Dead silence. Harmony sat back on her heels and smirked at everyone.

"You... killed her?" Zane asked, since no one else seemed to know what to say. Zane was really beginning to wonder if his choice in women was seriously flawed.

Tamiko nodded.

"Not that I really blame you," Rebecka said, "But how did you do it? And how did you not get thrown in jail?"

"I did exactly what she did to me. Pretty much. Only it was a cupcake, not a brownie, and I didn't put laxatives into it. I put hemlock in it."

"Shit," Hunter said. His laughs were all gone now.

"I folded the cupcake into a little box and put it on her doorstep and rang the doorbell, then hid in the bushes until she opened the door and found it.

"Hemlock doesn't kill you right away. It puts your body into a deep paralysis that eventually shuts down your respiratory system. I waited until Harmony had eaten the cupcake and gone into paralysis, then I went inside. I told her how much I hated her. I gave the whole villain monologue. At some point she died, and I left.

"I waited to hear about Harmony's death. I watched the news, read the paper, eavesdropped on my parents' conversations. I was fully expecting the whole, 'She died so young' thing, 'Oh, she was such a beautiful girl, beloved by many,' et cetera.

"I didn't hear anything. I rode my bike past her house, and no one was home. Lights out, car gone. This being the middle of summer, I wasn't going to hear the gossip at school. I waited and waited. Then, one day a couple of weeks later, I was at the grocery store picking up some stuff for my mom when I heard someone saying Harmony had taken a vacation with her parents to New Orleans.

"I honestly thought something had gone wrong. I thought her parents might have come home early and found her and were able to get the hemlock out of her system. I don't know. I tried to reason through it, but the truth is, I watched her die."  Tamiko looked at Harmony.  "And when you came back, it quickly became obvious to everyone that you're different." 

"Oh, yes. I am different," Harmony said.

Wilson stood up. "New Orleans. They took her to New Orleans."

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Harmony watched Wilson carefully.

"New Orleans is the capital of voodoo," Wilson said. He looked around at everyone, waiting for them to make the connection.

Zane made the connection. He was, after all, a smart guy. "In Haitian voodoo, one of the most powerful spells is that of the zombie."

"Yes! You get a gold star, Z. Tammy, seriously, you didn't know that?"

Tamiko shook her head. "It's one thing to hear about something like that, something that doesn't feel real, and another to connect it to what's really happening. Harmony looked like she was alive. She looked more bored than usual, flatter, but hey, I had tried to kill her. I figured she was just a little sick from the poison."

"You people are totally effed up," Rebecka said.

"Shut up, Becky," said Harmony. She stood. "Yes. There is my secret. My parents took me to a voodoo queen in New Orleans and now I'm a zombie. See, I have to wear this stupid charm on me at all times." She held up one wrist and Zane noticed her delicate charm bracelet for the first time.

"I am pretty sure this same exact thing happened in one of those Fear Street books," said Rebecka.

Suddenly Tamiko lunged forward and grabbed Harmony's wrist. She yanked the chain off and held it up. "I got it!" she said breathlessly. "Now she'll really be dead."

When no one cheered, Tamiko looked around and realized they were all watching Harmony, who did not appear to be dying at all.

"I have to wear that charm all the time," Harmony said slowly, "or else my cravings for flesh get even worse."

Tamiko froze like a mouse in front of a rattlesnake.

Zane saw what was about to happen, and yet he couldn't stop it.

Someone else tried to, though. A blur tackled Harmony to the ground just before she could lunge at Tamiko and probably rip her throat out and eat her brain.

For once since this whole thing started, Zane didn't react immediately. He stared at the carnage taking place, while Mike Snow screamed for help underneath Harmony, and Hunter pulled at Dylan or Tyler's shoulders, trying to break the grip of Harmony's teeth in his cheek.

"She's got me!" Dylan or Tyler screamed.

"Help!" Mike Snow screamed.

Hunter tore Dylan or Tyler away with a squelchy ripping sound, and they flew backward onto the cot with Rebecka, who screamed, "Don't touch me!"

And still Zane stared.

The soldiers were now alert to the situation, and they marched over, as Harmony crawled to her feet.

Mike Snow tried to get up, too, but his sneakers slipped in the blood on the floor.

"Hold still, man," Hunter said. "It'll be okay."

"Just kill me," Dylan or Tyler moaned. "I'm infected. I'm going to die."

