I mean, I know he’s trying to be brave, but it’s like every word hurts, and I can see in his eyes that all he wants to do is dump us both out, hit the gas, and speed away. And I wouldn’t blame him one bit. I’d chase his ass down wherever he went, sure enough, but I wouldn’t blame him one bit for trying to ditch me and Stamp.
As I slide over, Dane leans in and whispers to me, “I wonder how long it will be before he remembers he hates my guts.”
I want to say, “He doesn’t hate your guts yet, Dane. But he would if he knew we kissed.”
Instead, I snort and grab the morning paper from the dashboard, trying to act all casual-like as I read the banner headline to myself: Tragic Accident at Fall Formal Claims 31 Lives: Students and faculty mourn their own as Barracuda Bay High School struggles to pick up the pieces …
Up the hill past the cemetery, Dane drives slowly by Hazel’s house. Inside, every light is burning and a somber black wreath marks her parents’ door. There are windows in nearly every room facing the street, but her parents aren’t in any of them. I imagine them in their bed, still dressed up, sobbing quietly into each other’s arms. Or maybe just their pillows.
And I imagine they’ll be the kind of parents who will keep Hazel’s all-pink room as an all-pink shrine, until one day they’re forced to sell the house and leave her memories far, far behind, and even then they’ll cart her stuff away and put it up in her next house, exactly as it was in this house: Hazel the Museum Exhibit. (Just the way she would have wanted it.)
Gradually I tense, knowing my house is only a few numbers away. Dane seems to sense it, too, and rests his shoulder on mine. For once, the ice cube cold of his skin is exactly what I need. I lean in with all I’m worth, silently, making sure Stamp can’t see, letting Dane know I’m here and I’m his …sort of.
When we get to my house, to Dad’s house now, Dane slows to a crawl.
There’s no wreath on our door, but on the other side of the bay window Dad’s sitting alone at the breakfast nook staring at the empty chair across from him, a coffee cup on the table. His eyes are dry but vacant; suddenly the man who works with death for a living knows what it’s like to feel it for himself.
I swallow and would gladly trade the rest of my days for a single tear. Half of me wants to race from Dane’s truck, to sprint through the door, only for a second, a millisecond, to hug him, to straighten his collar, to warm up his cold coffee, to say, “Dad, I’m fine. I can’t stay; I’ll tell you why later, soon, but I’m fine. Don’t be sad; don’t miss me …”
But I can’t. He would never understand, not the zombie stuff, not the Zerkers, not the Elders or the Sentinels or Stamp or Dane or …any of it, for that matter. He is a man of science, of brain cells and muscle fibers and time of death. His is not a world of fantasy or make-believe or fairy tales or graveyard rubbings.
No matter what I said, no matter that he should simply trust me and not question his own daughter, no matter the pleading in my eyes, it wouldn’t be enough to wrap his logic and rationale around. He would grab me instead, hold me, sit me down, force me to explain. He would question and pursue and expose me and Dane and Stamp and the Elders and the Sentinels for what we were: reanimated, the undead, immortals, the Living Dead—take your pick.
And they wouldn’t allow that. He would cause more harm than good, even though his heart—his brain—would be in the right place. And in the end, some Sentinel, on the order of some Elder, would …silence …him. So, much the same way I had a choice with Stamp, I have a choice with Dad: save his life but make him sad, or tell the truth and send him to the gallows.
Just like with Stamp, the choice now is easy.
Okay, maybe not easy, but …simple.
He’s still wearing his black suit from the funeral they never held for me, the funeral they never held because they couldn’t find my body in the water and the rubble and the dozens of other corpses of my former teachers, classmates, rivals, and friends back in the gym.
Stamp’s memorial service was easier. After I bit him, Dane assured me he’d stay dormant through the weekend of the funeral. As usual, he was right. Long after the mourners went home and the overworked cemetery staff left rows of white chairs waiting in the dark, I was there to greet him, brains, Sporks, and all.
