A Living Dead Love Story Series (74 page)

Dane shakes his head and looks outside.

We're moving now, slowly but surely, turning onto Wahoo Way and finally speeding up.

“I still don't like it,” he says softly.

We both ignore him. What's he going to do about it now anyway?

Lucy parks in her driveway, and we shuffle out. “Just give me a sec,” she says over the hood of her car as I stand and stretch my legs. “I'll just blow off my folks and be back over and we can—”

“Don't bother,” Dane snaps, brushing past me toward the back gate. “I'll take it from here.”

“Hey!”

But he's already gone, tromping along the grass, heading toward the gate at the back of the house.

I turn back to Lucy, who looks like she's been standing in line for the last
Twilight
premiere only to get snubbed by Edward when his publicist whisked him away at the last minute.

I wave it off. “Don't worry about him. He's just grumpy. I really appreciate everything you've done, Lucy. I mean, the ID and the school schedule—”

She nods before I can finish and walks away from all our living dead drama. She looks so alone and vulnerable at that moment, standing there between her car and the front stoop.

Suddenly, I think of that robust jogger the other night, so alive and sleek and sweaty, and what the Zerkers did to her in record time. That was only three streets away.

I call out to her, in a near panic. “Listen, Lucy, this isn't a game.”

She turns around, comes back to the car, leans against the roof.

“Those pictures you took?” I say. “They're real. And they're not like us. Those kids are gone. Your friends—”

“They weren't my friends.”

“Or classmates, whatever.” My voice is a little tight now, impatient. “Listen. I'm just saying, they're not human anymore. They're double-extra-superbad zombies, not like me or even Dane. And they're close, and they don't sleep, and all they care about is what's under your hair. So are you working tonight?”

She looks back at her house, dark as ever, except for that same stupid light in the same second-floor window. “Yeah.”

“Well, be careful. Can someone come with you?”

“Maddy, I'll be in a car. I'll be fine.”

I want to remind her she'll be out of the car for a few minutes each time, that that's all it takes, and that her car isn't exactly a tank or bulletproof and certainly not Zerkerproof, but she's already drifting away, back to her front stoop, clearly still stung by Dane's thoughtless words.

“Can you come over? Later, I mean, when you're done? Would you mind? Would your folks mind? Just so I can see you're safe?” I force a chuckle and crack a bad zombie joke: “It'll make me not sleep better.”

She smiles, one foot on the front stoop, long white socks up to her knees. “You're sure the Grinch won't mind?”

“Do you care if he does?”

She doesn't answer, just drags her pink-and-black, skull-covered messenger bag up the steps and disappears inside, into the dark and empty foyer.

I turn and stomp through the back gate, finding the pool deck empty and hearing voices from inside the living room. I open the sliding glass door and see black duffel bags lying all over the place.

Courtney is still in her school uniform, but she's gone all Britney and loosened her tie and put up her hair, and her jacket is carefully folded atop the kitchen counter. She has a black bra underneath, and I just have to snort. Even in the afterlife, this chick is all cliché, all the time.

Dane is stacking plastic to-go containers in the fridge.

“That doesn't work, you know.” I lean against the counter. “The power's off.” But even as I say it, I can see the fridge light on and hear it humming.

“Not anymore,” Courtney says, ponytail bouncing along with her not-yet-deflated zombie breasts. (Two more reasons to hate her.)

“How? I've been here for nearly a week, and nothing. When did it get turned on?”

Courtney stands a little taller, her bra pressing against her stiff white uniform shirt, unbuttoned to the third. “That's what Sentinel Support does. I'm not just another pretty face, you know.”

She didn't . . .

I can't even.

I won't.

“Great, well, try not to turn all the lights on at once, huh? The place is supposed to be deserted, remember?”

She shoots me shade.

I turn to Dane, who hands me one of the to-go boxes. I take it, not because I have no shame but because I'm hungry and, even through the clear plastic, I can smell the fresh brains. I've been mentally drooling over them ever since I walked into the house.

