“What about the Zs?” she asked, her voice shaky.
I held up my souvenir bat, the surface stained red from past excursions. It would do. Besides, I didn’t plan on us getting that close anyway. Not with more important stuff to do.
Easing out my bedroom window, we picked our way down the trellis and jumped to the sidewalk. The house remained dark and quiet, telling me Tia must’ve fallen asleep already. Good.
We jogged down the block and stopped when a car blinked its headlights. Carm climbed in the back seat next to Jesse and gave him a hug. “I’m glad you showed up!”
I didn’t share her enthusiasm. I’d talked to Gabe earlier and told him how hurt and mad I was. We’d kind of worked it out, but I didn’t want to let him off that easy for ignoring me. Still, I felt myself melt when he gazed at me, his eyes dark. No matter how much we fought, the two of us had a special connection, and it wasn’t just chemistry. We had something I couldn’t shake no matter how mad I got or how much I pushed him away.
“Now explain this idea to me again?” Gabe asked and pulled the car out onto the road.
I told him what we’d found and said we needed to get more proof. “We have to get those dogs out of there,” I ended.
As expected, he gave me a look that told me my plan was as crazy as I thought it was.
“Breaking and entering? Theft? Burglary?” His face darkened. “You prepared to go to jail?”
I looked away. “Well, uh, no. I don’t think it’ll happen like that.”
His eyebrows went even lower if that was possible. “You mean you didn’t think.”
My anger rising, I ignored my initial feelings of being happy to see him. Luckily, Carm headed off my outburst.
“I say we look around first,” she said, ever the diplomat. “If we see any security we leave. Or one of us keep him occupied, though I don’t think that’s a good idea. Either way, it looks suspicious. Who else drives around there at night?”
The urge to stick my tongue out at her disappeared as we rounded the corner and turned into the park. It looked creepier at night though each row was well-lit. As it turned out, we weren’t alone. Several cars sat next to the building. Gabe shut the car off as we parked in one of the open spaces at the end of the next row.
We watched and waited. After ten minutes of nothing going on, I’d had enough and grabbed the door handle. “We need to get out. We have to see who’s inside. I’m going with or without you.”
After what seemed like forever, Gabe agreed. “All right. You bring any weapons?”
I held up my bat and showed him the small pellet gun I’d also stuck in my bag.
“I guess we’ll chance it,” he said. “You two wait by the building next door while we try to find out how many people are inside. No matter what, if you see any Zs, don’t yell. We don’t want whoever’s in there knowing we’re out here.”
We ran down the row between the buildings. I peered around the corner of the building next to our target location, bat in hand, and watched the guys sneak toward the back door. Of course, things never go according to plan. A telltale bad odor drifted our way. Carm turned and yelled, “Bec!” as two ugly Zs stumbled our way.
My cousin had gotten pretty good at defending herself when she didn’t give in to her fears. This time, however, she gave me a panicked look and waved her empty hands. It was up to me.
“Get behind me,” I whispered. “See if you can wave Gabe and Jesse over, but make sure no one else is out there. And don’t yell!”
She ran to the end of the building and a minute later, began jumping and waving. I pulled out my bat and got into position. One of the ghouls moaned and grabbed at me, while the other seemed to shuffle faster. I backed up and hurriedly pulled out the pellet gun. The two came at me, low moans coming from what remained of their decayed lips. I readied to fire when Gabe rushed around the corner and warned me, his voice low.
“Bec, no guns, they’ll make too much noise! Here, catch!”
He tossed me a metal garden spike. I picked it up from the ground, spun around, and stabbed out, catching the Z in the head and within inches of biting me. It fell, and with no time to reclaim the spike, I swung the bat at the second zombie. CRACK! The bat hit the ghoul’s face and crushed in the side, yet it kept coming. I hit again and connected with the top of its diseased brain this time. It let out a final moan and fell in a disgusting heap.
A second later, Gabe and Jesse rushed around the corner and plastered themselves against the wall next to us. “Someone’s coming out,” Gabe whispered. “Shh!”
Voices drifted our way, but I couldn’t be sure who was talking. I inched closer to the edge of the wall and peeked around the corner. Two people stood in front of the building. Watching a group of Zs approach would’ve been less shocking than seeing the lady I admired, the owner of the Girls Like Us Makeup Company, and Enrique, the husband of our aunt’s friend, together.
No matter how you looked at it, something was going on. Something wrong.
Jesse peered around the corner and aimed his video camera. He finished and crouched down. I balanced the Nikon camera’s long lens against his arm and clicked the shutter. Enrique stopped talking and looked up like he’d heard something, but then continued his conversation. I hurriedly took several more pictures and waved everyone to go. We ran past the dead zombies and back to our car.
“Whew.” I plopped in the front seat and checked the camera images. “That was close. Okay, looks like I got some photos.”
Jesse nodded to his brother. “I managed to get a video of the inside from the side window, too. We’re set.”
“Good,” Gabe said. “Now we wait for them to leave. Everybody duck down and get comfortable. It could be a while.”
I didn’t protest when Gabe hugged me close. No matter what happened, or how mad I got at him, we had a special bond. Not only had he helped me adjust to life as a part Z, but he saved me quite a few times from my worst impulses. More times than I wanted to admit.
