Zombies vs. Unicorns Read online

  MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Compilation copyright © 2010 by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

  “The Highest Justice” copyright © 2010 by Garth Nix • “Love Will Tear Us Apart” copyright © 2010 by Alaya Dawn Johnson • “Purity Test” copyright © 2010 by Naomi Novik • “Bougainvillea” copyright © 2010 by Carrie Ryan • “A Thousand Flowers” copyright © 2010 by Margo Lanagan • “The Children of the Revolution” copyright © 2010 by Maureen Johnson • “The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn” copyright © 2010 by Diana Peterfreund • “Inoculata” copyright © 2010 by Scott Westerfeld • “Princess Prettypants” copyright © 2010 by Meg Cabot • “Cold Hands” copyright © 2010 by Cassandra Claire, LLC • “The Third Virgin” copyright © 2010 by Kathleen Duey • “Prom Night” copyright © 2010 by Libba Bray

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Zombies vs. unicorns / [comp. by] Holly Black, Justine Larbalestier.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Twelve short stories by a variety of authors seek to answer the question of whether zombies are better than unicorns.

  ISBN 978-1-4169-8953-0 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-1283-5 (eBook)

  1. Short stories. [1. Zombies—Juvenile fiction. 2. Unicorns—Juvenile fiction. 3. Short stories. 4. Zombies—Fiction. 5. Unicorns—Fiction.] I. Black, Holly. II. Larbalestier, Justine.

  III. Title: Zombies versus unicorns.

  PZ5.Z62 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010003732

  For Scott Westerfeld, because there’s no one

  I’d rather spend the zombie apocalypse with

  —J. L.

  For Justine, who dragged me into this,

  and to whom I am so grateful

  —H. B.

  Content

  Introduction

  The Highest Justice

  by Garth Nix

  Love Will Tear Us Apart

  by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  Purity Test

  by Naomi Novik

  Bougainvillea

  by Carrie Ryan

  A Thousand Flowers

  by Margo Lanagan

  The Children of the Revolution

  by Maureen Johnson

  The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn

  by Diana Peterfreund

  Inoculata

  by Scott Westenfeld

  Princess Prettypants

  by Meg Cabot

  Cold Hands

  by Cassandra Clare

  The Third Virgin

  by Kathleen Duey

  Prom Night

  by Libba Bray

  Introduction

  Since the dawn of time one question has dominated all others:

  Zombies or Unicorns?

  Well, okay, maybe not since the dawn of time, but definitely since February 2007. That was the day Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier began a heated exchange about the creatures’ relative merits on Justine’s blog. Since then the question has become an unstoppable Internet meme, crowding comment threads and even making it to YouTube.

  Here in the real world Holly and Justine are often called upon to defend, respectively, unicorns and zombies. The whole thing has gotten so out of hand that the only remedy is …

  Zombies vs. Unicorns. The anthology.

  That’s right, you have in your hands the book that will settle the debate once and for all.

  For Justine it is a question of metaphors: Which creature better symbolizes the human condition? The answer is obviously zombies, which can be used to comment on almost any aspect of our existence. They are walking entropy. They are the dissolute wreck of consumerism. They are the eventual death that faces us all. They are a metaphor for slavery, conformity, and oblivion. What are unicorns? Fluffy, monochrome, sticky tedium.

  For Holly, however, unicorns are majestic beasts that are at once symbols of healing and fierce killers with long pointy objects attached to their heads. They were hunted by mythical kings, their image emblazoned on standards by noble families. And they continue to fascinate people today (often in sticker-and-rainbow form, she admits). Besides, between a unicorn and a zombie, which would you rather be trapped down a mine shaft with?

  They spend a lot of time having arguments like this one:

  Holly: Seriously, you don’t like unicorns? What kind of person doesn’t like unicorns?

  Justine: What kind of a person doesn’t like zombies? What have zombies ever done to you?

  Holly: Zombies shamble. I disapprove of shambling. And they have bits that fall off. You never see a unicorn behaving that way.

  Justine: I shamble. Bits fall off me all the time: hair, skin cells. Are you saying you disapprove of me?

  Cherie Priest: But Holly, if you ask nicely, a zombie will give you a piggyback ride even if you are not a virgin. And that is why zombies win.

  Justine: See, Holly? No one holds with your zombie-hating ways.

  Holly: But the horn of a unicorn can cure diseases! Possibly the diseases you might get from accepting a piggyback ride from a zombie.

  Justine: Oh, I see, so you’re all for the use of unicorn products. Are you thinking about having a unicorn coat made for yourself as well? I wonder how PETA feels about your unicorn-exploiting ways… . Not to mention that zombies don’t have diseases. I’m appalled that you would spread lies about them.

  Clearly, we had to gather the finest minds in our field to answer this urgent question.

