by Stacey Longo
“What kind of student was your sister? I mean, like, was she popular, or a loner, or a brain? Er, because, like, Youngquist really makes us work in class. I think if you tune her out, she can tell, and it just makes her come down harder,” I said, hoping for more information on the mysterious Andrea.
“Hey! Maybe you can give me a heads-up on what’s on the quizzes after you take ’em in the morning, so I’ll know the answers before last period!” Tim said, blowing my subtle line of questioning.
“Umm . . . I don’t think I see you at all during the day, do I? I wouldn’t be able to get you that information,” I said. I really liked Ms. Youngquist, and didn’t want to get in trouble with her.
“You can tell Andy in algebra, and then he’ll tell me.”
“Won’t work. Algebra’s our first class of the day.” I hoped he wouldn’t suggest I text him the information.
“Hey, I need to take a leak. Walk with me?” Andy said, turning to me.
“Sure, sounds romantic,” I said, but I was glad for the diversion. We strolled off toward the path of pine trees lining the tennis court. Andy cupped my elbow and ducked in between the trees.
“Uh, I don’t need to be right with you while you do this,” I stammered.
“I don’t really have to go,” he said. “It looked like you were a little uncomfortable with Tim’s plan to ace English. Besides, it was the perfect excuse to get you alone for a minute.” He leaned in to kiss me.
My first kiss! Well, except for summer camp when I was thirteen, when Ziggy Seaver tried to kiss me on the tire swings, only to lurch forward too quickly and smash his teeth into the top of my mouth. My face had been sore for a week. Besides, I was pretty sure a fat lip wasn’t the same as a romantic kiss, so it didn’t really count.
I leaned in, pursing my lips.
“Hurghhh! Ayaaah!” Blossom exclaimed, bursting out from between the trees. Caught you, lovebirds!
I jerked back. “God damn it, Blossom, you scared the crap out of me!” Andy quickly dropped his arm from my waist, pulling away. “You have the worst timing ever!” I fumed.
“Haa—” Blossom stopped, sniffing the air. A low growl started deep in her throat, quickly growing to a roar. She seemed to completely forget about Andy and me, lurching down the path to our left at an alarming speed. I recognized the gait, even if I couldn’t smell what she’d honed in on. Blossom only galloped like that when the fresh aroma of brains was wafting through the air.
“Stop her!” I shouted to Andy, who bolted down the path after my sister. I was right behind him. Blossom was snarling as she ran, spittle trailing behind her as she pursued the scent. Andy managed to sprint forward, jump, and catch her in a tackle. She hit the ground bellowing, trying to twist around and snap at Andy.
“Don’t worry,” I panted when I caught up to them. “No teeth.” Andy didn’t look very reassured, but he stayed on her, restraining her as she squirmed.
I craned my neck through the dusk and spotted a swatch of color in the dirt ahead. I crept closer, fishing the pepper spray out of my pocket, just in case. At first I thought I was looking at another scarecrow or something, but then I remembered stuffed straw-people didn’t bleed like this figure was. There, on the ground, was a girl’s body, a deep, bloody line across her forehead as if someone had been interrupted while cutting into her brain cavity. The kerchief she wore over her hair was soaked in blood, but a few bright spots of turquoise still peeked through.
I screamed.
“What’s going on here?” Vice Principal Larson’s voice boomed from the other side of the trees. He pushed his way past the pines, and took in the scene: Blossom, down on the ground, frothing under Andy’s restraint. And me, screaming over the dead, splayed body of Jillian Mott.
~~**~~
Mom and Dad arrived while the paramedics were still packing up Jillian’s body. The police wanted to question me, and they had Blossom in cuffs in the back of one of their cars, but I’d announced I wanted to call my parents before either one of us would talk. I thought I was being pretty clever, but Dad explained later they couldn’t have questioned us anyway without one of our parents there, unless there was evidence that we could help solve the crime. That was reassuring, but also vaguely insulting.
