Eat, Brains, Love

by Jeff Hart

  “I could help,” I said weakly. “I could stay with you.”

  “And I’d love to have you, darling, if that’s what you want,” said Harlene, giving me that sad smile again. “But maybe, instead, you might want to go back to your family. Spend some time with the people you love instead of the people that eat people you love.”

  Maybe I was reading too much into it, but there was a distinct note of doom in Harlene’s words. Zombie apocalypse was just something they said in direct-to-video gore flicks, yet I felt suddenly like we were just a few more fugitive zombies away from barricading the doors and rationing food. Where did I want to be when that went down? On the frontlines, hooked up to a dead boy on a leash, buddying up with Alastaire? Or watching movies with my mom until the electricity went out and the end came?

  I hesitated, looking Harlene in the eyes. “Does it make me a coward if I want to go home?”

  She shook her head. “No. It makes you smarter than the rest of us.”

  Harlene held out a pen. I took it, hovering over the place where my signature would set me free.

  “There’s just one more thing,” said Harlene. “I can’t let you go if you’re still in possession of actionable intelligence.”

  I knew immediately what the military jargon meant. “Jake Stephens,” I said.

  Harlene nodded. “We need you to help us catch them. Just one last mission, Sweet Pea.”

  Harlene gave me the rest of the afternoon to think it over. I scurried back to my room, clutching my stack of life-changing paperwork.

  I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over my head. I was trying not to overthink it, but that’s what I do. Overthink things. By signing, I’d basically be trading my life for Jake’s. And Amanda’s, but whatever. I’d also be signing away a year and a half of my memories. All the good things I’d done, the successful operations I used to be proud of—could I live without those memories? Wouldn’t it be worth giving them up if it meant being normal again, just a kid ignorant of all the horrible monsters lurking out there?

  My mind searched for a good memory, something from my time in NCD that I cherished. I thought back to my first day on the job.

  There was no ceremony for graduating from the government’s zombie-killing university. Most of the people in my training class just shuffled off back to the barracks, marching orders in hand for whatever unit they were supposed to join up with. Because of my underage-telepath status, my situation was a little different. I was met at the classroom door by the best-dressed man in the metro DC area.

  “Hey,” he said, “my name’s Tom.”

  We shook hands and Tom smiled, quickly putting me at ease. I’d spent weeks around stiff government types and fidgety scientists in coffee-stained lab coats who taught our classes. I hadn’t expected my handler to be so young and normal.

  “So,” Tom said, putting his index fingers to his temples, “what movie am I thinking of?”

  “NCD psychics are to refrain from making unnecessary telepathic contact with their team,” I recited directly from the handbook.

  “Good answer,” he said, and winked at me. “It was The Notebook, by the way.”

  “Blah,” I replied, remembering how my sister watched that movie four times in one weekend following a breakup, huddled under a blanket on our couch next to a pile of snotty tissues.

  Tom drove us out of DC proper and into one of the swankier sections of the suburbs, where the fancier government types kept quiet homes on clean, tree-lined streets. We parked in front of a salmon-colored house, a lush flower garden lining both sides of the cobblestone walkway that led to the front door. It was such a sweet, lovingly decorated place; the scary-looking hulk sipping iced tea on the front porch looked totally out of place.

  “That’s Jamison,” explained Tom as we approached the house. “He’s our muscle.”

  Jamison was wearing a tank top that showed off his not-kidding-around muscles and the faded Marine Corps tattoos that covered them. He eyed me with no shortage of skepticism as Tom led me up the front steps.

  “Jamison,” announced Tom, “allow me to introduce our new psychic friend.”

  “Her?” he grunted, then looked at me. “Jesus, what are you? Thirteen?”

  “Sixteen,” I corrected.

  “Oh, in that case . . .” He snorted, shaking his head. “Have you ever even seen a dead body, little girl?”

  “Have you?” I replied, deciding to stand my ground with this brooding tough guy. “Because you kinda look like the fainting type.”

