A Living Dead Love Story Series

by Rusty Fischer

  Quick like, I push a finger against her side, pressing, pressing, until I can feel a rib starting to give way under my fingernail.

  She does too. I can hear it in her voice, feel it in the way she goes still, no longer resisting with every ounce of her strength.

  “Okay, okay,” she grunts. “From now on, you and Lucy are off limits. Fine, whatever, just let me—”

  I hoist her up midsentence and spin her around so she can see the rest of the students, staring, openmouthed, eyes laughing at her. Her friends are nowhere to be seen.

  “Now go find your friends. They’re probably in the bathroom, changing their thongs.”

  Lucy shakes her head as I help her up next. “Wow,” she says.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “No, I mean, wow, how stupid. I thought you wanted to pass here. All you’ve done is make a huge spectacle and an even bigger enemy on your first day. Not even in your first ten minutes!”

  Her face looks angry, but her eyes are grateful.

  “Like I said,” I grunt, “you’re welcome, Lucy.” But I know, even as I turn and stomp off, she’s right.

  She catches up to me and walks me to my homeroom, straightening her skirt the whole way there. I think, because her legs are so short, she has a thing about her skirt, like a fixation. I wish I could tell her she’s beautiful, human and flawless, warm and full of bloody cells, so quit sweating the small stuff. But Normals don’t think that way. I know I never did.

  We pause just outside of Mrs. Fillibuster’s room. “Don’t get me wrong,” she says, moving toward her own homeroom just down the hall. “It’s not that I’m not grateful. It’s just . . . you know how this works. They won’t come back at you. They’ll target me when you’re not around. What am I supposed to do then?”

  “Fight back,” I say. “She’s weak now, wounded, embarrassed. She won’t want to risk being shown up again.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she whispers, walking out of range. “You don’t feel pain.”

  She has a point. Maybe it was stupid. But I couldn’t help it. Sometimes I forget the rage inside. Just because I’m not a Zerker, just because I’ve never been bitten, doesn’t mean I don’t feel the sometimes uncontrollable, undead fury of being threatened, even if by a Normal.

  Besides, am I going to pass up the chance now that I’m finally strong enough to bully the bully? Not likely.

  I turn around, about to walk into homeroom, when I suddenly smell it.

  Zombie. Not Zerker flesh; zombie flesh, like my own. There, coming toward me, blonde and fresh-looking, swinging her almost Normal hips, is a familiar face.

  “Courtney?”

  Chapter 26

  Concerned with Courtney

  Maddy?”

  I step out of the classroom, ignoring the big human eyes watching the drama in the doorway. Screw it, Normals; I’ve got bigger zombies to fry.

  I grab Courtney’s arm and drag her down the commons to the first girls’ room I see. Inside, I do the whole push-every-stall-door-open thing, and before I even press the last one, I smell smoke.

  It’s locked, and when the smokers hear me rattling the door, they cough out, “Chill. We’ll be done in a—”

  I snap it open with one good yank and say, “You’re done now.”

  But even a shaved, tie-loosened, sleeves-rolled-up chick like me isn’t enough to interrupt these nicotine freaks. Two of them, both nearly identical with straight black hair, pigtails, glossy maroon lipstick and skull earrings (so not edgy). They stare at me, dull eyed.

  The one with the cigarette starts to speak, but I reach out, grab the smoke by the lit end first, and snuff it out between my cold, dead finger and thumb. Suddenly, with no cancer stick to distract them, they take to staring at me. I guess that’s enough to do the trick, and they scram, inching past the broken door lying crooked on its hinges, a corner touching the floor.

  The minute they’re gone I look back to find Courtney leaning casually against the sink.

  “Go block that door,” I tell her.

  She looks at me as if I’ve just gone Zerker. “Block it yourself.”

  I cock my head.

  She stares at me, not moving an inch.

  But I do. I take two steps forward and watch her flinch just a bit. That makes me smile. “Look, Courtney, this isn’t Sentinel City, okay? And even if it were, you’re just Sentinel Support, so I’d lose the ’tude unless you want me to do to your face what I did to that chick’s cigarette.”

