Still, it works for the paper as well. I pedal as I read the national front-page headlines. It’s about 20 minutes before I finally get to the local section. Then I stop.
Stop pedaling. Stop reading.
And if I could, I’d stop breathing.
“Uh, Dane?” I say sternly to the thin bedroom wall. “Can you come in here for a minute?”
“What’d you do? Break the pedal off again?” I hear the chair creak and his sneakers whisper on the cheap shag rug as he walks into my room.
“Maddy?” he says when he sees my face. “What’s up?”
“Does this building look familiar to you?” I point with a trembling finger to the picture of the large gray structure, the one with the faded blue trim, on the front of the local section.
“Wait, hold up. Is that our place?”
I nod.
He leans in behind me, skin luxuriantly cold against the back of my neck.
Actually, it’s Building D. We’re Building C. But the picture is definitely of The Socialite, our ironically named cheap-ass, skid row apartment complex.
“What happened?” he says.
But I know he’s just a few words away from figuring out, so I zip it until he does.
“Oh.” He walks away to lean on the chin-up bar in the corner. And again: “Oh.”
I stop pedaling. I didn’t even realize my legs were still going without my brain attached. I turn toward him. “Oh? One of our neighbors goes missing from one building over, and that’s all you have to say? Oh?”
He shrugs, shoulders firm in a V-neck T-shirt from his never-ending supply. I’m convinced he was a main shareholder of the Hanes Corp. in his Before Life. “We’re not in Barracuda Bay anymore, Maddy. This is the big city. Stuff like that happens.”
I nod, because, yeah, I’m not stupid. But if that’s the case, then why is he avoiding my eyeballs so hard?
“Okay, well, so it’s okay for you to obsess about Val’s fake concealer smudge and stare at it for hours on end, but I can’t even discuss an actual neighbor going missing in the last few days without you rolling your eyes at me?”
He shrugs again.
I read the most alarming passage aloud, just to get his attention:
Mrs. Ortega explains that her teenage son, Rudy, went out early Sunday evening to grab some milk and bananas from the bodega across the street and never returned.
The Ortega family drove around for hours that night, searching in vain, before reporting Rudy missing early the next morning.
“This isn’t like him at all,” said Mrs. Ortega when asked for a quote. “He has his cell phone on him constantly, even to run a simple errand just across the street. If he could, he would call. I think that means he can’t.”
Local authorities say that—
“Sounds like Rudy just doesn’t want to be found,” Dane says.
I toss the paper back onto the wobbly black tray.
“And if I was a human teen living in this dump, I’d run away too.” He grunts.
“That’s not funny.”
He nods, meeting my gaze for a moment before quickly looking away again.
“Think about it. This all went down on Sunday night. This Sunday night. Million-dollar-spaghetti Sunday night? Val-standing-us-up Sunday night? I went to that bodega to pick up some fresh cream probably just a few hours before that kid went missing. That’s not making your limbs go tingly or anything?”
I think of how Stamp always calls that bodega the Culturally Confused Convenience Store because of the Latin music and the Asian shrine and the variety of crazy ingredients it sells. I think of how the guy behind the counter knows when I need a phone card or just a bottle of Gargantuan Grape soda. I picture Rudy in there, wandering around, looking for bananas and milk. Maybe we were even there at the same time and I never noticed.
Dane shrugs, starts to say something, must know I’m going to verbally spank him for it, and wisely keeps his mouth shut.
“So hold up. You don’t think it’s even the least bit fishy? A local teen going missing in the same complex as a trio of zombies? Are you forgetting the Curse of Third Period Home Ec?”
He snorts. “I’m not forgetting it, but one kid going missing is hardly a curse.”
I can’t tell if he’s so obsessed lately with unmasking Val that he’s not hearing me or if, more likely, he doesn’t want me to worry. And yet, it’s all too creepily familiar to ignore.
I can’t help but picture my BFF, Hazel, sitting in Home Ec, endlessly twisting one long, red lock of hair around her finger, sounding as alarmed then as I do now. I blew her off. “There’s no curse,” I said. “You’re imagining things,” I said. “Grow up,” I said.
