Hellhound (A Deadtown Novel) by Nancy Holzner Read Free Book Online Page B

DEAD! spelled out in rhinestones. It looked like Tina had found yet another new shiny object. Literally.
    “Nice shirt. Is it a political statement or a fashion statement?”
    “Both, of course. Duh. Plus an artistic statement, too. I made it, and I’m selling zillions of them out of my Etsy store. Mostly to norms, if you can believe that.” Her gray-green face creased in a scowl. “Although I can’t tell whether they want to stand in solidarity with us in Deadtown or just, you know, look cool.” Her expression brightened. “Hey, you want one? I’ll let you have it for fiftee—uh, ten percent off.”
    “I don’t think I’m cool enough to wear that.”
    Tina tilted her head as she appraised my outfit. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Anyway, here.” She thrust a piece of paper at my face.
    “What’s this?” I took the flyer and held it where I could read the thing without going cross-eyed.
    “A unity rally. Your boyfriend is organizing it. He’s all about, like, nonviolence and coming together and not splitting into factions and stuff. It’ll be awesome.”
    I studied the flyer. Tina was right—the rally was meant to inspire Deadtown residents to work together for equality. I’d figured Kane would be doing something like this, but it felt weird to hear about it from Tina. He would’ve told me about it if we’d managed to have a conversation since Code Red was imposed; I knew that. But with all our problems, conversation was exactly what I’d been avoiding.
Hell, say it, Vicky
—what I’d been fearing. My heartbeat sped up, and all I wanted was to see Kane’s face, to feel him in my arms. The zombie witness interviews could wait. My need to find Kane, to push away all the terrible things that had come between us, was bigger and more urgent than any homicide case.
    “Do you know where—?” I started to ask.
    Tina snatched the flyer from my hand. “Hey, you didn’t say anything about this part. Didn’t you see it?” Her sparkly pink fingernail pointed at a name in the list of speakers. Tina Terror—the stage name she’d chosen back when she aspired to become a zombie pop star. “Kane invited my school to send a speaker. You know, to give the paranormal youth perspective. My whole school voted, and they picked me! It would’ve been unanimous except some of the sophomores thought it’d be funny to write in Jenna because she’s, like, so shy and there’s no way she’d get up on a stage. Anyway, I won. There I am, on the list right there. It’s okay to use Tina Terror, don’t you think? I mean, even though I gave up singing it’s still got name recognition. Like, people would look at the flyer and be like, ‘Tina Zawadzki—who’s that?’ But if they see Tina Terror, they might go, ‘Oh, yeah. That singer chick. I remember her.’ Know what I mean?”
    Somewhere in Tina’s flood of words, my plan to drop everything and find Kane got washed away. It would be silly to go rushing through Deadtown, trying to find him so he could sweep me up into his arms and tell me everything was all right. This wasn’t some stupid movie, and everything wasn’t all right. Everything was a million miles from all right.
    I watched the zombies filling the streets of Deadtown. Tina, still chattering about the rally. A woman in a nice suit, her shiny brown hair carefully cut to frame her monstrous face, who’d clearly once been some kind of professional. A group of men in Red Sox jerseys, gathered around a radio listening to the game. A young couple holding hands. Kane could hold rallies to bring them together—he was good at that sort of thing—but who was going to save them from a demonic spirit that saw them as nothing but food?
    That would be my department.
    I told Tina I had to go, but I promised to be at the rally. Then, still aching for Kane, I walked away from Deadtown.
    THERE WAS TROUBLE AT THE CHECKPOINT INTO HUMAN-CONTROLLED BOSTON. The norm guard wouldn’t let me bring my weapons