A Living Dead Love Story Series

by Rusty Fischer

  “I thought it would be easier, I guess,” I say as we steer slowly through the long line of kids getting out of school on this beautiful fall Friday in sunny Barracuda Bay.

  “Yeah, well, it does get easier, but not if you get outed by the whole school your first full day with the Z-disease. We’ve been watching you all day, Dane and I, checking to see how you’d do. I have to tell you, zombie to zombie, you failed. Big-time. I mean, kids who never look up from their textbooks were talking about you today. The whole school thinks you have malaria or something.”

  I brake for the next stop sign and peer into the rearview mirror. A stranger peers back—a dead, white, pale, broken stranger with no clue, no life, no future. “Is it that bad?” I ask for the dozenth time that day.

  She doesn’t answer the question. “Listen, you take me to the mall, and I’ll make sure you pass and nobody finds us out. Deal?”

  Instead of turning left toward home, I turn right and head toward the Barracuda Bay Galleria. “Do I have a choice?”

  Chloe’s dry chuckle is my answer.

  18

  Sentenced to Food Court

  WE SIT IN the food court, mostly deserted this time of day, two zombies slurping sodas like a couple of poodle-sweatered girls in a ‘50s diner. Aside from yesterday’s grilled cheese sandwich, it’s the first human food I’ve had since I died (do brains count?) but, more importantly, the first nondiet soda I’ve had since I was maybe, what …eight years old?

  A few tables away, a frazzled mother sits with her two young boys, yelling at one then another while trying to stuff a quick gyro into her stressed-out gullet. “Jeffrey, stop. Brian, don’t do that. Jeffrey, put that down.”

  Chloe ignores them, staring out at the mostly empty stores beyond the food court perimeter.

  “So remind me again why I’m not drinking diet.” I take a tentative sip of the thick, syrupy soda. It’s surprisingly good. So good I take two more long, big sips. The viselike tension from my head immediately lifts, as it always does when I’ve been too long without caffeine and drink my first snort of Red Bull—wham—32 grams of sugar straight to the cerebral cortex.

  She shakes her head. “For starters, you’ll never have to count another calorie again. Look at you; you’re in the first stages of Assimilation. I bet you’ve lost at least 15 percent of your body fat already. Trust me, it doesn’t take long. By the final stages, you’ll be down to 4, maybe 3 percent body fat, tops, for the rest of your life.

  “We’re literally running on electricity now, Maddy, so your metabolism is crazy fast. So this”—she holds up her half-empty cup, as big as most popcorn buckets—”the liquid keeps your cells hydrated; the sugar gives your brain a boost. You don’t need to drink it, not exactly; you can go without it; it just …helps you feel more …human.”

  Her voice has turned almost wistful, her eyes falling on the frenzied mother and looking downright sad. I give her the moment, although a thousand questions run through my brain. The biggest one being, Why is Chloe suddenly being so nice to me? The mother looks up, sees Chloe’s stark white face, severe black makeup, scowling eyes, and T-shirt studded with safety pins, and gathers her boys to leave without cleaning up.

  Chloe turns to me without comment.

  “How long have you been, you know, like …this?” I ask.

  “Thirty-seven years,” she says nonchalantly, as if I’ve just asked her the weather. “But …how?”

  She turns to me, taking another deep, almost desperate slug of soda. She explains, too calmly, “I was holing up in an abandoned warehouse with my boyfriend. It wasn’t only us; lots of kids did it back then. It was called ‘squatting’; Google it sometime. Anyway, the cops got a tip, raided the place; everybody took off, even my boyfriend. I’d had a little too much to drink, maybe a few other things, so I couldn’t move quite as fast as everybody else.

  “Anyway, the cops tried to bust me, I resisted, they tased me; both of them at the same time, set Tasers to quadruple stun. I don’t think they planned to; it just worked out that way. You have to remember, this was back when they first started using Tasers. They were pretty much brand-new, experimental, unproven—twice as big, plus twice as strong, as they are today.

