She finally looks up and frowns apologetically. “I wish. No, it only makes them weak and panicked for a few minutes. Kind of like garlic to a vampire. You know, if they actually existed or anything. The goal is, freak them out with cherry bombs and tase them before they know what’s happening.”
I note her dour expression. “You don’t sound too confident of that working out.”
She shrugs. “You know why we call them Zerkers, Maddy?” When I shake my head, she explains, “It’s short for ‘Berserkers.’ So, the thing is, you can plan on this and hope for that; you can go by the rules of what’s supposed to happen, but at the end of the day, you have to remember that these are just plain crazy, strong, mad, angry, mean, vicious zombies who occasionally go berserk.”
I frown, staring over her head and expecting Dane to stride out of the fireworks store any second. When he doesn’t, Chloe explains, “It’s the Fall Formal. Kids like to stock up on fireworks and set them off on the beach afterward. You know, kind of like a tradition. It’s probably a madhouse in there right now.”
“Is that what you and Dane like to do?” I ask, girlfriend to girlfriend.
She thinks for a second, smiles. “What, you think Dane and I are …an …item?”
“Hmmm.” I sigh, chin still on the back of my seat as I stay on the lookout for Dane and his cherry bomb stash. “Let’s see, you’ve been inseparable since you showed up at Barracuda Bay High at the beginning of this year. You drive to school together, eat together, live together. What should I think?”
She looks nonplussed, like maybe she doesn’t care what I think. “We’re just trailer mates, Maddy. I’ve already told you my sad story; his is not quite as bad.”
I start to ask, but she barely pauses before plunging ahead and granting my secret wish to know what turned Dane the boy into Dane the …zombie.
“When his car went off the road and slammed into that power plant, well, the body they pulled out of the wreckage was dead. When he woke up in the morgue, late at night, Dane just …walked away.
“No one ever reported the body missing. His parents already figured he was dead; no reason to muddy the waters, right? He wandered from town to town for a few weeks, walking at night, lying low during the day. I was the first zombie he met, so I became his chaperone; that’s all. Kind of like we did for you. That’s it, Maddy, really.”
“Yeah, but you guys live together; I mean, surely you must be tempted every now and again.”
She snorts and smiles. “Tempted? By Dane? Maddy, he’s still a zombie baby compared to me. He’s still a little …young for my taste.”
“Hmm, zombies have a taste?”
“Not every …impulse …dies, you know. Electricity goes everywhere. Yeah, I have a taste—”
Suddenly the passenger door opens, cutting her off midsentence.
“Taste for what?” Dane says, clutching his bag of cherry bombs triumphantly as he clambers into the shotgun seat.
“Nothing,” I say, turning forward in my seat and backing out of the parking lot. “Just …girl talk.” Looking in the rearview mirror, I wink at Chloe; she winks, too—a first!
It’s slim pickings at the formalwear shop at the mall, where the best dresses were snatched up weeks ago. I find a sleek little emerald number, just formal and sexy enough, but a size too big.
“I can alter it,” Chloe says confidently.
“You sure?”
She smiles. “I’m going to have to alter anything we wear anyway, so …sure. I think you’ll look good in that.”
She finds something in burgundy, which looks a little too …ruffly …for my taste. But hey, at this stage of the game, beggars can’t be choosers, right?
We find Dane in the men’s department picking out a smooth powder blue tux—the only color left in his size. He looks embarrassed, but as Chloe settles up the bill (who knew zombies had credit cards?) I lean in and whisper, “I think you’ll look good in something other than …black …for a change.”
He bites his lower lip doubtfully.
Our last stop is the cemetery. “Seriously?” I ask as we pile out of the car.
“I’m sorry, Maddy,” Dane says. “We need some fresh grave dirt; it’s like Kryptonite for the Zerkers. Plus, I think, well, I think you’ll feel better if you see where Scurvy was laid to rest.”
They lead me to a grave in the older part of the cemetery that looks like all the rest. Well, at least until you take a closer look; then it’s easy to see where the earth has been disturbed.
