Becca’s life changed dramatically when she became infected with the Z virus and turned part-zombie. Now she must put her fear of dogs aside to rescue one little puppy and find the other dogs that went missing. She’d do almost anything, she realizes, to do that…even break a few laws if necessary.
Most of us had been too busy surviving, and trying to avoid the roaming hordes of ravenous undead, to notice something else was going on.
Yeah, like the rest wasn’t bad enough? It was, but this new thing nearly did what the mutated Z virus didn’t already do–kill me.
The morning started great when my Uncle Franco brought this beautiful, year-old white German Shepherd puppy over for us to meet. Unlike my first dog experience (more on that later), the puppy bounced around, played, barked, and most important, didn’t make me afraid.
Call it love at first lick.
For once, I forgot all the zombie stuff that had plagued me for the past year. I threw a ball and laughed at how she ran and brought it right back. “Ooh, she’s so cute and smart! I’m going to call her Fluffy! Is she mine? Can I keep her, can I?”
I begged and begged, though I knew my Tia (Spanish for Auntie) Imelda already loved her as much as I did. Then we heard the yells outside. My uncle’s cries of “look out!” came too late. My cousin Carm opened the door and jumped back at sight of the chaos in front of our house. Our neighbor Mr. Thompson screamed, “go back in, shut the door!” as two of the zombies came at him.
In the last few months, most of the full Zs had been rounded up and exterminated, but a few wanderers like these kept us on our toes–at least they should’ve. My uncle grabbed his gun and fired at the monsters. The excitement was too much–the puppy panicked and pulled out of her collar. I screamed as she darted out the door and ran off in the opposite direction.
“NO-NO!” I yelled and tried to catch her, but she was gone. I would’ve followed if not for the strong arms of my cousin and aunt holding me back.
“No, Becca honey, let her go,” Tia implored. “She’ll come back or someone will find her.”
“No, she won’t,” I cried. “She won’t!”
And she didn’t.
My aunt’s friend Amelia from down the street stopped by later and let us know my suspicions had some truth to them. As a nurse, she had a way of hearing what was going on in the community.
“Sure glad they got those creatures.” She gave a mock shiver. “The National Guard’s been doin’ a fine job of watching out for stragglers, so I can’t imagine how those two made it into town.”
I shrugged and tried to be polite, but my heart wasn’t in it.
Amelia reached out and patted my chin. “Oh sweetie, I wanted to see how you’re doing. I saw that cute little dog of yours run by my house. I tried to stop her, but couldn’t catch her.”
She paused for a minute. The concerned look on her face did make me pay attention. Amelia was a sweet, caring lady, who also told us when she heard something we should know about. What made her even more special to me was that of all the people in our neighborhood, she’d been the only one who welcomed me back home after I’d been infected. She treated me the same as always, like she was my aunt.
“Amelia? Is something wrong?”
The older woman paused a second, then leaned in, and looked me straight in the eye. “At first I didn’t think much of it, but now, well, I’m not so sure. Two of my other neighbors’ dogs are missing, too. One ran off and never came back. He told me his dog never went further than the house next door before this zombie thing hit. My other neighbor said her dog was in the yard and when she went to call her in, the dog was gone, and the gates were still locked.”
The uneasy feeling I’d had earlier came back with a vengeance. I tried to ignore it. No way did I want to think that those monsters had found the dogs and attacked them, too. I couldn’t bear the thought.
“Maybe the dogs snuck out and got lost?”
Amelia shrugged, her face questioning. “Maybe, maybe, but a couple people I work with at the hospital said their dogs also disappeared. I think something’s going on and the police aren’t bothering with it, not with all the other things going on. My co-workers called and both were told, real sarcastic-like, to file a report and it would be looked into when things let up. No one at city hall took their complaints seriously, either.”
She continued, her voice lower. “It’s simply been too chaotic to worry about the smaller things happening, not that it’s small to any of us, of course. Now, you didn’t hear it from me, but the rumor is somebody’s taking those dogs. And no, it’s not those things.”
My gasp prompted her to squeeze my hand and tell me not to worry before she left. It didn’t help. Now I was more worried than ever about where Fluffy had gone and what was happening to her.
The rest of the day I ignored everyone. I didn’t want to talk, or hear their well-meaning attempts to console me. Instead I sat by the window, my eyes on the street (well, one of them when my other eye crossed), my senses ever alert for a streak of white fur and the sound of a playful yip or bark.
