Girl Z: My Life As A Teenage Zombie Read Free

shaking like he was being electrocuted. He gurgled and choked. A minute later, a frothy, opaque white substance bubbled from his mouth and dribbled down his neck and shirt.
    We watched in horror, unsure of what to do, though we somehow sensed Spence was beyond help.
    One last gasp and his body fell over. He stared at us unseeing, eyes bulging.
    Dead. I couldn’t understand it. But how? Wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I wrapped my cousin in a hug before I voiced my next suggestion. “Carm, we have to move him. We can’t leave him there.”
    Carm took a quick peek at his body again, then glanced at me, more tears tracking down her face. “I know. I can’t keep seeing him this way. I don’t get it. Was he that sick?”
    For once, I had no answers. And given all the weird stuff on the news and talk about zombies of all things, the next question hung unspoken in the air between us: if he contracted whatever those things out there had, would he stay dead?
    Feeling like I wanted to jump out of my skin, I helped Carm spread a sheet on the floor, the floral print a weird contrast to his pallid skin. We pulled him on top of it, closed his eyes, and folded his arms. Carm gasped when the pieces of a clear capsule rolled from his hand.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I eyed the empty pill she held in her hand, the alarm bells dinging in the back of my head. “Carm?” The paleness of my cousin’s face scared me.
    â€œNow I get it. Bec, his arm, look at his arm.”
    Her voice came out in a whisper. She clasped and unclasped her hands. The red gash glowed against his gray skin.
    â€œI know what he did,” Carm whispered.
    â€œThat stuff in his bag. He wants us to make more, for them. He took it because…” I gulped. “Because he was changing.”
    We put another sheet on top of the body and with a lot of grunts, huffing, puffing and effort, dragged it into the bedroom. The door shut, I stood there and stared, totally heartsick at the recent turn of events.
    A creepy-crawly feeling enveloped me, but what Spence did reassured me that my biggest fears wouldn’t happen—no doorknob rattling, no door squeaking, no turning to find a ghoulish version of him standing there.
    Spence was dead. Truly dead.
    After checking the rest of the window and door locks, I sat across from Carm at the kitchen table where she’d lined up all the jars and bottles.
    I took one of those tall jar candles my aunt always used, this one decorated with our Lady of Guadalupe, and lit it, partly for Spence, partly to dispel the shadows since all the windows were covered.
    Her face sad, Carm tapped her fingers on the table before she took her brother’s list and set out several items: a couple small bowls, paper, spoons, a measuring cup, and some paper plates. She handed me the paper. “I’ll mix, you read the ingredients.”
    One spoon, white powder. Check.
    One spoon, blue jar. Check.
    I read off a few more lines and stopped. “Carm, should we do this? He didn’t really explain what this stuff does. Maybe it isn’t safe.”
    She eyed the jars and shrugged. “I don’t know, but Spence wanted us to make it. I don’t think he’d tell us to do it if we’d get hurt.” She paused and sniffled. “I have to do it, for him.”
    I wasn’t convinced, but my cousin was better than me at the science stuff. She’d always talked about becoming a vet. Of course, Spence had been the same and we’d seen what happened to him.
    Still, I had no choice but to trust her.
    Carm measured, poured and mixed while I read off the ingredients. I fought to stay alert, but I felt kind of lightheaded. Then she added water and the stuff began to fizz like Pop Rocks candy. The smell—bad, something like rotten eggs—was getting to me, too, though Carm worked on and didn’t show any reaction.
    I coughed and gagged, not sure how much longer I could take