by Stacey Longo
“Taaa unhhh,” she said, beaming as she opened the bag. That’s so sweet!
As Blossom and Mickey flirted, I spotted a figure wearing a turquoise head kerchief by the port-a-potties, smoking a cigarette. Jillian? my mind nudged, but I knew it couldn’t be.
“Uh, guys, wait here a minute,” I said, then crossed the field.
As I got closer, I made out the blonde curls beneath the turquoise. It was Jillian’s sidekick, and I instantly regretted strolling over. “I need to pee,” I said hastily, trying to step past her. All three of the port-a-potties showed Occupied on the handles. Damn.
“Hey,” the girl said. “Listen.”
“No, you listen,” I started, but she cut me off.
“Shut up. I’m trying to apologize. Don’t be a jerkbag about it, okay?”
“What?”
The girl took a deep drag, exhaling slowly. She pursed her lips, blowing out a smoke ring. Then she surprised me with a wistful smile. “Jillian taught me that.”
“Uh, cool?” Should I stay? Run? Was she about to put out her cigarette in my eye?
“I’m Kiki,” she said.
“Oh.” Maybe not run, then. If nothing else, if she attacked me, I could make fun of her name as I was getting pummeled.
“Jillian was one of my best friends, you know? I loved her like a sister.” I opened my mouth to argue—I hated it when people said that, because they didn’t know what sisterhood was really like—but she held up a hand. “I don’t have a lot of friends, okay? She was pretty much it. The other girls, we hang out, but I think they’re just nice to me because I have a car.”
I could hear the loneliness in her voice. I nodded.
“So, uh, when Jillian was killed . . . you gotta understand. Your sister’s the only zombie in town—at least, everybody thought she was. You can see how—” her voice faltered.
“Not really,” I said. “If you’d spent two minutes talking to me or Blossom, you’d know she’s never killed anyone. Not all zombies are murderers, you know.”
“I know. I’m sorry, okay? That’s what I’m trying to say.” A fat tear rolled down Kiki’s cheek. “Like I said, Jillian was my only friend. And maybe she wasn’t the nicest person, but she laughed at my jokes, and seemed to like hanging out with me. So when she said your sister was bad news, I believed her. I . . . maybe I shouldn’t have.”
I wanted to throw back something smart, like yeah, maybe you shouldn’t’ve, but she looked so sad. Alone. I felt a twinge of pity for her. My friends were waiting for me. Kiki appeared to be hanging out solo.
“Hey, okay. No worries. Water under the bridge, right?” I smiled. I was all for new beginnings. “You want to come sit with me and my friends?”
“Oh, God, no, loser. We’re not”—she straightened her shoulders, dropping her cigarette and crushing it with her heel—“we’re not friends now, you and me. All I’m saying is I’ll leave you alone. And your sister. Truce?”
My cheeks burned, and I felt a little stupid for feeling bad for her. “Fine. Truce, troll.”
I spun to leave, then felt her hand on my arm. “Hey . . . thanks for asking. We’re never speaking of this again, though, right?”
“Right.”
I joined Mickey and Blossom again, who both gave me quizzical looks. “She’s leaving you alone from now on, Bloss,” I said by way of explanation. We walked around for a bit, looking at the arts and crafts, then stopped at a picnic table to eat fried dough and gray matter.
“So,” Mickey said, “have things calmed down at your house?” He snuggled up next to Blossom and held her hand.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, licking the powdered sugar off my fingers. “Mom’s been visiting Andrea over at Bleak House, trying to help her look, you know . . . less rotted. She says it’s a challenge.” Blossom nodded in agreement. Compared to Andrea, Blossom was a low-maintenance beauty queen, and she knew it. It was probably the first time in a long while my sister felt that way, and I was sure it felt good.
Mom had been putting in a lot of time at Bleak House, donating hours helping the patients on the hoodoo wing. “It’s amazing what the people at the facility there are trying to do. They’re really trying to improve the quality of life for the undead,” she’d said. “They have cooking classes, and a marble league.” Mom had stopped to laugh. “Some of the zombies use their own eyeballs. I suppose it’s sick, but they really get into it. The pet therapy project didn’t work out so well, though.” I’d raised my eyebrows when she’d mentioned it. “It’s not what you think. The dogs kept snatching up loose bones from the more deteriorated patients and burying them,” she explained.
Mom was excited about the work being done at the facility. “You know, Jas, your father and I aren’t going to be around forever. If I can help make it a better place now, it might be something to consider for Blossom in the future. What’s going to happen when we’re gone?”
That wasn’t something I wanted to think about, but Mom didn’t have to worry. I’d take care of my big sister, no question about it. She was my best friend.
“Glaah bagalaagh,” Blossom said, pointing to her mouth. Mom’s working on some teeth for me, too.
“Yeah, that’s right. Mom’s been experimenting with hard cheeses and birch bark to make teeth for Blossom. It’s a work in progress,” I added, grinning at my sister. She smiled back. Teeth or not, dead or undead, she looked beautiful.
Nanette chose that moment to appear, pushing Jordan in his wheelchair. “Hey, guys! Thought we might run in to you here! It is, after all, the social event of the season.” She slid on the bench next to me and pulled a hunk of powdery dough off of my paper plate. “Rotten luck about Andy, Jas. Sorry your boyfriend turned out to be the Frankenstein Killer.”
