Bad Taste in Boys

by Carrie Harris

  Instead, a bug crawled over the toe of my shoe.

  But the word bug didn’t quite do it justice. This was no mere insect; it was a strange mutant creature the length of my index finger, and I swore I could feel its weight as it skittled over my foot.

  “Ewww!” I made a loud noise that sounded suspiciously like a scream and kicked my leg wildly. The offending creature sailed through the air, narrowly missing one of the other lunch ladies, who screamed at me and waved her hands around like the airflow might deflect any other airborne insects.

  Okay. These were freakishly big bugs, but still? They were bugs.

  Another one crawled out from underneath the sink; it looked like some kind of roach. Nothing to be afraid of; it wasn’t like we were talking brown recluse spiders or something else poisonous.

  I’d had enough of the screaming. I grabbed the nearest lunch lady by the shoulders and shook her. “Stop shouting! It’s just a roach!”

  She stopped midshriek, but her face stayed scrunched up like she was still screaming and I had merely managed to mute her with my mind. It was a superpower I had often wished for but had never managed to make work.

  “They hiss,” she said. “I’m getting out of here.” She walked out the door, and the rest of the lunch ladies followed, muttering angrily.

  I searched the kitchen. No zombies, but those freaky bugs were everywhere.

  I decided to swing through the cafeteria. I let myself through the doors and walked right into a big herd of jerseyed JV football players standing in a big semicircle with their backs to me.

  “Dude!” said one of them. They were all taking pictures of the bugs with their cell phones and punching each other on the shoulders. Just another moment when I realized how little I understood about guys.

  I knew I should sneak out before they saw me, because this was clearly not a nerd-friendly situation. But today I wasn’t in the mood to retreat.

  “Hey, you guys know what’s up with the bugs?” I asked.

  They squinted at me like I was speaking Swahili. Then they turned back to what they were doing. Again, another hint that I should just leave, but I was tired of backing down. I’d talked to Aaron when I thought I couldn’t. I could do this too.

  “Hey! Do any of you know what’s up with all the bugs?” I said it a little louder this time.

  They turned around again, in perfect unison, like maybe they practiced synchronized turning in their spare time.

  “You talking to us?” said a guy with short dark hair and a black T‑shirt, stepping forward and shoving his chest at me. It wasn’t as impressive as Hawaii’s.

  On a normal day, I would have gone all meek and inoffensive, as dictated by my geek survival instincts. But not today.

  “Yes,” I said patiently. “There’s no one else here.”

  He didn’t quite know what to make of me. He looked back at his friends like maybe they’d give him a clue on how to handle the geek. They didn’t.

  That’s when I noticed the injection mark peeking out from the sleeve of his T-shirt. I grabbed his arm in an attempt to get a closer look, but I would have had better luck moving the Great Wall of China with my pinky finger. He shoved me away, glowering, and raised his fists. He thought I was trying to pick a fight with him.

  “Did Coach inject you with something?” I rattled the question off quickly, before he could pound my teeth in. The thug paused, his brow furrowing.

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “Did Coach give you a shot?” I spoke slower this time, pointing to the mark on his arm.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Look.” I took his arm gently and lifted his sleeve to expose the circular bruise on his arm. “Coach was giving out some B twelve, and it’s tainted. So he asked me to get all of it back. Do you have any?”

  He squinted at me uncertainly.

  “I think you should give it to her,” said a deep voice from behind me. I turned around to see Hawaii. “This chick’s pretty cool.”

  “Thanks,” I said, surprised. “So he did give you some? How many of you used it?”

  They all just stared at me, and I was starting to get a little impatient. I’d never seen many benefits to popularity, but I was beginning to understand its uses. If I’d been Kiki, I’d have had them eating out of my hand already instead of staring at me like I was one of those stupid bugs.

  I looked up at Hawaii. “Well?”

  “Ray’s the only one who used it.” He shuffled from foot to foot. “I don’t like needles.”

