She felt something on her arm and looked down to see a large black insect there. She realized with horror that it was burrowing into her. “Fuck,” she whispered, and pulled it out with a sucking sound. She felt it crunch under her soaking wet boot. When she looked back up, Declan was looking right at her hiding place. She could feel his gaze burning through the slats.
“Who's there?” he said. He cocked the gun and pointed it right at her. It was going to hit her right in the head. He was going to kill her right here. She closed her eyes for a moment, then pushed open the door.
Declan's eyes widened. His arm faltered and he lowered the pistol. “Oh Jesus,” he said, his eyes filling with tears. “No. Not this.”
Jenny opened her mouth but no words came. He stared at her for what seemed like ages. She realized she was holding her knife. Declan seemed to steel his resolve and, gritting his teeth, he raised the gun to point right at her face.
She tried to find the words, but only a sound like a groan would come out. She'd forgotten to make herself breathe. She tightened her hand around the knife. Even if she could get to him before he shot her, she would never hurt Declan. She forced her tongue and vocal cords to relax as she watched the trigger being slowly squeezed.
“Stop,” she said finally, the word coming out as a hoarse whisper. “Stop. Please don't.” She raised the knife and pointed it at him ineffectually.
Declan's eyes opened even wider. He shook his head, the gun staying in place. Jenny sidestepped him, easing toward the door. Tears fell from his eyes and he rubbed them away with his other hand. He shook his head again, uncomprehending.
“Don't kill me, Declan,” she said. “Please.”
He kept the gun trained on her. “This is a hallucination. You're not her. You can't be her. She's dead.”
“That's right,” she said, the hunger a pale comparison to the pain she felt in her chest. She felt like she was breaking open. “Just walk away. You never saw me. Do you understand?” Jenny looked toward the other side of the room. “Come on out. We have to go.”
Casey was next to her in moments, a large white object cradled in his arms. He was staring at Declan.
“You never saw us,” said Jenny. “Take the drugs and go.” Jenny kept the knife pointing toward him, doing no good. Declan didn't lower the gun, his face a mixture of shock and disbelief. “Back away, Deck,” Jenny said. He didn't move. “Back away!” she yelled. He jumped and took a step back. “This never happened,” she said. And she pulled Casey through the door and into the darkness.
TWENTY-SIX
“I don't think he even followed us,” said Casey, looking through the back window. “Why wouldn't he follow us?”
Jenny wanted a cigarette. Bad. Not because she had to have the nicotine, but just for the comfort of it. “I don't know, Casey. Maybe he thinks he's crazy. He killed all those people in the Underground.”
“Yeah, but they killed you.”
“Not all of them,” she said. “Some of them were sweet.”
“Jen, I saw how he was looking at you. I don't think he was going to hurt you.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “But I have to assume he was. I'm not human to him any more.”
“If that's true,” said Casey, “then why didn't he kill you?”
“I thought you hated him,” Jenny said. There was no fire in her words, no anger. No emotion.
“I thought I did, too,” said Casey. “I don't know anymore. That was...intense.”
Jenny didn't reply. There was nothing else to say.
There were rotters clogging the street. Jenny honked the horn, but they just kept shambling down the road. She turned the sputtering car onto a side street and weaved around potholes. There was a shape up ahead and she squinted at it. Something was moving near a larger object. Her vision started to go red before she smelled the blood.
“What the fuck is that?” she said.
“Don't stop,” said Casey.
“Why not?”
“I could barely handle being around your boyfriend, Jen. I don't think I can handle this. I'm so hungry. Please. Just go back to the museum.”
Jenny slowed as they approached. A lone rotter was hunched over eating something, her front covered in blood. Scraggly gray hair cut short jutted out at odd angles, the dirty nightgown the dead woman wore in tatters. And then Jenny saw what the large object was.
A woman was fixed to a telephone pole, her arms raised above her. Her abdomen was covered in blood as was her hair, which hung in ropes. Jenny stopped the car.
“Oh no, Jen. Please,” said Casey.
“Stay here,” said Jenny. She got out and walked toward the rotter. The smell of the blood was intoxicating. The hunger was growing stronger, filling her up. She took slow steps toward the woman on the pole. The rotter grunted as she passed. She was eating something red and slimy. The woman was still alive, Jenny could sense it. Thin red rivulets ran from her wrists and down her arms. She had been suspended by what looked like an old railroad spike. The meat around the spike looked like raw hamburger and flies buzzed around the wound. There were more flies settling on her abdomen. It looked like she had been torn open. How was she still alive? Her intestines spilled out of her like snakes. Jenny looked down and saw she had been staked at the ankles too, her feet sticking out at odd angles.
She had been crucified, just like Frank Bierce and a dozen other rotters Jenny had seen. But she was alive. Alive and crucified. This wasn't a thumper statement. This was something else entirely. Something dark. Darker than rotters on poles, darker than Jenny's need for living flesh. This was an atrocity. But even worse was that Jenny was so hungry. She reached out to the girl's bloody midsection. She just wanted a taste. Just one taste and she would leave. The woman gave a pained sigh and Jenny pulled her hand back. The woman raised her bloodied and bruised face slowly like every movement was agony. Jenny could hear her bones scraping against the iron nails in her wrists and ankles. She saw Jenny and she smiled a watery smile.
