Undead (9780545473460) by Kirsty McKay

once more for the retort that rarely comes, and follow Smitty back into the snow like the lunatic I am.
    After the warmth of the café, the cold hits my face like a splash of ice water; the wind has picked up and the snow swirls around the entranceway. I cast a quick look around the parking lot. Smitty doesn’t pause much to check for movement, but ducks around the corner of the building, following a path to the rear. I start to follow, but something jars in the corner of my eye, and I turn back. I look at our bus.
    The door is open.

I back into the wall. Pete shut the door; I know he did, I saw him. I saw him because I was going to shut it myself, but he beat me to it.
    I stare at the bus, looking for movement. Everything
seems
still. My eyes drop to the snow in front of the bus door — can I see footprints? The snow is too messed up to be able to make anything out. But the fact remains, the door is open and that means someone opened it. Gareth? No — can’t be, he would have closed it behind him, surely? Someone come to rescue us? Then why can’t I see them? They would have appeared by now. I look over my shoulder back into the café. Alice is in the shop, nom-nomming a candy bar; Pete is nowhere to be seen. He’s probably still trying to bypass the keypad lock, no matter what he says. Anyway, they’re useless to me. I turn the other way, and nearly jump out of my boots.
    â€œHello!” Smitty is waving a hand in my face. “What are you doing here? There’s a door around the back and I think I can get us in —” He stops when he sees my expression. “What’s wrong?”
    I point to the bus and he whips around. His face drops.
    â€œWe closed the door, didn’t we?”
    â€œPete did,” I say.
    Smitty sinks back against the wall with me. “Anyone on board?”
    I shake my head. “Not that I’ve seen. But maybe they don’t want to be seen.”
    â€œBalls.” He sighs. “We have to check it out, don’t we?”
    â€œMaybe send Alice?”
    He chuckles quietly. “Yeah, that’ll happen.”
    â€œWell,” I say, “with all the abuse that door’s been through in the last twenty-four hours . . . maybe it malfunctioned or something? Maybe Pete didn’t hit the button hard enough, or maybe something got caught in the door and it swung open and we just didn’t notice . . .”
    We look at the bus a little longer.
    â€œCome on, then.” Smitty leads the way to the bus. He climbs up the steps and I follow, with legs of granite and a dragging sense of dread in my gut. The seats greet us silently, our home away from home, familiar and sickening at the same time. We stop at the first row; it’s impossible to see if we’re on our own, but there are no obvious monsters swinging from the overhead lockers. Yeah, that much we knew already. Smitty turns to me, shrugs, and before I know it, he’s running — screaming — down the aisle at full speed, at a volume that makes me shrink in my jacket. He reaches the backseat, crashes against it, and ricochets off and up toward me again, still screaming.
What the hell?
When he reaches me, he swings around, hands outstretched like a crazed magician revealing the empty hat.
    â€œTa-da!”
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I gasp, eyes behind him, looking for the monsters that he’s unearthed.
    â€œDon’t you think this creeping around is getting old?” His eyes flash, like he’s totally amped. “Flush ’em out, knock ’em down!”
    The bathroom door flies open with a bang; Smitty hits the floor like a six-year-old playing ring-around-the-rosie.
    The bathroom is empty. He recovers, but it’s too late to save face. I laugh a little too hysterically, sinking into a crouch on the floor. He looks aghast, but then he laughs, too, the pair of us rocking back and forth on the floor like we’ve been hitting