  “Ray?” I asked, turning to the black T‑shirt guy. “Have you been puking?”

  He shook his head. Now he was starting to look scared.

  “Good.” I kept my voice low and soothing. “I’m going to find some medicine that will take care of things, and I’ll make sure you get some. Can I have all the doses you’ve got left? We need to make sure no one else uses them.”

  Ray rummaged in his pocket and handed me a plastic bag full of vials. “Here,” he said. “Coach isn’t here today. Guess he called in sick or something.”

  I blinked. “Yeah. Well. Can you make sure none of the other JV guys have any of this stuff? It really is dangerous.”

  Hawaii nodded. I was about to leave when curiosity got the better of me.

  “So what’s with the bugs?” I asked.

  “JV homecoming week prank,” Hawaii said. “We let a thousand hissing cockroaches loose in the kitchen. Ray’s uncle owns a pet store.” I rolled my eyes, and he shrugged uncomfortably. “Hey, it’s a tradition.”

  “Yeah, but couldn’t you come up with anything better than bugs in the cafeteria? That’s weak, guys. Very weak.”

  “We also duct-taped Mr. Gnepper in his office,” Ray said proudly.

  Well, that explained the lack of hall-monitor response to the screaming.

  “Wow. Impressive,” I said, shaking my head.

  Hawaii blushed and shuffled his feet. “Not really. Listen, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  I expected a zombie-related inquiry. I did not expect him to pull me to the far end of the cafeteria and say, “Would you … I mean, will you go to homecoming with me?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Is that a no?” The poor kid looked so miserable that I felt kind of guilty. He seemed like an okay guy, even if his pectorals were scary and he hung with a bunch of football jocks.

  “No. I mean, yes.” I smacked myself on the forehead. “No, what I mean is that it’s nice of you to ask, but I already have a date.”

  “Man, that sucks,” he muttered. “Who?”

  “Aaron Kingsman.”

  Now he backed away from me, his hands flying up like Aaron’s name had generated some kind of invisible force field. I was now untouchable. I patted him on the shoulder awkwardly and said, “Listen, I’d better go if I’m going to get that medicine.” And then I tripped over his foot.

  Hawaii caught me by the elbow and held on until he was sure I wasn’t going to run face-first into the wall. Then he released me. I smiled at him, and he went scarlet. I didn’t know how I’d suddenly morphed into a guy magnet, but I kind of liked it.

  I grinned all the way out the door and back down the hall toward Mrs. Rooney’s office. I was feeling pretty good until I had another seizure.

  This time, at least no one witnessed it. The hall monitors were off inflicting demerits somewhere else today, with the exception of Mr. Gnepper, who was taped to a chair. No one noticed the girl against locker 1276 doing the neurological watusi. When it was over, I pushed myself into a sitting position against the wall and frowned at my knees like they’d done something to offend me. The whole seizure thing was really ticking me off. And I didn’t get why being bitten turned everyone else into undead wannabes, but all I got was complete epileptic relapse.

  On top of everything else, I’d forgotten to inject my seizure meds this morning. Good thing I had an emergency supply in Mrs. Rooney’s office. I picked myself up off the floor and w
ent back into her office. Her chair was still empty; I would have been offended at her lack of concern for my safety, but it was kind of flattering that she didn’t feel the need to hover over my shoulder.

  The med cabinet was locked, but I knew where she kept the spare key. Her trust in me must have been misplaced, because I opened the door and administered my meds without supervision, which was totally against school rules. I didn’t even know why I bothered, since the meds were obviously useless. If anything, my seizures were worse than ever.

  That was when it hit me.

  My meds were still working. The injections were keeping me from turning into a zombie. It was the only logical explanation. If I was right, I could cure the virus. I wouldn’t need to waste time convincing Mrs. Rooney, and then convincing the people at the health department, and so on. I could cure it and then let them take their time making up their minds whether to believe me. Because by the time they decided to take action, half the student body would be missing half their bodies. I could develop the cure myself and then take it, along with all the evidence implicating Swannie, to the health department. Things would go much more quickly that way.

