Reanimated Readz

by Rusty Fischer

  The lights from above are bright, but I steal a glance past Mr. Jenner to Calvin as he approaches the microphone, and he looks bashful as usual, though of course he can’t blush.

  I’m lucky he still has to wear the green jacket with yellow stripes, even in a presidential debate, because if he’d been allowed to wear something natty like a black suit with a white shirt, all Men-in-Black style, I’d be dust already.

  Or that tan suit with the brown shirt, like he wore to our chorus recital last year. Oomph, look out. I’d have to concede right here. Careful, Tanner, careful. He’s a zombie, remember?

  I’m asked the first question. The moderator is Mrs. Halston, the librarian, and suddenly I wish I hadn’t called her “Mrs. Halitosis” that one time she asked me for a library pass in front of my girls, because I can sense the hostility before she even opens her mouth.

  Mrs. Halston is a thin woman in a pink suit, to match her pink lipstick and pink nails. She leans into the microphone in front of her and says, “Tanner, can you tell us why you decided to enter the race so late in the game?”

  I blink my eyes and clear my throat. Then I blink my eyes again. I wasn’t really expecting a question like that. World peace, the power of social media, politics—those, I was prepared for.

  I clear my throat again and say, “I entered the race well before the deadline, Mrs. Halston. Several days before final applications were due, in fact.”

  I smile to the scattered applause from the jock-block in the middle of the stands, trying not to notice that my friends are the only ones applauding. Or, for that matter, not openly sneering at me.

  Mrs. Halitosis gives her trademark pink lipstick a workout by smiling from ear to ear. “Actually, Tanner, I have your application right here…” —she pulls it off the cafeteria table she’s sitting at for dramatic effect— “and it’s dated the same day as the deadline for applications. Would you care to explain that?”

  I sneak a peek at Brody in the wings, and he’s shaking his head in the universal expression for PLEASE don’t go off on her! Please, PLEASE, please don’t go off on her!

  So I don’t. I don’t tell her it’s a stupid question. I don’t tell her I don’t see the point. I don’t tell her her breath stinks and everyone knows it. Instead I say, “I fail to see what that question has to do with my candidacy, Mrs. Halston. A deadline is a deadline, right? Why have them if they don’t count?”

  She smiles sweetly. “I think voters need to know whether or not their class president will do things ahead of time, or simply by the deadline, don’t you, Tanner?”

  Hoots and whistles greet Mrs. Halston’s statement. I try to find out where they’re coming from, but the lights are bright and by the time I think I’ve found the culprits, they’re silent again.

  I’m about to ask something clever like, “Is there a question in there somewhere?” when the buzzer to her right rings. She smiles and turns to Calvin, who gets the next question. “Calvin, how do you feel about running against your…ex-girlfriend?”

  I gasp, standing too close to the microphone. It echoes through the auditorium as the crowd waits anxiously to hear Calvin’s reply—and waits and waits. Like I said, zombies never do things quickly.

  As my heart beats double-time beneath my silk blouse, the crowd grows still and silent. You can hear a pin drop by the time Calvin speaks.

  “I love it,” he replies, turning to me and not Mrs. Halston. “This way, I still get to spend time with her.”

  Before the applause starts, there is a smattering of “aaaahhhsss,” some of them coming from the middle of the jock-block. I try to keep my smile plastered on, but it’s hard, especially when I sneak a peek at Calvin, who is looking at me with those gray eyes of his.

  He’s wearing the same hurt but understanding expression as he did when I broke up with him a few months back, and my heart does the same flip-flop then as it did now.

  He still can’t get it. He still hasn’t moved on. He still doesn’t understand that there’s no way, honestly no way, I could ever date a zombie.

  Then the buzzer rings and I turn to Mrs. Halston. She smiles back at me. “Tanner, I’ll ask you the same question: how does it feel to be running against your ex-boyfriend?”

  “It’s not easy,” I say, facing the audience again. “But I felt it was necessary to run against Calvin in…the best interest of our school.”

