As I follow Chloe into the trailer, Dane tags along right behind me. With a gentle hand, he pries my 10 pounds of brains from me and walks into a small but clean kitchen. He pulls one of those Igloo Playmate lunch coolers from under the sink, dumps the ice tray from the freezer inside, and puts the brains on top before closing the cooler and setting it on top of a table for four.
There are only three chairs, and he pats an empty one. “Come here, Maddy.” His gentle voice is deep and dark and three shades of, dare I say, sexy? “We have a few things to sort out before we get going.”
I try to think of what he means by “get going” and have no idea. All I know is that I’m dead but not dead, that I’m a zombie but not alone. There are other zombies in this town, and should I be so surprised they’re Dane and Chloe?
“First, an introduction is in order,” Chloe says, pointing to herself. “I’m Zombie Number 1. Dane is Zombie Number 2 …” Her voice trails off, and they both look at me expectantly.
“I guess that makes me”—I swallow, twice, before finishing—”Zombie Number 3?”
Chloe smiles proudly, like I’ve just learned to spell my name in red crayon.
Dane explains in a conspiratorial whisper, “She’s only Zombie Number 1 because she’s the oldest.” Then he slides out his chair and asks, “How’d it happen? I mean, I’m assuming it was tonight’s lightning strike, but what were you doing out in it?”
“Jogging.” I’m tempted to tell him more, to brag about Stamp and how the hottest new guy in school asked me to the hottest party of the week and how I stupidly decided to walk there—in the rain, with thunder rolling in and lightning not too far behind—but something holds me back.
Chloe eyes me dubiously. “Jogging? In a thunderstorm? Good thinking, Maddy.”
“Hey”—I laugh, trying to keep the lie in play—“it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
But Dane’s not smiling, not really. Not that he’s a smiley type of guy in the first place, but now his thin lips are straight and set and he’s looking at me very, very carefully. He opens his mouth to add something, or maybe even ask something, then pauses. His eyes are deep and dark and probing, like maybe he knows I’m leaving something—okay, a lot of somethings—out. Then he snaps out of it, blinks twice, and asks, “So, how’d it feel?”
I sit across from him. “I dunno. I was passed out for a couple of hours afterward, so …”
“The Awakening,” he whispers almost reverently, like a geek sitting in the front row when the new Star Wars trailer comes on the screen.
“I’m sorry?”
“That was the Awakening,” he explains, louder this time. “We all go through it. The time frame is different for everybody. For some of us it only lasts a few minutes; for you it was a few hours; some of us, like Chloe here, can lie there for days. That’s why so many of us wake up in graves. If the Awakening lasts longer than a day or two, well, most folks assume you’re dead. They just don’t assume you’re going to wake up.”
“I don’t understand. I thought zombies bit each other and you caught some virus in your blood and—”
“Bull,” Chloe says. “Hollywood bull. You can bite someone and make them a zombie, but it’s not what’s in our blood that turns them. After all, you know by now your blood’s no longer pumping. It’s electricity; that’s what turns them.”
“It’s why zombies can only date other zombies,” Dane says, his voice steadily rising as he looks me in the eyes.
“That’s crazy, though,” I practically shout back, thinking of Stamp, of the way he looked embarrassed asking me to the party this afternoon, of how relieved he looked when I said yes, of his chocolate chip eyes and sporty bicep and how good it was going to feel around my warm, soft, undead shoulder. And how all of that is gone now, forever, and now these two are the ones to tell me all about it. And is it just me, or is Dane actually happy to tell me about it?
“Is it so crazy?” Chloe asks.
“Think about it.” Dane’s sitting up in his chair. “You’re getting all hot and heavy with some Normal guy, you forget yourself in the heat of the moment, go to give him a little love tap on the neck, bite a little harder than you meant to, and—zap—just like that, meet Zombie Number 4. Is that what you really want for someone you supposedly care about?”