  I snatched all four of the doses left in Mrs. Rooney’s stock. I figured it should be enough to test the cure; I could stop at home for more if it worked. Now all I needed was to administer it. Sure, I could try one of the guys on the team, but it wouldn’t look good if I blasted into a classroom and started randomly injecting people. And I wanted to make sure it was safe before I tried it on Jonah.

  I needed a test zombie.

  And I knew just where to find one.

  felt pretty guilty rifling through Mrs. Rooney’s desk again, but not guilty enough to stop. I had a good reason. Heck, I had identified a potential cure while the rest of the medical world didn’t even know there was a virus. That excused just about anything.

  I flipped through a few files before I found the right section. Every student with a prescription medication needed to provide authorization paperwork, and I was betting Mike had an EpiPen in Mrs. Rooney’s office as well as in Coach’s. I hoped his home address was somewhere in that paperwork.

  I’d been to his house a few times. He lived on a farm way outside the city limits; his mom had let the school use her barn for the annual haunted house fund-raiser. Too bad I couldn’t remember where it was.

  Bingo. There was his address. I used Mrs. Rooney’s computer to get directions.

  On my way out the door again, I ran into Mrs. Rooney.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “I’m sorry to leave you alone so long. I think the flu’s going around again.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, barely slowing down. “Gotta get to class in time to take that quiz!”

  I was lying, of course. I really had to find Rocky and convince her to skip class with me.

  She wasn’t at her locker, but I saw her going into the girls’ room down the hall. I slipped into the bathroom and up to the first stall door.

  “Rocky? It’s me. Kate. I have to talk to you.”

  “Um, Kate?” Rocky’s voice came from the stall at the end. “I’m down here.”

  I walked over just as she flounced out.

  “Hey!” she said. “What’s up?”

  “You have to come with me to Mike’s,” I told her. “I have to inject him with my seizure medicine.”

  Rocky stared at me. “Kate, I know you don’t like him, but—”

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand.” I whispered a sixty-second summary of events into her ear.

  “So you need to do it right now? I’ve got my solo audition for the Holiday Showcase next period,” she said, slathering on lip gloss. “So let me put it this way. If I go with you, I’m going to have to explain to Juilliard why I wasn’t featured in the winter show. Do you need me that badly, or could you just take my car?”

  “Rocky, if I seize and drive it off the road—”

  “Then don’t seize. I trust you.” The bell rang, and she detached her key ring from her backpack and tossed it at me. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be sending you good injecting vibes, though.”

  I felt pretty bad for having forgotten about her audition, not to mention nervous about having to go to Mike’s alone. I couldn’t really blame her for not coming with me—but then again, if my cure didn’t work, Rocky would probably have to explain to Juilliard why our entire school had turned into zombies.

  Sneaking out of the building was easy. But it took me a good forty minutes to get to Mike’s house, because I drove like an old lady. When I got there, I pulled Rocky’s car into the driveway, which was basically at the bottom of a ravine, and parked.

  Shaking like a leaf, I got out of the car and climbed the rickety porch steps.

  “How the hell am I going to inject Mike Luzier without getting killed?” I whispered to myself, swallowing a huge lump of fear. Going alone to the home of my zombified linebacker ex was not the smartest thing I’d ever done. It didn’t take a genius to realize he wasn’t going to roll over and offer me his arm for injection.

  “He’s probably going to try and bite my lips off again,” I added under my breath, attempting to prepare for the worst.

  But Jonah needed the cure. And that was why I was standing on Mike’s porch ringing his bell.

  No answer. I checked the door, but it was locked. No movement as far as I could see inside the house, and there weren’t any cars in the drive. Either Mike’s mom had finally gotten over her fear of doctors and taken him to one, or she had left him alone and now he was dead.

  I banged on the door and stabbed the bell so hard that my finger hurt. If he was dead, I was determined to pester him back to life. It didn’t work, though. I looked around for a rock to throw through a window, but the door opened before I found one. It was very horror-film cliché of me, but I could only do one thing.

