Undead (9780545473460) (22 page)

Of course, as soon as I say it, I wish I hadn't. Because now all three of them are scuttling away from me like I'm public enemy number one.

“Your mother?”

Pete is looking at me with extreme disgust, like I've just taken a dump in his mouth. It's almost funny. I feel a giggle well up inside of me, but push it down. Going all fruit-loopy now is not going to help.

My mother.
My mother.

“Xanthro Industries is a pharmaceutical and biotech company.” Pete has one beady green eye on the laptop, the other on me in case I leap up and bite his head off.

“No kidding.” Smitty's eyes are fixed on mine. Without a flicker.

Pete nods, reading. “They make drugs. Experimental drugs. Including the contents of Veggie Juice, I'm betting?” He's swaying, quite literally reeling, with shock.

Reel all you like, Pete, you won't touch what's going on inside my head right now. The first feeling is sheer un-frickin'-believable flabbergastery — but the second feeling is even weirder. The feeling that I'm
not surprised
.

Because Xanthro Industries is basically responsible for everything that's wrong in my life. The company kept my mother away from birthdays, school plays, and the umpteen times I had a boo-boo and needed her there to kiss it better. They uprooted us to the US, then worse, dragged us back to the UK. They made my mother work so hard for so long that she — a doctor — never noticed my dad was sick until it was way too late. So, really, the idea that Xanthro Industries should be involved in a zombie apocalypse does not
surprise
me one tiny bit.

But the idea that Mum's involved? Ever since I hit my teens, I've been convinced that my mother was a nightmare, but I put that down to hormones. Hers and mine. It's not like she's über-evil or anything. And yet now it all makes stomach-lurching sense: the long trips away, the tiredness and stress etched into her face. The photograph, her lingering smell on that leather chair. She's been working here, at the castle.

But did she do this? Did she make those monsters?

“What's the story, Bob?” Smitty's voice is calm but serious.

I look at the three pale and angry faces across the room.

“I have no idea what's going on.”

Wow
, that sounds super-convincing. Actually makes it sound like I masterminded the whole thing.

“Look.” I scramble to my feet, and they all take another step backward. “Why on earth would I be here — in the middle of everything — if my mother had been involved in this? Why would she put me in danger?”

“Ha!” Alice snaps. “If you were my daughter, I'd do the same.”

“Wrong,” I snap back. “As much as things with my mother are . . . difficult, she'd never risk losing me.” It's only when I say it out loud that I realize it's true. “Not after last year, not after my dad dying. It would be too much for her.” I feel a lump forming in my throat.

Smitty's face softens a little. “Your dad died?”

“Six months ago.” My breathing almost stops. It's the only good way to keep those pesky emotions down; just don't breathe and you can fool yourself it doesn't hurt. “He had cancer. Which is kind of ironic, seeing as my mother's an oncology specialist.”

“A what?” Alice clearly thinks I'm making this shit up.

“A cancer doctor,” Smitty mutters.

Alice shakes her head. “Your dad carked it? Great sob story, you loser.”

“Shut it, Malice!” Smitty shouts.

I feel my shoulders inching up around my ears. “My mother researches cures, does clinical trials. But she doesn't grow zombies in a lab.”

Pete crouches down on the floor, engrossed with the laptop again. “They were creating a drug here at the castle, for sure. There are some notes, fragments of e-mails. I don't pretend to understand it, but it's something to do with activating dormant antibodies with a chemical stimulant.”

Alice finds time to roll her eyes. “Oh, spare us the science bit.”

Pete glares at her. “This is
all
the science bit, you ignorant donkey.”

“Stand down, Batgirl and Lady Shiva.” Smitty walks toward me, then turns back to face Alice and Pete. “Bobby's kosher. So her ma works for some evil drug corporation. Big fat deal. She nearly got chomped good and proper more times than either of you.”

I'm grateful, of course. My shoulders drop a little as he stands by my side. I risk a look, and our eyes catch for a second.
Thank you.
Alice sees the shared glance, and groans sarcastically. Smitty ignores her.

“Whatever you believe about Bobby, think about looking after yourselves. Grace said there was some kind of antidote here. We should look for it. At the very least it will give us something to bargain with if the bad guys show up.” He strides over to the wall. “Aren't there any lights in here? This spooky shadow crap is getting old.”

We look for a switch.

I think he's persuaded them not to kill me — yet.

“Got it!” Alice finds the switch and flicks it.

There's a loud
bang
. I don't so much hear it as feel it; the tower walls shake and the floor vibrates.

“What did you do?” cries Pete at Alice.

“Nothing!”

I shake my head. “That was something outside.”

Alice is already scrambling up to the window ledge, with Smitty close behind.

I run across the room to the security camera screens. Smoke is obscuring the pictures, but I can make out people outside, dozens of people — at the gates, at the front door, and many more in the courtyard. My heart leaps. The army! They've found us at last. Guns a-blazing, they've come to rescue us!

Then the wind changes direction and the smoke clears. There's an oil drum burning — that must have been the bang we heard, not army guns. The grainy black-and-white figures are stumbling and clawing the air. Their heads are lolling. The dog is there, too, barking and snapping at the figures agitatedly.

