26
Eternally Yours

GRADUALLY, THROUGHOUT THE rest of that endless day, order breaks down at Barracuda Bay High School. Whether it’s the four or five people missing from each class to paint and glitter and hang stars in the gym, or the two or three more who simply skipped school to alter their dresses or get their hair done, or the lazy teachers handing out word searches and crossword puzzles to the kids unpopular or lame enough to actually come to class, the whole school has that lazy, do-nothing, care-about-nothing, day-before-summer feel.

Anticipation fills the halls, kids are abuzz, and even the teachers—at least, the ones the Zerkers haven’t turned into zombies, that is—are in a festive mood. I make it a habit as I enter each class to address each teacher. If their clothes are all buttoned properly, their eyes aren’t yellow, and they respond promptly with my name, I smile and say, “Oh, never mind.” So far, so good.

All except for Ms. Haskins, that is.

I walk into Art class prepared for the worst, but Mrs. Witherspoon is bright-eyed and the class is nearly deserted. The Art Chicks who actually bothered to show up for class are hanging out together at one of the long, black drawing tables in the back, flipping through a new copy of Elle and ignoring me with their droll expressions and knowing eyes and whispering mouths.

Stamp is there, fuming in the back, arms crossed, lips tight—not zombie tight, just …pissed tight—waiting for me. With so many empty seats available, I skip the one beside him and sit in front of him instead.

“Real mature,” he says. I hear his chair scooting and then, just like that, he’s right next to me.

“Back off,” I say, forgetting my new zombie strength and shoving him away. His chair scoots literally to the next table over.

Mrs. Witherspoon cocks an eyebrow above her big goofy glasses. The Art Chicks giggle and one says, “Lover’s spat,” in a singsong voice, but Stamp just picks up his chair, walks back across the room, and sets it down even closer to me.

“Bench-press much?” he asks, face red from being flung across the room by, of all things, a girl.

“A little,” I lie. The Guide said I’d get stronger over time, but this? First I’m beheading gravediggers with a single swing; next I’m breaking Zerker nose from the standing position; then I’m tossing 200-pound jock hunks halfway across the room? A girl could really get used to this.

“So …you know about me and …Hazel?”

“Whatever do you mean?” I say, playing it innocent.

Stamp frowns. “We saw you in the gym, Maddy. Everyone saw you in the gym.”

When I don’t answer, he adds, “I didn’t want you to …find out …that way.”

I groan and roll my eyes. “How did you want me to find out, Stamp? Were you and Hazel going to rent out one of those sign planes and announce it to all of Barracuda Bay at once so my humiliation could be complete?”

“Hey, you’re the one who turned me down, remember?”

“Okay, fine, but then you have to turn right around and run and ask Hazel? Hazel? Really? My best friend? What happened to those three dozen other chicks you were going to ask first?”

He’s quiet, looking down at his shoes, not defending himself, and suddenly I get it. Hazel and her moody ways lately, Hazel jock-blocking me the day Chloe took me shopping, Hazel ditching our before- and after-school rides all week, the frustrated look on her face this morning as she was getting out of my car, as if she wanted to say something but then, at the very last minute, thought better of it.

“You didn’t ask her, did you, Stamp? She asked you.”

He doesn’t shake his head, doesn’t nod, but I know.

Suddenly a thought occurs to me. “Just tell me this, Stamp. Did she ask you before you asked me …or after?”

Stamp blushes, opens his mouth to answer, then stops himself. “I …I can’t answer that, Maddy.” “You just did.”

Then the door bursts open and suddenly Hazel storms in.

“Hazel,” we shout, halfway out of our seats by the time she starts marching down the aisles.

She looks …bad. My stomach drops. Even from across the room, I can see the fresh bite marks on her shoulder where her rapid pace makes her roomy peasant blouse bunch and gather, then unbunch and ungather.

Oh God; oh God, no. Not Hazel; not my Hazel.

“Get away from him, Maddy,” she shouts, spittle flying, eyes wide, cold and—yellow. Flashlight-in-the-dark yellow. Black-cat’s-eye yellow. Zerker yellow.

