Undead Much (26 page)

  “Come on, get up, we have to get out of here,” the male voice said, but it wasn’t Smythe whose face appeared or Smythe’s hands that slid under my armpits, hauling me to my feet. It was Aaron, his face splattered with red from where he’d used the skate sharpener to take out the three zombies.

  I cried out as pain shot through my shoulder again, but did my best to help him. He was right-we had to get out of here. Or at least
they
had to get out of here. I had to stay and make sure the rest of the RCs were contained.

  “You okay? Can you walk?” Aaron asked.

  “Yeah, I have to go. I have to find Monica and-”

  “No, you have to come with me. The parking lot is full of all these random people and I heard two big guys saying they were coming for you.”

  Crap. The rest of Settlers’ Affairs must have arrived and Smythe must have already told them I was a toddler burner! Now they’d arrest me and I’d never make it down to the river to check out the Super Very Bad Thing Cliff had warned me about.

  I peeked out of the entrance to the tent to see Smythe and several Protocol officers battling a clutch of RCs, but it wasn’t going well. They seemed… weaker than I’d ever seen them before. Their spells weren’t packing the same punch and neither were their attacks. Being observed by even the few dozen people who had seen Settlers in action tonight must have taken its toll. It was a chilling thought that brought home just how much there was to lose if I didn’t figure out who was really responsible for all these attacks.

  “Aaron, we need to get to your car,” I said, not relishing the idea of enlisting Aaron’s help, but at the moment he was my only available ally. At least, the only one with transportation. “Unobserved by all those people out there if we can make it happen.”

  “I’ve got something even better. The cheer van is parked in a clearing on the other side of the pond, and I’ve got the keys.” He grabbed my hand and turned back to Penny. “Here Pen, take the keys to my car. You and the kids get inside and lock the doors.”

  “But I don’t have a license. I don’t even have a learner’s permit,” she said, her pale face growing even paler.

  “You don’t have to drive-just get the kids in the car and lock the doors.”

  “But I-”

  “Don’t worry. The police should be here soon,” Aaron said, before she could stress any further. “I heard sirens just a few seconds before I came in here. Go ahead, go.” He pushed the keys into her hand and herded her and the kids to the entrance to the tent, where he peeked out to make sure the coast was clear. “Okay, go, run!”

  “But what about you guys?”

  “Go, Penny, we’ll be fine,” I said, making shooing motions with my hands.

  “Just be careful, Megan. You too, Aaron,” she said, then turned and ran for it, the two kids trailing after her as she made a beeline for the parking lot. Thankfully, there were plenty of Settlers controlling the Undead in the direction they were headed.

  The entire parking lot was swarming with SA and Protocol officers, and I was betting the siren Aaron had heard was our SA plant on the Carol police force. With something this big, every Settler in Carol would be doing their damnedest not to let real cops on the scene until they had the situation under control. The safety of the world depended on it, and too many people had already seen these OOGPs. We needed to contain the situation and get super busy with a decent cover-up strategy.

  Hopefully the Elders would be up to the challenge, though their behavior lately certainly hadn’t encouraged a lot of confidence on my part. That was why I had to make sure I got down to the river to handle whatever it was Cliff had seen. I no longer trusted SA as far as I could throw Elder Thomas with a bum shoulder.

  “Come on, let’s go.” I headed out and around the tent before Aaron could reply, making it clear he was along for the ride not the other way around. I wasn’t about to tell him about my zombie-slaying qualifications, but it would be best if he got the message I was in charge.

  I toddled toward the ice, my skates making land walking far less speedy than I would have liked. Kitty, Monica, and Ethan were still halfway across the pond in the heat of battle, but I couldn’t stop to help them. I had to get out of here before Smythe or anyone else could take me into custody.

  “God, those freaks are scary,” Aaron said as we hurried toward the clearing where he’d said the van was parked. For some reason, though, he didn’t sound that scared. Maybe he was just too pigheaded to understand the real threat. He was probably still buying the “cult members on drugs” story the Settler on the police force had spread the previous night. I mean, if he weren’t denser than solid rock, he surely would have gotten the hint that I wasn’t into him by now, but no such luck. He still insisted on clinging to my hand as we ran.

