Undead (9780545473460) (23 page)

We are all crouching on the high window ledge, in a deadly lineup: me first, then Smitty, Pete, and finally Alice. Candy in a zombie vending machine. Make your selection.

Alice is gripping the window frame, all set to smash through the glass and jump to her certain death below, should the need arise.

“So, explain to me again how this can possibly work?”

“Can't get past them in the kitchen.” Smitty is psyching himself up, eyes darting, breath heavy. “But we can in here. We let them up the stairs, they come in, we climb around them.” He points across the room. “Along the ledge, onto the bookcase, across to the fridge, jump to the security camera cabinet, and down the stairs. Easy.”

“Zombie parkour,” I mutter. “Don't think that's been done before. Better film this, Alice, it could go viral.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Pete's voice shakes.

“Pardonnez-moi,”
Alice says, “but am I the only one who sees the fatal flaw in this amazing plan?” She leans across to Smitty. “Why are they going to clear a nice space for us by the stairs?”

“We stay on this side of the room, they'll come toward the meat.” He sounds sure. “When they're all below us, we move. They can't climb. All we need to do is keep off the ground and it'll be kushti.” He gives us a manic grin.

Like it's that simple. But it's a plan, and it's the only one we've got.

“Do it,” I say to him. “Do it quickly.”

He nods at me, and before Alice can protest or any of us can change our minds, he monkeys down from the ledge, runs across the room, and out onto the stairs. There's no turning back now. The three of us listen to the fading sound of his footsteps as he descends.

“What if there are too many?” Alice gabbles. “What if we can't get around them?”

“Looked like twenty in the kitchen, at a guess.” Pete is very quiet. “The fire at the back door should hold the others outside for a while. It's our best shot.”

I look across the room and try to imagine it full of twenty zombies. I won't have to imagine for much longer. I trace my escape route out in my head. Timing will be everything; if we go too soon, they'll still be blocking the way to the stairs. We have to wait until they're all in and right on us. It's going to be the biggest game of chicken any of us ever played.

Smitty appears at the doorway, eyes wild.

“We're open for business!” He runs across the room, grabbing a plastic broom leaning against the wall. “Weapon,” he pants, throwing the broom up to me. He leaps onto the desk, pulling himself up onto the ledge. “They were waiting for me, all right.” He's laughing, pumped up. “Practically fell through the door when I opened it. I had to fly up those stairs!”

Flying.
Now there's an idea. Pity I mislaid my wings.

We all watch the doorway.

“What do we do? What do we do?” Alice panics.

“We wait,” I answer.

We watch the doorway.

“Where are they?” Alice is already close to tears.

I glance over at the TV screens to see if I can make out movement in the kitchen, but we're too far away to see.

“Shh!” Pete says. “We'll be able to hear them.”

We strain our ears.

Nothing.

We should hear them by now; the groaning, the shuffling up the stairs. We can't hear anything — well, except for Alice, who by now is sobbing openly.

“It's OK,” I reassure her. “We can do this.”

We watch the doorway.

Nothing.

“What's wrong with them?” Smitty leaps down onto the desk again. “The one time you want the morons to chase you, they don't.” He makes his way cautiously across the room.

“Maybe the door closed again, with the weight of them pushing?” I try to be helpful.

“Guess I'll have to go and see.” Smitty steps into the doorway.

“Careful!” Alice screeches.

“Never knew you cared.” He turns to throw her a kiss, and as he does, a bloodied claw appears and swipes at him from behind. Alice, Pete, and I scream in unison.

“Shiz!” Smitty dodges at the last moment, rolling across the floor and out of reach. The freerunning is
on
.

“Hurry!” I scream at him.

He's back up and on the desk. I shoot out an arm for him to grab. He pulls himself up to us again.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god.” Alice's eyes are on the doorway.

The first zombie appears. It's a he. Youngish. Not in bad shape at all. His clothes are shredded, but apart from that you'd just think he was suffering from a really bad hangover.

And he's tall. Seriously tall, with long, dangly arms.

Darn, that sucks.

He stands there, head rolling from side to side, taking in the room.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god!” Alice's whispers become a cry. Tall Guy turns his head, focuses, and suddenly remembers what he's here for. He starts to stagger toward us.

“Where are the others?” Pete mutters. “Aren't they coming?”

He's right to be worried. For this to work they've all got to come at once.

And then they do.

