A Living Dead Love Story Series (43 page)

And that makes a 175-pound, six-dollars-an-hour security guard who's just been turned into a Zerker your worst. Frickin'. Nightmare.

I look around for something to defend myself with—a fire alarm axe, the bar off a kiddy swing set, a discarded Popsicle stick—but there's nothing.

Dane drags me to the nearest gift shop. With one thwack of his boot, he sends the front door's glass cob-webbing and smashing to the ground.

We stand back as the white, frosty shards rain to the concrete.

The guard hears it and turns.

We're inside, tossing shelves and stuffed orcas.

Dane finds something he obviously thinks will snuff out a newly reanimated zombie with the least effort. He's smiling, hands behind his back so I can't see his big discovery.

I'm thinking a medieval sword or a spear studded with shark's teeth or one of those tridents that Poseidon dude uses—now that is some Zerker-killing mojo right
there. Then he tosses me whatever he's been hiding.

I catch it and immediately roll my eyes. A brass dolphin statue?

“Hold it like this,” he says, palming a granite base and wrapping his fingers around the dolphin's thin tail.

I have to admit, it does look pretty lethal the way he's holding it.

“And jab it like … this!” He uses a stuffed manatee to make his point, spearing its defenseless nose with the tip of the dolphin's snout (beak?) until the poor manatee's stuffing lies all over the floor at our feet.

Glass crunches behind us.

I turn, instinctively doing as Dane says and shoving the dolphin's beak into the guard's face.

Teeth crunch and tongue tears until the statue is wedged in the guard's jaw so tightly it won't budge. His mouth is wide open, the underside of the base poking out as his fingers claw at the statue. His yellow eyes widen, and thick goo gurgles out around the statue.

The guard backpedals through the broken glass. His anxious attempts to rip the brass statuette from his mouth only shove it in deeper.

It should've been a kill shot. And it would've been, except for the tiny little fact that, like zombies, Zerkers are already dead. He could live like that for days. Weeks.

It's knock out the brain or keep fighting the Zerker.

“Throw me another one.” I sigh.

Dane does but shakes his head. “Okay, fine, but don't do that anymore. We can't lug brass dolphins all over the park all night!”

The guard tosses his head to and fro, desperate to dislodge the dolphin from his cracked and crumbling dentures.

Dane sneaks up behind him, knocking over a stack of postcards in the process, and shoves his own dolphin's beak into the Zerker's right temple, unleashing a geyser of black goo.

It does the job. Down goes the guard, never to rise again.

Dane wipes gore on his black jeans and looks up at me, hands on his knees. “She must have turned the security guards,” he says, overstating the obvious.

I cluck my tongue. “It must be nice to have no conscience. You can just turn random, innocent people like Rudy and Wendy and security guard guy here into your own mobile army. Forget Rudy's parents or Wendy's boyfriend or this poor dude's family.”

“She's a Zerker, Maddy. What'd you expect?”

I ignore him and keep walking, feeling ridiculous but much safer with my pointy dolphin beak held high.

We go deeper into the park, expecting Zerker guards to pop out from every water fountain, picnic bench, or restroom. Splash Zone is huge, by the way, and full of the dripping of hoses and tanks and drying slides.

There are no footprints to guide us, no spiky Stamp
hair to follow, just this endless, giant water park and the smiling faces of stuffed dolphins and penguins and sharks staring out from every snack bar and gift shop window.

We walk purposefully to clear each area in turn. First the kiddy slides, then the food court, then the arcade, and then the seal show. We expect to find Stamp at every one.

We don't. Not yet. We're walking toward the starfish pond when I hear slapping behind me, like flippers or wet socks.

I look back.

Behind us waddles a dolphin trainer, still stuffed in her neon-blue wet suit and black flippers. Her skin is cement gray, and her eyes are yellow. Blood's mixed into her seaweed-green ponytail, which rasps across her rubber shoulders with every step.

“Maddy,” Dane shouts, but he's too far away to help.

Dolphin trainer flounders toward me.

I crouch behind the nearest turtle shell—shaped trash can and take aim at her knee. The minute she pops into view, I kick out until my shoe connects in a bone-crunching snap.

