At the top of the stairs, I could hear footsteps. Help had arrived! But when I opened the door, it was Raven.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. “We’ll lock them in the closet until we figure out what to do with them.”
We dragged Edgar into the closet first and then made repeat trips to round up the Lovelies. We left Eva for last.
“I hate to leave her in there with him,” I said.
“It’s not like we have any other choice,” Raven replied.
“I know,” I said. “It’s just, she’s my best friend, you know?”
“I know,” Raven said. “But how do you think Eva would feel if we let her bite someone else?”
“Help me move her.”
“Let’s hurry!” Raven said. “Before Ms. Love gets back.”
“I don’t think she’s coming back,” I replied. She looked puzzled but didn’t ask any questions.
After they were all tucked inside the closet, it was a tight fit. We put a chair under the door handle.
“We’d better check in with Flo,” Raven said. “She’s probably frantic.”
Raven hung up her cell. “Flo says they’re on their way. But we should leave the building. Just in case they get out of the closet.”
We were outside when Andy, Dominic, and Flo arrived a few minutes later. “Where are the girls?” Flo asked.
“Locked in the closet with Edgar,” Raven answered.
“Are you okay?” Dominic asked his sister. “No injuries?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Quit fussing.”
“Jessica, you call Rose and tell her we have enough fungus for an antidote,” Flo ordered.
I reached in my jacket, but then I remembered. “I lost it in the cavern,” I said.
“Here, use mine.” Raven held her phone out to me but wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I took it from her reluctantly. She’d choked under pressure, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with her at the moment. Viragos needed to be able to count on each other. I couldn’t figure out if she’d run because she was scared or because she was a pacifist, but either way, that wasn’t the reaction I wanted from a fellow virago.
I gave Rose the news and she told me that she and Natalie were on their way to the store.
“We need to get Edgar out of that closet before they eat him,” Flo said.
“It would serve him right,” I replied.
“We need answers,” Flo snapped. “And Edgar is the only one around to give them to us.”
We trooped back inside the store and I showed her where we’d stowed the Lovelies and Edgar. She opened the closet door and dragged Edgar out by his collar.
Flo sat him in the office chair. “Talk,” she ordered, but Edgar crossed his arms and remained irritatingly silent.
I was stymied. Why would Edgar want to turn a bunch of girls into zombies in the first place?
“Why did you do it?”
“I needed workers to take care of the queen,” he said. “The fungus made it so the girls were . . . obedient.”
“You turned girls into zombies because you needed help taking care of your pet?” I wanted to slug him, but instead I settled for hurting his feelings. “The queen is dead,” I told him bluntly.
A single tear rolled down Edgar’s face.
“What’s the cure?” I demanded, but he just shrugged in response.
“You’re going to let all those girls remain in that state?” I asked. “I can’t believe that even you are that low.”
But apparently he was. He refused to say anything else and no amount of begging and pleading worked. So we tried threats, bribes, but he still wouldn’t answer one more question.
“I’m tempted to shove him back in there with them,” I said. Low moans came from the closet. I hated to think of Eva slowly disappearing and leaving just a flesh-hungry shell, but if we didn’t do something fast, that’s what would happen.
“We’ll just have to figure it out without him,” Flo said. “Hopefully the antidote will work.”
Natalie, Rose, and Slim arrived.
Slim asked me about the whereabouts of Ms. Love.
“She could be down there in that enormous ant farm,” I said. “But I shoved her in front of the queen. I didn’t see what happened to her. Then I killed the ant queen.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Flo said, and she headed down to the basement with Slim. To my surprise, Rose and Natalie didn’t need the fungus we harvested. They already had an antidote ready. They took vials of the cure into the closet where the Lovelies were trapped.
I paced up and down until they returned. “Did you find a body?” I asked. “I didn’t see whether or not the ant got her.”
“Yes,” Flo said. “At least part of one—a finger. The acting police chief is checking prints now, but we’re pretty sure it belonged to Ms. Love.”
After an agonizing amount of time, Natalie and Rose emerged from the closet.
“Did it work?” I asked.
Dominic took my hand while we waited to hear Rose’s response.
“I won’t know for a few hours.”
“How did you figure out the antidote?” I asked.
Rose replied, “Dominic was a big help.”
“Dominic?”
“He managed to find another bottle of the perfume,” Rose said.
“Where did you get it?”
“Selena,” he said. “That’s where I went.”
“Just to get the perfume,” he added, after a quick look at my face. “I remembered that she had mentioned Edgar had given her some, but she hadn’t bothered to open it yet.”
Rose continued. “I knew it was a fungus in the perfume, and I assumed the treatment would be similar to treatment for other fungal infections. Then, with Natalie’s help, I made a few adjustments.”
“You girls should go on home,” Flo said.
“No way,” I replied.
“I’m staying, too,” Raven said.
Hours passed. I tried not to look at the clock. Rose finally checked on the Lovelies and then came back.
“Did it work?” Raven asked.
“I think so,” she replied. “Eva said she wants a double cheeseburger and the rest of the girls seem hungry for real food, too.”
“At least no one is requesting brains,” Andy commented.
We all had to laugh at that, but it was tired laughter.