“Do you think I could purposefully impart my magic to Cali?” she asked Dominic. “The way you did with me?”
Dominic mulled over Leesa’s question before answering.
“Not at this point, no,” he said finally. “You are nowhere near proficient enough with your own magic. Plus, Cali has already turned eighteen. As far as I know, no waziri has ever imparted magic to someone that age.” Dominic shrugged and smiled. “But who knows? Until I passed my magic along to you, no one had ever imparted magic to a female—and one who had not yet been born, besides. So maybe somewhere down the road it will be possible.”
“That would be so awesome,” Cali said, beaming. “Just think, Lees, we could be sister wizards!”
“That would be great,” Leesa agreed, thinking how nice it would be to have someone to relate to about her magic besides Dominic.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Dominic admonished. “For now, we have to concentrate on Leesa’s practice.” He saw the look of disappointment that crossed Cali’s face. “That doesn’t mean we can’t try to get Cali a bit more skilled with the energy beam, though.”
“Cool,” Cali said. “How do I do that?”
“Let’s try one or two more things to see if we can figure it out. Leesa, stand close to Cali, but do not touch her this time.”
Leesa moved close beside Cali, until less than two inches separated them.
“Try again,” Dominic told Cali.
Cali lifted her arm and concentrated as hard as she could. Her palm felt a little warm, but nothing else happened. She frowned.
“Nothing,” she said with a sigh. “My hand felt like it got warm, but that might just have been wishful thinking.”
“Do not give up,” Dominic said. “We have learned that you can do it if Leesa is touching you, but not if she is merely near you. There is one more thing to try.”
The two girls looked at him expectantly.
“Leesa, when I tell you to, begin practicing again. Fire segmented blasts at the rock, the way you would if a group of zombies was attacking.”
Leesa nodded. “Okay.”
Dominic turned to Cali. “As soon as Leesa begins, I want you to try again. Concentrate on your own target—use that smaller rock closer to the bank. Do not watch what Leesa is doing. Perhaps when her magic is activated, you will be better able to draw from it.”
“Okay, I’ll try.”
Leesa looked at her. “Try?” she said, grinning.
“I know, I know. ‘Do or do not,’ blah, blah, blah.” Cali said, smiling as she mocked her earlier words. “I hate it when my own advice is used against me.”
Leesa laughed.
“Are you two ready?” Dominic asked.
Both girls nodded and turned toward the stream. Leesa pointed her palm toward the boulder and began firing bursts of magic at it. She kept her concentration focused solely on her target—ignoring what Cali was doing next to her—so she didn’t see the pale yellow beam that burst from Cali’s palm. The bolt failed to reach the rock Cali was aiming for, but she didn’t care. She was thrilled to be able to produce even a little bit of magic without Leesa touching her.
Finally, Leesa ended her spell. From the excited look on Cali’s face, Leesa knew her friend had been successful.
“It worked,” Cali told her. “I didn’t hit the rock—my bolt didn’t reach far enough—but I shot one.”
“Now we know,” Dominic said. “Whenever Leesa is using her magic, you can be working on yours. We’ll see how much of it you can tap into.”
They spent another two hours practicing, taking short breaks every twenty minutes or so. In addition to working on her energy beam, Leesa devoted lots of time to practicing her air shield. She spent less time on her other spells, but practiced all of them at least a little. They discovered that Cali could tap into Leesa’s magic regardless of what spell she was using, as long as the two of them were in reasonably close proximity. By the end of the session, Cali was hitting objects almost eight feet away. She wasn’t able to cause any damage with her beam yet, but she was thrilled with her progress nonetheless.
Leesa was happy as well. She wasn’t sure there would be time for Cali to become skilled enough to be much of a factor in the rapidly approaching events, but at least she might be able to defend herself against a zombie or two. That would be something, at least.
Two more days of practicing together proved Leesa right. Cali was making black marks on stone, and if she got her hand close enough, was able to bore shallow holes into the rock—enough to penetrate the skull of a zombie trying to bite her, Leesa thought happily.
34. BATTING PRACTICE
JAMI MOSSI’S PICTURE FILLED the entire first page of the Woburn High senior class yearbook for good reason. In addition to being a stellar athlete, she had graduated fifth in her class, been voted Homecoming Queen and Most Likely to Succeed, and to top it all off, possessed a model’s wholesome good looks. She had lettered in both soccer and basketball, but her true love ever since she was a young girl was softball. Tall, svelte and blond, she resembled her idol, Jennie Finch. Unlike Finch, Jami was not a pitcher, but her sweet swing had set a state single season record for home runs and carried Woburn to the state championship. Her many fans wanted her to attend one of the local Boston colleges, but Jami had accepted a scholarship from Finch’s powerhouse alma mater, the University of Arizona. She would be heading west in the middle of August, but for now she was enjoying her summer at home, training and playing in two different softball leagues. One of the leagues was a men’s league in which she was the only female player. She was more than holding her own in that league.
