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All I could do now was wait and beg Wayne not to freak out and call his dad. He was already digging in his pocket for his phone.
“Wayne, please. I promise I’m not crazy. Eddie and Chloe will be here soon, and then you’ll see for yourself. Please, just wait ten minutes. That’s all I ask.”
He was still breathing hard through his mouth, but he wedged his phone back in his pocket. “I don’t think I can stay in here with her like that.” He gagged and covered his face with his hands again. “Janie, I want to believe you, but this is all too weird.”
“Look, I’ll set her back in my closet. She’ll be fine in there until Eddie and Chloe show up.” I picked up Matilda under the arms and dragged her back into the closet. She was lighter than I expected, but then again, she was pretty dried out. I propped her up in the corner and closed the closet door. “There. All better.”
“It is most definitely not all better,” Wayne fumed. He began pacing back and forth in front of my bedroom door. “Let’s say that I do believe you. Why would you raise Matilda as a zombie? Huh? Why?”
“Are you serious? This wasn’t my idea, Wayne.”
“Eddie, right. Then why would he do it?”
“Because he wanted me to go to prom with him.” Wow. That cleared things right up.
Wayne’s brow dipped down into a humorless line.
I sighed and shrugged. “I guess he thought that if Matilda was still around that he wouldn’t have to worry about you asking me to prom.”
“Okay.” He still looked confused.
“This is Eddie we’re talking about here.”
The doorbell rang and I jumped. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
I raced downstairs and threw open the front door. Eddie stood on my front steps with an older leather-bound book tucked under his arm. My handprint was still present on his cheek, and I couldn’t believe it, but I actually felt bad about it now.
“Come on in,” I said, just as Chloe’s car pulled up behind Eddie’s Jeep in my driveway. She tucked the small drum of blood under the flap of her jacket and raced across the lawn, stepping inside right behind Eddie.
I rushed everyone upstairs. Wayne was sitting on the edge of my bed, talking to himself. He stood when we came into the room. I closed the door behind us and locked it. I wasn’t expecting my mom for a while yet, but best not to take any chances.
When I retrieved Matilda from the closet, Chloe paled.
“Oh, wow. Janie. Just. Wow.” She handed the blood off to Eddie and covered her nose and mouth.
Eddie was the only one who didn’t seem bothered by the smell of decay rolling off of Matilda. He knelt down in front of her and opened his book, pulling out a tiny hair doll attached to the end of a leather chord he had been using as a bookmark. He opened the blood and poured it down Matilda’s throat. I gagged and looked away until he was done. Then he began chanting in some weird language while dangling the hair doll over Matilda’s body.
We all watched as the color came back to Matilda’s flesh, shifting from gray and green to a whitish blue. Her cheeks filled in slightly, and her hair regained some of its shine. When her fishy eyes opened, they were a hint bluer than they had been the first time I saw her after she died.
Wayne freaked out again when Matilda sat up of her own accord. He made for the door, but I had foreseen his outburst, so I was waiting there to block his path. “Oh god!” He wailed. “She’s going to eat our faces off!”
“Wayne?” Matilda pulled herself up with the help of my dresser. “Janie? What happened?”
“You died again, but Eddie brought you back,” I shouted over Wayne’s horrified gibberish.
“Wayne?” Matilda said again. “Wayne, please,” she sobbed. Real tears tinted her eyes.
Wayne finally stopped freaking out and turned around to face Matilda. “How?” he panted.
“Me,” Eddie answered, hanging his head. “That’s how.”
“Please, Wayne. Can we talk alone for a minute?” Matilda looked around the room at the rest of us.
“Alone?” Wayne didn’t look so sure.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Wayne,” she pleaded.
“You’re not?”
“No, cross my heart.” Matilda gave him a small smile.
“Okay.” He moved closer, away from the door.
Chloe, Eddie, and I slipped out into the hallway. Chloe blinked stiffly and frowned at me. “Well, that was unexpected. I just thought the blood was some weird quest you were sending me on so that I could regain your trust.”
Eddie hadn’t taken his eyes off of me since we left my room. “I didn’t know that you were keeping her in your closet. I just keep making things worse, don’t I?”
I laughed and threw my arms around both of them, pulling them into a painfully tight group hug. “Who wants a soda?”
We migrated to the kitchen in a daze. Chloe helped herself to a box of chocolate chip cookies in the pantry and sat down at the kitchen table. Eddie joined her, and I followed him, stealing a cookie from Chloe.
“I can’t believe it worked,” Eddie said.
Chloe snorted. “I can’t believe Janie kept it a secret.”
“And how do you suppose that would have gone over,” I said. “Hey, Chloe. Wanna come over and have a slumber party with me and my new undead BFF?”
“She’s your new BFF?” Chloe frowned at me.
“No. Well, I guess she sort of was while you and I were on the outs. I didn’t really have much of a choice.”
