Twice Shy

by Patrick Freivald

  Twice

  Shy

  By

  Patrick Freivald

  JournalStone

  San Francisco

  Copyright ©2012 by Patrick Freivald

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or

  mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system

  without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical

  articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel

  are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  JournalStone books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

  JournalStone

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  San Mateo, CA 94401

  www.journalstone.com

  The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views

  of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-50-7 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-57-6 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-936564-58-3 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012941730

  Printed in the United States of America

  JournalStone rev. date: October 26, 2012

  Cover Design: Denise Daniel

  Cover Art: Philip Renne

  Edited By: Dr. Michael R. Collings

  Endorsements

  “I’m betting there’s a darned good chance you’ll feel just as at home with Ani as I did. I’ll just say that I adore Ani, and her story often reminded me of my own.”

  — Lisa Morton — Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of The Castle of Los Angeles and The Halloween Encyclopedia.

  "With TWICE SHY, newcomer novelist Patrick Freivald approaches the zombie concept from a brilliant new angle. Teens and adults should take a bite out of this. Inventive, fast-paced and freaky-fun."

  — Jonathan Maberry — New York Times bestselling author of ROT & RUIN and FLESH & BONE

  "A compulsively readable and pleasantly different zombie tale, all the way to its pull-no-punches end."

  — Kirkus Reviews

  Dedication

  To The Redhead(tm). You're why I write.

  Acknowledgements

  To Phil, Mark, Jake, Brooke, Amy, Mom, and all of my beta readers, for the support and for telling me what sucks. To the Mansers and the Wastoids, who might not have many answers, but sure know how to party.

  To the reader who gave this book a chance.

  You rule.

  Check out these titles from JournalStone:

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  Brett J. Talley

  The Void

  Brett J. Talley

  Cemetery Club

  JG Faherty

  Jokers Club

  Gregory Bastianelli

  Women Scorned

  Angela Alsaleem

  The Donors

  Jeffrey Wilson

  The Devil of Echo Lake

  Douglas Wynne

  Pazuzu’s Girl

  Rachel Coles

  Available through your local and online bookseller or at

  www.journalstone.com

  Chapter 1

  Tiffany "Fey" Daniels smoothed the black lace down over her fishnets. "Picture day sucks," she said, tugging the dress down to expose the silver ankh hanging at her waifish neck.

  It's worse when you're dead, Ani thought.

  She rolled on blood-red lipstick to avoid answering, blotted it and threw the tissue into the trash. She glanced at Fey. Tiny frame, ghost-pale, black dress, black lipstick, black nail polish, black-dyed hair and too much mascara. In another life they could have been twins. "You look good, Fey." Her tongue stud clicked off her teeth.

  Fey sized her up and snorted. "You should eat more." She walked out of the bathroom. Ani turned up her iPod and let Kill Hannah drone at her as she finished her makeup. With a sigh for what couldn't be, she stuffed the headphones into her purse. She tromped out after the queen of the Ohneka Falls Upper School emos to join the line of juniors waiting their turns in front of the camera.

  * * *

  A blinding flash and it was done. The photographer turned the monitor so that she could see it. The screen showed a gaunt, pale girl in a long black wig, a nose ring, three rings in her left eyebrow, and innumerable earrings. The black mascara was halloweentacular: a dead-eyed raccoon in a long-sleeved black dress. The woman gave her a doubtful frown. "We can take another..."

  "It's fine. Whatever." Ani walked out of the gym as the bell rang.

  Trig time, she thought. FML.

  * * *

  She sat in the front of the class so she wouldn't have to look at anyone. 'SOHCAHTOA TEST TOMORROW!' splayed across the assignment board in red dry-erase marker. She copied it into her agenda and practiced breathing, using the beat of her pacemaker to time each inhalation. She felt Mike Brown's gaze burning into her back.

  She closed her eyes and saw his, green and dazzling as they played under a sunny sky. She strangled the memory. He was a jock, forever off-limits now that she was condemned to live by her mother's rules. She might as well have moved to another planet.

  High heels shredded her reverie. "Nice boots, Cutter. Salvation Army?" Devon Holcomb's murmur was acid. Devon was a senior—athletic, blonde, and popular—everything Ani could have been. Devon gave her a viper's smile as she stalked past and pecked Mike on the cheek, bending low to flash too much leg. Mike flushed and glanced away, and Ani turned to the front of the room as Mr. Gursslin began the lesson. It was review for the kids who didn't pay attention the first time.

  She closed her eyes and mentally worked on her most recent secret composition, a poppy dance number to make Ke$ha proud, and blocked out the sounds of flirting from behind her.

  * * *

  She didn't have to work, so her mom gave her a ride home in the Audi. Her mom's athletic frame had suffered a little since her job change, and her curly auburn hair was gray under the dye. She might be the only school nurse in the world who drives an Audi. They rode in silence, honoring their unspoken deal. Ani didn't complain about the rules, and Mom didn't complain about the medical practice she had given up to protect her daughter.