"He's right," said Wilson, just as the first soldier reached them.

"Back away," said the soldier whose uniform said Rodriguez. He used the muzzle of his gun to push Zane and Wilson back so they were forced to sit on the cot again, then raised the gun to his shoulder. "Move," Rodriguez said to Rebecka.

"Please don't shoot him," Rebecka said. She moved out of the way, however.

Dylan or Tyler looked steadily at the muzzle of the gun. 

Zane would never be able to understand how that felt, and it seemed Dylan or Tyler had a lot to accept and contemplate in the few moments since his life had changed forever. He was never going to graduate high school, or go to college, or have a family or a career. He was never going to see another sunrise or another sunset, never going to be able to say good-bye to his parents. Maybe he had done some things he was not proud of. He would never be able to apologize.

Zane's vision blurred with tears.

"It's okay," Dylan or Tyler said to Rebecka. He had his hand pressed to his face, and blood leaked through his fingers. He dropped the hand to his lap. Harmony had actually bitten a hole through Dylan or Tyler's cheek, and the guy's teeth and tongue were visible when he said the words, "I'm ready."

Zane's sympathy was gone, replaced by bile rising up in his throat.

"We aren't allowed to shoot civilians," said Rodriguez, but he did not put his gun down.

"So you're just going to wait for me to die?" Dylan or Tyler asked.

"Ugh, stop talking!" Wilson said. He had his hands over his eyes and his body had squirmed into a weird shape. "So gross. That is so gross. I'm gonna... I'm gonna..."

"Puke?" asked Rebecka, moving even further from the scene.

In response, a jet of greenish-colored vomit spewed from Wilson's mouth. The vomit arced through the air and covered Dylan or Tyler's shirt. Dylan or Tyler made a scrunched-up face full of disgust, and Zane lost it too. He doubled over and just barely avoiding barfing all over his shoes. Rodriguez's footgear was not so lucky.

The soldier looked down at his shoes then glared at Zane.

"I'm sorry, sir," Zane mumbled through bits of grilled steak and hunks of mostly-digested asparagus.

"Oh, God," Wilson cried, and threw up again.

"Shit, man," Dylan or Tyler complained.

"Stop talking, for the love of all that is holy," Wilson managed to say, before a smaller load of vomit sprayed out. "Please. You're disgusting."

"Thanks, buddy," Dylan or Tyler said. "I'm dying here, man. I'm not going to live to see tomorrow, and you tell me I'm gross. Yeah. Thanks. You're making me want to keep on talking, just to spite you—"

The gun went off. Dylan or Tyler froze with his eyes and mouth wide open, then fell backwards.

Zane looked up at Rodriguez. The soldier had the back of his wrist pressed over his mouth. After a few deep breaths, Rodriguez returned his hand to his gun. "Goddamn, I couldn't watch that kid talk anymore."

No one said anything. Zane stared down at his fallen friend. His friend whose name he didn't really know. It was now or never. He struggled to remember how he felt when he had thought about Dylan or Tyler's short life and all that he had left unlived.

He blinked rapidly. Yes, his eyes were watering just enough.

"Aw, Dylan..." he glanced around to gauge his friends' reactions. "Dylan!"

Wilson looked around. Rebecka glanced behind her.

"...or Tyler?" Zane added lamely.

Wilson looked at him. "Seriously? You didn't know his name?"

"No," said Zane, feeling so terrible he might actually cry for real.

"Neither did I!" Wilson held up his palm. "Up here!"

Zane gave him a half-hearted high five.

"So, was that Dylan, or Tyler?" Rebecka asked, looking down at the dead body covered in blood and vomit. Her gaze was clinically detached.

"No clue!" Wilson crowed.

"I think that was Dylan," said Hunter. "I think Tyler had shorter hair."

"I always thought Tyler had the longer hair," Mike Snow said.

"Were they twins or something?" Zane asked.

"You would think. But no. I think Tyler was... is? actually part Hispanic. Or maybe that was Dylan."

"So weird how similar they looked."

"Yeah."

Rodriguez stepped back. "So where's the walker?"

"The zombie? She's..." Wilson looked around. "She's gone."

They all looked around. Seeing the faces of others around them watching, Zane asked, "Hey, did any of you see where that blonde girl went?"

There were a lot of shrugs, and one woman sitting nearby pointed toward the girls' locker room. "She went in there."

