Zombie Queen of Newbury High (17 page)

“Worse than being eaten by two hundred zombies?”

“It could make them stronger. Even more aggressive. The thing is, without the translation, there is only one other alternative.”

“Gas?” Mia’s voice was faint as she noticed that Chase couldn’t quite meet her gaze. Up until this moment the whole situation had all seemed a bit surreal, as if she had managed to wander onto the set of one of her favorite television shows, but now it struck her with blinding clarity just how serious it was. She really had turned everyone into zombies. Chase really was going to kill them all if he needed to, and if they both failed . . . well, then they really were going to be eaten.

“I’m sorry, Mia. But everything is already in place, since yesterday.”

“What do you mean?” she said, the horror mounting.

“There is a hydrogen-cyanide device in the ceiling. All I need to do is remotely activate it with my cell phone, and it will release the chemicals that will kill everyone and stop them from turning into the living dead.”

“What? Please, Chase. No. What about your department? Can’t they translate it?” Mia was almost pleading now.

“How can we even get it to them in time, let alone explain—”

“Grace.” She suddenly blinked as she reached into her tiny purse and dragged out her cell phone. “She knows the section Candice was talking about. I’ll see if she can go online and try and Google a translation?”

“It’s a long shot.”

“A long shot is better than being turned into zombie kebabs,” Mia retorted just as the sound of splintering glass shattered their ears. Chase immediately swung around and used the broom to hit away the hands that were trying to claw their way through.

Mia screamed as she saw Rob’s face appear in the space where the window had been. Rob’s hand went straight for Chase’s neck and without thinking Mia ran over and used her broom to hit him on the knuckles. Rob didn’t even flinch as he instead reached to try and grab her by the arm, but he was stopped by Chase’s fist crashing into his picture-perfect face. Then, without wasting another moment, Chase dragged a free-standing locker over to cover up the exposed space where the glass pane in the door had once been.

“Okay.” He leaned against the locker and panted. “I think you’d better make the call.”

Mia didn’t need to be told twice, and Grace answered on the third ring.

“Okay, so I’ve got a problem,” she said without preamble and when her sister didn’t interrupt she quickly continued. “You know that passage that you read to Candice? Well, we still need to get it translated. Like, right now.”

“I thought Candice was doing that?”

“Um, yeah, there’s been a change of plans.” Mia shuddered as the banging noise increased.

“Oh man, don’t tell me it’s the zombies,” her sister said, and Mia blinked.

“What? I thought you didn’t believe me. You made me admit that Rob dumped me.”

“I know, but that was before Samantha called me.”

“She did?” Mia clutched at the cell phone. “What did she say? Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m not okay,” Grace retorted. “Samantha was my role model and now she wants to eat my kidneys. But I can assure you that I have no intention of being zombie fodder. I’ve got the summer to look forward to and then it’s my junior year, because—”

“Grace,” Mia cut her off. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Oh, sorry. The only thing is, I’m not sure what I can do to help—”

But whatever Grace was going to say was lost as the locker started to shudder and shake with the force that was being thrown against it. Chase was using all his strength to push back, but it seemed as useless as trying to fight the tide.

“Mia.” Chase used the chair to hit away a second hand. “I think you’d better wind it up.”

“Grace, please just try. Go online and see if you can find a translation site. Anything,” Mia pleaded. “And call me. We don’t have much time left.”

“Okay,” her sister said simply, and hung up just as Chase grabbed Mia’s hand and pulled her to him so that she could help him lean against the locker. At that moment she felt fingers reaching through from around the locker and trying to grab at her shoulder. She jumped away and swung at them, and from the other side someone made a howling noise.

“God.” She moaned in despair as she rejoined Chase, leaning against the locker. “I’ve turned into a one-episode-only girl.”

“What?” Chase panted as the door started to tremble, and he once again threw his weight behind it.

“Unlike some people around here, I don’t spend my leisure time trying to kill things. I watch TV and everyone knows that the regular hero, aka you, never gets killed or, in this case, eaten. No, that sort of stuff happens to the one-episode-only girl. I’m dispensable. I’m the snack. While the likes of you move on to greater network success.”

