“You think that’s such a good idea?” Dane sits across from me at the table and turns Stamp’s Sports Slurp cap over and over in his pale fingers. “I mean, look at this place. You think this looks like a Normal’s home?”
I stare at the portable gym on our living room carpet: weight bench, treadmill, rowing machine, exercise bike, medicine ball, jump ropes hanging from the key rack by the door.
“So we’ll move the gym into the back bedrooms for one night. Big deal. Besides, you know Stamp. No way will this Val chick still be around by Sunday.”
3
The Plot—and the Sauce—Thickens
God, it’s been so long since I’ve cooked human food I’ve almost forgotten!”
“Really?” Dane waves a hand in front of his nose as I set the foggy lid on the pot of simmering spaghetti sauce. “I just thought you were a really, really bad cook!”
He zips out of range just as I’m trying to snap him with the damp dish towel that’s been draped over my shoulder for the last two hours.
Yes, two hours. For spaghetti. And a salad. And garlic bread. (Good thing I’m a zombie and not a vampire. Hehehe.)
“You take that back, Dane Fields.” I put the towel back on my shoulder. “I’ll have you know this is my dad’s famous recipe for million-dollar spaghetti I’m making here.”
He holds his hands up in mock defeat. “You’re making it from memory, I hope.” Even now—oven on, the smell of fresh garlic in the air, the table set—and there is still a warning tone in his voice.
“Mostly.”
His eyes go big.
“Don’t worry. I used a pay phone, way across town, and so did he. It’s totally, completely untraceable.”
Dane shakes his head.
I finish draining the pasta.
“I thought I said you could talk to your dad once a month.”
“It was my one call this month. Trust me. I’m not going to jeopardize what we’ve worked so hard to build here just to impress Stamp’s stupid girlfriend.”
He sighs, obviously resigned to the fact that he can’t control me any more than he can Stamp. “So how is he this month?”
“He’s fine,” I offer, distracted with layering the thick, hearty meat sauce through the noodles in the brand-new lasagna pan. All the utensils I’m using are new. We never needed them before.
Dane leans against the kitchen entryway, looking dashing in gray slacks and a purple dress shirt, which has two buttons opened at the top. A thin gray belt winds around his narrow waist. “Sentinels still following him?”
I nod, smoothing hearty tomato sauce over another layer of twisty vermicelli. “He says it’s down to two teams now and only every other day. I guess they’re still hoping we’ll come back and that my house is the first place we’ll stop. Dad thinks maybe they’re giving up and will go home soon.”
Dane shakes his head and looks at me sympathetically. “They’ll never go home. Not without us anyway. Get used to that. And tell your dad to get used to it too.”
I nod, biting my lip.
“I’m sorry, Maddy. That’s just the way it is.”
“But it’s been four months. I mean, what’s the point after all this time?”
“First of all, we’re zombies. Time means nothing. And they’re Sentinels, so time means even less than nothing. Their entire Afterlife is spent destroying other zombies. And us? Well, we broke the Zerker-Zombie truce and a few dozen zombie laws. We set an entire high school—with the Living Dead bodies of an entire football team, a cheerleading squad, and a dozen teachers—on fire. So we’re pretty much the Bin Laden of zombies, you know.”
I shake my head, picturing myself in an apron and Dane looking like the cover of Zombie GQ. “Can someone tell me how we became the most wanted of the Living Dead? I mean, suddenly we’re the baddest zombies around?”
He smirks at last, and all is good in the world again. “No, just the baddest zombies who were also dumb enough to get pulled into an all-out Zerker killathon. That’s all. Anyway, tell your dad I said hi. That is, when you talk to him next month.”
I chuckle. “Will do.”
The scent of Dad’s special recipe makes me wistful and homesick, but at least Dad sounded good today: hopeful, happy I was safe and nothing had changed for me, for him.
It was hard leaving him behind without saying goodbye, but we both understood that with the Sentinels on our tail, with the high school burning down, with sirens wailing, there was no way to leave town the right way. Only the fast way. And we barely made it out of Dodge leaving the fast way.