It's not an army.

The hordes have come home.

Alice's screams from the window confirm it.

Smitty, flattened against the glass, cries out, “There's Pube-Face!”

I look at the courtyard screen again. Michael is holding what looks to be a gas can in one hand and a makeshift torch in the other, waving it at the mob.

“Oh my god!” Alice is pressed against the glass beside Smitty. “He is so dead.”

“But not Undead.” Pete joins me at the TV screens, standing a little farther away than he would have ten minutes ago. “Yet.”

As we watch, Shaq emerges from the Ski-Doos' stable. Even with the blurred resolution on the screen, I can read his look of desperation. They can't escape on the Ski-Doos. I feel for the spiky lump in my pocket. I have the keys.

The hordes advance.

Michael looks like he's screaming for Shaq, who has disappeared back into the stables. Or maybe he's shouting for Grace, who is nowhere to be seen. Maybe she's fared better with her cattle prod, or maybe she was standing too close to the oil drum when it went off. Or maybe she's already one of the hungry crowd.

Shaq appears again. But it's not because of Michael's screaming. Cam is clinging to his leg, clinging with arms, legs, and teeth, latched on, immovable. Shaq can't run far with a three-year-old zombie on his leg, and he falls just clear of the door.

The crowd moves in. Michael flings gas wildly from his can, and waves his fiery torch, but the liquid splashes over nobody but him. And then, inevitably, he lights up like a beacon, the flames whipping up over his head. He hurls the torch away from himself, his arms lifted in a useless effort to extinguish the fire, silently dancing a jig on our black-and-white TV screen.

I turn away.

Smitty, who caught the whole episode at the window in Technicolor, turns away, too.

“We have to get out of here, we have to go now!” Alice jumps down from the ledge.

I hit the button to turn the kitchen camera on again. Black smoke oozes thickly from the door leading to the mudroom. What are the chances? Michael's last action was to throw his torch into the castle and set us all on fire.

“We'll burn to death in here!” Alice cries. “What are we going to do?”

And as we all stand there trying to think of a good answer to her question, a phone rings.

My first thought — just for a split second — is that the ringing noise is a fire alarm.

But then my brain catches up with reality. It's one of those generic ringtones you get when you first buy a phone, one that only grand-parents and really stupid people actually leave on, because they can't figure out how to change it, or don't even realize they can.

And then I click. It's my phone. I never bothered to change the ringtone because nobody ever calls me on it, because I am Bobby No-Buddies.

But someone's calling now.

I remember Alice dropping my phone on the window ledge.

I climb onto one of the desks, stick a foot on a shelf, and hoist myself onto the ledge. There's the phone, the screen flashing. I practically fall on it, seeing
PRIVATE CALLER
displayed on the screen a second before I press the
ANSWER
button.

“Hello?”

There is silence on the other end. Then a clicking noise as if someone is playing with the buttons. Then silence again.

“Hello!”

Smitty and the rest are panting at my heels, squashed on top of the desk below. I can see they want to climb up to me, tear the phone from my hands — but they're holding back. Because they're scared of me. Scared of my phone.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” I shout. “Who is this?”

I look at the screen. I have reception all right — four bars strong. But only one bar of battery. I tussle with the idea of hanging up and calling the police — anyone! — but there's always the chance that if I hang up, those four bars will mysteriously disappear again.

“Hello!” I try again.

“Hello?” a voice says.

I nearly faint. There's someone there.

“Hi!” I shout. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, just about . . . Bobby, is that you?”

Tears rush behind my eyes, my ears pop, and the ground feels like it's rushing up toward me. I grab at the window frame to stop myself from falling.

“Mum?”

“Bobby!” My mother's voice cracks. “Are you OK?”

“Yes!” I feel hot tears down my cheeks and I don't care. “I'm here with three of my classmates; we're in the castle!”

“I know, Bobby,” my mother says.

“We're in the tower, those things are outside —”

“Don't panic, just listen to me carefully.”

“What's going on, Mum?” I scream. “What have you been doing here? I know about it all, the research — Grace and everyone — the dead professor!”

Smitty, Pete, and Alice have joined me on the ledge, unable to hold back any longer.

“Bobby, I want you to do exactly as I say,” Mum tells me.

“OK.” I wipe the tears away.

“Take deep breaths, remember how Dad used to tell you?”

“Yep,” I choke.

“I'll explain everything, but you need to get out of there now. You're in danger,” she says slowly.

“You think?” I say. “The zombies are at the door and the castle's on fire, so yuh-huh, we're in danger!”

“You need to come to me.” Her voice is clear and calm. “I'm on the island in the middle of the loch.”

“What?” I peer into the darkening sky, across the frozen water. I see the island, just about. “Maybe you didn't hear me, Mother” — I grit my teeth — “but there's the small matter of getting out of this castle first.”

“Bobby,” she reprimands, “you're not listening. There are people coming, dangerous people. They're coming to collect what's theirs, and then destroy the castle. You can't get in their way. Keep calm. I'll help you escape.”