Oh God, not her, too.

In a flash, everything is gone. All of it. Everything we’ve built together—wasted, utterly and truly abandoned. I picture Hazel as I first met her: pigtails then, pigtails now; a little frilly pink dress as we drew on the sidewalk with pink and blue chalk. (Guess which color she chose?)

I think of all the firsts we’ve shared since then: first day of junior high, first locker combinations, first periods (and not the kind you go to when the bell rings, either), first kisses, first crushes, first sips of beer at Rob Blonsky’s pool party, first driver’s license exams, first—everything.

I can’t imagine a time when Hazel and I weren’t sharing firsts together; I’ve known her for most of the years I’ve been alive—and now neither of us is alive. And even now, suddenly, I can’t stand the sight of her.

Knowing what she is, knowing what Bones and Dahlia have done to her, what they’ve made her, how—ugly—they’ve made her, the sight of her clenching white jaws and glowing yellow eyes makes me want to look away, to deny her, to deny all those firsts.

But I can’t. Even now, she’s still my best friend.

Stamp stands up, his chair flying back into the table behind us with a clattering explosion of plastic and metal. As Mrs. Witherspoon and the Art Chicks watch on in amazement, Hazel launches herself across the table at me. (I mean, this is some serious soap opera shit right here.)

Stamp is fast but not fast enough. I am, though. With my new strength, I grab her wrists with one hand and the back of her neck with the other, slamming her—hard—into the table. With her face hanging down off the table, I lean in and whisper into her ear, “I know what you’ve done; I know what they did to you. Back off, Hazel; you’re not up to this.”

She hisses, spits, and I stand up, inch away so she’s out of range before releasing her. Then I shove Stamp out of the way as she bolts upright and wheels around. It feels wrong, unnatural, taking sides with Stamp against my best friend, but I’ve already seen what the Zerker strain did to Scurvy. If it’s going to do that to Hazel, she’s already gone. But then a strange thing happens. Suddenly a little of the old Hazel is back—the popular one, the one who takes extracurricular activities to round out her college applications, the people pleaser, the teacher pleaser.

With Stamp safe behind me and the Art Chicks clustered in the other corner of the room protected by a quivering Mrs. Witherspoon, Hazel stands up, straightens her frilly dress, tucks a strand of red hair behind her pink ear, and says, “I’m sorry about that little …display …Mrs. Witherspoon. I don’t know what got into me. Stamp, if you’ll be so kind, the Decorating Committee needs your …help.”

Without asking for permission, Hazel yanks Stamp from the class. He goes willingly, not looking back. In their wake, I’m left to clean up the pieces, and now I’m no longer the Maddy Mrs. Witherspoon, or even the Art Chicks, knew. Busted, I slip from class, ignoring Mrs. Witherspoon’s protests and waving Ms. Haskins’ pad full of free hall passes in her face on my way out the door.

I chase after Hazel, catching her as she rounds the C-wing corner headed for the commons. “Hazel!”

She turns, whispers something to Stamp, and shoves him in the general direction of the student parking lot.

“Stamp?” I whimper, but he only pauses, giving me those “it’s not my fault” eyes before turning and scampering away.

Hazel turns and takes a battle stance, as if I might follow him and she has the right to stop me. I stop, take one step back. “Whoa,” I say soothingly, still a few yards from her. “Hazel, I just …I want to talk to you. This is …this is crazy.”

She stands her ground, doesn’t move a muscle, and already I can see the gray pallor has her, the dark shadows seeming to deepen under her eyes even as she speaks. “What’s so crazy, Maddy?”

But even as she waits for the answer, I know nothing I say is going to change what she’s become, what we’ve become.

“This, Hazel. Can’t you see? This is crazy. You storming in here, dragging Stamp away like some cavewoman. This isn’t like you.”

“That’s because I’m the new me, Maddy, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Even as I’m mourning the death of our friendship, she seems almost …happy …about it. She’s smiling, and I know it’s not to look brave; her smile goes deep down to the heart of her, as if she’s glad we don’t have to be friends anymore.

