Eat, Brains, Love (19 page)

“None taken,” I said.

“You're going to help us expose a government conspiracy,” said Amanda. “Come on, Kyle. It's your dream come true.”

Kyle shoved the camera into his backpack. Then, he rubbed his hands over his face, like he was trying to shake off a bad dream or unscramble the pieces of his blown mind.

“Zombies,” he said at last, with a shaky smile. “I knew it.”

“Yeah,” deadpanned Amanda, smiling a little too, “but the aliens still haven't landed, there's no such thing as ESP, and Bigfoot is just some fatty in a gorilla suit. So you're, like, one for one thousand.”

 

After that, I shook hands with Kyle and then gave the siblings some space for their discreetly tearful good-bye. I was thinking about my own family again, how rad it would be to have a clandestine meeting with them. Or better yet—a normal meeting, like dinner at home, after I'd cured my zombiism and possibly overthrown a corrupt branch of government. I sort of wished I could see them now, though. For the first time ever, if my dad asked me what I was going to do with my life, I'd have an answer: I was making America safe for zombies.

Or, er, helping zombies and keeping America in the know. Or something. It needed ironing out.

Amanda left Kyle at his back table and we retraced our steps through the student union.

“So, that went awesome,” I said, feeling some mission-accomplished excitement.

“That was hard,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at where Kyle still sat. “So hard to just leave him knowing I might not see him again.”

“Psh,” I said, trying to cheer her up. “Here's what happens next. We go to Iowa and track down that creepy old guy and his elixir of life. I mean, now we have a lead. We're already better off than we were a day ago. Meanwhile, your brother exposes the government, and the people of this great nation are, like, whoa, we need to help these poor afflicted zombie children. And then we're, like—good news, everybody—there's a cure. They'll probably throw us a parade and—”

I was so focused on all the plans running through my head that I didn't see the man in the boxy black suit until I was crashing right into him, spilling his coffee onto the floor. He looked at me, super annoyed, but the whole thing probably would've just been written off as a dumb student not watching where he was going if I hadn't immediately exclaimed:

“Oh shit!”

I recognized him. It was one of the guys from the beige sedan last night. And there was his partner, a few steps behind.

They were looking right at us, recognition dawning on their faces.

“Oh shit,” said the agent with the spilled coffee, apparently as surprised as we were.

I shoved the agent I'd bumped into—hard—and he slipped on the puddle of coffee, feet flying up in the air, landing right on the back of his head. Some of the students nearby started cheering and laughing.

Then they started screaming. Not because we'd gone zombie, although that's now my natural assumption for when crowds scream around me, but because the second agent had drawn a gun.

He shot at me, but Amanda shoved me down. The bullet tore through her shoulder instead. I could feel the hot spray of her blood against my cheek as I fell to the ground.

There were kids running and screaming everywhere now. Just the kind of scene I'd feared when we first entered the student union. One of the kids bumped the agent with the gun and he stumbled while trying to line up another shot.

Just like that, Amanda was on him. Her back was to me, but I could see that rotten gray color had spread up her arms, the blood dripping from the exit wound in her shoulder a black sludge. She snarled, drove both her hands into the agent's midsection, and scooped out a mouthful of fresh guts.

“Amanda?”

The student union was almost totally clear, except for a few kids cowering under tables, watching us with wide eyes. Kyle, though, he stood just a few yards away, eyes wide with horror and disbelief.

Amanda knelt over the agent, devouring him. She looked up at the sound of her name, blood smeared around her mouth, her eyes sunken and feral.

Kyle recoiled, tripped over a chair, and fell to the floor.

“Run!” I shouted, not really sure if that was for our benefit, for Kyle's benefit, or for the rest of the innocent bystanders. I guess for everybody. Everybody needed to run.

I grabbed Amanda around the waist and fled the student union.

