A Living Dead Love Story Series

by Rusty Fischer

  I see a washtub and a clothesline, where teeny-tiny panties and bras and lots of yoga pants and hoodies hang. There is a cot with dirty, twisty sheets and a leather couch and a love seat and that TV and a huge stack of DVDs, mostly chick flicks and monster movies.

  And that’s about it.

  The different areas of the loft are separated by those cool Asian screens so that you can’t really see one until you’re in it. There are four screens, one red, one black, one brown, and one unvarnished pine. Some have little slats with opaque white paper in them, and some have slats with no paper, and all are amazing.

  “See.” I admire the dark red one, bringing it to Dane’s attention. “This is what I was suggesting for our place.”

  “Maddy, focus. This isn’t Dockside Imports, okay? It’s potentially a Sentinel’s lair, and we need to be serious about all this.”

  Then he looks a little more closely. “One of these would be cool. But, no, come on. We’ll shop later. For now, find me some zombie evidence, ‘kay?”

  But I spot him looking back at the screen more than once even as we continue to search.

  “I dunno, Dane, she looks pretty human to me.”

  “So do we.” He looks under throw pillows and peeks behind the panty-strewn clothesline. “That’s the whole point of passing, remember? If she’s a Sentinel, she will have taken a class in all this stuff.”

  We start in the fridge, where it’s standard single-gal-living-alone stuff: yogurt cups and cans of coffee drinks. In the cupboard are gluten-free protein bars. But that’s not enough for Dane. He actually looks in the trash to make sure there are empty yogurt cups, cans, and protein bar wrappers. There are.

  I smirk but am not really happy about it. Something in me would almost like Val to be a Sentinel. Not because I have a death wish or anything, but it would make me feel better if she were seducing Stamp as part of a mission rather than, you know, actually being in love with him. Selfish though it sounds, I’d rather Stamp get played by a Sentinel than have Val really have the hots for my ex.

  But so far she’s looking pretty human. The hot plate is coated in dried and burned food, ramen noodle dregs cling to a sticky pot in the sink, and clean overturned glasses rest on a dish towel.

  “Come on, come on,” I say, convinced Val and Stamp will walk through the door any minute. “I hate doing this stuff. Let’s go.”

  “This is what we’re here for. To make sure. We have to take our time and do it right, despite the risks.”

  “I know and I’m doing it, but … don’t you ever watch the movies? The good guys always get caught doing this stuff. Let’s be smarter than them and get out.”

  “We are smarter than them. We’re zombies, and we’ve lasted this long without being caught by the Sentinels. Why? Because we do stuff that sucks: never driving to work the same way twice, triple-locking the door every time we leave, avoiding big crowds. Now buckle down and do this, and we’ll be gone long before they get home.”

  Yeah, famous last words.

  I follow him around just the same, urging him along.

  “I can’t find anything,” he says, and his tone is downright mournful.

  “Good. So she’s human, just another one of Stamp’s dumb skanks, right? We’re good.”

  We stand there, in the middle of Val’s loft, looking at each other.

  “I don’t think so. I really don’t. Who lives like this? Alone, in a warehouse, where she can do whatever she wants any time of day or night, with no Normal neighbors around? That sounds like zombie behavior, not skank behavior.”

  “Maybe, but if we get caught here and she is a Sentinel, isn’t our goose pretty much cooked anyway?”

  Dane looks at me funny. “Maddy, what do you think we’re going to do for the rest of our lives? Put on makeup and entertain guests at theme parks? This is our life now. Get used to it. We will always be on the run, and the Sentinels will always be chasing us. We will never know if one is standing right next to us if we don’t start checking out everyone who even tries to get close. Now we have to find out if this is one of those times—for our good, for Stamp’s good—so chill.”

  I take a step back and nod twice. Maybe he is right. And if she is a Sentinel? And she does come back and try to stomp us? Well, it’s two against one. Dane and I have won with those odds before.

  “Okay, look at this place. What’s her hobby? Obviously, it’s watching TV. Look at that bad boy. I mean, you don’t get a 100-inch TV screen if you’re not a major couch potato. So let’s look for a cable bill or something. See if she’s renting movies on demand at all hours of the night, right?”

