Alice in Zombieland, Cole Pov

What Bloody Bloody Nonsense !

I don't know how. I really don't. But I remained to stay calm during the rest of this fucking day. Well, the word calm is probably too nice. Let's just say I didn't kill anyone. Okay, I punched a stupid guy from the football team in the face, but he definitely provoked me.

In my car, heading to my barn used as our training place, I felt like an electric battery ready to explode. It would take destroying at least 3 dummies to release the pressure.

As I entered the barn, Frosty, who was probably waiting for me, asked me "You're gonna tell your father ?"

"No, not yet." I said without hesitation.

"So Not. A. Word." I shouted for the rest of the group.

I heard some sighs of exasperation and a particularly loud one from Mackenzie.

"Mack ! On the ring !" I claimed.

Another sigh. Great. What about her as my next dummy ?

But surprisedly, she was much more violent than usual. She almost got me on the ground, three times.

"So what Holland ? Too afraid to fight a little girl ? Seems to be a habit today." She nagged.

Stung, I stopped everything to destabilize her, and I benefited from her moment of weakness to get her on the ground with a knee kick.

"Unfair." she said with a threatening look

I shrugged "You simply didn't think ahead. Maybe you should try sometimes." I knew she'd get the message. I'm the leader for a reason.

Two hours later, my father and M. Ankh arrived. It was time for patrol.

I let my body sit on a couch, and I felt the cold air around me. We were 4 to go patrol tonight. It was Frosty with Me and Bronx with Trina.

Until midnight, we did not get any signs Zs were out. But then, around 1 a.m., Trina called me.

They found a few Zs in the forest close to school.

When we arrived, the few Zs had turned into a dozen of them. I called Lucas to let the group know we needed some backup. They arrived only a few minutes later. The world of spirits' rules are way different than the physical world's ones.

An hour later we succeeded in getting rid of them all, but Mackenzie and Collins were bitten. Thankfully, with a shot of antidote each, they would be back on their feet by tomorrow.

We all got back to the barn and after I had regained my body, I lifted Mackenzie who was too weak to even open her eyes.

We dated last year and I know she had a rough time to get over it. But when she and Bronx moved to my house because they couldn't live with their families anymore. I knew I wasn't - and I still not am - ready to take a relationship to the next step of living together.

I put her slowly in the backseat of the car and waited for Bronx to get in.

"Zs were trying to go somewhere." Bronx announced after 5 minutes in the car.

"What do you mean ?"

"They were all walking in the same direction and when we tried to kill them, they almost didn't care. They were too focused on reaching their destination."

I sigh "You're actually not the first to tell me something like this happened." At the end of the summer, Dereck had also told me that he had noticed the same phenomenon. "There definitely is something fucked up here"

We got to know what is going on. Or WHO is.

"Anima ?" He asked like he could read my mind.

"I don't know yet."

"I have a feeling the girl has something to do with it."

I massaged the back of my neck. I didn't like where this conversation was heading but luckily, we arrived at my place and stopped talking.

The next morning, I woke up easily. I never really needed to sleep that much and with training and patrolling, the only moments we could get to sleep were during classes.

I had a headache, my muscles were painful because of the overtraining and new wounds had appeared last night, but for an uncertain reason, I was kind of excited to go to school today.

This was not ok. I hated these fucking teachers and these fucking classes. Plus, the new potential threat there. I wondered what she could be doing right n—

"Cole !" My father was knocking on my door. "You have to leave now"

I opened the door violently intending to smash all things and people in my path. I was not in the mood for a little game called « Just an average father-son chit chat». We were everything but average.

"Cole." my father repeated with a disillusioned tone.

"What ?"

"Did you meet or hear about someone called Alice Bell yesterday ?"

My heart jumped in my chest and I hid my surprise instantly.

"No. Why ?" Grumpy look ? Check. Total disinterest ? Check. Light tone of impatience towards the end of this conversation ? Check, Check and Check again.

My father looked at me scornfully. "Judging by the look in your eyes, I'd say you did."

I stayed impassive. No way I'd admit.

"Well, listen. This girl's father, Philip Bell, could see Zombies. He was a year younger than me, and we were friends during my senior year. One night, with some guys, we tricked him into going out with us as a joke. It was not expected but Zs came out of nowhere. I discovered he could see them that night. That's when I realized there could be other people like him. Probably, alone and frightened to speak up about what they saw. That's when I started looking for people to fight with me and well ... you know the rest.

Anyway, the next day I went to his house to convince him to fight in my team, but he had run away with his girlfriend, Miranda Bradley. I never heard of them again until this summer, they died in a car accident with one of their daughters."

I'm puzzled. How did this man live knowing Zs were around but being incapable of protecting himself and his family ? Did Ali know about zombies ? Or maybe he could fight. Maybe he finally joined another zombie fighter team. Or Anima. Yes, probably Anima. It would explain why the girl tried to destabilize me with a vision. And why she talked with Justin. She's one of them.

"But what gets my attention is that the car accident happened in front of a cemetery. The police talked about wild dogs, but I doubt it."

Yeah. Zs. I got it.

"Just observe that girl, don't tell her anything of course. We don't know if she can be trusted."

I nodded militarily and then left the house to my car in which Love and Bronx were already waiting for me.

The ride was quiet. I was tense about my next meeting with Ali. Was she going to try to throw some sort of vision at me like yesterday ? It was very likely, and I had to be ahead of her schemes. If I was her target, then one of my team would have to target her as well.

When I found Frosty, he gave me her schedule and I told him about my plan : We should look like some random teenagers, even stupid teenagers who don't have any doubts about anything, and in the meantime elaborate a new strategy.

We were leaning against the bank of lockers as usual, and I saw her coming. I got goosebumps and I suddenly felt breathless. It was hard to admit but she was even prettier than the day before. Her top revealed the shape of her breasts, and some bad thoughts came to my mind. She seemed to be looking for something or for someone and when her gaze found me, it froze. The brim of my baseball cap covered my eyes so she wouldn't know I was also looking at her.

"Hey, Ali." Frosty smiled "Lookin' good today !"

Frosty's attitude confused her, but she tried a confident smile. "Thanks."

"Why don't you make our dreams come true and come talk to us ?" Frosty said with a slick voice as I continued to stare at her. She turned her head and at the moment our gaze met, everything around us disappeared.