Since then we’ve settled into a routine, Dad and I. Like fellow spies or something. Communicating is complicated and tiresome, and Dane says we should only talk for 15 minutes at a time, just in case, but we usually stretch it to 20 just because there’s so much to catch up on and we miss each other so much. And tonight Dad is with me, if only in meat sauce and oregano and vermicelli.
“How’s it looking out there?” I say, hearing Dane setting the table.
“Pretty cramped.”
The million-dollar spaghetti needs to bake for 35 minutes, so I wash my hands and join him outside the kitchen.
We’ve made good on our promise to relocate the exercise equipment, at least temporarily, to our two back bedrooms. We dragged the couch and coffee table from Dane’s room and the two chairs from mine into the living room. So now at least the living room looks like a living room and not some triathlete’s home gym on steroids.
“No, Dane, place mats for real.” On the table, the clearance wicker place mats from Dockside Imports are practically on top of each other, the table’s so jam-packed. It’s really designed for two people, and none of us ever sit at it at the same time. We usually eat our brains while leaning over the sink, so we’ve never really run into this problem before. “This just won’t work,” I say. “It’s going to feel enough like an interrogation without all of us actually sitting on top of her.”
“Well, what, then?” he whines, holding the brand-new silverware to his chest as if I might yank it away at any minute and set it out myself.
“Well, two of us can sit at the table, and we’ll set two places over by the couch on the coffee table.”
“But then we won’t be together.” He mopes but follows my suggestion anyway.
Honestly, I don’t know how he can look so tough and still act like such a princess sometimes.
“It’s fine, Dane. It’s not like this is some great banquet hall and we won’t be able to see each other. We’ll be 10 feet away, for Pete’s sake.”
I admire his work as he drifts toward the iPod deck on the bookshelf. “Smooth jazz, right?” he says hopefully.
I nod because, really? There’s no use fighting him on this one. Even if I say no and we argue for 20 minutes about some different station and he actually tunes it in, he’ll only change it 5 minutes later when he thinks I’m not looking.
Dude is obsessed with the smooth jazz. It’s completely baffling to me. He’s all lean and hard, bony elbows, molded biceps, and close-cropped hair. You’d think biker music or something hard-edged or maybe even dubstep, but nope. It’s wah-wah guitar solos and tickling ivories all the way. Go figure.
I wonder idly if he and Chloe used to argue about it when they lived together in their trailer back in Barracuda Bay. I can’t imagine her putting up with funky fresh beats and smoldering saxophones. Then again, what do I know? I never imagined Dane being the easy listening type either. She could have been into golden oldies for all I know. Doo-wop or malt shop memories.
The music oozes, sticky and sweet and undeniably smooth. I smile because he’s smiling and, believe me, there’s nothing quite like a Dane smile. This cruddy apartment, the smell of spaghetti I can’t eat and a dad I can’t hug and a job I can’t stand—and it all just melts away the minute Dane gives me that little crooked grin with the left side a smidge higher than the right.
He spies me in my apron, standing midway across the room, and saunters t
oward me, that smirk overtaking his entire usually stoic face.
“May I?” He extends a hand.
I’d blush if I could, but I take his hand just the same. It no longer feels cold or strange to me but oddly familiar, like my own. He pulls me close, but not too, and we circle the small living room in time with the music.
He is freshly showered, and we’ve both been hitting the tanning booth near work for the last few days, if only to cover up some of the deathly pallor. We’ve grown so accustomed to it, but it can be a shock in intimate settings, like when Normals come over for dinner.
We’ve hit up Stamp’s dentist, too, so our teeth are not quite so yellow. It’s funny to see Dane looking mostly mortal, when I’ve kind of gotten used to us looking undead. It makes me think this is what he must have looked like in his “Before Life,” the life he lived previous to his Afterlife.
I can easily picture him dripping wet on some beach somewhere, tanned face beaming, white teeth showing, hard body rippling, long legs extending from black swim shorts. I would have liked that Dane, but it wouldn’t be my Dane—the Dane I’ve come to love.
