chapter twenty-three

We roll past Joe’s Pizza. The windows glow and music drifts into the streets. Our monster friends don’t know what it’s like to grieve.

At the tree house, we all help Warg up, inside.

She settles into a chair. It’s my gaming chair—the RollMaster781—and she perches on it in a strange, cartoonish way. One by one, her eyes blink open, on and off like twinkling Christmas bulbs.

She looks around, her body of eyes scanning the tree house. “What is this place?”

“Our home,” I say.

Dirk chuckles in a soft, sad way. “Welcome to the tree house at the end of the world. . . .”

“Let’s get her some water,” June says to Quint. “Wait, do the monsters drink water?”

“I think so,” Quint says. “Although, I’ve never actually seen any partake in H₂O.”

“She’s gotta replenish all those tears, right?” June says. “She must be dehydrated.”

I whirl around. My hands are shaking. “GUYS! Just get something!”

June and Quint hurry to Quint’s room, where he keeps his gadgets and science-y things.

My head hangs—staring down at my sneakers for a long, long time. Finally, I look up at Warg.

“I don’t understand,” I say, and I’m not sure if I’m angry or just confused. “I thought you didn’t care about anyone? You live up on the farm, all alone. . . . Why do you get to be sad?”

After a long moment, I quietly say, “Oh.”

“And now you know my secret,” Warg whispers.

“This whole time we just thought you were a big grumper,” Dirk says.

That’s when we hear June scream.

A moment later, she appears in the doorway. Her face is part shock, part crazy-pants excitement.

And then Quint is there, too. A TV is cradled in his arms, the cord snaking around his leg—he’s attempting to rush into the room with it. But the TV doesn’t fit through the doorway and there’s a smack when it bangs into the wall, sending him tumbling back.

“Ahem,” he says, readjusting himself. He tries walking in backward, but the TV is still just as wide. Another smack. He finally sneaks through sideways, and when he turns around, I see . . .

Whoa.

The TV recording is paused. But there, on the screen, I see—

June’s parents. Their names.

“It worked,” she says breathlessly. “They’re OK. My parents are OK—and they’re out there somewhere. . . .”

I look to Quint. “And . . . and yours, buddy?”

He blinks quickly. He’s chewing on his lip. “I don’t know. I’m—I’m too scared to look. It’s recorded. I just need to rewind. But I’m not sure if . . .” His voice trails off and his eyes drift away from us.

I swallow and decide this is a best friend’s job. Like ripping off the Band-Aid.

I press the REWIND button. Thousands of names speed in reverse. It’s like watching a Star Wars opening scrawl, but upside down.

We stand, all of us in silence, for some of the longest minutes of my life. And then—

I see the name.

Baker.

Then—oh no—another Baker.

And another.

“Quint, there are, like, a gajillion Bakers! Why do you gotta have such a popular last name?!”

“JACK, C’MON!” Quint shouts.

The names creep past, slower, and then I pause.

I swallow. There’s a lump in my throat.

His mom. His dad.

I see their names.

And I say, with a smile, “If I was a lousy friend, I could mess with you so hard right now. . . .”

Quint’s eyes shine and glow with a wetness that he has to blink away.

It’s happiness. Insane, unbelievable happiness. It bubbles over so much that I just throw my arms around Quint and June, but there’s the darn TV, which is too big to allow for a real group hug, so it ends with me just kind of hugging the screen.

Then I feel Dirk’s arms wrapped around us as wide as they can go.

And for minutes—minutes and minutes and minutes—we just hold each other and say nothing.

It’s sorta the grand finale of so much: the radio, the King Wretch, June’s hopes and wants, my fears and worries, and that first day I found Quint and we hung out in his oddly quiet house, because his parents were gone and he didn’t want to say anything more about it and—

“I GET IT!” Quint suddenly exclaims. He says it so loudly that we’re all practically thrown backward. “Dirk, I know what’s wrong with you!”

Dirk takes a step back. “You do?”

Quint nods. “It’s just like Warg! Just like this TV!”

Quint’s mind has made a sudden leap into new territory, and I have whiplash.

He launches into an explanation and his arms start waving wildly—until he remembers he’s still holding the TV. He nearly drops it three times before saying, “June, uh, would you mind?”

June wordlessly takes the TV from Quint. She leans it against the couch and runs her hand over the names. I can tell she wants to rewind and see her parents’ names again.

“Warg,” Quint says, walking over to her. “When we first met you, your eyeballs swarmed around us. They each did something different, but they are all an extension of you. How does that work?”

Warg’s eyeballs jiggle. A few jump off her body and roll around on the floor, which is super dirty—those eyeballs are definitely picking up some Kit Kat crumbs.

Warg’s body shrugs. “I think a thought, and the eyeballs communicate the thought to one another. It simply works.”

Quint says, “Like a hive mind!”

“Look,” Quint says. “Jack and I have seen every zombie movie ever made—and I don’t remember any in which zombies fought on command.”

“That is true,” I say.

Quint continues, “So, these things we call zombies—they aren’t just zombies. I mean, they are, but there’s more to them. Don’t forget, the zombie plague originated in another dimension—it may not follow the usual Earthly rules. . . .”

Dirk sighs so heavily that the tree house walls just about shake.

“What does an interdimensional zombie plague have to do with a hive mind and what does that have to do with me HEARING WEIRD STUFF??”

“Quint, buddy,” I say quietly in his ear. “Maybe get to the part where you tell Dirk what’s up with his noggin?”

“Right, certainly, of course!” Quint says. “Dirk, you were nearly zombified—but the process was stopped before completion. But I believe there was an aftereffect of that near-transformation: you are now connected to the zombie hive mind—but just barely.”

“Oh. Right . . .” Quint says. “Of course, it’s not exciting for you, Dirk, but it is—”

“Bad,” Dirk says. “It’s only bad.”

“Hold on,” I say to Dirk. “Maybe it’s not bad. FOR REAL. I mean, now that we know what’s wrong, we can figure out how to make it better!”

“Indeed,” Quint says. “The closer you are to the zombies, the stronger the connection. So you just gotta stay away from them!”

“Right, right, this is all GREAT news,” Dirk says, his voice all angry sarcasm. “Who wouldn’t be happy to find out they’re connected to zombies, right? So, really—everyone’s happy. You two are happy your parents are OK, and—”

The sound of breaking glass silences Dirk. We all spin—the huge flat-screen TV is on the floor. A crack runs through it. June’s eyes are narrowed and she’s loading goo-slime cans into the Gift.

“We don’t even know where Thrull is,” Quint says. “Or the zombies. Or Evie and Ghazt.”

We sit there. The thick feeling of hopelessness settling in.

That’s when Dirk stands. “But maybe we can find out,” he says. “The TV, the Wi-Fi, the video game. They pick up signals in the air, right?”

Quint thinks. “In the air? Um. Well—I suppose, yes. Though that’s a very simplified explanation.”

“And I pick up signals from the zombies, right? Kinda?” Dirk asks.

Quint nods. Everyone’s silent, waiting for Dirk to continue.

“Well, what I hear—it’s fuzzy. It’s not clear. But maybe if I got closer to the zombies, it would be clear. And if I could hear . . .”

“You would know what the zombies know,” Quint finishes for him. “You’d know what Thrull’s doing.”

“But, Dirk,” I say. “When you get near the zombies—”

“It hurts,” he says with a resigned shrug. “But sometimes you gotta take one for the team. And you guys—you’re my team.”