  I followed him down a narrow path and out into the clearing where the big gold and black cheer van was sitting a few feet away from the generators. The thing was enormous and certainly capable of fitting the dozen members of the cheerleading squad plus one dance team guest. So it made me wonder… why weren’t any of the cheerleaders
in
the van?

  “God, Aaron, where were you?” Dana fisted her hands on her hips.

  “Yeah, we’ve been waiting for like, forever,” Kate said.

  “I got a little tied up in the skate tent, but we’re cool. Let’s get inside,” Aaron said, as sirens sounded in the distance.

  “Aaron’s right, I think we should get out of here,” I said, trying to think of a good excuse to convince the cheerleaders to drive me into Little Rock. “Probably somewhere far away, across the river. Just in case those… um… cult members come back.”

  “You mean the zombies?” Lee Chin rolled her eyes before hurrying toward the driver’s-side door of the van.

  Oh. Crap. They knew the RCs were zombies?

  “Stupid zombies,” a girl whose name I didn’t remember piped up. She was covered in bite marks and sporting a very un-perky expression. “This was a lame idea.”

  “This is going to make sure we have the time we need.” Aaron’s hand tightened around my wrist. “Besides, I told you we might get bitten if we worked that one spell. No one said this would be easy.”

  “No one said you had to raise so many, either, Aaron. You
so
overdid it.”

  “
You
did this? You-Ah!” My question turned into a scream as Aaron spun me into him and locked his arms around my torso. An explosion of agony ripped through my wounded shoulder as he lifted me and climbed into the back of the van.

  “I didn’t overdo it,” he said. “There are just enough to cause the distraction we need.”

  “This isn’t a distraction,” Kimberly whined. “This is a-”

  “Just get in the van,” Dana said.

  Aaron plopped onto one of the padded benches on the right side, forcing me to sit on his lap, while the rest of the squad claimed seats on the bench facing us or in the two rows of front-facing seats at the head of the van. The doors slammed shut and Lee Chin gunned the vehicle to life.

  I was about ten seconds away from being kidnapped by a bunch of zombie-raising cheerleaders. God! And to think Ethan and I had
laughed
at the very possibility a few days ago. Even staring them in their perky yet evil faces, it was still hard to swallow.

  It was so surreal, in fact, that we were pulling out of the clearing and onto the road before my lips remembered how to form words.

  “You’ve got to let me out,” I said, fear settling in as the reality of what was happening struck full force. “I work with those people fighting the zombies. They’re going to come looking for me, and you’re not going to like what happens to you when they learn what you’ve done.”

  Kimberly and Kate, seated directly across from us, snickered.

  “I’m serious. You have no idea what you’re-”

  “We’re not scared of Settlers’ Affairs. We’ve got more powerful people on our side,” Dana said in this calm, easy voice that made it clear she believed what she was saying. I, for one, was too shocked to form a quick rebuttal.

  How did she know about Settlers’ Affairs? We were a top-secret organization, for God’s sake! We’d operated under the radar for hundreds of years, since the beginning of human civilization. World leaders were still clueless as to our existence, so how in the heck had a bunch of bleached-blond Stepford wannabes gotten the memo? This
so
proved that SA was totally sucking at their job. If they were half as with-it as they thought they were, this never would have happened.

  “Listen,” I said in my most reasonable tone as Lee Chin pulled down the ramp leading to the highway heading toward Little Rock. A second ago her choice of direction would have thrilled me, but that was before getting
away
from the evil cheerleaders became my new first priority. “I don’t know who you’ve got on your side, but I-”

  “Yeah, you do, Megan.” Aaron gave me a little squeeze that might have been called affectionate if I weren’t his captive and it hadn’t disturbed the ravaged skin near my shoulder. “You and Jess used to be BFFs. Or have you forgotten?”

  “She certainly hasn’t forgotten you,” Dana added with a smug grin.

  “Jess?” I asked, unable to believe what I was hearing. This couldn’t be happening. The Jess nightmare was over, had been for months. “But she’s in prison.”

  “Not for long.” I heard the smile in Aaron’s voice and was tempted to slam my head back into his nose, but forced myself to hold still. I was only going to have one chance to put up a fight. I had to make sure my timing was right. “We’re getting her out tonight.”

