Undead (9780545473460)

by McKay, Kirsty

  “Amazing,” mutters Alice. “Because that will totally do the trick.”

  “It’ll hold them for a few minutes.” My mother’s bionic hearing is working well. She descends the steps and makes her way across the ice to where the ATVs are parked. “Can you drive one of these?” she shouts up at Smitty. “Accelerator, brake, gear change.” She turns keys to fire up the headlights.

  “Hakuna Matata.” Smitty bundles Pete down onto the ice and deposits him on the bike.

  “Oh, give me a break.”

  At first I think Pete is protesting the idea of riding Girlfriend behind Smitty, but then I see he is squirming on his seat, looking down at the ice around him.

  “You might want to check this out!” he adds, lifting his feet high off the ice.

  Smitty looks down, incredulous. “No flippin’ way.”

  There, below the ice, like tadpoles in jelly, are the hordes. They might have fallen into the loch, but they’ve continued on their mission to reach us. They thump at the ice with blue hands, trying to break out. In the shallows, they are crawling, their backs pressing up against the ice, cracking it.

  “Could this be any more messed up?” Alice is jumping up and down on the jetty. “We! Need! To! Go!”

  “Then get your arses down here!” Smitty urges us, mounting the quad bike with Pete on it. “Let’s roll!”

  As I look at him, there’s a massive cracking noise and the bike lurches forward, throwing Pete clear onto the ice. Smitty clings to the handlebars, his face frozen with shock and fear. But it’s OK, the ice holds, he’s all right. He lets out a relieved laugh.

  “Woo-hoo! What a ride —”

  A second crack, deafening — like hell itself has opened up — and both bikes are swallowed whole beneath the ice.

  “Smitty!”

  I run to the edge of the jetty. The bike bobs up in the water, but he doesn’t. Pete skitters on the ice toward my mother, and they throw themselves up the steps to safety.

  Then I see it. A hand, Smitty’s hand, reaching out of a dark patch in the water, clutching the air. And then his head comes up, white and terrified, mouth open and snatching at breath. Head, shoulders, and the other hand, hauling himself out of the frigid water onto the ice.

  And then I see the third hand.

  Bloated and flabby and blue, rising high above Smitty, clamping down on his head, and pushing him back below again.

  I look around desperately — need something to help!

  Smitty comes up for another breath, launching himself like a breaching whale, high into the air. But not high enough. His arms stretch across the ice, but he slips back. Our eyes meet for a second and I’m filled with the hopelessness of his gaze. And then his face hardens, trying to be brave, trying to make one last effort to be strong — strong enough to save himself, and save me from seeing him slip away into the deep.

  The blue hand comes again — and then another and another — grasping for Smitty as he rolls through the water as slippery as an otter, striking out with legs and arms, fighting the good fight with everything he has. But it may not be enough.

  There’s a coil of rope hanging from the end of the jetty. I grab it; it’s frozen into curls and only just better than useless, but it’s all I have. Hurriedly abandoning the cooler, I step off the end of the jetty onto the ice.

  “Bobby, no!”

  I ignore my mother’s cries, not quite daring to run but taking giant, sliding strides, urging myself toward Smitty’s brave face. He’s wedged himself between chunks of the ice to stop them from pulling him below.

  “I’m coming!” I shout — so feeble — but he hears me and I see a glint of hope in his eyes. Then fear, fear for me.

  “The ice . . . ,” he gasps. “Thin . . .”

  I know it. I get down onto all fours and slide like a baby giraffe toward him, looking below, looking through the ice to see what it is that is pulling him down. There they are, the people that were, a writhing mess of limbs and grotesque, puffy, gray heads. I pull my gaze away and focus on the hole.

  “Here!” I throw the rope. Pathetically. It goes nowhere. I’m going to have to get closer. I scrabble forward, lie flat, and throw again, with more force. Smitty leaps toward it, and he’s caught, a prize fish on my line. I edge backward, but it’s obvious I can’t pull him clear.