We feed standing up, right there in the kitchen. Plastic fork in my hand, fresh brain on my tongue, down my throat, the juice on my lips, the fire in my dry, dead veins, the sizzle in my cells.

This isn't the repackaged, remodified, reconfigured stuff we get in the mess hall twice a day: brain bars and brain smoothies and the rest. This is pure, unadulterated brain. Do I know where it came from? Animal or human? No, and I'm not going to ask. It's brains, and it's in front of me, and that's all I need to know.

I slump until I'm sitting on the kitchen floor, the way I used to do as a Normal when Dad was working late and I had a bad day and came home and spooned chocolate chip mint ice cream down my gullet.

Dane gently takes the empty container from my hand, and I smile weakly.

“How long?” he asks, washing it out in the sink and turning it over to dry on the counter.

“Since I fed? Since the day before I got Vanished, I guess.” My voice is soft and hazy, like the field of vision through my fluttering eyelids. “We had some cat food along the way, but you know how that goes.”

“Cat food?” Courtney stands above me, hands on her hips, jutting out her chest. “Gross.”

Dane shrugs. “It'll do in a pinch. It's better than nothing, Courtney.”

“Still.” She sniffs. “Nasty.”

He gives me a minute, then reaches down and helps me up.

I don't thank him. Instead I say, “That was rude, what you said to Lucy earlier.”

Courtney huffs, the seeds of jealousy already sprouting. “Who's Lucy?”

“The Normal,” we both say at once.

He turns to me. “It's for her own good. You know that. You were careless to include her in the first place.”

Sca-rew this guy all of a sudden.

I stare at him, disbelieving. “She came to
me
. She saw us and came to me. By then, it was too late. What did you want me to do? Tick her off? Alienate her like you just did?”

“Better she gets ticked off and stays away than you encourage her and she keeps hanging around until one of the Zerkers gets her.”

I shrug. “I figured I could protect her.”

“That's not your job anymore.”

“Maybe not as a Keeper but as a human. I mean . . . Well, you know what I mean. Isn't one of the zombie laws to always protect Normals from the Zerkers?”

“That's just it, Maddy. You're not bound by zombie laws anymore.”

I feel like I've been punched. It's one thing to hear the Council of Elders say it, but Dane? “There's a higher law, Dane. You and I both know that. I can't just turn that off because I'm dead.”

He shakes his head. “We don't have time for philosophy. We're here now.” He points to Courtney and the duffel bags. “We'll take care of this. You and Stamp just stay out of our way.”

Stamp. I look around, don't see him. “Where's Stamp?” I ask Courtney.

She flinches, her nostrils flare, and she looks at the stairs. “I sent him to his room.”

“He's not a child!” I spit, stomping away.

“Then he shouldn't act like one!”

S
tamp leans on
the windowsill, staring at the street.

“Stamp?” I ask, though I've been in the room for nearly a minute now. And I know he knows it.

“Where were you?” he asks, finally turning around. His broad shoulders hit the off-white plastic blinds, and they explode with a rattle-tattle like a machine gun.

Neither of us blinks.

I keep my voice level and calm. “I told you I was going to school.”

“All day?”

I nod. “I should have been more specific, Stamp. I should have said I'd be at school all day.”

He nods. “I wouldn't have even cared so much, if it wasn't for that girl downstairs.”

I stifle a chuckle. “You mean Courtney?”

He nods, then elaborates. “Uh-huh, the blonde with the big . . . you know.” He holds his arms out in front of his chest the way kids will signify big bazooms without actually saying something as stupid and cheese ball as
big bazooms
.

I snort. “Yeah, well, that wasn't my idea.”

“At least Lucy plays with me.”

“She does?”

“Yeah, I mean, she talks to me like I'm a regular person and asks me all kinds of good questions.”

I cock my head. “Yeah, like, what kinds of good questions?”

