A Living Dead Love Story Series (18 page)

I find Amy's, then Sally's, then Missy's and print them out, one by one, before logging out of Dad's account and clearing his history bar so he won't see what I've been doing while he's been working another double shift.

From the printer, I grab the three sheets of paper. From the pencil holder, I grab a yellow highlighter. I look around, but Hazel has disappeared and, by the time I've highlighted the empty line next to where the weight of each girl's brain
should
have been recorded (but wasn't), I find Hazel sitting in the breakfast nook, her house keys on the table, her big pink purse in her lap.

“Well?”

I lay the sheets out for her, one next to the other, next to the other.

She looks at them skeptically until I point out the highlighted boxes. “So? This could mean anything. The lab misplaced it, the cops couldn't find it, any number of things could have—”

“That's why I highlighted Dad's notes at the bottom, Hazel.”

She glances briefly at the big highlighted box at the bottom of each form before shoving the printouts away.

“Okay,” I say, snatching each one up and reading them in order. “Amy Jaspers, cause of death termed accident. Only anomaly a deep gash in back of skull and her brain ripped out at the stem. Sally Kellogg, cause of death is termed by this coroner to be accidental. Only anomaly a deep gash in back of skull and her brain ripped out at the—Hazel, where are you going?”

“Fine.” She walks toward the door while rubbing away tears from her eyes. “You've proved your point, okay? I'm suitably freaked out, all right? So, not only do zombies exist, but my best friend is one. Awesome. And she's not alone. There are four others in town. Yippee. And two of them are going around eating the brains of our entire Home Ec class, one by one. But thank goodness, the other two are hanging out in the cemetery watching over us, making sure we're not next. Happy now, Maddy?”

“Me? What'd I do wrong? You think I asked to be a zombie, Hazel? You think I
wanted
all this?”

She stops at the door, her mascara running, her upper lip shiny with wasted tears. “I dunno, Maddy. I don't know anything anymore. I know you weren't very happy when you were alive, so I just hope you're happier as …as …a zombie.”

M
Y FIRST WEEK
as Barracuda Bay High School's newest Goth doesn't exactly go very well in just about every department. Lots of stares, lots of finger pointing, daily lectures from Ms. Haskins, from Hazel, and, well, let's just say it goes downhill after that.

By A-lunch on Wednesday I'm so ticked off—with everybody, everywhere, in every class, during every period—that the thought of suffering through another of Hazel's insufferable lectures about the difference between glam and Goth literally has my stomach turning.

So I avoid the cafeteria altogether and head out past the quad to the track and field, where B-lunch is still sweltering through a mild October noontime as their PE class winds down. Hey, as far as lunch-times go, it's not a bad way to spend half an hour.

There are lots of strapping young guys in tight gym shorts and tighter tank tops, but I don't really even notice them as I climb into the bleachers and fume in my new Goth wear. I'll give you this much, though: the sun feels good on my face. I blink and put my sunglasses on top of my head, Princess Grace style, and stare off into the nothingness behind my thick gray eyelids.

“Maddy?”

Seriously? Now?

His legs look funny in shorts. Don't get me wrong; they're still hot. It's just …funny to see them so bare and so …close. “Stamp?”

“I've been looking all over for you,” he says sincerely, sitting down backward on the bleacher bench in front of me. “Your car was already gone when I came by this morning, you haven't been to your locker in forever, you keep ditching Art class; it's like …like you're avoiding me or something.”

Bingo!
But not for the reason he thinks. “Stamp, I'm
not
avoiding you, really. I just—”

“Is that black lipstick?” He reaches to touch it.

I don't want him flinching from the cold of my skin, so I instinctively shrink back.

He doesn't seem hurt, just …more curious. “And, why are you, I mean, when did you go …Goth?”

“What? You don't like it? Well, you don't
have
to like it, Stamp. What, just ‘cause you ask me out to a party—
once
—you think you can tell me how to dress? What to wear? Who to hang out with?”