When I don’t answer right away, he adds, “And let’s say this Normal is one of those lucky zombies whose Awakening only lasts a minute or two, or maybe an hour. He goes home, he doesn’t know what he is yet, and he’s sitting there at the dinner table; instead of steak and potatoes he decides, in a weak moment, to munch on Mom and Dad. Meet Zombies Number 5 and 6. And let’s say the neighbors stop by with a housewarming gift right then. Meet Zombies Number 7 and 8. And they go home and bite two friends, and they go home and bite two friends. It’s how whole towns get infested, Maddy.”
“B-b-but that’s not fair. I’d be careful. I wouldn’t want this for …anybody.”
Dane waves a hand dismissively. “It doesn’t matter if it’s fair or not.” He taps a thick, green book nestled between the salt and pepper shakers on the table. “The Council won’t allow it. You’re a zombie now, Maddy. Part of a very, very select group. We have rules, procedures, protocols, laws. Law Number 1, Maddy, is that zombies don’t date Normals. Period. End of story. I’m …sorry.”
“You don’t sound very sorry,” I snap.
“Maybe not, but I really am. I know it’s going to be hard, that you’ll have lots of questions. That’s why we’re here. We’re your chaperones, Maddy. Your guides to the Afterlife.” When I don’t respond right away, he sighs and drums a little ditty on the big green book cover. “Did you tell her yet?” he asks Chloe, his voice low, eyes on me.
“Tell me what?”
Chloe shakes her head.
He frowns, then smiles. “No worries. We can tell her tonight; give her something to do on the long trip.”
“Tonight? What trip? I’ve got to get home, you guys. I don’t know about you two, but I’ve got a dad who doesn’t know I’m a zombie, and school tomorrow, and—”
“Don’t worry.” Dane puts an ice cube hand on my Frigidaire wrist. “We have to go at night anyway; the Elders prefer it that way.”
“Elders?”
He and Chloe grin.
“It’s all in here,” Dane says, sliding the big green book across the table. I glance briefly at the title: The Guide to the Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies, 24th Edition.
Oh, great. Even when you’re dead, you get homework.
10
The Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies
I’VE GOT A vocabulary test in second period,” I complain as Dane cruises past the city limits at precisely 3:07 a.m.
Chloe rests her head against her seat. “Relax, Maddy, you’re going to be back in plenty of time to make second period. Besides, let’s say you miss the test; let’s say you fail the class. Heck, let’s say you fail your entire junior year. Girl, you’ve got the rest of eternity to take your junior year over—and over and over.” She says it with a smile, like maybe that’s what she’s been doing for the last, oh, I dunno, 300 years or so.
“But I need to get some sleep if I’m going to do well.”
Dane laughs, and they give each other another one of their superior “inside joke” glances. “You wanna tell her, or should I?”
“You’ve got a better bedside manner,” she says, and it’s the first time I’ve agreed with her all night.
He sighs. “Maddy, I don’t know if you’ll think this is good news or bad, but …zombies don’t sleep.”
“Much?” I ask hopefully. “You mean, zombies don’t sleep …much? Like Benjamin Franklin? Or Einstein? I hear they only slept four hours a night.”
Dane is already shaking his head. “Zombies don’t need any sleep, Maddy. Ever.”
I look out the window, at the endless miles of dark road stretching out before us. “So what am I supposed to do all night?”
Dane shrugs
.
“Well, you can catch up on your reading, for one thing,” Chloe says, tapping The Guide in my lap. “I’d start with that.”
After that the truck cab goes silent and I look at the book. Although it’s dark in here, I can see the title on the cover as clearly as if the dome light were on: The Guide to the Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies, 24th Edition. I open it, flip to a random page, and read this:
Zombies in the first stage of the Assimilation (weeks 1 and 2 after their Awakening) can expect to feel the following: a gradual stiffening of their limbs as muscles solidify and harden, a yellowing of the teeth as oxidation ceases at the gum line, and shadowing under the eyes as blood flow to this region stops completely….
Sweet. Can’t wait for the whole stiff-limb, yellow-teeth, shadow-under-the-eyes phase to kick in. I’ll really be beating the guys off with a stick then.