And now we are ghosts, all three of us; truly dead and buried. And in our wake are those who cared for us the most and could never know the real truth. Dane’s family, who never knew he was reanimated in the first place. Dad, assuming I was lost somewhere—somehow—in the electrical surge, death, and panic that marred this year’s Fall Formal. And Stamp’s parents, who buried their son and think he’s still down there, six feet under, safe in his affordable coffin and only a few blocks away in Sable Palms Cemetery whenever they care to visit.
As Dane rolls gently by our front window, Stamp says quietly, “I never got to meet your dad.”
I look at him, see the life behind his eyes, and say, “You would have liked him, Stamp.”
“Yeah, but would he have liked me?”
“Oh yeah,” I say.
Stamp nods halfheartedly, like maybe he doesn’t believe me.
From the driver’s seat, Dane whispers, “I never met your dad either.”
And while Stamp is kind of still looking toward Dad’s window, I sneak a peek at Dane and smile the kind of smile we used to share, in his trailer, out by the Dumpster during sixth period, when he was teaching me how to use a copper stake. And I mouth, and I mean it, “He would have liked you, too.”
I don’t think Dane believes me either. And, of course, he’s right. Stamp was the kind of guy you brought home to Dad; not Dane. Stamp, the football star, the cocky kid, the kind of guy who’d stand around the kitchen and shoot the bull about sports scores and Dad’s softball technique and the best charcoal to use for your Fourth of July cookout.
Dane was the guy you snuck in through the second-story window, or snuck out to see in the middle of the night, Dad’s house rules be damned. The dark one, the rebel, the kind of guy who would gladly talk to your dad but have nothing to say. The guy your dad wouldn’t understand; the guy your dad would gripe about before asking, “Why can’t you date a nice guy, like Stamp?”
And how could you ever tell your dad the heart knows what it wants, and it wants …Dane?
Then Stamp says, as if all of this hasn’t been going on, or maybe because it has, “Dane, take me by my house.” It’s not a question. In fact, it’s kind of firm; and suddenly, I think Stamp is all back and knows exactly who Dane is.
Dane clears his throat, speeds away from my house like he’s lighting out for the highway already, and says, “Stamp, listen, I don’t think that’s such a good—”
“Please, Dane,” Stamp whispers, almost pleading now. “I just want to see them one more time. I know we’re in a hurry; I know nobody can see me; I just have to see them.”
Stamp doesn’t have to give Dane directions. Palmetto Court is within spitting distance of Mangrove Manor, Dane’s old trailer park. When we’re deep enough inside the ratty, overgrown subdivision, Stamp says quietly, as if he’s apologizing, “It’s number 1791.”
We keep driving until we find it. It’s a sad little house, sadder now than ever. Stamp leans forward, nose pressed against the window, but Dane gently pushes him back against his wide bucket seat.
“We can’t let them see you, Stamp,” Dane reminds him, and now it’s his turn to be the firm one giving orders.
For his part, Stamp silently nods and looks out the passenger window as best he can. The lights are on, even though it’s late. His mom is washing dishes in the kitchen, the lines on her tired face visible even from the street outside. His dad is dusting the large pictures on the den wall facing the street; the pictures are all of Stamp. Stamp in Little League, Stamp in his football uniform, Stamp playing hockey in Wisconsin, Stamp on a ski slope, Stamp with family, Stamp solo.
“He loves that room,” Stamp says reverently, as if to himself.
We idle in the street for as long as we dare, lights off, going less than a mile per hour, hugging the curb, until instinctively Stamp’s mom looks up from her dishes and sees the truck slowly, suspiciously, cruising by.
“Go,” shouts Stamp, leaning behind me.
Rubber peels as the truck speeds away. The last thing I see in the rearview mirror is Mrs. Crosby dashing out of the house and standing in the middle of the road, limp hair illuminated by a single streetlamp; she’s still drying a dish, staring at Dane’s taillights with a forlorn expression.
“This sucks,” says Stamp, banging his head a few times against the passenger side window. “Sure does,” I say.
Dane sighs. “I wish I could say it gets any easier, guys.”
Stamp and I look at him, then at each other. Stamp reaches across my lap and grabs my hand. Dane looks out the windshield so intently it’s hard to tell if he sees or not. Then he seems to kind of shrink away from my side, kind of melding into the driver’s side window, and I know he does.