Mom immediately demanded they take the cuffs off my sister. Luckily, the medical examiner at the scene had done a preliminary estimate on Jillian’s time of death, putting it at least an hour and a half earlier, around the time Blossom had been lending me her hair clip in the bathroom at home. The damage was already done, though. Blossom had two gouges in her wrists from the cold metal cuffs. Mom started crying as she bandaged up Blossom’s forearms, threatening to sue the Glastonbury Police Department for their carelessness and cruelty. Dad stayed by my side while Officer Pendleton questioned me about what I’d seen and heard leading up to discovering Jillian’s body. Andy and his mother and father were standing with another policeman a little way away, probably answering the same questions.
“Did you see any blood or anything out of place on your sister when she found you on the path?” Officer Pendleton asked, and I shook my head.
“She was a little ragged, maybe. But she always looks that way. Listen; if you’d ever seen her eat, you’d know right off the bat Blossom didn’t do it. She’s like a lion attacking an antelope. Bits of brains fly everywhere, and she always has, like, gore and guts all over her shirt and in her hair. It’s totally gross. We don’t invite anyone over to dinner anymore.” Dad winced at my description, but it was true. Blossom was a disgusting eater. I lost fifteen pounds after she was first zombified just from watching her slobber all over her food at the dinner table.
“I see,” the officer continued, unfazed. “But your sister . . . it’s not like she’s incapable of learning or adapting; would you say that’s true?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.
“For instance, she’s had all of her teeth pulled. But she still eats, right? Have her table manners improved since she first, uh, had her accident?”
“Um, yeah, I guess. She tries to keep her food on her plate, though it still gets in her hair, but I don’t think she’s dumped anything on the floor in a long time. She’s still my sister, you know. I mean, Blossom’s still Blossom in there. She’s just undead is all.” I wasn’t explaining it well, and I knew it. “You know, like she still remembers her favorite music and she keeps a poster of Zac Efron on the wall in her bedroom. Plus,” I remembered, brightening, “she hasn’t been able to figure out how to get at any brains without her teeth, except maybe birds. Just last week, she tried to bite a cat at the bookstore, and didn’t hurt him at all. See? She couldn’t have done this.”
The officer met my eager stare for a moment and looked back down at his notebook.
“She tried to eat a cat? When and where was this?”
Dad sighed. “Is it really important? I think the point Jasmine’s trying to make is Blossom couldn’t have possibly done this. And we know she didn’t do this—the girls weren’t even here yet when the ME says the vic was killed.” He frowned at me, shaking his head. Stop talking.
Officer Pendleton finished up his notes, asking us to be available for more questioning, and shut his notebook closed with a clap. Dad dragged me by my arm back to Mom, who was sitting in the car with Blossom, stroking her hair.
“Can I go say ’bye to Andy?” I asked Dad. He opened his mouth to answer, but Mom started before he could speak.
“I’m sorry, honey—we have to go home. I’ve got to get a better look at Blossom’s injuries and figure out the best way to fix her up. I really don’t want to wait on this—you know these things patch up better the sooner we catch them. Can’t you text him from the house?”
I started to protest, but Dad’s look quieted me. “Yeah, I guess so.” But I pouted.
We were silent for most of the ride home, with the exception of Blossom’s occasional keening. Scientists had basically proven zombies couldn’t feel pain when they were
injured or shot, but that was just physical discomfort. She was still a teenager, and perfectly capable of feeling pain when her vanity was bruised. I’m sure she didn’t like that she now had two gaping sections of skin peeled away at her wrists. I felt bad for her, a little. But not enough to get over my own misery: worst first date ever.
I texted Andy later to apologize and thank him for restraining Blossom. If he hadn’t tackled her, she would’ve face-planted herself into Jillian’s skull and started chomping away without even checking to see if there was any gray matter left. He apologized too, for not being able to say goodnight. My Dad just wanted to bag out of there ASAP. Sorry to hear @ Blossom’s injuries. Can ur Mom fix her?