Nothing anyone said could stop me from making those weird hiccupping sounds that passed for crying since I’d been infected with the Z virus. It was one of the odd side effects of my new life as a part-Z, which luckily, didn’t include the disgusting things done by the full-zombies, nor their horrible diet. Ick. I let out a big sigh. Chalk it up to the latest bad event in what had been a bad year. I felt a big pity party coming on.
After a couple hours, I rubbed my still-too-dry eyes and wished real tears would appear again. Like hitting replay on my iPod, I heard Tia’s voice in my head saying her favorite, often repeated phrase: “Wishing don’t make it so, honey.”
I knew that. All of it was pointless, so, so, pointless.
My mood dark and growing worse by the minute, I stumbled to my feet and headed for the stairs, my limp more pronounced from my self-confinement. I motioned Carm to come upstairs with me. Once in my still-too-messy room, I shoved over the pile of clothes my cousin, ever the fashionista, had brought over for me from her always overstuffed closet.
I plopped myself on the bed and told her we needed to do something. “We need a plan. We need to find Fluffy and find out why all these dogs are disappearing.”
Carm stopped folding clothes and stared at me. “We? As in me and the person who freezes like a statue when a dog comes near her?”
No way did I want to go over our stupida argument again about my fear of dogs and my, um, “scent” problem since my other cousin, Carm’s brother, Spence, infected me with the Z virus via a scratch. Given the circumstances, I didn’t think it irrational at all.
“No, this is different.”
She raised an eyebrow at me and kept on sorting. “Really?”
I snorted and kneaded one of the shirts she’d handed me into a ball before tossing it back on the bed. “Yeah, Fluffy’s different. She doesn’t scare me. I can deal with the other dogs if it means we find her. Really.”
My cousin flashed a “who-are-you-kidding” look and went back to straightening out the pile of clothes on my bed. Okay, so she had good reason not to believe me after my last experience. Our uncle brought a big black German Shepherd dog named Chico over, Tia thinking it a good idea for protection before me and Carm left to go find our mothers.
Yeah, the dog had scared me–a lot–especially after Carm’s declaration that I had a certain “smell” since becoming a part Z. “Something like going by a landfill and then it’s gone real quick” kind of scent, she’d said. Great.
The whole situation scared me even more since I figured the D-O-G with its big head and even bigger teeth would notice. He didn’t–that time. So, after that incident, I understandably never, ever, hoped to see another canine up so close and personal again. Then my uncle came over this time with Fluffy, the cutest, fluffiest, and friendliest little German Shepherd pup I’d ever seen.
Now she was gone, and even if I couldn’t feel my heartbeat anymore, I knew my heart was broken.
Unable to sit still, I paced across the room, trying to think of what to do when Carm interrupted. “Hey, look at this.” She unfolded a newspaper and pointed at the back page.
“What?” I asked, getting more aggravated. “C’mon, Carm, help me think of something. I have to find Fluffy!”
She gripped my arm and thrust the paper in front of my face. “You better read this.”
I stared at the page, focusing on the small square of black and red print she tapped her finger on. “Great Job! Great Pay. No Experience…So? What’s that have to do with anything? We need to find–”
She cut me off. “Keep reading.”
The last line got me–Must be able to follow step-by-step instructions and work with animals. “That doesn’t sound good. Do you think they’re doing something there with the dogs?”
A shudder hit me at the idea of what that could be. Our eyes met. I didn’t have to say anything else. “Call the number. I can’t go there, you know, because of how I look…but you can.”
When Carm got nervous, she sounded like a mouse. Like now. “You-you want me to call them?” She took a breath and squeaked out another answer. “I don’t think it’ll work. We shouldn’t get involved in something like this. Maybe we better tell someone else like Tia or Uncle Franco.”
I rolled my eyes. Well, one of them, since the other one had a way of not cooperating. “Carm, you know what’ll happen. They’ll call the police. The police will tell her they’ll look into it, and they won’t. That’s what Amelia said. They’re too busy with all the zombie mess and chasing down vigilantes.”
The moment the V word left my mouth, I knew I’d made a mistake. A big one. I cursed under my breath as Carm’s eyes went wide.
“Vi-vigilantes,” she murmured. “Did you forget how they attacked our car? How they broke into the house? It’s still not totally safe for you out there yet. I saw it on TV. It isn’t. People still don’t trust people like you.”
The best way to deal with my cousin’s paranoia was to divert her attention. My thoughts whirled as I figured out the best way to do it. I had to get back to the dogs–in a hurry.
“Most people are used to part-Zs like me now. Never mind the few troublemakers. We have to see what’s going on with those dogs. Who else is going to do it? You can get Jesse to help if it makes you feel better.”