"Shit," Zane said. "I don't want to go in there again." He looked around. "And where's Tamiko?"

"Who cares," said Hunter angrily. "If she hadn't tried to kill Harmony in the first place, none of this would have happened. And I mean none of it. No zombies at all. Harmony might have been halfway normal."

"Now that I think about it," Rebecka said, "Harmony has been really different since high school started. Different in a good way, I mean. Not as much of a mean girl."

"Girls' locker room?" Rodriguez confirmed with the woman, who nodded. He turned to go to the other soldiers, but Zane stopped him.

"Wait. Harmony isn't like a normal zombie," Zane said. "She talks and stuff. She's..."

Wilson stepped in, wiping puke off his chin. "She's your patient zero."

"What?" Rodriguez asked. "Seriously?"

"Yes," everyone confirmed.

Everyone: Zane, Wilson, Rebecka, Mike Snow, Hunter, and dozens of faces around them. "Yes," these people nodded. "We heard her say it. Voodoo, she said."

Rodriguez jogged back to the other soldiers. Within minutes, one of them was on the radio talking excitedly, and more soldiers arrived.

"Where could Tamiko have gone?" Zane said. "Do you think Harmony did something to her?"

"Again, I'm not sure why you care," Rebecka stated. "I mean, you just found out she was a murderer. Or tried to be a murderer. This wasn't some accident. Sure, Harmony bullied her. But does that excuse pre-meditated murder? I don't think so. Zane... Zane. Stop pacing; you're making me dizzy."

Zane stopped. He hadn't even realized he was pacing. He turned to the woman the soldier had spoken to. "Hey, did you see where the short Asian girl went?"

The woman shook her head.

"Really? All you people were watching, and you didn't see her go?"

"There was a lot happening. I just watched that blonde girl because she was the zombie."

Zane folded his arms. Despite what he had just learned about Tamiko, he feared for her. He liked her, and he didn't want to see Harmony get her hands – or teeth, as the case may be – on her. No one deserved to die like that.

No one deserved to die by hemlock, but Zane had to admit that Harmony had been pretty terrible to Tamiko. He couldn't imagine the humiliation of shitting himself at school.  And being called Brownie Brownpants.

And yet, as he thought about Tamiko's sarcastic sense of humor, and her hacking abilities, and her general badass-ness, she didn't seem so affected by the bullying that she would have been driven to murder. But that was four years ago. Four years that Tamiko had believed she had not murdered anyone. Four years without Harmony being cruel to her. Four years of her fellow classmates not even recognizing her, because she had come back from a year of homeschooling and a summer of attempted murder as a different person.

Zane liked that person.

Now that person was somewhere in the dark, zombie-ridden halls of the school. Bully and bullied. Murderer and murdered.

Zane turned to his rapidly diminishing group of friends. "We need to find Tamiko. We have to. If we just let Harmony get her, we're as bad as Harmony was. And still is, really."

"So... I take it you've finally decided that Harmony isn't worth your time?" Wilson asked.

"Yes." Zane said with the word definitively. "I think it's time that Harmony was stopped. Permanently. She caused all this. I would say this is the worst case of karma I've ever seen. If we don't stop Harmony now, this apocalypse will kill so many more."

"Right on," Hunter said, jumping to his feet. "You mean it's time to gank some zombies?"

Zane nodded.

"Get your weapons. Let's go, people. Chop chop," Wilson said, and grabbed his baseball bat.

"Uh, what about Ross?" Hunter asked.

Zane turned around. He had completely forgotten about Ross, who had seemed to be asleep through the whole game of truth and even through the infection and killing of Dylan. But now Ross was sitting up on his bunk.

"Nice of you to join us," Wilson said.

Ross smiled weakly. It looked more like a wince.

"How are you doing, Ross?" Zane asked.

Instead of answering, Ross removed the bandage on his arm. He unwound and unwound for so long that Zane wasn't sure if Ross heard him. Then Zane saw Ross's arm.

It was definitely infected. His wound had been stitched, but the area around the teeth appeared both raw and grey, somehow.

"It was a zombie dog, then," said Wilson. "Wow."

Ross nodded. "I'm going to die," he said. "And I don't want to die with everything thinking I'm a coward." He looked up at them. "Please, can I come with you guys?"

Though Zane could feel that the others weren't quite as confident as he was, Zane nodded. "Yes."