A wad of zombies appears at the doorway and squeezes into the room, and then there is a flow of bodies, like they were just waiting for the bottleneck to be eased, and now there's nothing holding them back at all. Once they see us, the moans start, building, rhythmical almost. They're on the scent. Behind me, Alice's crying ramps up in response.

Meanwhile, Tall Guy has reached the desk below us. He smells like butt. He looks up at us with blank, cloudy eyes and flails out an arm. As one, we shrink up against the cold glass of the window.

“Nobody. Move,” rasps Smitty. “Wait till they're all in the room before we go anywhere.”

I hope that the final zombie is kind enough to tell us he's the last guy in. Once we go, there's no turning back. The room fills up disgustingly quickly, and the groans become deafening. I feel stomach acid rise into my throat.
Keep it together.

Tall Guy has been joined by the fastest of the rest, and they are trying to remember how to climb; one makes it half onto the desk, reaches up, and seizes one of Smitty's feet.

“Here!” I pass Smitty the broom and he thrusts it at the zombie below. What we'd give for his dwarven ax . . .

“That's it!” Pete shouts. “Must be all of them!”

I look toward the doorway. The room is almost full; the flow has stopped.

“We move!” Smitty shoves Tall Guy with his sweeper. “I'll hold them here until you're all clear!”

Dammit.
That means I'm trailblazer.

I edge along the ledge. Suddenly, moving is much more difficult. One slip, and it's Game Over. The ledge ends. It's onto the bookcase now. I did it before; it's simple.

It's not simple. Suddenly it's waaay too far.

“Go! Go! Go!” Smitty wrestles with the mass of arms below.

Hands scraping up the wall at me, I slide down and across to the bookshelf. Easy does it. My foot finds a hold. I'm about to leave the safety of the ledge. A hand grasps my ankle. I screech and draw both legs up out of reach, and for a few seconds I'm dangling from the ledge, about to tumble into the sea of monsters.

“Oi, uglies!” Smitty shouts, and bashes the window with his broom. The glass cracks, the zoms are distracted for an instant, and I see my chance. Finding new footholds, I pull myself up and scale the bookcase toward the fridge, kicking the books off into the faces of the ones below, the shelves shaking as I go.

An easy jump away — don't screw this up . . .

Geronimo!

It seems like I'm in the air for a lifetime, then I land on all fours with the biggest
Boom Shakalaka
on top of the fridge. Success. But at a price. Pain shrieks from my left wrist. No time to care, no time to check it.

A body slams into me — it's Pete, gasping for air and as pink as I've ever seen him. He must have raced to reach me this fast. I grab his arm with my good hand and pull him against the wall with me. He mutters thanks.

Back on the ledge, Smitty is still beating them down with his broom. Beyond him there's Alice, pressed against the window.

“Alice!” I yell at her. “Move now!”

The going's as good as she's going to get; half of the zoms are now distracted by Pete and me on the fridge, the other half by Smitty. But she's crying and shaking her head, and I feel a heaviness in the pit of my stomach because I know the situation's hopeless. One of us should have stayed. Smitty's preoccupied, to say the least, and she's not going to move without some serious intervention.

“Crap!” I look at Pete. “I'm going to have to go back and get Alice.”

“No.” Pete nods to my left wrist, and I realize I've been gripping it with my other hand. “You're injured.”

Before I can argue, he's off, spidering back over the bookcase, kicking out at the hands that grab. I slap the top of the fridge with my good hand.

“Here, you lunkheads!” I shout at the hordes. “Look at me!”

But most of the zoms are on Pete because he's moving faster, or Alice because she's screaming louder. A couple of them have managed to clamber up onto the desk now. Smitty won't hold them for long.

“We have to jump!” he yells at Alice. “We'll go together!”

She moves toward the bookcase, but stops when the ledge does.

“It's too far!” she screams.

Pete reaches up from the top of the bookcase, holding out a hand.

“Jump! I've got you!”

She leans forward ever-so-slightly, and that's all Smitty needs. He bundles her up and practically launches her off the ledge. For a second she's all windmilling arms, and then she lands, somehow Pete catches her, and Smitty catapults himself on top of the two of them, still holding his broom. They made it.

But the bookcase can't hold three. The monsters surge as one toward them, and as they scramble to reach the fridge, the bookcase wobbles threateningly.

“Hurry!” I shout. “It won't take the weight!”

Smitty's clear, thumping down beside me on the fridge.

“I can't!” Alice freezes again, fresh tears running down her face.

