A Living Dead Love Story Series

by Rusty Fischer

  Val must have found a few old ones on the warehouse floor and thought it would be funny to spray tan a Zerker. But no, that can’t be all there is to it. Because the Zerker is going, well, berserk.

  He claws desperately at the nozzles as something white and bubbly coats him from head to toe. In seconds, maybe less, every item of black Sentinel clothing he owns is covered in greasy foam. It clings to everything: his hair, his eyes, his collar, his pockets, his boots, his fingers.

  He snarls and wipes it off, but it only makes it worse. He’s screaming now, then howling, as smoke begins to fill the box. I watch as the Zerker’s clothes melt off, turning a powdery white before falling away. Bright red pustules rush to cover his arms, his neck, his chin, his thighs, his belly.

  His white hair burns away to ash, and his skin begins to melt, dripping off his skull. His howls are muzzled now as oozing flesh fills his throat, at least until his lungs burst and leak down his rib cage like giblet gravy. Flesh puddles at his feet, his knotty, skeletal feet. All that’s holding him up now is the box as his skeleton leans against the door, ribs and shoulder blades and finger bones clattering to the floor.

  “What was that?” I say, mourning the boy, the human, the Sentinel that Zerker once was.

  “Did you know there are 17 potentially deadly chemicals in each tube of sunscreen, Maddy?” Val paces in front of the second live spray tanning booth. “But the sunscreen companies, like Cabana Charly’s, get away with it because they only use microscopic amounts in each batch. Well, I did some online research recently and discovered that if you use enough of it, there’s one ingredient—avotoxia—that will actually eat human flesh.

  “So I thought to myself, ‘Val, how much avotoxia would it take to deflesh a grown man?’ And I discovered, after going through a team or two of Sentinels over the last few days, that if you apply enough undiluted avotoxia, it will strip a man—even a Sentinel—to bone in less than 60 seconds.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing with your spare time?” I say, just stalling now, because I’m pretty sure I know who’s going in that second box.

  “Well, I knew it wouldn’t take you too long to get here once you found out who I was and, of course, what I’d done to poor Stamp. So I thought I’d be ready for you, just in case.”

  And with that, she yanks the black sheet from the second tanning booth.

  But it isn’t for me after all.

  In fact, it’s already occupied.

  29

  After the Afterlife

  Stamp! Stamp? B-b-but … how?”

  I rush to the Plexiglas door and slam my palms against it.

  Surprisingly, Val doesn’t stop me.

  Stamp’s lips are moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. His big yellow eyes are pleading, his big gray hands pressed wide against the door. But they don’t reach for mine to trace my fingertips with his own, the way they do in all those prison movies. One is too far up, the other too far down, and he can’t quite seem to match them up so good.

  He looks lost and helpless, kind of the same way he did after I first brought him back to life in Barracuda Bay. Dane and I kind of baby-stepped him into the Afterlife, but Dane’s not here now, and I’m too tired, too weak, to do anything but stand here in awe that he’s actually … re-alive.

  I think of the sweet boy I bumped into, literally, in the hall his first day of school. How beautiful he was and how he didn’t quite seem to know it. How eager he was for someone to be his friend, how valuable that friendship was to him, how cherished he became to me.

  He was always happy to see me, even when we were fighting. He was like one of those baby ducks who imprint on the first thing they see: a mother duck, a rubber duck, a rooster, whatever. It was like he didn’t know I wasn’t special, like he believed I was someone worth getting to know.

  And the look in his eyes made me believe it as well.

  But now? Now his eyes don’t look at me but through me.

  “Funny thing about zombies,” Val whispers close to my ear. “When you bite them, they lose a little too much of themselves. They’re still re-alive, but not quite all there, you know? Kind of like our Zerker friends in that cage over there. I guess two zombie bites is just one bite too many, huh, Maddy?”

  And just then Stamp moves his head for a better view, and I can see. At that angle, I can see his yellow eyes glinting. And I know, he may be re-alive, but he’s already gone.

  She saved him once, only to kill him twice.