  “Just hold it!” he cries through a mouthful of ice water. I anchor the rope between my legs and up around my shoulder and lie flat and heavy on it, clenching with both hands. There’s a massive wrench as Smitty levers himself up, the hands grabbing after him. I brace myself against the rope and hope it will be enough.

  It is.

  He is suddenly beside me, wet and gasping like a newborn.

  And then Mum’s there, gripping my legs, anchoring me as I anchor Smitty.

  There is no energy for words. We crawl back to the jetty, helping each other. By the time we’re there, Smitty has found his strength again and climbs it first, but my legs buckle at the last impossible hurdle, and I crumple. He reaches down for me, seizes my jacket, and yanks me up, Mum pushing me from below. And then we’re there, on solid ground at last.

  As we lie panting, I notice that Smitty’s jeans are torn away at the knee.

  And in the pale of his flesh are three jagged and angry bites.

  Smitty sits up jerkily and begins to shiver. I pull off my ski jacket and put it around him, feeling tears prick the corners of my eyes.

  Alice shakes me. “We have to get out of here — they’re at the gate!” She stares down at Smitty, seeing his leg. “Oh, sugarama.” Her bottom lip starts to tremble.

  “Leave me!” Smitty commands us. “Go!”

  “Enough with the martyrdom!” I scream at him. “Get on your feet and get moving!” The tears are running down my face.

  “They got me, Bobby. I’m going to turn!”

  “Grow a pair!” I clutch his arm and hoist him to his knees. “We’re doing this together.” I give him my utmost hard-boiled look. “And if you turn, I’ll go apeshit on your ass.”

  “Me, too, you flippin’ wuss,” sobs Alice.

  “Count me in!” shouts Pete. “With knobs on!”

  “You’re all such total lamers,” Smitty snickers, in spite of the shakes wracking his body. “Why did I have to get stuck with you?” He may be freezing to death, but he’s not turning yet — he wouldn’t dare. He tries to stand but cries out in pain and falls back, his body arching against the ground.

  I look up at my mother. “Help me move him!”

  Her face is glacial. “Leave him.”

  I stare at her.

  “He’s been bitten, Bobby. You know what will happen.”

  “Help me help him!” I shout at her, thinking frantically. Alice and I will not be able to take Pete and Smitty far without help. “He’s fine!”

  “He’s infected.” She refuses to look at him.

  “I hate you.” The anger fuels my attempts to get Smitty on his feet. But Smitty’s not helping.

  “Listen to your ma, Bob.” His eyes narrow. “We haven’t got this far only to have it all go FUBAR now. Scram.”

  I feel the panic building, like an old wound freshly exposed. I turn on my mother.

  “I’m so dumb, aren’t I? Why would I expect you to care about Smitty? You never care about anything but your work. You never even cared about Dad.”

  “Of course I did,” my mother says, her voice trembling. “Osiris was about trying to help him.”

  My heart falls several stories. “What do you mean?”

  She pulls my arm. “We don’t have time for this!”

  “Have to agree!” Pete says.

  “Bobby, just go!” Smitty yells at me. “I’m finished!”

  And then I remember.

  I have the antido
te.

  “Over my dead body.” I shake off Mum’s arm and stagger to the cooler where I left it on the jetty.

  Mum clocks me. “Bobby, no!”

  “I’m saving him, Mum!” I shout at her, unzipping the cooler. I’ve got the syringe in my freezing fingers. “Don’t try and stop me!”

  She leaps toward me, arms outstretched, but I dodge out of the way behind Smitty.

  “They’re so completely here, people!” Alice is frozen in place by the jetty gate, and the dozen drooling fiends now pressing against it. The wooden bars are beginning to bend.

  My mother takes a step toward me. “That is the only antidote, Bobby. It’s indescribably valuable.” She moves again, and the two of us dance around Smitty. “It has the potential to save millions of lives!”

  “What about Smitty’s life?” I shout, holding the syringe out of reach. “I thought you were all about healing people.” I shake my head, laughing. “No wonder you couldn’t save Dad.”

