Synopsis

The Vampires and Zombies at Barracuda Bay High School have a long-standing truce: don’t mess with us, we won’t mess with you.

Of course, if the human kids at Barracuda Bay High knew they were sitting next to the Living Dead in homeroom, well… all bets would be off.

So when Lucy Frost tries to use the fancy heat-sensored paper towel dispensers in the C-wing girls’ room during a busy break from classes, Fiona Rutherford, the nosiest reporter on the Barracuda Bay Bugle, just happens to witness it.

But when she jokingly refers to Lucy as a “zombie” in the next day’s paper, Fiona unknowingly sets off a chain of events that will change Lucy’s life forever.

Now the vampires want to do away with Fiona, and the only zombie who wants to save her is Lucy. Suddenly Lucy is the only hope Fiona and the rest of her friends have of surviving!

Prologue

My name is Lucy.

I’m, well, there’s no sugar-coating it; I’m a zombie.

Synonyms for my current state of being might include words like undead, the reanimated, the Living Dead, undying, immortal… take your pick.

What’s that you say?

You wanna know what it’s like to be… dead?

That’s okay; you’re not being rude for asking.

(I mean, not exactly.)

Lots of girls want to know.

(Heck, I used to want to know, too.)

And nowadays I’m not shy about telling them, either.

So I guess I’ll tell you, too.

You wanna know what it’s like to be dead?

Fine.

Step outside on the coldest day of the year – no fair if it’s above 30-degrees out and bonus points if there’s actually snow on your front stoop – and stand there for, oh, say an hour.

That’s all; just one hour.

60 little minutes.

Now, don’t rush through this hour like it’s some kind of multiple choice test, either; own it.

Own every stinkin’ minute of it.

Own the first minute, when it’s still “fun” to be trying this little living dead experiment.

Own the fifth minute, when you’re still warm from inside the house and your down jacket and puffy new socks aren’t quite letting the cold in – yet.

Own the 14th minute, when the “fun” factor has worn off and the cold has seeped in and your toes are frosting over and you’re starting to realize just how long 60 frickin’ minutes can be.

Then own the half-hour mark, when your teeth and chin and even your eyelashes are chattering and you’re wondering why you’re out here in the cold when you could be watching TV with your feet up and a cup of hot cocoa in your hand.

Own the 45th minute, when you are flat-out over it and don’t know how you’re going to last the next 15 minutes.

But you do; somehow… you do.

Then, after that hour – after that long, cold, frigid, frosty hour – right about when you’re dying to step back inside by the fire and warm up your hands and blow your dripping nose and slip that cup of instant hot cocoa into the microwave… don’t.

That’s right, don’t go back inside.

Do not stamp your feet on the inside welcome mat, do not go straight to the kitchen, do not pour that packet of hot cocoa in a Christmas mug full of water and insert it into the microwave and, whatever you do, do not start looking around for last winter’s bag of stale mini-marshmallows while the cocoa is nuking to a hot, velvety, frothy boiling point.

Instead, start taking off your clothes, one item at a time.

That’s right; DO NOT go back in but DO, by all means, start disrobing.

First take off your fancy leather gloves, then your monogrammed ski cap, hoodie or parka, then your poofy down jacket, then your other jacket, then your sweater, then your shirt, then your bra (if you’re a girl or… whatever), then your boots, then your ski pants, then your long johns or leggings, then your panties (if you’re a girl or… whatever) then, finally, your socks.

Are you bare yet?

Are you completely unprotected from the elements?

Standing there in your birthday suit?

Do your goose bumps have goose bumps?

Is there snow, or at least frost, between your turning-blue toes?

Is your out-y and inn-y?

Is your hair – and I mean, all of it – frozen in place?

Good; very good.

Now stand there for another hour, and another and… get the picture?

That’s right; now you’ve got it: Death.

Is.

Cold.

At least… it is for a zombie like yours truly.

It starts cold, it stays cold for a couple hundred years and – or so I hear – it ends even colder (if you can imagine).