  “I’m sorry, but—”

  Before she can finish her apology, I slam the back of my head into her face, smiling at the satisfying crunch of her nose breaking.

  She tumbles into a heap, but when I turn to find the clicker it’s still clutched firmly in her hand.

  She sits, knees up, hands on knees, and shakes her head. Black goo dribbles out of her broken nose. Not too much. She quickly wipes it off with the back of one hand, her clicker hand.

  “I guess I deserved that,” she says. “I mean, after all I’ve put you through.”

  “I saw Stamp’s body,” I spit, advancing on her once more. “Back at the Splash Zone, in the shark pit. I saw his foot, his hand, his—”

  “Did you ever see his face, Maddy?” she says, still on her rump, knees up in front of her.

  “But he was there, at the bottom of the tank, looking up at me—”

  “His face?” she says gleefully, as if I should be happy she saved Stamp from the shark tank only to turn him into a Zerker. “Did you ever actually see it?”

  “I-I-I stopped looking, I guess, after awhile.”

  “Of course you did. In fact, I was counting on it. That’s why it was so easy for me to turn one of those dopey nightclub kids into a Zerker, slip him into Stamp’s black-and-white-striped hoodie, and chain him to the bottom of the shark pit. All those sharks, all those waves, the moonlight, the floating chunks of human flesh? I added those to get the sharks excited. Your emotions clouded your judgment. It could have been anybody down there. Anyone at all. But not Stamp. No, I had bigger plans for him, as you see. And plans for you as well.”

  “Like what?”

  “Help me up, and you’ll find out.”

  She dares me with those flickering yellow eyes, and I want to kick in that cocky grin with my thrift shop sneakers. I shake my head, and she waves the clicker in front of her face. I groan and yank her up like a sack of wet cement.

  “I’ll give you a choice, Maddy, which is more than you gave Bones before you and Dane ripped him apart that night.”

  “How would you know? You weren’t there, and nobody who was survived.”

  “You mean except for you and Dane? And Stamp, of course? You think you killed every football Zerker or cheerleader Zerker or teacher Zerker that night? Think again. One got out, re-alive. Broken, bent, beaten, but still one of the Living Dead. You might even remember her …”

  Val’s tone is teasing, her eyes provocative. She’s enjoying this. Even so, my heart can’t help but try to leap at the news.

  “Her?” I say, unable to hide the quiver in my voice.

  Hopefully, helplessly, ridiculously, somehow I’m imagining Hazel limping from the burning embers of the smoldering gym. Or Chloe. Or, hell, even Dahlia would be a relief at this point.

  Val seems to read my mind, shaking her head dolefully. “Mrs. Witherspoon. Art class. She still had her big red glasses clutched in her cold, undead hand.”

  I shake my head. So many people, so many victims. All because of me. I don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me smile at the mention of Mrs. Witherspoon’s name.

  “After I got to Barracuda Bay to avenge my brother, well, she wasn’t too hard to find. Or break. She was all too eager to let me know what you did to her and the rest of the Zerkers, including my dear brother. Of course, I couldn’t let her live with what she knew, but what does it matter, right? I mean, it’s not like she wasn’t already dead.”

  She pauses dramatically.

  I griev
e for poor Mrs. Witherspoon—again. I don’t blame her for telling Val. After all, she was a Zerker, and I did copper stake the life out of the old witch!

  “When I heard what happened, when I heard what you did, I made it my life’s mission to get you back. For months, I stalked you. And when I found you, I saw how much Stamp meant to you. And I knew hurting you wouldn’t be enough to make up for what you took from me. At least not at first. But like I said, I’ll give you a choice. I can sunscreen Stamp to death, or you can take his place in the box. Your choice—”

  My voice is resolute, demanding. “Me. Fine. Whatever. Get him out of there.”

  Choice? That’s a choice? Like there is a choice. What does she think I’m here for? To save myself?

  Val cocks one eyebrow, as if maybe she’s surprised. “You sure? You saw what happened to the dude behind Door Number 1, right?”

