“Oh, Ali,” I heard Cole say, dread dripping from his voice. Gentle fingers brushed over my face, lifted and turned my arm to survey the damage. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. I’m sorry. I got here as soon as I could.”
“I don’t know how she knew,” a man lashed out, “but she caught several in our traps.” His voice was unrecognizable to me.
Those gentle fingertips returned to my face. “Every zombie that attacked you is dead, Ali. I promise you. They paid.”
“We need to get her out of here.” Frosty had said that, I think.
“I’ll take her,” Cole proclaimed, and the words were so sharp I knew no one would dare contradict him. “You take care of her grandparents.”
Take care of my grandparents how? Arms slid underneath me, hefting me up. With the movement, the burn those chomping zombie teeth had left behind intensified, and I whimpered.
“I’ve got you,” Cole said. “I won’t let anything else happen to you.”
Hours seemed to pass before we broke through the trees. Suddenly I could hear party sounds: muffled voices, laughter, fast pounding music, even splashing. Kids must be swimming.
I struggled against Cole, hurting myself further but not caring. I didn’t want anyone to see me. As strong as he was, I made no progress.
“Settle down,” he said softly. “There’s an underground passage into the room you and Kat discovered. We’ll be able to doctor you there. No one will see you, I swear. And you will recover, do you hear me? I’ve already administered the antidote. You need other treatment, but the worst that will happen is you’ll miss your curfew and be grounded for a few weeks.”
Maybe so, but my grandparents would worry every minute that I was late, and that I wouldn’t allow. “Need…call…” I managed to grit out. The pain…it was too much…too much… “Can’t…let…”
“Frosty will drug your grandparents, okay? Without scaring them,” he added, probably knowing I’d protest otherwise. “They’ll never even know he was there. They’ll get a good night’s rest, and wake up nice and refreshed in the morning. They’ll still know you missed curfew, there’s nothing I can do about that since it’s twelve twenty-five, and Frosty won’t get there for another fifteen, but they won’t know what time you actually came home.”
His voice had begun to echo. We must be in a tunnel. The underground passage, probably. If I screamed—and I really really wanted to scream—the sound of my agony would echo into eternity and Cole would forever remember me as a wuss. Can’t let that happen.
But I wasn’t sure what was worse. The potential blow to my ego, or the fact that I felt as if I’d fallen into hell’s fire.
When Cole stopped, I barely managed to turn the waiting scream into a hiss. I heard another patter of footsteps, then the whine of hinges. Then he was moving again, and I was being laid on top of a cold, hard surface. Suddenly there were voices all around me, both male and female.
“How many got to her?”
“Eight that I saw. Could have been more. A nest of them chased her through the grounds.”
“How long were they able to feed on her?”
“Don’t know. But she and I were separated for no more than an hour, so it’s gotta be less than that.”
“Any survivors?”
“No, sir.” Pride in his tone, followed by the barest of pauses. “How bad are Ali’s injuries?”
The next pause was brutal, fraying what remained of my nerves. “Very. What they got into her spirit is now in her muscles. If it sinks into her bones…”
Cole released a spat of dark curses.
Must be a very bad thing. “Help…me,” I managed. Stop talking to each other and help me! Every second was worse than the last.
My shirt was cut away, maybe even my bra. I hurt too much to care who was getting a peep show. For that matter, I hurt too much to care about my rep. I screamed, vocalizing the sharpest edges of my torment. Whoever was stripping me never paused. My boots and jeans were discarded in a hurry.
Something cold probed the wound in my neck, and my entire body bowed as I released another scream. The pain… I’d only thought I knew what it was before. This was true pain. Pain in its purest form. Pain, pain, pain.
“Knock her out!” Cole shouted.
Another question poised at the edge of my mind, but it refused to crystallize. It bothered me, whatever it was. Made me uneasy, even queasy. Or maybe that was the zombie toxin or the antidote or whatever was working through me.
After a pinch in my upper arm, something warm began to wash through me. Dizziness overshadowed that sense of pain, distracting me, and suddenly I was floating through a sea of soft clouds.
Floating…
…away…
* * *
…floating…
…back…
I fought the return to my body. I wanted to stay in this vast realm of nothingness, where troubles were a thing of the past and nothing could hurt me. But I lost this fight the same way I’d lost the fight with the zombies.
Zombies.
The word was a tether, drawing me back for good. I dropped…settling in…unable to escape.
My stomach clenched, shooting a blistering sting up and another down. A moan left me. My brain felt like a big, heaping bowl of Jell-O, and my eyelids felt as if they’d been glued together. I had to force them to part by blinking rapidly. I tried to focus. I could hear a quiet beep, beep in the background. Could smell the strong odor of room cleaner overlaid by the rank scent of rot.
A too-bright light hung above me, swinging back and forth. Last thing I remembered was the party, the zombies. Running, being chased, fighting. Teeth sinking into me. How had I gotten here? For that matter, where was here?
My heartbeat picked up speed, and the beeping sounds followed suit. I attempted to sit up but something caught on my wrists, holding me down. I twisted to look, cried out. The skin in my neck and arm pulled tight, shooting knifelike pains through every inch of me.
“Calm down,” someone said.
Not alone. Stiffening, I searched the room. The speaker was hidden from view. “Who’s there?”
“And stay still,” someone else added. “You don’t want to rip your stitches.”
“Besides, you can’t get free.” A female voice I recognized but couldn’t quite place. “You’re restrained.”