  There is no applause this time. They’re not even trying to pretend to like me anymore.

  Mrs. Halston cocks her head to one side. “Could you elaborate, Tanner?”

  “Sure.” I smile, happy for the chance to finally speak my mind freely. “It’s clear that this school is in the grips of some type of…fad…where zombies are suddenly cool and that’s why Calvin is so popular. I’m here to remind students that when the dust settles, when the fad is over, there will still be a president—a human president—who can get things done quickly and decisively.”

  There is a smattering of applause this time, but a few “boos” as well. Okay, well…more than a few. A lot more. Mrs. Halston reminds me, “You know, Tanner, that since the third addendum to the Reanimation Reform Act, zombies are technically considered ‘human.’ Would you care to rephrase your answer?”

  I shrug and face the wall of silence that is the Hillcrest High auditorium. “Not really. I said I was a ‘human,’ and that’s still correct, right?”

  Mrs. Halston purses her lips, waits for the buzzer, and then turns to Calvin. “Calvin, do you have anything to say to the zombies in the audience this afternoon?”

  Calvin’s face lights up, and my heart stings a little to see the humanity return to his cheekbones, and especially his eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that he was still a human. But he’s not, not really.

  His voice is calm and clear as he replies. “Yes, I do.” Then he pauses and looks up at the hundred-plus zombies sitting in the nosebleed section, way up there in the top left corner. “I hope you’ll vote for me because even if we lose, it will mean we’re still a part of the student body. And I think that this year, our first full year allowed back to school—that’s the most important thing.”

  Now kids are losing their minds, standing up, whooping, hollering—and we’re not just talking zombies. My heart sinks to see the in-crowd, my crowd, taking a stand as well. I give Brody a panicky glance as he lurks in the wings, but he just stands there, his smile frozen on his face, with a thumb only halfway up.

  For the first time all campaign, his clipboard is nowhere to be found.

  What can that mean? When a campaign manager ditches his clipboard? That can’t be good, can it?

  A buzzer shocks me back to center stage, where Mrs. Halston is looking at me expectantly. “Tanner, for our final question, I’ll give you a chance to respond: what would you like to say to the zombies in our audience today?”

  Witch! Somehow I knew that was coming. I clear my throat and stare directly at the zombies in the top left corner of the audience. My smile feels sticky and cold as I open my mouth. “I don’t want anyone to think that a vote for Tanner McBride is a vote against the zombies,” I begin. “I really do have your best interests at heart. Someday, yes, a zombie will be able to hold student office, but for now…I honestly believe the only real candidate is a human candidate.”

  You can hear a cricket chirp in response, but I’m glad because at least they’re not booing…yet. Oh wait, I forgot how slow they are. Here come the boos now, soft and low, more like a groan.

  Some are faster, because they’re human. Louder, too.

  “Calvin,” Mrs. Halston is asking my opponent. “Any last thoughts on what Tanner has to say?”

  Calvin rolls up one of his green sleeves. He does that when he gets nervous. He did that on my front stoop, in fact, the first time he asked me out. He looks at me, bites his thin gray lip and says, “I believe Tanner is sincere about wanting what’s best for…us.”

  Pause. “But….” And here it comes. “But…as a zombie, I don’t
need anyone to take care of me anymore.”

  And that’s that. Boom, smash, crash…down come the rafters. I’m sunk. I know it. Right there, the zombie did it. I sneak a peek at Brody, who literally has his hands up in defeat. I start to walk off the stage and he mouths the words, Q and A like fifteen times in rapid succession. “Q and A! Q and A! Don’t forget the Q and A!”

  I frown and turn back to the audience.

  By the time I do, I see a string of zombies, maybe a dozen, maybe two, lined up at their microphone at the bottom of the bleachers. Mrs. Halston stands primly from her seat at the foot of the stage and pivots primly to face them.

  She takes the mic from its holder and points it in the face of the first zombie, a junior by the name of Carl Gaff. He used to play for the soccer team before Congress vetoed the Living Dead in Sports Act earlier this year.