  She smirks.

  Just as with Ginger out in the hallway, the rage bubbles up, threatening to spill over any second.

  “Big talk for someone who just got Vanished, Maddy.” She’s still leaning there, blonde hair limp and long, face pale and drawn, but still so humanlike it makes me envious for the days back in Barracuda Bay, when I was fresh and young. Did Dane want me then only because I was newly undead?

  Is that his type?

  Behind her is a mirror, water stained and brightly lit. I catch my face, hair, skin, eyes in the reflection, and even I’m scared of me. But Courtney’s not. At least not yet.

  “Yeah, I got Vanished, and you know what that makes me? The kind of zombie who has zero cares to give about a wannabe Sentinel like you. What else are they gonna do to me? Double Vanish me? Rekill me?”

  She starts to creep back a little because I’m moving closer. “As far as the Council of Elders is concerned, I don’t exist. As far as the Sentinels are concerned, I don’t exist. The Keepers? I might as well be a Zerker.”

  Now we’re about two feet apart, so close I can smell the nauseating perfume she’s saturated her school uniform with. “So if everyone I’ve ever cared about thinks I’m a Zerker, what makes you think I care about doing insanely violent things to you right now?”

  She makes a move, not toward me, but to the side—the wrong side, away from the bathroom door.

  I sling her back to the other side, one handed, the way you’ll see fighters do when one guy is trying to get out of the corner of the ring he’s being pummeled into.

  “Stop,” she shouts.

  It’s so unexpected, I do. “I’ll stop,” I add, watching her there, between the sink and the exit, “when you block that door and tell me what the hell you’re doing here—”

  Just then the door flings open, and I roll my eyes, about to give her major now-you’ve-done-it face, when a guy walks in.

  Not just any guy, either.

  The guy.

  Chapter 27

  Smokin’ in the Girls’ Room

  Dane!” Instinctively, I run to him. Our embrace is uneven, with me clinging to his chest as he reluctantly reaches around me, momentarily at least, until his clutch turns to an insincere pat on the back.

  “Okay now,” he mumbles, finagling his hands up against my shoulders and gently prying me off of him like some rock star wriggling away from his groupie. “There.”

  I see a flash of embarrassment flit between him and Courtney, one of those how-pathetic-is-this-chick looks I always dreaded being the cause of. But even now, as it’s happening to me, I so don’t care. I shove him back so I can wedge my pathetic, Vanished self between him and Courtney.

  “What is going on?” I grunt, pushing him a little more.

  He flashes a look at Courtney. “Block the door.”

  She makes a soft cluck but scuttles off, wedging her arm against it as if the Zerkers were already trying to get in. Courtney and I share a look, and suddenly I don’t know what to think. My anger is gone, but I can’t quite feel sorry for her either.

  I turn back to Dane. “Fine. Now the door is blocked and we’re all here, one happy little undead family, so tell me what’s going on.”

  He wastes no time. “The Zerkers are here. You know that, right?”

  I freeze-frame. How much does he know I know? Does he know I sat in the bushes watching the Zerkers attacking Jogger Girl until it was too late for me to do anything about it? Does he know about Lucy and the missing
jogger? About the thrift shop and the sixty bucks and the grape juice and the cat food?

  “Yeah, yeah,” I rush. “I saw the Missing posters and put two and two together.”

  He kind of softens. “Just like Barracuda Bay, right?”

  I blink, and we could be back there in any bathroom, talking about Bones and Dahlia and Chloe and Hazel. All of them gone, no more. Dane and I gone, no more, as well.

  I lower my voice. “Not just like.”

  It wouldn’t hurt so much if he didn’t look so epically stunning in his stupid school uniform. It’s like he was flippin’ made to wear this thing. The white, collared shirt hugs his chest; the tie sets off his deep, dark eyes and hollow cheeks; his stubbly hair looks punk rock next to his maroon blazer with the sleeves rolled up. He even manages to make pleated khakis sexy.

  He looks to Courtney, who doesn’t have the good grace to even pretend she isn’t using every bit of her new zombie hearing to snoop on us.