Who was I trying to protect all those many mortal months ago?
Hazel? Or myself?
And look at what happened to us then! One zombie—sorry, Zerker—infestation later, and here we are. Cursed. Forever. No more Hazel, no more Chloe, and the bodies are still piling up. Or, in this case, being hidden away.
I quickly discovered what few people know: not just what it’s like to be undead but that there are two kinds of undead. Us, the good guys, the zombie zombies who choose to live among the Normals, eat medically donated or ethically acquired brains, and avoid violence. And the bad guys: the Zerkers.
The Zerkers are the ones who can’t or won’t control themselves, who eat brains, flesh, bones, whatever they can devour, only try to pass when it suits their needs, and do everything they can to make a regular zombie’s life hell on earth.
The Zerkers are the reason the Sentinels exist in the first place. They’re why zombies need cops: guys in uniform who enforce the laws and keep the world safe, not from zombies but from Zerkers. And if it weren’t for Zerkers, Dane and Stamp and I wouldn’t be here right now. We’d still be passing for Normals back in Barracuda Bay, wearing lots of makeup and Goth clothes. Maybe sticking out a little but basically fitting in.
Instead, the Zerkers decided to mess with us, break the Zerker-Zombie truce, and back us into a corner. If we hadn’t stopped them at that Fall Formal, by now they would have turned half of Barracuda Bay, maybe all of it. But try getting the Sentinels to understand that.
Okay, okay, so maybe Dane’s right. Maybe one kid from our apartment complex going missing—skipping town, fleeing to the nearest American Idol audition, or whatever—isn’t exactly the same thing as the Zerkers picking off my Barracuda Bay High classmates one by one. But still, it’s enough to make me pick the paper up, fold it tightly, and save it just in case.
I turn to find Dane studying me from across the room. It’s not a big room and more cluttered now than ever with the three exercise machines we moved in. His dark eyes are even more piercing than usual, which is saying something.
“What’s going on?” I say quietly.
We’ve been circling each other so carefully, between Stamp’s feelings and work and Val being a Sentinel or not, that I’m hungry to just talk to him.
He opens his mouth but stops. Finally, he says, “I don’t know,” and he doesn’t look away.
“So what should we do? You always said to be packed and ready at a moment’s notice.”
I look toward my closet, where a single backpack has everything a good zombie could need for a fast getaway: leggings, socks, sneakers, hoodie, shades—all black—switchblade, Swiss Army knife, umbrella, three cans of cat food with brain as the main ingredient …
You know, all the essentials.
He follows my gaze, then looks at me.
So I say, “Is this ‘in case’?”
He shrugs again, velvety muscles rippling beneath his tight shirt as the sunrise glows through the barely open blinds behind my head. “I don’t think I’m ready to pick up stakes and skip town after all we’ve done to fit in here, but I do think it’s time to get more serious about Stamp.”
“How do you mean? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking and, well, I know this sounds petty and all, but I totally think we should ground him, strai
ght up. That would do it.”
He chuckles lazily at my even lazier attempt at humor. “I’m not sure our boy would stand for that at his age. But what he doesn’t know might be good for him.”
“Sounds sneaky. Go on …”
6
This Isn’t as Fun as It Looks
You think he’ll notice us?” I say as we tail Stamp out of the bustling employee parking lot after work later that day.
Stamp guns it straight into early evening traffic.
Dane, a more careful and patient driver, prefers the ease-in approach. He grips the wheel and tries to stay close to Stamp’s rugged green Jeep—but not too close. “Maybe I should have borrowed someone else’s car, huh?” he says helplessly as Stamp races two car lengths ahead.
“Next time.” I force my fingers out of the dashboard and fold them together on my lap instead.
Dane drives a giant, ancient four-door, which he bought used for $600 and spent our first month in Orlando restoring night and day. We’re talking 30 straight days of changing the oil, switching out belts and checking the timing, and rotating the tires. Now it runs like a top, even if it looks like something my dad might drive to a crime scene.