“After you told us what happened,” Chloe says, filling her backpack with cemetery dirt, “Dane and I came here and found Scurvy. It would have attracted too much attention to leave him like that, so we found an old grave we knew nobody would be visiting anytime soon, dug it up and, well, buried him above the old casket.”
“You did him a favor,” Dane says as Chloe fills her bag to the brim and zips it up.
“What, by beheading him?” I ask, shuffling my feet.
“Better to rest in peace here,” Dane says, “than to wind up a Zerker for eternity.”
He squeezes my shoulder gently, lets his hand linger there, and then follows Chloe away from the grave. They linger for a minute, then start walking away.
“Maddy?” Chloe asks over her shoulder.
“Five seconds,” I say, holding up a hand for emphasis. “I want to …pay my last respects.”
When they’re out of earshot and heading for the open cemetery gates, I say, quietly, reverently, “Scurvy, you were always nice to me, and you were the only person on the planet who liked my oatmeal and peanut butter cookies, and I’m sorry I got you into this. I know it wasn’t your fault, and you won’t understand, but tonight, with a little help from my new friends, I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”
28
The Business End
BACK AT THE trailer, we get straight to it. Chloe and Dane have moved the living room furniture into their (separate) bedrooms, so all that remains of the main living area is just carpet and bare walls. On top of the kitchen counter are three stakes, each about as long as your standard slasher movie butcher knife.
Chloe has changed into black gym shorts and a tight gray T-shirt that says, Demons Do It Longer. (Gross.) Dane is in sweats and a tank top, his skin fat-free and hairless, his muscles pronounced. He is sitting Indian style on the living room floor, working out the kinks in the Tasers.
Chloe picks up one of the stakes and says, “It’s nearly impossible to cut a Zerker, Maddy. Their hides are tough.”
“Like leather?” I ask, eyeing the three identical stakes.
“Like stone,” she says. “Tougher than our skin; harder.”
I remember Dahlia’s bent nose under my knuckles and agree. “So what are these for?” I ask. Before she can stop me, I grab one of the stakes by the copper end.
When I come to, I’m lying on the kitchen floor, Dane and Chloe standing above me, shaking their heads, parent-style.
“Wow!” I say, the electric current still sizzling through my body like the best three-candy-bar sugar high imaginable. “What just happened?”
As they help me up, Dane says, “You grabbed the business end first, Maddy.”
“But aren’t they stakes?” I say, kind of enjoying the whooshing of current still flooding through my body.
“Well, technically I guess you could consider them stakes, only …in reverse. The wooden part is the handle,” says Chloe, a slightly bemused expression on her face. “You hold it like this.” The wooden part’s in her hand and the flat, circular, copper end—kind of like a notary stamp—faces out.
“Well, that’s not very dangerous-looking.”
She smirks. “Maybe it doesn’t look dangerous, but it knocked you out cold for 20 or 30 seconds. That’s enough time to do some serious damage if you get the chance. And if you can get it past the skin and shove it in far enough, for long enough, well—it will kill them.”
I look confused, reaching for the stake and�
�as they gasp and reach to stop me—picking it up by the wooden end at the last minute.
Dane explains, “Copper conducts electricity. To Normals, it’s no big deal. But to Zerkers, it creates havoc on the system. You stick them with one of these and, boom, out go the lights.”
“Or, at least, in theory anyway.”
I’m twirling the stake like a baton, careful to avoid the copper end, when I say, “Wait. Hold up. ‘In theory’? What does that mean?” When they don’t answer me right away, looking at each other sheepishly, I shout, “Don’t you guys know already?”
They stand awkwardly, side by side, looking down at their feet. “I mean, you have done this before, right? Right?”
“Well, technically.” Chloe hems. “I mean, we’ve already taken Zerker Slaughter 101—”
“And we’ve read the chapter on Zerker massacres in The Guide.” Dane haws. “But—”
“But what, you guys? You come off like you’re some big, famous, lethal Zerker hunters. Now I find out you’ve never actually killed any before?”
Nothing. More floor staring and feet shuffling.
“Chloe?” I ask, taking the direct approach. “How many Zerkers have you killed before?”
