CASS

UM, CASS? ARE YOU OUT THERE IN PSYCHIC LAND listening?

Is this how it works?

This is stupid.

It’s like praying.

My fingers are on my temples FYI. If that helps.

Amanda is going to be so psyched! She is going to make out with you so hard!

Not you, Cass. Sorry. Me. Off topic.

He wants you to come here, Cass. To Des Moines.

I’m stoned. Probably not helping.

Sun’s almost up. What time is it in your part of Iowa?

I’m wasted. And beat.

She’s going to be all like, ohhh, my hero!

What I’ll do first is give her the perfume. Like, this is all they had at the mall. Sorry I disappeared for three days.

And then OH WAIT ALSO THIS AWESOME ZOMBIE CURE.

Cass, I don’t think Reggie’s totally evil. Maybe on the sinister side.

But he’s not too crazy about humans.

He wants to meet you and I don’t think his intentions are like one hundred percent chill.

He seems pretty set on it. For the cure.

Sorry about your mom. That sucks.

Not sure what to do.

I’ll try to talk him out of it. Or get another vial of the stuff.

I’ll try.

Okay, you’re not listening.

Amanda is going to be PUMPED.

I’m definitely going to do that perfume bit.

It’s going to be great.

 

I snapped awake or, more honestly, leapt out of Jake’s totally scattered and deeply discouraging mind. I didn’t even have time to consider what I’d learned—that he’d acquired the cure, but not enough; that he was devoting the same amount of brainpower to his reunion with Amanda as he was to helping me save my mom—because something seriously weird was going down in the physical world.

Tara had crawled into bed with me. Her feet were freezing and pressed against my legs. Her stale breath gusted against the side of my face. For a moment, I remembered creeping into bed with my big sister as a kid and felt oddly comforted by the physical contact.

“That’s right,” Tara whispered. “We’re basically sisters.”

That killed it. I recoiled, both physically and mentally.

“This is not okay,” I hissed, trying to put some space between us in the tiny cot.

“Daddy wants to talk with you,” she replied, unperturbed by my obvious discomfort. “He wants you to stop being stubborn.”

I glared at her, angry at the multiple violations of personal space happening here, until I noticed the thin tendril of blood snaking down from her nose.

“Maybe you should stop talking to him too,” I whispered. “It’s hurting you.”

Tara shook her head and snuffed her nose. “Can’t. It’s my job.”

“You should quit. I did.”

And look how well that’s working out, I stopped myself from adding.

Tara ignored me, her eyes glazed over. “He wants me to tell you that they’re coming.”

I swallowed. “Who?”

“The men with guns,” she replied. “They’ll be here tomorrow. He says you’re running out of time.”

With that, Tara slipped out of my cot and returned to her own. I lay there with my arms across my chest, trying to process everything. Jake didn’t have enough of this so-called Kope Juice. He didn’t have an angle on getting more that didn’t involve me marching into zombie-controlled Des Moines and having coffee with a fanboy despot who probably wanted to eat my brains to try assuming my powers or some fantasy crap. And time before Iowa—already a festering hellhole—became a bloody, bombed-out war zone was running out.

Obviously, I couldn’t go back to sleep.

I stood up, stretched, and stepped outside my partition. The faintest hint of gray light squeezed under the crack of the shelter’s door. It was early, yeah, but I was going to need every minute to come up with some kind of plan.

Lucy was stationed next to the bunker’s door, sitting on the stool I expected Cody to be occupying. She raised her eyebrows, surprised to see me up, and yawned into the back of her hand. Her other hand rested comfortably on the stock of the rifle I’d given her last night. She’d chilled out considerably on the whole “trouble” thing after I’d armed her.

Oh, right. While she was sleeping, I’d liberated the weaponry from Amanda. I’d given Truncheon’s rifle to Cody’s group and stashed my stun gun under my pillow. Remembering it, I slipped back behind my partition to shove the weapon into the back of my pants. If I had to throw myself on the mercy of a zombie warlord, at least I’d be armed with a slightly stronger-than-normal Taser.

“You’re up early,” Lucy said to me as I approached. Everyone else was still in bed—Roy snoring, Cody curled into a surprisingly tight fetal position, Tara probably practicing creepy faces under her blankets.

“Lot to do,” I said, slipping past Lucy to quietly open the door’s hatch. The Maroon Marauder was still out there, although the windshield was too dew-covered to see if Amanda was awake.

“Lot to do,” Lucy repeated, deadpan. “In the zombie wasteland. You serious?”

“Anything I can help with?”

It was Cody, sitting up in the cot nearest the door. It looked as if that missed sleep had finally caught up with him; his hair was all mussed, his temples wet with sweat, and he looked a little peaked.

“Um . . .” I did a mental run-through of the ramshackle plan I hadn’t even realized I’d been forming. “Not right this second.”

Cody started to reply, but hiccupped instead. His eyes widened in embarrassment and he put a hand on his stomach.

“Yup, well, let me know,” he said quickly. “I think I ate something bad. I’m gonna rest awhile longer.”

“It could be internal bleeding,” Lucy put in, a little of yesterday’s panic back in her voice. “Maybe you’re hurt worse than you know.”

“Jeez, Lucy, don’t say that,” Cody muttered, rolling over on his side.

Before I could address the superinteresting digestive problems of my favorite Iowan survivors, I heard the Marauder’s door open outside. I peeked through the hatch and watched Amanda first stretch her legs and then start methodically brushing out her hair.

“Okay, guys, be right back,” I told Lucy and Cody, then unbarred the door and stepped out into the cool morning air.

I’d figured one thing out for sure. I wasn’t going to freaking Des Moines.