“Except of course this isn’t TV,” Chase pointed out as once again the door started to press open.

“No, and that’s what makes it even worse.” Mia waved her broom again as another hand tried to reach through. “I mean, if it were, then yes, technically I might only ever be known as the girl who was zombie bait in season five, but at least in real life I would still be alive, well paid, and—who knows—I might even end up as a cult figure who could go and do fan conventions. But there is no happy ending to this tale. I’m the loser of all the one-episode-only girls who ever existed.”

The locker started to buckle and Chase seemed to use all of his strength to force it shut. “For a start, you definitely watch too much television, and more importantly, you’re not going to die. Okay?”

“Chase, I want to believe you, but seriously I don’t think the odds are stacked in our favor here, and—”

“Mia, stop it. I want you to take a deep breath and look into my eyes.” Chase’s voice was commanding, and Mia turned to him. His green eyes were still strained with the effort of keeping the almost-zombies out, but she nonetheless felt herself getting lost in them. Again. This was becoming habit-forming.

“Are you feeling calmer now?” he said in a soft voice, which made her oblivious to the door pounding that was resonating through her body.

“I . . . um . . . yes,” she struggled to answer as she continued to stare deep into his gorgeous eyes. Would it be wrong to touch his face? She loved the way his jaw was tight with concentration. And how his full bottom lip was slightly protruding. How could anyone look that good? And—

Her phone started to ring and Mia reluctantly dragged her gaze away and saw it was Grace.

“Ingest it,” her sister yelled into the phone as if she were speaking to an eighty-year-old who was hard of hearing. “They need to ingest it. That’s why it didn’t work properly last time. Oh, and by the way, I was talking to this totally hot guy on some zombie chatroom, and he said if you’re stuck in a building with hordes of undead trying to chew your arms, the best thing to do is hit the fire alarm so the sprinklers come on. Apparently they hate water.”

For a moment Mia just blinked before she finally managed to speak. “Thank you,” she said inadequately. “You might have just saved us. But Grace, if you don’t hear from me in half an hour, then things might’ve gone wrong and I want you and Mom to get in the car and drive straight to Grandma’s house.”

“Don’t be ridiculous—you’ll be seeing me in the morning, and I swear, if you get bitten by a zombie and have visible scarring, I will disown you,” Grace said in a gruff voice, and Mia found herself sniffing.

“Okay, no visible scarring. I don’t want your reputation to suffer,” Mia promised. “But Grace, I mean it about going to Grandma’s. Do you promise?”

“Yes, now go and do your zombie thing,” her sister said in a softer voice. “And good luck.” Mia finished the call and took a moment to compose herself before turning to Chase.

“Okay, so apparently under the blonde hair and short skirts my sister is a genius. The spell didn’t work properly because the potion needs to be ingested. Oh, and she also suggested we turn on the sprinklers so we can get back to the gym.”

Chase widened his eyes as he immediately reached for a mop that was propped up against the wall. “How did I not think of that?”

“It’s probably because we were actually being chased by real-life almost-zombies. It’s very distracting,” Mia comforted him before shooting him a hopeful look. “So what do you think? Can we redo the reversal spell
and
figure out a way to get everyone to ingest the potion?”

“Let’s just take one thing at a time. First we need to get out of here, and then we can worry about the next part,” he said as he pulled a small lighter out of his pocket and held it up to the mop head. “Now, when I say run, I want you to head straight for the gym. If something happens to me, you need to lock the door and do the ritual. Do you understand?”

Mia nodded as they waited for the mop to catch fire. Once it was blazing, Chase used his shoulder to inch the locker away from the broken windowpane. The instant he did so, hands and faces appeared from nowhere and Mia threw a bucketful of dirty mop water at them to buy him some time. That was all he needed, and he thrust his hand through the small gap and up to the ceiling, where he assured her there was a fire sprinkler.

Mia held her breath as they waited for something to happen. For a moment there was nothing, and then suddenly she heard a screaming noise. And another.