  She looks at me as if in sympathy — my own eyes staring back at me from her face, filling with tears.

  “He was infected.”

  The world falls away from me.

  “Dad was . . . one of them?”

  My mother shakes her head. “No, he was a carrier. One in a million. But then he got sick and nothing could make him better . . .” Her voice cracks.

  “Not even this?” I cry, holding up the syringe.

  My mother’s face crumples. “We ran out of time. It was too late for him.”

  “Not for Smitty.” I push the syringe into Smitty’s hand, then rush at my mother in the strangest of embraces, to keep her off him.

  Smitty hesitates only a second, then pops the needle free. “Yeah. I’m so much sexier alive. Woo!” He sticks himself in the leg and pushes the plunger. “Rock ’n’ Roll!”

  “No!” my mother howls, throwing my arms off her.

  There’s a crash, and the gate that was holding back a dozen zoms is shattered.

  “Time’s up!” Pete shouts.

  “This way!” My mother swallows her tears, the leader again. She pulls Smitty up, and together we all scramble down the steps back onto the ice, moving painfully slowly around the hole thick with hideous zombie soup, not daring to race too fast, not daring to linger. The headlights from the quad bikes still burn bright from their watery graves deep in the loch, illuminating the squirming bodies from below. I don’t want to look down. I focus on the other side, blocking out the pain and the cold, blocking out the fear of ice cracking, of grasping hands and sharp teeth. Alice and Pete forge ahead, following the tracks to the far bank, and we follow. It’s not too far, but far enough with a drunken Smitty heavy on my shoulder. Mum is under his other arm, and together we heave him across the ice. She wanted to get her hands on the antidote, but I guess not quite like this. Smitty is her precious cargo now.

  We reach the other side just as the night finally closes in. My mother leads us to a path through the trees; she seems to know the way in spite of the darkness. I take what I hope is a last look back; the castle is a tiny speck of light in the distance. Who knows what’s going on inside there now? Maybe the whole place will burn to the ground before Xanthro arrives.

  We emerge through the trees onto a road. I’m gazing into the distance with my thousand-yard stare — and there’s something . . . A yellow glow in the distance, hovering. At first I think nothing of it. My mind is fried, I’m probably delusional. But then Alice stops.

  “What’s that?”

  “You see it?” Smitty murmurs.

  “I do,” Pete says.

  Maybe we’re all tripping. Or maybe we all actually died back on the loch and this is the light at the end of the tunnel, and our nearest and dearest are waiting to welcome us into heaven. I sink happily to my knees. I’m going to see Dad again.

  Smitty falls down beside me. He knows it, too. The light gets closer. It’s coming toward us. I love it. I can almost feel its warmth. This is the entrance to the afterlife, and I’ll finally get some peace. Alice and Pete kneel, too. I hope God won’t be miffed that Mum stays on her feet; it’s not very respectful of her. Still, he probably knows she’s a bit like that. I’ll bring him around.

  “Stand up!” Mum tries to lift me.

  But I’m comfortable here in the snow.

  The light’s blinding, and there’s a rumble on the ground.

  “Get up!” Mum screams, pulling me, but I’m stuck here. She runs out in front of the light, arms waving. There’s a screeching noise and the light stops just in front of her. Weird. She runs back to me and throws her arms around my shoulders. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”

  Great, nearly went to heaven and Mum screwed it up. Typical.

  I glance at Smitty. He’s squinting into the light. And then he sees something, and a huge grin spreads across his face. His hands shoot up into the air, and he throws his head back, whooping like a madman, double-rainbow crazy.

  “It’s the bus again,” Alice says dully. “It found us.”

  I pull myself to my feet.

  There’s a familiar hissing noise of a door opening, and the crunch of feet on snow. And then there’s a middle-aged man with a flashlight. Definitely not God.

  “Wot you doin’ in the middle of the bloody road?” He shines the flashlight in my eyes. “Could have killed the lot of you!”

  I shut my eyes and slump into the snow once more. There are plenty of voices now, all around. Bona fide humans. Live ones. Score.