“The Xanthro bad guys are on their way?” I look at Smitty, Pete, Alice. Their jaws are slack. Like we needed more incentive to leave.

“But first, you need to go to the refrigerator,” my mother tells me. “Quickly. Look for a syringe marked ‘Osiris 17.' It's the antidote. We need it to put things right, Bobby! Go now!”

I let out a yelp of frustration, press the button to put her on speaker, and hurry along the ledge until it ends. There's a bookcase below and to the side. I swing myself onto it and climb down, using the shelves like steps, dropping onto the floor beside the fridge.

Now, in an ideal world, there should be just one fluorescent syringe in the fridge with
THE ANTIDOTE
stamped on it. Instead there are hundreds of syringes and test tubes in dozens of trays. They all have handwritten stickers with long names, serial numbers, and dates.

“Hurry, Bobby,” my mother says again.

I search the shelves desperately.

Smitty jumps down from the desk, slaps his hand on the fridge door, and slams it shut. “What in the name of nuts is going on?”

“Get off!” I push his arm and try to open the door, but he's wedged a foot against it. Alice is down, too, and places her hand against the door in solidarity.

“Tell us.” Pete arrives, wheezing, and slaps a clammy hand on my shoulder.

“What's the problem, Bobby?” Mum shouts.

I shrug off Pete's hand and turn to face them all. “My mum wants us to get the antidote and bring it to her. Xanthro is coming for it, we need to hurry.”

“And there are more of the infected on their way.” Mum's voice on speaker is loud enough to reach everyone. “I can see them coming toward the castle. If you don't leave now, you'll be overwhelmed.”

“I'm pretty friggin' overwhelmed already, Bobby's ma!” Smitty shouts at the phone. “OK, let's do this!” He flings open the fridge door.

“Find Osiris!” Mum barks. “I'll get you out of there, trust me.”

I scan the syringes for names. So. Many. Syringes.

“Osiris 17,” my mother says. “Hurry up, Bobby, I mean it. We can't linger here.”

“OK, OK.” I pull trays out of the fridge and set them on the floor.

There's a bizarre silence as all four of us kneel and sort through the syringes; just the occasional rattle of plastic, a swearword here and there, and my mother's embarrassingly loud breathing coming from the phone. The seconds tick away and sweat drips into my eyes, making me blink. A couple of times the needle covers almost pop off; God knows what kind of hell I'd be unleashing if I accidentally stabbed someone.

“I've got it!”

It's Pete who finds the golden ticket. He holds up a syringe with clear liquid inside. It's labeled
OSIRIS
17. He snags what looks like a small beer cooler from one of the shelves, fits the syringe snugly inside, and flings the cooler over his shoulder. “Let's go!”

“You're sure?” Mum says from the floor.

“No doubt,” I reply, picking up the phone.

“I've found one, too!” Alice is holding another syringe aloft. I snatch it from her and check the label.

“There's another?” my mother shouts over the speaker.

“Yes, Mum. Now get us out of here!” I scramble to my feet.

“What does the label say exactly?” Her voice is shaky.

I cry out in exasperation, but take another look. “‘Osiris Red.' Now we go!”

“Bobby, be very, very careful with that vial,” my mother says. “That's the stimulant. Pack it up and bring it with you, but don't, whatever you do, expose the needle, do you hear me?”

I stare at the syringe in my hand. “You mean this is the bad drug? The one that turns people?”

“Yes, Bobby. It's very valuable.”

Smitty holds my arm. “That's the zombiefier junk?” He shakes his head. “We leave that here.”

“Bobby, I want you to bring it!” my mother yells. “Do as I tell you and get moving! Now!”

I look at the vial, then at Smitty.

Alice is jogging on the spot like she needs to pee. “Whatever you're going to do, do it and let's get out of here!” she shrieks.

“We leave it and the bad guys will get it. So it comes with us.”

Smitty hesitates, then he nods. Gently, I place Osiris Red into Pete's cooler next to Osiris 17.

“I can't keep this line open much longer.” Mum's cool is beginning to desert her. “Xanthro controls the signal; we're going to be cut off.”

“So tell me how to get out already!” I scream at her.

“Make your way down into the cellar, go to the end of the cells, and feel the wall on the left-hand side. There's a control box that opens a door to a passage that will bring you to me. You need a four-digit code to open the door — it's your birthday.” She exhales. “Be careful to enter it correctly the first time or it will go into lockdown. Please hurry, Bobby.”

There's a
click
from the phone.

“Mum?” I shout.

Nothing.

“Mum!”

She's gone. And my four bars of reception have disappeared.

“Come on!” Smitty shouts, and heads for the stairs.

“Are you smoking crack?” Alice screams at him. “Look!” She's pointing at the security camera screens.

We all look. On the kitchen cam there's movement through the smoke. Bodies packed tight into the room. It's a zombie mosh pit. There's no way out.

“We can get around them,” says Smitty.

“No way.” Pete's face is grave. “There are too many.”

“They're right at the door!” Alice starts to cry.

There's thudding from the bottom of the stairwell. Hands hitting the door, knocking, asking to come in.

“Then there's only one thing we can do,” Smitty says. “We let them in.”