“Right.” Chase now used his shoulder to shove the locker out of the way, and the pair of them glanced out the door to an almost empty hallway.

“What happened to them? Where did they go? Is this some sort of trick?”

“No trick. They’ve probably gone somewhere dry,” he said as he cautiously opened the door and Mia followed him out, holding her shoes in her hand since there was no way she could keep running in them. “Not all parts of the sprinkler system will have come on, just the ones that were triggered from the heat. But at least the coast is clear. For now.”

“Let’s do it then.” Mia grabbed his hand and they ran back toward the gym through the misty water that was still falling down from the ceiling. The quickest way was to turn left, but the moment they did so, they caught sight of a group of students who had obviously been recovering from their impromptu shower. But the minute they saw Mia and Chase, they started lumbering toward them.

“This way.” Chase nodded, and they slipped in through a classroom and ran through the adjoining door.

“Boy, you really did study those school plans well.”

“In this business it always helps to know your escape routes. So how are you holding up?”

“Well, it’s certainly not how I imagined prom night, but I’m okay. We just need to do this thing. And Chase, I’m sorry about your date. I guess this has pretty much ruined it for you.”

“My date?”

“With Candice,” Mia said as they made their way down the hallway.

“Candice and I aren’t going on a date,” he said in surprise. “Didn’t she tell you?” He creased his brow together.

“Tell me what?”

He turned to her for a moment. “Because a reversal spell has never been done before in stage two, when I reported it to the department, they were skeptical, because they had never approved the translation we used. Turns out they had good reason to worry. Anyway, they wanted me to continue to monitor it and since nearly all of them are going to be at the prom tonight, I had no choice but to go.”

Mia frowned. “So where does Candice come into all of this?”

“She had a spare ticket. Yesterday afternoon I was at the school office trying to get one but they were all sold out. Anyway, Candice was up seeing the nurse and she overheard me. That’s when she said I could have her other ticket.”

“So let me get this straight, you’re only going to the prom to make sure that the zombie virus really has been stopped and not because you and Candice are—”

“Definitely because of the zombies,” he cut her off. “I mean, Candice is nice and everything, but this is strictly work, which she well knows. And why are you smiling?”

“I’m not smiling.” Mia smiled. Chase didn’t like Candice. He was only doing it because of the zombies. Then Mia put her hand over her mouth. Chase was dedicated to fighting zombies, and she was the shallow girl who not only created them but was standing there smiling in the middle of a crisis. Somehow she didn’t think he would be changing his opinion of her anytime soon.

“Come on,” Chase said as he opened a door that brought them back into the hallway. “We’re almost there.” They both stared at the gym door that was only feet from where they were standing, when a group of students suddenly appeared from around the corner.

“Look out!” Mia yelled as she dragged him toward the door, the sound of zombie shuffling not far behind them. She felt her lungs start to burst as she gasped for air before Chase finally put out a hand and pushed open the gym door.

Mia came to a halt as she cautiously looked around, but the place was deserted. Obviously the advantage of being the zombie queen was that even the lazy zombies had probably felt the pull to go out and find her. Of course, the downside of that was it wouldn’t be long before they all came back.

Chase locked the door and hurried over to where she was putting her shoes back on. They were cute shoes. If she was going to be eaten, it was going to happen in style.

“Okay, so if you want to pour the potion into a bowl, I’ll start chanting. But we still haven’t figured out a way to get them to ingest it once it’s done.”

Chase glanced over at the punch cups. “I’m thinking that getting them to drink it will be the best shot.”

Mia shot him a doubtful look. “I know I’m their queen, but won’t they be too busy trying to rip my arms off to bother with taking a break to drink some punch?”

“If we do it before they hit stage four, it should work. Remember they like to follow your every move.” Chase grabbed her hand and pressed the incantation sheets into it, then pulled a bag of sand from his pocket as well as the crystals and amulet. Then he kneeled and marked it all out again before taking hold of her hand and helping her step into the center of it. Mia gulped back her panic.
Should work
didn’t exactly sound like great odds to her, and,
Hey . . . why was Chase Miller putting his arm around her waist
?