  “If Aaron hasn’t screwed everything up,” the girl with all the bite marks said.

  “Shut up, Felicity.” Aaron’s arms tightened around me, making me wince. “This was a team effort last time I checked.”

  “You shut up.” Felicity’s eyes narrowed in Aaron’s direction. “You’re the only one who could raise the living ones, and you screwed it up. Twice. Then you had all day to kidnap her, but couldn’t get it done, even though you had her in your freaking car this morning.”

  “We were being followed. I couldn’t just-”

  “So if we fail, it’s going to be all your fault.”

  “We won’t fail,” Aaron whispered, his tone cold enough to make me shiver. “We’ve got Megan and everything is going to be fine.”

  “But one of the living ones was supposed to bite her, not one of the dead ones. And no one said anything about kidnapping,” Felicity argued, while I forced myself to stay quiet and absorb as much of the insanity as I could.

  “It’s cool,” Kimberly said. “She’s not going to be around to tell anyone about it.”

  Well, there went any doubt about whether or not they planned to kill me. This just kept getting better and better.

  “But we weren’t supposed to have to do this. One of the zombies was supposed to-”

  “It’s not too late,” Aaron said. “Everything will be fine.”

  “Oh yeah? We’re supposed to raise the army at ten and it’s already eight. How are-”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Aaron snapped. “I’ve made plans.”

  “How? You’re not going to be able to make it to a hospital and-”

  “Shut up!” Aaron screamed so loud half the girls in the car jumped. “I told you. I’ve. Made. Plans.”

  “Aaron will take care of it, Felicity,” Dana said, her words seeming to calm the entire van. She was a natural leader, that one. Too bad she had to use her talent for evil.

  I still wasn’t sure what these freaks were up to, but there was no doubt it was bad news. That part about the “army” rising at ten o’clock sounded especially nasty. Jess had a history of big, violent gestures when it came to wielding her black magic, and it sounded like her time in prison hadn’t mellowed her out a bit.

  Geez, how had this happened? How had she managed to organize a coven of evil cheerleaders while she was supposed to be rotting behind bars? Settlers’ Affairs had some
major
explaining to do.

  “He’d better take care of it,” Felicity said.

  “If I were you, I’d start watching my mouth.” Aaron squeezed me so tight I couldn’t help but whimper. “Unless you want your ass left on shore tonight.”

  “You wouldn’t dare, you-”

  “Stop it,” Dana said, raising her voice to be heard. “Lee, take the next exit.”

  Lee Chin nodded and turned off just after we crossed the bridge. Now we were driving right along the river, which was entirely too much of a coincidence. Whatever the cheerleaders were up to, this must have been what Cliff was trying to warn me about.

  “This is not the time to turn on each other,” Dana continued. “We’re a team, and if we keep acting like one, everything is going to work out just like we planned.”

  “But it’s so hard,” Kate whispered. “It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.”

  “Isn’t being young and beautiful forever worth a little effort?” Dana asked, barely concealing her frustration. “I mean, we didn’t win state last year sitting on our bottoms. We practiced every day and made sacrifices.”

  The van was quiet for a moment before Lee Chin piped up from the driver’s seat. “But no one had to die for us to win state.”

  Dana’s head snapped around to the front. “Fine, Lee, if you want out, pull over.”

  “I don’t want out,” Lee said hastily. “It’s just that no one said we were going to kill her.”

  “And you don’t have to,” I said, seeing what might be my only chance to inject some sanity into this situation. “I know black magic can really mess with your head. Believe me, I understand. But you guys don’t have to go through with this. We can stop it all right now. Let me call SA and we can talk to them, explain what Jess was trying to make you do and-”

  “She isn’t
making
us do anything. We went looking for her and said we were willing to do whatever it took to work the spell.”

  “Aaron’s right,” Dana said. “This was what we all wanted. The vote was unanimous.”

  “Besides, we knew people were going to die,” Aaron said, not bothering to conceal his contempt for the naysayers in the vehicle.

  “What does it matter if one of the dead people happens to be someone we know? It’s not like any of you are friends with Megan.”