Chrysalis Young (3 page)

“Duh… Excuse me, Mother. Did you forget to tell me about the aliens?”

“If my mother doesn’t talk about it, I’m not allowed to ask.”

“Okay. Dysfunctional families. I get it. We’ve got plenty of those too.”

“I don’t think it would make any difference even if I was allowed to ask. I think my parents knew about the aliens. My mother told me about the Craze competition and then they went off visiting with neighbours they know I don’t like.”

“How did they go visiting without your spaceship?” Amanda said.

“The neighbours picked them up.”

“Okay,” Amanda said. “I can see it all now. The neighbours picked up your folks as they were passing Earth and they all went off to the bowling alley or whatever, leaving you to cosy up with the really nasty aliens.”

“Yes.”

“Wow. And I thought Tazzie’s family was a total zoo.”

“I can’t hatch and become an adult until I prove myself but I’m not good enough. That’s why I sat next to you at the auditions because I could see that you were strong. If you can’t be hot yourself…” Chrysalis finished, leaving Amanda wondering if Chrysalis had been reading her mind.

“Big mistake, girl,” Amanda said. “Total error of judgement there, kiddo.”

“No! You are strong. You just have to believe in yourself.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Where have I heard that before?” Amanda changed the subject. “If the aliens can turn anyone against you, why don’t they turn my family? Or Tazzie?”

“They’re trying hard with Tazzie. It’s not going so well for them. Or with your parents. Perhaps the bonds you have between you are too strong. I don’t know much about the aliens.”

“Why don’t they attack with, like, hundreds of them at once?” Amanda said.

“They’re aliens. How should I know?” Chrysalis said.

“Because you’re an alien too,” Amanda said.

“I am not an alien!” Chrysalis said. “You’re an alien and so are they. You tell
me
what they’re thinking.”

“Like I’d know. I’ve never met an alien before.”

“Nor have I,” Chrysalis said.

There was a small silence while they thought about this. They drank some Red Bull. Eventually Amanda said, “What happens if you don’t prove yourself?”

“I keep growing and the cocoon crushes me to death.”

“Oh,” Amanda said. “That sucks.” Another thought occurred to her. “Sooner or later they’re going to attack us and there won’t be a handy spade or tent pole, so what happens then? And don’t tell me to start carrying one around with me because it will very much confirm what everyone thinks about me.”

“The minder is pleased with your learning. You are getting better at killing zombies,” Chrysalis said. “She wants to give you a weapon that’s invisible until you need it. She has increased the weapons available to me as well.”

“Yeah, you took out eight without even mussing your hair last time.” Amanda brightened. “An alien weapon. Cool.” She stood up and braced herself, arms spread out, ready to receive the super amazing alien gravitron weapon with whatsit buttons and the 3-D screens. A short sword appeared in her hand. Amanda stared at it in disbelief. “Excuse me, super advanced alien person,” she said to Chrysalis, “A sword? Really?” It was not even a very big sword. “You want me to kill zombies with a…toothpick?”

“It’s very sharp,” Chrysalis said. “It can cut through anything.”

Amanda favoured Chrysalis with a sceptical look and swung the sword at the boulder beside her, hoping she wouldn’t break her wrist or something when the sword hit the rock.

The little sword sliced effortlessly through the boulder, leaving a deep incision in the rock. Amanda looked at the sword with new respect. “I guess we’re not going to need the double tap anymore. If you take their heads off, they don’t get up again. How do I vanish it?” As she spoke, the sword vanished. “Sword,” she said experimentally. The sword appeared again. “Oh, look at this,” Amanda said. “It’s my reward for being this week’s most improved serial killer.”

-oOo-

At school, Tazzie and Amanda had lunch together, sitting up on a concrete ledge outside the cafe, as they did most days. Always, they had fooled around, explosively released from the classroom and making the most of it. Now an awkwardness had come between them. They mostly ate their lunch in silence until Amanda said, “You know I’ll never choose between you and Chrysalis. You’re my best friend since forever. When the competition is finished, Chrysalis and her family will go somewhere else probably, and everything will be normal again.”