That made me feel a little better, that it wasn’t just my parents who didn’t care about my now-ruined social life. He promised to talk to me on Monday and asked me if maybe we should try to do something safer, like catch a movie sometime. The night was a bust, but I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
Mom and Blossom spent the weekend at her clinic. The skin on my sister’s wrists was too ragged to just stitch up, so Mom had to graft on cadaver skin. Since zombie skin doesn’t heal, she had to attach it with fine metal wire. She was able to hide most of the wire under the epidermis, but the skin color wasn’t an exact match, and Blossom came home Sunday afternoon looking a little like the beginnings of a patchwork quilt. Her chin quivered all through dinner, and I knew she was upset. I’m sure she was thinking that Zac Efron would never want to date her now.
“We’ll just tell people it’s a tattoo,” I suggested.
“Bglaaah? Hagh?” Of what? Raggedy Ann?
I gave up. There was just no pleasing her sometimes.
The Hartford Courant ran an article on Sunday about the murder at the bonfire and mentioned a possible link to the other two bodies that had been found recently. They gave the murderer a name: the Frankenstein Killer, because he kept stealing his victims’ brains. They ran photos of the kids who’d been killed so far, and the boy who’d been slain in Mystic looked vaguely familiar.
“Jubublaa . . . gaaaah lah-na,” Blossom whispered to me when she saw the picture. “Hubanaah huh Sex Pistols.” I saw that kid at the sea lion show. He was sitting across from us.
“Oh my God,” I said. She was right. I’d totally been checking out the dead kid. What the hell was going on? Blossom and I hadn’t met that many people since we’d moved here, but three people we’d come in contact with were now dead—murdered.
I also felt a little guilty, because I probably should’ve felt worse about Jillian Mott being among the recently deceased. However, her death meant that Mom would let us go back to school again, now that the head of the Anti-Zombie League was no longer there to threaten us. Jillian had been pretty vile to Blossom and me, and not particularly nice to anyone else I knew, like Mickey and Beki. I really wanted to get back to school to see how Beki was doing: if she was all broken up about Jillian’s death, then I’d know for sure she was spying on us for her.
I knew all of this sounded selfish. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I could recognize that Jillian’s death was a tragedy, sure. But it would’ve been worse if it had happened to someone I liked.
EIGHT
We could practically taste the tension in the air as soon as we got to school Monday morning. It seemed like all the hallways were buzzing with talk about Jillian. Normally, I would’ve let Blossom wheel herself to homeroom, but as soon as she settled into her chair outside the blue bus, the little fat blonde that had been Jillian’s top henchman, heckling and threatening me and my sister, marched right up to us and spat on Blossom.
“Murderer,” she hissed, and I stepped in front of Blossom to protect her.
“Back off, dirtbag. She has an alibi,” I said, but the girl just glared at me. I crouched into a stance that I’d learned in a self-defense class I’d had to take back in Little Hop, when the zombie outbreak first started. I felt like a ninja. “I said, back off, you arsonist douche,” I growled, and she looked at me for a moment, called me the c word, and walked away.
“C’mon, I’ll go with you to homeroom,” I said, and Blossom offered me her closed-mouthed half-grin.
“Geeh.” Thanks.
“Ignorant hick.” Blossom nodded. We headed to her classroom—all of the special needs kids had to check in with their aides in their own private homeroom before the school day began. We passed Beki on the way, who had a crowd around her. She offered me a half-wave and broke from the group to fall in step beside me.
“It’s crazy here today,” she said. “Half of these guys want to know how I’m doing because my former best friend was killed, and the other half want to know if I killed her.” She glanced down at Blossom. “Probably the same for you guys, too.”
“Well, it’s not even 7:30 yet, and Blossom’s already been called a murderer. Which was a lot nicer than what I was called,” I added.
“I can imagine.” Beki laughed. “Still, it’s scary. I was pretty upset when she started sleeping with my boyfriend. When our friendship ended, I was pretty depressed, like I was dealing with a death or something. It was worse than the breakup with Ken, I think. But losing her as a friend like that . . . I think I’ve already mourned her. But I didn’t wish her dead, that’s for sure. So what do you think really happened to Jillian?”
