Special Dead (21 page)

Chapter

30

 “All I’m saying,” Mr. Cummings said, “is
that it’s stupid at this point to deduct health insurance fees from my
paycheck. It’s not like I’m going to use it.”

 Sam put her hands on either
side of her helmet. “I just think you’re asking for a bit much.”

Ani tried to ignore the
conversation, as well as the murmurs from Teah and Lydia. She and Devon sat off
to the side, e-readers displaying pages from their US History textbook. With
the January make-up Regents Exam only three days away, they both felt the
stress. Sam had the same test but seemed to have an encyclopedic memory for
history.

“So anyway,” Devon said, “you
can’t really blame Lincoln. Washington set the stage for unlimited expansion of
Federal power when he snuffed the Whiskey Rebellion.”

“Right,” Ani said. “But when
Jefferson—”

“Hey!” Lydia yelled, startling
her out of her train of thought. Lydia pointed at the muted TV. “Turn that up!”

Tuned to CNN as usual, the
screen scrolled a ‘Breaking News’ announcement across the bottom, below some
square-jawed talking head: APPELLATE COURT DENIES PERSONHOOD FOR ZOMBIES.

Mr. Cummings unmuted the
volume.

“—three to two decision,” the
commentator’s rich baritone recounted, “reinforced the lower court’s ruling
that zombies, even zombies that can control their own actions, are medically
dead and therefore not entitled to constitutional rights or civil protections. The
Supreme Court injunction protecting the legal status of the walking dead, however,
remains in place while the appeal goes to the Supreme Court in July. I can
assure you, Joanne, that we’ll be watching this case very closely.”

“Thanks, Jim,” a female voice
said. “A spokesman for the Living American Alliance issued a statement
immediately following the ruling, praising—” The screen went black.

“Hey!” Devon said.

Mr. Cummings set down the
remote. “I’ve seen enough. We can all depress ourselves later reading the
details online.”

“Um.” Lydia’s hand shot up,
then back down when he looked at her, then back up. “Mr. Cummings?”

He smiled at her. “This isn’t a
class, Lydia. You don’t have to raise your hand.”

It jerked back down. “Sorry.
Um. What does that mean?”

He took a moment to gather his
thoughts, during which Devon muttered “idiot” just loudly enough for Ani to
hear.

“What it means is the same
thing as the previous ruling, which isn’t good for us. On the bright side,
three to two is a lot better than a unanimous decision.”

Her expectant smile and wide
eyes didn’t alter a bit at the explanation. Lydia and Mr. Cummings stared at
each other for a moment, and when she didn't reply he sat back down.

“So where was I?”

“Health premiums,” Sam said.

Ani turned back to Devon and US
History.

*   *   *

That Thursday, the main essay
was about the effect of the quarantine of Los Angeles on modern civil-rights
legislation. Ani nailed it. The following Monday, OFCSD officially canceled its
foreign exchange program after not one student applied.

Tuesday they were allowed back
in the yard, if “allowed” in some way meant “dumped into two feet of snow and twenty-mile-an-hour
gusts for an hour.”

Mike rolled around in the snow
while the girls sat on the steps. It struck Ani as odd that the snow clumped in
the folds of Mike’s clothes but didn’t get him wet—he had no body heat to melt
it.

“Is this child neglect?” Devon
asked. “Or endangering the welfare of a child?”

“Most of you are adults,” Lydia
said, cringing when they looked at her. “Except me and Teah.”

“I’m seventeen,” Teah
protested.

If anything, Lydia seemed to
wither further. Ani just heard her reply, “That’s not an adult.” Teah snorted
in disgust and tromped through the snow away from them, sitting down a dozen
steps away. A gust of wind sent a vortex of white powder spinning across the
yard and through the fence into the world beyond.

An engine revved in the
distance, something big. Tires screeched, and they craned their necks to see
what was going on. A beat-up blue pickup skidded sideways across Academy Street,
slamming into a gray sedan parked on the curve, then accelerated, tearing off
both vehicles’ side mirrors. The truck swerved down the street, ricocheting
from curb to curb.

“Someone’s awful drunk,” Devon
said.

At the last second, the truck
veered, jumping the curb onto school property. Sam cried out as the left guard tower
crumpled under the weight of the impact, metal screaming as struts and rivets
sheared and twisted. The guard pitched out of his crow’s nest to fall into the
snow below, his cry of alarm ending almost as soon as it began.

“Holy crap,” Ani said.

The driver of the truck popped
the door and fell out, crumpling to his knees in the snow.

“Someone call 9-1-1!” Lydia
yelled. Ani reached for her phone and realized that none of them had one.