“If there is a next time.” He grunts, pushing through a yellow light so we don’t lose Stamp completely.
Stamp has a real lead foot. I never knew this about him. I mean, maybe it’s a recent thing because when we were dating, if anything, he drove real slow. Trying to get to the movies on time with Stamp was like trying to get Dane to listen to anything but smooth jazz, i.e. hard work.
Then I think maybe he’s just really eager to see Val. Then I frown because, seriously, why did he never seem that excited to see me?
“This isn’t as fun as it looks,” Dane says through gritted teeth as we leave Orlando’s resort area and head toward the scruffy side of its glittering downtown, dodging insane tourists who don’t know where they’re going, all the while keeping an eye on Lead Foot Stamp Crosby himself. You know, without Stamp keeping an eye on us.
“Yeah, I’ve always wanted to follow someone, but it’s really stressful—and I’m not even driving.”
“Tomorrow you drive.” Dane smiles, but I know he means it. Macho as he is, he’s definitely not old-fashioned. He’s just as happy for me to drive as him, and when it comes to hunting for brains, he’s more than happy for me to go meet our creepy contact behind the local morgue rather than do it himself.
Stamp pulls off I-4, the main east-west interstate running through downtown Orlando, on two wheels.
“Hmmm,” I murmur as Stamp blows through a stop sign to steer down a mostly deserted industrial center. “I don’t remember Stamp ever breaking so many laws to catch up with me after work.”
Dane smirks as we inch into weed-covered, giant-warehouses-on-every-block, scary-movie-after-dark territory. “He probably figured you had a little longer to wait around than a human girl.”
I slug him, and he pulls on the brakes.
“Dang, I didn’t hit you that—”
He shushes me, pointing out the window as he backs into a dark alley on the opposite corner from a giant, brown warehouse. “He’s stopped.”
I peer out, but he’s backed in so far I can’t see anything.
“Dane.” I slip from the car and only partially close my door so Stamp won’t hear me.
“Maddy, don’t.”
But in two steps he’s right there behind me.
Stamp’s Jeep is parked in front of a four-story warehouse. There’s a fence around it, rusty with barbed wire on top, but it’s open. Broken windows line the building’s top floor, and there’s a rusty fire escape from the roof all the way to the ground.
“Val’s?” Dane whispers, pointing to the front door.
It’s not dark out yet, though it’s getting close. We stick by the wall to the alley, walking so slowly we’re starting to get on each other’s nerves, all because Stamp has yet to get out of the Jeep.
“What is he doing in there?” Dane says.
“Don’t get me started. Dude is so slow.”
“No, I know he’s slow, but what can he be doing in the front seat of his car for so long?”
“Well, let me count the ways. First he fixes his hair in the rearview. Then he’ll straighten out the coins in his ashtray. He’ll drink the last of his Sports Slurp because he doesn’t want to waste any. He’ll take the knots out of his seat belt, and that’s all before he cues up his music for the ride home—”
“Wait, what? Doesn’t he just listen to the same music on the way home?”
“Are you kidding me? He has playlists for everything. Working out, not working out, making out, not making out, walking, running, going someplace, coming back, sitting still, standing up.”
“But what’s the difference? Going someplace, coming back. Isn’t it all the same?”
“Not to Stamp. He likes fast music for going someplace and slow music for coming back. Duh.”
Dane shakes his head. Then he looks at me funny, as if he’s surprised I would pay attention to my boyfriend’s music. And in a way, he kind of seems impressed. I think he always thought I was using Stamp to make Dane jealous those first few months after we left Barracuda Bay burning in our rearview.
I think that’s why Dane was kind of distant after Stamp and I broke up, like he thought I was just a bit of a user or something. But lately I think he’s seen how much I care for Stamp, boyfriend or ex, and he’s warmed up to me a little because of it.
Either that or I’m totally losing my mind and making it all up.
Finally Stamp’s door creaks and his long legs bleed onto the pavement. He stands tall and looks around, and I wonder if in his carelessness this is the first time he’s stopped and checked to see if anyone’s following him.