“Sure there is, Hazel. I’m still me, dead or alive. I’m still me. I can help you; Dane and Chloe can help you, the Elders, the Sentinels …somebody …can help you. You have to fight it, Hazel; fight it for a little while longer so we can get you some help.”

“Fight what, Maddy? Why would I fight feeling this …good? For once in my life, I can be exactly who I want to be and nobody can stop me. Not even you.”

At this, of all things, I laugh. Out loud. “When in the hell have you ever not done exactly what you wanted to, Hazel? I mean, you didn’t have to become a Zerker to get your own damn way. You’ve been getting your way since we met.”

Now she takes a step forward, but not to fight; at least, not with her fists anyway. But then again, Hazel was always a warrior with words. “That’s what you think I’ve been doing all this time, Maddy? Getting my way? You think I’ve been doing this all for me? You think being friends with you has helped me? Bitch, please. You’ve been holding me back since day one. Why couldn’t we have moved onto a street with popular bitches? With cool chicks? You think I enjoy movie night with you every Saturday? You think I enjoy passing up invitations from prettier, more popular girls—and guys—to babysit your sorry ass every weekend? I’ve been doing you a favor, Maddy; but no more. Now it’s my time.”

My lips quiver but, of course, no tears come. I take a step forward and she flinches, but I keep coming until we’re face-to-face, and I slap her with the open part of my hand. Hard; hard enough to where, if she were still alive, her jaw might crack. Instead, she flinches, and it’s my marble hand against her marble skin.

“You take that back, Hazel. You take it all back, right now. I know you didn’t mean it; I know you’ve been a true friend. You couldn’t have been faking it all these years. Know how I know? ‘Cause you’re not that good an actress. This is just, just …some …disease making you say all this.”

She doesn’t fight back, doesn’t rush me and tear my blouse or yank my hair or try to shove me in a freshman locker. She just rubs the place where I slapped her and says, “Bones was right; I really can’t feel anything.”

It’s like her eyes are empty; like she’s already gone. Like nothing we’ve ever done together, talked about, laughed or cried about is still up there behind those empty yellow eyes. Like it’s all been erased for good. “I don’t understand how you can be this …brutal.” I whimper, hating myself for saying it, powerless to not say it.

Hazel actually laughs; the sound is cruel to start with, but even crueler as it bounces off the floor and wall tiles until I’m in a pure vortex of hateful Hazel laughter. “Bones was right about you, too, Maddy. He said you were weak, and I thought he was wrong. But he was right; you are weak. And you had your shot at being a zombie first; now let me show you how it’s really done.”

“That’s what you think this is, Hazel? A big competition? This is life and death, Hazel; this is forever. You don’t go through a Zerker phase and tap out when you’re done; you’re in it for life. And if you think I’m happy about being the first to die, Jesus, kid, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

“Me?” she says, inching forward before backing away. “We’ll see who’s teaching who when it’s all said and done, Maddy.”

And with that, she’s off, turning on her heels and scrambling away in jerky movements. Though I know she can no longer hear me, I shout, “Whom! It’s ‘We’ll see who’s teaching whom.’ You never were good in English. I’ve been carrying you for years.”

In her wake, the halls—and my life—are empty.

It’s like my own personal Armageddon or something.

I head straight for my locker on hollow legs, planning on grabbing a few books for the weekend and …heading home, hiding out, and trying to forget the last two weeks ever happened. (Damn, has it only been two frickin’ weeks?)

I key in my combination, open my locker, and out falls a shiny silver envelope. On the front is my name, my full name: Madison Emily Swift. It’s written in loopy, feminine script.

For one split second my dead, nonbeating heart thrums to life. I think it’s from Hazel—a sorry note or some other heartfelt missive—but then I reason, How could she apologize in advance for something she just did?

I open it and find these words:

A boot squeak on the hall floor startles me, and when I turn from my open locker, I see Dane and Chloe waiting for me, shiny invitations in their hands, already open and read.

“I guess the Truce is over,” I say.

Dane looks like he just ate a pound of bad brains, then another, just to make sure. “You have no idea.”