CASS

HARLENE SAT BEHIND HER DESK, IGNORING A STACK OF paperwork in favor of a giant cup of iced coffee. The walls of her office were decorated like a time line of her awesomeness: pictures of a young Harlene posing with bouquets of roses after winning a beauty pageant right next to pictures of a more serious Harlene receiving various commendations from multiple presidents. There was even a gun mounted and framed on her wall—a lot of these military types bronzed the weapons they used for their first kills, like a warrior's lethal pair of baby shoes. I bet Harlene was the only one to have hers on display next to a tiara, though.

“There's my Sweet Pea,” said Harlene, greeting me with a smile. “Have a seat.”

I sank into the chair in front of Harlene's desk, making a concerted effort not to seem too sullen, which probably wasn't working at all. Harlene looked me over, frowning.

“What's going on with you, my dear?” she asked gently.

I didn't know how to even begin answering that question. How do you sum up that your freaky superior who sees you as an unwilling protégé has just promised to make a zombie slave out of the fugitive you've developed a hugely inappropriate psychic crush on?

“Feeling down,” I answered.

Harlene nodded. “Tom told me you've been having a hard go of it.”

Understatement of the year, maybe? I didn't reply; I felt pretty burned out on explaining my feelings. I'd done enough of that with Tom. Anyway, it seemed like Harlene was working up to something.

“I wish I could tell you it gets easier,” she said. “It's never going to be pumpkin pie, hon.”

Some pep talk.

Harlene reached into her desk and pulled out a roll of clean bandages and some gauze pads. She started to unwrap the bandage on her forearm from where Chazz had bitten her, but stopped to glance up at me.

“I've gotta change this,” she explained, apologetic. “You're not squeamish, are you?”

I laughed, actually surprised and a little touched by the question. “I saw Jamison shoot the head off a girl the other day.”

“Right. Silly question,” answered Harlene. She continued to talk as she unwrapped her arm, seeming to pay more attention to the layers of bandages than her words. “You know, I've been here since they tossed this whole NCD shindig together after the first outbreak five years ago.”

“I didn't know that.”

Harlene nodded. “There are three kinds of people in the NCD, way I figure it. First are the soldiers—folks that're just good at doing what they're told, not asking too many questions. They're just doing a job, punching a clock, ya know?”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, although punching a clock for the NCD was a whole heck of a lot different than working a shift at a cheesy Italian restaurant.


“Second type of folks're the ones with a reason. They want to be here. Got a personal score to settle with the undead. I think we both know some people like that.”

I nodded my head, thinking of sad, angry Jamison.

“Third type,” continued Harlene, “don't necessarily want to be here, and they ain't necessarily good soldiers either. They're folks the NCD feels have a use in the defense of our country, and they don't get much choice whether they want to serve or not. In case you're not following, I'm talkin' about you, Sweet Pea.”

“I got that,” I said. Feeling curious, I added, “What type are you, Harlene?”

“People been fooled by my pretty face all these years,” answered Harlene, “but I'm just another soldier. I do what I'm told.”

Harlene finished unwrapping her wounded arm and I gasped, my stomach doing a somersault. Not because the bite was hideous or ghastly, but because of what was in its place.

They'd grafted one of those feeding nozzles into Harlene's forearm, just like the one Alastaire had so proudly displayed.

Harlene smiled sadly at my reaction. She poured some alcohol onto a cotton ball and started to dab at the raw edges of the graft.

“Figured you'd already know what this is,” she said, indicating the plastic tube sticking out of her. “Guess the docs decided it was a convenient time to put it in, what with part of my arm already missing.”

The idea of Harlene hooked up to a zombie the way Alastaire was hooked up to Chazz, the thought of her passing fluid down a tube and into a zombie, it made me want to cry. That wasn't my Harlene. I didn't want to imagine her going along with that atrocity.

“Oh, Harlene,” I pleaded. “No.”

“Nothing to be done about it, Sweet Pea. I've got orders to follow, even if I don't like 'em, or if I think they push this whole operation one step closer to a royal pig-screw. You know,
if
that's what I thought was happening.”

