stanley,” Enrique says, rising, not even bothering to cover himself. “Meet my cousin Esme.”
“What are you doing?” his mother asks. “Cúbrete, menso.”
“We were changing, all right?” Enrique says, picking up a shirt to cover himself.
“And knocking over all the furniture?” his mother asks.
“We knocked,” Esme says. “We knocked like fifteen times, I swear.”
“We couldn’t hear you over the music,” Jonathan says. “It was really loud, and—”
“What, you were all dancing naked?” Esme asks, biting a fist.
“Esme, let’s go,” Enrique’s mother says. “I’ve seen enough.”
“Not me,” Esme says. “This is really interesting. Hey, Enrique, what happened to your neck?”
“Esme,” Enrique’s mother says again.
“Okay,” she says.
“We’ll see you downstairs,” Enrique says. “Shut the door.”
She nods, trying to keep from laughing, and then the door is shut again.
“Wow,” Jonathan says. “Our reputation is toast. Burnt toast.”
I bolt the door. “It could be worse.”
“Oh, really?” Jonathan asks. “How could it be worse?”
“Okay, it couldn’t be worse. So go ahead — change, Jonathan, let’s see.”
“Yeah,” Enrique says. “After all we went through.” He rubs his neck, but I’m glad to see the mark is already fading. “Let’s see more than whiskers.”
Jonathan shakes his head. “I still don’t think I can.”
“What?” I ask, getting dressed. “Why not?”
“It just feels funny,” Jonathan says.
“Don’t think about it,” Enrique says, pulling on his pants. “Just do it.”
“Try, at least,” I say.
“Okay. I’ll try. But dude, you have to promise not to laugh at me.”
I nod. “We promise.”
“Or bite me on the neck, either,” he says.
“As long as you don’t get out of line,” Enrique says, smiling.
Jonathan stands up really straight, and then something strange happens. His eyes start to glow, and his black skin turns red, covering itself with fur. His face stretches out, the room fills with fox musk, but that’s not all. He’s like three or four inches off the floor. He turns to me, a fox now, but no normal fox — kitsuné, a Japanese fox spirit, floating in the air. His glowing eyes twinkle, and for a moment there’s the same humor I’m used to, but also, something ancient, unknown, and a little...scared.
Then, in the blink of the eye, there is a naked Jonathan standing in front of us.
I turn away.
“Dude,” Jonathan says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this embarrassed. Or this hungry, either.”
“Jonathan,” I say. “You were up in the air.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, really,” Enrique says. “You were flying.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m so hungry,” Jonathan says, getting dressed.
“My mother made a lot of food for the day of the dead,” Enrique says. “Some of it goes for my dead relatives — it is on the altar. But she made a lot of tamales that are extra.”
Not that I’m an expert on tamales, but Enrique’s mom makes some amazing ones. Bean, chicken, beef —you name it. She is a one-woman cooking army.
“You want to go down there and have everyone laugh at us?” Jonathan asks.
“No, I want to go down there and eat some tamales,” Enrique says. “Before we figure out what to do with the zombies outside.”
“You’ve convinced me,” I say.
“You’ve got that right,” Jonathan says. “I am so definitely in. At least on the tamales part.”
“First step of the plan: kitchen raid,” I say.
Enrique puts away the Ouija board and takes the jaguar in his hand. “It’s cold now,” he says.
“Are you taking it with you?” I ask him.
“What?” Enrique asks. “The jaguar?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“No sé,” Enrique says. “I guess it will be safe in my jeans.”
He puts it in his pocket.
We walk downstairs and a phone starts ringing.
“Dude,” Jonathan says. “When did you become so popular?”
I look at him like I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Your phone, you idiot. It’s ringing.”
“Oh,” I say, and pull it out of my pocket.
“Hello?”
“Stanley? Is that you?”
It’s a girl’s voice, raw, but cold. Very cold.
“Karen?” I ask. “What’s the matter? Where are you?”
“I found the pills, Stanley. Here in the forest. Boxes and boxes of them. In a shed. But... I’m afraid it was warded.”
“Get out of there,” I tell her.
“It’s too late for that, Stanley. I was so angry. I found some gasoline...”
“Leave them, Karen. Tell me where you are and we’ll meet you. It’s too dangerous.”
“No, I’m going to destroy them. I have one of my sisters here.”
“What are you talking about, ‘sisters?’ You’re an only child.”
“You don’t need to understand. We’ll be fine.”
“Can’t you wait for us?”
“I’ve got to go, Stanley. Someone’s coming.”
“Karen?”
But the line beeps twice. She’s hung up.
Chapter 28: A HIDDEN ARSENAL
Enrique and Jonathan are still looking at me.
“What did Anger Girl want?” Jonathan asks.
“Shut up, Jonathan,” Enrique says.
“Sorry,” Jonathan says. “She spooks me.”
“She found this stockpile of External Cleanse,” I say. “She was going to destroy them, and then she hung up. She said someone was coming. I think she’s with other vampires. ‘Sisters’ she called them, and she’s an only child.”
