A Living Dead Love Story Series (35 page)

He chuckles lazily at my even lazier attempt at humor. “I'm not sure our boy would stand for that at his age. But what he doesn't know might be good for him.”

“Sounds sneaky. Go on …”

Y
ou think he'll
notice us?” I say as we tail Stamp out of the bustling employee parking lot after work later that day.

Stamp guns it straight into early evening traffic.

Dane, a more careful and patient driver, prefers the ease-in approach. He grips the wheel and tries to stay close to Stamp's rugged green Jeep—but not too close. “Maybe I should have borrowed someone else's car, huh?” he says helplessly as Stamp races two car lengths ahead.

“Next time.” I force my fingers out of the dashboard and fold them together on my lap instead.

Dane drives a giant, ancient four-door, which he bought used for $600 and spent our first month in Orlando restoring night and day. We're talking 30 straight days of changing the oil, switching out belts and checking the timing, and rotating the tires. Now it runs
like a top, even if it looks like something my dad might drive to a crime scene.

“If there is a next time.” He grunts, pushing through a yellow light so we don't lose Stamp completely.

Stamp has a real lead foot. I never knew this about him. I mean, maybe it's a recent thing because when we were dating, if anything, he drove real slow. Trying to get to the movies on time with Stamp was like trying to get Dane to listen to anything but smooth jazz, i.e. hard work.

Then I think maybe he's just really eager to see Val. Then I frown because, seriously, why did he never seem that excited to see me?

“This isn't as fun as it looks,” Dane says through gritted teeth as we leave Orlando's resort area and head toward the scruffy side of its glittering downtown, dodging insane tourists who don't know where they're going, all the while keeping an eye on Lead Foot Stamp Crosby himself. You know, without Stamp keeping an eye on us.

“Yeah, I've always wanted to follow someone, but it's really stressful—and I'm not even driving.”

“Tomorrow you drive.” Dane smiles, but I know he means it. Macho as he is, he's definitely not old-fashioned. He's just as happy for me to drive as him, and when it comes to hunting for brains, he's more than happy for me to go meet our creepy contact behind the local morgue rather than do it himself.

Stamp pulls off I-4, the main east-west interstate running through downtown Orlando, on two wheels.

“Hmmm,” I murmur as Stamp blows through a stop sign to steer down a mostly deserted industrial center. “I don't remember Stamp ever breaking so many laws to catch up with me after work.”

Dane smirks as we inch into weed-covered, giant-warehouses-on-every-block, scary-movie-after-dark territory. “He probably figured you had a little longer to wait around than a human girl.”

I slug him, and he pulls on the brakes.

“Dang, I didn't hit you that—”

He shushes me, pointing out the window as he backs into a dark alley on the opposite corner from a giant, brown warehouse. “He's stopped.”

I peer out, but he's backed in so far I can't see anything.

“Dane.” I slip from the car and only partially close my door so Stamp won't hear me.

“Maddy, don't.”

But in two steps he's right there behind me.

Stamp's Jeep is parked in front of a four-story warehouse. There's a fence around it, rusty with barbed wire on top, but it's open. Broken windows line the building's top floor, and there's a rusty fire escape from the roof all the way to the ground.

“Val's?” Dane whispers, pointing to the front door.

It's not dark out yet, though it's getting close. We stick by the wall to the alley, walking so slowly we're starting to get on each other's nerves, all because Stamp has yet to get out of the Jeep.

“What is he
doing
in there?” Dane says.

“Don't get me started. Dude is
so
slow.”

“No, I know he's slow, but what can he be doing in the front seat of his car for so long?”

“Well, let me count the ways. First he fixes his hair in the rearview. Then he'll straighten out the coins in his ashtray. He'll drink the last of his Sports Slurp because he doesn't want to waste any. He'll take the knots out of his seat belt, and that's all before he cues up his music for the ride home—”

“Wait, what? Doesn't he just listen to the same music on the way home?”

“Are you kidding me? He has playlists for everything. Working out, not working out, making out, not making out, walking, running, going someplace, coming back, sitting still, standing up.”

