A Living Dead Love Story Series

by Rusty Fischer

  “We didn’t kill anybody. We defended ourselves. We defended our town and our friends and our parents. There’s a big difference.”

  Vera shrugs. “Maybe that’s what Val thought she was doing.”

  “What? By waiting a few months and then luring Stamp into some shark tank? That’s self-defense?”

  She opens her mouth and, so help me God, I shove the table in her direction just to shut her up. Its legs skid a millimeter or two on the floor.

  Vera kind of gasps, we share a look, and then she shakes her head. “Look at the file. Then we’ll talk.” She stands, pen in hand—clicking, clicking, clicking—pacing the small interrogation room.

  I finally open the file with a trembling hand. The first thing I see are the same kind of surveillance photos that the Sentinels—or the Keepers or the FBI of the Living Dead or whoever the hell—took of Dane and Stamp and me in Orlando.

  They’re of big-booted, spiky-haired Val doing mundane un-Zerker-like things: getting gas, shopping for mascara, going into a nightclub, coming out of a nightclub.

  I’m flipping them over and over and over, sneering at Val’s smug face, that pug nose and stupid, stupid hair, when the first picture of Stamp pops up. I gasp out loud and don’t care that it stops Vera in her tracks.

  The room slips away, and I slide the picture out of the folder, holding it close so I can study every detail. Stamp is in a black T-shirt, loose but soft and clingy across his broad chest. It has long sleeves to cover up his zombie skin, and he stands awkwardly, a full foot taller than Val. They lean against some grody brick wall downtown.

  I can tell it’s from a few weeks back, when they first met, because he’s not wearing the stupid black-and-white hoodie he must have bought—or maybe she bought for him—while they were dating.

  He looks so young, so handsome, even in his Living Death. I’ve known him so long, I don’t see the death pallor, the drawn cheeks, the hooded eyes, the crooked smile anymore. I just see the boy who ran into me that first day at Barracuda Bay High, the Superman curl he can’t get back, and the boy I doomed forever by bringing him back from the dead.

  And now he’s dead again.

  “You’re lucky,” I croak, not looking up, voice deader than usual, “that zombies don’t cry. Or your stupid folder would be ruined.”

  I hear a cluck or a chuckle and then the shuffling of her feet to the other end of the room.

  Reluctantly, I slip Stamp’s picture into the file and move on.

  There are more of them together: Val and Stamp in a nightclub, Val and Stamp chugging double frozen coffee shots, Val and Stamp at the warehouse. I flip through them quickly. It hurts too much to linger.

  There is a yearbook photo of Val, circa 1970-what-the-hell. She’s in braces and bell-bottoms and a big, fat, floral collared shirt and feathery blonde hair. I always forget zombies are immortal, that we’re immortal.

  “How old is she?” I say, as if this is the biggest sin she’s committed: not being an actual teenager.

  Vera finally chuckles. “Does it matter?”

  I shrug, flip the page, and freeze. There is a second yearbook photo, same ’70s-era feathery hair and big, floppy collars and—it’s Bones!

  “Bones had hair?”

  “Lots of it,” she says, even though she’s staring at her shoes. “Apparently.”

  Brown, curly, frizzy hair. Big buckteeth. Eyes that were not yellow but green. Val’s eyes, too, I find, looking back.

  I slip the photos out of the file and line them up next to each other. Only when they’re side by side can I see the resemblance of brother and sister. It’s in the eyes, the bridge of the nose, the jut of the jaw.

  “They look so goofy.”

  “It was the ’70s. We all looked goofy.”

  “You … you were in the ’70s?”

  Vera rolls her eyes. “You don’t wanna know.”

  There are only a few more pictures in the file. Younger ones. Bones and Val as little kids on tricycles. Looking awkward in fuzzy red jumpers in front of a Christmas tree.

  I put those images back and stare at the yearbook photos.

  “Why do they stop here?” I say, already suspecting the answer.

  “That’s when they were turned.” She returns to the seat across from me.