Meanwhile our skin is cold, our faces are cold, our breath is cold, our feet and hands are cold, our stomachs are cold (and empty).

It sucks, at first, but like everything else in the Afterlife, you get used to it.

In fact, you get so used to it that you forget that your skin is roughly the same temperature as an ice cream cone.

So used to it that you get lazy and bump into people in the halls at school and are only reminded that your skin feels like an ice cream cone when they look at you funny and have to rub the spot of skin where they touched yours just to get it back up to its normal temperature.

So used to it that even after the school installs new paper towel dispensers in the bathroom that have those little red sensors that detect human body heat you stupidly put your hand under there expecting – actually expecting – a paper towel to come out.

And that, dear readers, is where our little story begins…

Chapter 1

That’s right, we are both here today because of… a paper towel.

Not a whole roll of paper towels, not some super special paper towels like with shiny silver foil undersides or some fancy holiday print in honor of fall or monogrammed with my initials or anything – just one regular, generic, public high school issued stinking paper towel.

Specifically, we are here today because the powers that be at Barracuda Bay High School decided to switch out the old-fashioned, minding-its-own-darn-business, plenty-good-enough metal paper towel dispensers and go all high-tech instead.

What’d they replace them with?

Those fancy newfangled deals with the little red light under the dispenser.

And what does the little red light do?

It senses body heat.

And why does it sense body heat?

Because that’s how it knows when to shoot out a new paper towel at you.

And what don’t zombies have?

That’s right; body heat!

So there I am, just popping into the C-wing girls room between 5th and 6th periods so I can “check my face” before sitting as close to Alex Foster as humanly possible in Chorus and, at first, I don’t even notice the newfangled towel dispensers hanging from the bathroom wall.

I mean, why would I, right?

Who looks at anything but the mirror in the bathroom anyway?

Now, here’s a little fun fact for you (you know, in case you’re keeping score or something): zombies don’t actually need to use the bathroom.

Well, think about it: we don’t eat human food, don’t drink human drinks and only eat fresh brains once a month or so, so… why would we?

But I do pop into the girls room to check my face every other period or so just to make sure the three layers of white pancake makeup I apply every morning haven’t smudged to reveal the slightly gray, drying cement tone of my true skin color beneath.

(Slightly gross, I know, but yet another thing you kind of have to get used to when you’re no longer among the living.)

Now, if no one’s around when I do my checking, I just walk out the doors and don’t look back.

I mean, I’m already dead!

What are a few million germs going to do to me, right?

But when people are around, live people, human beings – “Normals,” as we of the zombie persuasion call them – well, I have to play the part and that means washing your hands so girls don’t start spreading the rumor that you’re a non-hand-washer because that pretty much kills your dating potential right there.

And if it had been just a few of the knock-around girls from class I really wouldn’t have cared because, let’s face it, what they do in the bathroom is 50 times worse than not washing your hands (trust me on this one).

But it just so happens that Piper Madison and Bianca Ridley are in there, trying out the new hand dryers for the longest time, and here I am itching to sit next to Alex and these two prima donnas are just so tickled pink with these new paper towel dispensers that they must use two rolls just trying it out.

Meanwhile a line is forming behind me and, suddenly, I’m next; batter’s up.

And without even thinking about it, without even remembering Law # 3 of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws (i.e. “Thou Shalt Not Reveal Your Zombie Nature to Humans Unless Absolutely, Positively Necessary”) I stick my hand over the little red sensor and – nothing.

Nada.

Zip.

Zilch.

Zero.

Now, five seconds earlier Piper and Bianca are spitting out paper towels left and right.

And if you’ve ever used one of these things well, then you’ll know there’s this VERY specific sound the shiny white machine on the wall makes when it a.) registers your body heat and b.) spits out a paper towel to reward you for having said body heat.

The first sound it makes, when it realizes you are actually human with a temperature of above 90-degrees, is a kind of “kachinga-chinga” noise and the next is a vaguely reassuring “whirra-whirra-whirra” as the paper towel comes out right before your very eyes.