I intentionally left out Jesse’s brother Gabe and hoped she didn’t bring him up. I couldn’t think about him. Not right now. Her face grew thoughtful. I could see the wheels turning, a good sign. My determination grew.
“C’mon, cuz, I know you can do it. Just call and say you’re interested in the job, ask what it’s about. Arrange an interview in a couple days. Once you get the address, we go check it out and see what’s going on. “
Carm’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know…”
Time to pour on the guilt, I decided. “All right, what if Fluffy’s there–and they have other dogs, too? I know you don’t want to leave all those dogs there, alone, scared, waiting for who knows what to happen, who knows what someone is doing to them…”
I gave her my best puppy dog look.
“Okay, okay, I give.”
“Now, don’t talk a lot. Only ask what the job’s about and what you’d be doing. Most important, get the address. Keep your voice low so you sound older.”
She nodded, grabbed her phone, then stopped, her face worried. “Wait, what if they have Caller ID? They’ll know who I am.”
I almost hit my forehead with my palm, but stopped myself. With my easy-to-erode skin condition, it wasn’t a good idea doing anything that could make my skin crack again, especially when it had been clearing up so nice lately.
“Ugh, you’re right, stupida me. I didn’t think of that. I think there’s a Caller ID blocking thing on our phones. You can use mine.”
Grabbing my cell phone, I checked the settings, and after several minutes of fumbling and going to the website, set up the temporary Caller ID blocking system. “Hmm, looks like it’ll work. Let me call your phone first to make sure.”
I pulled up her name, hit send, and waited for her distinctive ring. The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds rang out. We both were big Beatles fans thanks to our mothers constantly playing the CDs and albums since we were little.
“Good song,” I remarked. Last week it had been Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. By Christmas, she’d be through the top hundred hits at the rate she changed ringtones.
Carm looked at her phone and nodded. “Okay, it works. It says number unavailable.”
“Good, now remember what I said.”
Perched on the end of the bed, she quickly punched in the numbers. “It’s ringing,” she whispered. “Oh, hello, um, yes, I’m calling about the ad, about working with animals. My experience? I’ve worked at a dog groomer’s. I’m taking classes now to be a vet technician.”
I gave her a thumbs-up. Both of us had hoped to begin checking out colleges soon, especially since my condition finally seemed stable. She’d talked about going to veterinary school since we were kids so her little white lie wasn’t totally false.
“Uh-huh, so you’re hiring people to care for animals? Medications?” Her face grew worried. “Sure, I can give them medicine. I’ve done that. My name? Alicia, Alicia Simmons.”
I gave her the okay sign.
She continued, her voice more confident. “You’re at the Tallman Business Park, Sheridan Road. Number one, two, one. Day after tomorrow? Yes, I can be there. Four p.m. is perfect. Thank you.”
She ended the call and let out a huge sigh of relief. “Whew, glad that’s over. Why are they in the business park? Wouldn’t somebody know what they’re doing there? How come the police aren’t looking into it? You know, maybe we should call them first.”
“Hey, one question at a time. C’mon, they don’t believe the adults, you think they’ll believe us? Besides, they’re too busy trying to round up the rest of the Zs. We talked about this. It’ll be fine.”
Carm’s face grew thoughtful. “I suppose, but the police still have to take care of other crimes, too, right? I still think we should call them.”
I sighed and looked at the ceiling. “All right, you call then. Tell them your dog is missing and see what they say.”
“No, I’ll tell them someone stole my dog.” She ended with a pout.
I couldn’t help turning on the sarcasm. “And they’ll get right on it, huh? Gee, Miss, we’re kind of busy right now getting all these zombies and hoodlums off the streets, but we’ll drop that and help you look for your dog. Think they’ll do that?”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms. “You don’t have to be so snotty. You win. We’ll go look. I think we should have Gabe and Jesse go with us, though. You know, in case.”
This time I raised my eyebrows at her. Gabe? She knew we weren’t talking. Not since he’d gone all quiet on me two weeks ago. We’d been together like almost every day for the past year. He’d been with me fighting Zs, and helped me in the hospital, and stayed with me when I got really sick. Then all of a sudden, he just goes off and disappears. No texts, no calls, nothing. I’d been really mad, but now I was just plain hurt.
“Carm, that’s mean, even for you. You know what Gabe did.”
“Bec, no, I’m not being mean,” she insisted. “Jesse texted me. He said they got caught up in a Z sweep. Their attorney had to bail them out of jail. They’re on their way here.”
I looked at her in surprise. “Here? How come Gabe didn’t tell me himself?”