  Tom stifled a laugh as Jamison stared at me, his mouth open to form a comeback that never took shape.

  “Oh, Jamie,” said a laughing Harlene as she emerged through the screen door, drying her hands on a towel. “Stop trying to scare the new girl. It clearly ain’t working.”

  Harlene’s hair was piled on top of her head in the most immaculate-looking bun that I’d ever seen. She had a flour-spattered apron tied around her waist. This was even more surprising than having a well-coifed Gosling superfan for a guardian; Harlene reminded me of a southern version of my mom, the way she’d go out of her way to cook a fancy dinner whenever she knew my sister was coming home from college for the weekend.

  “Here’s the boss,” said Tom.

  I extended my hand to Harlene, feeling more timid around her than I had around Jamison. She brushed my hand aside and swept me into a warm hug.

  “I hope you like biscuits,” she said, holding me out at arm’s length. “What am I saying? You’ve been eating that nasty barracks food. I’m sure you’re more than ready for some good home cooking.”

  We didn’t have a ton of downtime in the NCD, but whenever we did, Harlene would insist we all get together at her place for a family dinner. It was nice. Normal. And though he never said much at the table, I think even Jamison liked it. He sure ate enough.

  Amanda sure ate enough too.

  I must have dozed off under the covers, or maybe I was just so emotionally exhausted that my mind sort of got away from me. Half aware of what I was doing, I drifted across the astral plane. Into Jake. But if my mind had gotten comfortable seeking him out, this was not the Jake I expected or wanted to find.

  He was pulling a thrashing, zombied-out Amanda away from a guy that looked an awful lot like one of our government agents. He paused for a moment, not even thinking as he tore off a chunk of meat from the agent’s side. He shoveled that bloody handful into his mouth and went back to dragging Amanda away from the body.

  I woke up still shaking from what I’d just seen. I’d gotten so used to thinking of Jake as a nice boy from Jersey that I’d forgotten that he and his girlfriend sometimes killed people.

  Tom stood over me, just about to wake me up.

  “There’s been an incident in Michigan,” Tom said gravely. “Stephens and Blake were involved.”

  “I know,” I said grimly. There wasn’t anything more to say than that.

  “One dead,” said Tom. “A team is mobilizing. They’re going to need you to track him.”

  I nodded, getting out of bed and crossing to my desk where I’d left the Incapable Asset Disengagement paperwork.

  Incapable was right. I’d gotten all screwed up while stealing into Jake’s mind, and now more people were dead. Because of Jake. Because of me. They’d killed others too along the way, and I’d rationalized those. What had I been thinking?

  All this was definitely a memory I could live without.

  I thought about Tom’s lecture that morning, how my whole relationship with Jake Stephens had taken place inside my head. That I even thought of it as a relationship was a joke.

  I’m sorry, Jake, I thought, but I don’t even know you.

  I signed the paperwork.

  JAKE

  WE DROVE OUT OF ANN ARBOR IN WHAT I’D LIKE TO coolly describe as a hurry, but was really verging on panic. It took all my self-control not to floor it, knowing that speeding would only attract more attention. I heard the distant wailing of sirens when we
first skidded out of the university, but we were ahead of them. I stuck to back roads, sleepy streets in the suburbs—avoiding highways, commercial areas, anywhere the cops might be floating around. I kept an ear peeled for the chop-chop-chop of a helicopter.

  It never came. With all the mayhem back at the student union, it’d probably take the local cops some time to figure out who they were looking for. By then, hopefully, we’d be out of Michigan. And, as for the government guys, it seemed like there were only two of them.

  Well, there was only one of them now.

  I wasn’t really paying attention to where we were going. All I wanted to do was put some distance between us and our latest crime scene. I tried to keep the sun in front of us, knowing we wanted to head west, putting my four months of Boy Scout training to good use.

  Amanda was camped out in the backseat. She’d come out of zombie mode, the digested parts of the agent enough to heal the bullet wound in her shoulder. She was still scrubbing herself with baby wipes. She was shuddering.