And so when you put your hand under it the first time and it spits out a sheet, but that’s not good enough so you put your hand under again and it spits out another sheet, well, you get this very kind of soothing, instantly-recognizable “kachinga-chinga-whirra-whirra-whirra-kachinga-chinga-whirra-whirra-whirra” sound and it’s been going on for three straight minutes and suddenly – no sound.

And the equation is fairly obvious to anyone with an IQ of above, say, 30: Everyone else’s hand = sound.

My hand = no sound.

And the lack of that sound is so obvious, it’s like a whole other sound.

Specifically, the sound of a dead girl with no body heat trying to use the paper towel hand sensor machine.

(Okay, okay, so maybe that’s not what it sounds like to the other girls, but that’s sure what it sounds like to ME.)

“Great,” one of the girls behind me – Fiona Rutherford – not-so-murmuringly murmurs, “Goth Girl broke it. She breaks everything. She’s, like, the… Charlie Brown… of goth girls.”

And because I’m a zombie, and because I can break anyone in this room in half with two tiny snaps of my cold gray fingers, and because I’m already dead and what else can they do to me, I turn around and snap at mousy Fiona Rutherford (who would have never said a word if she hadn’t been standing there with three of her equally mousy friends to back her up, as if they possibly could), “I broke it? You think I broke it, Fiona? What about these two paper towel machine abusers right here? You think running through three rolls of paper towels for no good reason might have broken it?”

And by “these two paper towel machine abusers right here,” of course, I’m referring to Piper and Bianca, who aren’t too happy about it.

And there is my big mistake.

If I had just blown it off, scampered away and wiped my hands on my skirt like any other self-respecting zombie would have in a hot minute, I wouldn’t be writing this right now and you certainly wouldn’t be reading it.

But instead I called Piper Madison – sorry, THE Piper Madison – a name and at Barracuda Bay High that is a really big no-no.

(Okay, sure, I called Bianca a name, too, but she’s basically just Piper’s lackey so that doesn’t really count.)

And Piper stops everything to look at me with her strikingly brown – I’m talking chocolate bar commercial brown – eyes and says, in that fake European accent of hers, “We didn’t break anything.”

And, just to prove it, she shoves me aside – hard – and slips one of her porcelain white hands under the dryer and, sure enough, “kachinga-chinga-whirra-whirra-whirra” out pops a fresh sheet of paper towel.

And then it’s like I’m not even there anymore, at least for Fiona and her two stupid Geek Girl, Math-a-lete, AV Clubbing friends, who “kachinga-chinga-whirra-whirra-whirra” their way into some fresh paper towels before sashaying their way straight out of the girls room.

And you can almost hear the Old West wind whistling through the bathroom – wait, was that a tumbleweed tumbling by just now??? – as the final girl shuts the door for the final time and suddenly it’s just me and Piper and Bianca and that stupid, stupid sensor.

“Nice going,” says Piper, sliding up against the back of the bathroom door so no more Normals will walk in and interrupt us – and I can’t get out.

“Yeah,” snorts Bianca, covering her blossomy bosom with her Sociology textbook. “Nice going.”

(I mean, is there a rule that lackeys have to repeat everything the Head Witch in Charge says, verbatim, like their own personal echo machine? I’m just asking here.)

“I forgot,” I say, not backing down. “I wasn’t even thinking.”

“That’s the problem with you stupid zombies,” Piper spits, the barest tips of her white glistening fangs poking out from behind her plump, red, so alive lips now that the coast is clear and it’s just us immortals in here. “You. Never. Think. Which is weird, considering the fact that all you guys eat is BRAINS!”

The thing about vampires, the angrier they get, the more their fangs get pronounced (kind of like Pinocchio’s nose when he starts telling a lie); that’s why they always have to act so cool, so they don’t “slip” and pull a fang-boner in front of a whole cafeteria full of civilians.

“We do think, Piper,” I say, defending the zombie race to the best of my ability (which isn’t saying much). “I just wasn’t thinking today; there’s a difference.”