Carm shook her head. “You better ask him that, and maybe talk about some other things, too. You guys always seem to be fighting.”
My cousin was right. He and I had been arguing–a lot. I wasn’t sure why except I’d been feeling, I don’t know, kind of different lately. Cranky. Really crabby and icky.
“Never mind,” I snapped, my annoyance growing at Little Miss Right Again. “I’ll text him. I want him to bring his Nikon and his video camera. We might need them.” I did that and headed for the door. “Let’s take a ride. I want to see what this place looks like. We’ll just take a quick peek.”
Carm gave me a look like I’d grown a third eyeball in the center of my forehead. The idea had me frantically touch my skin in case something had shifted or moved. It hadn’t. As weird as it sounded, I knew with my condition anything could happen. But that wasn’t the worst thing I had to deal with at the moment, of course.
“You forget something?” she asked. “You think Tia is going to let us go wander around like nothing happened after our visitors this morning?”
Big sigh. No, I hadn’t forgotten. The idea of how to get our aunt to ease up on her restrictions had me feeling like I was trapped in a cage and had no choices, which I didn’t. I was tired of being inside.
I needed to do something. I needed to find that puppy.
We went downstairs to the kitchen where I poured myself a fresh glass of cranberry protein juice and Carm grabbed some potato chips. I eyed the newspaper, noting the stories urging people to not be afraid to resume their lives. Spending money, reopening the stores, and getting people back to normalcy, was the only way to get the local economy recovering, one story said.
Should I push for my aunt to go out and take us shopping? I’d decided to make the suggestion when the phone rang. Carm and I exchanged glances as we listened to my aunt’s side of the conversation.
“Hilda, that’s wonderful,” Tia said. “I’m so happy you and Enrique got the new office set up. I wondered if you would be able to make the move with all the terrible things going on outside. You say it seems safer? Hmm, funny, we caught two of those monsters outside our house this morning. Well, you’re right. We hadn’t seen any before that for a few weeks. It has quieted down a lot. The boxes? Yes, I still have them. Oh, it can’t wait? I know, I’d love to see the office and…well, you know, maybe you’re right. I’ve been cooped up in the house too long. Wait, uno momento, let me get a pen.”
I passed a pen and paper to my aunt. As she wrote down the address, I felt more hopeful about getting out of the house. I tried to act nonchalant when she finished talking and hung up the phone.
“Well, niñas, it looks like my friends moved their business and need my help. I have some boxes of records I was holding for them. Why they need it now, I don’t know…” She paused and glanced at the newspaper I’d moved closer. “Hmm, I see the mayor said things are clearing up. He claims it’s safer.” She gave a snort of contempt. “Huh, even with those two monsters at our door this morning?”
I shrugged and tried to sound encouraging. “I’ve seen more people outside. Even Amelia said she was going back to work.”
My aunt raised an eyebrow, but seemed to come to terms with the changes. “She did? Well, I guess she knows better than anyone what’s going on. You girls want to take a ride? Bring those boxes from downstairs out to the car. I have to admit I’m tired of being in the house. The ride will do us all good.”
Once the two of us got settled in the back seat, Tia headed out on Route 83 and shot over to Highway 50. Carm pulled out her phone. “Tia, where are we going?”
Tia peered at Carm in the rearview mirror. “It’s that new business park on Sheridan.”
I gave Carm a discreet poke with my elbow and smirked at her little yelp. “I heard about that. It has a funny name. Tall–”
“Tallman Business Park,” my aunt said.
“Yeah, that’s it. What’s the address?”
“One, four, one,” my aunt said.
Carm leaned out of reach before I poked her again. Perfect! We wanted to see what was going on at one, two, one. With any luck, the two places were close, if not right next to each other.
We drove in silence the rest of the way. It was nice to drive normal again–no dodging Zs, no running over gory, yucky Z parts splattered all over the street now that the National Guard had rounded up most of them and cleared the city. Even Tia seemed to relax and enjoy the ride. She wasn’t all hunched over as she drove. She held the steering wheel looser, not with her hands like talons, as she had been doing.
Even Carm seemed calmer. Good. Now all we had to do was look around without raising our aunt’s suspicions. We rounded the curve and pulled to a stop at the stop sign.
“There it is.” Carm pointed to the large painted wood sign across the street. Tallman Business Park, it said. Business at Its Best.
Tia turned right and swung onto a gravel drive. We followed the road, Carm pointing out the new buildings we passed. Giant cement warehouses lined the road interspersed with smaller, ranch-style office buildings featuring different but contrasting shades of vinyl siding. The park’s past use as a trailer home park hadn’t been totally erased, though. A small section of trailers remained barely visible behind a big wood fence in the back.
