by Jeff Hart
I swept through Jake’s surface thoughts. He was anxious, spooked by a night of bad dreams and nervous about some plan he and Amanda were hatching. I know I should’ve dug a little more—found out what our priority target was up to—but I just wasn’t in the mood for NCD business.
As Jake pretended to read the paper, he thought mostly about Amanda. He was doing a breakdown of every conversation they’d had yesterday post-vomit incident. Wait—vomit? Had my psychic shock wave made Jake sick?
Sorry if I screwed up your make-out, Jake. But also . . . not sorry at all.
Jake’s mind was überly focused on whether or not he said the right things last night, on deciphering signals he wasn’t actually sure Amanda was sending, and on not being too obvious about looking at her boobs. Is this how boys’ minds work when they have a crush on a girl? It was kind of pathetic, especially considering Jake’s whole flesh-eating situation. More important things to worry about, you know?
But also? Kind of sweet. Because Jake knew he had more important things to worry about, and he was still thinking about Amanda. I lingered in those thoughts and feelings, that wonderful, new relationship anxiety. Is it weird that I sort of let myself imagine that he was feeling that icky, gooey, lame crap about me?
As if in answer, Tom sharply cleared his throat. I hadn’t heard him come in, and nearly hit my head on the bottom of the overhead bunk as I shot into a sitting position. The room spun; I’d pulled out of Jake’s mind too quickly and it was disorienting seeing through my own eyes again.
Tom pulled one of the desk chairs over to the edge of my bed. “Okay,” he said, “we’re having a talk.”
I resisted the urge to rub my eyes, not wanting to let on that I was seeing three blurry stern-faced Toms. “Um, about what?”
“Come on,” sighed Tom. “I know you’ve been in Jake’s head.”
“Not really,” I lied. “Just for, like, tactical reasons.”
“Oh, Psychic Friend,” replied Tom as he reached into his pocket to retrieve an argyle-print handkerchief. “Your little fibbing nose is bleeding.”
Crap. I sniffed back a trickle of blood and guiltily took Tom’s handkerchief, dabbing at my traitorous nostril. It really was getting harder to track Jake. Plus, I was psychically exhausted from the last few days. So much for keeping nosebleeds to a minimum.
“All right,” I admitted. “So what if I have?”
“For starters, he’s a zombie. The enemy. Our job is to hunt them down and, well, make sure they don’t eat people.”
“Kill them,” I said, clarifying his NCD lingo. “Or enslave them.”
“Yeah,” he replied firmly. “We kill cannibalistic monsters. You’ve seen what they do enough times, Cass. You can’t start feeling sympathetic for them.”
“It’s not like they’re doing it on purpose,” I snapped. “They didn’t choose to be zombies any more than I chose to be a psychic.”
“Yeah, well, you have a gift that doesn’t require brain-eating. It’s not the same thing.”
“He wants to stop,” I said, trying to keep the justification I’d plucked from Jake’s mind from sounding weak. “Or, you know, he’s being selective. They’re not just eating anyone.”
“That makes it okay?”
“Yes.” I shook my head. “No. I don’t know.”
“Are you listening to yourself? You’re tied up in knots here, Cass. Do you see why these psychic dates you’re going on aren’t healthy?”
“They’re not dates!” I could feel my face getting red, embarrassed that Tom had so easily made that leap about my connection with Jake. “Anyway,” I added weakly, “dates need two people.”
“Yeah. They do.”
“But he’s a normal guy,” I said, sounding like I was trying to sell my new delinquent boyfriend to my strict father. “He’s funny, and he likes cool music, and he’s really sorry that he ate all those kids.”
Tom smiled at me sadly. I hated that look. It was like, Oh, aren’t your emotions just so teenage and adorable.
“He can’t be a normal guy. He’s a zombie. Even if—and this is a monumental if—we forget about his undead status, you still don’t know this guy, Cass.”
“I do know him.”