A second truck, this one red
with a jacked-up suspension, tore through the privacy fence in the lawn across
the street, blasting through a frozen swing set and dragging it through the
snow. A third truck, green but with tires just as big, swerved from behind it
and headed straight for the other tower.

The guard opened fire, his
rifle popping off rounds that did nothing to slow the vehicle. Ani ran out,
grabbed Mike, and dragged him toward the door. The locked door. He shuffled his
feet, smiling all the while, and craned his neck at the action.

The green truck hit the second
tower, shearing two legs. It toppled into the street. A man clad in black and
wearing a ski mask stood up from the bed of the green truck and opened fire on
the guard as he fell from the tower. The fence exploded in bright white sparks
as the red vehicle ploughed through it.

Shots rang out from the last
tower, and return fire sounded from the first truck. The red truck made it
halfway across the field before it bogged down, tires spinning as it sank into
a spray of white snow and brown mud.

As the Special Dead cowered
back against the wall, with nowhere to take cover, Ani saw a figure running
toward the red truck.
Teah.

Sam threw Lydia down behind the
stairs, the only protected spot there was, and crouched on her haunches in
front of her, shielding her with her body. “Nobody’s shooting at us.”

Sam was right. The guard in the
third tower ducked for cover while the attackers plinked his position with
bullets, but nobody aimed for the zombies. Teah stumbled closer to the red
truck as its tires spun in reverse, digging the hole deeper. A man stood in the
truck bed armed with a rifle, but he aimed at the door, not at them.

“Bill.” Ani said the name at
the same time as Devon.

The door exploded outward,
knocking Ani into the snow. The loudest sound she’d ever heard erupted over her
head, a hellish cacophony she couldn’t process. A light rhythm tattooed on her
helmet and shiny bits of brass fell around her.

She rolled onto her back and
looked up. The soldiers that fanned out from the door held automatic weapons,
every one of them spitting white fire. She heard nothing but the roar of the
guns. She rolled over. A boot dug into her back. Devon and Mike lay next to
her, each trapped there by another boot.

She raised her head. Teah had
disappeared in the snow. Bullets ricocheted off and tore through the trucks, a
relentless volley of high-speed lead. The soldiers parted, still firing, and
four men decked in silver walked between them.

They walked toward the red
truck, almost casually, until Teah leaped at them from the snow. She danced in
place as bullets riddled her body, shredding flesh and knocking her to the
side. Lydia threw off the soldier holding her down and took a step. Mike
exploded from the ground, sending the man atop him sprawling, and tackled her
from behind. He wrapped her in his massive arms and fell on her struggling
form. Teah fell into the snow and out of sight. The burn teams advanced, and,
as one, raised their flamethrowers.

Ani cringed from the hot breath
of flame, and the world glowed orange. She jumped as the truck detonated, turning
to stare in spite of herself.

The soldiers advanced, laying
tight bursts of covering fire on the remaining trucks so that their assailants
had no reprieve. The burn teams split up, two toward each remaining truck. A
figure bolted away from the school and was cut down in a spray of bright red
blood. The others cowered until the burn teams fired again.

Ani closed her eyes against the
piteous shrieks. Two more explosions shattered the winter day, and then silence
reigned except for the wind. Someone yelled, “Clear!” Farther off, others
responded.

Mr. Benson’s clipped voice
seemed almost mournful. “Kids, stay on the ground. Any of you so much as
twitch, we’re going to kill you. That’s your only warning.” He spoke into his
radio. “Casualty report, over.”

A voice crackled through. “Johnson’s
got a broken leg, but it looks like the snow broke his fall. Leach is dead.
Over.”

“Hostiles? Over.” Mr. Benson
asked.

“Neutralized. At least seven,
but it’ll be a few minutes before we can confirm, over.”

“And Miss Burnell, over?”

A long pause, then a crackle of
static. “She’s still moving. Sort of. Over.”

Mr. Benson didn’t hesitate. “Terminate
her—”

“Belay that,” Dr. Banerjee’s
voice carried through the speaker. “I have other uses for her. Secure Miss
Burnell and take her to the lab.”

“Roger that,” Mr. Benson said.
He turned his attention to the zombies at his feet. “Kids, back against the
wall, hands on your helmets. Move.”

They moved, all except Mike,
who sat on the ground, collecting brass casings. Ani grabbed his shoulder. “Mike,
we need to go.”

He smiled at her. “Pretty.”

“I know they’re pretty, and you
can take them with you, but you have to come over here now.” She looked at Mr.
Benson, who glanced at them and the returning burn teams. “C’mon, Mike.”