“I knew you'd come for me, Jenny,” she said. “I knew you'd come.”
“Lily?” Jenny nearly fell back but caught herself.
“He didn't look like a monster,” said Lily. “You were right. Sometimes they look just like you and me.”
“Jesus, Lily,” said Jenny. “I'm going to get you down.” She looked up at the spike holding Lily's wrists. She grabbed onto the head of the nail and tried to pull it out of the wood, but it was sunk deep into the pole. Lily gasped every time Jenny brushed against her, and Jenny ached with everything inside of her with hunger. But this was Lily. She wasn't going to touch Lily. She'd kill herself first.
“You can't,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He was too strong.”
“I can save you,” said Jenny. “Hang on, I'll go get my brother.”
“No,” she said, her voice louder. She flinched and tried to swallow. She looked at Jenny and tried to smile, but it turned to a grimace on her pretty face. There were dirty track marks on Lily's cheeks where she had cried. “I'm going to die.”
“I can save you,” said Jenny. “I can take care of you, Lily. Just like I said I would.”
She shook her head gingerly. “I'm ready to go. I'm going to go to Heaven and all my suffering will be over. It's not going to hurt there. There will be no Joshua or Cora, and there won't be rotters or...or him.”
“Him?” said Jenny.
“He looks like a man, but he's not,” she said. “He was going to help me. He said he could. But he cut me instead. Over and over. He sliced me away until I stopped screaming. I couldn't scream any more. I prayed, though. I prayed hard. He didn't like that, so he stuck me with a needle. I went to sleep and woke up here.”
“Oh my God,” said Jenny.
“I don't think he was a person, Jenny,” she said, her eyes sad and haunted. “I think he was the Devil.”
Jenny felt something bump against her and turned to see the rotter coming back for more. She took out her knife and in one sm
ooth movement lopped its head off. The body fell with a dull thud. Jenny turned back to Lily. She was smiling sadly again.
“You were always so strong, Jenny. I always knew you were strong. I listened, you know. What you told me.”
“What did I tell you?” said Jenny. It was hard to look at Lily. She was barely older than a child, and even now she was so beautiful. Jenny covered her mouth so Lily wouldn't see the horror on her face. The hunger was growing. The smell of blood and Lily's insides were tantalizingly close. Jenny didn't know how long she could stand it.
“You told me to run,” she said.
“Lily...”
“I did it, Jenny. I ran. I was so brave.”
“I did this to you,” Jenny whispered. “It's my fault.” Lily could have been killed quickly with a bullet in the Underground along with all the others, but Jenny had told her to run. The girl had suffered unimaginable pain all because of her.
Lily's face turned to a mask as her features began to relax. “They took my baby,” she breathed. “That rotter you killed. She ate it. How can God let this happen? Why has He left us?” Her eyes found Jenny's. “But now I think maybe He didn't leave us.”
“He didn't?” Jenny said weakly.
“Maybe He sent you to save us all.” Lily's body shuddered and her eyes rolled up into her head until they looked completely white. And then she was gone. The hunger started receding, but Jenny stood there for a long time, staring at Lily's angelic face. Jenny reached up and closed the girl's eyes with her fingers, ashamed she had almost done something unforgivable. If it hadn't been Lily, she probably would have bitten her. Jenny looked up. She couldn't let her turn. Not Lily. She took out her knife and placed the point on Lily's pale, delicate throat. It was the only part of her not caked with blood. She shoved the knife upwards with a wet tearing noise. Lily would never suffer again if Jenny had anything to do with it. She wouldn't come back as a rotter.
She pulled the knife out of her friend and wiped the shockingly red blade on the dead rotter's nightgown. She put the blade back in its sheath and raised her face to the sky. Puffy white clouds glided over the sun. Lily was the only being in this world Jenny thought was truly good. She had been a child. Her father had been murdered, she'd been raped, abused, impregnated, and just when she thought she had escaped all the horror, this freakshow had stuck her with knives and needles and left her to be eaten alive. Jenny closed her eyes.
And then she started to scream.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“What the hell took you so long?” said Grayson. “I've been stuck here for hours.”
“Ran out of gas,” said Jenny.
“Among other things,” said Casey.
Jenny walked past Grayson and into the room that now resembled a lab more than Miss Haversham's bedroom. Sully was polishing a microscope he'd taken apart on the now-clean counter. He looked up when she entered.
“Jen,” he said, looking pleased to see her. “Did you get it?”
“Get what?” she growled.
He frowned. “The centrifuge. Is everything okay?”
Thump thump. Thump thump. Thump thump thump thump.
Jenny walked toward him slowly and he slid off his stool and backed away from her. She felt like the anger had sharpened her, made her better. There were worse monsters out there than her. Sully backed into the wall. Jenny could hear his heart beating, the blood rushing through his veins. She could smell the meat of him.