“Yeah, well, now stupid Fiona Rutherford noticed, and who knows what that little junior reporter wannabe is going to do about it,” Piper points out pointedly.

(Try saying that three times fast.)

I forgot that, in addition to her duties as head of the AV Club and Supreme Mistress of the Math-a-letes, Fiona Rutherford is also on the staff of our school newspaper, the Barracuda Bay Bugle and freelances for the annual yearbook, the Barracuda Bay Beagle (try not to get those two mixed up).

“Piper,” I sigh, trying to look at my watch without her seeing me look at my watch (which isn’t exactly easy because vampires see everything), “you’re overreacting. It was, like, two seconds frozen in time. No one is going to remember anything. You think those stupid Nerd Girls care if I broke the new paper towel dispenser or not?”

“That’s just it,” Bianca leaps in, eager to please Piper, “you didn’t break it, and they saw that it worked for everyone but you.”

“You guys are paranoid,” I persist. “Just because you know I’m… what I am… doesn’t mean that’s the first thing admittedly nosy but not particularly insightful Fiona Rutherford is going to think.”

Piper pauses before sliding away from the door and preparing to fling it open. “You better hope you’re right, Lucy, because if you and your stupid cold, dead hands screw up the good thing we’ve got going in Barracuda Bay, I will personally make it MY Afterlife’s mission to make YOUR Afterlife the worst 2,000 years of your, well, your… Afterlife!”

“Too late,” I think to myself, but don’t say, as I let them burst through the bathroom door and out into the empty hallways.

Chapter 2

I’m late to next period, naturally.

And Alex Foster already has girls sitting on either side of him, naturally.

But then, Alex Foster always has girls sitting on either side of him.

(Naturally.)

That’s because he’s Fine with a capital H-O-T.

(But not in the way that you might think.)

I’ve been crushing hard on Alex Foster for months now, ever since he first walked into Chorus and melted my non-beating heart on the first day of junior year.

I know it’s the oldest story in the book, the local crushing on the new guy, but I just couldn’t help it.

And he’s not, like, “hot guy” hot, you know?

Which is funny because, obviously, I’m not the only girl crushing on him.

But he has this… thing… about him.

Well, he has many things going for him.

Like, for instance, that first day he walked into class he was dressed up.

I mean, going for an interview dressed up; pleated khaki pants, braided leather belt, penny loafers, brown socks, light blue cotton button-down shirt – everything but the jacket and tie.

Of course, the guys all snorted and ribbed him about it (to this day most of them call him “Ascot Alex,” though I doubt half the guys at Barracuda Bay High know what an ascot is, only that it sounds snooty), but we girls just thought it was the cutest thing.

Turns out he’d only gone to prep schools, ever, up north, and this was his first public school; he’d just gotten into town a day or two earlier, and didn’t really have enough time to check-out the local customs here in Barracuda Bay, so he’d just gone with his default wardrobe and, boom, instant crushes from girls all over the school.

Now, normally, I’m a straight-hair girl; short and straight, specifically; black if you can swing it, dark brown in a pinch.

So is it weird that Alex has these gorgeous light brown curls and I just can’t stop staring at them?

Also, I like the jocks; always have.

Strong, not exactly stocky but thick; muscle-y, you know?

Not Alex; he’s long and gawky, all elbows and knees and apples in his cheeks and a kind of short, pug nose – which I normally don’t like, either.

But on Alex?

It’s aces; just… positively… aces.

And he has these eyes, that are so green they’re not green, you know?

They’re like… candy… green; “Jolly Rancher green,” I call it.

Although no one would know that because Alex is the crush of which I cannot speak.

Why?

That’s right; it’s a very big no-no and absolutely against one of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws.

(# 6 or 7, I think, but don’t quote me on it.)

Today he’s got on wheat colored chords and a maroon rugby shirt with thin gold stripes and a kind of gold lion crest over his left nipple.

His skin is pale and he’s hairless just about everywhere but his gorgeous curls (and did I mention his abnormally bushy eyebrows, which I also normally don’t like but his are to die for) and if it wasn’t for the sun highlighting the thin peach stubble on his chin I’d swear he hadn’t reached puberty yet.

