Zombie Blondes (21 page)

They killed her.

They killed everyone.

The blood inside them is the blood stolen from empty houses. Rejected people reused and reborn into them. That’s what she means by one of them. Part of the blood supply.

Lukas was right. He was right about everything. Maplecrest isn’t a ghost town. It’s a graveyard.

Vomit tickles the back of my throat as I shout for Meredith to leave me alone. Begging her because I know now that this is how they do it. This is how they plan to make me one of them. By infecting me with diseased blood so that I can help them kill. So that I will tear apart the others and feed off their flesh until the entire town is rid of anyone who isn’t like them.

“Please,” I beg. Repeating the word over and over until it gets broken up in my mouth and comes out only as tears. Saying it until it becomes too weak to mean anything.

Maggie approaches. Slow and careful because she’s hunting me. Running her tongue over her teeth like an animal ready to feed. And when she speaks, it’s not with her voice but with the guttural voice of someone being strangled. The voice of hatred. The voice of murder when she says I’m only good for spare parts now.

My heart thumps like a caged bird inside my ribs.
Screaming through my veins to flee. To fight. To run. To do whatever I need to do to get away because I don’t want to die. I manage to grab on to the metal shelf beside me with my free hand. I ignore the pain running through the arm pinned between my shoulder blades and pull as hard as I can.

Meredith lets go of me in horror as the shelf creaks and begins to tilt. The sharp pain in my elbow and shoulder fade to an ache when she releases me and tries to keep the shelves from toppling before all the containers are spilled.

The rest of them rush to help her, too, because the blood is more important than I am. The blood is what keeps them pretty. The blood is what keeps them from being just a rotting corpse that can’t die. It is also what is going to save my life.

I rush out into the locker room as a chorus of broken glass fills the air behind me like the sound of gunshots. And the same thing is happening to the girls who were waiting outside to see my transformation. Their pretty complexions rotting away before my eyes as they growl like dogs when I push past them.

They’re slow to react and I manage to make it into the hallway. I yell for someone, anyone to come help me. But I’m really yelling for Greg. Running to the boys’ locker room and calling him by name now.

It’s not him who opens the door. It’s not a him at all but one of them. A zombie with rust stains around electric blue eyes like the cheerleaders only bigger. Stronger. More aggressive and I wonder if they have Greg, too. Wonder if they’ve always had him, if he’s been in disguise the whole
time as I run past the gym and head for the exit. And I know the inhuman cry that echoes from the school behind me is the sound of my death sentence.

The snowflakes fall
like slow-motion static on the television, suspended in the air for a moment before falling. So beautiful as I run through them that if I let myself, I could almost forget the horror that surrounds me. The horror that follows somewhere in the distance as the brick walls of the school get smaller.

My socks are soaked through.

I can’t feel my toes but I don’t stop.

I run faster.

Running to nowhere in particular, just running. Knowing that I would run off the end of the world if I could. But I can’t. The cramps in my side remind me that I can’t. The broken-glass cuts on my feet let the cold air in and remind me that I have to go somewhere. That I need to stop running soon.

The wet snow makes the bleach drip from my hair and into my eyes. Gives the edges of everything I see the appearance of melting. I wipe away at them but the hills still stay out of focus.

I bend down and fill my palms with white water and wash out my eyes. Blinking until they’re clean and the trees are covered with leftover rainbows of chemical poison. Half blind from it but I can see enough to make out the street sign with its familiar address.

I get up and begin to run again.

I only make it a few steps before being grabbed from behind. The screams that come from my lungs are like the sounds babies make when they squeal so loud their bodies turn red with fever. Screaming at the anticipation of teeth sinking below my skin. Teeth that never come. Only a soft whispering sound like a lullaby blown into the wind.

“Hannah! It’s me. It’s okay.”

His hands are pressed against my stomach like the safe hands of someone alive and I hold on to them. Spin around in his arms and hug him.

Lukas doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He doesn’t ask what happened and lets me cry for a minute into his coat where the nightmare can be swallowed up. Letting the fear fade just enough that I’m able to speak again.