“Why were you keeping her in your closet?” Eddie asked.
“She was teaching me how to win over the Ds so I could infiltrate the prom committee and get them to do a masquerade theme. She thought that she might still be able to go as Wayne’s date that way.”
“And you were helping her, why exactly?” Chloe shoved another cookie in her mouth, watching me with an intensity that should be reserved for bad soap operas.
“Because she was threatening to make an anonymous call to Officer Russell and frame me as a grave robber.”
“Ah,” she laughed. “That sounds more like the Hun I know. I guess that explains your weird metamorphosis into a D lately too.”
“I am so sorry, Janie.” Eddie was wholly crestfallen. “I had no idea that the spell had even worked. She must have dug herself up after I left the graveyard.”
“Yeah,” Chloe snapped. “What’s up with that? What were you thinking, raising that evil cow from the dead?”
Eddie blushed and looked down at his hands in his lap. “It was stupid. I was trying to do something the easy way, and it all backfired.”
“Easy?” Chloe laughed. “I’m not sure how raising the dead is ever the easy way to do anything. You’re crazy.”
“Yeah,” Eddie sighed. “I better get home.” He looked up at me. “If you change your mind and want me to break the spell again, you’ve got my number. I’m going to get out of your hair.” He stood up from the table.
“Hey,” I said softly. “Thanks for coming over when I called.”
Eddie shook his head. “You don’t need to thank me. This is all my fault.”
I wanted to say it was okay, but that was stupid. It wasn’t okay, and no one was stupid or crazy enough to think it was. Not even Eddie. Instead, I said, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”
Once Eddie was gone, Chloe went back to the pantry and found a bag of Doritos and some bean dip. She also grabbed a box of powdered donuts and spread everything out on the table as she sat back down.
“We have some catching up to do,” she said. “I think Wayne and Matilda will be up there a while, so how about you take it from the top.”
I smiled at Chloe and tore open the bag of Doritos. Half an hour later, I had filled her in on every last gory detail. When I finished, she sat in disbelief amongst the remains of our comfort snacks.
“Wow. I can’t believe I missed out on all of that. I really wish you would have told me sooner,” she said.
“Me too.” I sighed and rubbed my stomach. It was sore and full of sugary goodness. “I guess everything will be alright now. I mean, Matilda is having a heart-to-heart with Wayne, and I think that’s all she really wanted anyway. It’s okay if Denise gets her big, gaudy disco ball prom.”
“Screw that,” Chloe said. “Denise is going down. I’ve got this one covered.”
“Even if it means helping Matilda?” I raised an eyebrow.
Chloe tilted her head from side to side. “I gotta give the girl props. She put an awful lot of work into making you the new queen bee at school, just so she might have one last shot with Wayne.” She crinkled her nose.
Chloe had never really considered Wayne much of a prize. After witnessing his little freak out upstairs, I wasn’t really sure what I saw in him anymore either. Sure, I guess I freaked out when I first saw zombie Matilda too. Who am I kidding? I peed my pants. But I didn’t try to climb the walls in a hysterical panic like some sort of trapped animal, and I hadn’t shrieked like a banshee. Eddie definitely seemed like he’d be a better companion in a crisis.
Chloe slapped both hands on the table. “Well, I gotta get home. I have a lot of work to do. Plus, you’re out of snacks.”
After Chloe left, I went upstairs to check on Wayne and Matilda, and caught them making out on my bed.
“Ewww. Really? Can’t you do that in your own room?” I covered my eyes.
“Sorry.” Wayne cleared his throat and stood up. “Sorry,” he said again. He looked back at Matilda. “You know, you could come stay in my closet. If you want. There’s a shed in my backyard too.”
Matilda looked from Wayne to me, almost like she needed my permission.
I laughed. “You’re a grown woman, er, zombie, whatever. Do what you want.”
Matilda smiled. “I’ll call from Wayne’s to check on the prom theme verdict tomorrow.”
“You still want to go?” I frowned, wondering if she would pull out her ruthless threats in front of Wayne.
She shrugged. “I’d like to, but it’s okay if I can’t. I just thought it might be a nice way to spend my last night with Wayne.” She took his hand and smiled sadly.
“Your last night?”
“Yeah, Janie. I can’t live this way forever. I mean, I guess I could, but come on. I don’t belong here anymore. I should be somewhere else, and Wayne needs to get on with his life.”
Wayne sat back down on my bed and wrapped his arms around her, leaning in for another kiss.
“Okay. Enough,” I said again. “We’ll talk tomorrow after school.” I shooed them out of my room and downstairs, where I let them out through the back door. Wayne and Matilda snuck across the backyards, hand in hand. It was sweet, in a gross sort of way.
I went back up to my room and stripped the comforter off my bed. I didn’t feel like burning it this time, but I definitely didn’t feel like lying down where Wayne had just made out with his zombie girlfriend. Yuck. No thank you.