Now, just so you don’t think I’m both a zombie AND a Chorus Geek, let me explain something first: Chorus is a class in name only.

Our temporary teacher, Mr. Hatcher, is about 23 and looks even younger, and his only musical experience was playing in a garage band while going to Teacher College.

He got picked to teach Chorus because our regular teacher, Ms. Highbrow, went and got herself pregnant and is bound and determined to take every single day of maternity leave she has coming – and then some.

(Not that I can blame her one minute. Sometimes I wish zombies could get pregnant, just so I could take nine months off from passing as a mortal and let it all hang out back home.)

Enter Mr. Hatcher.

Now we basically just find a seat and do crossword puzzles for 45 minutes every day.

I slump in and find a seat near the door, because if I can’t hang with Alex there’s really no reason to be in this room in the first place.

What’s worse, now I have what Piper said to worry about.

Because what Piper didn’t see, and what Bianca had her head too far up Piper’s butt to notice, was the way Fiona Rutherford reached out to touch me on the way out of the bathroom just now.

Because, despite her catty little “She’s the Charlie Brown of goth girls” comment in front of her friends, and despite the way she kind of had to gang up on me just so girls like Piper and Bianca wouldn’t gang up on her, Fiona is actually a pretty nice girl.

We’re not exactly talking Mother Theresa nice here, but nice enough to reach out with a reassuring touch when a rabid pack of catty girls is ganging up on you in the girls’ room.

Which, in high school these days, is pretty much bordering on Mother Theresa nice, if you know what I mean.

And so when Piper and Fiona were concentrating on the paper towel machine and how I could have possibly broken it, and while her friends were busy trying to avoid me at all costs, Fiona reached out gently to reassure me and when she was intending to touch me on my sleeve her hand slipped – or maybe my arm moved, it happened so fast I’m a little vague on the details now – and she.

Touched.

My.

Hand.

My bare hand.

My cold, dead, gray hand.

Now, Fiona has never touched me before.

Fiona has never had any reason to touch me before.

So she’s never felt my cold skin, never gotten a chill or a shiver simply from brushing up against me and here she is touching my hand and in a split-second her naturally pale, genetically mousy little face… changes.

Not in a disgusted way, not in a surprised way, not even in a mean way; it’s even worse than any of those.

It’s like her smart, Math-a-lete brain has suddenly switched into Detective Mode and so right away it’s putting together clues.

Clue # 1, my hands won’t work on the new paper towel dispenser.

Clue # 2, my hands feel like ice, ice baby.

And hands aren’t supposed to feel quite that cold.

I mean, even when you’re sick, and having the chills, humans still have a pretty high threshold of heat going on so… this is something bad; not normal, which in high school is bad.

So immediately our little detective Fiona knows, the minute she touches me, that something is wrong; very, very wrong.

She may not know what I am, exactly; she just knows that I.

Am.

Not.

What.

I.

Say.

I.

Am.

That being, of course… human.

And that’s where all the trouble starts.

I know you would think that somebody like Fiona should have brushed up against and touched me before but I’m normally really, really careful about that type of thing.

And, really, with the way I dress there isn’t that much opportunity for Normals to, you know, touch my skin.

From the black clogs to the black and gray striped leggings to the long maroon sleeves to the too-big hoodies, seriously, you’d have to be really determined to touch me to touch me, and so far nobody’s been all t¬hat determined.

(Especially Fiona Rutherford.)

And the fact that it was my fault that Fiona touched me today, well, that just makes it all the more infuriating.

I mean, of all the stupid, stupid blunders.

I should know better; I’m supposed to know better.

No, I mean, technically, as a zombie I am literally charged with knowing better.

Like, not knowing better is against one of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws (i.e. “Thou Shalt Not Have Physical Contact with Humans Unless Absolutely, Positively Necessary”).

But who could predict that, over the weekend the school would install newfangled paper towel dispensers?

