Chapter 8

I won’t say I’m “up” early the next morning because, let’s face it, I never sleep in the first place so there’s nothing to get “up” from.

What I guess I mean to say is, I’m “out” early the next morning.

It’s dark out for humans at 5 something-something a.m., but to me it might as well be sunrise already.

The pool is probably pretty cold this time of year, mid-October, but to my cold skin it’s practically like a sauna.

I can feel every ounce of its warmth seep into my pores, into my skin, into my bones and despite the grim, somewhat hardscrabble surroundings of the Home, it’s nothing short of luxurious.

I’m in a black and white pair of Ethan’s old baggies and a black long-sleeve T-shirt Dana quit wearing because it had a tear in it (the horror!), way around the back but, as she said before I rescued it from the trash heap, it simply “wasn’t up to her standards.”

Ethan calls the getup a “man-kini,” Dana calls it a “trunk-ini,” but I just call it functional; the baggies are big enough to move around in and the T-shirt’s not quite see-through.

So if somebody does happen to see me – not that anyone ever has, ever – this early in the a.m., say the pool guy or the paperboy or the milkman (do they still have those?) I’ll look like just another early bird getting her workout on.

The deep end is hardly that, and that’s where I take up residence just around this time each morning for my “exercises.”

It’s not exercising so much, but more like keeping limber.

As the muscles of the Undead age they also stiffen, to the point where even our withered veins and creaky tendons are like muscles and bones themselves.

It can feel a lot like getting metal bars shoved down each arm and each leg, so that if you’re not careful to limber up every freakin’ day you might as well forget about bending your arms at the elbow and your legs at the knees; they pretty much get useless.

Hollywood gets just about nothing right when they make those zombie movies Ethan loves so much, but the one thing they do seem to “get” is how stiff we are – IF we don’t keep limber, that is.

So here I am, predawn, stretching my stiff legs and waving my stiff arms around in circles like the old folks at some high-rise condo doing water aerobics to keep fit.

Yes, I look stupid; sure I look like a dork.

Why do you think I’m out here at five in the morning instead of prime time, when the rest of the world could see me acting the waterlogged fool?

I try to keep my arms and legs beneath the water so they won’t make splashing noises and wake up the rest of the kids, at least the Normals anyway.

Ethan is probably deep into another early morning session of online gaming and Dana’s probably blogging, her new passion, so the early morning is pretty much “Lucy time,” and that’s exactly how I like it.

Above the surface the pool looks like a wave machine what with all the stretching and spinning and un-stiffening going on below, but in just 25 minutes every morning you, too, can be a more natural-looking zombie!

Hey, I may never look as loose and languid as Dana on a bad day, but at least I can—

I smell the vampire before I see her, and stiff or not I’m up on the deck and approaching the rusty pool fence in two seconds flat – I told you zombies can move with the quickness when they want to – when Piper suddenly appears from behind the shack size pool house where they keep the grindy old pump and cleaning supplies.

In the pre-dawn darkness she is even more hideous than usual, her violent yellow eyes more violent and yellow, her veiny skin a disgusting atlas of thick black lines that pulse and throb as all roads lead to her black, twisted heart and then right back out again, like a never-ending conveyer belt of just.

Plain.

Nasty.

And yet stepping back and looking at her objectively, as a “Normal” would (i.e. a living, breathing human being), I know that in real life – whatever that is anymore – she is considered strikingly beautiful.

I kind of get that.

Vampires don’t “age” like zombies do; since they require constant nourishment from live victims and have actual blood (as black and gross as that blood may be) running through their veins 24/7, their bodies are eternally limber and lifelike.

Indeed, Piper is almost glowing, with or without my zombie super-vision; her skin is an almost radiant granite color, so plush and warm I can almost see the heat waves shimmering off of it.

Her lips, perhaps assisted by the double sets of fangs hiding in her upper and lower jaws – yes, vampires have two sets of fangs, try to keep up – are thick and plump but don’t have that “fake” look.

Her body is lean and lithe under her designer jeans, belly-riding crop top and suede jacket, her hair clean and thick and tucked, just so, behind her ears with the white beret tipped just so.

Yes, I said “beret.”

A quick note about Piper: she’s about 387-years-old, give or take a decade or two, and she’s been through so many fashion fads and fallacies, do’s and don’ts that it’s like she just doesn’t care what people think anymore.

And, of course, by not caring she in turn is by far the most fashionable girl at school.

(Even though I can’t see it, I mean… a beret? A white beret? In October? Please, even my trunk-ini is cooler than that.)

Although if it wasn’t for the Truce of the Undead I’d like to rip her head off and try bowling with it in heavy traffic, I have to love the way she seriously screws with the Normal girls’ heads, particularly when it comes to fashion.

Wanna know why vampires are always the coolest kids at school?

Because the first thing they do when they get to a new school is kill all the cooler kids.

I am absolutely serious about this; it is a proven strategy among the vampire race.

One by one, over the course of, say, several months so it’s not some overnight thing where they’ll draw a lot of attention, they will very dedicatedly go about dispatching the two most beloved, feared, respected and admired teenagers on campus, which we all know are a.) the head cheerleader and b.) the captain of the football team.

That’s it; that’s all it takes.

It’s like wiping out the president and the VP in one swoop and, bam, suddenly the whole country is in anarchy mode.

Two popular teenagers gone and, Shazam; the school doesn’t know where to look.

It’s all very strategic and, you know, aside from the whole two teenagers being dead thing, you kind of have to hand it to them; it works like a charm, every time.

And it’s not just about fashion; it’s about dominance.

For the vampires to exist, to hunt, to “pass” in a new town, they must be above reproach.

No one can question them, and who does no one dare question?

That’s right; the coolest kids at school.

So it’s a matter of self-survival; if the vampires kill off the old cool kids, by default they become the new cool kids.

Hence, no one messes with them.

Is Piper particularly cool?

I mean, on her own, if you were to put her under a microscope and dissect her cool-ability?

No; not really.