“None, okay?”
“Dane?”
“Well, I buried one once.”
“Hmmm.” I sigh. “Would that have been …yesterday?”
He nods, still avoiding my eyes.
“So, basically, I’ve been a zombie for, what, less than two weeks and I’ve already killed more Zerkers than you two? Unbelievable, just …unbelievable.”
29
Three’s Company
RUFFLES?” I ASK skeptically as Chloe picks at my hemline and slowly sews it into place a few hours later. “Really? Ruffles? I’m not trying to sound indelicate here, Chloe, but you were a pubescent zombie way back in the ‘80s. You do know fashion has moved on since then, right? That ‘Like a Virgin’ is no longer at the top of the charts?”
Dane smiles from the living room doorway, handsome and sleek—if a little stiff—in his powder blue tux. Rather than highlighting his pale skin and dark eyes, the tux complements them; he looks kind of like a zombie 007, and I smile shyly.
Chloe notices and yanks on my ruffles to get my attention.
“The ruffles contain the dirt from the graveyard,” Dane says, patting his shoulders. “That’s why they feel a little …heavy.”
“Yeah, well you don’t have to wear ruffles.” I pout as Chloe ties a knot on the underside of my hem and bites the thread off. “Where are you hiding your graveyard dirt, huh, Mr. Aloof and Mysterious?”
He smiles and flips up the collar of his tux. Underneath are hastily sewn blue pouches bulging with grave dirt. “Right here,” he says. “Neat, huh?”
Actually, it is; even from five paces, you can’t really see the bulges when he puts the collar back in place. “And look here,” he adds, digging into his hip pockets and pulling out handfuls of more grave dirt. “In a pinch, I can even blind them with this.”
“And Chloe?” I ask. “She’s got no ruffles.”
“No,” says Chloe, standing from the floor and pointing to her hips, “but I’ve got these.” She points to the frills at her narrow waist, graveyard soil buried in a round, tubelike belt hidden beneath a row of white roses in the pattern winding around her like a garden vine.
“Still, you guys look downright fashionable compared to me.”
“Maddy,” Chloe says, handing me a copper-tipped stake for my purse. “Get your head in the game, will you? We’re not actually going to the dance to see and be seen, remember? We’re going to kill us some Zerkers, right?”
I make a “ghee whiz” face, and Dane laughs.
“Look,” Chloe says, beckoning Dane to the full-length mirror she’s hauled into the living room to help with the alterations. She pulls me close so that the three of us are standing in front of it together.
Dane looks dashing and robust in his tux. Even Chloe looks (almost) ladylike and demure in her slimming, satiny gown. And my emerald ruffle nightmare doesn’t look that bad when combined with the pancake makeup, thick plum lipstick, deep dark eye shadow, and frills of rich, black hair cascading from the do Chloe gave me right before I slipped into my dress.
The trailer is quiet as we grab our mini stakes and slide them into our formalwear. Chloe and I weave them into the folds at the front of our dresses, making sure to keep the deadly copper from touching our skin, while Dane slides his into his tux pocket. These are easy to hide, but the bulky Tasers provide more of a challenge. They’re shaped like cell phones but twice as big—and solid, fatter, and heavy; really heavy.
Dane can fit one in his pocket without looking too ridiculous, but he wants us each to have one in case we get separated in the gym. Mine fits in my purse without looking too obvious, but Chloe’s clutch purse is smaller and clam-shaped.
“Chloe,” Dane snaps, “that purse won’t work; get another one.”
She looks at me conspiratorially and I frown; that purse really does match her dress (something a clod like Dane would never understand). Still, a massacre is a massacre, so she dutifully replaces the purse with something big enough to fit a Taser in. (Unfortunately, it’s a rather clunky black affair with a rhinestone skull for a clasp.)
By now, the crisp fall afternoon has turned to dusk, the dusk to twilight. Orange shadows bathe us on the way back to school. As we slowly inch forward in the growing line of traffic waiting to park, I have to admit that, despite the circumstances, I get caught up in all the high school excitement that is the Fall Formal. Most of the cars in line are limousines, where alternating douche bags in white tuxes stick heads through the sun roof and hoot at the girls in convertibles in front or behind.