He shrugs, looking slightly antsy, like maybe this is all boring grown-up talk and he'd rather go back to discussing something more interesting, like big bazooms. “Big-people questions, like where I'm from and how I'm doing and what I like about you and what you do at night and . . .” His voice trails off, as if that's too much to remember all at once.

“She asks about me?” I don't know whether to be flattered or concerned.

He nods again, bored with me, looking out at the street. “A lot of the time she does.” He turns to smile at me. “It's okay, though. I don't mind talking about you that much.” He snickers, like this is some inside joke he has with himself.

I want to ask more, but I hear clomping up the steps. Heavy clomping. Dane style. I listen and don't hear any Courtney-style clomping. He enters the room cautiously, as if maybe he thinks we're talking about him.

Stamp has turned away from me again, looking out the window as I told him . . . two days ago. I wonder how long he'll stand there, doing the same thing. Until I tell him to stop, I guess.

Dane walks to me quietly, eyes questioning.

I look at him and try to smile, but it's hard. Being in the same room with him and Stamp is at once so familiar and so ruined.

Still, this isn't about me. I clear my throat. “Stamp? Someone's here to see you.”

Nothing.

I try not to take it personally because he does move a little slow these days. I try again. “Stamp?”

Finally he turns cautiously, and when he sees who it is, he smiles. “Dane!” His voice is warm and familiar, in a way he almost never uses for me.

“Hey, buddy.” Dane walks over.

Like magnets, they get drawn to each other until they're so close I guess instinct takes over, and they hug. Whoa. I didn't see that coming. Stamp seems a little uncomfortable at first, maybe because Dane probably didn't say ten words to him the whole time we were in Sentinel City together.

But then, we haven't been
together
, not really, since Orlando. And even then, Stamp and Dane were never BFFs.

But right now, my dead, shriveled heart is pretty close to pumping again. This moment makes me think of family, and what that word means, and how once upon a time I thought I'd never need anyone else but these two. And now, neither one really belongs to me anymore.

Stamp is locked in his own mind, a shadow of his old self. Every choice Dane has made since we moved to Sentinel City has taken him farther from me. Suddenly I realize my adopted, undead family is breaking apart even as I struggle to keep it together.

When they separate, only Dane looks vaguely uncomfortable about it.

Stamp nods. “I missed you.”

I swear I can feel Dane's heart unshrivel like the Grinch's.

Then dude totally ruins it: “Maddy did too.”

“Stamp!”

“Did so. You said you did! A hundred times, even!”

Dane chuckles. He looks at me and says, “I missed you guys too.”

Gheez, where's Courtney when you need her?

Ah, spoke too soon. Soft footsteps announce her presence.

“Knock knock,” she says right behind us instead of actually having knocked on the door.

I turn around and grimace.

“There's someone downstairs with Chinese food.”

“Finally!” I snap, zipping out the door.

Lucy is standing at the front door, a bag from Lop Sing's in her hand, a dopey smile on her face. She's in this maroon velour jumpsuit thing that's formfitting in some places, lumpy in others, trying to be funky but not quite cutting it, like something out of a
Cribs
episode. It makes me flinch a little.

“Are you done already?” I say, dragging her inside.

No one has followed me down, so it's just us in the kitchen.

She looks a little squirrely. “My dad saw that new Missing flyer and told me to take the night off. They're going to stop delivering until they catch whoever's doing this, so I thought Stamp might like some more moo shu.”

I take the bag and slide it onto the counter, then look upstairs. I don't hear footsteps, and I can't imagine anything worse than spending the evening watching Dane and Courtney cuddle and coo while Stamp watches out the window for Zerkers, no matter how many times I tell him to stop.

When I look back at her, she has some paper in her hand. “More Missing posters. They just dropped them off at the restaurant. I know a few of them. I mean, they're all kids from my school.”

I take them, give them a cursory glance, see three more yearbook photos, and blanch. I set them on the kitchen counter, next to the first two. They're all so young, and I know they're all gone. And I can't help thinking it's all my fault.