Beki’s speech seemed pretty sincere, and I didn’t see her shedding any tears over Jillian. I relaxed—she hadn’t been spying on us after all. I felt like kind of a jerk for even suspecting her. “Personally, I think she was killed by the same deranged psycho that sawed open that boy in Mystic and the girl with the blue hair in East Windsor.” I shrugged. “But I don’t know who it is.”
“Weird. I can’t believe it happened at our own school,” Beki said. “My mom says we should all start traveling in groups. Walk me to my homeroom?”
Of course. Safety in numbers, after all.
~~**~~
There was a hall pass waiting for me when I finally made it to my own homeroom. Apparently, Vice Principal Rhodes wanted to meet during first period. That meant I’d miss Andy in algebra. Obviously, Rhodes didn’t care one bit that she was wrecking my already tenuous relationship with my potential new bae.
I made my way down to the office while everyone else streamed past on their way to first period, oblivious to my misery. I slunk up to the receptionist’s desk and showed my hall pass. She led me back to Rhodes’s office, where the vice principal waited for me with a wide smile, her orange hair floating like a low cloud around her head.
“Welcome, Jasmine. Come in, come in!” She bustled her way out from behind the desk and pointed to a chair. “Do you want a Kleenex?”
“Um, why? Will I be crying?” I asked.
“Oh, no, I hope not, dear,” she said, patting my hand. “Sit, sit. I just wanted to check in with you and see how you’re doing. How are you holding up?”
She slid back into her seat behind the mahogany desk and leaned forward, fixing a look of concern on her face.
“Holding up with what?” I asked, confused.
“Oh, everything. Moving to a new place; starting at a new school. Are you making friends? You know we have a zero tolerance policy for bullying here. You’re not being bullied, are you?”
“No,” I said, feeling like I was disappointing her with my answer. “I mean, Jillian Mott and her crowd have been giving me and my sister some trouble . . .” I stopped. Stupid!
“Ah, yes, Miss Mott.” Rhodes frowned. “Such a tragic situation. I understand you and your sister were there. You were there, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, we weren’t there for the actual killing. Blossom didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I stood, voice rising.
“Oh, no, dear, I didn’t mean to insinuate any such thing. I’m sure it’s hard for your whole family, having to cope with your sister’s disability. Of course I don’t think you or your sister are responsible. Others, however—well, others might jump to some unfair c
onclusions.”
“Yeah, quite a few others.” I scowled. “Stupid Anti-Zombie League. Like Blossom would even be able to control her rabid foaming long enough to patiently saw through someone’s cranium. If they took the time to get to know her at all . . . it’s just not fair. People assume that because she’s a zombie, she’s some sort of cold, calculating, brain-slurping ghoul. She’s not like that at all. Sure, she goes nuts for raw brains . . .” I trailed off. I didn’t think I was helping my sister’s cause after all.
“Yes, of course.” Rhodes nodded. “She’s still your sister, and it really isn’t in the makeup of the walking dead to be so clean and precise, is it? And you must forgive Vice Principal Larson. He can’t help being suspicious, with his family history and all.”
What was she saying? Why would she bring him up?
“You do know, don’t you dear? About his wife?” I shook my head. “Such a terrible accident. About four years ago, I think. Vice Principal Larson and his wife, Gloria, went on vacation. They were going to tour Moscow, St. Petersburg … I still remember how excited Victor was about the trip. He kept testing out phrases from this silly translation book—you know, the ones tourists buy?—on the Russian language arts teacher. About four days in, they decided to take a side trip to Chernobyl, in Ukraine.” She paused to give me the once-over. “Do you really not see where I’m going with this?”
I shrugged. Okay, so the Animal toured Russia. What did that have to do with any of this?
“They were poking around Pripyat, having a grand old time, from what I heard. Vice Principal Larson told Gloria to pose in front of an old, abandoned Ferris wheel, and well, you can imagine what happened.”
No. I couldn’t. Abandoned Ferris wheel. So what?
“You really should brush up on your history, dear. Have you never heard of Chernobyl? The nuclear accident there?”
Oh. I was starting to get the idea. k°1°2