  “It’s going to be all right, Bobby.” Mum in my ear again. “I love you, we’re going home safe, and you don’t need to fight anymore.”

  And then I feel hands lift me and help me up steps and into the warm bus. Not our bus, of course, but just like it. Dozens of faces are staring at us, eyes wide.

  Kids.

  On a school trip.

  There are the popular girls with the pastel-colored skiwear, there’s the rebel at the back with the attitude, and the loner sitting behind the teacher, earbuds in place, wishing she was anywhere else but here.

  “Flashback City,” says Alice.

  “Fresh Meat,” says Pete.

  “More than enough room for you all,” the driver is saying as we troop down the aisle. Someone helps me onto the backseat. “We should be back in civilization in an hour or two if the weather holds off,” he continues. “You should have seen it up at Aviemore, talk about a blizzard.” His voice is light and easy. “Are you sure you’re all OK? I can call ahead for a doctor once my phone starts working again. You’re not the first people we’ve seen out wandering on this road. They didn’t seem in great shape, either. What a night to get caught out, eh? Biting cold.”

  I hear my mother talking to him, spinning a yarn, making it right. Pete and Alice are sitting a row ahead and across the aisle. Alice is already fast asleep, her head resting on Pete’s shoulder. And then Smitty is plonked down next to me, his leg wrapped in a makeshift bandage with someone’s scarf. A blanket is put over us. I feel the rumble as the bus starts up, and we drive off slowly.

  A deluge of tired moves over me. I turn to Smitty before it wins.

  “Tell me one thing.”

  He gives me a drugged-out smile. “Anything.”

  “Is there a hatch in this bus? And a trapdoor in the floor?”

  With great effort he pulls himself up to look down the aisle.

  “Yep. Both present and correct.”

  “Good.” I relax into my seat. “Then we’ll be OK.”

  Smitty gives a sleepy chuckle, the bus roars as it ramps up a gear, the driver turns up the radio, and there’s some totally tacky song on about how we’re all in the sun, and we’re so lucky, lucky, lucky. I begin to drift off, and under the blanket I feel Smitty take my hand. I allow myself a smile as I hear his voice in my ea
r, soft and strong.

  “That’s right, Bob. We’ll be OK.”

  I snuggle deeper, my body surrendering to the sleepy. But something’s digging into my ribs. It’s the cooler. I untangle the strap from my shoulder and lower it gently onto the floor. I hope the other syringe will be safe there. To turn another coach-load of kids into zombies — that would just be plain sloppy. As I push the cooler under the seat in front with my feet, I feel something blocking the space. Then the bus jerks and it slides out into the aisle. Leaning across Smitty, I look to see what was in my way.

  A rectangular carton.

  With an orange cartoon figure on the front.

  Opened.

  Empty.

  Adrenaline courses through my body like someone just plunged a needle straight into my heart.

  No, no, no . . .

  “Smitty! Wake up!” I shake him, my voice rising to a scream. “We need to get off this bus — now!”

  Huge thanks to my agent Veronique Baxter for her passion, wisdom, and generally being one cool chick.

  A big fat zombie smackeroo to Siobhán McGowan and all the marvellous team at Scholastic, for embracing and championing the book so mightily, and helping Bobby find her home in the USA once more. Many thanks, folks.

  To my patient and wonderful editors Imogen Cooper and Rachel Leyshon, and to Barry Cunningham, Rachel Hickman, and all at Chicken House UK for their boundless enthusiasm.

  What would I do without my Gripers? My fab fellow writers: Elaine Dimopoulos, Jean Stehle, Sonia Miller, Jane Kohuth, and Laura Woollett. Thank you so much for supporting and inspiring this random Brit through all the revisions and beyond.

  A special holla goes out to Emma Sear for not letting a little thing like the Atlantic Ocean get in the way, and to my fly girl Jennifer Withers for all the horror I’m ever going to need.

  To Keith and Didi McKay, for being right, goddamn it. Love you muchly.