“Hold on,” Jonathan says. “Now we have vampires, too? Like in the plural? In Lansfeld? I haven’t seen any except Karen, and I never saw anything making me think she was a vampire.”
“Don’t you know how fast vampires are?” I ask. “You think they’re going to let you see them if they don’t want to?”
“Yeah, dude, but still,” he says. “You’d think we’d notice, wouldn’t we?”
“They’re incredibly fast, practically invisible, and they have no smell.” No smell unless they touch you, and then all you smell is roses. “How are we going to notice them?” I continue.
“You’d see their victims,” Jonathan says. “They eat. They get hungry. They mark their prey. They bite.”
“Maybe they aren’t biting,” I say. “Yet.”
Just nibbling and touching. Marking their prey. Playing with their food.
“Morgaine is one,” Enrique says.
“Well, that makes two,” Jonathan says. “But I’m having trouble imagining Karen hanging out with Morgaine.”
I shake my head. “Morgaine is married to a werewolf. She wouldn’t harm us.”
“Wouldn�
��t harm you, maybe,” Enrique says. “But I’m a jaguar.”
I shrug. “All I know is Karen’s put herself in danger. We’ve got to help her.”
“Dude,” Jonathan says. “We don’t even know where she is. And we’re trapped in here until we come up with a plan. Let’s get something to eat and you can try to call her.”
“He’s right,” Enrique says. “Let’s all shut up and eat some tamales. Nothing makes me hungrier than changing.”
“But—”
“Come on,” Enrique says, and pulls me out of the room.
We enter the kitchen. Andres is sitting at the counter, putting some salsa on one of the tamales.
“Hombre,” he says. “What were you all doing? Esme was so excited, she didn’t make any sense.”
“Nothing,” Enrique says. “We were changing.”
“Changing?” asks Andres.
“Yeah, to figure out about going out,” Enrique says.
“You know,” Andres says, “talking about going out, I almost forgot I wanted to show you all something.”
“What?” Enrique says. “Can’t it wait? We’re kind of in a hurry.”
“Kind of hungry, too,” Jonathan adds.
“No, I’ve got to show you.”
“Show us what?” Enrique asks.
“I don’t want to talk about it here. Someone might hear.”
Who is going to hear us? His mother? She’s in the other room with his dad, watching a movie. The zombies across the street, maybe? Who is Andres talking about?
I pull out the phone and dial Karen’s phone number as we follow Andres upstairs to his room.
No answer. I’m sent to her voicemail.
“Karen, call me.”
We walk into his room, and Andres locks the door and turns to us. “You can’t tell anyone, okay?”
Enrique nods. Jonathan nods. Andres stares at me. I nod, too.
He opens his closet and shows us... weapons.
There’s a crossbow, for one. And these little short bolts for it. They give me a funny feeling, that same kind of nasty tingling as the runes on the door at Natural Magic, as Frumberg’s stolen steak knife.
Silver.
And that’s not all. There are little wooden stakes. And these weird throwing stars. Silver, too. I can feel them.
And flashlights. Flashlights? They’re big and black, rugged looking. Police flashlights, maybe? Just for a moment I imagine I’m holding and swinging one like a light saber, bright light cutting through thick darkness.
“What’s all this for?” Enrique asks.
“Just being prepared,” Andres says. “I’ve been having weird dreams, and hearing and seeing weird stuff at school. Kids taking pills. Turning into zombies. Shuffling around and forming packs. I’ve been purchasing stuff off the internet and making things with grandfather’s tools...”
“Sweet,” Jonathan says. “You’ve got a whole arsenal in here.”
“What’s with the flashlights?” I ask.
“With creatures of the night, you need to be prepared. These aren’t ordinary flashlights. They’re tactical. Combat-ready. Used by police officers everywhere. Twenty times more powerful than a normal flashlight. We’re talking two hundred lumens.”
“Two hundred lumens?” I ask. “What’s that mean?”
“It means you can blind someone with them,” Jonathan says, and Andres nods.
I exchange a look with Jonathan. “Could we, uh, maybe borrow one or two?”
Andres shakes his head. “Not one of these big boys. But I can give you each one of these Pelicans. They’re smaller, but almost as powerful. One hundred and thirty lumens. Used by LAPD. You’ll look like a Jedi Knight if you use them when it’s foggy out.”
Actually, I feel more like I’m in a James Bond film as Andres equips us each with a thin black flashlight. I turn it on, pointed towards the wall, and it floods the room with light.
“Whoa, don’t turn that on in here,” Andres says, and I turn it back off.
But there’s so much else to see in the closet. I look closer at some of the stakes, and see...writing. Glyphs. Sigils. I don’t know. Whatever they are, just looking at them gives me a headache.
“What’s that written on those stakes? And on that dagger?” I say, looking at a small blade.
Andres smiles. “Those are signs used by our great-grandfather. Handed down from generation to generation. They’re supposed to protect us, but I don’t know from what, exactly...”