“Are you going to let those losers get you?” Smitty yells at her, holding out a hand. “You're better than that, Alice!”

It's the first time he's called her that. Alice sets her jaw — but before she can move, Tall Guy shows up from the maelstrom of Undead, a long Mr. Tickle arm reaching up and clawing at her leg. She squeals and jumps. She hits the fridge hard, her nails scratching at the smooth, round corners like a desperate cat trying to find some grip. We pull her up by the strap of her thong, giving her the ultimate wedgie.

“By the seat of your pants.” Smitty grins at her.

“Don't get any ideas, sicko,” Alice gulps, and pushes her hair out of her eyes.

There's an almighty crash. The force of Alice's jump rocked the bookcase too much, and it has come away from the wall and hit the floor, squashing a handful of zoms.

The good news is, Pete jumped to safety at the last minute. The bad news is, he jumped back onto the ledge. He looks at us from across the void, all color draining from his face. He's marooned.

“Stay where you are!” Smitty shouts. “We'll find something to help you!”

Like what?
We're standing on a fridge. There's nothing in reach. Pete knows he's not going anywhere.

I look at the doorway to the stairs. It is temptingly clear.

“Maybe there'll be something in the kitchen?” I shout. “We could come back up.”

“Screw that!” Alice says, snatching the broom from Smitty's hands. With a battle cry worthy of a samurai, she jumps down onto the back of the fallen bookcase and whacks the first couple of monsters in her path. “Get away from us, you stinking dirtbags!” she screams. Wielding the broom like a sledgehammer, she takes out Tall Guy. “I am So! Over! This!”

Pete seizes the moment, leaping down beside Alice. Instantly, Smitty and I are reaching down to pull them up, our two heroes — one pale and panting, the other newly and wonderfully psychotic.

“To the stairs!” Smitty declares, like some kind of musketeer. We leap from fridge to TV cabinet to doorway, leaving the monsters clutching at air.

I lead the charge down the tower stairs, hoping and praying there are no surprises waiting in the kitchen.

No surprises. But that's not saying much.

Smoke belches from the mudroom into the kitchen. The fire won't hold the zoms outside for long.

“This way!” Smitty leads us out of the kitchen and we race through rooms until we reach the hall.

“Uh-oh!” Alice yells.

A clutch of Undead are lingering around the globe, batting it with their mangled hands and trying to make it spin. No doubt they're planning world domination.

I grab Alice and pull her toward the basement door after Smitty and Pete.

Down we go, narrowly avoiding the trail of nails Cam left on the stairs, and arrive in the basement.

“Crap a brick sideways!” Smitty stops dead.

It's déjà boo. Half a dozen zoms, standing around with nothing to do. Until they see us.

“Oh my god” — I sound like Alice — “it's Gareth.”

No doubt about it. There, in the middle of the group, is our old friend from the gas station at the Cheery Chomper. He's been through the wars. The nibbled-corn-cob arm has dropped off entirely, and he seems to have lost most of his clothing, but it's him all right. He still has his name tag at least. He looks up at us and snarls.

“Do you think he recognizes us?” I whisper.

“I think he recognizes Smitty,” says Pete.

“Oh yes.” Smitty licks his lips.

“Let's motor!” Alice goes off raw once more, running down into the cellar. She grabs the handle of the tarp-covered lawn mower and, with an almighty grunt, pushes it at the nearest zom, literally mowing him down. Now there's a path to the wall-curtain. “Come on, slowpokes!” she shouts at us.

We run for it.

Pete and I reach Alice at the wall-curtain, while Smitty hefts up an empty wooden crate and bowls it toward the group, felling two zombies in one glorious shot. But as he grabs another projectile, Zombie Gareth grabs him. With his remaining arm, he hoists Smitty up by the back of his leather jacket. Smitty wriggles like a squid on a fish hook and falls out of his jacket, leaving Gareth holding it up by the collar.

Smitty is nearly with us when he stops.

“Nah. This is not how it's going down.” He turns deliberately and stares at Gareth. “Tosser doesn't get to keep the leather.”

“Smitty, no!” My scream is useless.

He dashes back to Gareth, dodging the swipe of another monster on the way, snatches the jacket, and executes a perfect roundhouse kick, knocking Gareth onto his zombie butt with a satisfying
crunch
.

Then he sprints back past us, grim-faced. “Lamebrain had that coming since I met him.”

We run through the wall-curtain, down into the wine cellar, and out into the corridor past the cells.

