The sirens, or maybe Sam, bring the first of the undead. Squalid things, wiry and lean and more green than gray. They look at Sam hungrily, until they stop short and realize…he’s one of them.
There is a moment there, only one, maybe two, where Sam and I lock eyes, where his eyes bulge and he realizes what he’s done, that we’re done, that we’ll never see each other again.
And then it’s gone, like so many of the stolen moments we’ve had in the last three months. The half-smiles, the awkward glances, the misinterpreted gestures, the grins that could just be gas, the nudges that could have just been Sam bumping into me, ’cause he’s awkward like that.
But this glance, this look, this exchange, I believe.
I have to. What else to do I have left?
Finally he stands, grunts, growls, and joins the living dead, stumbling off, shuffling deeper, deeper into the Z-Zone until the last I see of him is him tearing away the red and black flannel shirt I made him wear that morning.
It flutters to the ground, an afterthought, unnecessary and something left better behind him. Like me.
~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~
A former public school teacher, Rusty Fischer has written for such educational magazines as Learning, The Mailbox and Teaching K-8. Now a full-time freelance writer, Rusty is the author of several YA supernatural novels for Decadent Publishing, including Ushers, Inc. and Panty Raid at Zombie High, as well as the Reanimated Readz series of 99-cent zombie short stories. You can read more about his current and upcoming projects, and download FREE zombie stories, at zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com
Reanimated Readz Page 8