Tonight, though, she was playing for her women’s team. It was a beautiful evening, about half an hour before sunset. The temperature still hovered in the low seventies. The powerful park lights turned the baseball diamond into a shining green jewel, and Jami’s popularity had drawn a crowd of several hundred spectators to the park. Young girls wanted to grow up to be like Jami. Girls her age wanted to be her friend. Guys dreamed of dating her; failing that, they wanted to be her friend and have her know their names. The adult townsfolk were proud of the glory she had brought upon the town—and the men certainly didn’t mind watching the long-legged star gambol about the field in shorts with her characteristic feline grace. In short, Jami was a superstar in Woburn and throughout the surrounding county.
The result of all this adulation was that the wooden bleachers flanking both baselines were jammed full of cheering fans; still more people sat in lawn chairs or stood behind the low chain link fence that paralleled the foul lines. After tonight, there were only two games left in the season, and thus only two more chances to watch Jami play.
She had batted twice already this evening, blasting a home run and a double. She was due up fourth this inning, so she was waiting patiently on the wooden bench along the first base line, chatting with a couple of her teammates and cheering for the current batter. The count was two balls and one strike.
“Pick out a good one,” Jami yelled. “Give it a ride!”
Suddenly, a terrified scream echoed from far down the right field line. That first scream was quickly followed by a second, and then another and another until the night air was filled with shrieks and yells. The girls on the bench all jumped to their feet and stared toward the cries, trying to see what was going on out there. People began running all directions, fleeing what looked to be some kind of gang attack.
With the keen eyesight that allowed her to pound fast-pitched softballs for long home runs, Jami quickly realized this was no ordinary gang. She could see chunks of rotted flesh hanging from the attackers and pieces of yellow bone peeking through the torn flesh and tattered clothes. The story and videos from Maine were still fresh in people’s minds, so it wasn’t long before shouts of “Zombies!” joined the screams.
Some of the spectators were caught along the wire fence with nowhere the run. The hungry zombies began falling upon those unlucky souls and rip
ping into them with their teeth, trying to satisfy their ravenous appetites.
Jami yanked an aluminum bat from the bat rack. “Grab a bat!” she yelled to her teammates before racing down the right field line toward the heart of the melee. A half-dozen of her teammates charged down the foul line behind her. Wielding their metal bats, Jami and the other girls waded into the fight, swinging their makeshift weapons at zombie shoulders and heads.
Bones crunched and skulls cracked under their vicious, practice-honed swings. A freelance video cameraman who had been filming the game kept his camera fixed on Jami. He had been focusing on her all evening because it was going to be one of her last appearances in the area. Now he got her grabbing the bat, exhorting her teammates and charging toward the zombies. She whacked the first two creatures she encountered on the tops of their heads, using a powerful downward chopping motion. Both zombies collapsed lifelessly to the ground. The cameraman watched through his viewfinder as Jami rushed toward a zombie who was crouched over the prone shape of what looked to be a very young boy.
A few seconds later, the guy had his money shot. He blinked, scarcely able to believe what he had just seen. He backed the video up about thirty seconds and then watched it in the viewfinder to make sure. Yep, there it was, sharp and clear. He switched off his camera and hurried to his van, where he quickly uploaded the video to his laptop. From there, he sent it to YouTube and several other sites.
Less than twenty minutes after shutting off his camera, the incredible video had already gone viral. Jami’s fame—once merely local—had now spread worldwide.
35. HOME RUN
LEESA WAS PLAYING HEARTS at the dining table with Rave, her mom and Bradley when Cali’s ringtone sounded on her cell, which she had left on the end table beside the couch. She excused herself and went to pick up her phone.
“Have you seen the video?” Cali asked excitedly as soon as Leesa answered the call.
“No. What video? We’ve been playing cards. Hold on a second.” Leesa crossed into her bedroom for more privacy. She did not want to alert or worry her mom.
“What is it?” she asked as soon as she was out of earshot. “More zombies?”
With so many stories about the Lisbon Falls zombie attack still appearing in the news, Leesa had been forced to turn off the sound notification on the zombie alert she had set up. A couple of times a day she would scroll through the list to check for any items not connected to the Maine attack. There hadn’t been anything important up to dinnertime tonight, when she last checked.
“Yeah, you won’t believe the video,” Cali replied. “Go to YouTube and search ‘zombie home run.’ It’s pretty amazing. You should probably watch it on your computer rather than your cell. It’s that good.”
“Okay.” Leesa sat down at her desk and switched on her computer. “I call you back when I’m done.”
Rave entered the bedroom just as Leesa disconnected the call. She knew he had probably overheard the entire conversation from the other room, but now that there was a video to be watched, he had come in to join her.
He stood a few feet behind her chair, a safe enough distance to avoid accidently touching her while she was in contact with the computer.
Leesa went to YouTube and typed in ‘zombie home run’ as Cali had instructed. The video came up immediately. She couldn’t believe it—the thing had been posted for less than an hour and already had more than two million hits. This was big time viral. She clicked the start arrow.
