Undead Much Read online

  Ti­mes li­ke this one, for examp­le.

  But ins­te­ad of rip­ping me a new one, she smi­led. “Me­gan, I think I know how to hand­le men-even men old eno­ugh to be my grand­fat­her.” She pul­led the pony­ta­il hol­der from her ha­ir, sha­king her he­ad un­til her glossy locks spil­led over her sho­ul­ders in a sexy tang­le.

  How did she do that? Ma­ke it lo­ok so ef­fort­less?

  “Okay, fi­ne. I was just trying to help.”

  “Well don’t. I don’t ne­ed…” She pa­used at the do­or and tur­ned back to me with this lit­tle gle­am in her eyes. I knew I was in tro­ub­le be­fo­re she ope­ned her mo­uth. “No, you know what? Hel­ping is a go­od thing. We’re all sis­ters he­re, and we sho­uld help each ot­her out.”

  “Right! We must stand uni­ted aga­inst our com­mon enemy,” I sa­id, kno­wing Mo­ni­ca wo­uld get my in­si­der re­fe­ren­ce.

  We’d be­en for­ced to uni­te our po­wers be­fo­re. Mo­ni­ca’s for­mer BFF, Beth, and my BFF, Jess, had be­en spe­ci­al fri­ends (um, okay girlf­ri­ends) and part­ners in a plan to kill me and Mo­ni­ca for ca­using Jess’s mom’s de­ath when we we­re just kids. Which was a to­tal­ly bo­gus char­ge. Jess’s mom had be­en ra­ising the de­ad, and all Mo­ni­ca and I had do­ne was work a re­ver­to spell to send them back to the­ir ma­ker. We’d had no idea the zom­bi­es wo­uld munch on her un­til the­re was not­hing left but bo­nes.

  But Jess and Beth didn’t ca­re that we hadn’t me­ant to hurt an­yo­ne. They’d ne­arly kil­led me and Mo­ni­ca with a bunch of ske­le­ton zom­bi­es. They’d even plan­ned to film the event so they co­uld enj­oy the ma­gic of our de­aths aga­in and aga­in-the fre­aks. Su­re, they we­re suf­fe­ring for the­ir evil now-Beth was in a men­tal ins­ti­tu­ti­on in ups­ta­te New York and Jess was in SA pri­son and had be­en hos­pi­ta­li­zed twi­ce for se­izu­res bro­ught on by wor­king black ma­gic-but the en­ti­re ex­pe­ri­en­ce had still be­en pretty hor­ri­fic.

  You’d think that sur­vi­ving so­met­hing li­ke that wo­uld ha­ve bon­ded me and Mo­ni­ca, but no such luck.

  “Exactly. We ha­ve to uni­te.” Mo­ni­ca cros­sed the ro­om to link her scrawny arm aro­und my wa­ist. She was de­fi­ni­tely up to so­met­hing. “So I think Me­gan sho­uld co­me with me to see Prin­ci­pal Wat­kins.” She grab­bed the bot­tom of my T-shirt and tug­ged it up aro­und my ribs.

  I snatc­hed the ma­te­ri­al from her hands and tug­ged it back down. “What are you do­ing?”

  “Te­ac­hing you a thing or two abo­ut ma­na­ging men.” She rol­led her eyes at my scan­da­li­zed lo­ok. “Yo­ur sports bra is black and co­vers everyt­hing you don’t ha­ve-what’s the big de­al?”

  “I don’t want to go talk to the prin­ci­pal with my sto­mach han­ging out.”

  “Co­me on, Me­gan. You ha­ve pants on, for God’s sa­ke,” she sa­id. “You’re da­ting a col­le­ge guy and you’re too shy to show less skin than you do in a bat­hing su­it? Are you su­re things are okay with you and Et­han? I me­an, I know he’s ne­ver be­en exactly what you call the in­no­cent type.”

  Oo­o­oh, she knew just whe­re to aim her evil po­ison darts.

  “Everyt­hing is fi­ne with me and Et­han. Bet­ter than fi­ne. But it’s fre­ezing out­si­de. I don’t want eit­her of us to catch a cold be­fo­re the big ga­me,” I sa­id.

  Mo­ni­ca gla­red and grab­bed her T-shirt. “Fi­ne.”

  Ha! Sco­re one for Me­gan!

