A Living Dead Love Story Series

by Rusty Fischer

  Her eyes get big, and she slaps her palms onto her knees. “I can’t believe this. You just got Vanished by the Council of Elders and you’re worried about Courtney?”

  I shake away the shame and press her. “Courtney. Courtney. I’m not tired. I can do this all night. Courtney. Tell me: what’s going to become of poor Courtney?”

  “She’s Sentinel Support. Where do you think she is?” Before I can answer, she adds, “Out in the field, supporting Dane.”

  I don’t know which fact hurts more: that I won’t get to say good-bye to Dane or that he’ll be too distracted by Courtney to notice I never did.

  I shake it off and glare at Vera. “So explain this banishment business. What is it? Temporary, 200 years, what?”

  “Incredible,” she says, almost to herself. “It’s forever. That means you are banished from Sentinel City, as you call it, but also from anywhere Elders, Keepers, and Sentinels gather. You’re banished from our shelter, from fresh brains, from our uniforms and order and, most of all, from our protection. You are no longer one of us.”

  “But I am one of you. Look at me; look at you. We’re the same.”

  She shakes her head, not smiling, not frowning. “We’re not the same. I’m not Vanished.”

  I stomp one foot. “So, basically, you’re saying I’m no better than a Zerker at this point.”

  She cocks her head and studies me. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  I shake my head. “Good, whatever, fine. If that’s all it takes to get kicked out of Sentinel City, then—”

  She’s on her feet and in my face in seconds. “All it takes?” She paces, boots squealing as she pivots with military precision. “You’re lucky you’re still re-alive. I know you think we are violent creatures, but look how we live. Look what we’ve built. You may not think much of Keepers or Sentinels, but believe you me, this planet would be overrun with Zerkers if it weren’t for us.”

  Her tone softens. “You could have been a part of that. You were so close to finishing your training and joining us. To joining me. I would have loved to work with you, watching you grow and evolve. You could have helped us keep the world safe from them. Instead, you . . .”

  “You can’t think of anything, can you? All that crap you sold the Elders, whatever BS you dragged up on me, you can’t say it to my face now. You probably can’t even remember it, because I didn’t do anything. I was sitting there in the library, trying to figure out how to get Dane back, when all this happened to me. So if it’s that easy to get kicked out of your zombie tribe, well, good luck saving the human race!”

  I walk away and she reaches out, yanking me back with both hands on my shoulders. Her grip is both firm and tender, if that makes any sense. Like one hand wants to toss me out on my ear and the other wants to pull me in for one last hug.

  She does neither.

  “Listen,” she hisses, face close to mine. “Once you walk out those doors, the Sentinels take you and you’re no longer under my protection. I want to give you this.”

  She reaches into a pocket and slides out her pen. The pen. The electric one. The one I’ve been begging her for since, oh, I dunno, forever.

  “But why?”

  She looks away, then back to me. “Every spare Sentinel has been out hunting for Val. Every one. And we still haven’t found her. I think she’s out there, waiting for you. I think you’ll need this more than I do. Besides, there’s more where that came from.”

  I take it, but my hands are still tied in front of me, so I hold it awkwardly. “Won’t they wonder where yours went?”

  She avoids my gaze. “By the time they ask, you’ll be gone and out of our reach. I’ll wait until then to blame it on you.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She releases me, but I don’t walk away just yet. “I would have made a good Keeper. You know that.”

  She nods, but that’s as far as she’s going.

  “This is all BS. You know that too.”

  That’s too much. “Your father let a violent Zerker escape. He cost the life of a valuable Sentinel. He put this whole facility and every Normal within the next three counties in danger. And you’re the one who brought him here. I don’t think I overstated my case to the Elders at all when I said you were partly to blame for Val’s escape.”

  I nod. “Then I have nothing more to say to you.”

  Apparently she has nothing more to say to me either.