  Dinner conversation was functional. Her mother ate off of her own plate, and another sat in front of Ani just in case someone dropped by. It all smelled like nothing.

  "Did you finish your homework?" her mother asked between bites of chicken salad.

  "Yeah. I have a trig test tomorrow, but it'll be easy. I finished English in study hall." She sat with her hands folded in her lap, black fingernails against white skin.

  "Work?"

  "Not tonight. I'm working five to ten tomorrow." The incense in The Dragon's Lair clung to her clothing, which helped obscure the formaldehyde smell that permeated her skin, and the game store was one of the few places where no one would look twice at an emo girl.

  "Good. You should get in the bath." Her mom shoveled another bite into her mouth.

  "Mom!" Ani didn't quite stifle the whine.

  Her mom set down her fork, patted the corner of her mouth with her napkin, and stood. Ani tried not to roll her eyes as her mother grabbed her head and looked in her mouth. "Your gums are still receding. Formaldehyde doesn't do any good if you're not in it, so if you have down time, you need to be in the bath. We can put on some music. Something you like. I'm working on a new mixture, something that works as well but won't toughen up your flesh so much."

  In the end they compromised. Ani watched Dancing with the S
tars while she wrote out what she had composed in her head earlier in the day, practiced piano on the Baby Grand for forty minutes, and dragged her feet up the stairs to the bathroom. She set the iPod to B.o.B, turned on “Genius,” and cranked the speakers. She took off her clothes and slid into the bath, a slippery mixture of noxious chemicals and crushed ice that would keep her body from decaying any further. She pressed the 'close' button and the hydraulic lid slid into place, pressurizing with a soft hiss.

  If they found out she was a zombie, they'd burn her.

  Chapter 2

  Cold rain sloughed off Ani's umbrella as she waited in the pre-dawn gloom. Trig identities floated through her brain, entwining and interfering with the melodies she was constructing to the falling drumbeat. A low rumble triggered the end of her peace for the day. She opened her eyes and stepped aboard the bright yellow bus.

  She shook out the umbrella, closed it, and stepped over the white line. She froze. Mike sat in his old seat. He hadn't sat there since they'd transitioned to the Upper School at the end of 10th grade, a year after she'd died. She tried not to look at him, his perfect eyes, and sat across from him—as she had for eleven years.

  "No ride today?" she asked.

  She caught the headshake in her peripheral vision. "Senior Picnic. Devon left for Darien Lake an hour ago." He smiled. It was dazzling. "Nice weather for it."

  She looked out the window at the drizzle. Anywhere but at him. "They let seniors drive to Six Flags?" In her imagination the yellow VW careened off a bridge and erupted into a fireball on impact. "I wouldn't have guessed that." She looked at him, anxious.

  His smile turned timid, almost nervous. Under high cheekbones, his square jaw sported a hint of stubble that he probably didn't need to shave, and his lettered jacket emphasized his muscular frame. The scrawny boy she had played with a lifetime ago was gone, replaced by this man, this stranger that she could never have, never get close to.

  "What?" he asked. She realized she'd been staring.

  She looked out the window. "Nothing. Just remembering."

  He shifted, turning away from her a little bit as the bus stopped. "I wonder..." He cleared his throat. She didn't dare interrupt. "I—"

  A shape interposed itself, blocking her view. Fey sat next to her and handed her an ear bud. "Black Rainbow. Totally wretched." Despair and relief warred on Mike's face. Fey glanced across the aisle as Mike looked out the window, then reached up and closed Ani's mouth with a finger. "You're catching flies."

  They rode the rest of the way smothered in music as bleak as the weather.

  God, I hate this crap, Ani thought.

  * * *

  By noon the sky had cleared. It looked like the senior picnic wouldn't be a complete disaster. Ani stood outside the cafeteria, trying not to smile as she basked in sunlight through the window. UV rays would damage her skin, and she couldn't just moisturize with aloe. Her mother's injections stimulated some healing, but not enough. Never enough.

  A male voice rang out from down the hallway. "No way! She doesn't sparkle!" Immature chuckles accompanied the jibe. She ignored them and closed her eyes. Every day it was harder to feel the warmth. As they got closer, it was clear they weren't going to leave her alone.

  "Hey, did you screw Edward?"

  "Yeah, you like them popsicles?"

  "Quiet, guys, she might go cut herself."

  "Are you gonna cut yourself, freak?"

  She kept her eyes closed, hoping they'd keep walking. She gasped as someone slammed into her. She stumbled forward and her foot exploded in pain, even as her head bounced off the glass. As the contents of her purse spilled, she heard a teacher yell a warning. Footsteps scattered.

  She knelt to the ground and picked up her makeup, her ID, and the unmentionables she didn't need but couldn't avoid carrying. As she grabbed her mascara, a hand closed over hers. She looked up, startled, right into those green eyes.

  Mike looked worried. "Are you ok?" he asked. She nodded. "You hit the window pretty hard."

