Page 80 of Wicked Hungry

“No, I’ve got to show you.”

“Show us what?” Enrique asks.

“I don’t want to talk about it here. Someone might hear.”

Who is going to hear us? His mother? She’s in the other room with his dad, watching a movie. The zombies across the street, maybe? Who is Andres talking about?

I pull out the phone and dial Karen’s phone number as we follow Andres upstairs to his room.

No answer. I’m sent to her voicemail.

“Karen, call me.”

We walk into his room, and Andres locks the door and turns to us. “You can’t tell anyone, okay?”

Enrique nods. Jonathan nods. Andres stares at me. I nod, too.

He opens his closet and shows us... weapons.

There’s a crossbow, for one. And these little short bolts for it. They give me a funny feeling, that same kind of nasty tingling as the runes on the door at Natural Magic, as Frumberg’s stolen steak knife.

Silver.

And that’s not all. There are little wooden stakes. And these weird throwing stars. Silver, too. I can feel them.

And flashlights. Flashlights? They’re big and black, rugged looking. Police flashlights, maybe? Just for a moment I imagine I’m holding and swinging one like a light saber, bright light cutting through thick darkness.

“What’s all this for?” Enrique asks.

“Just being prepared,” Andres says. “I’ve been having weird dreams, and hearing and seeing weird stuff at school. Kids taking pills. Turning into zombies. Shuffling around and forming packs. I’ve been purchasing stuff off the internet and making things with grandfather’s tools...”

“Sweet,” Jonathan says. “You’ve got a whole arsenal in here.”

“What’s with the flashlights?” I ask.

“With creatures of the night, you need to be prepared. These aren’t ordinary flashlights. They’re tactical. Combat-ready. Used by police officers everywhere. Twenty times more powerful than a normal flashlight. We’re talking two hundred lumens.”

“Two hundred lumens?” I ask. “What’s that mean?”

“It means you can blind someone with them,” Jonathan says, and Andres nods.

I exchange a look with Jonathan. “Could we, uh, maybe borrow one or two?”

Andres shakes his head. “Not one of these big boys. But I can give you each one of these Pelicans. They’re smaller, but almost as powerful. One hundred and thirty lumens. Used by LAPD. You’ll look like a Jedi Knight if you use them when it’s foggy out.”

Actually, I feel more like I’m in a James Bond film as Andres equips us each with a thin black flashlight. I turn it on, pointed towards the wall, and it floods the room with light.

“Whoa, don’t turn that on in here,” Andres says, and I turn it back off.

But there’s so much else to see in the closet. I look closer at some of the stakes, and see...writing. Glyphs. Sigils. I don’t know. Whatever they are, just looking at them gives me a headache.

“What’s that written on those stakes? And on that dagger?” I say, looking at a small blade.

Andres smiles. “Those are signs used by our great-grandfather. Handed down from generation to generation. They’re supposed to protect us, but I don’t know from what, exactly...”

Then he shakes his head. “I think I’ve shown you too much already,” he says. “Sometimes I forget you all are only fifteen years old.”

I look at Enrique. Enrique looks back at me. I can tell he’s wondering if we should tell his brother what we know.