“Where is this control panel, then?” Smitty gasps, first to reach the end of the corridor.

“On the left somewhere.” I join him, running my hand over the stones.

“I looked before, but I couldn't see anything obvious.” Pete is panting.

“Leave it to me.” Alice crouches low. “Here!” She presses something, a piece of stone pops out, and there's the control panel.

An eerie groan echoes down the corridor.

“Hurry!” Alice says. “Open the door!”

Smitty's finger is poised to enter in the code.

“Your birthday?”

“April sixteenth — wait!” I stop his hand. “Shit.”

“What is it?”

“US or UK?” I rake a hand through my hair. “No!”

Down the corridor the moaning grows louder.

“Enter the code!” Alice screams, trying to force the wall open.

“Which way around?” Pete's eyes are popping out of his head.

“I don't know!” I cry, exasperated.

“What do you even
mean
?” Smitty says, thumping the wall with his fist.

“The date.” I stare at him. “If Mum meant the US way, it's month first, day second. If it's the UK way — day first, month second. We had a running joke about it because we could never get it right.”

“They're here!” Alice is looking down the corridor.

“So which would she use?” Smitty's finger is poised over the buttons.

I shut my eyes and think.

“Tick-tock, Bobby!” Pete says.

“UK. Day first, month second.”

“Are you sure?” Smitty says. “We don't get a second chance.”

I nod frantically. “She always said it was more logical. And because,
dammit
” — I roll my eyes — “we're British.”

He punches in 1604, I hold my breath, there's a grinding noise, and the wall slides away and disappears into itself. Woulda been nice if it closed up after us, given the circs, but them's the breaks. We'll have to rely on speed.

We run down a wide, barely lit passage, our feet smacking the concrete floor. Down, down, down, the floor slopes and leads us deep underground. Didn't I say this was the School Trip from Hell? Well, now we're going back there.

Eventually the ground levels off. Now it's slippery underfoot. There's a hissing noise, too, and I feel rain on my face, which makes no sense at all, because we're in a tunnel about a mile under the ground. And then I realize:
We're underneath the loch
. I keep running, praying the tunnel doesn't decide to flood. Alice is on rocket fuel and leads the race, Smitty's right by me, and Pete brings up the rear. Got to keep going — they'll eventually catch up, and —

“Aargh!”

My head snaps around. I catch the tail end of Pete in a full-on skid. He goes down hard, his feet twisting under him at speed, chest smacking onto the ground. He lies there in the wetness, arms outstretched, the cooler held up like a rugby ball in a match he'll never play.

We race to him; he's shaking badly.

“Saved it,” he wheezes, handing me the cooler. “Need . . . inhaler.” He flaps his hands around his chest, looking for a pocket. Smitty crouches in front of him and searches inside his coat.

The cooler has come unzipped. I hold my breath and take a quick look inside.

No broken needles.

“We're good!” I shout.

Smitty has found the inhaler and Pete is blindly sucking on it, desperately, one hand gripping Smitty's arm. I secure the syringes and sling the cooler over my shoulder. Pete leans on Smitty and hauls himself to his feet.

“You can run?” I say.

He nods, shivering.

“Come on!” shouts Alice up ahead. “There's something up here!”

We set off, and Pete buckles on the first step, falling to a trembling heap on the wet floor once again. “My ankle!”

Without discussion, Smitty and I each throw one of his arms over our shoulders, like we did all those years ago when we helped the driver out of the snow and back onto the bus. We limp down the corridor, the cooler bashing my side and my wrist thudding in pain. The tunnel is uphill now. The water that's running from the ceiling and down the smooth walls is beginning to stream past us on the floor.

“It's a dead end!” Alice cries. The way is boarded up with old, rotted planks, daylight showing through the cracks between each one.

“Not for long!” Smitty does the same roundhouse kick he used so successfully on Gareth, and before I know it we're all flinging ourselves at the wood, beating our way through, breaking and pulling off the planks.

We fall out into the open.
Freedom.

What remains of daylight, and a rush of cold. Bitter, bitter cold, with a vicious, penetrating wind. At least it reminds me I'm alive, for now. I look around, the wind blasting my hair into my eyes and making them sting.

We're on the island. It's about half the size of a football field, but there's nothing here other than a clump of trees. I can see the castle beyond the frozen loch, and snow-laden pine trees with distant blurred hills rising up to meet the sky. The stuff of Christmas cards.