  While I stare at the yearbook photos, memorizing each freckle, each eyelash, each pimple, Vera rustles through the few remaining pages of the file to slide out a yellowed newspaper article. I can’t see the front as she holds it up, but I see a cigarette ad on the back: 75 cents for a pack of cigarettes. Not too shabby.

  “Mysterious illness infects local church,” she reads from the article, holding it by the edges gingerly. “Thirty-four members of the Zionist Pioneer Church on 47th and Sycamore were buried in a mass grave yesterday, in accordance with local health codes. The only two survivors of what local residents are calling the yellow flu, named for its resulting flu-like symptoms and yellow eyes, were not in attendance. Valerie Simmons and her younger brother, Randolph, watched the funeral on TV from the local orphanage. Their parents, Bill and Carol Simmons, were two of the earliest victims of the yellow flu and—” She pauses.

  I’ve slid the pictures into the file and closed it. “So they were human. I get that. They had parents, friends. Their whole life changed. So why us? Why did Bones, or this Randolph Simmons dude, get to the point that he hung out in high schools baiting regular zombies and chomping on Normals’ brains?”

  “Why do any of us wind up anywhere?” Her voice is sad.

  I wonder if, like me, she is thinking of her own parents and how she became a zombie and when and why and what she left behind.

  “All we know is that Valerie and her brother, Randolph, aka Bones, survived a Zerker outbreak by becoming ones themselves. We could only trace them as far back as the orphanage they stayed at after the funeral. That is, until they broke out. After that, they came up as only blips on the Sentinels’ radar from time to time over the years.”

  I shake my head and slide the file across the table. “So if they were so close, where was Val when Bones was terrorizing me and my friends?”

  Vera shrugs. “Another high school, perhaps? Divide and conquer? All we know is that Val showed up in Barracuda Bay a few days after the first team of Sentinels got there to try and find you. A surveillance team tracked her all the way to Orlando, where she apparently located you guys. That’s where these photos were taken. After that, well, you could probably tell us more than we already know. If you’d talk, that is …”

  I nod but don’t. Talk, that is.

  She sits there patiently.

  Suddenly, I remember: “You said this would change my mind about Val. Why?”

  Vera shrugs. “She was human once, just like you.”

  I stand and linger by the door, my back to her. “You forget,” I say, my tone so cold it almost frosts over the window in the door. “I’m not human anymore.”

  21

  She’s a Keeper

  I’m pacing when I hear the door at the end of the hall open and boots squeak in the hall. Then something starts scraping ominously in time with the boot steps.

  Clomp, clomp, scrape. Clomp, clomp, scrape. I stop my pacing long enough to inch away from the bars of my cell, just in case it’s some cyborg with a machine gun arm or laser beam eyeball or something.

  I know, I know, too much Syfy, but I can’t help it! What else am I supposed to watch at 4:00 a.m.?

  The clomping and scraping get closer and closer—did I mention, it’s a really long hall—until at last I’m nearly pushed against the far wall of my cell and a flash of faded blue enters my peripheral.

  Vera comes into focus and sets down the four-legged chair she’s been scraping down the hall. She sits in it outside my cell. There’s a self-satisfied smile on her face, like maybe she did all that on purpose, just to scare me or tease me or just plain bug the holy crap out of me.

  Either way, I go back to pacing.

  Each pass I not
ice something new about how Vera’s sitting but more importantly where she’s sitting. Just on the other side of the yellow line outside my cell, to be specific. Too far for my arms to reach, and don’t think I haven’t spent the last few hours trying.

  And the way she sits there, smiling, legs crossed, my file on her knee, one foot dangling in the air and every so often kicking a little the way people do. It’s like she’s read my mind and already knows about me wanting to pickpocket her or something!

  “So,” she says brightly, as if I’m not in a cell and she’s not on a molded plastic chair outside of my cell holding a file that contains every vital piece of information about my life. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Today? What day? Isn’t it the same day?”

  She nods. “Technically, but it’s after midnight now, so how are you feeling today?”

