Chapter Fifty-Six
FOOTSTEPS SHUFFLE ABOVE ME. VOICES chatter. The floor shakes.
My minutes are up.
The boys are back. Though I expected this—that is, after all, how time works—I’m ashamed to admit I expected a miracle. That the boys would have been drawn away by a last-minute excursion or alien abduction.
But Egal’s operations are incredibly routine, and though aliens may be real, why would they zap down to this horrible, dying planet anyway?
I listen closer and make out three voices in the upstairs storeroom. Peter’s low rumble, Zara’s nasally tone, and a third male voice I can’t put a finger on. Perhaps it’s the voice of a new recruit, one to take the place of Indy or Milo. Since they’re dead.
Peter mutters something that sounds like a command, the ceiling creaks from footsteps, and a door clicks shut. Only his two heavy feet remain.
My heart settles, thankful I only have one enemy to contend with: my ex-boyfriend. I hurry through the room and make it halfway up the stairs when the basement door scrapes open. Peter stands in the doorframe, looming above me like an oversized Grim Reaper.
He smiles. “Thought I saw you around.”
“Peter,” I say. “It’s a pleasure.”
“Pleasure’s all mine, darlin’,” he says.
His endearment makes my skin crawl.
Peter steps down. I mirror him, stepping backward, and the board groans beneath me.
He tilts his head left, right, and cracks reverberate through the stairwell.
He says, “Remember when you used to crack my neck for me, standing up on those little tiptoes of yours? And then I’d bend down for a kiss?
Those were good days, Kota. Do you think we could go back to that? ”
“Zara’s kisses don’t do it for you?”
“I was greedy,” Peter says. “And bored. Now I have other things to satisfy me. To fill my time.” What, like murder plots and experimentation? “The only thing missing is you.”
“If you love me, you will let me through that door,” I plead, trying to appeal to his ego.
He takes another step down. I do the same. “We haven’t had the chance to talk for a while. I miss the sound of your voice. Tell me, how’s life on the other side?”
“There’s freedom,” I answer honestly. “There’s choice.”
Peter laughs. “Tell me: How is it knowing you’re fucking your enemy’s brother? Someone who ordered your murder?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, and it doesn’t. Family doesn’t equal blood. I point my knife at him. “Let me go, Peter, and I swear I won’t hurt you.”
“Like you could,” he huffs. This time, when he steps down, I take two up.
“I’m different now,” I say.
“Bullshit.”
One step down, two forward. We’re now three steps apart.
His hands are empty.
“You’re not armed,” I say. Again. I reach for my gun.
“Think I’d let a five-foot bitch take me down? Yeah. Fucking. Right.”
Another step down.
You know what? No. I don’t need my gun for this. He’s not worth the bullet.
I grip my balisong and lunge.
Peter springs forward, wraps his arms around me, and squeezes like the snake he’s proven himself to be. I fight against him and try to wriggle out of his grip. His warm, sour breath tickles my ear. “You smell as sweet as I remember. Like honey.”
He nips my ear with his teeth. I push against him and feel my ear rip, but get enough range to elbow him in the dick.
He releases me at once and buckles forward.
In the narrow stairwell, I spin out of his way and grab him by the hair.
I ram his fat, ugly head into the wall, then pull it toward mine.
I lob him in the mouth with the butt of my knife. “You still smell like shit.”
He spits on the ground, saliva mingled with blood. “You still love me.”
“I never loved you.” I flip the knife around and hold it to his temple. A drop of blood splashes onto the ground.
“Liar.” He loses breath fighting against my grip. “You can’t kill me. You wouldn’t, even if you could.”
“I don’t want to,” I say. “I don’t want to kill you, Peter. But I have to.”
“No!” He pulls against me.
I wrench his head back toward the knife.
“I’m sorry,” I say, teasing his temple with the tip of my knife. He blinks blood out of his eyes. “You know what? No. I’m not sorry. I’m done being sorry.”
“Plea—”
I plunge the knife into his temple and release him. Peter’s dead body tumbles down the stairs. His large frame hits the basement floor with a thud.
Rest in peace, asshole.
I turn around and take the steps up two at a time, high on adrenaline and something else I can’t define.
I must find Chandler. I must kill her.
The rectory is still empty. I look out the front windows—the lawn is empty, too. I push open the door and run onto the lawn.
Leaves rustle behind me. My spine curls. It’s just the wind. I checked; there’s nobody around—
Mrs. Patty springs out of a bush. “THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU PAGAN!” She charges toward me, reaching for my throat. “You released it! You released the demon!”