Dolphin trainer goes down. She's still too fresh to be able to speak but well past feeling anything like pain. Her expressionless eyes look past me, a fiery yellow but blank and dead inside. Dry blood cakes her teeth as she
looks around, openmouthed.

I know I can't feel, that I'm not supposed to feel, but still my heart seems hollow when I think about what's about to come.

What they never show you in the monster movies is how hard it is to kill someone—something—that still looks human.

A vampire has fangs. No problem: stake through the heart.

A werewolf has fur. No worries: pop a silver cap in that ass.

Frankenstein has bolts on his neck.

A mummy has miles of TP.

But a zombie?

How do you kill a humble security guard? Some missing kid from your own hood? A cheerleaderrific dolphin trainer who probably grew up running a petting zoo in her backyard every summer just for fun?

“Maddy!”

The dolphin trainer spots Dane and growls, her shattered kneecap tearing through the blue rubber of her suit as she struggles to stand.

“I know. All right,” I shout, madder at him than I am at this poor stranded Zerker. “Just—I got this!”

Images of undead footballers and reanimated cheerleaders and Zerker Home Ec teachers back in the Barracuda Bay High gym flood my mind as I yank the
dolphin trainer's ponytail back and shove the dolphin beak through her left eye, digging deep until I'm sure her brains are permanently scrambled.

I yank the statue out and watch her writhe on the concrete, right flipper kicking in a chlorinated puddle until it stops. Forever.

“What'd Val do? Turn everybody left in the park?” Dane huffs, standing next to me with an arm over my shoulders.

“That's what you get for working overtime,” I say humorlessly, taking no joy in wiping an innocent woman's gray matter off on my own black jeans.

We walk on now, gore under our fingernails, smelly water beneath our feet.

Overhead a speaker squawks, and Val's voice bellows, “Warmer, kids. You're getting warmer.”

Dane looks up immediately, as if perhaps Val is a fairy-zombie-mother floating above and he can knock off one of her wings with his brass statuette. Of course that witch is safe, probably in some invisible DJ booth, noshing on some innocent security guard's cerebellum while we stumble around looking for Stamp.

“We should split up,” I say. “You go find her. I'll go find—”

“No damn way.” Dane speeds up a little. “You don't know what's waiting for you at the end of this ride, and I'm not letting you go it alone anymore. That's what got
Stamp into this mess in the first place. We abandoned him.”

I nod and follow him. I wonder if he's right. If we'd be here now if we had tailed Stamp 24/7 since we got to Orlando. But how? How do you protect someone who doesn't want to be protected?

And what kind of Afterlife is it when all you do every day is look over your shoulder for the next Sentinel, the next Zerker, the next random thug to hunt you down?

Another squawk, and this time I'm near enough to a light pole to see a speaker clamped to it high overhead. It's white and boxy, but there's no doubt. That's where Val's voice is coming from.

“Warmer,” Val croaks. And then, as if we're some kind of dense or something, she starts humming the theme song from
Jaws:
“Duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh-duh-duh …”

And just as I'm about to toss my brass dolphin statuette at the damn speaker, I turn the corner and see a sign that says Teeth Time. The letters are red with blood drips down the sides, and the sign is shaped like a giant shark's jaw. You know, the kind they always have in pictures.

I hear the splashing, see the fresh puddles, and know Stamp is in the shark tank even before Val says, “Very good, kids. Hurry up now. He only has a minute or two left.”

But she's lying.

Stamp is already half gone by the time we get to him.

T
eeth Time is
like a giant pool. Metal stands surround it, and one of those movie theater ropes zigs and zags to keep the guests' lines from getting too chaotic. A small booth has an empty cash register and a sign: Shark Chow: $25. It sounds steep, but that includes 15 minutes in a shark cage where, next to a certified dive instructor, kiddies and grownups alike can feed real, live sharks.

The cage is empty. I'd hoped Stamp might be there, safe, even if submerged and surrounded by sharks. Sharks who couldn't get to him.

The pool itself is alive with activity, gray water rippling and bits of fabric and worse clinging to the white-capped waves.