Chloe and Dane look disgusted, but whether it’s because I haven’t been a zombie as long or because I’m just a romantic at (nonbeating) heart, part of me wishes I could turn back time and say “yes” when Stamp asked me to the dance.
Yes, it would’ve been breaking all kinds of zombie laws and, no, it wouldn’t have stopped Bones and Dahlia from turning Scurvy and Ms. Haskins …and Hazel …into zombies, but at least I would’ve been able to go to the Fall Formal without grave dirt in my ruffles, a stake hiding just below my cleavage, and a Taser in my purse.
As we finally pull into the jam-packed school parking lot, I notice the assistant principal and the dean dressed in three-piece suits (no tuxes for them) checking girls’ bags on the way in.
“Uh, guys,” I say, pointing to the unanticipated checkpoint.
In the rearview mirror, Dane flashes me a yellowing smile. “Don’t worry, Diva; I’ve got it covered.”
As Dane fiddles with something in his lap, Chloe nudges me in the arm and mouths, “Diva?”
I shrug and muscle my way into one of the last remaining spots in the lot. As I park, I have to wonder, Has Dane Fields just used a term of endearment?
As we walk toward the school, Chloe and I adjust our purses full of Tasers and sulfur-spewing cherry bombs. Our heels are low (all the better to fight Zerkers with, my dear), but after a week of clomping around in polished black army boots, the sound of them scraping on the asphalt sounds funny.
A line has formed at the purse-frisking station, and I shift nervously from one foot to the other, craning my neck for any wandering hordes of Zerkers in sparkly black dresses and shiny white track suit tuxes. Instead, all I hear is Dane chattering with the two thugs behind us, identically decked out in satiny tan retro tuxes and matching gobs of spiky hair goo.
“You two guys together?” Dane asks when we’re only a few couples away from the check-in point.
“Dane,” I whisper, elbowing him as the two thugs bow up. “We don’t have time for this now.”
“Let him be,” Chloe whispers as she jabs an elbow in my ribs. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“No,” one of the thugs says.
“Why?” asks the other, preening. “You interested, pretty boy?”
Clearly these two hunks of meat aren’t smart enough to be offended.
“No,” Dane says sarcastically. “But your boyfriend sure is. He’s been checking me out all—”
Finally, I hear one of the thug’s fists break on Dane’s forehead as he hurls the first punch, followed by what I think is girls screaming but what is, in fact, the thug squealing in pain.
“Inside, ladies,” the assistant principal shouts to us poor, defenseless girls, instantly abandoning the checkpoint to rush to the thug’s aid.
While the dean and assistant VP are trying to get the story out of the bumbling boobs in tan, Chloe grabs one of Dane’s arms and I grab another as we hustle him inside before the rest can be sorted out.
We keep going, plunging deep past the punch bowl and frosted grapes at the snack table and right onto the dance floor. If you ever get the chance to see a zombie dance, avoid it. We are pretty bad, but fortunately it’s a medium-tempo song and nothing that will twist our subtly moving hips out of joint. When the song is done we figure the coast is finally clear, so we amble off the dance floor and find solace at a blue, curtain-draped high-top table toward the back of the room.
“That was close,” I say because, hey, I’ve always wanted to.
Chloe and Dane are scanning the crowd, looking for the Zerkers. It isn’t easy, even with zombie vision. The dance floor and its periphery are dotted with swirling teenagers, all in some form of evening wear.
The lights are rotating, swirling, first thousands of white pinpoints cascading across the floor, then flashing strobe lights, then multicolor spotlights randomly roaming the dance floor until they fix on some random couple who’s then expected to show off, at least until the spotlights move on to humiliate someone else.
Thinking I see a flash of ugly yellow Zerker eye on the perimeter, I step away from the table only to be promptly yanked back by Chloe. “Stay together,” she whispers. “That’s what they want: to pull us apart, get us alone. If we’re going to survive, if we’re going to win, we have to stick together.”
A Living Dead Love Story Series Page 17