“Mrs. . . . Patty . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I try to wriggle out of her grip, but she’s strong. Stronger than Peter.
“The demons! They’re here! They’ve made their landing! And it is all on you. You are going to HELL! SINNER. SINNER. SINNER!”
Stars cloud my vision as I elbow her in the ribs. I whip around, and before I have even a second to consider my actions, I send my knife into her heart. She falls to the ground, and I stab her in the temple.
My ears perk up as a slow clap starts from my right. Chandler slowly strides toward me, slow and controlled. The red hair piled on top of her head is a stark contrast against the bright blue day. “You’ve changed,” Chandler says, drawing her applause to a close. “I’m so, so proud.”
“Chandler,” I spit at her feet. “Just the person I was looking for.”
“Likewise.”
“I’ve come to kill you.”
“I have no doubt that you have,” she says, checking her watch.
“But are you so sure that’s the right decision to make, after learning what I’ve accomplished?
After learning my research and experimentation have paid off?
It all makes sense now to you, doesn’t it, Kota?
I am working for the greater good. I am not this evil figure you make me out to be.
” Chandler points behind me. “Uh-oh, but it looks like, though I’ve come so far, I still have a long way to go. ”
My stomach lurches. My heart says kill; my head says no. “What do you—”
I turn around. A zombie lumbers atop the rectory roof. How the fuck did it get up there?
“See that? Odd how a zombie appeared right when you made your grand entrance . . .” Chandler’s foxlike snake eyes widen in false fear. She cups her mouth and screams, “Zombie! Zombie!”
With a blood-curdling laugh, she pulls a walkie-talkie from her hip. “Leaders: Tell your crew to stop work and meet me in the field. We have a zombie on our hands.”
I step backward. Chandler punches a different button on her walkie-talkie and lifts it back to her lips. “Fred: You have your orders.”
Fred? I shouldn’t be surprised—I saw him carry Grandma’s body. But he even fumbled that. What order could Chandler possibly trust him to carry out?
Without even a second to think, a crowd forms around Chandler. Dozens of citizens run toward us from buildings all over town.
Soon, the rectory lawn is full. Egals form a circle around us.
Chandler screams and points a spindly finger at me. “She brought the zombie in! You remember her, don’t you? Dakota Ariti. One of our own, captured by Macoby—and they’ve brainwashed her. Look at her now! They sent her back to destroy us! Zombies are upon us!”
The zombie falls off the roof. Its bones crunch as it lands. The crowd roars. Children clutch their mother’s legs. Men march forward to protect the circle. Some people puke.
A boy, maybe eleven years old, breaks free and sprints toward the zombie. He holds a butter knife. “Let me at him!”
The zombie clambers forward and latches on to his leg. The boy falls, and it bites into his shoulder.
Crunch. Scream. Slurp. Moan.
There’s nothing I can do for him now. It’s too late. The boy’s eyes roll to the back of his head as he drops to the earth and shudders. He’s turning.
The crowd turns its attention to me. “Kill her!” they scream. “Kill her!”
“No!” Chandler shouts. “There is a much larger enemy we must face: Macoby. Spare the girl. She is brainwashed. The Macs are the problem. We must claim their side for ourselves. If we don’t, they will bring more zombies! They will kill us all!”
The child zombie rises, along with its creator. The two zombies surge forward into the crowd, their senses awakened and appetites raging, hundreds of warm bodies just waiting to be devoured.
A man spins around and swings at the child zombie, but misses. The thing is fast. It launches forward and bites the man’s calf. He falls to the earth, and the zombie boy bites his heart. Another person screams and pulls him off, but then the man starts to turn.
Soon, several zombies are upon us.
And I’m stuck in the middle.
I elbow through the angry crowd, running toward the wall. On any other day, I couldn’t climb it. Nobody could. But maybe, just maybe, with this adrenaline pumping through my veins, I can find some footholds. Jam my fingers into crevices. Fly away.
As I make my way toward the wall, stomps fill my ears. From my right, a group of maybe fifty men march toward me—no, they march toward the wall.
They have guns. Chandler gave them guns?
All at once, they raise rifles, pistols, shotguns—and fire. The wall separating the Split shakes.
Citizens run in every direction—toward the wall, toward the barbed-wire gates, into the rectory, back to their homes. I sprint forward, my legs pumping and chest burning with every step. I have to get to the other side. I have to find Bunny.
The wall explodes. Bricks and concrete and metal shards fly in every direction. I throw my hands over my head to protect myself from the debris. Fragments and chunks hurl into me, and a cloud of dust coats my throat. I only give myself a second to stop, because Bunny’s in the tunnel.