  “Forget all that,” I surprise myself by saying. “We’re here, it’s now, whatever. So the Zerkers. What now?”

  He shrugs. “Same as it ever was. Courtney and I are here to scope things out, make sure they don’t get out of control.”

  I look from him to her. “You. And Courtney. Are here. Period?”

  He looks uncomfortable. “Well, Florida is big, and we still haven’t located Val, so we’re all the Sentinels could afford to send right now.”

  I shake my head. Just thinking of what happened last night, three Zerkers plus Jogger Girl, who, if they didn’t totally devour her, is one of them now as well. We’re outnumbered.

  I look at him, then at her, and something strikes me. The uniforms, the cockiness—this isn’t their first day at Seagull Shores Prep. “Wait. When exactly did you guys get here?”

  He avoids my gaze. “A few days ago. Why?”

  “Are you . . . Are you not surprised to see me, Dane?”

  “A little, yeah, but you were on foot, so how far could you go?”

  Okay, that kind of makes sense. Still, something is fishy.

  But now it’s his turn to quiz me. “Tell me Stamp’s not here, in school with you.”

  I get vaguely protective all of a sudden. “No, he’s not, but he could come if he wanted to.”

  “No, he couldn’t.”

  I nod. “No, he couldn’t.”

  “So who’s watching him, then?”

  “Lucy.”

  He and Courtney do their eye flick thing again. “Who’s Lucy?”

  “Lucy Toh. She lives next to us. She got me my fake ID and a school schedule.” Then I kind of stare at him, as if he’s the worst Sentinel on the plant. “I mean, look at me. How do you think I went from Vanished to attending a human high school in less than a week? You think I could do that all by myself? Do you even care if I had to do it all by myself?”

  Whoosh. All of that goes over his beautiful head. “A Normal?” He looks at me as if I’ve just broken about 24 zombie laws.

  But I’m not even technically a zombie anymore, so who cares? “Yeah, but—”

  He brushes past me, roughly, so roughly I want to grab his tie as he walks by and yank it off—through his neck.

  “Unbelievable,” he says. “Courtney, get to . . .” He turns back to me, snapping like he’s some advertising executive and I’m his secretary and we’re in his office dictating a letter. “Where are you and Stamp staying?”

  “One-four-six-five Lumpfish Lane,” I offer happily, anything to get rid of Courtney. “Why? Where are you two staying?”

  “None of your damn business,” she answers for him.

  The door swings open, and without another word, Courtney slips through it.

  “Where are you staying?” I ask again.

  “There’s a warehouse downtown—abandoned, whatever. We’ve been camping out there.” He pauses from pacing the room and flashes me a crooked grin. “Why? Is your place better?”

  “Not for her, it isn’t.”

  “Come on, Maddy. Let’s not—”

  “Not what? Not talk about something that’s unpleasant for you?”

  His eyes soften. “I meant not now.”

  “Not now? Then when? We couldn’t do it during Keeper training. I missed you when they Vanished me from Sentinel City, and now a Zerker might come in the girls’ room any minute, so we can’t do it now. When are you going to break up with me, Dane? I mean officially?”

  He looks younger suddenly in his maroon uniform jacket. More vulnerable, though I know he’s not. Just the opposite, in fact.

  “It’s not like that, Maddy. I still have feelings for you.”

  “No, you don’t. If you did, if you ever did, you’d grow a pair and break it off now and quit making me do all the work.”

  He starts to speak, then simply nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry. About everything. You, me, Courtney, Val, your Dad, Vera, the way it went down back at Sentinel City. I wanted to be there. Really, I did. But my time isn’t my own anymore. I’m a Sentinel now. I have to go where they send me.”

  “And Courtney has to go where they send you too?”

  He nods.

  “Funny, Dane. I don’t remember Sentinels ever showing up with support before. Do you? At least not with girl support.”

  He shrugs. “It’s kind of your fault, actually. Ever since Barracuda Bay and what you did back there, and then Val and how you handled her, well, they’re planning to let girls do more around Sentinel City.”