Fins puncture the surface of the saltwater tank, making it hard to see Stamp through the ripples and the
black goop that is zombie blood. But there he is, finally, secured to the bottom of the shark tank with what look like cinder blocks and bike chains.

It's not being underwater that's threatening him. We don't need to breathe, so big whoop. It's the damn sharks circling him, some close, some not so close, all interested. They are sleek and slippery and brown or gray. They're not big, like movie sharks, but their teeth are.

I can see the black-and-white stripes of Stamp's hoodie and the saucers of his eyes as his mouth moves and nothing, not even bubbles, comes out.

I crumple beside the tank, looking for an opening, letting my dolphin statuette clatter to the wet concrete. It's no use now. You can't stab a shark with that and watch it die. They're like the Living Dead but not actually.

Six sharks circle Stamp, their fins slippery, their jaws chomping. And then I notice why. There are parts of Stamp inside.

“Dane,” I shout helplessly even though he's kneeling right next to me. Suddenly I'm kicking off my shoes. I don't know why I do that except it's what you do when you go swimming, right? I'm hysterical, shouting as I leap toward the water.

Rough hands snatch me back before I can even get wet, then toss me 10 feet onto the concrete.

I rush back, full steam.

Dane literally pile drives me into the ground. “Stop! Maddy. Back. Off.”

“We can't let him die like that.” I shove with all my might and manage, with two knees and one well-placed elbow, to get Dane off me.

“We have to,” he says from behind.

Something clatters to the ground.

I look closely to see Dane grabbing a copper stake from the rubber handle end, where it's safe for him to touch.

“W-w-where did that come from?” I stumble toward the shark tank.

“I always keep one handy, Maddy.” He hoists it high.

Now it's serious. One touch from the copper business end, and that's it. It's lights out, Maddy. And I can't have that. I need to get in that water and tear those sharks in half. He has to understand that.

“Dane, just, it's
my
choice. You couldn't control Stamp. You can't control me!”

“No,” he says as he inches toward the edge of the tank. “I can't control you, but I can save you.”

“Just, okay, just let me see him, okay?”

He holds the copper stake close. It's about the size of a fireplace poker, and I wonder whether he hid it up his sleeve or down his pants. I see the protective leather cover lying on the ground next to his feet and wonder why I never noticed it before.

Water splashes me as I reach the edge of the tank. A shark's tail flaps at the surface, and his jaw clamps down, tearing something off Stamp's body.

I yelp and turn away, then turn back. I peer into the
water, feeling Dane's hand on my collar, and try to find Stamp's eyes. But there is too much tissue in the water, making it cloudy, too much swirling around.

I'm not doing it. I'm not sitting here while Stamp gets pulled to pieces. I yelp and leap.

Dane yanks me back again, tossing me to the floor and sticking the business end of the copper stake deep in my throat.

I gurgle and grind and hear a molar crack in my mouth, and then the lights go out.

I
wake dripping
wet but not because I've made it into the tank.

My head pounds like someone is beating a drum inside, a side effect of the copper short-circuiting my electrical system and shutting me down cold so that, in effect, my zombie brain's had to reboot for me to wake up.

Dane and I call it a copper hangover, usually laughing because we're not on the hangover end.

Right now I feel dead. Deader, I guess, than usual.

I blink, the blurry frame gradually coming into focus but slowly. So slowly.

My clothes are soaked. That's the first thing I notice. But also the dripping of water from, well, everywhere. There is a flapping sound everywhere I turn, like someone's just dumped a bucket of fresh fish onto a dock.

I blink to see the sky, yellow with my zombie vision. My joints are sore from the copper hangover.

A shark is next to me in the open air, tail flipping, eyes gone white. It's clearly dead, impaled by a brass dolphin statuette shoved to the hilt inside its dull brain. Red blood pours from the wound and mixes with the green saltwater puddles all over the deck.

I sit up to find five more sharks, each one deader than the last, each with a dolphin statue—sized hole in its skull. My eyes stay open as I take in the scene. It's like one of those end-of-the-world movies where the camera pans to show dolphins washed up on otherwise empty shores.