I stared through the window from my perch on the eucalyptus tree. Tonight was the night. I crept down the trunk and froze as the lights flipped on inside the house. A human wandered into the room, holding a plate of delectable treats before him. Two smaller humans jumped and skipped around him
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Agent Rand once said the holiday season brings people together like the crowds of merry New Yorkers seventy floors below. While my FBI partner might not have worried about forging willy-nilly attachments, I was content keeping to myself. Otherwise, I might’ve been easily manipulated in situations like this atop the Rockefeller Center.
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The zombies had the stronghold surrounded. But what else was new?
Kicking my feet up on my desk, I clicked on my handheld recorder. “This is Commander Corinthia II—that’s ‘Cori’ to my friends, ‘Commander’ to the rest of you—with an update on our situation. It’s day…” I glanced at the walls of my concrete room. The hordes of tally marks looked like the desperate clawing of the undead. “…day unknown of The Z Siege. The Oasis is holding up fairly well.” What could zombies do to a concrete fortress in the middle of a desert? Arm themselves with cactus battering rams and charge?
“Do we have to go this way?” Edelweiss whispered, clutching my arm as we maneuvered through the shadowy valley. Dark, frozen cliffsides loomed on each side. Heaps of snow and rock shards rendered the path nearly invisible. “Isn’t this giant territory?”
“There’s no going around it,” I whispered back to her, fingers ready to
Grandmother would tell me stories about the Cliffs of Faerie—and the monsters that lived there. The creatures that crossed into that snowy realm would change in ways none understood.
But t’night was worth the risk.
I crept down the rough-hewn stairs of our cottage, lantern in hand. Grandmother tossed in fits
“I can’t believe you hacked the store’s security cameras,” Sophie said in awe. The laptop screen illuminated Caleb’s dark apartment. In the bottom right corner, a tiny display read 12:57.
“Child’s play.” Caleb puffed his chest out. “In fact, I hacked everything. I can run the whole show from this laptop. Of course, it helps that management actually trusts me.”
“Hello!” I flounced over to another group of people before anyone from the first could respond. “Hello!” Seeing their confused expressions, I chuckled and skipped down the sidewalk.
When I heard a woman speaking Spanish into her cell phone, I couldn’t help but exclaim “¡Hola! ¡Soy Leah!” She glared at me, but I was too giddy to care. I had a bet to win.
“I’m not good at being a human,” I explain, crunching a dead leaf under my feet as I take a step closer to the sidewalk bench. “I’ve been practicing, but I’m amateur at best. Humans, they’re… close to what I am, but I can’t avoid making them nervous around me.”
Big Ben chimes the late hour several blocks away.
Moira turned the knob on the dashboard, silencing the radio. She sat quiet for a minute, listening. Funny. She could’ve sworn she’d heard something. She shrugged and leaned back in the passenger seat, singing a little under her breath. Dad was taking forever. How long did it take to pay for the gas and grab a soda?
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“Come on, man!” Damon protested. “I asked off for tomorrow night!”
“I know, but Zach was supposed to be your fill-in, and nobody’s seen him for two days. Like he fell off the face of the earth. Surprised he lasted this long.” Mr. Corman smirked, his eyes inscrutable behind thick spectacles.
Father Gary eyed me as if I had asked him to rob a bank. I didn’t understand why. My question was simple. He had the power and the tools to help me, so what was the problem?
The priest folded his hands. “Edwin, let’s discuss this before I consider your request.”
Fair enough.
My glasses fog, smearing the police tape into a fluttering yellow ribbon against the forest. Sunlight cuts across my cheek, but it can’t shake the chill under my skin. I’m shivering as Andersen finishes the report.
“The kids disappeared, just like…” He glances at me, concern thick as molasses.
I sip my latte.
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