  I walk toward the double doors, awkwardly sliding the pen down my gray granny panties in case the Sentinels search me on the way out. This way, even if they catch the Eliminator, they might miss Vera’s pen. I wait for her to say something, to warn me or apologize or even yell or maybe thank me.

  Nothing.

  She says not a word, and I’m too proud to look back to see if she’s waving or even watching me with a sad look on her face.

  Beyond the glass window in each door, I see the Sentinel shapes waiting for me.

  I pause just before pushing through, watching them watching me, waiting until they inch forward just enough, and then—slam—I whip open the doors and conk them on the foreheads, just for the hell of it.

  Chapter 11

  Thing 1 and Thing 2

  Stamp is waiting in the back of one of those tacky tan vans, hands on his knees but no chains, cuffs, zip ties, or even duct tape binding them.

  The van is sitting there, backed into the motor pool at the end of Sentinel City. It’s idling, as if it’s been waiting for me.

  “Hi,” Stamp says as the Sentinels dump me in next to him like last week’s garbage. “Where you been?” He sounds perturbed but upbeat, almost as if he can’t wait to get started on some big adventure and he’s kind of glad I’m along for the ride.

  “Sorry, Stamp.” I move across from him so I can spread out a little. “I was busy getting Vanished, you know?”

  One of the Sentinels takes an Eliminator and pops the scalpel side open, slicing through my plastic zip ties before turning around without a word.

  “What’s that?” Stamp crinkles his nose.

  The Sentinels slam the back doors, and a few seconds later, I feel their heft as they climb into the front seats. The van pulls out right away, tires spinning, as if they can’t wait to get rid of us.

  I study Stamp, spiffy in his hospital scrubs. He’s thin and wiry, like Dane was when we first met back in Barracuda Bay. He has the same shrunken cheeks and hooded eyes too, as though he’s seen too much for someone so young. “What’s Vanished?”

  I sigh and consider how to explain it to him. “It’s kind of like getting expelled from school.”

  His eyes get big. Then he gets that crooked smile. “Good. I hate this place.”

  I look out the tinted back windows. Sentinel City, drab and isolated, slips away with every spin of the van’s tires.

  “Me too,” I realize.

  He nods.

  We have something in common again.

  It’s a bumpy, fast ride, and I look around the back of the van, figuring maybe there’d be some backpacks full of brains, clothes other than these medical scrubs, something.

  “Did they give you anything?” I ask, nodding toward the front of the van, where a grate separates us from the Sentinels.

  He shrugs. “Just a hard time.”

  I chuckle. I never know if he knows he’s making a joke, or if he just says funny stuff sometimes. “Did Dad say anything to you?”

  “When?”

  I count to ten so I don’t lunge at him and shove Vera’s pen up one of his nostrils, leaving my finger on the trigger until what’s left of his brain is chopped steak, medium well. “Back there.” I sigh. “In Sentinel City.”

  Another shrug. “He said good-bye to us.”

  “To us?”

  He looks at me the same way I probably look at him most times. “Yeah, you and me. Us.”

  I sit up a little. “What did he say to you and me?”

  An impatient groan, like I’m the dumb-dumb. “I already
said. Good. Bye. Is what he said. To us.”

  I shake my head. “Did he say anything else? Think, Stamp. I may never see him again. This is important.”

  So he looks at his lap, his thinking pose, I guess.

  We’re slowing down now, skidding to a stop in what feels like sand. Lots of sand. In the middle of nowhere.

  “Please, Stamp.”

  He looks up from his lap. “He said something, but I can’t remember.”

  The van is stopped now. The front doors slam, and the Sentinels will be opening the back doors any second. “Please,” I whimper, begging him with my eyes.

  Then the doors open, and we’re pulled out, dumped in crusty Florida sand at dawn in the middle of a field dotted by sickly scrub pines.

  By the time I scramble up, the Sentinels are retreating to the front seats. I chase them, yanking on the driver’s sleeve.

  “Hey,” I shout as he spins around, giving me his best bored zombie face. “Hey, what are we supposed to do out there?”

