“It's not my fault it's pathetically easy to read your minuscule mind.”
I gave her a look. “I guess this is the part where I'm all 'youwill be mine, O yes' and you're all 'eeeek, unhand me, I'd rather die than join in your unholy crusade.'”
“No, that was last winter when you wanted me to go Christmas shopping in early October.”
“Christmas shopping in October is just efficient.”
“Trust you”—she sneered—“to getgrotesque andefficient mixed up.”
“Why do I want to save you and keep you around for eternity again?”
She shrugged. “Beats me.”
I looked at the ceiling, because I didn't want to look at her. I didn't want to try to figure out if her color was off, if she'd lost weight. “Jessica, this thing might kill you.”
“So your response is… to kill me?”
“It's a chance for some kind of life. A life where your best friend is the queen. That's got to be worth something.”
She nudged my shoulder with a toe. “You're glossing over all the things that could go wrong.”
“Well, so are you!”
“There's time. Time to fight this. I'm sorry—I can see it's been a little on the agonizing side for you. But typical Betsy—you assumed this was somethingyou had to decide. It's my life, and my death, and I'm choosing to stand and fight.” She smiled. “Besides, if you turn me into a vampire, I don't think we can hide that from Nick. And then he'll know for sure!”
“The least of my problems,” I said glumly. Then I said, “You haven't told him yet?”
“I'm saving it,” she said, suddenly glum, too, “for our two-month-aversary.”
What a phenomenally bad idea. Also, none of my business. “If that's how you feel…”
“That's entirely, exactly how I feel. So no sneaking around and leaping out at me from the shadows to try and turn me, okay?” She picked up her afghan, and got back to work.
Good example for all of us.
“Okay,” I said, getting up and walking toward the door, “but if you change your mind and decide you want to be foully murdered—”
“I'll run up to your room first thing,” she promised.
Mollified, I left.
Chapter 24
I didn't get far.
“Hey,” Cathie said, walking through the wall at the top of the stairs.
“Hey.”
“I wasn't eavesdropping,” she began defensively.
I groaned.
“Well, I wasn't. I was coming to get you.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “No ghosts around to talk to right now. Which leaves you. Hey, I'm not happy about it, either.”
“So when you weren't eavesdropping, what didn't you overhear?”
“That you aren't going to turn Jessica in to a vampire. Good call, by the way. Which reminds me, are you ever going to do anything about the zombie in the attic?”
“Are you ever going to drop the joke? I mean, I know you guys all know I'm scared of zombies, but this is just—”
“Betsy, I'm serious. There's a zombie in the attic.”
I swallowed my irritation. Cathie had had a hard life. Or death, rather. She was lonely. She was bitchy. I was the only person she could bug. Talk to, rather.
“It's not funny anymore,” I said, as nicely as I could. “And it never really was. So can you please drop it now?”
“Come up to the attic and see.”
Aha! The surprise party. It was on me at last, like a starving wolf in the moonlight. Fine, I'd play along.
“Okayyyyy, I'll just pop up into the attic to check on the zombie.” I looked around. We were at the top of the stairs; there were closed doors on both sides of the hall. “Uh, whereis the attic?”
“Come on.” She floated off.
“Gee, I hope nobody jumps out at me or anything. Certainly not with the new Prada strappy sandals in ice blue…”
Cathie shook her head. “Oh, honey. If I wasn't so bored I'd never do this to you. But I am. And so I am.”
She gestured to the door at the end of the south hall. I opened it and beheld a large, spiderwebby staircase. The stairs were painted white, and in serious need of a touch-up.
“Okayyyyy… I'm coming up the stairs… here I come… suspecting nothing…”
There were light switches at the top of the stairs, which was good, because even though I could see in the dark pretty well, the unrelieved gloom of the attic was a little unnerving. I couldn't even hear anybody breathing. Maybe they were all holding their breath. My live friends, that is.
Like any attic, it was filled with generations of accumulated crap. Dust covered everything: broken pictures, beat-up desks, sofas with the stuffing popping out of the cushions. It appeared to run the length of the house, which meant it was ginormous.
Out of force of habit, I put my hand up to my nose and mouth, then remembered I never sneezed—unless something threw holy water in my face, anyway.
I took a few steps forward and heard a scuttling from behind a scratched wardrobe missing a door. Ugh! Mice. Please not rats. Just little harmless field mice who had decided to stay in the mansion for the winter. I didn't mind mice at all, but rats…
And what was that other smell? A layer of rot above the dust. Had someone, ugh, left their lunch up here or something? Fine place for a turkey sandwich.
Cathie pointed. “He's right over there.”
“Oh he is, eh?” What a crummy place for a birthday party. But I had to admit, I would never have snooped up here for presents. “Well, he'd better watch out, because here I come.”
I marched a good fifteen feet and shoved the wardrobe—which was huge, much taller than I was—out of the way. “Surpri—what the… ?”
At first I was genuinely puzzled. It was like my brain couldn't process what it was seeing. I'd expected: banners, presents, a group of my friends and family huddled, ready to leap up and yell “Surprise.”
What I got: a hunched figure, wearing rotted clothes—everything was the color of mud. Slumped shoulders; hair the same color as the clothes. And thatsmell . God, how could the others stand it? Surely even the live people could smell it.
The figure pivoted slowly to face me. My hand was back up, but this time to prevent a gag instead of a sneeze.
I could see bone sticking out of the remnants of what might have once been a white dress-shirt sleeve. Bone? That wasn't bone. It was something else, something gray and weird. It was—
“Nice zombie costume,” I managed. Complete with authentic stink and rotted clothes and—this was a great touch—graveyard dirt in the wig.
“Betsy, that's what I've been trying to tell you. It's not a costume. It's a real live zombie.” Cathie was circling it admiringly. “The things you see when you're dead! I thought it was a movie thing.”
“Nuhhhhhhhh,” it said. It reached toward me. It had long fingernails, so long they started to curve under, like claws. There was dirt under every one.
I backed up a step. It compensated by taking a step closer. I couldn't bear to look in its face—and then I did. At first I thought he—he was wearing the decayed remains of a suit—was smiling. Then I realized one of his cheeks had rotted away and I could see his teeth through his face.
I had thought I was frozen with fear. No, that was too simple a word: terror. Absolute numbing terror. It was silly, but I had a lifelong terror of dead things. Especially zombies. The way they kept coming toward you
(the way this one was coming toward me now)