  He is short and slight and swimming in his green jacket, which only seems to come in one size: XXL. He looks at me calmly and says, slowly, deeply, but quite seriously, “What qualifications do you have that Calvin doesn’t?”

  Before I can hear Brody’s voice screaming in my head, I snap out the first thing that comes to mind. “I can read, for one.”

  There is dead silence in the auditorium as Carl Gaff looks at me. I cringe, expecting the place to boo, to erupt, to storm the stage and tear me limb from limb. What I get is even worse.

  “That’s it?” he asks.

  I don’t think he really meant it as a joke but the audience laughs, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

  All except for the zombies, but that’s only because they’re still busy lining up to ask questions. One by one, they get in line, until the steps leading down from their section are full, and then they line up, side by side, very orderly like, two by two, side by side, a sea of green jackets and yellow teeth patiently waiting their turns.

  I look at them. Green jackets, yellow stripes down each sleeve, dark hair, dark eyes, gray skin, patient, slow, and eager for a chance at the microphone.

  I don’t give it to them. I don’t care if it costs me the election, I don’t care if I look like a clown. I don’t care about anything anymore than getting off that stage.

  Immediately.

  Brody is there, waiting for me, as I collapse into his arms, trembling, quaking, crying. Crying. Over…zombies! Somehow he gets me out of the auditorium, out of school, without being seen.

  But the damage is already done. I can see it in his eyes as he drives me home.

  “Listen,” he says, poking his head out of the passenger side window while his car idles at my curb. “You did your best. It’s a zombie world now, Tanner. All we can do is live in it.”

  ***

  “Mind if I have a seat?”

  It’s two days later and I’m out on the quad, under a tree, facing away from the cafeteria because, duh, nobody in their right mind will sit with me. I have an apple in my hand and am still chewing the bite I took a minute ago. It’s warm and it’s sour, and I’d spit it out if he wasn’t standing right there.

  I start to say something, then just nod. Calvin, wearing white jeans, sits. Before I can stop myself I say, “You’re going to get grass stains, you know?”

  He smirks that smirk. “Then it’ll match my jacket, right?”

  I finally swallow my bite and put the apple back in the little brown bag. It’s all that was in there. I haven’t been eating much, ever since I lost the election.

  Calvin just sits quietly, empty hands in his lap. The zombies don’t eat at school. They get their brains elsewhere, thank you very much. Medically approved brains, from what I understand. Carefully labeled, in a Tupperware container, with a spork. All strictly legal, thanks to the government.

  No more munching on random strangers’ heads, like back in the beginning.

  “Congratulations,” I finally say after an awkward pause. Not because he’s expecting me to, but because I wanted to. Sort of. Actually. In a weird way.

  “You really mean that?” he asks.

  I chuckle like he used to make me in the old days. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “You should let some people hear you say that,” he suggests in his slow, faltering way. “You might have more company at lunchtime.”

  “Them?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at the jock crowd eating happily in the cafeteria. “They can have each other.”

  He nods. His hair is cut close and tight to his scalp. It looks good that way: severe, strong.

  “So…what now?”

  “Why do you care?” I blurt, sounding meaner—and louder—than I actually intended. “I mean, are you really this good a person, Calvin? You should be hating me something major right now, about what I said about you at the debate. How I acted. Do you really care what happens to me, of all people, now?”

  He seems hurt. “Of course I do.” He sounds offended I would even ask. “I always have, Tanner.”

  “Even after what I did to you? I mean, before the election, before they let you back into school?”

  “I may not be able to read,” he cracks, “but I knew what you meant.”

  I sit there, two feet from him, knees almost touching, and think back to that day when I came to see him at the Zombie Re-Education and Transition Center downtown. It used to be a hospital, and it still smelled like one. I was his only visitor, the first and last, before they let him back into school.

  His family was gone, his mother and little brother wiped out in the Great Zombie Infestation of 2017. I’d only lost my dad, so compared to him I was lucky. I was also human. Sorry. Mortal.