  “Val, whatever. I didn’t expect to survive a tussle with you anyway, so—”

  “Ah,” she says, hand on her chest. “That’s so sweet. And you’re right. You’re a dead girl walking, so you’re making the right choice. At least this way Stamp gets to live. I mean, it probably won’t be much of a life, but—” She shoves me out of the way while she pushes a four-number code on the side of the Plexiglas door. The minute she does, it hisses open and Stamp tumbles out, growling, looking confused.

  I hug him quickly. I cling to him desperately. I don’t care that Val is pounding on my back, that Stamp can’t hug me back, doesn’t know how to hug me back. Hell, that he doesn’t even know me. I know, and I squeeze him hard. Taking in the smell of him, the feel of him, knowing in my cold, dead heart that this will be the last time. I don’t care what kind of electronic volt therapy or whatever Dane called it that they’re working on in the bowels of the rehabilitation center; there’s no coming back from an avotoxia shower. That much I do know.

  Stamp’s body is a live wire of tension, like the Zerker electricity is surging through him up and down, back and forth. No wonder he can’t think straight, can’t even line up his hands or remember his ex. Is this how it might have felt to hug Bones? Or Dahlia?

  Or even Val?

  Val yanks me away from him and literally kicks me into the tanning booth before sliding the door shut. I gasp. I can already smell the chemicals hiding in the hoses and the tubes hooked up to the Spray Tan Death Ray Booth from Hell. Stamp looks at me from the other side of the Plexiglas door, confusion in his yellow eyes.

  Damn, I wish I could cry!

  And I wish he could talk!

  If he could say just one word to me, one last word, it would all be worth it. I don’t mind dying again. But dying with Stamp in limbo, bewildered and hurt and angry, feels worse than dying.

  It feels like losing.

  Stamp shuffles toward the door, hands outstretched, touching the Plexiglas, leaving big smears, lips moving but not saying anything. His gaze finally reaches mine, flickering with intensity, if not recognition. But instead of looking away or squinting angrily like the Sentinel-Zerkers still pounding against their cage, he looks at me, not through me. The eyes soften, then grow, and he’s there. Stamp’s there! I know he is. And he sees me, with those Zerker eyes, and I know, if he can see me, then after I’m gone, there will still be hope for Stamp.

  At that moment, when I see the human, the boy, even the plain old zombie, in Stamp’s yellow Zerker eyes, Val shoves him out of the way. He stands to one side, looking more wounded than if she’d torn off one of his arms.

  Val’s gloating, smiling, enjoying herself, poising the clicker in her hand.

  Suddenly Stamp slams his hands down on either side of her head. His fists are closed, and I see them white and heavy as they crack the bones of each of her shoulders with a decisive snap.

  She drops like a sack of Zerker, and the clicker skitters to the floor. I watch it tumbling end over end and wonder if it will land on the button and start the avotoxia and turn me into meat soup and dry bones despite all Stamp has done to save me.

  It doesn’t. For now.

  Val’s yellow eyes are full of rage as Stamp kicks her into a stack of barrels that barely move. I’d love nothing more than to watch him tear her apart, but I don’t have time for that. I rip off my hoodie and reach under my tank top, turning delicately away in case Stamp sees. (Don’t ask me why. It makes no sense. For one, he’s seen it before. And for another, he’s too busy breaking the rest of Val’s bones.)

  I slip the electric pen out and zap the combination lock from the inside, trying to find a circuit where—Hiss, click, it finally opens. I step out quickly, just in case she booby-trapped the sucker to start spraying if the lock is picked from inside.

  She didn’t. It doesn’t.

  Val is gurgling with Stamp’s foot on her throat. Her wrist is at an odd angle and one foot is twisted badly, but she’s still alive. I can tell she’s alive from the blaze in her yellow eyes and the hum of bitter electricity shimmering off her in waves. She sees me emerge from the tanning booth and looks almost … hopeful.

  Stamp is heaving, if not quite breathing, from the effort.

  I walk toward him gingerly and reach out a hand.

  “Stamp—” is all I get to say before he turns on me, a chunk of Val’s thigh in his mouth.

  His chin is covered with her black Zerker goo, and his eyes are more yellow than a blinking traffic light. His forehead is thick and lined with anger, and his gory clawlike fingers reach for me.

