Lipstick & Zombies (Deadly Divas Book 1) (21 page)

Gerri's grumbling was the biggest problem. There was no ignoring it, there was no breathing through it, or dealing with it, because it was constant, all day, every day. Even when Gerri locked herself away in her room, she played her music at top volume and regularly made loud calls to people where she griped about the rest of them.

Sadie insisted that they needed to give her space and not push, that they needed to avoid starting fights. Carrie could see the wisdom in that. Shouting at Gerri to shut up had a certain ring of wisdom to it, too.

"You're ready. You're all looking great so far," Noah said.

"I wouldn't go that far," Tammi amended behind his back.

Noah rolled his eyes at the girls, and they were too worn out to even smile at that. "It's time to do a run through of your first and final songs with the actual corpses so you can get used to how this will go down on show night." Noah looked the girls over, apparently waiting for some kind of response. "How's that sound?"

Silence.

"Happy to hear it," Noah said.

As they'd grown quieter, Noah had become chattier.

He gave them a ten minute bathroom break, and they all dispersed to their own spaces. This had become part of the rehearsal routine. Where they used to stick together in groups during breaks, they now each had their own spaces. Staying in the group had always stressed Carrie out, but she was too nervous to risk being seen as the antisocial person she'd always been to leave. So, she stuck around, if sometimes to the back of the group. Until the rest of them broke away. She would have thought the new routine would be a relief, and in its own way it was, but the tension in the group gnawed away at her a little more each day, wearing her down until she was so fragile a breath could whisk her away. That fragility motivated her to bolster herself up, try harder, do better. It was exhausting trying to be okay.

Dee spent the breaks in the room with the clothes, sometimes looking at the clothes, or talking to the stylist's tall assistant, or even just going through her phone. Just being in the room with the clothes was enough to fix any bit of her mood that the long days had put in disrepair.

Jo hid away in the rigging under the stage and picked at things with her machete.

Sadie listened to music with her eyes closed, body splayed out on the stage while the crew worked on things right over her. The idea of doing that stressed Carrie out so much that she didn't know how Sadie could stand it. But Sadie appeared perfectly happy, and Carrie envied her.

Gerri was always in a different place, but was usually griping at someone, often from across great distances.

Carrie had found a VIP room that was hidden up high in a tower at the side of the stadium. It gave a perfect view of the stage, and had great acoustics, but with a flip of a switch the place became sound and light proof. It was like a Carrie's-mental-health-recovery room, and even if she only spent a few minutes in there a few times a day, it was enough of a pause to build her up again before she went back to being nibbled away.

She got back to the stage just as Noah was saying that everyone was taking too long to get back. Dee, the last to arrive, showed up only a few seconds later.

From the audience you wouldn't see the zombies at first, but the girls saw them as soon as they got into position, gaping mouths reaching for them.

Carrie knew she was losing her mind when she looked at them and felt pity. They were zombies. They were nothing but bodies set on eating her flesh, but there was something to the helpless moaning that felt pitifully human.

Some days her own thoughts were so ridiculous she could just slap herself.

Carrie repositioned herself so she was sure her opening pose was solid and right.
Warriors
started playing—again—and she took in air, let it out, and took more in again before it was her turn to begin singing.

Even with this dreadful song, there was nothing that made her feel more at home than performing. Her father always said she liked to hear the sound of her own voice. It was meant disparagingly, so she never said anything back to it, but the truth was she did love the sound of her own voice, her own song.

The music cut out. "Okay, stop, everyone, stop," Noah said. "This is exactly the kind of thing we're looking for right now, so this is good, that we caught it."

The zombie five feet in front of Carrie was caught on one of the hooks. Carrie hadn't even noticed, not that it was caught, or that it was right in front of her. Even with her eyes wide open, the world fell away while she performed.

"You girls can take another break, but don't leave this stage," he said, already fiddling with his gadgets. Then he stopped to glare at them all. "I mean it, you know. Don't leave this stage."

Gerri put her hands up. "No one argued, asshole."

Noah grunted and went back to work. The crew was gathered around, but none of them looked too excited about getting close enough to help him.

Gerri pulled out her phone and, Carrie assumed, sent something nasty to someone, because a minute or two later a girl that couldn't have been thirteen years old rushed onto the stage. Her arms were full of bottled drinks. Gerri plucked two out of the girl's arms and then shooed her away. Sadie called her back, handed out drinks, and thanked the kid before she fled nervously from the stage.

"You could have given her a picture or something," Dee said.

Sadie gave her a look, the look she'd been giving all of them to keep everyone from arguing.

"Not everyone wants a picture with you, Dee," Gerri said.

"Even if they hate us, we're famous now," Dee said. "So yeah. They do. And Teegan especially. She's a total fangirl.”

Noah had freed the corpse, and had an assistant holding a metal pole hooked to a collar that circled the zombie's neck. It kept the corpse just beyond arm's length. The zombie continued reaching for the assistant, its fingers clawing just out of reach. Noah had more faith in the assistant than Carrie thought warranted; it seemed to her that the guy would drop the handle and run for his life any second.

"This is such a joke," Gerri grumbled, and then perked up and whispered, "Hey, how about we sneak out of here?"

"No," Carrie said.

Gerri sat up and leaned forward. Carrie had learned over the last week that when you could see down Gerri's shirt you were in trouble. She was either trying to charm you so that she could use you, or she was about to get all deadly, but in a sex voice. She'd never once tried to charm Carrie that way, but she knew what was coming.