And still I return Stamp’s grip, because that’s what girlfriends do. And I settle, in my mind, for being Stamp’s girl, because that’s what girlfriends do. But even as I clench his hand tightly, I do so with an eye for Dane. Stamp is my boy because I’m the reason he’s dead, and you don’t turn your back on the guy you did that to.
He is my boy because we had something, once upon a time, when we were alive, still breathing. Sure, it was just one night, just one party, a party I never made it to. And then it was over, and Hazel moved in on him, and Stamp was weak—and I was cruel—and it was over, but not over, because then danger moved in and set its sights on Stamp, all because of me.
And you don’t get someone killed and then ditch him for the guy who kissed you so hard you’re still licking your lips, wondering if it was real and wishing you could relive it over and over and over again. And it was real; of course it was. And I remember it, so fondly, so powerfully. And it seems so strange that Dane was the first one to kiss me, even though I started out hoping, aching for that same favor from Stamp.
And he would have, I think, if I hadn’t been stupid and gone out in the rain and gotten myself killed and reanimated and, after that, things hadn’t gotten kind of hectic and, well, kissing hadn’t taken a backseat to, you know, being dead and all. And the deader I got, the better Dane treated me. And the better Dane treated me, the closer we got.
Until we just kind of eased into each other, all the way. And for a moment we were a couple, then not a couple, and then suddenly we were on the run from any Zerkers that might still be out there, from the Sentinels, from the Elders, and it was Bonnie and Clyde all the way until …until …it was time for Stamp to rise from his grave and join the party.
And then two became three, and suddenly it was Maddy in the middle. And God help me, but even as Stamp holds one hand and stares out the window, I reach across to Dane and grab his arm; and the catch in his throat, the sudden shock and surprise is so strong and loud I’m sure Stamp hears it. But he doesn’t; he merely stares at the scenery, blissful in the confidence that I am his girl and he is my boy.
And what the hell is going to happen next?
The minutes crawl awkwardly by; the miles slip slowly beneath Dane’s tires. Out Palmetto Court, onto Marlin Way, we’re nearly out of town when a government-looking van doing at least 80 miles per hour barrels past us in the opposite direction, straight into Barracuda Bay.
Dane looks intently in his rearview mirror, is still looking when two more vans just like it fly past.
He steps on the gas as we speed out of town.
“What was that all about?” I ask, letting my hand slip from his forearm as he wrestles with the steering wheel through the increased speed.
Clenching his teeth, Dane says, “Sentinels.”
“Already?” I ask.
He nods, taps the newspaper I threw back on the dashboard, and says, “They have whole teams of Sentinels whose only job is to look for headlines just like this. For sure they’re suspicious, and I’m sorry to say it, Maddy, but when they talk to your dad, find out they never found your body, and put two and two together, well, they’ll come looking for us.”
“For how long?” I ask, staring out into the night.
“As long as it takes.”
Stamp’s hand clenches tighter on my own. Is it wrong that, right then, at that very moment, Dane’s would have made me feel a whole lot better?
Dane slowly applies more pressure to the gas pedal, sending us rocketing through the night and as far away from the Sentinels as possible.
“What will happen if they catch us?” Stamp asks a few minutes later, his eyes blank, his face forward, his hand limp in my own.
Dane lets out a sigh so long, so sour, I’m not even sure he’s fully conscious he does it. Finally, as if to himself, he says, “I don’t know, Stamp. I’ve never been on the wrong end of the Sentinels before. Chloe and I, well, we’ve always obeyed the zombie laws, always checked in whenever we moved, were always careful to toe the line, until …”
He lets his voice trail off, but I know what he was going to say: until Maddy showed up and ruined everything. I think of how many people have been altered, reborn, or lost in my wake: Hazel, the football team, Scurvy, all those teachers, Ms. Harrington, Mrs. Witherspoon …Chloe.
Now I could add Stamp and Dane to that list as well. The two people I cared about most in this world, aside from Dad, of course, and I’d hurt them both. First Stamp by getting him dragged into all this, then Dane by putting him on the wrong side of the Sentinels.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, barely able to hear myself.