About twenty minutes or so later a light flashed as one car, and then another, pulled out. I almost hated for our adventure to end, but knew Tia would be frantic and call out the Guard if she didn’t find us upstairs come morning.
Like before, Gabe parked down the block from the house and shut off the lights. The kiss he gave me made it harder to leave.
“Now, no more being mad,” he urged. “Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Good. I should be moved into the apartment next weekend. I want you to come over and help me set things up. We’ll get pizza and spend some time together. You want to?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I want to.”
He kissed me again. “You better go. We’re going to see my friend at the sheriff’s department. I told him what you said about no one else wanting to help or look for those dogs. He was pretty interested. I’ll let you know what happens.”
I’d barely gulped down breakfast the next morning, this time a cranberry-orange-protein drink, when the phone rang. “Got it,” I yelled. Gabe’s voice greeted me on the other end. “Hey. Yeah, I’m up. How’d it go? Really?” I squealed and waved at Carm. “Yeah, we’ll be here.”
I ran to the steps and told Carm to hurry up. “Get dressed. They’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”
My aunt stopped us at the stairs. “What’s the hurry? Who’s coming over?”
“Buenos días, Tia. The guys are coming over with news about the dogs. Isn’t that great?”
I let it go at that, figuring she’d hear about her friend’s involvement and our roles in it all soon enough. Throwing on my clothes, I hurriedly dabbed makeup on my worst dark spots, brushed my teeth and smoothed my hair, finishing just as the doorbell rang.
I pounded down the stairs and waited as Tia greeted the sheriff’s deputy, along with Gabe and Jesse.
“Good morning, ma’am. I’m Deputy Wilson. I wanted to share some information and get a statement from your nieces, if that’s all right? And I believe we have
something that belongs to you.”
With that, he took something from Gabe and held out a small dog carrier. I heard the excited barks and let out a squeal. “Fluffy! You found her! Is she all right?”
The deputy smiled. “She’s fine, Miss. She was with several other dogs in the back of that warehouse. You’ll be glad to know the business owners have been arrested and the other owners are getting their dogs back, thanks to you and your friends.”
Tia arched her eyebrows at me, but thankfully the deputy had her ear while he explained what happened. I saw the shock on her face and felt bad when she heard about her friend’s involvement. Of course, we’d have a serious talk later and she’d probably ground me. For now, it was worth it as I played with the energetic little puppy darting around my feet.
Once the deputy left, Tia made it clear she was unhappy with our actions. “I’m disappointed at your sneaking around, although I am grateful that everything ended well. I still cannot believe that Hilda and her husband were involved in such a terrible thing. Even worse, they kept records in those boxes they had me hold for them.” She shook her head and sighed. “However, I think that you and Carm will probably be staying home this weekend helping me and her mother clean closets.”
I saved my protests as Tia went to the kitchen, knowing she wouldn’t relent and realizing I’d actually got off easy.
“I guess I won’t be able to come over this weekend,” I told Gabe as he sat next to me on the couch.
“Next weekend,” he insisted. “I’ll be there. No matter what, you and Carm did a good thing. You kept at it, and I’m glad you let me help. We make a good team, you know.”
I smiled, realizing how lucky I really was. “Yeah, I guess we do make a good team, don’t we?”
Becca is also the star of C.A. Verstraete’s debut novel, GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie.
SCIENCE FICTION
ADVENTURES
Our heroes and heroines have already handled spies, monsters, and even zombies. But what about aliens? The question is, how do two very human girls DEAL with their new friend from far, far away?
FANGIRL, RIP AND THE ALIEN
David Perlmutter
The two of them- one extremely tall and gangly for fourteen years old, the other short and underweight for that age- marched with determination towards their destination in the forest near their home. One might have thought they were mismatched, but this was not the case. They had known each other for nearly their whole lives, and were as devoted to each other as two girls of their generation could be. Chiefly because their personalities, physical appearances and attitudes tended to drive people away.
Although Morgan Robertson, the tall one of the pair, was extremely beautiful and athletically built, she was neither a beauty queen nor a jock. She was far too intelligent to limit herself like that. Her Achilles heel was that she was afflicted with Asperger’s Syndrome, the still very much misunderstood stepchild of Autism. As a consequence, she was prone to vicious and unexpected mood swings at the least provocation, even though she regularly took pharmaceuticals designed to “control” them. False assumptions about her mental state among her peers had prevented them from befriending her.
Roberta Ripley–or, rather, “Rip”, to Morgan–had been dealt far worse physical hands in life than her friend, but, unlike Morgan, she did not worry about or bemoan her fate. Born prematurely and asthmatic, and underweight because of it, she suffered from the further indignity of a club foot, which forced her to get around on a cane, not unlike Dickens’ Tiny Tim. Her eyes were two different colors, her teeth so grotesquely “buck” that no braces could mend them, and her voice was a raucous, almost masculine rasp, in contrast to Morgan’s more feminine (if occasionally hysterical) tones. Yet she would always be the first to tell jokes about herself when she entered a room–if only to prevent others from doing the same, or worse, to take advantage of her. If that didn’t work, Morgan would come to her aid, for the taller girl possessed a noble virtue as a consequence of her Asperger’s–firm, unbreakable loyalty–and was willing to fight to the death for her friend if she had to. Nobody else had dared do that for Rip, and it had sealed their permanent friendship many years ago.