  I pause by the door of my cell and rest my hands on the bars over the lock, the way you’ll see prisoners do in old movies. It feels good to take a break from the constant pacing. Not because I’m tired, but staring at a wall hour after hour gets real old real fast. Besides, like her or not, Vera’s at least something new to look at for a change.

  “Well, let’s see. I’m sad and scared and pissed off and lonely, but mostly I’m pissed off. Why? What are you writing?”

  She has an open legal pad on top of my file and is writing what I’m saying. Okay, maybe not every word, because I was really flying through the syllables there at one point, but—

  “You’re here for intake, remember, Maddy? I can’t release you if I don’t—”

  “Release me? When are you releasing me? Let’s do this thing already!”

  Vera cracks a rare smile, then shakes her head at the same time. “Maddy, you know I can’t tell you that yet.”

  I groan and turn on my heel and catch a slight whiff of mold from my sneakers. “Well, can I at least get some new clothes, then?” It’s not the mold I care about so much as the opportunity to reach out and grab and steal a key from whoever’s handing some new clothes over.

  She nods absently, then scrawls some more notes. “Someone will be bringing those along for you. Now, before we do, a few updates.”

  I perk up, sitting in one of the steel chairs bolted to the wall of my cell.

  “We’ve now sent a total of four Sentinel First Responder teams to Barracuda Bay and moved your dad to a safe house.”

  “A safe house. What’s that?”

  “A house that’s safe, Maddy.” Her tone isn’t even sarcastic. “I can’t tell you where, for obvious reasons.”

  “How safe?” I ask urgently, lurching to the edge of my seat.

  “Safe, Maddy, as long as he goes straight from work to the safe house and back again.”

  “And work? I mean, a safe house is one thing, but how do you hide four teams of Sentinels in the county morgue?”

  Vera offers another little smile. “You’d be surprised how subtle we can be. After all, we stalked you for months without you knowing, didn’t we?”

  Yeah. And look how well that turned out.

  “Well, I mean, how is he? Did he say anything?”

  “About what?”

  “About me? Damn, didn’t he even ask you why he was being moved?”

  She looks at some notes in her pad and shakes her head. “I don’t see any of that here, no.”

  She leaves it out there, just like that. So do I. I mean, what am I going to say? It doesn’t sound like Dad to not ask about me, but … he does hate change. Maybe he was ticked off when the Sentinels showed up and dragged him out of his warm, comfy home.

  “Secondly,” she goes on, pausing a little so I can snap out of it and focus on her again, “we’ve been interviewing Dane and his story conflicts with yours.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, he claims that you were unconscious for most of what happened at Barracuda Bay High School and, accordingly—”

  “Wait, what? The Fall Formal? Seriously? Why are we still beating that dead horse? I thought … I thought this was about Val and what happened to Stamp. She’s the bad guy. She should be in some damn cell, not me and certainly not Dane! I mean, who the hell still cares about Barracuda Bay High?”

  Vera cocks her head and runs a large hand over her bristly scalp. “The Sentinels do, Maddy. In addition to the laws you broke by leaving the scene of an active Zerker infestation and not reporting to the Sentinel authorities the minute you three arrived in Orlando, you broke a series of laws back in Barracuda Bay.”

  “Wait. Hold up. The Sentinels still care? I thought you were a Sentinel.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m a Keeper, Maddy. We’re kind of between the Sentinels and the Elders.”

  I nod. “So you’re above the Sentinels?”

  That would explain why she can click a tongue and 400-pound zombies in black berets come running.

  “We don’t think that way about ourselves,” she scolds, but there’s still a gleam of self-satisfaction in her eyes.

  “So, I don’t get it. If you’re not a Sentinel and you’re not an Elder, then what does a Keeper do?”

  She shrugs. “What do you think a Keeper does?”

  “Keep kids in some stupid jail cell when they should be out protecting their dads.”

  She nods. “Not quite but, yes, we are the Keepers of many things: of information, for one. Of rules and laws, for another. And when those rules and laws are broken, we keep zombies like you locked up until we can get to the truth. That’s how we keep order. That’s how we keep ourselves above the Zerkers. I thought you, of all people, would appreciate that.”