“Not really. Not like we know each other. Not like normal people that talk and share and learn things about each other do. You’re cheating. I mean, how long have you spent in his mind? How much have you learned about him?”
I looked down at my hands, not wanting to dig myself a deeper hole than I was already in, unless I could crawl inside that hole and hide.
“You don’t have to answer. What really matters is what he knows about you. Which is nothing, right? What do you think would happen if you met? Would you be friends?”
I shrugged, not wanting to admit that I’d thought about meeting Jake in real life and that every time I did the two of us hit it off immediately.
“He’d probably eat you,” concluded Tom.
“No, he wouldn’t,” I mustered, cringing at how petulant I sounded.
Tom got up from his chair and sat down next to me. He put his arm around me and I leaned against him, sort of hating him right now, but also grateful for the contact.
“Do you understand why you need to stop this?” he asked gently. “It’s not good for you.”
I nodded, wiping his handkerchief across my eyes, feeling intensely stupid. That little nod was enough for him, thankfully, because he stopped lecturing me. We sat there like that for a while, not saying anything. Eventually, Tom stood up.
“When you’re ready, Harlene wants to talk to you.”
I looked up at Tom, suddenly panicked that this was only the first round of my Jake Stephens intervention. He shook his head, recognizing my terrified look.
“I haven’t told her about this Jake stuff,” he said. “It’ll be just between us, okay? Just promise me you’ll stop.”
“I promise.”
The main NCD building where the unit commanders keep their offices was attached to the barracks by an annex. Before I could get to Harlene’s office, I had to pass through the training center. Just my luck that today was the start of courses for a new batch of future zombie killers. They cluttered the hallways, checking one another out in their newly issued NCD jumpsuits, chatting about which government agency or branch of the military they’d been recruited from.
I felt like disappearing, not faking a smile for a bunch of newbies eager to network with a veteran. Not that any of them actually approached me. I was just some kid sulking through the hallways. They probably took me for an intern on a coffee errand.
I felt like crap. Everything Tom said had pretty much been true. And it made sense to the logical part of my brain. The rest of my brain, unfortunately, wanted to go check in with Jake as soon as Tom left me alone. I was addicted to some guy that I’d met once, in passing, after he’d survived a shotgun blast to the stomach. That was abnormal. Way, way, way abnormal.
Walking those halls, I suddenly felt silly and exposed. Like everyone could see what a creepy idiot I’d been for the last few days.
I thought back to the hospital in New Jersey, the way Alastaire had manipulated the minds of those around us, convincing them not to see us. Even though it originated with a total scumbag, it was still a pretty cool trick. I decided to try it.
I glided out onto the astral plane. Not exactly an easy thing to do when you’re also trying to walk your physical body down a crowded hall. I found myself goofily tiptoeing, like my mind wanted to be invisible, and my body thought it would help out. A passing trainee looked at me like I was crazy. Great. This plan was having the opposite of its intended effect so far.
On the astral plane, I could see the other minds nearby, processing all the information around them—sights, smells, sounds. I just needed to find my presence in all that psychic data and hide it from them. It was easier than it sounded—kind of like lowering your eyes when you pass by someone that you don’t want to talk to.
Th
e next recruit to walk by nearly barreled into me. He was looking straight ahead—he should’ve seen me—but he strolled up like he could just walk right through me. It was working!
Of course, the next recruit smiled right at me. I tried to refocus on the astral plane, but ended up tripping over my physical feet, earning odd looks from everyone nearby.
So far, I’d only managed to hide myself from one guy and I was sweating, the start of a headache coming on. I didn’t know how Alastaire was able to keep up the illusion so easily, while still functioning in the physical world.
“Practice,” Alastaire’s voice whispered in my ear.
I spun around and found him standing outside a classroom, a newspaper tucked under his arm, getting ready to observe these new recruits and probably unlawfully probe their minds for any naughty thoughts. His bow tie was pale pink, such a gentle and soothing color. Alastaire looked like a bookish and dainty dork, which just made him scarier.
