Alice in Zombieland

“Come in with me,” I said. “Stay.” I wasn’t ready to give her up. “If you don’t have anything else to do, that is.”

“I don’t. You’re sure you want more of me, though? My dad says I can be hard to take in large doses.”

“Don’t make me slap you.”

She laughed, and I couldn’t help but join in.

We were drenched the moment we stepped out of the car, and soaked to the bone by the time we sprinted past the door. But we were still laughing, so I considered the experience worthwhile.

“Ali,” Nana called from the kitchen.

A wave of nervousness hit me, and I realized I should have talked to her this morning. If she brought up the boxing thing, in front of Kat, I had no idea what I’d do.

We dripped our way to the kitchen, the scent of roasting carrots thickening the air the closer we got. Nana stood at the counter, chopping lettuce for a salad.

I relaxed when she offered us the sweetest of smiles. “Kathryn, darling, can you stay for dinner? We’re having pot roast. It’s one of Pops favorite dishes.”

“Is that okay?” Kat directed the question at me.

“Of course,” I replied, my tone telling her just how silly she was for asking.

She beamed. “Then, yes, I would love to stay for dinner.”

“Great.” Nana placed the lettuce in a bowl. “Everything will be ready in fifteen minutes. Why don’t you girls go upstairs and dry off. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

That sent us into fresh peals of laughter as we tromped off. In my room, we towel dried, decided that wasn’t going to work, and changed. I loaned her a T-shirt that bagged on her and a pair of sweats that had to be folded at the waist and the legs.

Out of habit, we checked our messages. She had one from Frosty, asking if she wanted to hang out later. See? I’d known he would recover. I had one from Cole, telling me he’d pick me up at eleven. I had to smile about that. Frosty asked. Cole informed. I was excited to see him, though. He—

Thump!

At the booming noise, I spun around. A very pale, shaky Kat looked as though she’d been trying to walk over to me but had fallen to her knees midway. I rushed to her side and helped her up.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” She limped over to sit on the edge of my bed, rubbed her hands over her face. “A little dizzy spell, that’s all.”

A little dizzy spell that had appeared suddenly, without warning. I thought of the scars on her arms. I thought of the other times I’d seen her this pale and shaky. I thought of the many days of school she’d missed.

“Kat, something’s wrong with you and I want you to tell me what it is.” I plopped beside her and crossed my legs. “No more evasions. You can tell me anything and it will never go any further, I hope you know that.”

Sighing, she threw herself backward, bouncing up and down on the mattress. “Well…you know how I told you my mom was a doctor at the hospital and that she’d told me all about you and that’s why I was there?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I lied. I’m sorry,” she added before I could utter a word. “I just didn’t want to tell you the truth. I haven’t told anyone, not even Frosty.”

“Then what is it?” Confusion and concern beat through me. “Why were you there?”

Her hands returned to her face, blocking her expression from my view. “I’m sick. My kidneys don’t exactly work right. I need dialysis, like, a lot. That’s the real reason I was up there. I overheard two of the nurses talking about you and decided to check you out.”

The concern took over and consumed me, making me shake. One word echoed in my mind. Sick. Sick. Sick. “Are you going to be okay?”

“My mom…she had defunct kidneys, too, and she died at a pretty early age. Like, just after I was born.”

“Kat.” I grabbed her hand and held on, never wanting to let her go.

Her chin went straight into the air. The overhead light glinted off the sheen of tears in eyes more green than brown. “I don’t want you to treat me any differently. I’m still just me.”

Yes, she was still one of the best people I knew. I wanted to save her, somehow, someway, as I hadn’t been able to save my family and Brent, because losing her would destroy me, and I knew it.

Every day the clock ticked—or not. The end could come in a heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second. Gone, gone, gone.

Kat. Nana. Pops.

Cole.

I’d been keeping him at a distance, tiptoeing around him, I realized, thinking yes, I’d give him a chance, then no, I wouldn’t. Yes. No. Excited. Nervous. Always holding a little part of myself back.

Well, no longer. I was done letting fear rule my life. I’d had that thought before, but this time the words were alive inside me. This time, I wouldn’t back down.

“You said Frosty doesn’t know?” I asked quietly.

“No, he doesn’t.” Her gaze locked on mine, the gleam inside hard and harsh. “I want to keep it that way. Okay? I shouldn’t, but I still love him. If he finds out, he’ll either drop me or double his efforts to be with me for the time I have left. I don’t want him to drop me, but I don’t want him to only want me because I’m a limited time offer, either. I want him to fight for me just because he loves me.”

“He hasn’t noticed your fatigue? Your scars?”

“Well, of course he has. But the days I’m tired I tell him I’m on my period and that settles that. Girl issues scare him. As for the scars, I told him I was in a terrible fight in junior high and the little witch scratched like a sissy. He asks me for her name and address at least once a week. I think he hopes to watch a rematch.”

I wanted to laugh at that. I wanted to cry. “I won’t say a word, I promise.”

Bit by bit, the tension eased from her. “Good. And now, to purposefully change the subject, I finally finished the rumor tree. You’ll never believe who the culprit is.”

I’d stopped caring, and yet, curiosity got the better of me. “Who?”

“Justin’s sister, Jaclyn.”

“Of course,” I said, her name switching on a lightbulb inside my head. I was ashamed I hadn’t deduced the truth sooner. I hadn’t spoken to Justin since that night in the forest, when he and his crew had stolen my zombies, and Jaclyn had turned in the other direction every time she’d spotted me. “She hates me.”

“Hate is too mild a word. But it’s nothing personal, I don’t think. She hates everyone who’s involved with Cole. Even hated me while I was dating Frosty. Not that she ever said why.”

I knew why, but I couldn’t tell her.

“Are you going to say anything to her?” Kat asked.

“No,” I said with a sigh. “It’s over. Done.” I wasn’t going to risk getting in trouble over something like this, not when I had so much to lose. Plus, Cole would be all over Justin, and he had enough to deal with right now.

We all did.

16 The Good, the Bad and the Really Ugly

At ten fifty-nine that night, I spotted a flashing light outside my bedroom window. Cole’s signal. He was here.

The storm had left its mark, the sky an endless expanse of polished onyx, the ground dark and muddy. I’d been watching for him for the past five—cough sixty-seven cough—minutes, and had wondered how I’d be able to tag him. Well, now I knew.

Filled with a bubbling kind of guilt, I double-checked the Pillow-Ali I’d rigged on the bed, then tiptoed down the stairs and to the back door. Pops and Nana were a lot older than my mom and dad, and their hearing wasn’t