A Living Dead Love Story Series (41 page)

“Okay, yes, you're right.” But still he drives all hunched and sketchy.

Finally Stamp pulls off the second downtown exit and we follow, merging with the nightlife as old and young alike fight for parking spaces in the lively downtown district that blends both upscale bistros and cafés with trendy nightclubs and hookah bars.

We spot the club Stamp was squawking about over coffee: Spartans, which I guess has a kind of gladiator theme or something judging from the giant gold doors that look like shields, with swords for door handles, of course. Stamp parks, and we circle the block.

We park behind a bustling Cuban restaurant, which looks a ton more fun than stupid Spartans, let me tell you. I pump a ton of quarters in the hungry meter before we cling to the last of the line waiting to get into the club.

It's pretty obvious the rest of the kids are all mouth-breathing, pulse-pounding Normals: healthy skin, flushed cheeks, beads of sweat on their foreheads, bodies so warm and amped up on energy drinks I can feel the heat coming off them at three or four paces.

Stamp seems to know them all as he hustles and jives
with all kinds of freaks of nature, from the kid with the glittery green Mohawk to the chick with the shiny gold chain strung from her nose ring to her nether regions. (Not that I'm a prude, but attention-grab much?)

“This is worse than I thought,” Dane says, nodding toward Stamp, who's doing some elbow-cracking hand jive with another ghoul of the night. “Lucky they're all freaks, or he'd stick out like a sore thumb.”

“So maybe he hasn't been as careless as we thought.”

Dane doesn't look over when he says, “Maybe not, but it's not the crowd scenes I'm worried about so much as the after party, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, Dane, I know what you mean. You don't have to keep rubbing it in every night, okay?”

He senses my tone, as do a few of the Normals, and they all look my way. I peg the chick with the nose ring and say, “Yeah? What?”

She rolls her fake contacts and turns around, puffing heavily on a nasty clove cigarette that I'm tempted to shove down one of her lung holes.

Dane puts a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, hey, are you here to make a scene or what?”

“No,” I grumble. “But you've spent the last two nights reminding me Stamp has a ton of extracurricular activities and, well, it's not so easy to hear.”

He smirks. “Yeah, well, how do you think I felt while you two were going out?”

I groan. “It's not the same. You knew my heart was
with you. I don't know what Stamp's doing anymore. You and I never felt like strangers. With Stamp, that's all I—”

“There. Look. They're going in.”

I watch Val flirt with a giant bouncer in a toga as Stamp gives him one of those bro shoulder hugs before they quietly slip inside. The open door releases music so loud I can hear it from 10 couples back.

We wait, more anxious now than ever, as the huge bouncer in the tent-sized toga buddy-shakes and bro-hugs every man, woman, and child in line in front of us.

“Come on, come on,” Dane whispers tensely as we finally get close enough to make out the foil leaves woven into the big dude's fake crown. “Why does this guy have to write every couple a love letter?”

I watch as the freak with the nose chain leans in and whispers something to the bouncer, eyeing me with a look so chilly I'm tempted to check for frostbite. Then she smirks at him, and he nods knowingly before she sails right in.

Two couples later the bouncer looks at us. “Sorry, guys, club's full.”

The door is ajar, bass pumping out.

“I see plenty of room,” I say.

He slams the giant, shield-shaped door with one leather-sandaled foot. “I said the club's full.”

A dozen or more couples wait behind us, enjoying
the show. It's clear we're outsiders here, Dane and I, with our black jeans and leather jackets and nonspiky hair and no nose rings attached to our hoo-has.

Dane and I look at each other and smile. All the obstacles we thought were confronting us—losing Stamp and Val in traffic, expecting a recon team of Sentinels at every turn—and the biggest one turns out to be some bouncer in a toga?

Dane whispers, “Can you lend me a diversion for a few seconds?”

“Gladly.”

I turn to the emo Goth behind me, a mousy guy with a dyed black mop covering his left eye. “What are you looking at?”

“A couple of losers who can't get into the club.” He giggles.

His tall emo girlfriend with the skunk tail hanging out the back of her fishnet stockings whispers something in his ear.

