But the cult was already swarming around Iggy.
“He’s the new generation,” I heard someone say. “He’s the future.” It was like they wanted him to be their leader.
“Iggy! Iggy!” kids were chanting, closing in on us. They were touching his face, stroking his wings. “He’s the future.”
Some girls sobbed as if he were Robert Pattinson or something. “I want to be you,” they said, weeping, their painted-on smiles making the whole scene even weirder. “Can you sign my flyer?”
“I’ll take out my eyes,” one psycho volunteered happily. “I want to be blind like Iggy.”
“This is bad,” Angel said next to me. “Max, this is really,
Normally, I follow the “no birdkid or flock relative left behind” rule. For all I knew, Ella was about to gouge out her eyes too. But I was being swept up in a crowd of insane, horrifying zombies, all chanting about saving the planet and murdering about seven billion people to do it.
So I made a fast, horrible decision.
“On the count of three, we grab Iggy and blow this popsicle stand,” I yelled. “One, two, three!”
Dylan, Angel, and I broke away from the group and pounded across the school parking lot until we had room to jump in the air to get aloft. This, obviously, prompted a new round of murmurs about us being the future, which we’d heard before, but it felt a bit less… flattering than it usually did.
Dylan and I swooped over Iggy, grabbed him under the arms, and lifted him up, just like the flying monkeys did to Dorothy in Oz.
“Let me go,” Iggy said. “I am the future!” He squirmed a bit and kicked his legs. I held on tighter. He’s tall but superskinny, so we could carry him without too much trouble.
I sighed. “Right now, Ig, the Magic 8 Ball of your future says ‘Signs point to nutso.’ ”
Angel scanned the ground below. “I don’t see Ella anywhere!”
“I can’t believe we just… left her there,” Dylan said. I shot him a look. I was the flock leader. I knew I’d made the right call in the moment, and I didn’t need anyone’s approval. But it still stung not to have him on my side.
“Maybe, just maybe, we can convince Mom and Jeb to come back and get Ella,” I said. “First, though, let’s get Iggy away from that creepy crowd!”
“They weren’t creepy,” Iggy said, trying to flail. “They want to build a new society, a better society, after the world ends. And all we have to do is kill all the humans.” He smiled up at us.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m picking up on a couple of problem phrases. Like, ‘after the world ends’ and the ‘kill all the humans’ part.”
“There’s no problem,” Iggy said.
“We have to deprogram him!” Angel yelled frantically.
Iggy blinked and, with his face still blank and happy, babbled about killing everyone. I couldn’t even see my Iggy anymore. It was terrifying.
38
IGGY HUNG LIMPLY between Dylan and me, like he’d forgotten he could fly too. At last, my mom’s house came into view, and we began our descent. When I saw Total out front waiting for us, my stomach knotted up.
“Where’s Ella?” he asked right away.
“We lost her in the mob of zombies at the school,” I reported. “My mom and Jeb need to go back and get her while we deprogram Iggy.”
Total shook his shaggy black head. “Not long after you left, your mom and Jeb disappeared. Nudge and Gazzy didn’t even seem to notice they left—both of them are still here.”
“They left? Where did they go?” I asked. “Did they take the car?”
“That’s the weird thing,” said Total. “They walked out. After a couple minutes, I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I should check on ’em,’ you know? So I went out. The car’s still here, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. I even flew around and searched the whole area. It’s like a spaceship picked them up or something.”
I looked into his bright black eyes and saw worry there.
“Crap,” I said and went inside. In the living room, Nudge and Gazzy were sitting on the couch watching news