I flip through some more pages and read this:
The zombie laws prohibit telling any Normal (i.e. a mortal human being) about said zombie-ism. Zombies are expected to “pass” among the general Normal population without incident, and those refusing to do so will be harshly penalized by the Sentinels….
Awesome. Even in death you still have to play by the rules. What, is there zombie detention?
Next I turn to page 74 and find this little nugget:
New zombies are expected to report to the Council of Elders within the first 24 hours of crossing over from the Normal world. Those who fail to do so will face serious repercussions from the Sentinels and potential exile to the post-zombie world….
The post-zombie world? What’s that? The Island of the Pale, Stiff, and Yellow-Teethed? A prison camp for bad zombies? I look up to ask Dane, but his face is serious and focused on the road. I go to ask Chloe, but the permanent scowl on her Goth face makes me think twice. Finally, I start at the beginning and read The Guide until I can’t take it anymore.
“How far now?” I ask an hour or so later, holding The Guide tightly against my chest and rubbing my eyes.
“Not much farther,” Dane says, “but the ceremony takes awhile.” He eyes The Guide in my hands. “You read about it?”
“The Assimilation Ceremony for the Newly Animated? I read about it; sounds pretty official.”
“It’s basically to make sure you understand your rights and responsibilities as a member of the zombie race,” Dane says. With a straight face. Like this is all really happening. Right now. To me.
I sigh. “I thought being dead would be …easier.”
They both snicker.
“Being dead is easy,” Dane says. “Being undead is what’s so hard.”
Finally Dane pulls off the interstate, makes a few sharp turns at the next three intersections, and has us pointed down a lonely strip of dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea where we are, but Dane seems unfazed by the rocky road and lack of visibility. There are no street signs this deep in the middle of the state, no road markers, not even streetlamps.
“How do you know where you’re going?” I nervously bite my lip.
“Every zombie has to visit the Council of Elders before they’re official,” Chloe says. “I made the trip; Dane’s made the trip. It’s not hard to remember.”
“I meant, how can you see out here?”
They look at me.
“Maddy,” Dane says calmly, “we’re only using the headlights for the protection of others. We could see this road—you could see this road—without the headlights.”
To prove it, Dane turns them off. I open my mouth to scream, but Dane is actually right. I gasp. Even without the lights, everything—the outline of the dirt road in front of us, where the line of trees ends, even how tall they are—looks crystal clear.
“Why is it yellow?” I ask, blinking rapidly as if the yellow “zombie vision” might suddenly clear up or go away.
“Nobody knows,” Chloe says. “Something to do with the color spectrum is our best guess. The point is, zombies have excellent senses. Without your heartbeat and your lungs to drown them out, your other senses come more sharply into focus. We can smell for miles, see in the dark, and hear a mosquito fart two towns away.”
“Lovely,” I say as Dane flicks the lights back on. Moments later a large, rectangular building suddenly appears out of the dense brush cover.
“Here we are,” Dane says, a tad unnecessarily. He sees me hugging The Guide and gently pries it from my hands. “They’ll give you your own,” he whispers, looking around suspiciously. “I’m not supposed to show it to anyone.” As if to prove it, he hides it in the glove box.
I’m about to ask him why he’s whispering when I suddenly find out. From nowhere, four armed guards approach the truck. They are not very old, our age, mostly, maybe a tad older, and dressed in solid blue uniforms, blue ball caps, black boots. Very official-looking, very grim, very …menacing; like Bones in boot camp.
“Sentinels,” Chloe says as she rolls down the passenger side window. “They protect the Elders and enforce zombie law.”
“Identification,” says the Sentinel at the driver’s side door.
Dane pulls out a laminated card with his picture and a number on it.
Chloe hands hers over as well.
The Sentinel looks at them both, then glares at me.
“She’s new,” Dane explains. “We’re here for her Assimilation Ceremony. We called a few hours ago.”
