28
KAZ AND I STOOD TOGETHER inside our imaginary prison, holding each other tightly.
“Boys, come stand around them, okay? Make like a ring-around-the-rosie.”
The clatter of chairs being pushed back made me feel faint and I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my face against Kaz’s shirt and wished that I could just stay like that, pretending we were somewhere else, back in Chicago in the little neighborhood park, and that when I opened my eyes, I’d see tall buildings and cars going by and Kaz’s gray eyes shining in the spring sun.
I forced myself to lift my head and look. The zombies shuffled slowly into a circle around us, their movements jerky and uncoordinated. The one who was missing an arm stumbled and fell-there was something very wrong with one of its legs-but it kept coming, crawling along the floor and dragging its damaged leg behind it. A terrible smell wafted from one of the rotting ones, and bits of crusted, scabbed flesh fell from it as it came closer.
They found their places, spaced evenly around our square, and stood staring at us with no expression at all, not menace or anger or craftiness-just nothing. But I knew that the minute we ventured past the boundary Biceps had drawn along the edge of the tiles, they would set on us like rabid dogs.
It had happened to me once before, and I would never forget the feel of their bony, cold fingers on my flesh, the sickening sponginess of their rotting bodies as I fought them.
“Prentiss isn’t going to like this,” Kaz said.
Uncertainty flashed briefly across Biceps’s face, but he forced a laugh. I remembered the way he’d acted with the other guard-full of swagger, itching for a fight. He was a guy with something to prove. “Prentiss’s got bigger things to worry about. Besides, as soon as he calls in, you can come out of there. This is just a little… activity to keep you busy.”
And a chance for him to prove himself among the staff left behind, I thought.
“Ta-ta,” Biceps said, giving us a limp little wave before letting himself out of the room.
We watched him go, but the zombies didn’t. Their eyes stayed fixed on us.
When the door shut, I wrapped my arms even tighter around Kaz and forced myself to stay calm. I’d survived being afraid before.
I will get through this. I said the words in my mind, making myself believe them. I’d survived being shot at and hunted and kidnapped, and I would survive this, too.
“Piece of cake,” I said shakily. “We just have to wait around a little while.”
“Yeah,” Kaz agreed, but I could tell he was worried. “Hailey, I think we should sit down and rest, but… we have to be careful.”
That was an understatement. He was taller than the square was wide. And there would be no exceptions. All it would take was a hand or a foot-even a lock of my hair-crossing the lines and the zombies would be on us, going for blood.
They didn’t know any other way.
We sat down gingerly, steering clear of the edges of our cell. Kaz sat cross-legged and I leaned back against him, his arms around me. That was when I realized that his hands were still bleeding from the broken glass.
“Let me,” I said softly, and I held his hands in mine and lost myself in the healing. It was a good place to go; it calmed me and chased my fears away, if only for a moment. When I released Kaz’s hands, there was no mark on them, and I knew that I had done well.
“That one looks like he’s going to expire at any minute,” Kaz said. The most decomposed zombie was barely standing, swaying on legs that were hardly able to hold up its rotting body. Its head lolled on its neck, and its empty socket stared, but it stayed in its spot.
For a moment, anyway. Then a convulsion shuddered through its body, and it collapsed.
Into our square.
It landed in a heap, body fluids spattering, flesh tearing loose from the bones, its crablike skeletal elbow inches away. I screamed and felt Kaz tightening his arms around me, forcing me to stay in place, but I fought him. I had to get away from it, and I wrestled against Kaz, trying to crawl away from the motionless thing, the seeping puddle in which it lay.
“Stop fighting me!” Kaz yelled into my ear, and I finally went slack against him. He was right. We had to stay in our square, even if it meant sharing it with the zombie. “Hailey, shut your eyes, just let me hold you, stop…”
He kept up like that, rocking me in his arms, whispering in my ear, for what felt like hours, until I finally stopped shaking. It took a long time. I kept my eyes closed, and Kaz talked, and I listened. He told me about his childhood, about the first time he’d had a vision. About missing his dad, about helping his mom in the salon. About his best friend, who moved to Kansas in middle school. About the first girl he kissed. About his dreams of learning to fly, of joining the air force.
I listened, and we rocked, and I tried to pretend we were back in the park. After a very long time, I felt a little better, and I told him about me. Things I had never told another soul. About wishing I had known my mother, wondering who my father was. About the imaginary friend I’d had who played with me in the woods behind the house.
We talked and talked until our voices were hoarse, the night passing slowly, and when there was a sound at the door, my eyes flew open and the sight of the zombies-still standing guard, motionless and ready-sent a fresh shock through me. I had almost managed to forget they were there.
Dr. Grace opened the door and her eyes widened.
“What the hell is going on!”
She shut the door behind her and leaned on it, her hand over her heart. “What on earth-Never mind. All of you-back off. Go sit in your chairs.”
The zombies shuffled away from their posts around the square, back to their chairs-all except for the one next to us. A trickle of black fluid leaked from its mouth, and a fly buzzed around its crusted, ruined flesh.
“What happened?” Dr. Grace demanded.
“The guard-he told us to stay in here,” Kaz said.
“In where?”
“This square.” He traced the floor tiles to show her. “Or else he told them to, uh…”
I knew he didn’t want to say it, so I said it for him: “To kill us.”
Dr. Grace’s expression hardened. “That’s-Oh, for Pete’s sake. There’s little danger with the specimens, as long as everyone follows procedure. We aren’t supposed to issue any orders at all that aren’t clearly outlined on the test plan. All of you-stay where you are. You are to leave these two alone.”
She directed the command at the zombies, but they gave no indication that they had heard.
“What about next time?” I demanded. “I mean, how many people can just walk in here and-and-tell them to do anything they want?”
Dr. Grace shook her head impatiently, a line etched between her eyebrows. “It’s not like that. It’s only the research team and security. And Prentiss, of course. Look, I’m not saying it’s perfect, but this is all-I mean, nobody expected what happened today. Anyway, you’re safe now. You can get up.”
I stood and brushed grit off my clothes. I forced myself to back out of the square, holding Kaz’s hand tightly.
“What about that one?” Kaz asked, pointing at the broken body on the floor. It was finally at peace, its rotting flesh no longer able to sustain life after death.
Dr. Grace sighed. “I’ll call for cleanup. The tissues are sterile, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Kaz laughed shortly. “You think I’d worry about that? When I practically got ripped to shreds by those… things?”
“How can you stand it?” I asked. “How can you stand to work here, knowing what they’re going to do with them?”
Dr. Grace blinked behind her glasses and frowned at me. “My area of expertise is precognition and psychokinesis,” she said, hedging. “I’m head of psychic research, but my contact with the… specimens… is really quite limited. I work with our psychic subjects, who are, I assure you, all very much alive.”