have to worry about him any more,” Brendan said, turning back towards his sisters with a satisfied grin.
“Nice check,” Cordelia admitted, her voice wavering. “But why did you say ‘no one else’ gets bitten?”
Brendan answered by showing them his infected and pulsating bite wound.
“I’m going to become zombie,” he said sombrely. “There’s nothing we can do to stop it. Pretty soon, I’ll be trying to eat your giant brain, Deal.”
Instead of laughing at his joke, Cordelia choked out a sob.
Eleanor, meanwhile, seemed not to have heard Brendan at all. She just sat there staring at Denver Kristoff lazily struggling to free his trapped arm. He was more of a skeleton now than the rotting monstrosity he had been when he was still alive.
“I’ve got it!” Eleanor said suddenly. “I know how to fix this!”
“How?” Brendan asked. “It’s too late to chop off my arm to slow the infection …”
“No, and that’s disgusting, Bren!” Eleanor said. “I’m talking about the bigger problem.”
“Geez, Nell,” Brendan said. “Can’t you at least pretend to be upset like Cordelia? Or say you’ll miss me?”
“We have to get Fat Jagger back home!” Eleanor said, her words rushing out in a panic. “We have to somehow fix all of this! If not, more and more creatures and bad guys from the book world are going to come into our world and eventually destroy everything!”
“So what’s your big plan then?” Cordelia asked her little sister with more edge in her voice than she’d intended.
“I’ll explain later, there’s no time right now,” Eleanor said. “Fat Jagger!”
They felt him grunt in reply as he swam.
“Can you get to the surface and open your mouth?” Eleanor shouted.
Their ears popped as Fat Jagger ascended. They heard splashing as his head broke the surface of the water. His jaw hinged open slightly. A dolphin caught in Fat Jagger’s hair dropped into the water and swam off to safety. Eleanor looked out of the giant’s mouth and saw the pink haze of the sunrise on the ocean’s horizon. They were currently headed west, out of the bay towards the open Pacific.
“Turn left slowly!” Eleanor screamed over the sound of an approaching police helicopter.
Fat Jagger spun slowly. As soon as Eleanor saw what she was looking for, she shouted for him to stop.
“Go back down and swim straight ahead!” Eleanor screamed over the roar of the nearby helicopter. “When you get to shore, climb the cliff and look for our house.”
“You remember what it looks like?” Brendan yelled. “You’ve held our house before, Jagguuhhhhhhnn …”
Brendan looked confused as he opened his mouth to speak again.
“Urhhhh,” Brendan grunted, trying desperately to get the words out of his mouth. “Urgggghh?”
“You OK, Bren?” Eleanor asked.
Brendan lifted himself up slowly and Eleanor gasped. She wasn’t sure if it was the giant’s saliva, the seawater, or something else entirely, but Brendan’s face was now a pale shade of green.
“Cordelia?” Eleanor shouted frantically. “I think Brendan just turned into a zombie!”
Cordelia instantly knew Eleanor was right; the pale twelve-year-old groaning in the centre of Fat Jagger’s mouth wasn’t their brother any more.
Brendan turned towards Eleanor and snarled, his jaw hanging open and his dead eyes unblinking. He limped forward, drool seeping out from between his teeth. His now-leathery greyish-green skin was filled with saggy wrinkles and festering welts, as if Brendan had aged a hundred years in a matter of seconds.
“It can’t be,” Cordelia pleaded desperately. “We were so close to the house. We were almost there!”
Eleanor ran into Cordelia’s arms as they watched Brendan slouch down against the wall of Jagger’s cheek. His skin seemed to tighten across his skull; he was looking more monstrous by the second. His head lolled to the side as a guttural groan escaped from his grey lips. Seeing their normally jovial brother just sitting there, looking so empty, gutted them both – it was almost worse than seeing him die. Their brother’s eyes, which once gleamed with mischievous humour, now lolled vacantly from side to side, a shade of grey that was even more neutral than inexistence.
“Is there a cure for zombie-ism?” Cordelia asked frantically. “Holy water? Penicillin? Aspirin?”
Eleanor, having watched one too many scary movies with her older brother, shook her head dejectedly.
“The only way to stop a zombie is by destroying its brain,” she said, fighting tears.
“I’m going to go and try to talk to him,” Cordelia said, unhooking Eleanor’s arms from around her. “Maybe if we can get him to remember us, he can turn back? Maybe it’s not too late?”
Brendan, still slumped against a pair of Fat Jagger’s massive teeth, looked up as Cordelia approached.
“Hey, Bren,” Cordelia spoke softly. “It’s me, Cordelia … Are you still in there, buddy?”
Eleanor peeked out from behind a molar, as Cordelia got even closer to their undead brother.
“Brendan, come on, I know you recognise me,” Cordelia said, now just a few feet away from him. “We don’t always get along … but it’s me, your sister, Cordelia. Can you say Cordelia?”
The corners of Brendan’s mouth slowly widened and his eyes glowed with life again, in what could have only been a sign of recognition. As Brendan’s lips parted further, it was clear to Cordelia that he was trying to smile! She reached out to help him up, and his smile grew even wider.
“It’s OK, Brendan,” Cordelia spoke softly, offering her hand for support. “I knew you could fight through it!”
CRUNCH!
Brendan’s teeth clamped down on to Cordelia’s hand before she even knew what was happening.
“Ouch! He bit me!” Cordelia shrieked.
Cordelia screamed as she looked at the gruesome bite wound on her hand. She wondered if she might faint just from seeing it.
Eleanor joined in with Cordelia’s screams until the colossus’s mouth sounded like a haunted house. Cordelia looked up from her throbbing hand to see Brendan slowly chewing on his own arm like he was munching on a chicken tender.
“Don’t eat yourself, you jerk!” Cordelia yelled, slapping Brendan across the face with her good hand.
Suddenly Jagger’s mouth shook violently, sending all three Walker children flying.
“What happened?”