“It happened. Just like you said it would.”

“I know,” he says. “I was waiting outside the locker room.”

I want to tell him I’m sorry. That I should’ve listened. That I should’ve believed him no matter how crazy it sounded. If I’d trusted him, maybe none of this would have happened. But I don’t get the chance to say any of it because my words are cut off by a ferocious howl coming from the direction of town.

“We have to go,” he says, looking over his shoulder. “They’re going to come after you once they’ve gathered everyone. They’re going to come and they’re going to come fast.”

He starts to lead me into the woods and I pull back.

“Wait! I have to go to my house,” I tell him. I can tell by his face that he doesn’t think it’s a smart idea. “If we don’t,
we won’t make it far,” pointing to my feet where the blood has seeped through and turned my socks red, pointing at little pink footprints in the snow trailing along the sidewalk from the direction I came.

“Okay, but we have to hurry,” he says, already starting to move toward my house.

The snow falls faster as we hurry along the sidewalk. Blanketing the ground and covering the road. Weighing down the branches of the pine trees so that they sag. Draping the empty houses with a coldness that matches the lingering chill of death inside them. Hiding everything under the storm’s flakes the same way Maplecrest hides out of sight from the rest of the world.

We round the corner and run up the driveway to my house. Two sets of footprints leaving traces in the snow. But the clouds are getting heavier and the snow is raining down at a faster pace. That should wipe our tracks away. Maybe not soon enough, though—I can hear the sound of an approaching pack in the near distance.

“They’re getting closer,” I say. I try to open the front door but it’s locked. I shake it and push on it but it won’t budge. “The key . . . it’s in my backpack . . . I left it,” I shout in a panic.

Lukas tries the door once but it still doesn’t give. I watch as he steps off the porch and picks a rock up from the garden. Before I have time to wonder what he’s planning to do, he throws the rock through the front window.

I cover my mouth in surprise as it breaks like fireworks exploding.

Without hesitating, he climbs in and comes around to unlock
the door from the inside. “C’mon,” he says, keeping an eye on the street for any signs of visitors. “Get what you need and let’s go!”

My mind is scattered like the clothes strewn across the floor in my room. The faster I try to find anything, the slower I move. Throwing things about, trying to find shoes or a coat, and finding nothing that I need. Lukas shouts for me from the front door and I’m afraid I’m losing my mind. I put my hands on the sides of my head and squeeze my eyes closed trying to concentrate.

The strong smell of bleach on my fingers wakes me out of my daze and I remember what I need to do.

I need to focus.

The shoes I need are right in front of my face and I slip my injured feet into them. Pull a wool hat over my head to prevent another blinding episode. Then I snatch up the jacket tossed on the bed and listen to the heavy footsteps running down the hall.

Lukas is standing in the doorway as I try to get my arms untangled in the sleeves. “Ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready,” I say and slip past him into the hallway.

The red and blue lights flash against the open door, stopping me in my tracks the way headlights freeze deer to the highway late at night. Reflected off the shards of glass from the broken window, the colors splinter apart and fill the room. Outside they bounce off the warm steel of the police car parked in front of my house.

The sheriff’s broad shoulders fill the doorway as he takes one step into my house. Hand resting on his belt, inches from his gun.

“Going somewhere?” he says, removing his sunglasses to stare at me with the rust-colored eyes of someone who’s already dead.

Sheriff Turner holds
out his hand like he’s come to rescue me. “You should just come with me. Make it easy on yourself,” he says. “We’re your family now.”

I cover my ears to muffle the sound of his voice.

“You’re not my family,” I scream.

The sheriff laughs. A grinding machine-gun laugh that I feel in the hollow center of my bones. “I checked into your past before we recruited you,” he says. “You’re the perfect candidate for our community. Athletic. Pretty. A desire to be popular. And most important, you have no other family. Not except your dad, but don’t worry . . . I’ve made arrangements for him to join us, too.”

“Leave me alone!” I yell.

Lukas grabs my arm. Tells me not to listen to him. Pulling me toward the sliding glass door in the kitchen as the sheriff’s stiff boots move without being seen, getting closer without lifting his feet.