  And the things I said to him there, out of anger, out of disgust, they make my face burn even now. “How?” I snort, the first tear falling. “How can you care about…me?”

  “I care because I know you don’t hate me, Tanner.” His voice is soft and slow, so listening to him is like listening to one of those relaxation CDs with the rainforest or snow-melting sounds.

  “I care because I knew even when you broke up with me, at the Center, you didn’t hate me. You hated the way the world is now. You hated losing your dad, and how your mom shut down after losing your dad. Like now, you’re just scared. From that time on, you’ve just been scared. But that’s just it, Tanner. I’m scared, too.”

  I snort. “Look at you, Calvin. You’re indestructible. You can’t feel pain. You’re immortal, for Pete’s sakes. What could you possibly be afraid of?”

  Calvin’s eyes soften and his lips part.

  “Life without you, for one.”

  He stands then, slowly, like he does everything, and turns away. I watch him walk, smirking through my tears at the grass stains on the butt of his white jeans.

  I may be the most unpopular girl in school at the moment, but suddenly I don’t feel so alone anymore.

  My Brother, My Zombie

  A Reanimated Readz Story

  By

  Rusty Fischer

  There is a big rock a quarter mile from the checkpoint, and I tell Sam to sit. Literally. “Sit,” I say, like you would to a dog. He knows six commands. This is the first, and most common, of them.

  It’s amazing how often you have to remind them to sit. They’ll just stand all day if you let them. I don’t care for him so much, because he never gets tired, but it’s irritating as hell for me.

  It’s like that friend who always reads over your shoulder when you’re checking out the new Teen Beat in the library before homeroom, only you’ve lived down the street from her since you were like, five, and you know no matter what you say now she’s never going to stop.

  Sam smiles and sits. He looks nice in his cargo pants with all the pockets up and down the sides, and the stiff lumberjack flannel shirt over his plain white T-shirt.

  I can’t do much about the glazed look in his eyes, the marble-slab pallor, or the yellowing teeth, but at least his clothes are new and clean and pressed. Well, at least, they were before the six miles we had to walk to reach the first checkpoint.

  Sam is gentle, no
w, because I’ve been feeding him every few miles. If I hadn’t, if he was hungry, he’d be snarly and snappy and not so quick to mind me. His clothes might be torn and his eyes might be wild and his nostrils might be flaring at the scent of blood pumping through my veins. But he’s full, mostly, so he’s been behaving for the most part.

  I feed him now, strips of bloody, raw meat from a Tupperware container in my backpack. We’re getting low. Only six strips left. But it’ll be fine once we pass the last checkpoint. He can misbehave all he wants in the Z-Zone, and nobody will be able to touch him.

  Not anybody human, anyway.

  Around us the town of Sable Bluff is quiet, almost…peaceful. There are fewer people now that school is out, and work is out, and this far out of town, the streets are fairly empty.

  It’s better this way. Fewer people to point and stare; fewer people to heckle and throw things at Sam.

  He eats hungrily, taking each strip from my hand like I taught him.

  “Slow,” I say firmly. It’s the second command. He does everything so slow now, ever since, well…it happened. Everything but eating, that is. He could take three hours to walk a block, but three seconds to eat a side of beef. So when it comes to his daily feedings, I have to force him to take his time. “Slow.”

  He nods and chews steadily, a drop of cheap cow blood on his pale, stubbly chin. His eyes are dark, almost gray, where once they were such a vivid, striking blue. Of all the changes he’s been through, it’s his eyes I miss the most. Well, that and his soul, his friendship, his laughter, but…it’s best not to dwell on all that.

  His hair is stubbly, too, black bristles against his cold, pale skin.

  While he’s busy chewing, I touch the side of his head lightly. He pauses, wary, almost feral, nostrils widening, but the power of the meat, the hunger for constant blood nourishment deep in his cells, is too much. He abides my touch and returns to his steady, almost rhythmic chewing.