  She reached up and touched her head. She felt the cut and swore under her breath. She kept her face calm. "I'm not bleeding or anything. Jerks."

  He brushed his thumb over the cut. "You've done worse on the swings."

  She pulled her head away and stuffed the rest of her belongings into her purse.

  "Those guys are a bunch of assholes. Don't let them get to you."

  She jerked away from him. "Jocks are jerks. I know the type."

  "Not all jocks," he said, reaching for her arm. She turned and staggered away from him.

  "Yeah, all jocks." She walked down the hall consumed by tears that couldn't fall.

  * * *

  Her mother looked up as Ani limped into the nurse's office.

  "What happened to you?" Her mother circled around the desk to lead Ani to a bed. As Ani sat down, her mom pulled the curtain, then removed a small phial from her purse. The liquid was sticky and pungent, a regenerative ointment reserved for the military and the rich. Her mom clucked and scowled as she applied it first to a cotton swab and then to Ani's forehead. "You have to be more careful. This stuff is only so good."

  Modern medicine had come a long way since the Zombie Virus outbreak seventeen years before. After ZV was contained in the United States, her mother had spent her life making sure it would never happen again, and with that experience, she had gained access to all of the state-of-the-art medicines: ZV suppressors, regeneratives, synthetic antibodies. Neither of them had expected to need them quite so desperately.

  Ani unlaced her boot as her mother finished dabbing and applied a Band-Aid. "Some jerks pushed me into a window." She pulled off the boot. She didn't want to look.

  "Oh, honey!" her mother exclaimed. She looked down.

  Her pinky toe was at a right angle. She looked away.

  Her mom spoke in a bare whisper. "I'll tape it for now, sweetie, but we'll have to do some surgery tonight. I don't have anything for a broken bone." A sickening crack accompanied a jolt of pain. It faded to a slow burn as her mom wrapped her pinky and the toe next to it in tape. Her mom stood, kissed her forehead, and patted her on the shoulder. "That's good for now. Go back to class."

  Ani's eyes widened. "Oh, shit, my trig test!" She shot to her feet and stumbled out of the room, boot in hand.

  "Watch your language!" her mother called after her.

  "You know you can write her up, Sarah," the secretary in the next room offered as Ani shuffled down the hall.

  * * *

  Ani hustled into Mr. Gursslin's room ten minutes late. "Miss Romero," he said. He looked at the clock, shook his head, and nodded at her desk. The test was already on it. She put the pass on his desk and hurried to her seat.

  Mike flushed but didn't look up.

  The test wasn't too hard. She finished as the bell rang and hurried out of the room, grabbing Mike's arm as he went past. "Hey..."

  He spun and towered over her. "Hey what, Ani? I thought you didn't talk to jocks."

  She frowned. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. That sucked, and I was in pain, but there was no excuse for what I said." His delicious masculine smell overwhelmed her; sweat and musk and—she stopped breathing.

  He looked down the hall, where Fey scowled at them. "Well, just remember that just because you wear black and hate life doesn't mean you can't also be an asshole, too." His timid smile reappeared. "Right?"

  She smiled back. "Sure, Mike. Sorry again."

  He walked away as Fey stepped into his place.

  "You'd better have life insurance," she said, looking down the hall after him.

  "Excuse me?" Ani had almost forgotten to start breathing again.

  Fey rolled her eyes in the direction of Mike. "Poaching Holcomb's boyfriend. She'll claw your eyeballs out and leave your corpse on the side of the road." She rolled her eyes again. "Not that you stand a chance with either of them."

  Ani scoffed. "Rude, much?"

  Fey's eyes widened. "Speaking of 'doesn't stand a chance,' head
off Dylan for me, would you?" She whirled around and stalked down the hall, her high heels clopping over the din of the student masses. Ani turned around as Dylan moped up behind her.

  He was tall, blue-eyed, and skinny, with an Edward haircut and a permanent scowl. He lifted his chin and brushed his hair out of his face, flashing a silver bracelet. "Hey," he said, his stare following Fey's retreat.

  "Hey," she said back.

  "Where's Fey going?" His eyes didn't leave Fey's ass until it was around the corner.

  "Class, I guess."

  Creepy-quiet to begin with, Dylan had started wearing black and cutting himself to impress Fey and had since slid off the deep end. Stealing, smoking, taking X, vandalism, and very bad poetry had yet to change Fey's opinion that he wasn't worth her time. His only use as far as Fey was concerned was stealing cigarettes from the gas station. His dad had been a HomeGuard technician before he died in the war, and Dylan was surprisingly good at breaking and entering—but he charged five bucks a pack.

  He glanced up and down the hall. "You hear the new Paramore track?"

  She shook her head. "My mom froze my iTunes account. Now I got to work the skating parties with her until I pay it off."

  "Skating parties, huh?" His blank gaze floated to her face. It always felt like he was looking through her instead of at her. "At the middle school? Don't you work at the Lair?"