  Team Zombie, led by , consists of:

  , who has dated only zombies since high school.

  , who was a nonpracticing zombie until anthology stress made her fall off the brains wagon.

  , who has been a zombie lover ever since a pack of them took out all her high school enemies.

  (also known as Subject M), who can be subdued by being given her computer, whereupon she will spend hours typing out “brains brains brains brains” on Twitter.

  , who founded the Southern Zombie Refuge and is still in possession of almost all her limbs.

  , who holds numerous patents in flame-thrower technology and is the inventor of the zombie-proof cravat.

  ’s Team Unicorn members are:

  , who has ridden in the unicorn rodeo since she was knee-high to a grasshopper.

  , who was brought up on a unicorn farm, and learned as a girl that you can’t trust them. You really can’t.

  , who likes unicorns even more th
an she likes bears, elephants, langur monkeys, and naked mole rats.

  , who distills frightful eau-de-vie from the tears of scorned unicorns.

  , whose unprecedented career as a land pirate could not have been achieved without her unicorn-drawn pirate ship.

  , who earned a PhD in Unicorn Studies from Yale for her dissertation on the limits of parthenophobic behavior in the lesser species of Monoceros monoceros.

  Because Holly can’t stand to read about zombies and Justine would rather eat her own eyeballs than read about unicorns, we have kindly ensured that each story is marked by a zombie or unicorn icon. No unwary zombie fan will accidentally start reading a unicorn story or vice versa.

  We can all rest easy.

  Especially those among us who love to read about zombies and unicorns, who now have a book crowded with stories about both creatures by the best talent in the field.

  If you’re strong enough to read all the stories, you will know by the end of this anthology which is better: zombies or unicorns!

  Justine: ZOMBIES!!!! (I win.)

  “The Highest Justice”

  Holly: Legends of unicorns occur all over the world throughout recorded history. From a unicorn in Persia, described in the fourth century as having a long white horn tipped in crimson, to the German unicorn whose single horn broke into branches like a stag, to the fierce Indian unicorn, black-horned and too dangerous to be taken alive. There’s the kirin in Japan, with a deerlike body, a single horn, and a head like a lion or wolf. And there’s the medieval European unicorn, with the beard of a goat and cloven hooves.

  No matter the origin, the unicorn is usually thought to be a solitary creature whose very body possesses the power to heal. The legends describe it as elusive and beautiful, fierce and strange.

  In fact, such is the mysterious draw of the unicorn that originally the story that follows was meant to be a zombie story. Somehow the power of the unicorn caused the story itself to switch sides.

  Garth Nix’s “The Highest Justice” draws on the association between unicorns and kings. The Chinese qilin presaged the death of Emperors. The heraldic unicorn shows up on coats of arms, including the Royal Arms of Scotland and England. And in “The Highest Justice,” a unicorn takes an even more direct interest in a royal family.

  Justine: That is so unconvincing. Emperors and kings. Noble families. You’re just saying unicorns are stuck-up snobs. Zombies are the proleteriat. Long live the workers!

  Also, your global list of genetic experiments gone wrong (deer with the head of a lion? Talk about top heavy!) prove nothing about unicorn variation. Everyone knows unicorns are all-white or rainbow-colored. Ewww. Zombies come in all races. There is nothing more democratic than zombies!

  It’s an outright lie that the power of the unicorn caused the story to switch sides. Garth Nix has always been a unicorn lover! He was supposed to write a zombie-unicorn story. But he messed it up, didn’t he? (Dear Readers, you will notice much messing up from Team Unicorn throughout this anthology.)

  Holly: Zombies represent the workers? A seething mass out to get us all, eh? That doesn’t seem so egalitarian.

  The Highest Justice

  By Garth Nix

  The girl did not ride the unicorn, because no one ever did. She rode a nervous oat-colored palfrey that had no name, and led the second horse, a blind and almost deaf ancient who long ago had been called Rinaldo and was now simply Rin. The unicorn sometimes paced next to the palfrey, and sometimes not.

  Rin bore the dead Queen on his back, barely noticing her twitches and mumbles and the cloying stench of decaying flesh that seeped out through the honey- and spice-soaked bandages. She was tied to the saddle, but could have snapped those bonds if she had thought to do so. She had become monstrously strong since her death three days before, and the intervention by her daughter that had returned her to a semblance of life.

  Not that Princess Jess was a witch or necromancer. She knew no more magic than any other young woman. But she was fifteen years old, a virgin, and she believed the old tale of the kingdom’s founding: that the unicorn who had aided the legendary Queen Jessibelle the First was still alive and would honor the compact made so long ago, to come in the time of the kingdom’s need.