“Still a pest, huh?” the sheriff says to Lukas. “I never should’ve let you make it home the other night. I would’ve gotten rid of you if I didn’t think it would alarm our new cheerleader here. But I suppose you’re expendable now. Maybe we could use what’s left of you for the football team.”

“Piss off!” Lukas sneers.

“If you like, we could use his blood in your boyfriend,” he says to me. “Would that makes things easier for you?”
Laughing at the suggestion. Laughing at us, at what they’re going to do to us. Laughter that sounds like a weapon ringing in my ears as I try and remember to breathe.

A gust of snow blows into the broken window along with the echo of marching zombies. I see a crowd of them coming around the curve. Some dressed like cheerleaders. Some dressed like football players. Others dressed like the people who work in the shops, in the diner, in the pharmacy, and in our school. I cover my mouth so the sheriff won’t hear me sob in shock. “The whole town?” I mumble to myself. “The whole town.”

“Including us if we don’t go right now!” Lukas tells me.

The blast of cold air fills the kitchen when he opens the door. The first figures start to walk up my driveway. I can see Maggie in the front, fingerprints of spilled blood smeared across her face. Meredith, too. And I can see the tiny scratches that split her skin. They don’t bleed. They only make the skin pink and sore. Behind them, I see Mrs. Donner and the bug-eyed girl from the pharmacy. The nice waitress from the diner and Coach Johnson. Other teachers, too. And then I see him. I see Greg. He’s walking in step with the others. Alongside them with the same expression. With the same ghost eyes and sharp teeth like a grasshopper thirsty to chew my face open.

It dawns on me that he was part of their plan all along. Part of the bait to lure me in. Popularity and a popular boyfriend in return for my life. And I fell for it. I fell for him.

“No,” I whisper to myself. Numb and sick to my stomach at the same time. I can’t believe I kissed a zombie! I can’t believe I put my tongue in a corpse’s mouth. That I actually
began to love him.

Lukas yanks me toward him and I stumble a step before breaking into a run. There’s no time to think about any of this. No time to try to comprehend it as I hear the mob scrambling into my house. Climbing through the windows and through the doors. Coming around the side of the house, too, as we cross my backyard and make for the woods. They keep pace. Never running, but never slowing down. A determined, steady march that will never stop until they catch us.

“I know someplace we can go,” Lukas says.

I ignore the pine needles that scrape my bare shins and follow him. Taking a glance back to see how much space there is between us and our pursuers. My eyes catch the sheriff standing at the back door of my house. Letting the others pass by. Letting them do his dirty work as he folds his hands across his chest and watches me run.

“They won’t get tired,” I say. “I’ve seen them in practice, they don’t ever get tired.” The thought terrifies me as I’m already breathing in short, small spurts. The cramps in my side come back to the surface, too, even though I thought I had them buried.

I start to fall behind and Lukas takes my hand. He pulls me at his speed and the trees zip past. The entire forest seems to move for us. Trunks shift out of our way and rocks crawl out of our path. I don’t feel the pain in my feet anymore. I don’t feel the cold on my cheeks, either. It’s like nature is making it easier on us. Like nature wants us to win. And for the first time, I feel like maybe we might survive.

That feeling disappears once we make it up the hill where
the crumbling brick walls of an old building stand like a gravestone. Our gravestone as the sun begins to sink behind the hills and the clouds grow black with night.

I raise my eyebrows and my mouth drops open in disbelief.

“Here? This is where you wanted to bring us?”

“What?” Lukas says.

“What? If they somehow manage not to catch us, this place will probably collapse and kill us anyway!”

“No, it won’t. Trust me,” he says. “I’ve been through this old factory a million times. There’s a place for us to hide.”

I bring my hands up to my face and start to bite my nails. “I don’t know,” I say, eyeing the building as it seems to shiver in the cold. Lukas is already making his way through a fallen section of the wall. Behind me I can hear the snapping twigs. I can sense an army of rust-colored eyes peering through the shadows as they make their way up the hill.