Eat, Brains, Love
Page 24
Eventually, the car pulled over. I couldn’t hear any other cars nearby. Wherever we were, it wasn’t populated.
Two car doors opened. Slammed closed.
“How long are we going to keep checking on her before we just dump her somewhere?” I heard Amanda say, her voice muffled by the trunk.
“Until she wakes up, I guess,” Jake replied. Keys jingled, clinked in the lock. Amanda threw open the trunk, sunlight pouring in. I had to shield my eyes, it hurt so bad, new, tiny spears of pain spreading from behind my eyes and into my brain.
“Oh, look,” said Amanda. “Sleeping Boring awakens.”
I sat up, my back cracking, my cramped muscles joining my brain in its chorus of agony. I was still in my NCD jumpsuit. Bloodstained and filthy.
I pushed my hand through my knotty hair reflexively as my eyes adjusted to the daylight and I saw Amanda. It looked like she’d just had a shower.
“Hey,” said Jake, trying to sound chipper as he sidled up beside Amanda. “You’re okay! We thought you might be in a coma or something.”
“Hoped,” clarified Amanda.
“Water,” I croaked.
“Oh shit, right,” said Jake, darting off to rummage in the car’s backseat. Amanda just stood there, watching me. So, this was going to be a fun trip.
I guess I sort of was one of them now, right? I mean, not a zombie, but a fugitive.
Jake returned, handing me a bottle of water. I chugged the entire thing, then felt like I might puke, so I lunged out of the trunk, shoving past Amanda. I staggered to the side of the empty country road we were parked on and wetly heaved into the grass.
“Gross,” Amanda observed.
“Would you be a little nicer?” I heard Jake whisper.
“No,” said Amanda, and went back to the car.
Jake walked over and stood next to me as I finished retching.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked.
“Yeah,” I said, working moisture into my mouth. “But can I ride in the car from now on?”
Jake snorted, glancing over at Amanda. “I’ll see if I can swing that.”
There was an awkward silence. I stretched my legs, not sure what I should say or do. Thank him for keeping his promise and not eating me while I was passed out? Apologize for spending so much time uninvited in his brain?
Right then, if my psychic powers hadn’t been totally burned out, I would’ve slipped into Jake’s mind. Just to see what I should say next.
“So,” he said finally, “I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Really?” I asked, looking at him, wishing I could change out of this disgusting jumpsuit and into something even half as heinous.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I think you can help us. Maybe we can help you. I don’t know. We’ve been driving for a couple days—”
“Days?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Yeah,” he said, recognizing my shock. “You were really out of it. All you missed was a lot of driving in circles. It’s all roadblocks and ominous black patrol cars out here. We’ve been afraid to get too close.”
“Where’s here?”
“We’re just outside Iowa,” said Jake.
Iowa. I remembered what I promised him back at the farmhouse. That I could get them into Des Moines. But I didn’t have any idea how to do that, or what was even there, not to mention at the border. All I’d heard were the rumors that the place was overrun, but our superiors never let on if they were actually true.
I glanced back at the car. Amanda was leaning against it, peering down at a road atlas. Pretending to read. Really, she was watching me. I was pretty sure she’d take any excuse to eat me.
I should’ve let Tom shoot her. Oh, Tom! What about Tom?
“That guy back at the farmhouse—” I began hesitantly. “My friend Tom, did you . . .”
“I left him there,” Jake said. “I don’t know what happened next.”
I nodded. Jake had kept his promise. I hoped Tom had made it back to Washington safe. And I hoped Jamison was safe too, wherever he’d ended up.
As for Alastaire, I hoped he’d bled to death in that wheat field.
Amanda approached with the road atlas.
“All right, Magellan,” she said, pointing on the map to an empty spot of country on the southern border of Iowa. “We’re here. Where’s the secret entrance?”
“Guide us,” said Jake, lowering his voice conspiratorially and looking right at me. “We have no idea what we’re doing.”
That made three of us.
About the Author
JEFF HART is originally from Rochester, New York, and now lives in Brooklyn. Eat, Brains, Love is his first novel.
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Credits
Cover art © 2013 by Christine Blackburne MergeLeftReps, Inc.
Cover design by Michelle Taormina
Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Eat, Brains, Love
Copyright © 2013 by Full Fathom Five, LLC
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hart, Jeff (Jeffrey Alan), 1983-
Eat, brains, love / Jeff Hart. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: New Jersey teens Jake Stephenson and Amanda Blake are turning into zombies and, having devoured half of their senior class, they are on the run, pursued by teen psychic Cass, a member of a government unit charged with killing zombies and keeping their existence secret.
ISBN 978-0-06-220034-1 (pbk. bdg.)
EPUB Edition JULY 2013 ISBN 9780062200358
[1. Zombies—Fiction. 2. Psychic ability—Fiction. 3. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 4. Horror stories.] I. Title.
PZ.H25682Eat 2013
2012045521
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
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13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
Jake
Cass
About the Author
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Copyright
About the Publisher