And I’m thinking of all the ways Fiona’s touch can come back to haunt me, in unwanted gossip, in unwanted rumors, in unwanted attention, when suddenly there is a knock on the Chorus room door.

And the minute I hear that knock, I know it’s for me, and I know it has something to do with the bathroom, with Fiona… with my skin.

Of course, it could have been a knock signaling any number of things.

Some thug (in Chorus?) getting called to the office because he’d pantsed some freshman in the halls before class.

Albert Frostmeyer getting called up to the office because his mom had forgotten to pack his lunch (again).

Or simply Alex Foster getting called to the office on account of terminal hotness!

Yeah, right; it’s for me.

I know it’s for me.

It has to be for me.

That knock just has my name on it.

And sure enough, when Mr. Hatcher stands up and opens the door for the knock that bears my name, the person holding the note is none other than Fiona and she has this overly-concerned look on her pasty, doughy face as she hands it to the sub and waits for me.

For me.

And the sub lifts his head and, even after being our teacher for two weeks now he looks clear past me to some chick in the alto section and asks, “Lucy? Lucy Frost?”

Chapter 3

“What’s this all about, Fiona?” I snap the minute the Chorus room door swings silently shut behind us and we’re out in the hall alone, clomping toward the front office.

She’s already walking a few paces ahead of me, none too eager to touch me again, when she calls back cryptically over her shoulder, “You’ll see, Lucy.”

I catch up to her in three long, stiff paces.

(Now, zombies can’t exactly run but when we’re motivated we can move quickly enough.)

“I don’t want to ‘see,’ Fiona. I want to know right now what this is all about.”

She stops and turns and faces me, still careful to keep her distance, and her eyes are no longer scared but concerned and she says, stammering a little because she’s probably not so great at confrontation, “Nothing, Lucy, I just… your skin’s so… cold. And that whole… incident… with the paper towel dispenser—”

“Incident? I would hardly call a broken paper towel dispenser an ‘incident,’ Fiona. Gheez, overreact much?”

“It wasn’t broken, Lucy; it worked fine. For everybody but… you.”

“What is the big deal about the paper towel dispenser, Fiona? Seriously, I don’t get it.”

She shrugs. “Me either; it’s supposed to work on human hands, and it does, so… why doesn’t it work on yours?”

“Because it’s broken, malfunctioning, defunct, a dud… that’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, avoiding eye contact all the while, and then she adds, “Well, that’s not all, Lucy. I mean, after I touched you, and my hand nearly froze off, well, I took a closer look and, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way or anything but, Lucy, you don’t look… good.”

“Great, Fiona, thanks. I don’t know how else to take that but the wrong way. But I appreciate that. Way to boost the old morale there. Awesome. Thanks. Great. Super.”

“It’s just… your skin. I’m not sure you’re entirely healthy, is all.”

“I’m just fine, Fiona, seriously,” I snap, voice rising as my frustration reaches a new level of frustratedness. “I don’t need you, or Bianca or Piper or any of your Math-a-lete friends thinking I’m not fine, so you need to just stop, now, with all the handwringing and paper towel dispensing because I. Am. Fine. Honest.”

Even in the face of my harangue Fiona just stands her ground and when I’m through she just kind of says, quietly, so no one else will overhear, “I was concerned, Lucy, that’s all.”

And I kind of step back because I’ve spent my whole high school career here at Barracuda Bay staying out of the civilians’ way and half-expecting them to come after me with pitchforks and torches every day at school and suddenly this one… this one… is concerned.

About me?

But then I see the color of the Pass in her hand – a kind of minty green, and not the cool chocolate minty green like I used to get in the movies when I was alive and could still taste things like chocolate and mint and popcorn, but a kind of medicine-you-don’t-want-to-take minty green.

And I suddenly remember that in addition to all her other I-want-to-get-into-Harvard-so-bad junior year electives she is also the Counselor’s Aid for 6th Period and it snaps me back into the cruel reality of my… particular… situation.

“Okay, Fiona, well… thanks, that’s really… sweet… of you and everything but, what does that have to do with you taking me out of Chorus – and away from Alex Foster?”

