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“Maybe not,” Ben said hopefully. He’d gotten back some of his mojo. “Hear it? Fading already . . .”
Not his imagination: The sound was fainter. You had to hold your breath to hear it. We hung there in the hall for another ten minutes until the sound disappeared. Waited another ten and it didn’t come back. Ben blew out his cheeks.
“Think we’re good . . .”
“For how long?” Dumbo wanted to know. “We shouldn’t stay here tonight, Sarge. I say we head for the caverns now.”
“And chance missing Ringer on her way back?” Ben shook his head. “Or risk that chopper coming back while we’re exposed? No, Dumbo. We stick to the plan.”
He pushed himself to his feet. His eyes fell on my face. “What’s up with Buzz Lightyear? No change?”
“His name is Evan and no. No change.”
Ben smiled. I don’t know, maybe imminent peril made him feel more alive somehow, for the same reason zombies are carnivores with only one item on the menu. You never heard of undead vegetarians. Where’s the challenge in attacking a plate of asparagus?
Sams giggled. “Zombie called your boyfriend a space ranger.”
“He isn’t a space ranger—and why is everyone calling him my boyfriend?”
Ben’s smile broadened. “He’s not your boyfriend? But he kissed you . . .”
“Full on?” Dumbo asked.
“Oh, yeah. Twice. That’s what I saw.”
“With tongue?”
“Ewww.” Sammy mouth’s formed a sour lemon pout.
“I have a gun,” I announced, only half joking.
“I didn’t see any tongue,” Ben said.
“Want to?” I stuck my tongue out at him. Dumbo laughed. Even Poundcake smiled.
That’s when the girl appeared, stepping into the hallway from the stairwell, and then everything got very strange, very fast.
36
A MUD-(or it could have been blood-)stained, tattered pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. A pair of shorts that once had been tan, maybe, faded to a dirty white. Grungy white flip-flops with a couple stubborn rhinestones clinging to the straps. A narrow, pixieish face dominated by huge eyes, topped by a mass of tangled dark hair. And young, around Sammy’s age, though she was so thin, her face looked like a little old lady’s.
Nobody said anything. We were shocked. Seeing her at the far end of the hall, teeth chattering, knobby knees knocking in the freezing cold, was another Camp Ashpit, yellow-school-bus-pulling-up-when-school-would-never-exist-again moment. Something that simply could not be.
Then Sammy whispered, “Megan?”
And Ben said, “Who the hell is Megan?” Which was very much what the rest of us were thinking.
Sam took off before anybody could grab him. Pulled up halfway to her. The little girl didn’t move. Didn’t hardly blink. Her eyes seemed to shine in the dwindling light, bright and birdlike, like a wizened owl’s.
Sam turned to us and said, “Megan!” As if he were pointing out the obvious. “It’s Megan, Zombie. She was on the bus with me!” He turned back to her. “Hi, Megan.” Casually, like they were meeting up at the monkey bars for a playdate.
“Poundcake,” Ben said softly. “Check the stairs. Dumbo, take the windows. Then sweep the first floor, both of you. There’s no way she’s alone.”
She spoke, and her voice came out in a high-pitched, scratchy whine that reminded me of fingernails scraping across a blackboard.
“My throat hurts.”
Her big eyes rolled back in her head. Her knees buckled. Sam raced toward her, but he was too late: She went down hard, smacking the thin carpeting with her forehead a second before Sam could reach her. Ben and I rushed over, and he bent down to pick her up. I pushed him away.