“I wonder how it is around here at night,” I asked. “Mom said most of these old, run-down trailer parks are disappearing. They’re getting closed down if they don’t upgrade and make improvements.”
Tia nodded and sighed softly. “It can get pretty rough down here at night. It has to be pretty bad if this is the only place you can live.”
Me and Carm exchanged glances.
The first row had six large warehouses, three on each side. We pulled into one of the parking areas near the first building. My mind worked out the next step to take as Tia turned off the engine. I watched her scan the area before she opened the door.
“Girls, you want to stay here or come in with me? It seems safe enough.”
My eyes met Carm’s before I gave a nonchalant shrug. “We can wait here. It’s nice to be outside.”
“All right.” Tia’s face creased with concern and then relaxed. “I suppose it’ll be fine. I may be a while as you know how Hilda likes to talk.”
“You want us to bring the boxes in?” I asked.
“No, Enrique will get them. You girls keep an eye out. And if you do get out of the car, don’t go far.”
I smiled, pleased with how things were working out. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
Both of us watched her walk away. Once she went inside, I reached for the car door handle.
“Now what?” Carm asked.
“We better not waste time,” I answered. “Let’s go see where our building is.”
We got out and walked around the corner opposite of where our aunt had gone in. Lucky for us, the building had no windows on the side. I checked the numbers as we walked until we got to the second warehouse. A small sign in front indicated we’d found our destination. The sign also advertised spaces for lease and invited visitors to contact the management for information. I grabbed a brochure with a map and the names of the businesses to look at later.
We walked to the corner of the building, figuring there had to be an entrance for deliveries and unloading. Instead we found something better–a couple picnic tables which gave us a good view of both buildings.
“We can sit here and watch what’s going on.”
“I could go for a snack, I’m hungry,” Carm said.
“You’re always hungry.”
Carm answered by sticking out her tongue. Luckily, any pending argument had to wait when a plain white van pulled up. A man wearing a dark blue jacket and pants got out and walked to the back of the van. He opened the door, took out two boxes, and set a clipboard on top before heading for the back entrance.
“Quick, Carm, get a picture.”
She pulled the phone from her pocket too late. The man disappeared inside.
“Sorry, I missed it,” she said. “Maybe he’ll take some more boxes out?”
“Maybe, but if he doesn’t, we better go. Something bothers me about those boxes he carried in.”
“They didn’t have any writing on them,” Carm added.
“No, not that. I thought I saw holes on the sides.
“Holes?”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t need those unless something inside needed air. The boxes might’ve been empty, but if they had animals in them, then they were knocked out or-or worse.” I gulped. “It was quiet. Much too quiet.”
The quiet didn’t last long, though. A familiar sounding moan drew our attention. We turned and stared in shock at two ugly Zs staggering in our direction.
Almost on cue, Carm began to hyperventilate. “Bec-Bec, what’re we going to do? What about Tia? What if she comes out?”
I grabbed Carm’s wrist and tried to calm her, not easy to do since I knew how vulnerable we were. With things clearing up, I’d taken to not carrying around our BB guns or anything else to use in our defense. I now realized how dumb that had been.
I watched the two zombies shamble forward, still yards away, but close enough that I could see the ratty clothes hanging from their skeletal forms. My nose wrinkled. Even with my limited sense of smell, their distinctive rotten meat odor made me gag. More moans drifted our way.
“Carm, we don’t have any weapons. All we can do is get the security guard. On the count of three. One, two–”
She bolted. I followed, the two of us running inside and raising the alarm. “Zombies! Security-security! Two zombies outside! Someone, help!”
Finally, in what felt like forever if only minutes, two security guards rushed out, guns drawn. Several office workers gathered by the door to watch. I saw our chance. Gunshots and screams signaled the two men weren’t the best of shots. I signaled Carm to follow and ran down the hall to a large door. The sign said Employees Only. I peered through the window into some kind of workroom.
Urging Carm to get her phone ready, I pushed through the door into a room filled with two steel tables and several desks. To our surprise, rows of empty steel cages lined the back wall. At least I thought they were empty. Growls and barks sounded from two of the lower cages. One held a small black dog. A brown dog sat in the other. No sign of Fluffy. Heavy locks prevented me from grabbing the dogs and running.
Carm interrupted my observations. “Bec, we have to get out of here.”