Then he shakes his head. “I think I’ve shown you too much already,” he says. “Sometimes I forget you all are only fifteen years old.”
I look at Enrique. Enrique looks back at me. I can tell he’s wondering if we should tell his brother what we know.
“You know how to use all these things?” Enrique asks.
“Kind of,” Andres says. “You know I’ve been training at the martial arts center in cane fighting and Tae Kwan Do. But I haven’t had much chance to practice with the crossbow.”
I’m about to say something, maybe foolish, and then Enrique grabs my arm.
“If things happen,” Enrique says, “you’ll protect Mom and Dad, won’t you?”
“And my parents next door?” I say.
Andres looks from one of us to the other. “You all know something? I’ve just heard a lot of talk and rumors. About something big happening tonight after some big mysterious signal.”
Enrique lets go of my arm. “We talked to Bisabuela, Andres.”
“What?” Andres says. “You what? ¿Pero cómo?”
“With the Ouija board,” Enrique says. “She came to us.”
“What did she say, Enrique?” Andres asks, looking down at us, eager.
“That there’s danger. A gateway. By the mall. But then she spoke through me—it was Jonathan and Stanley who heard most of the message.”
Andres looks at me and Jonathan, and we quickly tell him about his great-grandmother’s warnings about the zombies. About a boy who isn’t what he seems.
“Tell him about the pills, Stanley,” Enrique says. “About what Karen told you.”
Does Andres know we’re taking them? I leave that part out.
But he must suspect something nevertheless. “You aren’t taking them, are you, Enrique?”
Enrique looks at me. “We all are, Andres.”
“What, are you crazy?” he says.
Enrique shakes his head. “We can’t stop until we solve all this.”
“What do you mean?” Andres asks.
“The pills won’t let us.”
“Oh my God, my brother is a junkie.”
“No, Andres,” Enrique says. “It’s not like that. It’s...”
“It’s what?”
“Magic.”
Andres sighs. “Wow,” he says. “I don’t want to, but I guess I have to believe it.”
“You’ll help us, then?” I ask.
“I’m not happy about the pills,” Andres says. “But we’ve got your back. Me and a few friends have most of the neighborhood covered. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but...”
“Dude,” Jonathan says. “We told you everything we know. Except about the zombies outside.”
“Zombies, outside?” he asks. “Where? How many?”
“Take a look yourself,” I say.
Andres moves to his window, moves the curtain back for a moment, then looks at us. “That’s Robert Johnson from the football team. And I recognize a couple of others. But why are they twitching like that?”
“Because they’re zombies,” I say.
“How many did you see?” asks Jonathan.
“Maybe a dozen.”
“Did you see a blond kid, kind of short?”
He shakes his head. “But someone just chalked: ‘I’LL BE BACK.’ You can take a look yourself, if you like.”
Karen is wicked strong and wicked fast. She can take care of herself, right? I’m sure she can take care of herself. But if I’m so sure, why are my fists clenching?
“We call ourselves ‘the brothers,’ or ‘the brotherhood,’” Andres says. “Actually, your brother Carver is in it, too.”
“Man,” Jonathan says, making a fist. “I just knew he was up to something.”
“Yeah, well,” Andres says. “We have to keep it real secret. We don’t need people thinking we’re some group of crazy kids planning to attack our school or something. They suspect us of enough as it is.”
There’s a knock at the door. Andres turns off the closet light and shuts the door in two quick, fluid movements. “Show’s over,” he says.
“Andres? ¿Viste a tu hermano y a sus amigos?”
“They’re right here, Mom.”
“Tell them to come eat some more tamales. The fridge is already full.”
“They’ll be right there,” Andres says, and waves us out of the room. He follows us back down to the kitchen.
“Get them while they’re still hot,” he says.
Chapter 29: HOT BEEF TAMALES
All the tamales are covered with the same cornhusk wrappers. But they smell different, and I can smell which ones are filled with beef. I open one and basically? I inhale it.
“Dude, you are wicked hungry.”
“Nothing compares to my mother’s tamales,” Enrique says. “Just admit it.”
“I’m going to have to trust you on that,” Jonathan says. “Right now, I could eat a whole chicken.”
“How about a wild turkey?” I ask.
“Now you’re talking,” Jonathan says.
“Yeah,” Enrique says, a tamale halfway to his mouth. “Talking instead of eating. So shut up and eat.”
Each of us puts down a half dozen tamales. Andres looks up, “What, your own mothers don’t feed you?”
“Are you insulting my friends?” Enrique says, standing up and dropping his tamale to the table.
“You got a problem with big eaters, dude?” Jonathan asks.
“You want a piece of me?” I say. “Or of my tamales?”
“Bring it on,” Andres says, standing up.
And then we are all laughing. My friends crack me up. Without them I don’t think I could handle high school. But what am I saying? Right now it seems high school is the least of my worries.
Wicked Hungry Page 14