Dane hears it and snaps, “Nothing to be sorry for, Maddy.”
“Yeah, but …” I begin.
“Yeah, but nothing.” He cuts me off. “You weren’t the one who made the Zerkers go, well, berserk. It started with those girls in Home Ec and, the way they’d started stalking you, Maddy, you could have been next. And even if you weren’t, it would have been somebody else. Maybe not this week, maybe next month, but soon enough they would have done whatever they wanted, and I’d still be in this truck, barreling down the highway, trying to get clear of their mess.”
After a long, awkward pause that finds us five more miles down the empty highway, Stamp says, “Besides, whatever happened, we’re in it now; in it together. All three of us, right?”
He looks to Dane until Dane solemnly nods. Stamp looks to me, smiles benignly, his teeth already yellowing, his skin three shades paler, those dark circles charming under his chocolate eyes; I smile back, uncertain.
The tension in the cab of Dane’s truck is palpable, all of us avoiding each other’s eyes while secretly yearning for a look of approval from the person we want the most. I’m not very good at this; I’ve never been very good at this. It’s always been hard enough for me to have one boyfriend, let alone two. And I don’t know how long I can keep lying to one while pining for the other.
The partnership, on the surface, seems to comfort him. He clears his throat, energized, sits up a little, and says, “So, where will we go?”
Dane juts his chin toward the glove box and says, “There’s a map of Florida in there. You know, in case of emergencies. For now I’m just heading south, away from the Sentinels, but we’ll have to find someplace big and loud where we can disappear.”
I peel out the road map, unfold it, and don’t need a dome light to see the long, slender outline of Florida bathed in my banana yellow zombie vision. I start reeling off names: “Miami could be good; lots of people there.”
Dane frowns. “Yeah, but everybody’s so perfect there—and tan. I’m looking for someplace where we won’t stick out.”
I’m still moving my finger south along the map when Stamp says, “My dad almost got a job in the Keys before we decided to move to Barracuda Bay; that’s as far south as we can go. He said he didn’t take it, though, because when he went to visit, the place was full of freaks.” He smiles at us both and says, “It c
ould be just the place.”
Dane nods, but I look at the place on the map and say, “Yeah, but it’s the very southern tip of Florida. I mean, if the Sentinels come from north Florida down, they could trap us; we’d have nowhere to go.”
Dane and Stamp nod.
“Good point, Maddy,” Dane says.
Stamp says, “I didn’t think of it that way.”
My finger creeps back up the state while Dane says, “So maybe something more central, away from the coasts, away from the southern tip, something like—”
“Orlando?” I say, my finger landing there just as the inspiration strikes. “I mean, it’s central to the state, right smack in the middle, there’s an airport, tons of hotels, tourism’s big, could be easy to blend in.”
Dane looks unconvinced until Stamp says, “Yeah, my folks took me to Universal Studios a few years ago. They have a whole part of the theme park designated for monsters and makeup effects from the movies. You know, the Mummy, Terminator, Beetlejuice, the Wolfman. We could get jobs there, be a part of the show, not even need to ‘pass’ because we’d already look the part.”
Dane cracks a smile. “Monsters playing monsters. I like the sound of that. Maddy, we just passed mile marker 23 on Interstate 75. How far are we from there?”
I look at the map, moving my finger backward until we’re just shy of Tampa. “It’s 70, 80 miles tops. Start looking for signs for Interstate 4 going east, and according to the map it should take us right in.”
Dane puts on his blinker, although there’s not another car in sight this late at night, gets in the right lane, and turns onto I-4 a few miles later. The road signs for Orlando pop up almost immediately, the billboards a mile or so after that. Disney, Universal, SeaWorld, and about a million hotels. I think of a sea of tourists, Hawaiian shirts and sunburns, flip-flops and black socks, camera straps and floppy sun hats, and I smile.
It sounds like the kind of place you could easily get lost in, like the kind of place no one would ask too many questions. The kind of place where a handful of zombies could start over, make a life, and hide out from the Sentinels.
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