I growl at her but turn just in time to see Dane leaning in to the bouncer, two fingers pinching the big guy's wrist.

The bouncer's face reddens, and his glistening forehead drips sweat. “Okay, okay.”

Dane releases him and grabs the giant gold door, swinging it open as if it were made of balsa wood and not 380 pounds of hammered brass.

“Thanks for your understanding.” I beam at the big
guy, who favors one wrist and uses his toga shoulder fabric to wipe his brow.

Inside it's clear the club is pretty sparsely populated. Either that or it's so damn big you could fit a million more kids inside and still not make a dent. White curtains billowing from the roof are tied to each wall with giant gold sashes. Cocktail waitresses in
much
tinier togas than the bouncer's dash from cluster of kids to cluster of kids, handing out earthen mugs foaming with dry ice inside. The dance floor is throbbing with colored lights and twisting bodies, and the DJ in the booth above wears a gladiator costume with sunglasses.

I don't see Stamp or Val anywhere, but it's hard to concentrate with so much stimuli from every corner of the club.

We can't hear much because the awful music is 15 times as loud as it should be, especially with our superzombie hearing powers.

“Ugh,” Dane says, bellying up to the neon-blue bar. “I'm so glad I died before clubs like this became popular.”

While he orders two sodas, I ignore him and watch for Stamp. It's hard to find him because he looks just like every other megadouche in the joint, down to the black-and-white stripes, spiky hair, skull rings, ridiculous white shades, and—

“There he is.” I nudge Dane.

He hands me my soda, and I sip it absently.

Dane's dressed simply in black jeans, black T-shirt, and a snug black leather jacket, the kind with white stripes down the arms. I like the way the rotating strobe glistens off his closely cut hair.

We slip on our sunglasses to fit in but mostly to add to the disguise.

Val and Stamp are talking to a bunch of identical-looking clowns, and she's whipping that sparkly red boa something fierce.

Stamp looks nervous, jumpy, and I can't tell if it's because he suspects we're onto him or if, like he implied at the café, he really is afraid of Val.

She certainly has him under her spell. That much is clear. He gets the drinks, pays, and brings them to her. He nods patiently, smiling appropriately while she talks. And talks and talks and talks.

“Is he even having any fun?” Dane says, leaning in close so that I can smell the fizzy soda on his cold tongue. “I mean, they all look like her friends.”

“They don't even look like her friends.” I walk toward them, Dane tagging along. “They look just like Stamp. They look like her servants.”

And that's when it hits me. They're not her friends. They're not even friends with each other. “Do they look familiar?” I say, flashing back to the map in his room.

I'm looking at one in particular, a vaguely Latin-looking dude in blue jeans and a long black coat that's too big.
He looks out of place, jumpy but eager to please, and young. So young.

And familiar. “Is that … Rudy Ortega?”

“Who?” he says, leaning in as I point toward the Latin kid.

“The missing kid from our apartment complex. You know, the one from the newspaper the other morning? He went out to get some bananas from that bodega across the street and never came back.”

He shakes his head but doesn't stop looking.

“And that girl next to him. The redhead with the sad eyes? She was one of your dots as well.”

“No, it can't be. You mean the nursing student from over by Sea World? Wendy … Wendy Schmaltz. That's it. Been missing for a month. But she looks so different now.”

“Yeah, well, compare Stamp's yearbook picture with how he looks tonight.”

He looks at me, and we look back to the small semicircle of club punks surrounding Val. There are five. Besides Rudy Ortega and Wendy Schmaltz, we can't name them. We'd need Dane's map for that. But this much is clear: all are young, all look out of place, and all are kissing Val's butt big-time. Just. Like. Stamp.

“I don't get it,” Dane says. “Why would the Sentinels be recruiting Normals? It doesn't make sense.”

“It makes perfect sense if Val's a Zerker.”

Dane slides his empty soda glass toward the bartender,
who's wearing a plastic Roman breastplate. “So you think Val met Stamp on the nightclub scene, figured out what he was, and started picking off kids who lived around him?”