If Harlene was working her way around to telling me how important following orders was, I thought I might just make a run for it. Things could not get bleaker. Subconsciously, I'd started rubbing my smooth, non-cyborg forearms. So, maybe I was wrong and things could actually get worse. I really didn't want to find out.

“Anyhow,” said Harlene, casually wrapping her forearm in fresh bandages, “I might be just a humble soldier, but I'm also a squad leader. And I make decisions about the usefulness of my squad.”

Here it comes,
I thought.
Harlene's going to give me the date of my zombie-slave-implant operation, introduce me to my anesthesiologist, ask if I want the traditional white forearm plate or the new hot-pink one they're rolling out.

Harlene thumbed through one of the stacks of paperwork on her desk, tugging out a form with the fine print of an iTunes agreement. She slid it across the desk to me.

“This here is an Incapable Asset Disengagement form,” Harlene explained. “I've already signed it.”

I stared at the document, trying to skim over its sections and subsections, its impenetrable text blocks of legalese. Wherever there was a blank labeled
ASSET
, Harlene's bubbly handwriting spelled out my name.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It says that you're no good for the NCD. That we'd be better off going our separate ways.” She winked.

“Seriously?” I asked, unable to keep a rush of joy out of my voice. “I'd get to go home?”

Harlene held up her hand, trying to tamp down my enthusiasm. “Well, it's not as simple as all that. You can't just walk away, seeing what you've seen. They'd put you in a room full of psychics and they'd go to work on you and remove the memories, like with the civilians you've gotten so good at wiping.”

“My memories . . .” I mumbled, considering this. I tried to think of something from the last year and a half that I couldn't live without. Truth be told, I hadn't really been keeping a mental scrapbook of all the nasty crime scenes I'd witnessed. Wouldn't it be kind of nice to just hit the
RESET
button?

“Not just your memories,” added Harlene. “Your momma's, too. Anyone outside the NCD that knows about your government hookup.”

“My mom,” I repeated, trying to wrap my head around this. “What would she think? What would I think? What would I remember?”

“Not sure,” Harlene answered. “Whatever the psychics can make work. Maybe you spent a year at some swanky private school in the mountains? Who knows?”

I flipped to the last sheet of the paperwork. There was an empty line waiting for my signature.

“This could happen?” I asked, still not quite believing. “I could go back to normal.”

“Normal as it'll ever get,” Harlene replied, her voice lowering. “Truth is, Sweet Pea, I think things are going to get worse around here.”

“In Washington?”

Harlene shook her head. “Everywhere. Just between us girls, the Control part of NCD isn't exactly going gangbusters. I told you once that one day we'd kill them all and everyone'd get to go home with a medal and a grin. I don't know anymore if that's happening.”

After everything that'd gone down in the last week—heck, just the last couple hours—a huge part of me so badly wanted to sign that paperwork, declare myself incapable, and forget about the whole zombie-huntress thing. But another part of me thought about that initial pride I'd taken in being the youngest-ever member of the NCD, of doing good, making a difference.

“I could help,” I said weakly. “I could stay with you.”

“And I'd love to have you, darling, if that's what you want,” said Harlene, giving me that sad smile again. “But maybe, instead, you might want to go back to your family. Spend some time with the people you love instead of the people that eat people you love.”

Maybe I was reading too much into it, but there was a distinct note of doom in Harlene's words. Zombie apocalypse was just something they said in direct-to-video gore flicks, yet I felt suddenly like we were just a few more fugitive zombies away from barricading the doors and rationing food. Where did I want to be when that went down? On the frontlines, hooked up to a dead boy on a leash, buddying up with Alastaire? Or watching movies with my mom until the electricity went out and the end came?

I hesitated, looking Harlene in the eyes. “Does it make me a coward if I want to go home?”

She shook her head. “No. It makes you smarter than the rest of us.”

