Zombies Don’t Read: 25 YA Short Stories

by Rusty Fischer

He does, and hands it over.

  I stomp over to Scott, feet wet, and shove the side of his bony hip with my damp toes.

  “Get up!” I shout, kicking him until he starts.

  “Huh? What? What’s going on?”

  He rolls over and I toss the little blue camera into the pit of his concave stomach; it’s sweaty and grimy from crashing on my deck chair all night.

  “Here’s your little souvenir from last night,” I say, standing in front of him; hands on my hips, Wonder Woman style. “Take it and go!”

  “That was supposed to be you and me,” he grins, standing quickly and looking around for his shirt.

  “Oh, wow,” I snap, literally shoving him out now, my hands upon his naked back for the very last time. “Which part of that revelation am I supposed to be impressed with? The part where you hid a video camera across from my Jacuzzi or planned to seduce me on the video camera cross from my Jacuzzi?”

  “Either?” he grunts, stubbing his toe on one of the rock-shaped speakers on the way to the patio gate. “Both?”

  “How about neither, creep. I should be calling the cops right now. In fact…” I reach out and, while he’s stumbling into his $200 flip flops, snatch the camera from his fingers. “I think I’m keeping this for evidence.”

  “Hey, that’s mine!” he shouts, reaching for it back.

  “Exactly,” I snap, holding it behind my back and secretly sliding it into the side pocket of my flowing black bikini cover-up. “I’ll be sure to tell the cops that when I tell them you videotaped me without my consent.”

  “But it wasn’t you,” he sneers, reaching for the back fence door to beat a hasty retreat just the same.

  “Thank God!” I spit. “You tell Lavinia to come by and get it herself. She better hurry though, Scott; I can upload it to a lot of websites by then!”

  He sneers at me one last time, face scruffy and feral in the early morning light, eyes bleary with hangover, tongue thick with Lavinia’s drool.

  I slam the gate in his face and stomp back to Flynn, who is already busy scrubbing the sides of the pool.

  I splash the water until he turns and, seeing me, smiles and rises to the surface like some kind of zombie Aqua man or something.

  “You too,” I spit, kicking water in his face.

  “What? Me? What’d I do?”

  “You thought it was me on that video,” I point out, watching him rise from the shallow end and forcing myself not to drool over his marble physique.

  “I didn’t,” he argues, drying himself off with a random towel from last night’s party.

  “You did,” I spit. “You only watched it to prove me wrong, Flynn!”

  “I watched it because I wanted to prove myself wrong, Viv.”

  His eyes are haunting, sad and clear.

  I shake my head, trembling, wanting to do anything but fall into his arms; then doing exactly that.

  “How could I be so stupid?” I ask, blubbering into his refrigerator chest.

  “Stupid?” he asks, wrapping his arms gently around me and enveloping me in his cold, kind world. “You’re not the one in the video, Viv.”

  “Yeah,” I snuffle-snort. “But… I wanted to be!”

  He chuckles and pushes me away, gently, knowing to cling to him too long is to grow cold and uncomfortable.

  Already the warm morning sun heats my body back to warm, glorious normal.

  “If that’s really true, Viv,” he says quietly, not meaning a word of it. “Then I really should go.”

  I look around at the pool area, head sore with the pressure of cleaning it up myself.

  “If you go,” I snort again, drying tears that were never really there to begin with. “Who will help me clean this up?”