“Well, if she was a lone Zerker without any backup and found that Stamp had two zombies for roommates, she might have wanted her own personal army to make sure she could take us all.”

“So you think that's why she hasn't made her move yet? She wants enough fellow Zerkers to make sure she's never outnumbered?”

I nod. Makes sense to me.

For a petite girl, Val has a pretty imposing, Zerker-like presence. In a way, she reminds me of the only other female Zerker I know—or knew. Dahlia.

Dahlia might have been compact, but she was fierce. Fierce in a way that went beyond her size or her status as one of the Living Dead. I'll never forget the last time we tussled or the look of murderous venom in her black, endless eyes.

And now I'm having some kind of déjà vu of the Living Dead. We're talking, this chick could be Dahlia's spirit sister.

Val's arms are firm, if a little on the slim side. And if you don't count that booty in her skirt, there's not an ounce of fat on her. The veins in her neck stand out when she laughs, and her eyes are fiercely alert. Too alert.

“Look out,” Dane says, but it's too late.

She's spotted me.

Or has she? I can't tell if she's looking at me or through me or if she'd even remember me in the first place. She brays laughter, looking away.

Stamp nods uncomfortably.

A few of Val's lackeys look our way, then past us, then back at us.

“False alarm?” I say.

Dane shrugs. “How should I know? Whatever she is, she's better at all this than—Shoot. Now Stamp's looking.”

“And whispering,” I add. “That creep—”

Dane's eyes are wide. “Yeah, that didn't look too obvious. Ooh, wait, they're coming over. Maddy, Maddy, look normal. Seriously.”

I turn to see Val leading her stiff lackeys plus Stamp, who trails along in the background reluctantly, looking all kinds of awkward.

“Maddy?” Val says in that throaty voice that always sends chills up my spine. “Dane? What are you guys doing here?” She turns to Stamp. “Did you … did you tell them we'd be here tonight?”

“You did,” Stamp says.

Val turns on him so quickly, so fiercely, that I flinch. Even Dane flinches.

“I mean, r-r-remember? At the café tonight, I heard
you ask Maddy if she—”

Val doesn't let him finish. Instead, she turns to us. “Last night you show up on my doorstep, and tonight you're here at the same club? If I didn't know any better, guys, I'd say you were following us.”

Dane and I share a glance, only to find Val's friends ambling toward us.

No, not just toward us. Around us.

Dane sees it too late.

By the time we're both alert, we're surrounded.

The Rudy kid from our complex is bulky in his big leather coat. There's glitter in his spiky hair but fear in his eyes.

Wendy, the would-be nursing student, looks thin but strong in a red leather jacket to match her flowing red hair.

The others cluster around, hulking and ready.

Val saunters through the center of the circle while lights throb and music pulses. I see her eyes are blue, then green, depending on the light. The lights move away. Under her obviously fake contacts, her eyes are flat, ugly, and … yellow.

We were right. Val's not a Sentinel. She's a Zerker.

“Back off!” Dane grunts, also sensing it. “Give us Stamp, take these others with you and get lost, and nobody gets hurt.”

“Silly boy. We're all zombies here in this circle.
Nobody gets hurt anyway.”

The music pounds, and the bar disappears into the background. Bodies flit by, half-naked, sweaty, glittery Normals oblivious to the Zombie-Zerker showdown among them. Somebody drops a drink, and none of it matters.

“Who are they?” Dane juts his chin toward Rudy, then Wendy.

They look back at him uncomfortably.

“What?” Val cackles, yanking Rudy so harshly the sunglasses fly off his head. “Don't you even remember your own neighbor?”

Rudy grunts, flashing yellow teeth that I swear contain bits of fresh brain.

She releases him, and he blends into the crowd of Zerkers at her back. “Took you long enough to come check me out,” Val says, nodding at Dane.

“Who says it's our first try?” he says.

“They do.” Val smiles triumphantly. “My little friends here have been watching you. What? You think I turned them just because I was hungry for a little human flesh? Trust me, I have way more discipline than that.”

“What do you want with Stamp?” I say, nodding in his direction.

Wait. He was just there, in the back slightly and to the left.

Or wait. Was he over there to the right?