He smiles, then laughs. “No, no, not at all. It's just, one day you look like little miss bookworm with the beret and the scarf and the stack of homework, and now, all of a sudden, you look like …like …a vampire chick. Actually, it's kind of …hot.”

I tilt my head. With the sun blazing right behind him, it kind of looks like he's wearing a halo. “Really?” I ask hopefully. I mean, if a guy like Stamp can go for the Goth look, maybe there's hope for me passing among the Normals yet.

“Yeah,” he says, inching forward. “I mean, I always thought Goth chicks were kind of sexy.”

“Yeah? Really? You're not just saying that?”

“All the girls in Wisconsin were so …blonde,” he says. “And, I mean, they all looked the same. I dunno, I just, I'm digging the new look.”

Oh boy; this is going to be harder than I thought. “Listen, Stamp, about the other day—”

“Tell me this,” he says, idly fingering the laces of my new black boots. “Are you going to wear this when we go to the Fall Formal on Friday?”

My stomach falls, and my mouth drops, and my eyes close, and I think,
Great. Your first official week as a fully Council-of-Elders-approved zombie, and you're about to break the Number 1 Rule of All Zombie Law Ever: “thou shalt not date Normals”?

“I can't,” I say, inching back like maybe I just saw a bug scamper across his thigh.

He blinks—twice—but never stops smiling. “Sure you can, Maddy; just say ‘yes' and we're good to go. I mean, it's just a dance.”

“No, I mean, I
can't
go, Stamp.”

“Look, if your dad's not cool with it, I can talk to him and make him see …” He keeps blathering, the little black curl dangling over his forehead moving with each smarmy come-on.

No matter how attractive he's making it sound (and look), I have to shut him down completely, no questions asked. It's not even a Zombie Law thing so much as a common courtesy thing.

Even if it wasn't against the Law to date Normals, why would I? Why would I take a kid like Stamp and lead him on when it can't go anywhere? I mean, what am I going to do when it's time to go to second base? (Or is it third? I always get them mixed up.) Make sure it happens not merely near a sauna but
in
a sauna?

And what about after
that?
What if it's really the real thing and he wants to get married? Have kids someday? Can zombies even have kids? I'm doubting it since they have no heartbeat—and don't nutrients move through the blood?

And no, just …no. This has to stop.
Now
.

Whatever Stamp is saying, I shut him down in the worst way possible. “I don't mean I can't go to the dance, Stamp. I mean I can't go to the dance with …you.”

Ouch. And now his eyes go soft, not tearful soft, just …hurt soft. Great. So now I'm the creep at the end of
White Fang?
Tossing sticks at the wolf to get him to go away because I know he has to go live in the wild but
he
doesn't know that?

“I don't understand. I mean, I thought we had …something?”

“We do, Stamp; I mean, we did. But I'm not who you think I am. I'm not
what
you think I am. A good girl, I mean. I'm not, really, a good girl.”

He shakes his head. “There's someone else?” he says, almost like he can't believe it.

And suddenly—right then and there—he gives me the out, the really mean, nasty out I've been struggling to find since he walked up the bleachers. “Yes, I mean, I didn't want to tell you but—”

“Who?” he asks. “Who is it?”

“You wouldn't know him.”

“I don't care, Maddy. I want to know who it is.”

Now his face is ruddy, and I'm mad that I have to do that to him, and mad that he's pushing it so hard, but most of all I'm mad that he can get red in the face when I never, ever will again.

“Fine, Stamp,” I shout, standing in the bleachers, making a scene now. “You want to know why I can't go to the stupid dance with you, Stamp? I can't go to the Fall Formal with you, Stamp, because I'm already going with …with …Dane Fields.”

Wow,
that
comes out of nowhere. He looks momentarily confused; then the clouds clear and the light shines and he smiles, thin and mean, and says, “What, that creep who's always hanging out with that Goth Amazon chick? The one who never takes down his hoodie, even in class? The one who smokes out by Shop class every day?
That's
the loser you chose over me?”