“But what's the difference? Going someplace, coming back. Isn't it all the same?”

“Not to Stamp. He likes fast music for going someplace and slow music for coming back. Duh.”

Dane shakes his head. Then he looks at me funny, as if he's surprised I would pay attention to my boyfriend's music. And in a way, he kind of seems impressed. I think he always thought I was using Stamp to make Dane jealous
those first few months after we left Barracuda Bay burning in our rearview.

I think that's why Dane was kind of distant after Stamp and I broke up, like he thought I was just a bit of a user or something. But lately I think he's seen how much I care for Stamp, boyfriend or ex, and he's warmed up to me a little because of it.

Either that or I'm totally losing my mind and making it all up.

Finally Stamp's door creaks and his long legs bleed onto the pavement. He stands tall and looks around, and I wonder if in his carelessness this is the first time he's stopped and checked to see if anyone's following him.

I look at Dane and can tell by the set of his jaw that he's thinking the same thing. We both turn back to Stamp in time to hear his phone ring. Hmmm, I guess we are pretty close to the action after all.

He frowns at the phone, sees the incoming call, and then, as if the caller can see him, smiles.

“Val,” Dane and I say at the same time.

“Hey, babe,” says Stamp, all goofy smile and eager-to-please voice. “Yeah, just got here. What? You told me to hurry! How can you not be—? Oh, wait.”

He waves, clicks off the call. I could swear he's waving at us, but in fact, he's waving to someone walking by on the opposite sidewalk.

Dane and I duck, peeking through dented, empty trash cans the whole while.

It
is
Val, the chick from Stamp's cell phone pictures.

But this time she's live and so close we can hear her shoes scrape the concrete, hear the little jewels hanging off her pink purse jingle against her gently shaking rump.

She looks sexier in person. She's more petite than short and thinner than she looked on-screen with Dane blowing her up bigger and bigger each time we looked at her. She's wearing slinky black yoga pants that match the stripes on the sleeves of her hot-pink hoodie. The hood's down to show off her spiky blonde hair. It's black at the roots but purposefully to match her dark eye shadow and grubby black fingernails. Her pink-and-black sneakers give her an extra inch or two, and she walks with the limber jaunt of a human, plus a shake-it-don't-break-it strut.

She's pale, but so many girls are these days. Not so much to avoid skin cancer or tanning beds but just for fashion's sake. Besides, she doesn't show much skin anyway. Her wrists, maybe. A little ankle when she takes a quick step. Her throat. Her face. That's about it.

“Waddya think?” I say, watching Dane watch her firm backside.

“Nice,” he grunts.

I don't slap him. I punch him. Hard. Like, Whac-A-Zerker hard.

Even so, it's a little like granite getting punched by granite. Neither one of us budges. Much. Okay, so I budge a little.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, avoiding my glare. “I can't—it's
hard to tell. We'll need a better look.”

“How did I know you'd say that?”

Val doesn't walk so much as ooze to Stamp, like greasy green amoebas do to one another under a microscope, slipping and sliding all over each other until you can't tell, and don't much care anymore, which is which.

He's so tall and she's so petite, it's easy for her arms to wrap around his waist as her chin hits his chest. He somehow manages to lean down enough to plant a cold, dry kiss on her open and willing lips.

I groan. Out loud, and I don't much care who hears it at this point.

Dane nods, but I notice he's still eyeing the skank's derriere appreciatively.

Stamp opens the door to his Jeep, and she slides up and in, dark eyes still on him as he shuts the door and races around to his side.

“Somebody's whipped,” Dane says.

I nudge him. “You know I hate that term.”

“Maybe so, but the evidence is all there.”

“Don't remind me,” I say a little louder as Stamp's engine grinds to life.

His Jeep backs up roughly and speeds past our hiding spot.

“Come on,” Dane urges once we can no longer hear the Jeep engine.

“Why? What are we doing?”

“Breaking in.”

I
guess you
could call Val's place a loft since most of the warehouse is empty and she apparently uses only about a quarter of a quarter of it to actually live in. Still, that quarter is pretty sweet. (This coming from a chick who shares an apartment with two of the most inconsiderate zombies on the planet.)

