"Jett, hey!"
Josephine paused in the hallway, gripping her books tighter as she heard running steps come up behind her. Swallowing, she turned around and faced the familiar bright face of Zed the zombie. He usually wasn't so brazen talking with her, especially with other cheerleaders around. The Acey's were staring right at them.
She was sure they never even blinked.
"Hey, can you do me a favor? You have practice today yeah?"
Josephine gave a small nod, looking as many places as she could besides the zombie. Zed brushed off the behavior and pulled out a green envelope with a smile.
"Can you give this to Addison, please? She's not supposed to talk to me, but we've been trying to make this work." Zed whispered out, passing the paper off to a hesitant Josephine. "But, you're pretty cool and I trust you."
She wished the friendly punch on her shoulder he gave her as he walked away was harsher and to the face so that she could feel the repercussion of her sins.
"What's this?" A voice behind her popped over her shoulder, another hand going over her other shoulder to snatch the envelope. She didn't fight it and let the Acey's tear it open and mock the contents. Josephine didn't even pay attention, to at least give Zed a little bit of privacy. "Ugh, gross. Zombie germs."
"So good to know you are doing your job now, fresh meat." Bucky chuckled, walking in front of Josephine with the green paper in his hands. With a smile he tore it in half, then again, then again, until it was nothing but shreds. "Here. Do something with this trash."
Lacey pulled off Josephine's book bag and the cheer captain shoved the shreds into it deep down. "Keep up the good work, fresh meat." Bucky mocked Zed's punch but pushed a little hard to tip the girl off balance and each Acey did the same, leaving Josephine with mental images of return the favor and rubbing her shoulder.
Zed would give her three more letters over the next couple of weeks and Josephine would watch the cheerleaders mock them dramatically, holler in laughter, before tearing them up and shoving them into Josephine's book bag once again.
She kept them to remind herself of how much of an awful human she was.
With the homecoming game that afternoon, Josephine was running last minute errands for Bucky and his minions. She was picking up his fancy waters, his dry cleaned cheer outfit, dry cleaned after cheer-cheer outfit, and some fruit for the team to snack on before game time hit.
Everything was in her hands when she froze at the sight in front of her. Addison and Zed? But as a human?
She watched with wide eyes as the human Zed walked with Addison into he frozen yogurt store and she only knew it was him when he hissed in pain, showing his Z-Band. When he looked up, their eyes met and his widened.
Biting her cheek, she offered a weak smiled before mimicking zipping her mouth and throwing him the key. Gratefully, he caught it and shoved it into his own pocket before being dragged inside by a familiar blonde.
That could not end well, could it?
But her problem right now was getting everything safely to school and before her time ran out, lest she be further humiliated by Bucky. She couldn't afford anymore mistakes.
When she entered the familiar room, she frowned. The four were standing in front of a familiar laptop smirking away at the screen while Lacey typed quickly. "What's that?" Josephine asked quietly while setting out the fruit and waters for everyone.
"Come, why don't you see for yourself." Bucky waved Josephine over and grabbed her by the shoulders to show her what exactly was on the screen. The brunette wasn't a computer person by any means, but she definitely recognized Zed's face on it and her frown deepened. "We hacked into Zed's Z-Band."
"At the game tonight, we're going to make him and his friend's monster out." Tracey continued.
Josephine wanted to melt into the floor at the plan and pretend she didn't exist. She wanted to punch every single person in the room until they coughed up blood and had to go see her mother. Her fists wanted to snatch the laptop and run far, far away to Eliza and beg them for forgiveness. She could do it, she could out run them easily.
"And you, Jackson, are going to help us more than you already have."
"With your near monster height and muscles, you'll stand guard so if anyone comes our way you can shoo them off."
She wasn't even sure who was speaking anymore. Each one continued the plan after the other finished and the room was definitely swirling around her as the consequences of her actions finally started to suffocate her.
When Addison came into the room it seemed that Zed had infected her with optimism instead of an undead virus like the one in Return of the Monsters 2 that she watched every Halloween. The blonde grinned happily as she helped Bree get ready and Josephine felt green as she did her own hair.
Every strand was smoothed down with a glance of her hand, every wrinkle ironed with the warmth of a steamer, and her face was painted to hide the disasters littering her face. Perfect, as always.
But no one would see her.
The girls hid under the same bleachers Zed had shared his grievances and Josephine stood outside, smiling and talking to people to get them to forget that they were there. She watched the team go back and forth, until the final point was scored and Josephine felt dread as an almost evil beeping came from the laptop.