  “Anyway, I went through the Awakening; that’s what they call it when you actually die and go into a kind of hibernation. But I wasn’t totally gone; I could hear what they were saying, those cops. I mean, they thought I was dead; no pulse, no breathing, cold skin, the works. One said he had a family and kids and he wasn’t ‘going down for some punk skank.’

  “I still remember that: ‘punk skank.’ Nice, huh? The other guy was young, only a kid himself. He said this could ruin his career. So they just left me there; didn’t even throw a blanket over me or anything, like you would for a dog. When I came to a few days later, I stumbled off, figured things out, needed to get away from there as fast as I could. Didn’t want the same cops catching me again, obviously. I went here, went there; soon enough I figured out what I was, learned what I had to the hard way and, well, here I am.”

  “How’d you find out about the whole eating-brains-within-48-hours deal?”

  She shakes her head. “I didn’t. I just …got really, really hungry and …that was the only thing I had a craving for. I guess it’s like when girls get pregnant; they know what they want. It got so bad after a day that I could literally smell the brains through the grocer’s deli door. I waited and broke in that night and chowed down. It was …awesome.”

  The way she’s describing it, I can almost taste the brains right about …Hold up, girl. Focus. Stopping myself from licking my lips at the thought of fresh brains, I ask, “And you never saw your boyfriend again?”

  She sucks the last of her soda up and shoves the gargantuan paper cup away. “What, you mean that creep who left me to deal with the cops? No, Maddy, I didn’t; didn’t want to. Not like you and that football stud you were drooling over after school. What’s his name? Stamp?”

  I roll my eyes, sipping carefully at my soda. “Lot of good that’s going to do me. You saw Hazel jock-block me.”

  Chloe smirks. “Thought you two were best friends.”

  “Me too.”

  Finally, Chloe points to her temple and says, “Lemme see it again.”

  “See what?” I ask, instinctively pushing my ridiculous beret tighter onto my head.

  “The mark,” she says, inching closer. “I saw you showing Dane in the trailer, but I want to get a better look. I’ve heard of zombies being reborn by lightning but never met one before. I just want to check it out.”

  When no one is looking, I snatch off the beret, bend toward the table, let her see, and then slip the hat right back on.

  When I look at her, she’s nodding admiringly. “Very nice. You know, hair grows for six weeks after you die, so by, say, Thanksgiving …that should be all covered up.”

  “Really?” I ask hopefully; here I’d thought I was stuck with it forever. (Oh, the things that pass for pleasant surprises when you’re dead.)

  “Really,” she says, looking me up and down again. “But now enough with the show-and-tell. If you’re going to pass, we need to do you up right.”

  Before I can protest, she stands and tosses her soda into the nearest trash can.

  Helplessly, I follow.

  A couple of hours and most of Dad’s emergency stash later, Chloe and I are both weighed down with bulging bags from multiple stores. I’m used to shopping with Hazel, a fun, sunny person, in fun, sunny stores, for fun, sunny things. Shopping with Chloe is as dark and somber as the things she makes me pick out: black T-shirts, black slacks, black blouses, black jeans, black socks, black shoes—and that’s before we get to the makeup counter.

  “I can’t wear that,” I say as she makes me buy the thick, white face powder my grandmother used to wear to bed every night of her life. “It’s not me.”

  “Look.” She sighs, bullying the cashier into ringing it up anyway, along with the $30 of black makeup, lipstick,
and nail polish she’s piled onto the cosmetics counter. “Right now you’re already a little—how shall I put this?—gray. And you’re, what, not even two full days in? By Monday morning, trust me, you’re going to need to either (a) wear enough blush to pass as a circus clown or (b) do what I do and go for the Goth look. Trust me, Maddy, this is more believable.”

  “Me?” I ask as we trudge out of the department store and head for the mall’s main entrance. “Goth? That’s going to be believable? I think most people who know me—granted, that’s not a ton—but most people who know me would find it easier to believe I was an actual zombie before they’d believe I was a Goth.”

  She looks at my trademark khaki slacks, white blouse, high collar, black flats, pomegranate scarf belt (and let’s not forget “le beret”) and frowns. “Okay, maybe not at first, but trust me, every teenager goes through some kind of phase: punk, Goth, rebellious, slutty, skank, whatever. Just pretend this is yours. This way your dad might question it, but at least he’ll understand it—eventually. This way Hazel and your other brainiac buddies might cock an eyebrow, but if they’re real friends, they’ll get over it. It’s the easiest way; trust me.”