Amanda tossed the brush back in the car when she saw me coming. The vulnerability I’d seen from her last night was wiped away; a night’s sleep had apparently restored her reservoir of iciness. We stood facing each other. She was giving off an angry vibe, so I went for the opposite, cool and deadpan.

“Sleep well?” I asked, a little surprised by my own tone. It was harsh.

She snorted. “You took my guns.”

“Yeah, it’s fairer this way,” I explained with faux diplomacy. “You get to eat people and basically come back from the dead. So, we get the guns in case someone needs to shoot you.”

“Whatever,” she said after a moment. “It’s way too early in the morning for this.”

“What’re you still doing here?” I asked her.

I was angry too, I realized. Or desperate. Maybe a little scared. Some nasty soup of those emotions portioned just right to make a boiling sensation bubble through me. In the moment, I tried to self-analyze why I felt this sudden uptick in animosity. Impending doom for my mom, me, and everyone else seemed like a good place to start. Also, maybe an overcorrection on the sympathy I’d felt for Amanda last night. Or maybe the nagging knowledge that she didn’t understand Jake like I did, but got to sit around dramatically pining while he shopped for freaking perfume and totally failed to get me the cure.

So, yeah. Add a splash of jealousy to the mix too. I’m not proud of it.

“I’m waiting for you,” Amanda answered me like this was obvious, like she was bored. “Do your whole astral-plane thing and let’s go find Jake.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked, crossing my arms.

Amanda squinted at me. “I don’t understand your question. Like, what the fuck else are you going to do?”

“Have you considered that maybe he met someone else while he was lost out there?” I asked her. “A zombie with better taste in music?”

A shadow passed across Amanda’s face. “Um, what’re you saying?”

And just like that, my plan crystalized. Divide and conquer, like one of those mean girls from high school.

“He ditched you,” I told Amanda. “He met someone else and ditched you. Well, both of us. But mostly you.”

“Bullshit,” she said, and took a step toward me.

“It’s true,” I replied. “I was in his head all the time. You know how often he wished he’d gotten stuck with one of the less-shallow girls from your high school? Which, I guess would’ve been pretty much any of them? Like, every day.”

“Shut up.”

“This new girl gets his references. She’s a nerd like him and he doesn’t have to explain everything to her. It was a total meet-cute.” I shrugged. “He screwed us over. Just like Chazz, right?”

Amanda didn’t reply. She took another step toward me.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I’m pretty over hanging with zombies after this. So you should probably bail before I have my friends inside shoot you.”

Amanda fixed me with a slow, predatory smile.

“You know how I know you’re lying?” she asked.

“Just go away, Amanda.”

“Because you’re standing here like normal, dicking around, instead of bawling your eyes out and making a mixtape or something.”

My face scrunched up. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“If he dumped me for some slutty hipster zombie, then he basically dumped you too.”

I scoffed. “Um, he’s your boyfriend. Er, was.”

“Oh please. You’re into him. I saw it when he first dragged your frumpy ass into that farmhouse. You loved it. That was like a dream come true for you.” Amanda cocked her head at me, something occurring to her. “You really do spend a ton of time in his head, don’t you?”

I tried to keep my composure, but I must’ve flinched. I took a step back.

“I mean, only when I was tracking him . . .” I said, feeling somehow weakened by her pompous smile.

“You love it in there,” she replied, practically grinning. “I get it now. You’re like some creepy psychic stalker. Don’t worry, perv. Your secret’s safe with me.”

That smile. Like she’d figured me out, like she pitied me. I tried to keep my eyes from filling with tears, but it always happened when I felt humiliated.

“So what?” Amanda continued, studying me. “Why’re you bullshitting so hard, huh? Did he already make it into Des Moines? Did he find the cure?”

I recovered myself and took a step toward Amanda, jabbing a finger into her chest. That surprised her.

“That’s all you really care about, isn’t it? The cure.”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Come on. Is this your new angle?”

I kept going. “I always wondered why you stuck with him in the first place. To have someone carry you out of trouble, like on that first day? So you wouldn’t have to do all the driving? Was it temporary? Just until another, better-looking, stronger zombie came along? You seemed pretty broken up about Chazz. He was a real missed opportunity, huh?”

“You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Without even trying, I plucked a memory from the front of her mind.

“Or was it because of your low self-esteem?” I asked. “You need him to tell you you’re pretty when you go all corpsey and your hair falls out, right?”

She shoved me away from her. I’d struck a nerve.

“You don’t know shit,” she hissed. “We’re in love.”

“Aww! In love!” I laughed at her. “You didn’t even know he existed two weeks ago! I probably know him better than you do.”

“Yeah, because you’re a freak,” Amanda sneered. “A stalker.”

I stepped back into her face. “I know you too. You’ll throw him away when you’re done with him.”

“Fuck off, Cass.”

“You’ve been chewing people up and spitting them out way longer than you’ve been a zombie, you conceited bitch.”

That did it.

Amanda grabbed me around the throat and I didn’t even notice, too busy basking in the joyous feeling of punching her right in the face. She reeled backward, still holding me, and I fell into the grass on top of her. I hit her again, this time in the side of the head, and realized this was probably a terrible idea because she was so much stronger than me and, you know, ate people.

She rolled us over, still holding me around the neck with one hand. I felt the stun gun jab into my lower back. Yep. Should’ve used that. Her nose was bleeding, but she still looked pretty fresh. In control. Straddling me, she cocked her fist back.

“Tell me where he is before things get worse for you,” she said.

A gunshot rang out.

Amanda’s grip slackened as we both turned our heads toward the shelter. I expected to see Lucy standing there, having fired off a warning shot, but instead there was Tara, sprinting in our direction. She wasn’t armed. At first, I thought she was coming to help me fight off Amanda, her scream like a battle cry.

Then the zombie tackled Tara from behind and bit down hard on the back of her neck. The screaming stopped.