I nodded and told her to take a couple photos with her camera. “Make sure you get a photo of the wall. Hurry up. I’m going to yell about the zombies as a distraction, then follow me out.”
A minute later, I ran out and around the corner, nearly knocking down two women dressed in white lab coats. “Hey, what are you doing in here?” one yelled. “Security!”
I cut off their calls of alarm with my own. “Run-run! Zombies are coming! Get security. Hurry, run!”
The women quickly forgot their questions about me and rushed down the opposite hall, yelling as they went. Their actions gave me and Carm enough time to get back to the entrance. The workers and the delivery man ignored us as they watched the security men directing the disposal of the two zombies now lying in the center of the road. The two of us ran and circled around the opposite end of the building to make our way back to the car.
The thought of what could be going on at that warehouse put both of us in a bad mood as we got home and went up to my bedroom.
“Bec, you think maybe it’s some kind of animal hospital?” Carm asked.
I raised my eyebrows. “Over there? So out of the way?”
My suspicions could result from an over-active imagination and nothing more, but I doubted it. I plopped on the bed, then jumped back up and pulled the brochure from my back pocket. “I almost forgot about this. It’s that map from the business park. Let’s see what other businesses are there.”
We studied the layout, the names of the businesses, and the details about the park. “There’s a paper place, a trucking office, and a few places I can’t tell what they do,” I said, “plus the place we were at, Health Systems, Inc. and…oh, no.”
“What?” Carm asked.
I pointed my finger at a name on the list and nodded as she gasped. “Yeah, and this.”
It was a big surprise to see the name of my special makeup manufacturer, “Girls Like Us,” listed under the business names. After I fell ill, finding a woman who not only had been infected with the Z virus like me, but had developed a whole line of fantastic, great-covering body makeup, foundation, and lip gloss had made my life tons better. I called the makeup “Ghouls Like Us” since she really understood our problems. This hit me. Hard.
“Carm, what do you think?”
My cousin hemmed and hawed. “Ugh, well, it could be a coincidence.”
“Yeah, a big coincidence.”
She remained quiet while I reasoned it out. “I saw her on some talk show a while ago. You can hardly tell she’s infected unless you know or look real close.” The disappointment threatened to drag me down. “She-she seemed so nice, so genuine. I can’t believe she’d do anything terrible.”
Carm screwed up her face in confusion. “Terrible? Like what?”
“Like steal dogs–and use them to test her makeup. I wonder…maybe it isn’t a coincidence. Look the business up, Health Systems, Inc.”
Carm scanned the list of sites that came up on her phone.
“There,” I pointed. “Go to that one.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Carm said. “It says Health Systems, a division of GLU.” She went to several other sites. “There it is, GLU, Girls Like Us, LLC. I guess it makes sense that a business with the word health in it is tied to a cosmetics firm. Nothing wrong with that, though.”
“Possibly not,” I cautioned, “but the real question still is what this health place is doing with dogs and cages in their building? Not something they want anyone to know about, I bet.”
At this point I knew talking to my aunt about the whole problem and my suspicions would be the best thing to do. Of course, I decided on a riskier plan of action.
“Call your mom,” I told my cousin. “Ask her if you can spend the night. I need your help.”
Carm’s eyes widened. “Help? Help with what? Oh, you’re not…we can’t go back there. You saw the security guards. Maybe the National Guard didn’t get all the zombies roaming around at night yet. I-I don’t want to run into any out there, not in the dark. We should let the police take care of it.”
I sighed. Not again. We didn’t have time for her to get all chicken on me. “We’ll be fine, Carm. We can do it. Remember what my neighbor Amelia said? Do you think the police really care about some missing dogs?”
Carm began to search on her phone. I peered over her shoulder. “What’re you looking for?”
“This.” She pointed to the web page and began scrolling down the list. “The police have to care. Look. Wisconsin has laws against dog-napping–taking a dog that doesn’t belong to you without permission–and animal cruelty, and other stuff. They have to do something if we show them what we found.” She searched in her phone. “Oh, or didn’t.”
“What?”
She showed me something fuzzy and out of focus. “I need a new phone. None of the photos came out.”
“Need a new operator is more like it,” I grumbled. “You know what that means. No arguments. We have to go back. I’ll text Jesse and Gabe to come pick us up.”
Dinner over–mine the usual liquid protein kind since I’d really gotten sick of eating all that tasteless, boring, uncooked chicken–we helped Tia with the dishes and said goodnight since she was going to bed early. I wasted no time putting our plan in motion and pulled a bunch of black clothes from the back of my closet.