And suddenly Fiona is no longer concerned but conspiratorial and she inches just a little closer and says, “So you DO have a crush on Alex Foster? I knew it. I think that’s… sweet.”

Sweet, huh?

That’s girl-speak for NOT sweet.

So I snap back, “Sweet? What’s so ‘sweet’ about it?”

And Fiona takes another step back, crinkling the minty green hall pass in the process and says, “Nothing, it’s just… you guys are such opposites, is all.”

Hmm, and there it is; right out in the open.

We’re “opposites” because why would a strictly hunky, straight arrow, A-list, prep school type with long legs and tight fists and clear eyes and dirty blond curls fall for pale, cold, heartless, rude, some might say moody “Goth Girl,” right?

And I open my mouth to say just that, to spit it out, word-for-word, just like that, but I don’t; I let my eyes do the talking and do they ever, smoldering all the way to the front office.

(Hey, my skin might be ice cold but I can still shoot red hot laser beams with my eyeballs. You know, not literally but… metaphorically… speaking, of course.)

Before we go in I stop her, risking another frosty touch to the shoulder, and say, “Fiona, what I meant was, why am I being called up to the office?”

She shrugs and says, “Well, you know I’m Mr. Thompson’s aide this period, right? And, well, the way your hand was, so cold, and the way the paper towel machine wouldn’t work on only your hand—”

“Arrggh, again with that STUPID paper towel machine? What IS the big frickin’ deal, Fiona? So my hands are cold, so what?”

“It’s not just that, Lucy, it’s… everything else. I mean, you and I have never spent much time together, sure, we have a few classes and I see you in the halls, from a distance, but when you put all the pieces together, the pale makeup, the black clothes, the cold skin and, yes, the paper towel dispenser, I think, is actually what they’re called, not a paper towel machine, anyway, I just mentioned it, casually, to Mr. Thompson and right away he wanted to see you up front so…”

“You mean, the same Mr. Thompson who has an industrial size bottle of hand sanitizer hanging from a clip on his fanny pack? The same Mr. Thompson who opens doors with his feet instead of his hands? The same Mr. Thompson who wipes a germ wipe around his germ wipe container before grabbing a new germ wipe? That Mr. Thompson? The germ freak of all germ freaks?”

“One in the same,” she says, brightening, like I’ve maybe won some type of booby prize or something for getting it right. “He thought maybe your symptoms sounded like the early stages of swine flu so—”

“They’re not symptoms, Fiona, they’re… just… me. That’s how I’ve always been; a little pale, running cold, no biggie. And what right do YOU have to go off telling anyone anything about me, anyway, you nosy little… little… snoop?”

And right when I’m about to break Law # 4 (or is it # 5?) of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws (i.e. “Thou Shalt Not Injure a Human Unless it is Absolutely Necessary”) and pound Fiona Rutherford straight through the cinderblock wall of Barracuda Bay High, the door opens and a huge man with a fanny pack full of dangling hand sanitizer bellows, “What’s all the commotion out here?”

And then he sees Fiona and his hard face softens like he’s greeting his long lost daughter and then he sees me and it hardens like he’s seeing his other long lost daughter – you know, the ugly one who can’t read or write so good – and he says, “Oh yes, Lucy, it looks like we’ve caught you just in time.”

Chapter 4

“You haven’t ‘caught’ anything,” I fume, foot defiantly up on Mr. Thompson’s desk a few minutes later as the three of us settle into his claustrophobic office.

Mr. Thompson is your classic career guidance counselor, complete with a bushy moustache, pleated khakis, braided belt, thinning hair, dandruff flaked glasses resting halfway down his greasy mid-day nose and a wall full of cute kitties hanging off trembling branches encased in their obligatory “Hang in there” inspirational posters dotting the walls behind his put-it-together-yourself brown wooden desk from Wal-mart (probably).

“As I was telling Fiona just a second ago, there’s NOTHING wrong with me, Mr. Thompson. Besides, what’s she still doing here? Isn’t this supposed to be confidential or something? You know, counselor-patient privilege or something?”

