Zombies vs. Unicorns by Holly & Larbalestier Black Read Free Book Online

you.”
    “Why the fuck not?”
    “Open your damn eyes, Grayson!”
    The gun is in a holster around his jeans. His hair is spiky with dried sweat, but he’s changed out of his lacrosse uniform. His face is flushed red, like he might cry.
    “We’ve got to leave. I put Dad off, but he’ll be here soon.”
    He turns without another word and walks deeper into the woods. He’s quiet, though you can’t see how. When you follow him, the cracking leaves and twigs sound like an earthquake. Ten minutes later you reach his car. It’s parked in the middle of a road that’s little more than two ruts of packed dirt. You get in. You’re not sure what else to do. He drives smoothly, carefully, and yet with the same steady fierceness you’ve sensed in him all along.
    “Jack, if you’re not going to kill me, you have to let me go.”
    “Dad’s decided to get you on his own. He’s been nuts for something like this ever since he got invalided out. It’s not safe for you.”
    You have to laugh. “Safe? Do you really know what I am?”
    There must have been something in your voice, some tremor, because Jack looks at you now for the first time since you got into the car. “Grayson … they said … ZSE is rare, but there’s a few cases each year.”
    “ZSE?”
    “Zombie Spongiform Encephalopathy.”
    Zombie. That’s what Jack thinks you are.
    “You should kill me. Your dad wants you to kill me, right? Isn’t that why we’re running away from him?” You don’t even recognize the road signs now. He’s gone far off the highway,down some long country roads bounded only by soybean fields and great tubes of hay.
    “Why are you so damn interested in me killing you, Grayson?”
    “Why are you giving a ride to a raving cannibal?”
    “Shut up!”
    “Why, it isn’t true?”
    “You sound just like him!”
    “Then maybe he’s right.”
    Jack abruptly slams his foot on the brake. The car skids a little on the deserted road before shuddering to a halt. When he turns to you now, he is crying, though you can tell he doesn’t know it.
    “I watched you decide to not kill that girl.”
    Is that what happened? You shrug, deliberately. “I’ve killed dozens of others.”
    “Maybe you’ve changed.”
    “Maybe I’m not that hungry. Maybe she smelled like brussels sprouts.”
    “I don’t believe that.”
    You’re very close to him now. Close to his long-sleeved T-shirt, his flushed cheek, his gun. “Why, Jack?”
    “I don’t know. ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and Harajuku pop and Ian Curtis—”
    Hands and lips and teeth, and you’d forgotten—no, you’d never known—this way of knowing someone, this dissolution of self, this autophagy.
    His shirt rips, but you’re careful with his skin.
    8. Sounds of Silence
    Ian Curtis killed himself on the eighteenth of May, 1980. You might think this ironic of the lead singer of a band called Joy Division, but actually their name is a reference to prostitution in Nazi concentration camps. (Which might explain why their iconic song is called “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”) He hung himself, a death of slow asphyxiation, of utter helplessness for long minutes until he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. There are certain theories of suicide that propose that the more self-loathing one feels, the more violent the method one chooses.
    Elliott Smith (folksinger) stabbed himself in the heart with a kitchen knife. Nick Drake (folksinger) OD’d on antidepressants.
    A qualitative difference in self-loathing? Please. When you decide to check yourself out, the difference between a gun and a rope is how long it takes to tie the knot.
    9. Eat the Music
    You stay in motels. And not the kind with friendly signs in primary colors and “Kids Stay Free!” deals on weekends. These motels have sputtering neon spelling “vacancy” and long rows of rooms, identical as LEGOs. The bathroom floors are coated with grime spread thin by lazy efforts to wipe it away. Sheets are haphazardly laundered. The