I look at Dane and can tell by the set of his jaw that he’s thinking the same thing. We both turn back to Stamp in time to hear his phone ring. Hmmm, I guess we are pretty close to the action after all.
He frowns at the phone, sees the incoming call, and then, as if the caller can see him, smiles.
“Val,” Dane and I say at the same time.
“Hey, babe,” says Stamp, all goofy smile and eager-to-please voice. “Yeah, just got here. What? You told me to hurry! How can you not be—? Oh, wait.”
He waves, clicks off the call. I could swear he’s waving at us, but in fact, he’s waving to someone walking by on the opposite sidewalk.
Dane and I duck, peeking through dented, empty trash cans the whole while.
It is Val, the chick from Stamp’s cell phone pictures.
But this time she’s live and so close we can hear her shoes scrape the concrete, hear the little jewels hanging off her pink purse jingle against her gently shaking rump.
She looks sexier in person. She’s more petite than short and thinner than she looked on-screen with Dane blowing her up bigger and bigger each time we looked at her. She’s wearing slinky black yoga pants that match the stripes on the sleeves of her hot-pink hoodie. The hood’s down to show off her spiky blonde hair. It’s black at the roots but purposefully to match her dark eye shadow and grubby black fingernails. Her pink-and-black sneakers give her an extra inch or two, and she walks with the limber jaunt of a human, plus a shake-it-don’t-break-it strut.
She’s pale, but so many girls are these days. Not so much to avoid skin cancer or tanning beds but just for fashion’s sake. Besides, she doesn’t show much skin anyway. Her wrists, maybe. A little ankle when she takes a quick step. Her throat. Her face. That’s about it.
“Waddya think?” I say, watching Dane watch her firm backside.
“Nice,” he grunts.
I don’t slap him. I punch him. Hard. Like, Whac-A-Zerker hard.
Even so, it’s a little like granite getting punched by granite. Neither one of us budges. Much. Okay, so I budge a little.
“Oh, sorry,” he says, avoiding my glare. “I can’t—it’s hard to tell. We’ll need a better look.”
“How did I know you’d say that?”
Val doesn’t walk so much as ooze to Stamp, like greasy green amoebas do to one another under a microscope, slipping and sliding all over each other until you can’t tell, and don’t much care anymore, which is which.
He’s so tall and she’s so petite, it’s easy for her arms to wrap around his waist as her chin hits his chest. He somehow manages to lean down enough to plant a cold, dry kiss on her open and willing lips.
I groan. Out loud, and I don’t much care who hears it at this point.
Dane nods, but I notice he’s still eyeing the skank’s derriere appreciatively.
Stamp opens the door to his Jeep, and she slides up and in, dark eyes still on him as he shuts the door and races around to his side.
“Somebody’s whipped,” Dane says.
I nudge him. “You know I hate that term.”
“Maybe so, but the evidence is all there.”
“Don’t remind me,” I say a little louder as Stamp’s engine grinds to life.
His Jeep backs up roughly and speeds past our hiding spot.
“Come on,” Dane urges once we can no longer hear the Jeep engine.
“Why? What are we doing?”
“Breaking in.”
7
Breaking In, Freaking Out
I guess you could call Val’s place a loft since most of the warehouse is empty and she apparently uses only about a quarter of a quarter of it to actually live in. Still, that quarter is pretty sweet. (This coming from a chick who shares an apartment with two of the most inconsiderate zombies on the planet.)
“Check out that killer TV,” Dane says loudly, as if we’re not breaking and entering at that very moment. “It’s gotta be 60 inches, if not more.”
“I didn’t even think they came that big.” I’ve never been a big TV girl, but seriously this is a big TV. We’re talking never-need-to-go-to-the-movie-theater-again big.
In fact, this TV is so big it’s the focal point of Val’s whole living space. There is a kind of kitchen area, with one of those small dorm fridges like Dad keeps in his office back home and a microwave and a coffeemaker and a hot plate.
A Living Dead Love Story Series Page 26