  But as I fol­lo­wed Mo­ni­ca out in­to the la­te-after­no­on chill and ra­ced up the hill to the ma­in bu­il­ding, I still felt li­ke I’d lost a bat­tle. I co­uldn’t re­al­ly put my fin­ger on what that bat­tle was any mo­re than I co­uld fi­gu­re out what had be­en ma­king me fe­el so rest­less the past few we­eks. Was it just that I’d fi­nal­ly had the ti­me for all the hor­rib­le­ness of Jess’s bet­ra­yal and my mul­tip­le ne­ar-de­ath ex­pe­ri­en­ces to hit full for­ce? Or was it so­met­hing el­se?

  I didn’t know, but that odd, un­set­tled fe­eling ma­de me kind of glad the che­er­le­aders had stir­red up a hor­net’s nest. It was com­for­ting to be ab­le to con­cent­ra­te on a nor­mal prob­lem ins­te­ad of the se­emingly gro­und­less fe­ar that my en­ti­re li­fe was abo­ut to fall apart.

  CHAPTER 3

  “What the heck is this?” Dad hit the bra­kes hard eno­ugh to gi­ve Mom and me whip­lash and gla­red at the ban­ner un­der the Kro­ger sign la­te the next af­ter­no­on. “This is the fund-ra­iser?”

  Oh God. I sho­uld ha­ve known this wo­uld hap­pen. Why hadn’t I told my pa­rents I wo­uld ri­de my bi­ke? Su­re, it was cold out­si­de, but at le­ast I wo­uld ha­ve be­en spa­red the em­bar­ras­sment of ha­ving ever­yo­ne sta­re whi­le my dad mal­func­ti­oned in the gro­cery sto­re par­king lot.

  “It’s not what it lo­oks li­ke, Dad. It’s just a joke and I’m al­re­ady la­te so I’ll just-”

  “Stay in the car, Me­gan,” he bar­ked, his mi­li­tary backg­ro­und co­ming thro­ugh lo­ud and cle­ar. He’d be­en re­ti­red from the air for­ce for a co­up­le of ye­ars, but his su­per-lo­ud “obey me now or I’ll throw you in a mi­li­tary pri­son whe­re you will rot for a tho­usand ye­ars” vo­ice was still in pri­me wor­king or­der. “No da­ugh­ter of mi­ne is wor­king at a top­less car wash.”

  “Dad’s right, it’s ba­rely forty-eight deg­re­es,” Mom sa­id, twis­ting to gi­ve me the con­cer­ned-mom lo­ok.

  “Who gi­ves a crap how cold it is? I don’t ca­re if it was a hund­red deg­re­es, Jen­ni­fer, Me­gan is ke­eping her clot­hes on in pub­lic.” He shif­ted in­to re­ver­se and gla­red at me as he pre­pa­red to turn aro­und. “And in pri­va­te!”

  “Dad! Stop! We’re not go­ing to be top­less,” I sa­id, kno­wing I was blus­hing. Ge­ez, why did Mo­ni­ca ha­ve to put up the sign so early? “We’re go­ing to wash everyt­hing ex­cept the tops of the cars. Get it?”

  Dad step­ped on the bra­ke aga­in, but didn’t shift back in­to dri­ve. The an­ger dra­ined from his fa­ce and I co­uld see he was star­ting to fe­el kind of silly. He lo­oked ne­arly as angry as Prin­ci­pal Wat­kins had when he’d wal­ked in­to scho­ol this mor­ning and se­en our pos­ters ad­ver­ti­sing the car wash in the hall. On­ce we’d exp­la­ined our gim­mick, he’d cal­med down fa­irly qu­ickly, ho­we­ver. No mat­ter what the che­er­le­aders sa­id, Wat­kins didn’t se­em to ca­re abo­ut ta­ming the “Slut Squ­ad” or what went on du­ring half­ti­me one way or the ot­her.

  He just wan­ted pe­ace and had the­re­fo­re gut­les­sly han­ded the de­ci­si­on of who did what at half­ti­me over to the bo­os­ter club. In a truly mer­ce­nary show of ca­pi­ta­lism, the bo­os­ters then de­ci­ded that whic­he­ver te­am co­uld ra­ise the most mo­ney by the end of the we­ek wo­uld own half­ti­me for the ye­ar. Hen­ce, the last-mi­nu­te bor­der­li­ne-scan­da­lo­us Tu­es­day night car wash.