  His partner, the passenger, chuckles. “Didn’t you hear the Elders?” He walks toward the van. “You’re supposed to Vanish.”

  The driver nods and tugs his sleeve away.

  I let him go.

  He looks over his shoulder and cocks a smile. “Have a nice afterlife.”

  The front doors clang, the engine kicks into drive, and the tires spin, spraying us with sand.

  I watch until the taillights blink at the end of a long dirt road, turn left, and disappear.

  Stamp is still sitting in the sand.

  “Get up,” I huff, holding out a hand.

  He raises a hand but is dead weight as I yank him up.

  “I remember now.” He looks down at me.

  “Remember what?”

  I walk toward the road, hoping to find out where they’ve dumped us.

  “Your dad,” he says, loping beside me, threatening to overtake me with his long legs.

  I stop, but he keeps going, and I have to take two quick steps before I can reach his sleeve to twist him around. “What did he say?”

  He looks at me. “He said I should take care of you until he can find us. And that’s what I’m gonna do.”

  He nods and reaches for my hand. I think it’s kind of sweet until I find out it’s just to haul me along behind him.

  Chapter 12

  Are We There Yet?

  Stamp sits on a tree stump by a pond while I wash the grime off my face. It won’t improve my looks, but keeping clean makes me feel better. The pond is clear, and the water is warm on my skin.

  It’s been a few hours since the Sentinels left us in their rearview mirror, and we’re just off the main road, which is hardly a road and far from main. Near as I can tell, they dumped us in the middle of some ranch in the center of the state in a town where nobody has raised cattle for decades.

  I haven’t heard a car the entire time, and it’s nearly noon. I don’t have a watch, because I guess that’s not part of the Getting Vanished Package, but I can guess the time from the sun beating down on my neck.

  “Dane’s not coming?” Stamp looks at me as if I promised him a birthday party and took him to the dentist instead.

  I try to keep the spite out of my voice. “Not this time, Stamp.” It’s like Dane and I got divorced and he left me to tell the kid.

  He digs the toe of a cheap black sneaker into the sand. “But Dane always comes.” His disappointment is actually kind of sweet, and I have to admit he has a point.

  Ever since this whole thing started, with me sneaking out to meet Stamp in the dead of night and the rain falling and the lightning flashing, Dane has never been far behind.

  For good or bad, even when we didn’t want to be around each other anymore, we’ve always been there, the three of us. Living together in Orlando, scaring the audience in our monster show. And then, suddenly, Stamp was gone, taken by Val in the dead of night. And that was the beginning of the end for the three of us.

  After she bit Stamp with her Zerker teeth, and made him what he is now, it was like she infected the rest of us. Dane became obsessed with becoming a Sentinel, and I started training with Vera, and Stamp was in a cage, and then there was Courtney, and now we’re all . . . done.

  Vanished, just as the Elders said. And they weren’t kidding.

  We’re miles from anywhere, without a brain in sight, with just the clothes on our backs and no idea where we are, where we’re going, or what we’ll do when we get there.

  “I’m hungry.” Stamp kicks a pebble, and we both watch the ripples through the pond water.

  “Me too.” I can’t remember the last time I fed. I suppose it was when Dane and Courtney showed up at my table goofing and smiling like something out of an Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet rerun.

  “I get mad when I’m hungry,” he warns, eyes big, like he’s telling me something I don’t know.

  “Yeah,” I grunt, standing up. “I’ve seen it.” I reach for his hand.

  But this time he stands on his own. “So we should probably eat.”

  “Yeah, we’re gonna.”

  “Like, soon.”

  “Yeah, I gotcha.” I wave my arms toward the wide, flat landscape, nothing but lone palm trees and scrub brush and waves of heat as far as the eye can see. Florida, the world’s longest putting green. “Do you see any grocery stores around here?”

  “No,” he grumps.