She sighed in relief as he lurched
to his feet and allowed her to lead him to the wall. He didn’t put his hands on
his head but instead sat down to look at the brass. Mr. Benson turned his
attention away from them the moment the burn teams got within thirty feet.

“If they try to move from that
area, torch them.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ani recognized Mr. Clark’s
voice.

The Special Dead stood there, daring
to neither move nor speak, as three soldiers emerged from the school, one
carrying a catchpole, while the other two carried long chains with manacles on
the end. They walked out into the snow, where Ani lost sight of them beyond the
men in silver. A few minutes later they returned.

Teah couldn’t walk. Her right
leg dangled backward below the knee. Her arms, held up by the manacles, twisted
behind her back, wracking her spine forward as the catchpole held her head up.
The side of her helmet had blown out, and beneath it, tattered flesh gave way
to white skull. Rips and tiny holes riddled her clothes.

She turned to them as they
dragged her past, eyes wide in fear. She tried to say something through her
bite guard, and air wheezed out of holes in her chest. She struggled, but the
guards held her fast with the chains and the pole.

“Where are they taking her?”
Lydia asked.

Ani shushed her.

“Where?” she demanded.

Devon spoke through clenched
teeth. “Somewhere very bad, and they’re going to take you, too, if you don’t.
Shut. Up.”

Ani tried a softer approach. “Lydia,
now’s not the time to find your gumption.” It sounded like something her mom
might say. “Teah made a very bad mistake, and I’m sorry, but she’s going to pay
for it.”

A mournful wail carried out the
open doors, reverberating down the school halls. Another followed it, and
another. Ani closed her eyes, and through Teah’s agonized sobs could trace her
path through the school, out the front door, and into a personnel transport. In
the distance, a motor coughed to life.

Chapter

31

Ani
shifted in her chair. The school’s conference room wasn’t designed for nineteen
people, ten assault rifles, four flamethrowers, and five young adult zombies. “Crowded”
was an understatement. It felt weird to be in school without their helmets on.

Dr. Banerjee tossed a cell phone onto the table
and gestured toward the Special Dead. “Can anyone tell me where Miss Burnell
might have gotten that?”

Ani shook her head as the others did the same.

“Devon?” he asked. “Ani?” He turned his gaze to
Lydia. “Lydia?” She wilted under his soft brown eyes, shook her head, then
nodded.

Sam gasped. Dr. Romero put a hand on her shoulder
and shook her head, index finger to her lips.

“Explain,” he said.

Lydia shook her head again, her eyes squeezed
shut.

Ani’s mom knelt next to her, rubbed her head like
she was a baby. “Lydia. You need to tell us what you know.”

“I’m going to get in trouble.”

Dr. Banerjee opened his mouth, and Dr. Romero cut
him off with an upraised finger, a glare, and a shake of her head.

“Do you want to help Teah?”

Lydia nodded.

“You know she’s in a lot of trouble, right?”

She nodded again.

“If you tell us what happened, maybe she’ll be in
a little less. You do want to help her, right?”

Lydia opened one eye, then the other. She nodded.

“Please,” Ani's mom said, taking both of Lydia’s
hands into her own. “Tell us what you know.”

“Bill hid the phone in Burt. Her mom didn’t know.”

“Burt?” Dr. Banerjee asked.

Her mom dropped Lydia’s hands, stood, and walked
over to stand next to Dr. Banerjee, all pretext of friendliness gone. “The
giggling panda she got for Christmas. The circuitry must have fooled the
guards.” She frowned. “Clever, stupid boy.”

“Bring Mom in,” Dr. Banerjee said, “just in case.”
He looked at the rest of them. “Did any of you know of this?”

“No,” Sam said. They all shook their heads.

“If I find out later—”

“NO!” Lydia shouted, cringing into her chair when
everyone looked at her. “Nobody knew but me.” She sat up, her face taking on an
unfamiliar look of determination. “I knew she was talking to Bill, and I helped
her hide it. Any punishment Teah gets, I should get.”

“Done,” Dr. Banerjee said.

Dr. Romero put her hand on his shoulder, then
jerked it away. “No, Rishi. She doesn’t know—”

“I said, ‘done.’”

Ani’s mom looked at Lydia in panic as Dr. Banerjee
motioned to two of the guards. They approached Lydia, and Ani cried out.

“Wait!”

The guards stopped. “This is my fault. All of it.”
Her mom circled the table, shaking her head, so she talked faster. “I’m the one
who broke the rules, who went to prom. I knew I was dangerous. Infected. This
is my fault, not Lydia’s. Not Teah’s. Nobody would be here if it weren’t for
me.”

