Two seconds later her reply came in: Rock on, dirty girl! Give me deets 2morrow. PS: If U C Frosty, tell him I hate him!
Such easy acceptance from her caused guilt to gnaw at me. She had only ever been nice to me, had accepted me from day one. I owed her so much—even the truth, no matter what I suspected her reaction would be.
“You did the right thing,” Cole said, probably sensing my regret.
I stuffed the phone in my pocket and gripped my knees. “I know.” That didn’t make me feel any better.
He reached over and pried my fingers loose. He brought my injured knuckles to his lips and kissed them. “Don’t worry. You’re part of my world now. I’ll teach you how to survive it.”
Part of his world. What, exactly, did that mean? “The first thing I want to know is what those things are. I’ve asked twice, but you haven’t said. So tell me. Teach me. What did we just fight?”
Only a single beat of silence this time. Then he uttered one word. Just one. But that one word forever changed my life, as feared. “Zombies.”
10
Hungry…Need Brains…Will Have Yours
Zombies. The ominous word played through my head over and over again as I stood under the hot, streaming water in the shower stall. The blood and black goo had been lathered away and were now blending together and swirling around the drain. Every muscle I possessed ached. And now that my adrenaline had completely crashed, my bones felt liquefied.
Only sheer grit kept me on my feet. I needed more information.
Zombies. What were they, exactly?
Oh, I knew what books and movies claimed. They were the living dead, they were mindless and they craved human flesh. But…I now knew they weren’t human. They weren’t tangible to human touch. They were spirits—as I was a spirit.
In fact, how were spirits of such malevolence created?
Was I truly safe here? Could zombies slink through the bathroom walls at any moment and attack me? I mean, how hard would it have been to follow a dirty Jeep with two delicious snackpacks inside? I think I could follow a Hostess truck in my sleep.
Before panic could have another go at me, I reminded myself that the zombies had approached my grandparents’ home time and time again, yet they’d never come inside—which brought up another question. Could they not enter a person’s home? After all, they’d never entered my old house, either. Had they tried, the entire street would have heard the gunfire my dad unleashed.
What was Cole’s part in this? He and his friends fought the zombies, I knew that. But what else? They were so knowledgeable, they had to do more.
A knock at the door disrupted my line of thought. “Ali? You good?”
Cole’s deep voice had me shivering. “Yes.” He’d saved my life tonight. Without him, I would have become zombie food.
“Hurry up, all right? You weren’t very steady on your feet, and if you pass out, I will bust in and play doctor.”
And he would find me naked. Immediately I shut off the water and toweled off. A white tank top and a pair of pink sweatpants rested on the toilet lid. How the heck—I searched the entire bathroom, which wasn’t hard to do, considering it was a small space with only a toilet, sink and shower. Those clothes hadn’t been there when I’d stripped.
Gritting my teeth, I checked the lock I had engaged the very moment I’d stepped inside. The knob stuck.
So…someone had broken into the bathroom, given me the clothes, then relocked the knob. Not a lot of thought was needed to piece together that particular mystery. Cole was the culprit, who else? And didn’t that just figure. He carried an arsenal on his body at all times, hung out at clubs meant for adults, and fought monsters on a nightly basis. Of course he could pick a lock.
I dressed, dried my hair as best I could and gave my reflection a quick inspection. All I could do was grimace. As pale as I usually was, I was now pallid. There were shadows under my eyes—eyes that were bigger than usual, with bruises circling underneath. I had road rash on the side of my jaw from when the zombies had pushed me onto the concrete.
While I would have loved a thousand pounds of makeup, a blow dryer and a straightening iron, plus professional stylists to ensure I used the tools wisely, I finally left the relative safety of the bathroom. A cloud of soap-scented steam followed me into the bedroom I’d been given. Small but comfortable, with clean blue sheets, lots of pillows and a—
Who cared about the room? Cole stood a few feet away from me, his arms crossed over his chest. Clearly he’d showered, too, because his hair was damp and slicked back from his face. He’d ditched his T-shirt and wore only a clean pair of jeans. Even his feet were bare. But his feet weren’t what I found myself staring at.