He was looking right at me, a little smile playing at his lips. Wait a minute. There’s no way he’d managed to whisper in my ear and then book it down the hall without me noticing.
When he spoke again, his lips didn’t move. His voice was inside my head.
Well done, my dear. Soon, you’ll be strong enough for your promotion.
An image flickered across my mind’s eye, unbidden and definitely uninvited. It was me, holding one end of a metal chain.
The other end was attached to a collar around the throat of a snarling Jake Stephens.
JAKE
THE ELECTRIC RAZOR BUZZED TO LIFE IN AMANDA’S hand. She waved it back and forth in front of my face menacingly.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Not really,” I replied, shaking my head.
“Come on,” groaned Amanda, tapping her foot impatiently. “We agreed.”
“We agreed on disguises. Couldn’t I just get a floppy hat and some sunglasses?”
I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Amanda was standing at the mirror, her hair piled up underneath a shower cap. I could see smudges of black dye through the clear plastic.
When we woke up, we hit some stores in Ann Arbor. First, we stopped off at a drugstore, then went next door to one of those all-purpose preppy-tire-swing clothing boutiques to grab some college-student-style attire.
We’d even dipped into the money we’d picked up off of the trucker back at the gas station and used it to buy a cheap digital camera. For one thing, I wanted to memorialize my hair before I cut it all off. More important, though, we had used the camera to take a picture of ourselves, holding up a copy of a USA Today from a few days ago bearing the headline: SCHOOL SHOOTERS IN CUSTODY. Now we would be living proof that you can’t believe everything you read.
That didn’t make me any happier about shaving my head, though.
“Won’t this make it easier for me to catch a cold?” I asked.
Amanda clicked off the razor, giving me a deadpan look. “You’re a zombie worrying about the flu?”
“Okay,” I said, “what if my head is tiny and/or misshapen?”
Amanda cocked her head to the side, examining me. “Yeah, that might be an issue. You do have some weird angles going on here.”
“Whoa, whoa, really?”
“No. It’s perfectly round, like a globe. I’m amazed you’ve kept such a beautiful head shape hidden from the world for so long. Stop being such a baby.”
Amanda had seemed almost giddy as she squeezed the black dye into her hair, like she was happy for the change. Me, I’d had my shaggy mop since the seventh grade, ever since my dad stopped insisting that I go to the barber with him. It’d been cut occasionally, but most of those were self-administered trims. My hair was a Jake Stephens trademark. It was like my business card, if my business was being a lazy stoner, which it actually was. My hair told the world everything it needed to know about me: that I was cool, that I didn’t enjoy hard work, and that I wasn’t a cop. My hair was perfect.
But, it had to go.
“Okay,” I said, steeling myself. “Do it.”
Amanda flicked on the electric razor and took my chin in her hand. “That’s a good boy. I’ll give you a lollipop after.”
“My barber used to give me comic books.”
“I bought a Cosmo at the drugstore. You can have that. Now hold still.”
After she was done, we stood side by side in the bathroom mirror and got used to our new looks. I ran my hand over the bristles on my scalp, my head feeling cold and about a pound lighter. Amanda had left a strip of hair in the middle of my head longer than the rest, a sort of Mohawk thing. I wasn’t sure whether she’d done it on purpose because she thought it was cool or if she just really sucked at head shaving.
Meanwhile, she looked like an actress playing a punk-rock chick in some Hollywood movie about the dangers of rock and roll. She’d done a pretty good job with the dye but there were still strands and patches of blonde running through the inky black. I guess there’s only so much you can do in a motel sink. She still looked like a superhot cheerleader, but now she was a cheerleader that’d had an emotional breakdown and spent some time in an institution.
“We look pretty badass,” Amanda said. “No one will recognize the new-and-improved Jake and Amanda.”
“These aren’t the undead you’re looking for,” I said, doing my best Obi-Wan hypnotizing hand wave.
Amanda stared at me blankly.