  “Oh. Well, I still don’t li­ke it.” Dad sig­hed in a way that ma­de it cle­ar ra­ising a te­ena­ger was we­aring him out. “But if yo­ur mot­her thinks it’s okay…”

  “I don’t know.” Mom wrink­led her no­se, which ma­de her lo­ok re­al­ly yo­ung even tho­ugh she was all dres­sed up. The wo­man had go­od ge­nes, inc­lu­ding gre­at skin and the abi­lity to eat li­ke a pig and not ga­in we­ight.

  Still, she was a mom, no mat­ter how yo­ung lo­oking, as evi­den­ced by her next words. “Actu­al­ly, I think it’s pretty tacky.”

  “Well, tacky sells.” I grab­bed my back­pack and mit­tens and pre­pa­red to eva­cu­ate.

  “You me­an sex sells,” Mom sa­id.

  “Wha­te­ver.”

  “‘Wha­te­ver’? What hap­pe­ned to the girl-po­wer/fe­mi­nist thing you and Jess we­re al­ways…”

  The car got re­al­ly qu­i­et, li­ke it d
id every ti­me so­me­one ac­ci­den­tal­ly men­ti­oned Jess, the girl who had be­en my best fri­end for ne­arly six ye­ars be­fo­re she’d tri­ed to kill me.

  “Ye­ah, well, we’ve got to do wha­te­ver it ta­kes to ra­ise mo­re mo­ney than the che­er­le­aders or we lo­se half­ti­me rights for the en­ti­re bas­ket­ball se­ason. The te­am that ma­kes the big­gest cont­ri­bu­ti­on to the bo­os­ters by Fri­day night wins,” I sa­id in a bre­ezy vo­ice, re­fu­sing to let Mom know how much thin­king abo­ut Jess still bug­ged me.

  She’d be­en af­ter me to go “talk to so­me­one” sin­ce last Sep­tem­ber, but I didn’t ha­ve the ti­me for the­rapy. I had zom­bie stuff to le­arn and pom squ­ad and scho­ol and wo­uld li­ke to spend so­me ti­me with my boyf­ri­end at so­me po­int. May­be af­ter the car wash. He sa­id he’d co­me by on­ce he got off his Pro­to­col shift. In ad­di­ti­on to go­ing to col­le­ge part-ti­me, Et­han was a Set­tler cop.

  Is the­re anyt­hing hot­ter than a cu­te guy who is al­so ar­med and dan­ge­ro­us? I think not.

  “Call us if you ne­ed a ri­de ho­me,” Dad sa­id.

  “And don’t get wet! You’ll get hypot­her­mia.” Mom cal­led as I slam­med out the do­or.

  I tho­ught I he­ard her mumb­ling so­met­hing abo­ut the idi­ocy of a car wash in win­ter but didn’t res­pond. She was right, but what el­se we­re we sup­po­sed to do? We only had fo­ur days to ma­ke eno­ugh cash to win this stu­pid com­pe­ti­ti­on be­fo­re Sa­tur­day’s ga­me, and a car wash was the only thing we co­uld get up and run­ning fast.

  We had ot­her irons in the fi­re, but for now scrub­bing dirt from cars and trucks wrec­ked by the mess they’d put on the stre­ets af­ter the snow was the best we co­uld do. Not a fun way to spend a Tu­es­day night, but at le­ast we wo­uldn’t ha­ve to wash the tops of the cars, and it wasn’t cold eno­ugh to ma­ke the wa­ter fre­eze.

  And we al­re­ady had one cus­to­mer. The se­ni­or girls we­re hard at work scrub­bing a Mus­tang whi­le a co­up­le of juni­ors held up signs ne­ar the ro­ad and the rest of the te­am sto­od aro­und trying to lo­ok ado­rab­le and worthy of the ten dol­lars per ve­hic­le we we­re char­ging-plus tip, of co­ur­se.

  “Was that yo­ur mom and dad? They’re cu­te.” Penny was one of the three ot­her sop­ho­mo­res on the te­am, and a girl I tho­ught I’d li­ke to get to know bet­ter if I had the ti­me. She was al­ways very swe­et, and her curly cop­per ha­ir and no­se freck­les re­min­ded me of Lind­say Lo­han when she was still the cu­te lit­tle kid from the Pa­rent Trap re­ma­ke.