"No?" Gerri asked.

"No," Carrie repeated.

"I don't even get a reason?"

"You know the reason," Carrie said.

"Do you hear how she's talking to me?" Gerri asked the rest of them.

"Yes," Carrie said. "Use the group to bully me instead of facing me yourself. You're such a clever leader, Gerri. I doubt anyone in the history of the world has ever attempted dictator tactics as clever as the ones you use."

"Honey, do you even hear yourself?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Carrie said. "How do you stand listening to your own complaints?"

"Of all the people to call me annoying in this world, you are the most hypocritical." Gerri laid back on the stage. It was her way of saying Carrie wasn't even worth arguing with, and she knew she shouldn't let it get to her, but it did a fine job of grating on her nerves.

"Carrie, come on," Sadie said, and gave her the look again, which just made it worse.

"Are you girls okay over there?" Noah hollered.

"Just fine, thanks," Sadie called back.

Noah crawled down under the stage, leaving them alone with the assistants and the corpse.

"Seriously, Sadie?" Carrie asked. "How long are we going to put up with this?"

"You can go," Gerri said.

"Oh, you'd just love that, wouldn't you?"

"I wouldn't feel anything about that, because it would be nothing.
You
are nothing."

"Gerri, stop it," Sadie said. "Let's all just calm down and focus on what matters today."

"Which isn't Carrie," Gerri said, and laughed.

"That's not what I meant," Sadie said.

"I don't know what you're all upset about," Gerri said. "You've hated her from the beginning."

"That's not—"

"Oh, honey, don't lie, it doesn't suit you."

"You're twisting things around!" Sadie said.

Dee put her head in her hands. "Why does this keep happening?"

"Quiet, stay out of it," Jo warned.

"Don't worry, Sadie," Carrie said. "This is just more of Gerri being jealous of anyone being seen but her."

"Is that right?" Gerri asked. "I'm the one starved for attention?"

"How many times have you been told to stop screeching through the songs, trying to sing louder than the rest of us? How many times have you been told to stop interrupting us during interviews? How many, Gerri?"

"And what about you, honey? You think we don't notice how silly you look? You think we're not embarrassed to stand next to you and your 'look at me' poses?"

"You want to talk about poses, do you?"

"I don't pose!"

"Oh, please," Carrie scoffed. "We all know you popped your boob out of your shirt on purpose."

"Is that what this is about? My boobs? I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Honey, they invented push-up bras for a reason. Look into it."

"Stop calling me honey or else—"

"Or else what?"

Carrie wanted to tell her she would cover her in honey and feathers in her sleep, but was serious enough about it that she didn't want to ruin it by saying it out loud. Instead, she turned to Sadie, looking for back up in the fight. "I can't take it," Carrie told her.

"I know, I know," Sadie said.

"Oh! So it's you, too!" Gerri yelled. "I see how it is."

"Oh, calm down," Sadie said. "You're both just tired."

"No, that's not it," Gerri said. "You're all edging me out! You don't want me to talk, you don't want anyone to see me, you're edging me out! Well, I won't take it! I'm not some
Carrie
, I can fight!"

"What's
that
supposed to mean?" Carrie rounded on her, a fresh wave of fury grabbing hold.

"Center stage, but can't even fight your own battles, turning to Sadie for help," Gerri said.

"You're the one who tried to turn them all against me!"

"Oh, whatever," Gerri said. "There you are, in the center of that video, hollering at the zombie like you're the leader—"

"Oh!
I'm
the one who thinks she's the leader now!"

"Damn straight!"

"You want to fight a zombie? You want to put on a show?" Carrie yanked the metal pole out of the assistant's hand. "Of course you do! Have a go at it! Show us what you can do!" She pushed the corpse at Gerri, who was slowly backing away.

"Hey! Hey!" Sadie yelled, but Carrie barely heard it.

"Come now, show us what you can do, oh mighty leader! Come on,
honey
." The word fell off her tongue like acid.

Noah yelled, "What the hell is going on here?" and that's when Carrie saw what she was doing, holding the zombie out in front of her, yelling at Gerri who'd backed away and put her hands up in front of her face.

Carrie backed away, almost dropping the handle in her rush to flee, like she could run far enough to escape what she'd just done.

FENNEC NEWS

“Yes, yes, we've seen their music video, but what does that even prove? Have they done anything real, except punch a civilian in the jaw?”

Chapter Nineteen

SADIE

"I just want to be alone right now," Carrie said, like that was even an option.

Sadie just shrugged. She wasn't going to waste a witty comeback on this nightmare.

"I didn't mean to," Carrie said.

"Okay."

"I mean... I don't know what I mean."

"Okay."

“She's just so mean!”

“Okay.”
"Do we really have to talk about this?"

"You're the one who's talking."

Carrie went to the window of the tower and looked down at the stage, where Noah was wrangling the zombie into its cage. Gerri, Dee, and Jo were gone. Probably calling Willa. Or the police. It was totally inappropriate, but something about that was funny to Sadie. Maybe it was the idea of explaining to a couple of cops, or even Willa, how sweet pretty little Carrie just attacked that fierce girl Gerri with a growling zombie. If Sadie hadn't seen it, she wasn't sure she would have believed it. Sure, Carrie had some bite in her sarcasm, but nothing about that implied she'd shove a zombie in your face.

"I just... I lost control." She flicked a button and the windows went black. The creaking sounds of the wind disappeared.