  I bat them away harshly. “Stop it, Stamp,” I shout, trying to reason as I stumble backward.

  I click the top of Vera’s electric pen, trying to get his attention, screaming with each flick: “Stop! Stamp. You. Stop. That. Right. Now!”

  He lunges and I duck, trying to jam the pen into his knee. But he follows me, crouching too, his face centimeters away and his rage and fear and confusion in hi-def before he punches me squarely in the forehead.

  Not expecting it, I tumble backward before I get really, really pissed. Stamp never trained with Dane and me. Not once. He called it a waste of time and preferred to go clubbing. Maybe he figured the Zerkers would want a dance-off or something when they finally caught up with him. Who knows?

  My point is, now he’s big and angry but still kind of, I dunno … stupid?

  And angry. And maybe a little hungry? Whatever we shared back there in the booth, or I thought we shared, is gone. For now, forever, I can’t tell, but this much I do know: I came here to avenge Stamp, not get eaten by him!

  I approach him, pen in hand, and he looks at that hand, not my other one. So I smack him. Hard. I hear something snap, and it’s not just his head. His eyes glow even brighter, and he looks at that hand, so I go to jab the electric pen in his neck and finish this once and for all, when he jukes just in time.

  Okay, okay, so maybe he’s not so dumb after—

  “Umph!” I stumble back.

  He advances, catching me off guard with another swift kick to the side. Being a Zerker has made him more limber? And not as dumb as I thought. The warehouse is getting smaller as he keeps pushing me back, back, almost to the vibrating cage of Sentinel Zerkers.

  They are howling now, jamming on their cage, and suddenly I see. I see what Stamp is doing. He’s leading me to them. He’ll corner me, kick open their cage, or break the lock. Or, hell, maybe this sleeper mastermind Zerker yanked the key away from Val and he’ll open it and unleash them on me.

  On me!

  This? This is how it ends? Stamp is alive, and now he’s going to kill me? I’ve heard of jilted lovers, but this is pretty extreme even for a Zerker!

  I fight frantically, kicking and jabbing and yanking, and get nowhere.

  His left thumb is bent and he’s limping. One eye looks wonky, and something brown and green oozes from his nose.

  I’m no farther from the Zerker cage, and he’s lots closer!

  “Stamp,” I plead, if only to lull him with my voice.

  It doesn’t work. He’s gurgling at the other Zerkers in the ca
ge, and they’re frickin’ gurgling back. They’re almost like apes talking.

  And I wonder, not for the first time, why zombies are so much like us and zombies who’ve been bitten by Zerkers are so much like animals.

  Stamp reaches for the cage, and I kick him in the elbow.

  He turns and growls, upper lip covered with Zerker slime, drool running down. And then something catches his eye just to the left.

  I turn because I’m figuring it’s Val.

  It’s not. Not even close.

  30

  Rescue Me

  Umph,” Dane groans, shoving his cane through Stamp’s arm so hard it gets stuck in the corrugated tin wall of the abandoned warehouse. Stamp goes limp immediately, almost like the cane was made out of …

  “Copper!” Dane says proudly, clapping like you do when you’ve done something thoroughly amazifying. Which he has! “I had the Sentinels build me a new one made all out of copper. With a rubber handle, of course.”

  I crush him in a hug. “Why on earth would the Sentinels build you a new cane? I mean, last I checked you were in handcuffs!”

  “Yeah, well, that was before you escaped and I told them I knew exactly where you were going. Sentinels tend to like things like that. Got me a few brownie points and this shiny copper cane. Oh, and a ride here.”

  “How did you find me?”

  He shrugs, trying in vain to pull his copper cane out of Stamp’s arm. It’s stuck not just through Stamp’s bicep but deep into the wall behind him.

  Dane grunts and gives up. “Well, I didn’t think I would. I just lied to the Sentinels to get out of there and come after you, but they have this police scanner in their vans. So when we found out about the fire in the dollar store parking lot—nice touch, by the way—and then heard the cops squawking about one of their cars being stolen, well, I put two and two together and started looking for you.”