  “You all right?” I asked her, trying to keep my voice steady even though I didn’t feel particularly all right myself.

  “We need to switch cars,” she said.

  We dumped the car in the parking lot of some big apartment complex, I think somewhere in Indiana. Amanda picked out a dark red Chevy whose owner had left a back door unlocked, hot-wiring our latest ride with shaky hands. While she was doing that, I ate a rat, then a second one when my stomach rumbled disappointedly. I hadn’t gotten much of the secret-agent buffet back in Ann Arbor and, with all the stress of the last few hours, I was starting to feel it. When I was finished, there were just five little rodents left on death row. I hoped we could ration them.

  Rat-tion. That was clever. I turned to Amanda to share my latest bit of wit, but she had this distant look on her face.

  “Seriously,” I asked again. “You all right?”

  She shook her head. “I ate that guy. I shouldn’t have eaten that guy.”

  “He tried to shoot me,” I replied. “Thanks, by the way. Anyhow, I know we didn’t vote, but I think anyone trying to kill us is fair game. Retroactively, I’d vote to eat him.”

  I actually didn’t feel so sure about any of this. But what else could I say?

  “It’s not that,” she said. “It’s that I was, like, more aware this time, while it was happening. I had the hunger and all that, but a part of me was still thinking, still paying attention. I saw Kyle when he shouted my name. . . .”

  She trailed off as I pulled out of the apartment complex, heading west again, not sure where to go or what to say.

  “He was terrified of me, Jake,” she said at last. “He was terrified of his own sister.”

  “Well, you did look kind of scary,” I offered, figuring humor might be the best medicine.

  Amanda stared at me for a second, then cupped her face in her hands and started to cry. Big, racking sobs that shook her whole body. It was like, thanks to my stupid quip, the strong-willed Amanda I’d gotten to know had collapsed all at once.

  Way to go, Jake.

  By nightfall, we were on the back roads of Illinois. This was the country now: high speed limits, winding roads, more grain silos than there were houses. A few other cars passed us, their high beams flashing in greeting. We zipped by, like, a dozen different deer, all of them toeing their way toward the road, eyes reflecting our headlights, waiting to make a break for it.

  Eventually, all the radio stations got swallowed up by static except for one gravel-voiced old man giving lethargic gardening advice probably from within the depths of his tomb.

  “What’s a ball weevil?” I asked Amanda, breaking the silence that’d hung between us since she stopped crying.

  “Boll,” she clarified simply, and clicked off the radio. I’d never get to find out what common household item to mix with my discarded orange peels to keep pests from nibbling my baby cucumbers.

  We drove on in silence once again, our headlights reaching across miles of what would’ve been paradise if you were a grazing cow or a tractor aficionado. Me, I found it kind of eerie out here in this wide-open empty space, especially now that the radio was off.

  “Look,” I said, not able to handle any more quiet. “I’m sorry for what I said before. It was a stupid joke.”

  Amanda waved me off. “Let’s forget it, okay? You being a totally insensitive dick, me breaking down. It was just a really hard day.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled, feeling like we shouldn’t just be brushing the whole incident off, but not knowing what else to say.

  Amanda was back to business. In the pale yellow dome light she pored over our road atlas, dragging her finger across a mostly empty patch of land on the Illinois/Iowa border.

  “I think we’re around here,” she said.

  I pushed the road atlas away, catching her eye.

  “Look, I know you want to just forget it and that’s fine,” I rambled, picking up steam as I went along, “but you need to know that what your brother saw, that wasn’t you. Not the real you anyway. He’ll realize that once he calms down. And even if he doesn’t—he totally will, but even if he doesn’t—you need to know that there’s at least one person in the world that will never find you terrifying or gross.”

  Amanda looked down at the road atlas, silent.

  “That one person is me,” I clarified.

  “Yeah, duh,” she said, and leaned over to peck me quickly on the cheek.

  I thought about turning to give her a kiss of my own. A real kiss. But she was crying again.