Halfway around the table, her mom covered her
mouth with her hand. “No, sweetie....” She kept walking.

Ani looked at Devon, at Sam, at Lydia, and at
Mike. “All of this is my fault. If anybody should be punished for anything, I
should share it.”

“I won’t allow that,” her mom snapped, not to her
but to Dr. Banerjee.

“I know you won’t,” he said. He gestured to the
guards, who grabbed Lydia by the arms and hoisted her from the chair. “But
every negotiation has a price.”

“No!” Ani said.

Her mom slapped her.

Ani recoiled in shock, not pain.

“Don’t say another word.” She looked at Devon and
Sam, not bothering with Mike. “Any of you. Not one.”

They sat, hands folded in their laps, as the
guards escorted Lydia out.

“Now,” Dr. Banerjee said, directing his remarks
between Dr. Romero and Superintendent Salter, “effective today we’re shutting
down the Ohneka Falls CSD program.”

Mr. Salter’s triumphant smile made Ani want to
punch him.

Her mom shook her head. “Rishi, we had a deal.”

“And now we have a dozen dead people. This farce
is over, and here is your new deal: the children, as well as Mr. Cummings and
Mrs. Weller, will be allowed to live in the lab as they have and can continue
their enrollment in the school district, but all classes come to them. No more
transports, no more lockdowns, no more of this foolishness.

“Your plan would never have swayed the courts,
anyway, especially not after today, and when the ruling comes down, they’ll die
unless they’re under my protection. They can still be students, but they will
be students at the lab.”

“And Lydia—” Dr. Romero started.

“Miss Stuber has made her decision and is going
with Miss Burnell.”

“But—”

“One more word and Sam is going as well.”

Her mom’s jaw snapped shut, but her eyes burned
with fury. If Dr. Banerjee noticed, he didn’t care. Instead, he turned to Mr.
Benson.

“Geoff, ready everyone for transport. I’ll see you
back at the lab.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

*  
*   *

As soon as the bus lurched forward, Devon turned
on Ani. “You. This is all your fault.”

Ani couldn’t deny it. “Yeah, it is.”

“You stupid...Jesus. All these deaths are on your
head. Yours.”

She said nothing.

Sam put her hands to her face. “Oh, my God. Joe,
Keegs, Kyle, Jessica, everybody. They died...for what? So you could sneak
around with Mike?”

Mike looked up at the sound of his name. “Hi.”

Ani looked at the ground. “I didn’t know I was
dangerous, dammit.”

“No,” Devon said. “Don’t pull that shit now. We
heard you. You knew you were infected.”

“Three years,” Ani said. It brought them up short.
“I’d been dead for almost three years.”

“Impossible,” Sam said. “ZV overwhelms neocortical—”

“Yeah, it does, but I’d been taking serum.”

Sam looked at Devon, then her. “Why would you be
taking serum unless you were—”

“Dead. For three years.”

“Bullshit,” Devon said. “Why would your mom even
have serum on hand? You’d have eaten her first.”

 “I tried.” She chuckled, a dark, humorless laugh
that filled the small bus. “I really tried. But she was ready for it, always
ready for it, every day of my life.”

Devon opened her mouth, but Sam stopped her with
an upraised hand.

“What do you mean?”

Ani told them everything she knew, leaving out
only two details: that her biology held the only hope for a cure, and that her
mother was dead as an alternative to cancer. She told them everything else—her
adoption, her mother’s real name, Los Angeles, her death at fourteen, cutting,
the homeless man, Dylan, Dr. Banerjee, prom.

They didn’t say anything when she was done, and
she didn’t want to press them. They got off the bus in silence, except for
Mike, who said goodbye to the driver. As they walked into the lab, Ani wondered
if they’d ever see the driver again. She didn’t even know his name.

Once inside, soldiers escorted each of them to a
separate room. Ani sat in the only chair and waited. Eventually her mom came
in.

“What, no interrogation?”

She shook her head. “No, sweetie. We already know
what you know.”

“I told them.”

“I know,” her mom said and hugged her.

“Almost everything.”

“I know, sweetie.” She squeezed tighter.

“How?”

“The bus is bugged. Rishi let me listen on the way
over. He used it as validation that you couldn’t be trusted to keep secrets.”

“Oops.”

“Yeah.”

“So who were Bill’s helpers?”

Her mom sighed. “Some of the new kids. The ones
who dress all in black? Them. Apparently with their parents’ blessing. They
were using Bill. They planned to steal Teah to use in some kind of ritual to
grant them all immortality.”

“Oh, my God. What now?”

“Now a lot of very weird people are going to jail
for a really long time.”