chapter twenty-one

Thick, melted ice cream is splattered in a sticky layer across the ground, dotted with rainbow sprinkles. It looks like the world was hit by a cake batter cyclone.

Through the rain, I see Thrull. . . .

He jams his fleshy, flapping arm into the cut-open side of the tail—

The tail fuses with Thrull’s arm, forming one long, terrifying appendage. Of course he wasn’t going to return the tail to Ghazt. He wanted zombie control for himself. And now he has it. . . .

He’s a liar.

I learned that the hard way.

Now Evie has, too. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her backing away, out of sight.

The tail twists, turning Thrull. His back is to me.

So I rise and begin to cross the parking lot.

But I’m too scared to confront him. And too angry to do nothing.

The rain comes down in buckets.

Before I can decide—

Rover’s carrying me in his mouth like a lion cub and Big Mama is whipping toward us. June’s at the wheel. Quint beside her, Dirk in the back.

They’re all OK.

I don’t breathe a sigh of relief—but, yeah, a tiny bit of relieved nose breath shoots out my nostrils.

“What are we doing?” I ask as Rover races up beside Big Mama.

“Fleeing!” Quint shouts.

“But, Bardle!” I cry. “We can’t leave him!”

“We gotta,” Dirk says. “For now.”

I don’t know how to respond to that. But then Rover leaps up, into Big Mama’s truck bed. I guess I’d rather be out of the cold, so I crawl through the rear window, inside, to my friends.

Quint pulls me close, and I’m happy—happy the rain is there to hide my tears. . . .