  Dane nods, his round eyes showing me he’s impressed. He finds a stack of bills in the drawer of one of those build-it-yourself desks you can get at Family Value Mart for $19.99. I swear we have the same model—only in black, natch.

  I watch him rifle through the power bill, the water bill, some credit card bills, until his eyes get really big.

  “What?”

  “Chick spent nearly a grand last month at Wisteria’s Secret Lingerie Corner in the mall.”

  I smack him.

  He drops the bill, pulls up another, then clicks his tongue. “Jackpot.” He unravels her cable bill. It’s like Santa’s naughty list or something. It stretches to a full three sheets. “Dang, this chick is in some serious love with all-night cable.”

  But it’s more than that. Every night, from about midnight through 8:00 a.m., Val rents movie after movie, night after night. It’s not just once or twice a week, like when a Normal might have insomnia. It’s every night.

  A horn sounds in the distance, and we both look up.

  I’m suddenly aware my hands are trembling.

  Dane shoves the papers in the drawer, and we make tracks out the same door we came in, locking it behind us and slipping the spare key under the rock where the dumb skank leaves it.

  But it’s a false alarm. There’s nobody outside when at last we crouch alongside Val’s car, creeping our way back toward Dane’s. The sky is dark now, and we have no idea where they’ve gone or when they’ll be back.

  “So what now?” I ask as we settle into his car. “Are we gonna have a good, old-fashioned stakeout?”

  Dane rubs his long fingers across his stubbly scalp—never a good sign for the bad guys. “I have a better idea.”

  8

  Zombies Don’t Collate

  What are we gonna do, staple her to death?” I ask Dane as he careens off the street into the 24-hour Office Profits store a few blocks away.

  A smile creeps across his face, as if he’s seriously considering the notion. “Well,” he says, slipping the keys out of the ignition, “it’s a little early for that yet, but let’s keep it on the back burner.”

  His smile is gone, and I’m not sure if he’s joking. If not, look out.

  The store is a lot less deserted than I figured it would be. I mean, who needs office supplies after business hours? Lame music plays overhead while I reach for a cart.

  It’s habit, I guess, but Dane stills my hand with a gentle touch. “We don’t need that.”

  I nod and follow him through an aisle full of nothing but—I’m not making this up—paper clips. At the end is a little store within a store called Copy Tronix. Or, at least, that’s what the neon sign announces over the bored teenager’s head.

  She fiddles with a calculator, then perks up when she sees Dane coming.

  Most girls do. I try to look at him from her perspective: close-cropped hair, that prowling walk of his, the placid face, the endless pools of his dark eyes, his razor wire muscles and tight-fitting clothes.

  She looks a little like the old me right now, the one who used to linger outside Dane’s Shop class just for a peep at him. Dazed, confused, intrigued, not understanding why.

  He’s not classically handsome. He’s too dead for that. But there’s definitely something about him that makes your senses sit up and do a double take. And under these harsh retail lights, I ask you, who
does look human?

  “How can I help you?” she asks. Him. She asks him, like I’m not even there.

  I wish I knew what we were doing here. I’d answer for him, make her look at me. She’s young and cute in that fleshy, alive way, with the tan skin and full lips and lungs that breathe and heart that beats. She has on black jeans and a red golf shirt, the same uniform of Office Profits employees I’ve seen sauntering around the place, although none of them were bursting out of the seams the way this chick is.

  Wait. That’s a name tag. Brittni. Of course.

  Dane leans on the counter casually. “Actually, Brittni, we were hoping you could help us.”

  I smell something funny and look at his face, and he’s chewing gum. Where’d he get gum? And why?

  “How so?” She giggles.

  Dane finally looks at me. “My girlfriend and I here, we’re trying to play a prank on a friend.”

  I stand a little straighter while Brittni’s face does a kind of double crumble. What a weirdo Dane is. He chews gum for her but in the same nonbreath calls me his girlfriend for, like, the first time ever. Weird. Sweet, astonishing, brave, kind, and generous but totally, lovably weird.

  I slink into him a little more, waiting to hear where this is going.

  “We’re trying to get some information out of him without coming right out and asking, so we were hoping you could help us think of a survey.”

  She’s gotten over the whole crush-worthy-guy-has-a-girlfriend thing and perked up again. Mood swing much? “Like, what type of survey?”

  Her voice is kind of chirpy, and I like it. She reminds me of someone I’d be friends with if I still went to high school. How odd. Only a few months ago I was attending the Fall Formal as a student, and now I’m looking at this chick as if she’s from another species: high school student.

  Yeah, I feel old, ugly, pale, and thin next to Brittni, but still there’s something about her I like.

  Now Dane looks at me. I guess survey was as far as his mind has gone.

  I look back at Brittni and smile awkwardly. “Well, like, let’s say we had a company and we were going to send people out onto the streets to ask them questions. That kind of survey.”

  “Yeah, yeah, a survey taker’s survey,” Dane says.

  Brittni puts on her thinking face: pouty lips, flared nostrils, closed eyes.

  Dane and I give each other an arched eyebrow look.

  Brittni opens her eyes. “Well, what industry?”

  We give her major WTF faces, and she smiles. I knew I kinda liked her.

  “I mean, you need to build the survey around something your friend is interested in. So, like, skateboarding, dirt bikes, energy drinks, what?”

  See, this is the problem with lying. You tell one, you gotta tell 99 more.

  Dane looks at me. I can see where he’s going, and watching him look helpless is kind of a joy. It’s not a friend we’re trying to stump, and the survey is really just an excuse, I’m figuring, to walk up to Val and introduce ourselves without looking like stalkers.

  I wish zombies could read minds, ‘cause it would be really nice to bounce ideas off him right now. I think of Val and her loft and blurt, “TV!”

  Dane looks relieved. “Yeah, let’s pretend we work for some company surveying, what, her viewing interests?”

  Brittni gets into it, whipping out a notepad. “That’s good. That’s good. We can ask what kind of movies she likes. Thrillers or rom coms—you know.” She has a pink pen with glitter in it and on it and an even pinker fuzzy ball on top, and she whips it around furiously while she makes up fake questions.

  We work on it for nearly an hour, Dane, Brittni, and I. She’s kinda awesome once she gets going, and I find myself wishing Stamp would go for someone who was at least fun to hang with, unlike the last few chicks he’s brought around: rude, anonymous, empty-eyed, bubble-head girls you’d rather strangle than spend 10 minutes talking to.

  When we’ve listed enough questions, Brittni helps us work up a template for the survey, complete with a company name—that takes awhile—and formats the pages on the computer. She’s really good, detailed.

  “It’ll take about 40 minutes to print,” she says with pouty lips. “We’re kinda backed up.”

  Dane smiles. “That’s cool. Listen, do you know anywhere that sells clothes at this hour?”

  We follow Brittni’s directions to an all-night Clothes Mart a couple of shopping centers over. They’re all connected, and since we’re just looking for some pants and a couple of shirts, we walk.

  “She’s nice,” Dane says as we wait for the crosswalk light to flash white.

  I slug his shoulder. “Is nice code for hot or something?”

  Dane shakes his head. “It’s weird, but live girls are almost another species, you know?”

  I do a double take because that’s what I was just thinking. Get out of my head, dude.

  The streetlight casts more shadows than usual on his pale face.

  “So what does that make me?” I say, only half-joking.

  He bumps me with his hip and says, without looking at me, “It makes you my species.”

  Before I can figure out if that’s a compliment or a dig, he takes my hand and we cross with the light.

  Hey, for Dane, that might as well be flowers and chocolates.

  9

  Surveying the Sentinel

  Don’t you think she’ll know we’re full of it?” I ask a few hours later as we return from the Office Profits store downtown, printed surveys in hand and scented with sweet Brittni’s cheap perfume.

  Dane smiles wickedly, walking a little taller, a little meaner, now that he’s in charge again and ready to kick a little Sentinel butt. “That’s the whole point. This way we get to see if she’s a Sentinel. If she’s just some random, clueless hot pants who digs pale, cold, heartless guys like Stamp, she’ll giggle it off. But if she’s the real deal, if she thinks we’re onto her, hell, yeah, she’ll be ticked.”

  I dig it when Dane gets all evil mastermind—like.

  It’s nearly midnight by now, and Stamp and Val have just pulled into the warehouse driveway. She’s pouring herself out of the Jeep the same way she oozed herself in, not waiting for him to hold her door anymore. She’s laughing at something he’s just said.

  What? Stamp’s a comedian all of a sudden?

  Music blasts from the stereo, one of Stamp’s clubbing playlists, no doubt. Or, even worse, maybe some list she made for him. Grossness. It cuts out as he yanks the key from the ignition.

  The night goes quiet. The only sound is Val’s shoes scraping the pavement.

  We hang close to the nearest warehouse next door.

  Stamp is still in his latest favorite hoodie, the black one with the white stripes and the extra-long sleeves that cover his hands. His hair’s still spiky, his cords gray, his sneakers black.

  I hold my new clipboard anxiously, clicking and unclicking the top of my new pen.

  Dane leans in and gently holds the top of my hand still.

  We share a glance so close, so intimate there is nothing to do but kiss softly in the moonlight.

  A bark of laughter interrupts us.

  Dane looks up, past my head, and smiles. “Showtime.” Moments later, he’s saying, “Stamp?” and purposefully scuffling forward in his brand-new dress shoes.

  We pass the barbed wire fence surrounding Val’s warehouse. Come to think of it, what’s the frickin’ rent on your own personal warehouse anyway? ‘Cause, the way she’s texting Stamp 24/7, it’s not like the chick could possibly have a job.

  I pick the seat of my ill-fitting black pants out of my wedge and straighten my thin black tie as we approach. They’re still flirting and holding hands by Stamp’s Jeep.

  Stamp sees us first, eyes getting big. Then he nods, then smiles. God love this kid. He’s just a big teddy bear with pecs.

  “Dane? Maddy?” he says, sounding genuinely surprised.

  But it’s not Stamp I’m watching. It’s
Val.

  And she’s pissed. Pissed behind a smile but pissed just the same.

  And suddenly I’m with Team Dane on this one. If she’s just a Normal club chick with a buzz and the munchies after a night out with Stamp, why is she being all passive-aggressive with us?

  “Stamp?” she squeaks past the smile glued to her lips.

  But Stamp’s still kind of marveling at the spectacle of us.

  So now she’s yanking down on his hoodie sleeve to get his attention. “Stamp, honey? Are these the friends you’ve been telling me about?”

  Her voice is so phony, I can feel the scorn at 15 paces. I mean, she practically barfs the word friends.

  “Yeah.” He chuckles, goofily, like he’s still in the club and we’ve just walked up. “These are my, uh, roomies.” He looks at me a little pointedly, as if to say, Don’t go all crazy ex-girlfriend on me now, okay? Then, still smiling, he adds, “Guys, this is Val, the chick, er, the girl I’ve been telling you about.”

  “Has he ever!” Dane extends a hand, and his extra-long cuff rasps against his dead skin.

  Time slows down just a smidge as we wait for her to shake it. Because you can fool a Normal if you have the time. You can sit on your hands when you know a Normal’s going to touch them. But Val hasn’t had the time.

  So when or if she reaches for Dane’s hand, all bets are off. He’ll feel it, for sure, and then we’ll know. And then we can—

  “I can’t believe it.” She giggles in a burst of nervous energy, raising her hand to cover her mouth like some girls do. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Yeah,” Stamp says, suddenly curious. He looks at his watch with a wide rubber strap. “It’s nearly midnight. Shouldn’t you guys be at home working out together or something?”

  “Actually,” Dane says in the ultrafake voice he’s suddenly adopted, “we are working.” He pops his new white collar to show he’s dressed for work.

  “Yeah,” I blurt too soon, jumping the script ahead a few pages and catching a glare from Dane, who rehearsed it in the car with me about 62 times. “We weren’t making enough with the monster show, so we had to take second jobs. We were hoping you’d take a quick survey so we look good on our first day—”