  “Thanks. Ye­ah, they we­ren’t thril­led with the gim­mick,” I sa­id, rol­ling up my co­at sle­eves and sco­ping out a buc­ket to com­man­de­er for my per­so­nal scrub­bing use.

  “Oh God, my mom wasn’t eit­her. I tho­ught she was go­ing to ha­ve a stro­ke. And then she saw Mo­ni­ca and…” Our eyes drif­ted to whe­re Mo­ni­ca was half­he­ar­tedly scrub­bing the si­des of the red Mus­tang. She had on a swe­ater and je­ans, but both we­re so tight she lo­oked li­ke she’d be­en po­ured in­to a cat­su­it. And she was we­aring sti­let­to bo­ots. Who wo­re high he­els to wash cars? “Well, af­ter that I was lucky to get out of the car.”

  I la­ug­hed and Penny did too, and for a se­cond I tho­ught I might enj­oy this eve­ning of sla­very. Penny was co­ol and we ha­ve ne­ver had the chan­ce to just hang out and talk at prac­ti­ce.

  Then I smel­led it-de­ath waf­ting ac­ross the par­king lot.

  It wasn’t gra­ve dirt or the sic­ke­ningly swe­et odor of rot­ting flesh, but the­re was no do­ubt that wha­te­ver this was had be­en sum­mo­ned from its gra­ve with black ma­gic. Af­ter months spent stud­ying the va­ri­o­us ing­re­di­ents one co­uld use to re­ani­ma­te a corp­se, I had the pun­gent odor of worm­wo­od and gar­de­nia me­mo­ri­zed.

  Still, I didn’t want to be­li­eve it. This co­uldn’t be hap­pe­ning aga­in! Ca­rol was a ni­ce, sle­epy small town, not a hot­bed of black ma­gic and may­hem. Or at le­ast it hadn’t be­en un­til fo­ur months ago. Now, it se­emed the ru­les had chan­ged.

  I he­ard the un­mis­ta­kab­le gro­ans of flesh-hungry zom­bi­es and was run­ning to­ward the tree li­ne at the ed­ge of the par­king lot a se­cond la­ter.

  “Mo­ni­ca! I saw one of yo­ur fri­ends.” I grab­bed a hand­ful of Mo­ni­ca’s swe­ater on my way by and tug­ged her along with me.

  “What the heck, Me­gan? I swe­ar to God I-”

  “One of yo­ur spe­ci­al fri­ends.” My eyes went wi­de and I pra­yed she got the mes­sa­ge in the next ten se­conds, be­ca­use we we­re swiftly run­ning out of ti­me. If we didn’t ha­ul ass, tho­se black-ma­gi­cal­ly ra­ised zom­bi­es we­re go­ing to ma­ke it out of the co­ver of the tre­es and we’d both be ro­yal­ly scre­wed.

  We’d ha­ve no cho­ice but to fight them in the open to ke­ep our fri­ends from get­ting tur­ned in­to zom­bie chow. Then Set­tlers’ Af­fa­irs wo­uld ha­ve no cho­ice but to send both us and our fa­mi­li­es far, far away. Be­ing dis­co­ve­red by so­me­one from the mor­tal world was just abo­ut the worst thing that co­uld hap­pen to a Set­tler. If SA even tho­ught you’d be­en spot­ted by an ave­ra­ge per­son, you we­re li­kely to find yo­ur­self in so­me se­ri­o­usly de­ep poo.

  My pa­rents had al­re­ady be­en re­lo­ca­ted on­ce, from Ca­li­for­nia to Sticks­vil­le, Ar­kan­sas, and I re­al­ly didn’t want to find out whe­re we’d be he­aded if I got ca­ught kic­king zom­bie ta­il on the Kro­ger par­king lot.

  “Oh shit,” Mo­ni­ca his­sed un­der her bre­ath. “You’re f-ing kid­ding me.”

  “No. In the tre­es. Hurry!”

  She threw down her spon­ge and ra­ced af­ter me, ma­king pretty go­od ti­me for a chick in sti­let­to bo­ots. I was go­ing to ha­ve to re­eva­lu­ate my opi­ni­on that mo­vie pe­op­le we­re stu­pid for al­ways dres­sing wo­men cri­me figh­ters in he­els.