  I screamed.

  ike Luzier stood in the doorway. A piece of his scalp had ripped loose and was dangling to his shoulder. Blood dribbled from his mouth, and I wasn’t sure whose it was. He wore his football uniform; his body looked totally misshapen underneath it. He moved toward me with an uncoordinated lurch.

  I stumbled backward off his front porch, twisting my ankle and sprawling in the mud. My little zipper bag of syringes and medication vials fell from under my arm and plopped into a puddle. I grabbed it and held it to my chest like it might have secret zombie-repellent properties. That was when I realized I was still screaming.

  Some detached part of my mind took stock of Mike’s various injuries, but the rest of me was in flight mode. I scrambled for the car, but it wasn’t parked in front of the garage where I’d left it. I hadn’t put on the emergency brake, so it had slid back down the muddy slope of the driveway. No way was I running down into that mud pit with a zombie at my heels.

  I sprinted across the yard instead, drenching my shoes and nearly falling twice. The barn loomed over me, a dark and creaky structure that only served to intensify my hysteria. I heard a clatter, followed by a pained moan as Mike fell down the porch steps.

  I bolted the barn door behind me, which was great except now the barn was pitch-black and superspooky. I opened my phone and used the dim light from the display to find a light switch and flick it on. Big mistake.

  The barn was suddenly awash in red light. The walls glistened like they were painted with blood.

  “Ahhhh!” I screamed some more, and I wasn’t the only one. The damp air filled with howls and wails, accompanied by a chorus of dramatic violins and screeching doors.

  I shut my mouth abruptly, and the screaming and screeching in the background carried on through the speaker above my head.

  The haunted house from the fund-raiser. The Luziers had left it up. This realization made me feel slightly better. Only slightly.

  I got out a syringe and snapped a vial into place. The door rattled against my back as Mike threw himself against it. I gulped, trying to reassure myself that I wasn’t scared witless. I’d pop the syringe int
o his thigh and be back out of range in a flash. It would be easy.

  A little voice in my head asked if he was really worth curing. I could run for the car and get the hell out of here. Why should I risk myself for Mike Luzier, of all people?

  But I needed to know if the injection worked. Besides, the stubborn part of me refused to abandon him. I couldn’t leave him to die just because he was a tool. I’d had to do that with Coach, and once was enough.

  I took a deep breath before opening the door, or trying to, anyway. I couldn’t find the handle. Either it had fallen off or the Luziers had removed it on purpose, which totally ticked me off, and not just because it was a fire hazard. Peachy. The only way out was to go through the haunted house.

  The entryway was enclosed by tall plywood walls on which were scrawled the words Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. Very original.

  I squeezed through the narrow corridor leading into the maze, which was a little claustrophobia-inducing but otherwise okay. Slick plastic lining the passage reflected the red light and made the walls look like they were covered with blood but also made the squeezing part easier. When I turned the corner, my foot triggered a blast of cold air right in my face. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Still, livable. I could deal with air compressor attacks.

  Moments later, a wall-mounted speaker let out a massive wail right in my face. The volume was cranked up so high it made my head throb. I started searching for an off switch and knocked the speaker off the wall by mistake. The screaming was now accompanied by a constant high-pitched whine from the damaged sound equipment.

  I turned, and a grotesque figure leapt into my path. I lifted my syringe to strike as it loomed over me. It was bottom-heavy, bulbous. I realized what I was doing about five seconds before I stabbed my reflection in one of those fun-house mirrors. Talk about overreacting.

  I was still berating myself when the clown jumped at me.

  A dummy with a painted face sailed down its wire straight at my head, arms outstretched and teeth bared. His mouth was rimmed in red; it looked like blood. A voice from a speaker to my left started cackling maniacally; lights flashed in a staccato rhythm all around the narrow corridor. The clown shook from side to side. I knew it was fake, but I swore it was reaching for me.