“How long?” the Sentinel asks me. His face seems carved of granite, his navy blue jumper hiding (but not very well) thick muscles and broad shoulders. “How? Long?” he says again, yellow teeth and thin lips spitting out the words one at a time.
Dane nudges me. “He wants to know how long you’ve been a zombie.”
“L-l-last night,” I stammer.
The Sentinel looks angry and about to shout out something else when Chloe says, apologetically, “We only spotted her this morning, when she showed up at the local grocer’s looking for brains. We got here as fast as we could.”
It sounds so odd to hear Chloe—surly, angry, bully Chloe—sound so meek as she talks to the Sentinel. She seems almost afraid to look him in the eye. Almost.
He looks from Dane to me, past Chloe, and out her window to where two more of his Sentinel friends stand. “Proceed to the main hall,” he says in his croaky youngish but oldish zombie voice. “We’ll alert the Elders you’re on your way.” The Sentinel slings his rifle back on his shoulder and salutes us.
We drive on. A few seconds later, I say, “I thought I read somewhere in The Guide how bullets can’t kill us.”
“The rifles aren’t for us,” Dane says. “They’re for the Normals. You know, in case they wander onto the property or threaten to out us.”
Dane puts the truck in park at the main hall, a low, slender, almost tubelike building in the center of the Council of Elders compound. The whole place has a community college campus feel to it.
When I mention that to Chloe, she nods. “It used to be a college until the Council of Elders bought it.”
I’m about to ask how zombies make money or, for that matter, how they convince the state of Florida to sell them an entire college, but I figure I’d better prioritize my questions for now. Like Chloe says, I’ve got nothing but time.
More Sentinels guard the front door to the main hall, only now they’ve holstered their guns and stand at the ready with what look like phasers from that old Star Trek show.
“Stun guns,” Dane whispers, following my gaze, “like the cops use.”
“Wouldn’t the rifles work better?” I whisper back.
“Not on us. The rule is if electricity brings us back to life, electricity can kill us again.”
“So that’s how zombies die?” I ask as Chloe opens her door.
“That,” she says, leaning back in, “and physically removing the brain from the skull. Trust me, the stun guns are a lot less messy.”
As I slide out, Dane taps his temple. “The brain’s the power generator for the body. Take
it out, no more power. No more zombie. No more life.”
“Good to know.” I smile, easing past him.
Four Sentinels flank me on the way into the main hall, two on each side. Chloe and Dane are stopped at the main door and told to wait outside. I look back at them helplessly, like a kindergartner being dropped off at her classroom on the first day of school.
The main hall is actually a gym, complete with accordion bleachers folded up and pushed against one wall and basketball hoops yanked up to the very high ceiling. The light is sufficient but not as bright as any I’ve seen in a gym before, where usually the rows and rows of ceiling lights are so bright you can see a wart or blackhead from all the way across the auditorium. I look up and see why; every other bulb has been left out of the dozen or so fixtures hanging high overhead.
The Sentinels guide me to a single chair directly in front of two fold-out picnic tables shoved together. Seated at the tables and facing me are six Hollywood movie-looking zombies. I try to keep from gasping and barely—just barely—manage. But it’s hard.
One of the Sentinels, seeming to sense this, gives me a compassionate wink. “Just look at their ties,” he whispers as he hands me my own copy of The Guide to the Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies, 24th Edition. “It makes it …easier.”
I swallow and do as I’m told. Or, at least, I try to. They’re all dressed in suits—gray suits, mostly; a few black—and stiff, white shirts. A tie dangles loosely around each fat-free neck. It’s too hard not to stare at those old, skeletal faces.
These are your real zombies, your true immortals. Some of them have to be centuries old. One has no hair. I mean, he barely has skin. His eyes are deep and dark, his lips pulled permanently away from his teeth so that you can see the gray gums and large, yellow teeth and the dozens of wide spaces between. Another only has tufts of soft, white hair sticking up at all angles from his rawhide skull covering. Two more have wigs.
A Living Dead Love Story Series Page 7