Harlene held out a pen. I took it, hovering over the place where my signature would set me free.

“There's just one more thing,” said Harlene. “I can't let you go if you're still in possession of actionable intelligence.”

I knew immediately what the military jargon meant. “Jake Stephens,” I said.

Harlene nodded. “We need you to help us catch them. Just one last mission, Sweet Pea.”

 

Harlene gave me the rest of the afternoon to think it over. I scurried back to my room, clutching my stack of life-changing paperwork.

I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over my head. I was trying not to overthink it, but that's what I do. Overthink things. By signing, I'd basically be trading my life for Jake's. And Amanda's, but whatever. I'd also be signing away a year and a half of my memories. All the good things I'd done, the successful operations I used to be proud of—could I live without those memories? Wouldn't it be worth giving them up if it meant being normal again, just a kid ignorant of all the horrible monsters lurking out there?

My mind searched for a
good
memory, something from my time in NCD that I cherished. I thought back to my first day on the job.

There was no ceremony for graduating from the government's zombie-killing university. Most of the people in my training class just shuffled off back to the barracks, marching orders in hand for whatever unit they were supposed to join up with. Because of my underage-telepath status, my situation was a little different. I was met at the classroom door by the best-dressed man in the metro DC area.

“Hey,” he said, “my name's Tom.”

We shook hands and Tom smiled, quickly putting me at ease. I'd spent weeks around stiff government types and fidgety scientists in coffee-stained lab coats who taught our classes. I hadn't expected my handler to be so young and normal.

“So,” Tom said, putting his index fingers to his temples, “what movie am I thinking of?”

“NCD psychics are to refrain from making unnecessary telepathic contact with their team,” I recited directly from the handbook.

“Good answer,” he said, and winked at me. “It was
The Notebook
, by the way.”

“Blah,” I replied, remembering how my sister watched that movie four times in one weekend following a breakup, huddled under a blanket on our couch next to a pile of snotty tissues.

Tom drove us out of DC proper and into one of the swankier sections of the suburbs, where the fancier government types kept quiet homes on clean, tree-lined streets. We parked in front of a salmon-colored house, a lush flower garden lining both sides of the cobblestone walkway that led to the front door. It was such a sweet, lovingly decorated place; the scary-looking hulk sipping iced tea on the front porch looked totally out of place.

“That's Jamison,” explained Tom as we approached the house. “He's our muscle.”

Jamison was wearing a tank top that showed off his not-kidding-around muscles and the faded Marine Corps tattoos that covered them. He eyed me with no shortage of skepticism as Tom led me up the front steps.

“Jamison,” announced Tom, “allow me to introduce our new psychic friend.”

“Her?” he grunted, then looked at me. “Jesus, what are you? Thirteen?”

“Sixteen,” I corrected.

“Oh, in that case . . .” He snorted, shaking his head. “Have you ever even seen a dead body, little girl?”

“Have you?” I replied, deciding to stand my ground with this brooding tough guy. “Because you kinda look like the fainting type.”

Tom stifled a laugh as Jamison stared at me, his mouth open to form a comeback that never took shape.

“Oh, Jamie,” said a laughing Harlene as she emerged through the screen door, drying her hands on a towel. “Stop trying to scare the new girl. It clearly ain't working.”

Harlene's hair was piled on top of her head in the most immaculate-looking bun that I'd ever seen. She had a flour-spattered apron tied around her waist. This was even more surprising than having a well-coifed Gosling superfan for a guardian; Harlene reminded me of a southern version of my mom, the way she'd go out of her way to cook a fancy dinner whenever she knew my sister was coming home from college for the weekend.

“Here's the boss,” said Tom.

I extended my hand to Harlene, feeling more timid around her than I had around Jamison. She brushed my hand aside and swept me into a warm hug.

“I hope you like biscuits,” she said, holding me out at arm's length. “What am I saying? You've been eating that nasty barracks food. I'm sure you're more than ready for some good home cooking.”