The cheerleaders let out their excitement and shoved Josephine aside to go see the monster they created. Not sure what to do, Josephine did what she usually did best: followed. But as she was running to catch up, one of the football players pushed her out of the way and her ankle rolled painfully.
She let out a hiss as she stumbled the rest of the way to the side line behind the cheerleaders.
Her blood went cold.
There it was.
The real monster.
Its arms were littered with the horrific familiar veins protruding from pale skin and eyes bloodshot and absolute hungry. The creature was the foil of Zed, there was no way that was Zed. The kind, optimistic loud mouth who made a room shine brighter than the stars now had eyes darker than the sins of man.
And it was heading towards them.
"So, how are we going to stop the zombie from eating us?!"
The excitement died and the cheerleaders trembled while Josephine rubbed her ankle in pain. Bucky's eyes fell onto the girl's injury and snapped towards her, the Acey's understanding immediately. "I knew there was a reason we called you fresh meat!"
She was on the ground a second later.
Josephine scrambled backward as the real monster closed in on her and she wondered for a brief moment why it was being so slow. The zombie had its eyes pinpointed on her and Josephine felt like vomiting.
His hands clenched and unclenched similar to what Josephine did to keep from losing her shit on an everyday basis and his shoulders were up to his ears. Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked him over, but oh fuck he was 10 yards away.
She quickly pushed herself up and started to sprint, but nearly fell down again as the shock of her injury shot up her leg like bullet. With a grunt, Josephine limped away from the zombie but in the midst of mass hysteria, was shoved underneath the bleachers.
Deciding it was for the best, she tried to get as far back as she could to hide until it was all over. Sadly, the creature was still behind her.
Desperately, Josephine tried to look for another way out as she limped away from the undead, but tripped over a railing.
This must be her punishment, Josephine realized. The human paused her crawling to look up at the zombie as it reached towards her and felt her shoulders relax. This was the perfect way to die.
Zed was still Zed, but insanely hungry. His instincts were to find the easiest meal and a wounded deer was easier to catch than a healthy one, so his eyes focused on it. His meal was limping away and somehow the other prey worked against it, corning his meal into a dead-end.
A devilish smirk grew on his face as the hunger of never being completely satisfied with a vegetarian diet his entire life seemed to cause his body to feel famish. Yet, there was still a part of Zed that kept him held back even if just a little bit.
His meal fell down and he did too, eagerly wanting to consume it in their entirety. He'd start with the limbs, to keep from moving away or hurting him, then he'd break the neck to still the screams and devour as much of the torso as he could until finishing off with the brain.
"It's okay, Zed. I'm not afraid of you anymore."
The zombie faltered as a repressed memory surfaced its way up as the soft spoken words seemed to cut through him like knives.
"Even if I did want
human brains, yours
would be the last
one I would pick."
When was that? Who was that?
A memory of a fence and a ball being thrown, a faint breathe of excitement passed over him like the spring wind. Red siren.
"You've got a great arm,
ᏠᎧᏕᏋᎮᏂᎥᏁᏋ."
Who has a great arm? His prey had a tasty one... It was meaty, filled with some nutrients that would fill him up and prepare him for the next course-
"What I'm trying to say is
you look like you belong
with balls in your hands!"
Zed had a sudden urge to smack his forehead and he faltered to a complete stop, no longer walking towards the human and he growled. It smiled and whispered almost comfortingly to him. As if he was the prey and it was calming him down.
"It's okay. I've been feeling pretty green for a while now, Zed. I guess I have grown to it."
"Mark my words, ᏠᏋᏖᏖ.
You'll come to love
the green eventually."
Zed growled and reached for his prey, the overwhelming empty feeling in his stomach guiding him to take devour the sacrifice in front of him. He reached for its arm, but froze as he recognized the constricting muscles.
ᶠʳⁱᵉⁿᵈ
"I want to be friends."
Friend.
Jett. Josephine. Jett. Josephine.
Zed felt the strain on his body as he fought against the hunger and forced himself to take a step back. He clamped down on his teeth and gripped his wrist tightly and growled out a distorted "No!" to himself.
Jett was his friend not prey. She was to be protected, not murdered.
Josephine's eyes went wide at the restraint and froze, unsure of what the growl meant, but she didn't have to dwell on it for too long as a man ran up behind Zed and shocked him back to normal. The injured girl didn't even know Addison had ran to Zed, who stared in despair at Josephine.
She had no idea if anything was said to her because her ears were ringing, her vision was tunneling, and her body seemed to be vibrating. Hands were on her, moving her, lights were in her face before she was shoved onto a gurney and a blanket hung around her before she succumbed to the feeling of weariness. It was neither pink nor green that filled her vision but a comforting black that seduced her into an inviting nothingness.