  She waits a beat, as if to see if her explanation makes sense, but really I’m just trying to gather as much information as I can so that when and if I ever get out of here I can know who to avoid the fastest.

  Sentinels: avoid.

  Keepers: avoid at all costs.

  “Back to Dane.” She leans in just a smidge.

  I watch her closely. It’s as if she’s finally started talking about what she came here to talk about. “You understand that if he is charged with all the zombie laws he broke back in Barracuda Bay, he could be kept here for up to 10 years. And that if you were to allow him to take all the blame, your stay would be much shorter.”

  “How much shorter?” I say, not even trying to hide the base desperation and, yes, greed in my tone.

  Another head cock, as if she’s surprised by not just the question but the tone. “I-I’m not sure.” She stumbles for the first time since we’ve met. “I guess I didn’t think you’d let him take the blame for what I doubt he could have managed to do all by himself.”

  “Who says? Ever seen the dude with his shirt off? He’s all muscle, lady. All over. And he’s been doing this a really long time. And he really, really hates Zerkers. Does it say that in your file? Because, really? Those Zerkers didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Okay, but you understand that these are serious charges Dane faces?”

  “Well, then, he shouldn’t have killed so many Zerkers, I guess, huh?” I try to sound flip, but the words feel like acid on my tongue. I wonder if she can see the distaste on my face.

  She nods and stops writing. “I see. Are you saying you’re willing to let Dane take the rap just so you can flee to Barracuda Bay and—?”

  “Of course not!” I gasp, really laying it on thick now. “I would never let Dane be punished for something I did, but if I didn’t do it, would the Keepers want me to confess to it? Is that how you guys roll because, from what I’ve seen, Vera, you guys are better than that.”

  She shakes her head warily, suddenly distracted by a noise at the end of the hall.

  I look at her closely and lean in. If she were only sitting two stupid inches closer to the cell, I could reach out and snatch her bony-ass arm, yank it inside, and get the key.

  And the pen. Don’t forget the pen, Maddy!

  “Your clothes are here,” she says abruptly, standing and sliding the chair back another few inc
hes.

  Damn, can this witch really read minds?

  I hear boot steps, lots of them, and wonder how many Sentinels it takes to carry a change of underwear and some stupid flip-flops.

  Then I hear the distinct clinking and clunking of chains.

  “Dane!”

  And I catch Vera’s eyes, so alert and so knowing, and I can almost hear her thinking: Wow, for someone so eager to let her man take the rap for her crimes, she sure is happy to see him.

  22

  Dane with Cane

  He looks bad: beat down, bruised up, and bandaged everywhere.

  Plus, he’s limping. And there’s this: a cane!

  “Hey,” I snap at the Sentinels and, by association, Vera. “That wasn’t all from the sharks!”

  “Maddy,” Dane says, hobbling on his cane and getting pulled back mercilessly by one of his giant Sentinel guards when he’s too close to the forbidden yellow line of doom. “Don’t worry. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine,” I grumble.

  He cracks that crooked smile. “Really, Maddy, I am.”

  He’s holding clothes, lots of them, and goes to hand them over. Before he does, a Sentinel grabs them and shoves them clumsily through the bars, where they naturally sprinkle like grated cheese all over the floor.

  “Nice,” I hiss, picking up socks and a flannel shirt and tossing them onto my shiny, stainless steel table just as carelessly. “Real nice. Can we have some privacy please?”

  The Sentinel guards chuckle, but Vera gives them a look and they take four steps back immediately. Dang, maybe these Keepers are badass after all.

  “Five minutes,” Vera whispers, eyeing Dane carefully before stepping back to keep a safe distance from the stocky Sentinels. She touches Dane’s shoulder gently. “And stay behind the yellow line.”

  Dane looks down and stops his cane right where the yellow line ends. He waits, watching until Vera has joined the Sentinels midway down the hall. She walks past them a smidge, then stops. She’s not going any farther.