  We start walking. As far as being Vanished goes, Stamp is a good guy to do it with because he’s not a big talker. He can walk for an hour at a time without saying anything. Half the time, I think he forgets I’m here. We follow the road, just along the tree line in case some farmer in a pickup drives by to feed his imaginary cows.

  I know it’s hot, but it doesn’t really faze us because being undead is like walking around with your own refrigerator in the center of your chest. We don’t sweat, we don’t really get tired, and the stiffness I usually feel in my legs wore off about two hours back.

  So we just walk, like Energizer Zombies, feet falling and arms swinging and eyes scanning the horizon. Quietly. Me thinking, and him, well, doing whatever he does in that head of his.

  And then he stops, turns, and touches my shoulder to get me to halt. “Where are we going anyway?”

  I jerk my thumb over my shoulder and look back. “See how the sun is going in that direction?”

  He looks. “Yeah.”

  “Well, a few hours from now, the sun will set. In the west. We’re going in the opposite direction. The east.”

  He nods, impatiently, as if he already knows all this, which I know he probably totally doesn’t. “Okay, but why?”

  “Because Florida really has only two sides, east and west, and I want to get to the other one.”

  “But why?”

  I cluck, open my mouth to answer, then shut it. I have no idea. Honestly, I have no idea why. “I just . . . I grew up there. That’s why.”

  He looks down at me, shading his eyes. “We can’t go back there. Not again.” He sounds almost scared.

  “We’re not. We can’t. But I want to go somewhere like there, get my head right, get some clothes and some money together, get to a computer, check out ZED and figure out how to get there.”

  He turns, like that’s enough for him, and we start walking again. Then he stops. “Who’s Zed?”

  I stop too. “Not who. What. Zerker Education and Dismemberment. Z-E-D. It’s where they took Dad before we got Vanished.”

  He smiles. Or maybe he’s just squinting at the sun. “So then, when you find where it is, we can go rescue him?”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  He nods, and now I see the smile for sure. “Good.”

  We walk till I kind of miss talking to him. “Why good, Stamp?”

  He shrugs. “I guess I miss the old man; that’s all.”

  I chuckle. “I thought you hated him for putting you in a cage all that time.”

  “Not really. If I were him, I’d put me in a c
age too.”

  Chapter 13

  My Dogs Are Barking

  I smell the first dog at the same time I see the road sign just ahead:

  I whisper to Stamp, “Stop.”

  He just keeps stomping along, leaving me in the dust.

  So I have to say it a little louder: “Stop.” And then harsher: “Stop.”

  He turns, irritated, once-boyish face now a mask of gray lines. “Let’s just keep going!”

  So help me, I take a step back.

  We stand here, his neck out, face frozen in rage, me wondering if now would be a good time to retrieve the electric pen, just in case.

  His eyes are clear but seem unfocused, as if they’re looking just to the left of me.

  “Stamp?” I wave both hands at him.

  “Yeah, what?” he growls, but he stands up straighter, blinking rapidly. Then, as if to make up for totally reaming me out, he smiles and says it again: “Yeah, what?”

  “Whoa,” I say, hands still up. “That was . . . unpleasant.”

  He shakes his head, vaguely unapologetic. “I told you I’m hungry, Maddy. Let’s go.”

  I inch closer, grabbing his arm before he can turn. “Do you think I stopped you for no good reason?”

  His lips curl. “Yeah, why else?”

  Ugh, this is going to be a freakishly long ten flippin’ miles.

  I try another approach since, clearly, polite conversation isn’t getting the job done. I sniff the air, and now the dog scent is stronger. “Do you smell that?”

  He is nearly a head taller, and his neck is long, so he supersniffs the air in all four directions before looking back at me. “Kinda funky. What is it?”

  “You mean, you don’t know?”

  Eye roll. “Let’s go, Maddy. I’m starving and . . . dog!” He suddenly brightens, eyes bugging out of his skull like an Elder’s. “I smell dog, right?”

  I walk on, dragging him with me. “Yeah, but I was hoping you’d have a stronger sense of smell now or something.”