“Brains,” he growled.
Ian rol ed his eyes. Puh-lease. What was it with teenagers that they thought something that stupid would intimidate the big kids? “I’m not a baby. You can’t scare me with that stuff.” He lifted his chin defiantly.
Until the guy grabbed him and bit him in the shoulder.
Screaming out, Ian did what his mom had always told him to do whenever a guy, not one of his brothers, grabbed him. He hit him in the nuts as hard as he could.
The zombie staggered back, but he was stil in the doorway, blocking him from leaving.
Panic swel ed as Ian’s lips trembled. I’m so sorry I’m in your room, Madaug. I’ll never come into it again unless you tell me to. I swear. . . .
That was, as long as the zombie didn’t eat his brains.
Ian ran to Madaug’s desk, looking for a weapon. Dang it, his geekified brother didn’t even have a trophy to bash the zombie in the head with. Al he had was a half-eaten ham sandwich, a Yoda bobblehead, an empty can of Dr Pepper, potato chip crumbs, a greasy two-day-old pizza box, a bunch of CDs, and a glasses case. Al of that was worthless.
Think, Ian, think. . . .
The zombie grabbed him again.
Ian picked up the only thing he could reach.
A pencil.
Not just for doing homework. … They were good for al kinds of things. Resetting his Nintendo, undoing knots in his shoes, getting stuff out from under his fingernails, drawing on the wal . …
And stabbing zombies.
“Iiiiyaaa!” he shouted as he stabbed it into the zombie’s arm as hard as he could.
The zombie screamed.
Like a frightened jackrabbit, Ian squatted between his legs and ran for the stairs. “Mom!” he cal ed as he scrambled for safety. Luckily, he was used to running for his life from his two older brothers whose tempers and kil -the-little-brother mind-sets made the zombie look like a girl.
“Mom!” he yel ed again as he entered the kitchen and rounded the island where she stood, making dinner. “Help! A zombie’s after me!”
She let out a frustrated breath as he grabbed her about the waist. “What in the world is wrong with you, Boo?” Ian tried to explain but before he could get more than a handful of words out, the zombie was in the kitchen, glaring at him.
The pencil was stil protruding from his forearm as he growled.
Ian’s mom scowled at the teenager. “Danny? What are you doing here? How did you get into the house? I didn’t hear the door.”
“He’s trying to eat our brains, Mom.”
She tsked down at him. “Ian, don’t be ridiculous. Danny goes to church with us. Don’t you know him?”
“No.” He would remember if he’d ever seen a zombie at church. The limping and groaning tended to stand out.
His mom turned back to Danny. “Are you here for a donation? I heard your youth group was—” Danny grabbed Ian’s mom and bit her on the head.
She screamed.
“Don’t you hurt my mama!” Ian ran at him with the whole of his weight, driving him back a few steps and causing him to let go of his mom. Ian clamped down on Danny’s leg and bit him until he tasted blood.
No one attacks my mama!
Danny cried like a baby while Ian’s mom picked up the pan where she’d been making biscuits.
She bashed Danny’s head repeatedly with the pan, forcing him away from them. “Get behind me, Ian.” For once, Ian did as she told him.
She backed away from Danny, toward the front door.
Ian was feeling pretty good about their escape until he turned around.
There were more zombies on the front porch and they al looked hungry. …
Caleb’s heart skipped a beat as he flew in as a raven and saw Nick and some unknown female completely surrounded by zombies while trying to fight them off.
Malachai’s going to kill me. . . .
Because from his vantage point, it looked like the zombies were getting the better of them. Nick was covered in blood from various bite wounds while the female seemed to be doing a better job at keeping them off her.
Summoning his powers, Caleb sent a mental wave to the zombies to disperse them.
They didn’t listen. If anything, it made them even more aggressive against Nick.
“What the crap?”
As a demon, one of their first learned powers was to be able to control the dead. It was the lesson Nick was supposed to be learning right now.
But Caleb’s powers were useless against the zombies.
How could this be? It didn’t make sense. Not that it had to make sense to thoroughly tick him off.
And then he realized why he couldn’t control them.
They weren’t dead. These zombies had been made from the living. The living he could possess or influence, but he couldn’t control them without their cooperation.