She reached out slowly, her movements almost gentle. His throat was hot to the touch. He clawed and struck at her as she squeezed, but she barely felt it. There was a rushing in her ears. She had him pinned hard against the wall by the throat. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. He was flopping around like a dying fish, too, his eyes wide and bloodshot. His face went from pink to red to purple.
“I keep wondering about you,” Jenny said, her voice low and calm. “I am so tired of being lied to, Sully. You can't even imagine how tired I am. So I want answers. Now. Or I am going to put my teeth in your tenderest places. And then do you know what I'm going to do?” She snapped her teeth together. “I'm going to bite down. And I'm not going to be able to hear your screams, Sully. Or maybe I won't care. Because I'm a monster. I'm not Jenny. Not anymore. I'm something else now. And if you tell me one more lie, you're going to find out exactly what I am.”
“Jenny, what the fuck?” Casey said from behind her.
Jenny let go of Sully's throat and took a step back as he pitched forward onto the floor, coughing and gasping for air. Jenny crouched down next to him.
“Did you tell Declan to go to that lab?” she said.
“What lab?” he wheezed, tears streaming down his face.
“The basement lab, Sully. How did you know where we were going?”
“Was it a secret?” he said, his eyes darting around the room.
Jenny narrowed her eyes. “Declan was there, asshole. Why was Declan there? What are the odds he would be there at the exact same time that you just had to have a fucking centrifuge?”
“You think I did that?” Sully said, pushing himself up with his hands. “You give me way too much credit. Besides, that bastard wants to kill me.”
“You planned for me to die,” said Jenny.
“Oh, and I suppose I should have planned for getting kidnapped by a bunch of undead kids?” he said. He managed to stand and leaned one hand shakily on the counter. “I heard about it somewhere, okay? Come to think of it, your brother told me about it. I might have mentioned it, but not to Declan.”
Jenny looked around at Casey who was standing with everyone else. They had apparently gathered to watch the show.
“Did you?” she asked Casey.
He looked like a deer in the headlights. “I might have,” he said.
“You said no one else knew about that place. Just you.”
“He mentioned it in passing,” said Sully. “And I remembered. It's not his fault.”
“Who did you tell?” said Jenny.
“I told Lucy about it. She's always interested in trading. I told her if there was anything useful there that I would make it worth her while. Bartering, Jen. It's what I do.”
“So it was all a big coincidence,” said Jenny.
“You're damn straight it was a coincidence,” said Sully.
Jenny looked around. “Give us a minute, would you?” she said. Everyone started to back out of the doorway, including Casey, though he looked apprehensive.
“Whoa, whoa,” said Sully. “Come on, Jen. I told you the truth.”
“Shut up, I'm not going to kill you,” said Jenny. She closed the door after everyone else was gone. Then she walked over to Sully. He flinched when she got close.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I had to be sure.”
“It's fine,” he sighed. “Whatever. You don't trust me. I get it. I wouldn't trust me either.”
“I just watched my friend die,” she said.
Sully was massaging his throat. He stopped and looked at her. “One of Munro's crew?”
“No. Someone else.”
Sully sat down on the stool he'd been perched on when Jenny had entered. She walked over and sat on the counter next to him.
“What do you want, Jenny?” Sully said. He wasn't angry or irritated. He was really asking her.
“You hear things,” she said. “Information.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I hear a lot of stuff. Some real, some bullshit. Heathens are like a bunch of old hens gossiping over the fence, you know? You never know what's real. Gotta take it with a grain of salt.”
“What do you know about the rotters on the poles?”
“Oh,” said Sully.
“You've heard something?” said Jenny.
“I don't know,” Sully said. “It's probably not true. I hear a lot of weird shit.”
“Who's doing it?”
“No one knows. I heard it was some kind of Righteous that went crazy.”
“Crucified,” said Jenny
.
“Yeah, real fucking piece of work, that guy must be,” said Sully.
“You think it's one guy?” said Jenny.
“I don't know,” said Sully. “All I know is, whoever it is, he finds rotters and nails them to poles and shit. They can't get loose until they're nothing but bones. By that time they're dead. They say rotters can't suffer, but...” he shook his head. “That shit's brutal, Jen. I've seen a few. Fucking things are just giving off this whine by the end. Like a dog who's been kicked too many times. I don't like rotters any more than the next guy, but no creature deserves that.”
“I'll keep that in mind,” said Jenny.
“You're no rotter,” said Sully.
“Maybe,” she said. “But I'm not living either.”
“Why did you ask about the rotters? What's that got to do with your friend?”
Jenny looked away. “Because the same thing happened to her. He did that to Lily. She's dead. She's fucking dead.” She felt a twinge behind her eyes like she was going to cry, but it was gone in an instant. She closed her eyes.
“Are you sure?” Sully said. There was something about his voice. Something strange. She opened her eyes and looked at him. He was pale as a sheet.
Thumpthumpthumpthump.
“Positive,” said Jenny. “I just watched her die. I put a knife into her brain so she wouldn't change. She was just a girl.”
“Was she...”
Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) Page 15