Alice leans into the tunnel entrance in an attempt to get out of the wind. Her blond hair is beginning to form dreads, and her cheerful red miniskirt is now a delicate shade of swamp. No more lip gloss or mascara. I suddenly feel terribly sad.

“So where is your mum?” she says.

Good question.

And then I see her, by the trees, coming toward us. A lean figure striding across the snow determinedly. I don't know whether to run to her, or away.

I stay where I am. As she gets closer, I see she's dressed in a black one-piece snowsuit. She actually looks kinda slick. Not like the mother I know.

“That her?” says Smitty. “Ding-dong.”

Oh horror.
Gross in extremis.
Smitty's hot for my mum. Just when I thought I had kept hope alive.

She breaks into a run. “You're OK?” She clutches at my face with insulated gloves, making me flinch. “Injured? Bitten?”

I shrug her off. “Minor stuff.” I hold up my limp wrist and she gives me a look. “Not bitten, sprained,” I clarify.

“The rest of you?” She turns to them.

“Pete's ankle's twisted. Other than that, we're spanky,” Smitty says, guarded. He may fancy her but he doesn't trust her. Not yet.

“Fine. I have transport.” She points to the trees, and now I see a small jetty I didn't spot before. At the end of it I can just make out two ATVs, tethered together on the ice. “We should go before they get here.” She nods toward the castle. Does she mean the bad guys or the zoms? Through the last rays of day I can make out shadows shambling out onto the ice from the direction of the castle, arms outstretched, groans building.

“You've got the Osiris vials?” my mother asks.

I hug the cooler to me like a baby. “Yup.”

“Good work.” She holds her hands out for it.

“I'll carry it.”

She tuts impatiently. “OK. Let's go.” She turns to lead the way to the jetty, and Smitty and I pick Pete up off the icy ground.

“Um, hello?” Alice grabs my arm. “We just go with her? Evil Scientist Mother?”

The alternative being . . . ?

“We need some answers!” Pete splutters
.

“Here.” I unload him onto Alice and stomp through the snow after my mother, trying to catch up, just like that little girl in the photo would have.

“Just because we're being chased by the Undead doesn't give you a free pass, you know!” I shout at her. “You were working here! Did you create these zombies?” The wind whips my questions out over the loch. “You owe me an explanation!”

She doesn't stop or even slow down, and at first I don't think she's heard me. But then she turns her head.

“All you need to know for now is that our intentions were good.”

“Yep, Grace already sang that tune,” I shout at her, struggling to keep pace. “Your little team was re-creating some zombie virus to give to Xanthro.”

“We were trying to find a cure!” She stops suddenly and spins around. “The stimulant was a mistake. I tried to hide it from Xanthro. Had I known there was any question of this” — she gestures to the zoms looming toward us on the ice — “I would have refused to be involved!”

I reach her, panting.

“You didn't know about the Veggie Juice?”

She shakes her head. “Of course not. My team sold me out — at least, Grace, Michael, and Shaq did — too young and stupid to know anything else but greed. They gave Xanthro the stimulant. Xanthro made the juice to conduct a controlled outbreak, to see how it would spread. Now that their experiment is over, they're on their way to destroy the evidence.”

“Newsflash,
we're
the evidence!” shouts Smitty, catching up to us.

“Precisely,” says my mother. “The only thing that will keep us all safe is that antidote.” She points to the cooler on my shoulder. “Xanthro doesn't have Osiris 17, and as long as we do, we can bargain with them.”

“Some breaking news here, too, you freakazoids!” Alice warns from behind me. “Zombies ahoy!”

I glance back at the tunnel entrance; our basement friends are here. And by the looks of things, they've been joined by others.

“Let's move!” my mother shouts, and we hurry toward the jetty.

“There are hundreds!” Alice is scanning the loch. “Over there!” She points to a different place on the ice where a new mob is heading toward us, shambling and horrible, with bloodied drool and broken, clutching hands. “And there!” She turns to my mother, frantic. “Where are they all coming from?”

My mother doesn't answer, just nods grimly and runs out onto the jetty toward the ATVs.

“Shut the front door.” Alice is transfixed. “They're disappearing.”

“You seeing things?” Smitty peers through the fading light. Alice is right. Whole groups of Undead are vanishing into the loch. It takes me a moment to realize what's happening.

“Ha-ha!” Smitty laughs, victorious. “They're sinking through the ice! Lard arses! Suh-weet!”

Pete clears his throat. “Er, yeah. And if
they're
too heavy, what about five of us on quad bikes?”