  CASS

  MY FINAL MISSION AS A NOT-SO-PROUD MEMBER OF the Necrotic Control Division began late that afternoon.

  Tom and I stood in the hangar, not much use as usual, watching a bunch of Jumpsuits load equipment onto the chopper we’d be flying to Michigan. Jamison stood nearby, supervising them while absently cleaning his shotgun.

  I told myself that I’d made the right decision, the only decision I could really make. Still, I didn’t feel good about it.

  “He’s going to die because of me,” I whispered to Tom.

  Of course, Tom knew exactly who I was talking about. “That’ll be hard,” he said. “The good news is, you won’t have to remember it.”

  I guess that’s some consolation, knowing that maybe the worst thing you’ve ever done will soon be wiped from your memory.

  Tom squeezed my hand.

  “Home soon, Psychic Friend,” he said.

  “I won’t remember you either.”

  “No,” replied Tom. “But whenever you see a handsome and fashionably dressed man, you’ll probably have an unexplainable feeling of great joy.”

  I laughed, even though I felt like bawling. “Not so fashionably dressed now.”

  Tom grumpily tugged at the collar of his stiff new NCD jumpsuit. Apparently, word had come down from on high that his tailored suits weren’t combat appropriate. “No,” he said, “I guess not.”

  Both of us fell silent as a crew of nervous-looking agents wheeled a dog crate toward the helicopter. Inside was Chazz Slade, looking and smelling more rotten than when I’d last seen him. He was bent over in the crate, on his hands and knees. His face was pressed right up to the grating on the door, teeth gnashing ineffectually at the metal.

  “Someone’s excited to go on a trip,” joked Alastaire, following a few steps behind his caged pet. The guys wheeling the crate forced some laughter. Alastaire hadn’t donned an NCD jumpsuit like the rest of us, even though he was technically leading this mission. He wore a stupid paisley bow tie, a black suit, and his usual aura of sliminess.

  “Aren’t you going to miss this?” asked Tom.

  I sat between Tom and Harlene in the chopper as we flew toward Michigan. Jamison sat across from us, leaving some space on the bench between him and Alastaire. Chazz flew in the cargo hold with the rest of the gear.

  It was too loud to talk, so we passed the flight in silence. Harlene pored over a digital map of the area where I’d last pegg
ed Jake and Amanda. Tom played BrickBreaker on his phone. Jamison puzzled over one of the new stun guns he’d been cajoled into carrying after blowing that other zombie’s head off, probably looking for a way to make it lethal. I stared into space and tried to ignore the way Alastaire was studying me.

  I found myself daydreaming about the deal I’d made with Harlene, about what I might do once I returned to my normal life. What grade would I be in? I’d missed all of sophomore year and most of junior year now too. Was I going to be one of the kids that was very obviously held back, like Felix from middle school that everyone was scared of because he had a full mustache?

  I shouldn’t be thinking about this stuff—not so close to Alastaire. I was pretty sure Harlene went over his head on my deal. I didn’t want to give anything away, so I pushed the thoughts down, imagining them getting locked up in my mental vault made of psychic douche-bag Kryptonite.

  I felt it then, like that tickle you get in the back of your throat when you’re just starting to get sick, except in my brain. Alastaire’s mind reaching out to mine.

  Why the sad face, peanut? It’s going to be a wonderful night.

  Peanut? I thought back, sending a wave of revulsion along with it.

  I’m trying it out. Everyone else has nicknames for you.

  His thoughts were like an oil slick on my brain. I couldn’t suppress a shudder. But I figured this little psychic chat was off the record. Might as well express myself.

  I pictured a watermelon exploding. A watermelon wearing a paisley bow tie.

  Alastaire smiled.

  Not very nice, he thought, and broke contact.

  Five black SUVs met us at the Michigan landing strip. Two of them were for our squad, and the other three were filled with NCD agents. After losing agents in Pennsylvania and Michigan, they weren’t taking any chances. All told, there were more than a dozen of us.