  She pauses near the fill-your-own-bag-with-jelly-beans store to rearrange the bags in her hands and adjust her black bra strap and says, “Hey, at least Goth is still in. You should have seen me trying to pass this look off back in the ‘80s when everyone and their sister was still a preppy.”

  She gives me a quick glance up and down before adding grudgingly, “No offense.”

  19

  Creature Features

  I HEAR THE shower running in Dad’s room the next morning. Spotting his car keys on the foyer countertop, I breathe a sigh of relief. I hate it when he pulls these double, sometimes triple, shifts, given his line of employment. And especially now, given my new knowledge of the undead world. I mean, what’s to stop the next cadaver in his next body bag from popping up and taking a bite out of his neck?

  To make up for his long night, I start the coffee brewing, toast up some of his favorite whole grain Eggos, and put on water to boil for his other favorite: hardboiled eggs (one of the few things I can make for him without screwing up).

  I step out the front doorway and grab a daisy from his measly flower garden, find a little vase in one of the kitchen cupboards, fill it with water, pop the flower in, and set it between two place mats on the table in the breakfast nook.

  By the time Dad’s dressed for work and sniffing around the coffeepot, I’ve got three eggs on boil, his frozen waffles buttered and syruped exactly the way he likes them—heavy on the butter, light on the syrup—and hand him a fresh cup of coffee in his favorite oversized Christmas mug.

  “To what do I owe the honor of my daughter fixing me breakfast-almost-in-bed?” he quips, sitting down at his place setting and admiring the fresh flower in his improvised bud vase. His voice is vibrant, but his eyes are tired, and I know these late nights are catching up with him. (Tell me about it!)

  I lean against the kitchen counter next to the oven. “Nothing, Dad. I just …hate to see you working such late shifts at, well, you know …” I let my voice trail off, but Dad is too sharp to let my unspoken message go unnoticed.

  “You mean ‘to work such late hours at …my age’? Is that what you were going to say, dear?” He smiles even as he nails it. “I know you think your old man is ancient and decrepit, but you can stack six of those young whippersnappers they send my department fresh from the university every summer, and I’ll outwork them, out-think them, and outlast them every time.” His dander’s all up and his coffee’s half gone.

  I top off his mug. “Whoa, pardner, I was just going to say I don’t like you working such late shifts and such odd hours, period. No ageism was implied, honest.”

  He peers at me doubtfully, takes a sip of coffee, and looks at me again, more closely this time. “Tell me this.” He sighs, turning toward me. “Did Hazel approve this new …look …of yours?”

  And that’s when I remember: today is Goth Ground Zero. I picture myself as I looked leaving my room only half an hour or so earlier: black duds from head to toe, two layers of white pancake makeup, plenty of mascara and eyeliner and, the pièce de résistance: maroon lipstick and black nail polish. Instant Goth.

  “You’re not digging the Twilight look, Dad?”

  “Maddy, you’re my daughter and I love you. And, let’s face it, you’d look gorgeous wearing a hoop skirt and a raincoat. You’re young; I figure I’ve had it pretty easy as far as fashion phases go. If this is as bad as it gets, well, color me happy.”

  And that’s that: Dad in a nutshell. His daughter is a Goth; either I’ll grow out of it or he’ll get used to it. One way or the other, fighting about it isn’t going to do either of us any good. No screaming, no yelling, no judging—just tells you like it is and that’s that.

  He yawns and gulps more coffee and slices off a square of perfectly toasted Eggo. After chewing it thoroughly and swallowing with pleasure, he says, “Aren’t you joining your old man for breakfast today?”

  I look at my empty place setting self-consciously. “I’m trying to lose weight, Dad, you know …”

  He has that little twinkle in his eye. “Oh, I know, for the Fall Formal.”

  Not quite, Dad, but that’s one less excuse I have to make this morning. One less lie I have to tell.

  When I don’t answer, he says, “Well, so, has your new guy asked you yet?”