“Can we have even one conversation where we don’t talk about Barbie?”

“I think, sometimes, that you might attack her, you know, punch her, and I think that would be very not good. She’s tougher than she looks.”

“Yeah, so am I,” Tazzie said. Which was not true. Tazzie was every bit as tough as she looked. “Somehow, I don’t think she’s going to want to scratch her fingernail polish,” Tazzie added.

“If you felt, like, really wanting to punch or kick her, or hit her with something, would you talk to me about it first?”

“What are you on?” Tazzie said, vehemently. “Whatever it is, I don’t want any of it.” She crumpled her lunch wrappers into a tight ball, and sat with her knees drawn up, hugging them tightly, and shutting Amanda out.

“She’s not from around here,” Amanda said, knowing it was a really dumb thing to say. It’s what you say when you know you’ve already lost.

Tazzie decided to give the conversation a miss. She grabbed her lunch rubbish and hopped off the ledge. Her parting shot was, “You’ve been acting really strange lately. Seriously, you should get some help.”

Amanda watched her best friend walk away. Tell me about acting strange, she thought.

-oOo-

A few days later, the sword was put to good use. It was Saturday afternoon. Those contestants still in school had a heavy weekend schedule of promotions and appearances. This meant getting out and about amongst the public which both Chrysalis and Amanda knew the aliens would probably take advantage of. They were not disappointed.

The Craze Saturday afternoon promo was at the football stadium at Caseins which was surrounded by industrial estates in the northern suburbs of the city. Amanda and Chrysalis had finished their particular segment and were waiting at the side of the stage that had been erected on the playing field, when a chunk of the crowd left their seats and staggered across the field towards the stage, doing the zombie thing.

Everyone loved it. The crowd, and the contestants, thought it was all part of the show.

Not the promoters, though. They looked at each other, shrugging, thinking it was a flash mob of some kind—a new dance troupe grabbing attention maybe—the possibilities were endless. If they were any good, the promoters would seize the chance to have some fun with it. End the day with an interesting twist, maybe. They waited to see what unfolded.

“We can’t do this here,” Amanda hissed at Chrysalis. At the questioning look from Chrysalis she said, “Kill zombies on television? Are you kidding?”

Now Chrysalis got it. “It’s me, they want,” she said. “They’ll follow me. Perhaps we could take them somewhere else.”

The mob of zombies was now three quarters of the way across the field towards the stage.

Not far from the stage were the access tunnels to the players’ changing rooms. Today the rooms were being used as dressing and bathroom facilities for the Craze competition. Amanda seized on this.

“Come on,” Amanda said, pulling Chrysalis away from the stage. “We’ll act like we’re going to the changing rooms.”

As casually, but as quickly as they dared, the two girls headed for the nearest access tunnel. As they had hoped, the zombies swung to follow them. Amanda prayed the zombies were still far enough away that no one would make the connection between them. As soon as they were inside the access tunnel, they broke into a run. As they ran, Amanda said, “We have to get them away from here.” They ran past the changing rooms, into a concrete lined corridor. Amanda skidded to a halt at a stairwell going down. A sign said, ‘Basement C.’ It would have to do. The two girls hung about the top of the stairwell for a minute or two, until the first of the zombies had seen them.

The fight in the deserted basement was short and vicious. Slice and dice with a vengeance. The little sword was not slowed down by the human body in the slightest. Amanda quickly learned that she didn’t need to avoid their outstretched arms to get to their heads. She took care of both with a single sweep of the sword. The floor became littered with human body parts.

It was over. Amanda sunk down to the floor, leaning back up against the concrete wall, the sword still in her hand. Chrysalis ceased being still and came over and sat down beside her. She looked drained. In front of them, the concrete floor of the basement was covered with gore and blood, severed limbs, and decapitated bodies. About 20 people stood around aimlessly with the now familiar look of bewilderment on their faces.

