Read Online Undead with Benefits by Jeff Hart - Free Book Online

picked up my skepticism because he immediately put on his serious face, which I think took a real, concerted effort on his part. I wanted to hug him.
    â€œLook, I know it’s, like, a crazy longshot suicide-mission thing. But what I’m trying to explain is . . . we want to do better. You bring up our school all casual, but we think about that all the time. We’ve gotta live with it. If we can find this cure in Iowa, though—which is, like, seriously the only thing we can think of to do—if we find it and cure an apocalyptic plague, that sort of balances things out, right? It doesn’t bring back our friends or anything, but it saves humanity. So maybe we could be pardoned or something.”
    â€œThe outlaw hero,” I said. “You’re like Han Solo.”
    â€œWell, that’s about the coolest thing anyone’s ever said about me,” he replied.
    â€œIt was a good speech. You earned it.”
    I smiled at him. I felt like we were having a moment. Then he closed the laptop and stood up.
    â€œAll right, I’m gonna catch up with Amanda,” he said, glancing toward the door. “Now that I’ve, like, told you all my hopes and dreams.”
    â€œUm, okay,” I replied, feeling my smile fade, then trying not to let it show, and ending up with a huge, crazy grin. Jake didn’t seem to notice.
    â€œHopefully tomorrow you can actually get us into Iowa,” he continued thoughtfully, lingering, like we were making plans to hang out and catch a movie. “Then we’ll all make good. Us for, you know . . .” He made a chomp-chomp motion with his hand. “And you for helping the NCD kill however many undead-afflicted Americans.”
    I hung around the pool for a while after Jake left, watching blue ringlets fight with shadows across the ceiling.
    I don’t think Jake had meant to make me feel like crap, but he had. First, for getting his hopes up about Iowa, a promise that I had absolutely no way of keeping. And second, for pointing out that he and Amanda weren’t the only ones with dead bodies on their conscience.
    â€œI shouldn’t be here,” I said, talking to myself. I didn’t just mean in the pool after midnight—I meant Omaha, on the run with some zombies, all of it. I wished that I’d flunked that psychic-aptitude test, that I’d never been pulled out of high school, that I had my safe and boring life back, where the most morally objectionable thing I had to deal with was a fourth refill on an endless pasta bowl at the cheesy Italian restaurant I used to work at.
    Harlene was going to put it all back to normal for me. Before Amanda killed her.
    I found myself out of the pool and padding down the hallway, wet feet leaving dark prints on the faded carpet. I crossed the lobby, the night clerk sparing me just a glance before going back to her romance novel. I was headed for the pay phone.
    It wasn’t that late in San Diego yet. My mom would still be up. I would tell her everything—and then I’d tell her I was coming home. I’d duck out of here before the zombies woke up and spend the rest of my life trying really hard not to check in on Jake.
    She answered on the fourth ring. I could hear the TV in the background.
    â€œHello?” My mom. My wonderful mom. Just hearing her voice was enough to bring back sensations of home—the smell of the beach from the patio, the burbling of her fancy coffee brewing in the kitchen, the perfect body divot in the long section of our couch. It had been so long since I’d been home.
    â€œMom,” I said, choking up a little. “It’s me.”
    â€œCarrie?” she asked, confused.
    She thought I was my sister. “No, Mom, it’s me. Cassandra. How—how are you?”
    â€œOh, dear.” She still sounded confused. “I’m sorry. I don’t—could you hold on a moment?”
    â€œWhat—Mom?”