  I reach for a can of Mountain Dew from the fridge so it at least looks like I’m eating/drinking something. The fact that Dad doesn’t have a hissy fit over me drinking one of his nondiet sodas or, for that matter, notice that I’m not drinking diet for, like, the first time ever, is a testament to his ongoing quest to find me a boyfriend.

  “He’s not ‘my guy,’ Dad and, for your information, no, he hasn’t asked me to the Fall Formal …yet. I just, you know, I want to look good in case he does.”

  Around a mouthful of waffle, Dad says, “Well, he better not wait too long. Isn’t it this coming Friday?”

  I raise my can to my mouth just as he finishes asking so I don’t have to answer. Then I notice him waiting, expectantly, with his fork in one hand and his knife in the other over his empty plate. I’m thinking about telling him to do his own damn dishes when suddenly I remember the pot of boiling water next to me and his three overly hardboiled eggs.

  Without thinking, I put down my can, reach for his plate, and one by one snatch the eggs out of the boiling water.

  With.

  My.

  Bare.

  Hands.

  I think nothing of it because my hands are so cold and the water is so warm (hot, boiling, whatever) and, according to page 68 of The Guide, zombies don’t feel pain, so why not? I’m looking at Dad’s plate, smiling and thinking, Man, he’s going to love those eggs, and then my gaze travels up from his plate to his face and he. Is. Shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

  “Maddy,” he shouts, leaping up from his chair to examine my hands with a practiced medical eye. “What were you thinking?”

  “What?” I try to snatch my undamaged hands back, but his grip is too strong even for my extra-super zombie powers (at least, that is, according to page 32 of The Guide).

  He’s got my hands out in front of me, flipping them over and over, back and forth, up and down, studying them from every angle, and they look as pale as they did before I stuck them in boiling water to scoop out his eggs. Not a splotch, not a mark, not a blister, not a sore, not even a glossy pink sheen.

  “Incredible,” he says, as if he’s got some new species of germ under his microscope back at the coroner’s lab. “Not so much as a scratch.”

  Then he looks into my eyes and asks, more calmly now, “Maddy, I’m serious now, whatever were you thinking?”

  I rack my brain for something sensible that a scientist like Dad would buy. “I don’t know, really,” I blurt. “We were reading in Science how, if you move fast enough, you can put your
hand in freezing ice water or, in this case, boiling water, and not get a scratch. I guess I wanted to see if that was true.”

  He looks at me closely, like maybe he doesn’t believe me. “You could have just asked me, Maddy, and I would’ve told you: it isn’t true. By rights your hands should be severely burned right now, maybe second-even third-degree burns covering all the way up to your wrists. And yet you don’t have a scratch on you.”

  “So the teacher’s theory was right, then.”

  “No, in fact, far from it. It appears that my daughter is simply a freak of nature.” He tries to pass it off as a joke, but he’s clearly upset.

  Inside I’m mentally kicking my brain cells. How could I be so stupid?

  He sits down, stands up, sits back down, and then pushes away his plateful of uneaten eggs. “Well, Madison, it appears as if you’ve pulled off another impossible feat.”

  “What’s that?” I hide my hands from view.

  “You’ve made me lose my appetite for your specialty: hardboiled eggs.”

  We make polite chitchat as he gets ready for work, me hiding my hands whenever possible, him scouring them for evidence of what he calls late-event trauma, which never quite develops. As he leaves, telling me how he’s got to pull another all-nighter, he’s still shaking his head—and I’m still feeling stupid.

  But he’s not the only member of this family with an inquisitive nature, and now that my official zombie diagnosis has finally been confirmed, I have a little research of my own to do. But not in any library.

  Mega Movies opens at 10 a.m. on Saturdays; I get there at 9:58, sharp. In the two minutes I’ve got before opening time, I haul out my cell and text Hazel: Up 4 a movie night l8r? That takes less than a minute to type and send, and I know Hazel (a) is already up, (b) has her phone on, (c) usually texts me back in six seconds or less, and (d) is now trying to punish me with the silent cell treatment. I sigh, check the dashboard clock—which now reads 10:01—and get out of the car.