Cat stared at the whistle, then looked up at the zombies, who hadn’t moved.
“I can’t control them,” she said.
“Then you’re in trouble,” Kinslow laughed.
Cat gulped. “I don’t know how. You’ve got to help me, show me, give me advice, something.”
Kinslow shook his head. “No help. Sink or swim. That’s the way it is with us.”
Cat looked pleadingly to Mr. Dowling. “You can’t do this to me,” she yelled. “You went to all the trouble of tracking me, putting on this show, dragging my sister’s family into it. You can’t just let me be ripped to pieces now. What’s the point of that?”
“Mr. Dowling doesn’t always need a point,” Kinslow said. “But in this case he does have one. You might be able to figure out what it is if I tell you that the name of this act is ‘Cat Ward’s Apt Finale.’”
Cat stared at Kinslow at a loss. He waited for the lightbulb to go off When it didn’t, he sighed and put his whistle between his lips to blow one last time and set the zombies free of his influence.
Mr. Dowling made a high wailing noise and stopped him.
Kinslow listened to his master, then nodded obediently. “You’re in luck,” he told Cat. “Mr. Dowling is granting you a lifeline. He’s prepared to free you from your role in the act and offer you a place among his most trusted handservants.”
“What if I don’t want it?” Cat asked.
“Then you’ll die,” Kinslow said.
“Maybe I’d prefer to die,” Cat croaked.
Kinslow shook his head. “You’d enjoy life as a mutant. We’re the same as you—hard, cold, merciless killers. In fact, you’re harder and colder than most of us. You’re better suited to life as one of Mr. Dowling’s assistants than just about anyone else in the gang. We would have automatically recruited you ages ago if not for your association with somebody else we’ve been keeping an eye on.”
“What are you talking about?” Cat asked.
“Mr. Dowling has a question for you,” Kinslow answered indirectly. “Your response will determine what we do with you, whether we accept you as one of us or leave you to see out the act.”
“What question?” Cat cried, hating the mystery.
Kinslow waited a heartbeat, then said slyly, “What did you think of your student Becky Smith?”
Cat blinked. Of all the questions in the world, that was one of the last she had expected. “Becky Smith?” she repeated.
“Yeah,” Kinslow said. “You remember her?”
“Of course.”
“What was your opinion of her?”
Cat thought about answering truthfully, telling them that the girl had been a horrid little beast, arrogant, rude, disruptive, a bully and a borderline racist. But the mutants seemed to approve of people with antisocial tendencies. If they were thinking of signing up Becky Smith, Cat wanted to do whatever she could to dissuade them. She could tolerate serving a master like Mr. Dowling, and she was willing to work hand in hand with an army of mutant killers, but teaming up with a wretch like Becky Smith… a girl who had openly mocked her in class… that was a bridge too far.
“She was a weak, pitiful nothing,” Cat said dismissively. “A mouthy, ignorant little scumbag who was clearly never going to amount to anything. I taught a lot of lousy kids over the years but she was one of the most pathetic. I can’t even say that I despised her, because she wasn’t worthy of contempt.”
Kinslow hooted. The mutants in the audience gasped. The babies made an angry hissing noise and their eyes suddenly turned a deep red color. On the throne, Mr. Dowling sat bolt upright and glared at her, his eyes steady in their sockets for the first time since Cat had been introduced to him.
“Wait,” Cat cried, realizing she had made a mistake. “I didn’t mean that. Becky was a wonderful girl, an exemplary student. She–”
“Too late,” Kinslow interrupted. “Your first answer is the only one that we’ll accept, and it was about as wrong as wrong could be.”
“But I don’t understand,” Cat roared as Kinslow raised his whistle again. “What was so special about Becky bloody Smith?”
“You’ll find out,” Kinslow crowed. Then he smiled mockingly. “Or, rather, you won’t.”
Then, as he stepped backwards into the shadows, disappearing from sight, he stuck the whistle between his lips and blew, and the zombies in the ring were unleashed.