So, you could dye the popular girl’s hair, but you couldn’t make her understand Star Wars references. Good to know.
We got to the student union about an hour before we were supposed to meet Kyle and backed into a parking spot close to the exit, in case we had to leave in a hurry. Then, we found a bench with a clear view of the union entrance. We wanted to see Kyle when he got there and make sure those goons in the beige sedan weren’t following too close. Until then, we were just a couple college kids chilling out between classes. I have to say, considering it was the first clandestine meeting of our young lives, I was pretty impressed with us.
“I hope he shows up,” I said.
“He’ll show,” insisted Amanda.
She was watching the entrance to the student union like a hawk, so I felt free to do a little people-watching. The day was sunny and breezy, what a poetic weatherman might describe as balmy. Kids hustled from class to class or hung out on the nearby benches, laughing, sharing lunches. It was a good scene.
“I could get used to this,” I said, feeling weirdly content. “Maybe we should enroll in some classes.”
“Pretty sure you need a high school diploma for that.”
“Oh no,” I gasped. “Are we dropouts?”
“Shh,” she said. “There he is.”
I glanced over to the student union just in time to see Kyle speed-walking through the front doors.
“He looks a little freaked,” I observed.
“He has no idea what freaked is,” said Amanda. “Yet.”
We waited fifteen minutes for the beige sedan to come rolling through, but it never did. Maybe Kyle had shaken his tail or maybe they just didn’t bother following him onto campus. Either way, it worked out for us.
That brief feeling of relaxation I had outside the student union? Gone as soon as we walked through the doors of the bustling, food-court-style campus hangout. It wasn’t just that Amanda and I were taking a risk being out in public like this—it’s that the student union reminded me of the RRHS cafeteria. So many people milling around, talking and studying, eating their tasty, cooked meals. My stomach was quiet for now, but I dreaded its rumbling.
As we walked around looking for Kyle, I unthinkingly grabbed Amanda’s hand. What can I say? Not the most masculine thing to do, but I needed something to hold on to, to reassure me that we wouldn’t have a repeat of Friday. Amanda looked over at me, a grateful smile on her face—she was nervous too.
“There,” whispered Amanda, nodding to a back table.
I finally got my first real look at Am
anda’s older brother. He was pretending to read a textbook while anxiously scanning the crowd. It looked like he hadn’t slept in days, bags under his eyes, the patchy beginnings of a beard. Amanda had described him as a nerd, yet he still had that Blake aura about him, a sort of inherent confidence that seemed like it should be at odds with his oversize MICHIGAN PARANORMAL SOCIETY sweatshirt and threadbare corduroy pants, but somehow wasn’t. Kyle was as blond as Amanda used to be, broad shouldered, like he could’ve been captain of the lacrosse team if he ever got tired of the whole slacker-geek thing. Instead, he decided to hide those amazing Blake genetics behind a pair of smudged glasses and a perpetual slouch.
As we approached, Kyle’s eyes passed right over us, then snapped back in a wide-eyed double take. He leapt to his feet, chair clattering to the ground behind him. Amanda quickly wrapped him up in a hug.
“Holy shit,” Kyle said, way too loud.
“Stop,” whispered Amanda, trying to keep control but sounding choked up. “You need to be cool.”
I felt a brief twinge of envy for the Blake family reunion. I’d never had this thought before, but man, it sure would be nice to hug my sister. And my mom and dad. I had to put that out of my mind, though. We were here on a mission.
I stood Kyle’s chair back up, looking around. We’d gotten a few glances from the crowd, but kids probably made scenes daily in the student union. No one was paying us much attention as Amanda made Kyle sit down.
“Oh my god, you’re here,” Kyle said, his words coming fast, like he was about to have a panic attack. “I got the message and I thought it was like a really messed-up prank but now you’re here and what the hell is going on?”
A small laugh escaped Amanda, her eyes brimming with tears. She squeezed Kyle’s hand underneath the table. “I’m really, really glad to see you, Kyle.”