The other aspect that sealed it was their joint interest in the literature concerning itself with impossibilities and improbabilities–namely science fiction, fantasy and horror. They were classic ‘geeks’ in that they were avid readers as well as adventurous and accepting seekers of film and TV narratives of the same kind. Morgan had received the derogatory nickname of “Fangirl” for daring to try to talk to more “popular” kids about her great love, while Rip generally kept her mouth shut about it outside of Morgan’s company for that reason. But it went further than that. Unlike many readers and viewers of the speculative arts, who were content to view it as mere entertainment, Morgan and Rip maintained the belief that, while the narratives may have been fictitious, they were reflective of events that could have happened in the past and had every opportunity to occur again. And they intended to be there when they did, to witness them for themselves. No matter what it took.
This is how they got into the predicament which befell them.
As was often the case when they walked together, Morgan’s longer legs and wider stride meant that she had soon established a wide gap between herself and Rip, and her distracted train of thought meant she did not notice this. On these occasions, Rip would either holler or whistle at Morgan so she would get it. She chose the latter option this time, startling Morgan in the process.
“What the…?” Morgan uttered as she spun around, only to see Rip taking a “hit” of air from the device required to keep her asthma at bay.
“Oh,” Morgan said when she realized what had happened. “Just you again, Rip.”
“Who else would it be?” Rip asked, rhetorically.
“I don’t know,” Morgan said, missing the rhetoric. “It might have been something important.”
“As in something other than me?” said Rip, sarcastically. “What, are you cheating on me? You know-seeing another “best friend” on the side?”
“Of COURSE NOT, Rip!” Morgan retorted angrily, missing the sarcasm this time. “I TOLD you that you were the only best friend I’m ever going to have, and I MEANT IT!”
“Whoa!” Rip quickly got close to her friend and put a reassuring hand on her torso. “I was just fooling with you, Morg’!”
“Well, don’t! You know how I am with sarcasm.”
“Sorry. Keep forgetting that. That’s something you Aspies have trouble with.”
“Don’t CALL me that!” Morgan snapped. “For us, that’s like me calling you a “cripple.” Or a…a…”gimp”! Would you like that?”
“No,” said Rip.
“Then I rest my case.”
“Speaking of resting cases, do you think we could rest ours for a while?” She looked down at her sweat-stained yellow shirt with a Star Trek insignia on it (for she favored only the Shatner/Nimoy original.) “I’m getting sweat on the old velour.”
“You’re right.” Morgan looked down at her own sweat-stained red shirt, with a vintage ‘60s–’80s Doctor Who logo on it (for she turned up her nose at the modern reboot). “I’m getting tired myself. I’m thinking today wasn’t the right day to go hiking up here. It’s too hot.”
“Well,” Rip said, after taking a “hit”, “it is summer. We got the whole winter to curl up with the books and the videos and stuff. Outside of school, of course.”
“Of course,” agreed Morgan.
“Besides, it helps to be around you, Morg’. My parents say you’re a “positive influence” on me, whatever that is. Thing is, I already know that just hanging around you.”
“Awwwwww!” Morgan cooed. “Rip, you always say the best things about…”
She was interrupted by a blinding flash of light that seemed to come out of nowhere out of the sky, and vanished just as soon as it had arrived.
“What the hell was THAT?” Rip uttered
, as soon they both recovered from the shock.
“I don’t know,” said Morgan. “But I’m game to find out. You in?”
“Of course,” said Rip.
“Good,” said Morgan, as she whipped out her smart phone from her brown corduroy pants, the same color as her now sweat-drenched hair (and Rip’s, as well). “This could be important. We might, finally, be able to get some actual evidence of the spirit world or space, and show people we’re not nuts.”
“Or you’re not,” Rip said, teasingly. Her mirth ended abruptly, however, when Morgan looked at her with her “game face”, meaning that this wasn’t a joke to her. Such instances of possible interaction with the worlds of their dreams always were, even if Rip viewed them in a bit more of a cockeyed fashion.
“Shut up and come on,” Morgan said, meaning it. She walked forward, with Rip following obediently.
They wandered over to the glade where they had seen the lights originated from. They girded themselves for potential battle, prepared to face anything from a tentacle-laden Lovecraftian monster from outer space to an evil sorcerer banished from a Tolkienian fantasy realm.
What they saw was nothing of the kind.
It was a girl about their age, or slightly younger, about the same size as Rip, wearing patched-up old clothes and carrying a bindle on a stick over her shoulder, like an old fashioned hobo. Nothing supernatural whatsoever–or so it seemed.
“Ah, it’s nothing big,” Rip whispered to Morgan. “Just a kid like us, lost in the forest. We should help her get out.”
“Are you crazy?” Morgan hissed, her confidence eroding as her Asperger’s suddenly took control of her consciousness. “You know how bad I am at meeting new people.”
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