The first image was of a bunch of girls in softball uniforms sitting on the bench. The camera focused mostly on a tall blond girl in the middle of the bench—a girl not unlike Leesa in appearance, though with a more athletic shape. The picture remained with the players for ten or fifteen seconds before abruptly swinging away and showing some kind of commotion out along the edge of the field. People were running in all directions, scrambling away from something. What they were fleeing from was not immediately clear, but Leesa knew what it had to be. A moment later, the video zoomed in on a group of horrid looking zombies.
The cameraman stayed with the zombies for a few seconds before returning to the players. The tall blond girl had grabbed a bat and turned to yell something to her teammates. Five or six of them grabbed bats and followed behind the blonde, who was now sprinting toward the attacking zombies.
Leesa watched as she clobbered two of them on top of the head, caving in their skulls with her metal bat. Next, she turned toward a zombie that was kneeling over a young boy. She drew her bat back as if getting ready for a pitch. Leesa’s eyes went wide when she saw what happened next. The zombies would have been enough to make the video go viral, but what she had just witnessed explained why it had happened so quickly.
The video ended a few seconds later. Leesa switched off her computer and turned to face Rave.
“Did I just see what I think I saw?” she asked, still amazed at what she had just witnessed.
“You did,” Rave replied. “It gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘home run.’”
Leesa picked up her cell. “I need to call Dominic. He’ll want to see this as soon as possible.”
She punched in Dominic’s number and quickly set up a meeting. The school library closed at nine o’clock during the summer, so they decided to gather at a coffee shop she knew downtown that had wireless. Dominic was going to pick her up down the block from her apartment in fifteen minutes—she still wasn’t ready to let her family know about the wizard. Rave would join them at the shop.
Leesa followed her call to Dominic with a call back to Cali to tell her where they were meeting. As Leesa expected, Cali would bring her laptop to display the video.
Leesa and Dominic were the first to arrive. They grabbed a long table near the back where they would have at least a little privacy. Leesa ordered a fruit smoothie from the girl behind the counter. While they waited for Cali and Rave, Leesa described the video to Dominic.
“The zombies were the real thing,” she said. “There’s no doubt about that. I’m not sure how much else you’ll be able to learn from the video, but I knew you’d want to see it right away.”
“You were right about that,” Dominic said. “As for what I might learn, I will not know that until I have seen it.”
Rave arrived first, followed by Cali a few minutes later. Cali ordered a mocha frappe and sat down beside Dominic. Leesa was sitting on the wizard’s other side, with Rave beside her.
Cali called up the video and then slid the laptop in front of Dominic so he could view it more clearly. They all watched as the video began to play.
Leesa leaned in closer as the action neared the end. She watched the girl pull her bat back and then stride forward just like she was stepping into a pitch. The bat sped through the hitting zone and smacked the kneeling zombie in the head as if it was a ball sitting on a batting tee. The creature’s head snapped off at the neck and shot forward like a line drive to center field—the ‘zombie home run’ of the title. The rest of the body remained motionless for a several moments before toppling slowly to the ground. The girl picked up the little boy and hugged him tightly to her chest as the video faded to black.
“Play it again,” Dominic told Cali. “Pause it when I tell you.”
Cali restarted the video. She positioned the cursor on the pause button.
“Just hit the enter key when you want to stop it,” she said, showing Dominic which key to press.
Dominic held his finger poised above the key while he watched. Soon after the picture moved to the panic near the outfield, he paused the video and studied the image carefully. Leesa pushed her smoothie to the side and bent closer to try to see what detail might have caught the wizard’s attention. She didn’t see anything that seemed significant. Dominic obviously did, though.
After almost a full minute, Dominic started the video up again. He watched it without pausing until near the end, when he stopped it just before the girl began her final swing. A scowl creased his features as he studied the screen.
Once again, Leesa wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking at. Whatever it was, it had made the wizard very unhappy.
“Start it over again from the beginning, please,” he said.
Cali restarted the video. Dominic paused it again in the exact same place as the first time.
“Look closely,” he said, pointing toward the left edge of the screen with his finger. “See the guy in the red T-shirt?”
Leesa looked closely. The guy was one of the farthest away from the cameraman. He seemed to be struggling with one of the zombies, but from this distance, it was difficult to tell for sure. Other than his red shirt, it was impossible to make out any details. Leesa wondered what Dominic had found.
“I see his shirt,” she said, “but that’s about all I can really see.”
“Me, too,” Cali chimed in.
“Watch,” Dominic said, starting the video again.
The guy in the red shirt disappeared a moment later when the cameraman moved the camera back to the softball players grabbing bats. Dominic let the video run until almost the end before stopping it again.
“Look now,” he said.
The image was frozen on the girl about to slam the zombie’s head with her bat. Leesa didn’t see what Dominic was getting at.
“She’s about to hit her zombie home run,” she said. “So?”
“Ignore her,” Dominic said. “Look here.” He pointed to a figure just behind the zombie whose head was about to go flying. The guy was wearing a red shirt. “Watch him move.”
Dominic started up the video. The guy staggered forward, moving with the all too recognizable zombie lurch. Leesa had a sinking feeling she knew where this was going.
“He was one of the first victims,” Dominic said. “The attack turned him into a zombie. That means at least one of the attackers was contagious.”
“Uh, oh,” Cali said. “That’s not good.”
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