I want to say Dane's not a loser, that
I'm
the loser, but this is for the best. I keep telling myself this is for the best. So I let it go, I let him rant, and with every word, with every fleck of spittle that flies from those beautiful, full lips, I thank him, thank him for doing what needed to be done when I was too weak to do it myself. Because whatever he thinks of me, whatever lies I've had to tell, whatever happens next, at least he'll never know the truth.

Not the
real
truth.

“Fine, Maddy,” he says, standing now, towering over me, his curl wagging left and right like that hanging ball in a grandfather clock. “Whatever. Take your little punk loser to the dance. I don't need you, Maddy. I can ask two dozen, three dozen chicks right now to go with me.”

“Well then,” I shout over my shoulder as I stomp down the bleacher steps, “I guess you better start stocking up on corsages.”

L
ATER THAT DAY
, sketch pad in hand, satchel over my shoulder, feeling desperately in need of a little grave rubbing therapy, I come across Scurvy toiling earnestly at the cemetery gates. He's pruning some bushes, looking ruddy with his sleeves rolled up and his gardening gloves on.

Blinking against the late afternoon sun, he asks, “What's got you smiling?”

I shake my head, taking in the strong scent of his clean sweat, his health, his …normality. “I shouldn't be smiling about anything with the day I've had, but sometimes you just gotta laugh to keep from crying, right?”

“Ain't that the truth?” He says it earnestly, like maybe a guy named Scurvy would know all about it.

I stand there beside him and dig around in my satchel until I find the little freezer Baggie full of oatmeal cookies I made after school and hand them over.

“Ah.” He slips off a glove and digs into them straightaway. “If only I wasn't married and 11 years older than you and you weren't the coroner's daughter,” he says jokingly.

I wave him off over my shoulder and scuttle deeper into the graveyard, leaving behind the sound of Scurvy's headstone teeth chewing on warm cookies.

I've gotten here early because I don't want to be caught in the cemetery after dark. Not anymore, not with Bones and Dahlia on my case and this whole zombie and Zerker Truce thing resting in the balance. And it makes me feel better to think Scurvy will still be here even after I'm done with my latest grave rubbing. Okay, okay, so maybe I
should
have told Dane and Chloe about it; maybe I should have let them know where I was going to be, but you know what? I'm already dead. What's the worst that could happen? I'll die again?

I try to put the zombies, and especially the Zerkers, out of my mind for a minute. I attempt to forget how much Hazel and Ms. Haskins and pretty much everybody else at school hate my new “lifestyle choice.” Instead, looking for exactly the right grave to rub to forget all my troubles, I think of Stamp. The way his face looked when I told him no, the way it practically fell, like all the life had gone out of him. I've never had anyone look at me that way before; chances are I never will again.

I think so hard I find myself in front of a not particularly cool headstone, with no real flourishes or distinguishing characteristics, but I'm so eager to start the process, so anxious to lay down my satchel and fondle my tools, so quick to be calm, that I don't really care.

I'm too sad to visit any of the girls from our Home Ec class; sadder still now that I know the real reason behind the Curse and how close I came to becoming Victim Number 4. I mean, Dane said the Zerkers liked to stalk their prey, to toy with it awhile and make sure the victim's brain was in fear overdrive before chowing down.

Is that what they were doing the last few days, tripping me in Home Ec? Following me to the graveyard? Stalking me, putting my brain in a frenzy? I think of Amy and Sally and Missy and what might have been happening to them in the days before they died. Was Bones shadowing them all around town? Was Dahlia giving them the evil eye up until the day they died? I shiver at the thought and try to blink their happy, sad, smiling, or crying faces away, glad I chose to stay far from their graves today.

So I sit at the generic grave. I empty my satchel and take out the brush, and the brushing feels good; so good I clean that headstone like it's probably never been cleaned before. (No offense to Scurvy, of course.)

Then I rip out a sheet of onionskin, tape it up tight, grab a perfectly new charcoal pencil, and start rubbing, just …rubbing, the sound of black charcoal dust on white paper, the scratch of the onionskin against the stone, the rushing, rushing back and forth and soon I'm in my place; the special place rubbings take me, where no one or nothing can get me—not even in a cemetery.