“Check out that killer TV,” Dane says loudly, as if we're not breaking and entering at that very moment. “It's gotta be 60 inches, if not more.”

“I didn't even think they came that big.” I've never been a big TV girl, but seriously this is a
big
TV. We're talking never-need-to-go-to-the-movie-theater-again big.

In fact, this TV is so big it's the focal point of Val's whole living space. There is a kind of kitchen area, with one of those small dorm fridges like Dad keeps in his
office back home and a microwave and a coffeemaker and a hot plate.

I see a washtub and a clothesline, where teeny-tiny panties and bras and lots of yoga pants and hoodies hang. There is a cot with dirty, twisty sheets and a leather couch and a love seat and that TV and a huge stack of DVDs, mostly chick flicks and monster movies.

And that's about it.

The different areas of the loft are separated by those cool Asian screens so that you can't really see one until you're in it. There are four screens, one red, one black, one brown, and one unvarnished pine. Some have little slats with opaque white paper in them, and some have slats with no paper, and all are amazing.

“See.” I admire the dark red one, bringing it to Dane's attention. “This is what I was suggesting for our place.”

“Maddy, focus. This isn't Dockside Imports, okay? It's potentially a Sentinel's lair, and we need to be serious about all this.”

Then he looks a little more closely. “One of these would be cool. But, no, come on. We'll shop later. For now, find me some zombie evidence, ‘kay?”

But I spot him looking back at the screen more than once even as we continue to search.

“I dunno, Dane, she looks pretty human to me.”

“So do we.” He looks under throw pillows and peeks behind the panty-strewn clothesline. “That's the whole
point of passing, remember? If she's a Sentinel, she will have taken a class in all this stuff.”

We start in the fridge, where it's standard single-gal-living-alone stuff: yogurt cups and cans of coffee drinks. In the cupboard are gluten-free protein bars. But that's not enough for Dane. He actually looks in the trash to make sure there are empty yogurt cups, cans, and protein bar wrappers. There are.

I smirk but am not really happy about it. Something in me would almost like Val to be a Sentinel. Not because I have a death wish or anything, but it would make me feel better if she were seducing Stamp as part of a mission rather than, you know, actually being in love with him. Selfish though it sounds, I'd rather Stamp get played by a Sentinel than have Val really have the hots for my ex.

But so far she's looking pretty human. The hot plate is coated in dried and burned food, ramen noodle dregs cling to a sticky pot in the sink, and clean overturned glasses rest on a dish towel.

“Come on, come on,” I say, convinced Val and Stamp will walk through the door any minute. “I hate doing this stuff. Let's go.”

“This is what we're here for. To make sure. We have to take our time and do it right, despite the risks.”

“I know and I'm doing it, but … don't you ever watch the movies? The good guys always get caught
doing this stuff. Let's be smarter than them and get out.”

“We are smarter than them. We're zombies, and we've lasted this long without being caught by the Sentinels. Why? Because we do stuff that sucks: never driving to work the same way twice, triple-locking the door every time we leave, avoiding big crowds. Now buckle down and do this, and we'll be gone long before they get home.”

Yeah, famous last words.

I follow him around just the same, urging him along.

“I can't find anything,” he says, and his tone is downright mournful.

“Good. So she's human, just another one of Stamp's dumb skanks, right? We're good.”

We stand there, in the middle of Val's loft, looking at each other.

“I don't think so. I really don't. Who lives like this? Alone, in a warehouse, where she can do whatever she wants any time of day or night, with no Normal neighbors around? That sounds like zombie behavior, not skank behavior.”

“Maybe, but if we get caught here and she
is
a Sentinel, isn't our goose pretty much cooked anyway?”

Dane looks at me funny. “Maddy, what do you think we're going to do for the rest of our lives? Put on makeup and entertain guests at theme parks?
This
is our life now. Get used to it. We will always be on the run, and the Sentinels will always be chasing us. We will never know
if one is standing right next to us if we don't start checking out everyone who even tries to get close. Now we have to find out if this is one of those times—for our good, for Stamp's good—so chill.”