He kisses me, cold lips gentle as if he can read my thoughts. His long fingers trace my spine until they rest at the small of my back and gently pull me in.
My own fingers circle his waist as we cling to each other, still gently kissing, knowing there’s not enough time to do much more. Not that, you know, we can do much more anyway. But, yeah, that’s a whole other book. A science book, not a love story.
Even his small kisses, his quick kisses, are strangely exotic. It’s such a new thrill, the sensation of cold lips on cold lips, and it’s vaguely addictive. I hardly miss the warmth of human flesh but instead crave the chilly sensation of our mutual touch. It’s hard to explain. It’s still making out, but now it’s special, like making out in the snow while the rest of the family’s inside playing checkers around the Christmas tree or something.
“You should have asked me to dance earlier.” I sigh, licking my lips, when I finally push him away.
“You were slaving over a hot stove all day.” He straightens his shirt where it’s tucked into his snug slacks.
“Whatever. It’s just … I’ve missed that.”
“Me too.” He looks into my eyes, his lips a thin gray line now, the stillness surrounding him saying more than words ever could.
“Okay, then,” I say. “Well, we should do that more often.”
“I agree. We will. I mean, if it’s okay?”
I smirk. “We’ll see.”
I start toward the kitchen, watching him straighten a fork on the coffee table. “You smell good, Dane. You should wear that cologne more often, you know? Not just save it for guests.”
I don’t wait for a reply, but I know he’s smiling behind me.
A key slides in a lock a few minutes later, and I slip off the apron and smooth down the simple black dress I bought yesterday. I slide into my low-slung heels, giving myself a few extra inches, and scurry next to Dane in the living room.
“Why are we so nervous?” Dane whispers as the door swings open. “It’s like being a parent on prom night or something.”
“Yeah, so what does that make us, some old married couple?”
He frowns. “Would that be so bad?”
The door is opening now, so I don’t have time to answer, but I would have said, “Hell, no.”
“What’s that smell?” Stamp says rudely, antsy and utterly alone.
“It’s dinner,” I snap, waiting for Val to join him.
“What?” Dane leans over just a smidge to peer out the door. “Did you forget?”
Stamp avoids our gazes and says, unconvincingly, “Uh, yeah. Yeah, it totally slipped my mind.” He slams the door.
“No, it didn’t.” I give him a good once-over. Maybe even a twice-over, dammit. “Look at you. You’re as dressed up as we are. New pants, new shirt, and is that? Yes, it is. You even got a haircut. I can tell because now I can actually see your forehead. So what gives?”
His nostrils flare, and I can tell he’s about to give me some guff. But then he just kind of deflates, like an old duffel bag once you yank out all the clothes, into one of the chairs I dragged out of my room.
“She just called and canceled at the last minute.” He yanks his cell phone out of his pocket and tosses it onto the end table. It slides almost all the way to the end, stopping just before falling over into the magazine rack on the other side.
He looks hurt, like genuinely hurt, and I am suddenly reminded of the old, Normal Stamp and how he always wore his heart on his sleeve. Even just after meeting him, I could tell he was a raw nerve. Happy, sad, scared, angry, relieved—it was all right there on his broad face, hiding just under that cute little Superman curl he used to sport before the limpness of his new, undead hair made that little flourish, that part of him, impossible. The new Stamp tries so hard to be tough, to be zombie, that I haven’t shared a single human emotion with him in days, maybe even weeks.
Now he’s nothing but emotion.
“Well, what’d she say?” I say softly, sitting next to him while Dane eases onto the couch.
“Just—she said she was having car trouble and couldn’t make it, blah-blah. She’s really sorry, yeah right. And maybe we could reschedule, yada yada. It’s fine. Whatever. We’ll do it another night.”
All I want is to hold his hand and tell him it’s all right. Not in the old way but because he’s a friend and maybe it might cheer him up.
Dane says, “What if I call her? Ask her nice? I mean, if it’s car trouble, we can go pick her up, right?”