  The unicorn’s secret name was Elibet. Jess had called this name to the waxing moon at midnight from the tallest tower of the castle, and had seen something ripple in answer across the surface of the earth’s companion in the sky.

  An hour later Elibet was in the tower. She was somewhat like a horse with a horn, if you looked at her full on, albeit one made of white cloud and moonshine. Looked at sideways she was a fiercer thing, of less familiar shape, made of storm clouds and darkness, the horn more prominent and bloody at the tip, like the setting sun. Jess preferred to see a white horse with a silvery horn, and so that is what she saw.

  Jess had called the unicorn as her mother gasped out her final breath. The unicorn had come too late to save the Queen, but by then Jess had another plan. The unicorn listened and then by the power of her horn, brought back some part of the Queen to inhabit a body from which life had all too quickly sped.

  They had then set forth, to seek the Queen’s poisoner, and mete out justice.

  Jess halted her palfrey as they came to a choice of ways. The royal forest was thick and dark in these parts, and the path was no more than a beaten track some dozen paces wide. It forked ahead, into two lesser, narrower paths.

  “Which way?” asked Jess, speaking to the unicorn, who had once again mysteriously appeared at her side.

  The unicorn pointed her horn at the left-hand path.

  “Are you sure—,” Jess asked. “No, it’s just that—”

  “The other way looks more traveled—”

  “No, I’m not losing heart—”

  “I know you know—”

  “Talking to yourself?” interjected a rough male voice, the only other sound in the forest, for if the unicorn had spoken, no one but Jess had heard her.

  The palfrey shied as Jess swung around and reached for her sword. But she was too late, as a dirty bearded ruffian held a rusty pike to her side. He grinned, and raised his eyebrows.

  “Here’s a tasty morsel, then,” he leered. “Step down lightly, and no tricks.”

  “Elibet!” said Jess indignantly.

  The unicorn slid out of the forest behind the outlaw, and lightly pricked him in the back of his torn leather jerkin with her horn. The man’s eyebrows went up still farther and his eyes darted to the left and right.

  “Ground your pike,” said Jess. “My friend can strike faster than any man.”

  The outlaw grunted, and lowered his pike, resting its butt in the leaf litter at his feet.

  “I give up,” he wheezed, leaning forward as if he might escape the sharp horn. “Ease off on that spear, and take me to the sheriff. I swear—”

  “Hunger,” interrupted the Queen. Her voice had changed with her death. It had become gruff and leathery, and significantly less human.

  The bandit glanced at the veiled figure under the broad-brimmed pilgrim’s hat.

  “What?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Hunger,” groaned the Queen. “Hunger.”

  She raised her right arm, and the leather cord that bound her to the saddle’s high cantle snapped with a sharp crack. A bandage came loose at her wrist and dropped to the ground in a series of spinning turns, revealing the mottled blue-bruised skin beneath.

  “Shoot ’em!” shouted the bandit as he dove under Jess’s horse and scuttled across the path toward the safety of the trees. As he ran, an arrow flew over his head and struck the Queen in the shoulder. Another, coming behind it, went past Jess’s head as she jerked herself forward and down. The third was struck out of the air by a blur of vaguely unicorn-shaped motion. There were no more arrows, but a second later there was a scream from halfway up a broad oak that loomed over the path ahead, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground.

  Jess drew her sw
ord and kicked her palfrey into a lurching charge. She caught the surviving bandit just before he managed to slip between two thorny bushes, and landed a solid blow on his head with the back of the blade. She hadn’t meant to be merciful, but the sword had turned in her sweaty grasp. He fell under the horse’s feet, and got trampled a little before Jess managed to turn about.

  She glanced down to make sure he was at least dazed, but sure of this, spared him no more time. Her mother had broken the bonds on her left arm as well, and was ripping off the veil that hid her face.

  “Hunger!” boomed the Queen, loud enough even for poor old deaf Rin to hear. He stopped eating the grass and lifted his head, time-worn nostrils almost smelling something he didn’t like.

  “Elibet! Please … ,” beseeched Jess. “A little longer—we must be almost there.”

  The unicorn stepped out from behind a tree and looked at her. It was the look of a stern teacher about to allow a pupil some small favor.

  “One more touch, please, Elibet.”

  The unicorn bent her head, paced over to the dead Queen, and touched the woman lightly with her horn, briefly imbuing her with a subtle nimbus of summer sunshine, bright in the shadowed forest. Propelled by that strange light, the arrow in the Queen’s shoulder popped out, the blue-black bruises on her arms faded, and her skin shone, pink and new. She stopped fumbling with the veil, slumped down in her saddle, and let out a relatively delicate and human-sounding snore.

  “Thank you,” said Jess.

  She dismounted and went to look at the bandit. He had sat up and was trying to wipe away the blood that slowly dripped across his left eye.