“Hurry up and change,” I urged my cousin. “I have flashlights for both of us. I heard some trucks go by, so I think the Guardsmen are still patrolling. We’ll probably have to avoid them more than the Zs. Okay?”
Carm looked like she’d jump and run at the slightest noise. I hoped she’d pull herself together once we got outside.
“If there’s a security guard, one of us can distract him,” I said. “I put some hair pins in your bag, in case you need to pick a lock. And I’ve got these. Found them in the garage.” I held up a big pair of metal cutters. “Just in case. But hopefully we can find the keys. Once it’s dark, we’ll get out of here. You, ready?”
“What about the Zs?” she asked, her voice shaky.
I held up my souvenir bat, the surface stained red from past excursions. It would do. Besides, I didn’t plan on us getting that close anyway. Not with more important stuff to do.
Easing out my bedroom window, we picked our way down the trellis and jumped to the sidewalk. The house remained dark and quiet, telling me Tia must’ve fallen asleep already. Good.
We jogged down the block and stopped when a car blinked its headlights. Carm climbed in the back seat next to Jesse and gave him a hug. “I’m glad you showed up!”
I didn’t share her enthusiasm. I’d talked to Gabe earlier and told him how hurt and mad I was. We’d kind of worked it out, but I didn’t want to let him off that easy for ignoring me. Still, I felt myself melt when he gazed at me, his eyes dark. No matter how much we fought, the two of us had a special connection, and it wasn’t just chemistry. We had something I couldn’t shake no matter how mad I got or how much I pushed him away.
“Now explain this idea to me again?” Gabe asked and pulled the car out onto the road.
I told him what we’d found and said we needed to get more proof. “We have to get those dogs out of there,” I ended.
As expected, he gave me a look that told me my plan was as crazy as I thought it was.
“Breaking and entering? Theft? Burglary?” His face darkened. “You prepared to go to jail?”
I looked away. “Well, uh, no. I don’t think it’ll happen like that.”
His eyebrows went even lower if that was possible. “You mean you didn’t think.”
My anger rising, I ignored my initial feelings of being happy to see him. Luckily, Carm headed off my outburst.
“I say we look around first,” she said, ever the diplomat. “If we see any security we leave. Or one of us keep him occupied, though I don’t think that’s a good idea. Either way, it looks suspicious. Who else drives around there at night?”
The urge to stick my tongue out at her disappeared as we rounded the corner and turned into the park. It looked creepier at night though each row was well-lit. As it turned out, we weren’t alone. Several cars sat next to the building. Gabe shut the car off as we parked in one of the open spaces at the end of the next row.
We watched and waited. After ten minutes of nothing going on, I’d had enough and grabbed the door handle. “We need to get out. We have to see who’s inside. I’m going with or without you.”
After what seemed like forever, Gabe agreed. “All right. You bring any weapons?”
I held up my bat and showed him the small pellet gun I’d also stuck in my bag.
“I guess we’ll chance it,” he said. “You two wait by the building next door while we try to find out how many people are inside. No matter what, if you see any Zs, don’t yell. We don’t want whoever’s in there knowing we’re out here.”
We ran down the row between the buildings. I peered around the corner of the building next to our target location, bat in hand, and watched the guys sneak toward the back door. Of course, things never go according to plan. A telltale bad odor drifted our way. Carm turned and yelled, “Bec!” as two ugly Zs stumbled our way.
My cousin had gotten pretty good at defending herself when she didn’t give in to her fears. This time, however, she gave me a panicked look and waved her empty hands. It was up to me.
“Get behind me,” I whispered. “See if you can wave Gabe and Jesse over, but make sure no one else is out there. And don’t yell!”
She ran to the end of the building and a minute later, began jumping and waving. I pulled out my bat and got into position. One of the ghouls moaned and grabbed at me, while the other seemed to shuffle faster. I backed up and hurriedly pulled out the pellet gun. The two came at me, low moans coming from what remained of their decayed lips. I readied to fire when Gabe rushed around the corner and warned me, his voice low.
“Bec, no guns, they’ll make too much noise! Here, catch!”
He tossed me a metal garden spike. I picked it up from the ground, spun around, and stabbed out, catching the Z in the head and within inches of biting me. It fell, and with no time to reclaim the spike, I swung the bat at the second zombie. CRACK! The bat hit the ghoul’s face and crushed in the side, yet it kept coming. I hit again and connected with the top of its diseased brain this time. It let out a final moan and fell in a disgusting heap.
A second later, Gabe and Jesse rushed around the corner and plastered themselves against the wall next to us. “Someone’s coming out,” Gabe whispered. “Shh!”