“What?” Stamp snaps, standing to tower over us both. “You think I didn’t offer to pick up my own damn girlfriend? What kind of a douche do you think I am? I did offer, but she said AAA was on the way, so … whatever. I’m going for a walk. I’m—I’m sorry about dinner, Maddy. And what I said? I didn’t mean that. It smells good, actually. You know, if I could eat it.”
He storms off, a ball of fire on long legs, before I can thank him or forgive him or, well, I dunno what I’m supposed to be doing for him, exactly.
Dane waits until he hears Stamp lock the door—all three locks—from the other side. (House Rule Number 1: Always triple-lock the door, every time, no exceptions.) Then Dane leaps from the couch and, like some supersecret extrastealthy agent or something, snatches Stamp’s phone.
“What the hell?” I say, feeling a little too protective of Stamp’s property.
“I’m going to call this Val chick, check her out.”
“Dane.”
It’s no use. He’s got that determined look in his eye.
“That’s a little much, don’t you think?” I say anyway. “If you want to double-check, let Stamp do it.”
He’s already speed-dialing.
I watch his face kind of with one eye and the door with the other, just in case Stamp barges in to get his phone. Frankly, I can’t believe he hasn’t already. Dude doesn’t go anywhere without it.
“She’s got it going straight to voice mail,” Dane says, scowling.
I know that look. I’ve seen that look. He’s got Sentinels on the brain. That’s what that look is.
He paces, Stamp’s sleek phone in hand.
“What’s the big deal, Dane? Why are you so intent on meeting this one, out of all of them?”
Dane shrugs, then stops and looks at the phone. “I just don’t trust her, is all.”
“Why?” I chuckle. “She’s just another nightclub skeezer who hasn’t complained about Stamp’s ice cube fingers yet. So she stood him up. She’s not the first. She won’t be the last. I just don’t see what’s so special about—”
“Because it’s too easy to think we’re out of the woods. To think the Sentinels have given up on tracking us down.”
I’m still sitting. He’s paused at my feet, peering down at me with his scary flared-nostrils look.
“So what? You think they sent some skanky, superagent spy chick to se
duce Stamp and call in the cavalry once they confirmed his blood pressure was zero over zero?”
He sits in Stamp’s old chair. “Yeah, actually, I do.”
“Oh.” That kind of takes me aback. “Well, I mean, I was just kidding.”
“I’m not. Now that you mention it, it sounds like just the kind of thing the Sentinels would do. In fact, I’m surprised they haven’t done it sooner. Who knows? Maybe they have. Maybe we’ve just gotten lucky so far.”
I look at him.
He looks at me.
“Pictures,” I blurt, reaching for the phone. “Look at the pictures. Maybe he’s got one of her in there and we’ll be able to see if she looks like a Sentinel or not.”
He yanks the phone close before I can reach it. He scrolls through pictures. “This was last month’s chick,” he says, shaking his head. “I recognize that stupid pink nose ring. God, kids these days. And I already know this one …” He’s flipping through the images, one by one, until he stops and holds the phone out to me, turning it around so the screen is glowing right in my face. “This one.” He points at Stamp and some short blonde chick at a club.
“What one?” I take the phone. “You can barely see her with Stamp’s stupid arm in the way.”
“Keep going.”
So I do that little finger swipe thing so that the screen changes. Suddenly there’s another picture, same club, same night, and the petite chick with the spiky blonde hair is kind of purposefully hiding behind Stamp now. Like it’s a game. She’s smiling all cutesy, but no one’s able to get a good picture of her just the same.
I keep going and see spiky, dyed blonde hair in one, a metal bracelet in another, a thick black sock in the next, a bare white belly over a short red skirt after that—but nothing more than flashes of her here and there.
Dane takes the phone, and we look together at another picture, another night, another club: same thing. Someone’s taking a picture of them together, arm in arm, and spiky blonde chick is hiding. Even when you can tell it’s Stamp taking the picture, she holds something in front of her face: a cocktail napkin, a giant wineglass, or her shiny pink purse. You can see her fingers in one, all over the purse, but the flash is so bright even the purse looks dead, so how can you tell if she is?
A Living Dead Love Story Series Page 24