  I throw my hands up. “Lucky me. I’m so glad I could make it so all the pretty young zombies get to come in and steal everyone’s Sentinel boyfriends. I am so proud of myself right now. You wouldn’t even believe it.”

  “It’s not like that. It wasn’t like that.”

  “Then how was it? Honestly, I’m curious.”

  Ugh, I hate myself right now. I sound so shrewish and petty and, worst of all, so desperate. But I can’t help it. It’s like I have to know, no matter how irrational I sound. He has to explain it so I can understand it, or it will never make sense.

  “I don’t know. It just happened, I guess.”

  I want to strangle him, hug him, choke him, and kiss him at the same time. How can he do this to me? How can Dane, whom I fought so hard for, whom I loved so hard, just walk away from it all so quickly? And expect me not to make a big deal out of it?

  I stand speechless, my back to the sinks. The bathroom door cracks open, and I slam it shut. Harder than I expected to. The sound echoes through the room, through the halls, through the whole school probably. I don’t care.

  Dane looks at me harshly. “Stop drawing attention to us. It’s called passing, remember?”

  “Yeah, Dane, I remember. ’Cause you taught me how to do it. Remember?”

  He straightens, getting ready to leave. “Yeah, well, a lot’s changed since Barracuda Bay.”

  “I guess so.”

  We stand there, hearing the mumbling outside.

  “What now?” I ask, holding it in place.

  “Now we go find the Zerkers and take them down.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, we. What, you’re going to let them turn a bunch of Normals just because you went and got yourself Vanished?”

  “I didn’t think I was allowed to do that anymore.”

  He smiles, breaking my heart all over again. “Yeah, well, I officially deputize you.”

  Chapter 28

  Brain Tease

  Lucy drives us home. She’s got a fairly newish car. At least it still smells new. Dark green, four doors, it’s a compact but feels bigger. A little sluggish on the gas for my taste, but zombie beggars can’t be ride-home choosers. I called shotgun because, hey, I found her first.

  Dane sits behind Lucy. Sorry, scratch that, rewind. Dane slumps behind Lucy, doing his best sullen teenager of the living dead act all too convincingly.

  It’s pretty frigid inside the car, and I don’t mean the temperature, although, yeah, clinically speaking, a commute home from sc
hool with two reanimated passengers is technically rather cold.

  We’ve left school too soon. That’s because no one listens to me. I told her to let some cars out first, let the traffic die down. But Lucy’s so anal, she just had to race out as soon as we were strapped in. Now we’re stuck in a long line, crawling away from Seagull Shores Prep down Pelican Row toward the main drag, where we’ll peel off on Wahoo Way and inch toward the house on Lumpfish Lane.

  We sit there, going nowhere fast. Dane slumps lower with each passing minute. Lucy nervously taps her steering wheel. I think idly how nice it would be to live somewhere without cheesy street names that don’t sound like they come straight off a bait store inventory list. It will probably never happen, but it would be nice for a change.

  Courtney is already at the house, watching over Stamp, and God knows what those two have been talking about since Dane gave her her walking papers during homeroom.

  I’ve kind of felt bad all day about the look on her face, trying to stay brave even as she knew it was a losing cause. The crumbling kind of disappointment flickering there, just below the surface as she turned from the door and did as Dane asked. The flash of anger at the way he turned back from her without another word, just expecting her to do his bidding.

  I’ve got no love for the kind of girl who will mack on your man and smile all the while, but I have just as little love for the guy who will turn around and treat you both like crap when it suits him. Dane was never supposed to be that guy.

  And even now, a part of me still thinks he isn’t. Despite all the evidence to the contrary.

  “Awkward much?” Lucy asks when no one’s talked for a few minutes.

  The radio is on but low, some classical, baroque, all-Vivaldi all-day BS station she’s got on her presets. I tried fiddling with it on the way to school, but they’re all adult-oriented anyway—smooth jazz and talk radio and that malt shop memories stuff Dad would listen to at his desk in the Cobia County Coroner’s Office—so I just leave it alone.

  “Sorry,” Dane says first, because I’m still too ticked at him to talk. To anyone. “I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been around a Normal.”