  “Mo­ni­ca, Me­gan, whe­re are ya’ll-”

  “We’ll be right back, don’t worry!” I cal­led over my sho­ul­der to Lon­don. And ple­ase don’t fol­low us, I si­lently pra­yed. If the ot­her girls got clo­se to the ed­ge of the tre­es, they we­re go­ing to see what Mo­ni­ca and I we­re up to. It was get­ting dark, but not that dark, and the­re we­re no le­aves to hi­de us.

  On the up­si­de, that me­ant the­re was not­hing to hi­de the RCs, eit­her.

  Se­conds af­ter we stumb­led thro­ugh the first of the soggy, snow-co­ve­red le­aves, I spot­ted them-fo­ur of the Un­de­ad hust­ling it to­ward Mo­ni­ca and me with a spe­ed that was un­ner­ving. It wasn’t the full-on ra­cing spe­ed of a nor­mal Un­set­tled, but ne­it­her was it the slow, hor­ror-mo­vie shuf­fle of a black-ma­gi­cal­ly ra­ised zom­bie.

  The­se guys we­re dif­fe­rent. They mo­ved ne­arly as fast as the li­ving and the­ir eyes-tho­ugh lac­king that spark that sa­id, “Yo, I’m not de­ad”-we­ren’t glo­wing red. RCs al­ways had red eyes-it was one of the key things that let you know they we­re RCs. In ad­di­ti­on to the su­per­na­tu­ral strength and the trying-to-munch-on-yo­ur-num­myhu­man-flesh stuff and all that.

  And not only we­re the­ir eyes not red, but the­ir fa­ces and clot­hes-which, oddly, lo­oked li­ke pa­j­amas, not yo­ur ave­ra­ge bu­ri­al we­ar-we­ren’t dirty. The­re wasn’t a speck of gra­ve dirt on them, and from the lo­oks of the­ir skin, they hadn’t be­en de­ad mo­re than a few ho­urs, tops. They we­ren’t de­com­po­sing and had a soft pink flush to the­ir che­eks.

  But thank­ful­ly, no mat­ter how odd the­se guys we­re, the­re we­re only fo­ur of them. I sho­uld be ab­le to work the re­ver­to spell and get rid of them in no ti­me. It was only if the­re we­re a bunch of Un­de­ad that Mo­ni­ca and

  I wo­uld ha­ve to re­sort to tric­ki­er spells to get the job do­ne.<
br />
  “Re­ver­to!” I held up both hands and wil­led my po­wer out of my palms, al­re­ady fe­eling the re­li­ef that co­mes with get­ting a Set­tler cri­sis un­der cont­rol.

  Until I re­ali­zed the zom­bi­es we­ren’t tur­ning and he­ading back to the­ir ma­ker. Heck… they we­ren’t even slo­wing down.

  “Re­ver­to!” I re­pe­ated, thro­wing everyt­hing I had in­to the com­mand. My hands buz­zed with the for­ce of my po­wer un­til it felt li­ke I’d grab­bed hold of the wrong end of my flat­te­ning iron, but still the RCs didn’t stop. If anyt­hing, they se­emed to mo­ve a lit­tle fas­ter.

  “Crap!” With a gro­an I re­ac­hed down and grab­bed a hand­ful of snow, gra­te­ful for the re­li­ef of the cold aga­inst my bur­ning skin.

  “Jesus, Me­gan. What’s wrong with you to­night?” Mo­ni­ca sho­ved in front of me and ra­ised her own hands. “De­si­no! Ab­sis­to!”

  I didn’t know whet­her to be re­li­eved or fre­aked that Mo­ni­ca’s fre­ezing com­mands didn’t work eit­her. On the one hand-go­od to know I wasn’t ha­ving so­me we­ird po­wer outa­ge. On the ot­her hand-zom­bi­es, co­ming clo­ser, cle­arly wan­ting tas­te of girl flesh, “nom nom nom…”

  “We’re go­ing to ha­ve to put them down the hard way.” I ris­ked a qu­ick glan­ce over my sho­ul­der, re­li­eved to see we we­re still alo­ne and no­ne of the girls had ris­ked cold, soggy fe­et by co­ming to see why we’d run off in­to the wo­ods li­ke a co­up­le of lu­na­tics. “Do you ha­ve-”

  “Of co­ur­se I ha­ve my kni­fe.” Mo­ni­ca whip­ped her tiny bla­de from so­mew­he­re ne­ar her wa­ist.