Voices drifted our way, but I couldn’t be sure who was talking. I inched closer to the edge of the wall and peeked around the corner. Two people stood in front of the building. Watching a group of Zs approach would’ve been less shocking than seeing the lady I admired, the owner of the Girls Like Us Makeup Company, and Enrique, the husband of our aunt’s friend, together.
No matter how you looked at it, something was going on. Something wrong.
Jesse peered around the corner and aimed his video camera. He finished and crouched down. I balanced the Nikon camera’s long lens against his arm and clicked the shutter. Enrique stopped talking and looked up like he’d heard something, but then continued his conversation. I hurriedly took several more pictures and waved everyone to go. We ran past the dead zombies and back to our car.
“Whew.” I plopped in the front seat and checked the camera images. “That was close. Okay, looks like I got some photos.”
Jesse nodded to his brother. “I managed to get a video of the inside from the side window, too. We’re set.”
“Good,” Gabe said. “Now we wait for them to leave. Everybody duck down and get comfortable. It could be a while.”
I didn’t protest when Gabe hugged me close. No matter what happened, or how mad I got at him, we had a special bond. Not only had he helped me adjust to life as a part Z, but he saved me quite a few times from my worst impulses. More times than I wanted to admit.
About twenty minutes or so later a light flashed as one car, and then another, pulled out. I almost hated for our adventure to end, but knew Tia would be frantic and call out the Guard if she didn’t find us upstairs come morning.
Like before, Gabe parked down the block from the house and shut off the lights. The kiss he gave me made it harder to leave.
“Now, no more being mad,” he urged. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good. I should be moved into the apartment next weekend. I want you to come over and help me set things up. We’ll get pizza and spend some time together. You want to?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I want to.”
He kissed me again. “You better go. We’re going to see my friend at the sheriff’s department. I told him what you said about no one else wanting to help or look for those dogs. He was pretty interested. I’ll let you know what happens.”
I’d barely gulped down breakfast the next morning, this time a cranberry-orange-protein drink, when the phone rang. “Got it,” I yelled. Gabe’s voice greeted me on the other end. “Hey. Yeah, I’m up. How’d it go? Really?” I squealed and waved at Carm. “Yeah, we’ll be here.”
I ran to the steps and told Carm to hurry up. “Get dressed. They’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”
My aunt stopped us at the stairs. “What’s the hurry? Who’s coming over?”
“Buenos días, Tia. The guys are coming over with news about the dogs. Isn’t that great?”
I let it go at that, figuring she’d hear about her friend’s involvement and our roles in it all soon enough. Throwing on my clothes, I hurriedly dabbed makeup on my worst dark spots, brushed my teeth and smoothed my hair, finishing just as the doorbell rang.
I pounded down the stairs and waited as Tia greeted the sheriff’s deputy, along with Gabe and Jesse.
“Good morning, ma’am. I’m Deputy Wilson. I wanted to share some information and get a statement from your nieces, if that’s all right? And I believe we have something that belongs to you.”
With that, he took something from Gabe and held out a small dog carrier. I heard the excited barks and let out a squeal. “Fluffy! You found her! Is she all right?”
The deputy smiled. “She’s fine, Miss. She was with several other dogs in the back of that warehouse. You’ll be glad to know the business owners have been arrested and the other owners are getting their dogs back, thanks to you and your friends.”
Tia arched her eyebrows at me, but thankfully the deputy had her ear while he explained what happened. I saw the shock on her face and felt bad when she heard about her friend’s involvement. Of course, we’d have a serious talk later and she’d probably ground me. For now, it was worth it as I played with the energetic little puppy darting around my feet.
Once the deputy left, Tia made it clear she was unhappy with our actions. “I’m disappointed at your sneaking around, although I am grateful that everything ended well. I still cannot believe that Hilda and her husband were involved in such a terrible thing. Even worse, they kept records in those boxes they had me hold for them.” She shook her head and sighed. “However, I think that you and Carm will probably be staying home this weekend helping me and her mother clean closets.”
I saved my protests as Tia went to the kitchen, knowing she wouldn’t relent and realizing I’d actually got off easy.
“I guess I won’t be able to come over this weekend,” I told Gabe as he sat next to me on the couch.
“Next weekend,” he insisted. “I’ll be there. No matter what, you and Carm did a good thing. You kept at it, and I’m glad you let me help. We make a good team, you know.”
I smiled, realizing how lucky I really was. “Yeah, I guess we do make a good team, don’t we?”
Becca is also the star of C.A. Verstraete’s debut novel, GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie.