A Living Dead Love Story Series

by Rusty Fischer

  I check out the rack of souvenir T-shirts. I brush the dust off the shoulders of one and read the front: My Other Car Is a Double-Wide. Perfect. There are no shorts, but the shirt is pink with blue writing, so presumably (you know, if this was 1987), it would, could, should match my baggy blue pocket pants.

  I slip out of Vera’s top and into the shirt. It’s big, so I tie it around my waist Baywatch style. I grab some white sunglasses to accessorize and a pink fanny pack for the electric pen. I look around the aisles to see if I’m missing something. You know, like maybe this is the type of redneck joint that sells hunting knives and crossbows and cold-seeking bazookas next to the suntan lotion and pickled eggs. But, of course, no luck.

  Although there is a stack of pet food cans, and I squint in the dim emergency exit lighting to read the list of ingredients on a can of Zippy Cat Chow. Sweet! There, just after liver and before tongue, is the ingredient I’ve been longing to find: brain. I grab the four cans off the shelf and shove them in the fanny pack. They barely fit.

  I hate stealing things, especially as I slip behind the sales counter, yank out the cash drawer, and pocket all $84.59 from the till. But then I figure I’m leaving them an SUV worth at least 10 or 15 grand behind the garage. If they’re any kind of savvy gas station owners at all, they’ll be way ahead of the game by sundown tomorrow.

  I slip into the garage through a side door and find a Peg-Board with four sets of keys. There are cars in two of the four service bays. One set of keys opens the giant garage doors, which I do before sliding the third set into a beat-up pickup truck that no self-respecting state trooper, let alone Sentinel, would look at twice.

  It fires up on the fourth try and has at least enough gas to get me back into Cobia County, if not quite to Barracuda Bay. I chug outside, knocking leftover tools and crunching over a leftover can of beer on my way.

  I take it slow, lights on, until I reach the on-ramp back to the freeway. I take that slow out of necessity, since the truck is a beast and not exactly a sports car. Still, after about 10 minutes I’m back in the left lane doing a steady 74 miles per hour and heading home.

  I feel lightheaded and know why: brain hunger. I unzip my fanny pack and grab the cans of cat food, tossing them onto the dashboard one by one like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. I save the last one and peel off the lid with my free hand, using two fingers to scoop up the brown and gray gloop inside.

  Oh, is it nasty. Really, it’s just as wretched as you imagine it might be, but immediately I can sense the brain on my tongue as my body digests the pure cranium electricity. It is sinfully good. I switch to driving with my knees so I can gorge, cavewoman style, scraping every last bit of tongue, liver, and brain goodness from the corners of the can.

  I slow to a steady 60 mph without a headlight in sight and finish all four cans in less than five minutes, feeling the brain—preserved, dead, and disgusting as it is—bring me back to life.

  I’ll need the real stuff to take on Val. No doubt she’s been feasting on live humans all the way to Barracuda Bay. For now this will get me home to Dad, who can hopefully score me some of the good stuff from the morgue.

  You know, for saving his life and all …

  25

  Back in Barracuda Bay

  Barracuda Bay has changed. All of it. Every last inch. Bathed in the streetlights of what might prove to be the last evening of my Afterlife, I drive by the Barracuda Bay High yard in the broken-down truck I stole back in Bum Suck Somewhereville. It’s gasping on its last legs as I cruise by mostly blue and gray portable classrooms. The town’s struggling to rebuild the gym and everything else attached. The place looks clean and efficient and logical, but mostly it just looks … sad.

  But it’s more than just the burned-down gym and the rusty cranes still littering the football field. It’s the gloom over the tiny little beach town.

  A football team. A cheerleading squad. Half the faculty. Dane. Chloe. Bones. Dahlia. Hazel. Me. Stamp. All gone.

  In one fiery night.

  At first, the papers called it a tragic accident. But that wasn’t sexy enough, I suppose, so it became known as the Barracuda Bay Blaze for the duration. Locals just called it a tragedy. All these months later, that tragic air still hangs, like a haze, everywhere I drive.

  It hangs over Stamp’s house, where a rusty For Sale sign sits crookedly in the dead lawn, Stamp’s parents long since gone. Vegas, I think, Stamp said they moved to, or about as far from Florida as you can get without literally leaving the country.

  Our house is empty too, though a tan van full of Sentinels—I can tell from the way the tires look nearly flat—sits in the driveway of the old Meyers’ place, the house up the street that’s been abandoned ever since it fell into foreclosure years ago.

  I cruise by slowly, pink trucker cap low over my white sunglasses and my T-shirt collar tugged nearly up to my chin. The house looks grim and empty inside, with just the oven light on to fight the darkness. It’s the one we left on all the time, day or night, just in case.

  I can only crane my neck so far and, besides, if I linger too long the Sentinels will get suspicious. I speed up but not too much and only relax my shoulders when the van doesn’t follow me up the street.

  I avoid cruising by any of my other old haunts—Dane and Chloe’s trailer, Barracuda Bay Galleria, Greenbriers Grocers, Hazel’s house, or even the Sable Palms Cemetery where I did most of my best grave rubbings—and park the truck in front of the Better Days Boutique downtown.

  My pink and blue nightmare of a disguise might work on the Sentinels, but I’m not here for them, and there’s no way to beat a Zerker if you’re constantly tucking in your souvenir T-shirt or readjusting your shades.

  Classical music plays softly in the background as I enter the vintage thrift store that always smells like licorice and white wine. (Don’t ask.)

  An old woman behind the counter looks up from some paperwork and eyes my unsightly garb. “We’re closing in a few minutes, dear.”

  I nod and disappear into the aisles.

  The Better Days Boutique was a favorite of Hazel’s and mine over the last few weeks of summer every year, when our back-to-school shopping funds were always at their lowest.

  I picture my best friend as she was back then, before Bones turned her Zerker: red-haired and adorable—if completely obnoxious—trying on every old-lady hat in the store while I reminded her about a little thing called “head lice.”

  She never cared. Making sure everyone in the store knew she was there and full of fun was worth it to her. And, hey, if she had to shave that lovely mane of red hair and get more attention, even better!

  The store, my life, my future—I feel lonely without her.

  I get busy choosing an outfit. All black. Leggings for kicking range. A hoodie for stealth. A tank top for when it comes time to take off my hoodie. Socks to cover my whitish-gray ankles. Sneakers for running, jumping, and hopefully escaping. And new shades just … because.

  The older woman behind the counter rings it all up, her nose slightly upturned at the selections. “You do know this is a vintage store, don’t you, dear? Wouldn’t you prefer something a little more sophisticated?”

  “Hey, don’t stock it if you don’t want to sell it, lady.” I can’t help it. I’m getting bitchier the longer I’m a zombie.

  She blinks twice. “That will be $22.75.”

  Ouch. I only have $20 left after stopping for gas every few exits on the way down. But I don’t want to put anything back, not even the shades.

  “Can I get credit for what I’m wearing?” I step away from the sales counter so she can see the glory of my blue and pink nightmare.

  She starts to wrinkle her nose.

  I point to the pants. “Hey, these are worth $10 on their own. I mean, look at all those pockets.”

  When she doesn’t bite, I throw a Hail Mary in quiet desperation. “You say this is a vintage store? These pants come straight from the ’80s! And check out these boots. That is some Pr
ivate Benjamin action right there! They’re worth $10 alone, ‘cause I know you can sell ‘em for $30.”

  I get plenty of eye roll but also this: “Leave it all in the dressing room, dear, and I’ll figure something out while you change.”

  I grab the new gear and head to the fitting room to change. Nothing really fits right, but the only other black things in the store are frilly flapper gowns and beaded skirts and ruffled blouses, so I just double-lace the shoes and stretch out the leggings and the tank, and it’s okay. Kind of. Sorta.

  I check my look in the full-length mirror and roll my own damn eyes. How many black hoodies can one chick own, you know? If only I owned stock in Hanes or some such, I’d be one rich zombie right now. Real Housewives of the Living Dead? That’s me!

  The old woman eyes me on my way to the counter. “Fifteen dollars, dear, and not a penny less.”

  Jackpot! I was expecting her not to budge so much. That whole “these pants are so ’80s retro” thing was a real stretch.

  I smile and give her the $20, anxiously waiting for the $5 in change.

  She hands it over reluctantly before turning her back on me and attending to some important BS behind the counter. I shrug and walk out, the pink fanny pack—and the electric pen—snug under my hoodie I got for a steal. (Take that, vintage thrift shop snooty old lady biotch!)

  It’s getting dark now, the air salty with the nearby sea, smelling as always of home. I’d been hoping to be in Barracuda Bay while the sun was still shining, but a flat tire just outside of Tallahassee and a dead battery just before Miami took up all of my time—and most of my stash.

  Now it’s nightfall and I can feel Val in the air, out there lurking somewhere not so far away. I leave the truck where it is and walk into the dollar store next to the thrift shop.

  Jangly Irish music plays over the sound system as I walk past the cheesy green plastic beer mugs on Aisle 2 and giant bubble gum gold coins at the end of Aisle 4. I find what I’m looking for in Aisle 9 and buy it with three of my precious remaining dollars. I leave the coins behind on the counter because they’ll make too much noise where I’m going.

  Then I walk hungrily into the dense patch of woods behind the strip mall. It’s pitch black, but I don’t mind. In fact, it’s better that way. The deeper and darker the woods get, the more intense my zombie yellow vision becomes.

  Trees take shape, then leaves, then bugs crawling on the leaves. The ground is not just ground but twigs to walk over and stumps to walk around and broken bottles to avoid. I watch birds settled in for the night on branches high above: some big, some small.

  They’re all too small for what I’m looking for.

  Not if I’m going to best Val anytime soon. And the cat food? In the end, it did more harm than good, with more chemicals than brains and more sick than energy.

  I need living brains, full of electricity, if I’m going to stomp Val into Zerker dust. I stop creeping forward into the woods and find a clearing with a stump I can sit on peacefully. I take the treats from the dollar store out of my hoodie pockets and spread them around; caramel squares in one pile, chocolate-covered peanuts in another, candy corns in the last.

  Say what you want about candy corn, but forest rodents straight trip over it. I know because Dane taught me this trick the first week in Orlando, before we hooked up with Iceman. We sat there, Dane, Stamp, and I, in front of our own piles of gooey, chewy treats and had our fill of big, fat, juicy rodent brains.

  Gross? Yes.

  Survival? Necessary.

  I sit back and wait. It doesn’t take long. The forest kind of erupts, if you know what to listen for.

  The squirrels come first. Fast little nutters, sniffing out the chocolate-covered peanuts with their beady noses and reaching with their tiny little hands as I sit, stock-still, waiting.

  Then I erupt, hands blitzing their little necks as they squirm and squeal. Their brains aren’t much bigger than marbles—tight, pink, chewy little marbles—but they do the trick. If only in small doses. Still, it’s like making a whole meal of beer nuts. Good for awhile but hardly Thanksgiving dinner.

  It’s the raccoons who love the candy corn so much. One by one, silently stalking the forest, brave unlike the skittish squirrels or even the much shyer possums. The raccoons’ courage is their undoing, at least on this night.

  The first goes down easy, perhaps lulled by the surprise of strong, cold hands snapping her neck in two seconds flat. The second is a little more skittish, possibly more wary from the scent of her brother’s blood spilled in great, gushing glugs behind my splattered tree trunk.

  But it’s the third that goes to town, hissing and spitting and scratching at my wrists until, at last, I ignore its neck and simply crack open its still ranting skull, sucking deep the golf ball—sized brain and chewing it until its live, electric juices make me whole once again.

  I put the carcasses, all seven of them, into the plastic bag from the dollar store. I feel guilt-ridden but wired. I use the yellow light of my zombie vision to find a puddle of standing water and wipe the gunk from my hands, noting the dull raccoon scratches and timid squirrel bites on my palms.

  I wipe gore from my mouth and chin. And then I walk from the woods to find the strip mall closed. I stand in the parking lot and spy the bank sign across the street. It’s already 11:00 p.m., but just to make sure everyone’s gone home I walk past each store in the strip mall.

  Thrift shop.

  Dollar store.

  Hardware store.

  Pawnshop.

  Used record store.

  All empty.

  Even the check cashing place and the take-out pizza parlor are deserted. It’s like a ghost town, but that’s no surprise. Barracuda Bay always did roll up its sidewalks around 9:00 p.m. (And yes, that is my dad’s expression, thanks very much.)

  But tonight, I’m glad for the Bay’s reputation as a sleepy little beach town. In fact, ever since I found out I wasn’t going to make it by sunset and hatched Plan B, I’ve been counting on it. I yank open the truck door (it tends to stick) and push in the old-fashioned cigarette lighter in the dashboard. I dump the brainless carcasses all over the front seat, on the floorboard, even in the glove box. (The squirrels fit perfectly.)

  Then I reach for the five gallons of gas in the backseat and douse it all: carcasses, upholstery, steering wheel, brake pedal, even the yellowed owner’s manual. When the cigarette lighter pops out, I toss the gas tank in the truck bed and shove the red-hot lighter into the glistening wet upholstery.

  It ignites immediately, and I drop the lighter on the floor, slamming the door and stepping back but staying close enough to rinse, lather, and repeat if the fire goes out. It doesn’t.

  Just the opposite, in fact. In seconds, the entire interior of the truck is engulfed in flames. We’re talking nine-alarm, movie-stunt-gone-haywire fire. In minutes, the whole truck is ablaze, the crackling and hissing of fur and leather and drying bones and breaking glass piercing the night.

  I shield my eyes from the flames and heat.

  Just to make sure the right people come at the right time, I use the pay phone next to the check cashing place. I dial 9-1-1, and once someone answers, I drop it and just let it hang there.

  Now I sit back and wait.

  After a minute of dead air, they’ll trace the call.

  Operation Avenge Stamp is well under way.

  I just wish Stamp was here to see it.

  26

  Daddy’s Girl

  Two cop cars at first, requesting backup.

  Two fire trucks, one big, the other not quite as.

  One ambulance, then two.

  More cops filter in, four or five after awhile, the cars scattered around the parking lot. Firefighters hose down the truck till the fire turns the gushing water into hot, white steam.

  It’s still smoldering when, splashing around in thick black puddles, the firemen pick at the remains with axes.

  I stand, dressed in black, behind one of the strip m
all columns, unseen and ignored, all according to plan.

  At first I think the firefighters will miss it, but then one calls out, “Hey, I got something here.”

  I can imagine him, spotting a raccoon jaw or a gnarly, pointy tooth or a burned-beyond-recognition paw that might be a toe or a pinky finger. It will be enough. It has to be enough.

  It is.

  The first fireman calls another one over, then one more, and together they huddle, quietly picking around the steaming hunk of smoldering truck with their hatchets and thick, gray gloves.

  Finally, one tells a cop, the cops come check it out, they confer with the EMTs, and that’s when I hear it: “This is definitely human. Somebody needs to call the coroner.”

  The coroner: Dad. My dad will be here. And soon.

  Sentinels or no, nothing or nobody—living or dead—is going to keep my dad from a dead body. I stand and wait for 5 minutes. Then 10. Then 15. Then 20. The cops get restless. I mean, there’s only so many times you can wind and unwind crime scene tape from around a smoldering truck, you know.

  At last I see the tan station wagon barreling down the street, little red siren stuck on top and blaring weakly in the middle of the night.

  Dad. My dad! I can see him clearly through the window, balding head gleaming in the light of a passing street lamp, his moustache going gray now, his eyes open and alert behind thick bifocals, his face grim.

  God, I never thought I’d see him again. And he’s alive, with both his hands on the wheel and, I assume, both legs in working order. And … he’s not alone.

  Beside him sits a grim zombie, a Sentinel without the uniform. He’s dressed instead as an orderly or assistant or something, down to the face mask and surgical cap, to hide his gray skin and thin, liver-colored lips.

  But I can see his dead, black eyes glint in the same street lamp that makes my dad’s bald spot shine. The assistant’s dead dead, all right, the Living Dead. So maybe Vera was right. The Sentinels have found a way to stick with Dad 24/7, even if it means taking off their trademark berets and dressing as a coroner’s assistant to get the job done. Maybe I misjudged the old Keeper.