Dazed, Amanda contemplated her clothing. She was covered in blood. She vanished the sword and wiped unspeakably sticky things from her face.

“I don’t think we should stay here,” Chrysalis said.

“No,” Amanda said, her voice coming out as a croak. She looked at her clothing again. “I can’t go back up there like this.”

“The minder can fix that,” Chrysalis said, who was, as you would expect, still spotless and immaculately groomed. As she spoke, every trace of blood and gore disappeared from Amanda’s clothing, her skin, and her hair. Amanda was still too blown away to appreciate this new marvel. The two of them exited the basement. At the door, Amanda began to function again. She kicked the doorstop away from under the door and let it slam shut. They returned to the stage as discreetly as possible and joined in the general disappointment that the zombie flash mob had amounted to nothing.

The media had a field day with the massacre. It was not lost on the police that this was the second, murderous and unexplained crime with links to the Craze competition.

-oOo-

For Amanda, her home and school life took on an air of unreality. She went mechanically through the motions of daily interactions with her parents, and her friends and teachers, feeling quite detached from it all. Everyone associated with the show was re-interviewed by the police and they paid special attention to Chrysalis and Amanda because they were the only two people associated with the competition who could convincingly be placed in the vicinity of both crime scenes. Amanda’s calm detachment covered her guilt and Chrysalis was coolly noncommittal so they got nothing much there. Nevertheless, Amanda and Chrysalis continued to be tagged as persons of interest.

Bothering Amanda most was the zombies who were not zombies. She needed to talk with Chrysalis. They went for a stroll along the windswept and not much visited Balena Bay.

“The undead stay undead,” Amanda explained. “That’s why it’s okay to kill them. They are never going to become human beings again. Big difference here. If you kill the aliens that are…driving them, I guess is the best way to put it, then they go back to being normal again. Almost normal, I mean.”

“The minder tells me that they do eventually return to normal,” Chrysalis said. “Some are quicker than others. Some of them are hardly affected.”

“Exactly. That agrees with what I’m saying. Zombies don’t return to normal.” Amanda stopped and scuffed the toe of her boot in the sand as she looked for the right words. “I always thought that when the time came I could kill zombies. I still believe that.”

“The minder is pleased with your new skills,” Chrysalis said.

Amanda let this pass because she didn’t think her newly acquired talents were anything to be proud of. “But I’m
not
killing zombies. These are innocent people who don’t deserve to die.”

“It’s not your fault the aliens are hurting human beings.”

“Zombies is totally the wrong word. It’s more like they’re possessed. That’s what I was going to call them, ‘the possessed’ except that’s not much good either. In fact it’s worse, because for demons you use magic or call a priest or whatever. What you don’t do is kill the patient, like, the cure is worse than the disease. Do you know what I mean?”

“No,” Chrysalis said.

“That isn’t how it works,” Amanda said. “I’m unloading here and you’re the counsellor. Say, ‘Hmm.’”

“Hmm,” Chrysalis said obligingly.

“That’s better,” Amanda said, and went on. “A zombie apocalypse I could handle, even though it’s the meteor strike that’s going to get us. If the rising seas don’t first and we are definitely getting an ice age and maybe we’ll get all three. If we don’t blow ourselves up first or die from super Ebola, and they’re just as likely too. It’s what we deserve anyway. So although I’m a huge zombie fan, I’ve never thought it was really likely, you know, in the real world.”

“Hmm,” Chrysalis said.

Amanda groaned. “That’s the wrong place to say ‘Hmm.’ It sounds like you’re not agreeing with me. This is where you say, ‘You know how to stay grounded in the real world,’ or some crap like that.”

At Chrysalis’s blank look she said, “Okay, let’s move on,” and continued. “So even though they are possessed, they’re possessed by aliens so I don’t think a priest is going to be able to help much here, and they look and act like zombies so that’s why we’re…chopping them into little pieces, but it doesn’t alter the fact that they’re not zombies. The next possibility is that Sarah was right—it’s the light ones dark ones struggle. Tell me about the dark ones, the aliens.”