“I’ve learned my lesson,” I said, offering a piece of fried dough to Jordan before finishing it off. “It’s going to be quite a while before I trust a guy enough to date him. Nope, I’m sworn off love.” Not that it mattered much—I was sure none of the guys at Glastonbury High would want to date me now. I’d seen the looks I’d been getting in the halls. When you date a serial killer, sometimes people think the crazy might have rubbed off on you.
I could become a nun, I mused. Then I’d have an excuse for not having a date to prom. Plus, the wardrobe’s easy to maintain. I could have a month of bad hair days, and nobody’d know but me and the big guy upstairs.
“Hey, there’s Beki. Beki!” Nanette shouted, waving. Beki loped over in her easygoing stride, trailed by a redheaded guy with a buzz cut and a sprinkle of freckles over his nose.
~~**~~
“Hey, guys! Here you are. We’ve been walking around this place forever.”
“We just got here three minutes ago,” the guy with the freckles said.
“Shut up, Luke. So, everyone, this is my cousin. Luke, this is everyone.”
I smiled shyly into his chocolaty brown eyes. “Hi. Where’re you from?” I asked curiously.
“Hebron,” Luke said, and then, seeing my puzzled look, “just one town over.” He grinned at me, making his nose crinkle adorably. “What’s your name?”
Perhaps I was being too hasty with the nun thing, I thought, and leaned in to flash him my most irresistible Hamilton smile.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My big sister, Kim, has been my best friend all my life. When I was a child, she was my hero; as teenagers, while I was a jangly basket case of self-doubt and bad hair days, Kim was cooler than a soft-serve cone. As an adult, I marvel at her calm, no-nonsense demeanor. You see, I am an easily excitable, high-nonsense type of person, and that we come from the same gene pool defies all logic.
I’ve written a few books in a few different genres. I’d had a mystery percolating in my thoughts for some time, but the mystery needed to be solved by a team, and I couldn’t quite come up with who they should be. Around this time, my sister and I took a trip out to Glastonbury (yes, it’s a real place, though no zombies reported as of late) to visit Whole Foods. On the driv
e home, while we conversed on how decent and morally superior (and smug and self-righteous, we should’ve added) one feels after shopping at Whole Foods—after all, their products are all recycled, magically good for you, and shopping there feels like you’re doing something proactive for Mother Nature herself—a suicidal toad flung itself into my front wheel. It was the biggest darn toad I’d ever seen—the thud was sickening, and I’m lucky it didn’t knock my alignment out of whack.
We laughed so hard we had to pull over to vomit from all the giggling.
It was that—the bond of sisterly love, our identical high-pitched, wheezing hee-ee-eees, that I wanted to capture in My Sister the Zombie.
It took me no more than a day to work this out. “I’m three thousand words into a new story,” I told Kim that afternoon (we talk just about every day).
“Mmm-hmm.” She was excited. She’s very supportive of my writing, being the awesome big sister she is. “What’s it about?”
“Us!” I was so proud. “It’s these two sisters, and one of them is accused of murder, and they have to work together to figure out who the real killer is.”
“Mmm-hmm.” (I started to suspect she was only half listening. Quite frankly, I was expecting a tad more enthusiasm.)
“And the big sister saves the day,” I added.
“Huh!” (Seriously, was she painting her toenails or something? What could possibly be more interesting than this book I was working on?)
“Also, the big sister is a zombie and everyone thinks she’s the killer. You’re cool with that, right?”
Silence.
“Okaygottagobye.” I hung up before she could answer, but I was confident her response would be an enthusiastic “Mmm-hmm”—you know, if she ever decided to speak to me again.
This book has gone through its share of tribulations on the perilous path to publication: a shady press I had to buy the rights back from; a metamorphosis from novella to young adult novel to illustrated YA novel; that sort of thing. It’s been a long road getting to this point, and I wouldn’t have gotten here without the help and support of a few people:
My writers’ group friends Melissa Crandall, John Valeri, Dan Foley, and the amazingly talented Terry George, who provided the artwork; Vlad V., Ursula Wong, David Daniel, and the unparalleled Rob Smales, who did the heavy lifting editing this novel, plus pulled double duty as cheerleader when I was ready to give up; Kristi Petersen Schoonover, Rob Watts, and Gene Munson, all fabulous writers who provided moral support along the way.
My family: Jason, my parents, and of course the Kane family—Tim, Nathan, Evan, and my big sister Kim. While they all inspired me, this story is nothing else if not a thank you and I love you to Kim, for being my BFF all through our childhoods on through adulthood . . . and for reminding me that laughing over a suicidal toad does not make one a bad person.
About the Author
Stacey Longo is an award-winning writer and editor who will tell you she writes horror, but has garnered respect as both a young adult author and humor columnist. Her novels include Ordinary Boy, nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016, and My Mom, MS, and a Sixth-Grade Mess, one in a series of books written in honor of her friend Renee and to help raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
A former humor columnist for the Block Island Times, she maintains a weekly humor blog at staceylongo.com.
Longo resides in Connecticut, only eight miles down the road from her big sister.