I shoot Fiona a look as she lingers triumphantly at the door, her rust-colored corduroy pants going perfectly with her off-white peasant blouse and garnet-string friendship bracelet she and all her Geek Girlfriends wear to show solidarity for the right to vote or burn our bras – or some such thing.

He gives her a look-see, too, but then lets it go and she just stands there, looking mousy and innocent and no wonder Mr. Thompson believed her when she showed up after my little bathroom incident, all “concerned” like and talking about paper towel dispensers and swine flu and preventative medicine.

“I’m not your doctor, Lucy,” he reminds me, looking pointedly at my foot until I take it down from the corner of his desk and put it back on the floor where (I tell myself) it’s more comfortable anyway. “And you’re not my patient, so this doesn’t have to be ‘confidential,’ as you call it. I’m simply concerned about your appearance and, now, Fiona here tells me that your skin is… cold. Would you mind if I… felt… it too?”

He seems to sense the absolute ridiculosity of his question as it schmarms its out of his schmarmy mouth because he doesn’t even flinch when I say, simply, “Not likely, Mr. Thompson, no. I would consider that a pretty heavy duty invasion of my privacy, or person, or tibia, or something like that so, yeah, not today, thanks.”

He shakes his head instead and flips through an old school Rolodex-type circle of revolving business cards until he finds what he’s looking for, then scribbles something down on a sticky note and slides it across his desk, where it sticks to a few things (old suspension forms, a few Xeroxed report cards) which he then has to un-stick it from and, finally, instead of trying to be cool by sliding it over he just huffs and hands it over.

I look at it with a bemused smile on my face and it says: “Dr. Keith Richardson, Family Practice, 409-392-88316.”

I shake my head and say, with absolutely no conviction, “Fine, Mr. Thompson, I’ll give him a call when I get home today.”

He looks doubtful but says, “Please do, Lucy. I mean, I’m trying to say this delicately but… over and above Fiona’s concerns for the moment I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a few weeks now about your… your… appearance.”

“My appearance?” I ask, trying to sound offended.

After three years of being Barracuda Bay’s resident “Goth Girl” it’s pretty hard to even pretend what other people think matters anymore.

“Well, specifically, your skin color, Lucy. It just looks… unhealthy.”

I ignore his concerned eyes and stare at my ragged (midnight maroon) nails before saying, “Besides Fiona in the doorway there, Mr. Thompson, how many ‘healthy’ teenagers do you really know? So maybe I should eat a little better, get some more sun, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m not sure a male career counselor should be talking about this to me, do you?”

By the time I look up he is already thinking better of asking me into his office, and clearing his desk in advance of the last period of the day.

I think of going back to 6th period and actually do feel a little sick, to say nothing of 7th period and smelling all the awful cooking smells of Home Ec.

“Actually,” I say, clearing my throat and putting on a hangdog look for Mr. Thompson’s benefit, “I am feeling a little under the weather today, Mr. Thompson. Do you think I could have a pass to go home… early?”

Mr. Thompson looks like I just asked him for a double-spurt from the Gigantor bottle of hand sanitizer from the corner of his desk. “I’ll go you one better, Lucy. I’m going to give you a pass for the rest of the day and… the rest of the week. That is, until you bring in a doctor’s note confirming that what you’ve… got… isn’t contagious.”

He does a double squirt after handing over the pass, offering one to Fiona as well.

(She gladly accepts.)

I shake my head and say, “But this isn’t fair, Mr. Thompson. I have a big report due Friday, worth a quarter of my grade this semester. And I’m lab partners with Alex Foster in Biology; it wouldn’t be fair to him, either. You can’t keep me out of school just because you think—”

“Actually,” he says, pulling an official looking red memo from a tray on his desk, “according to the latest government mandate, and the severity of last month’s Canadian outbreak of the deadly N1V1-virus, I can.”

He hands me a copy to read, but I wave it off.

It wouldn’t matter what it says, anyway; he’s a teacher – sorry, counselor – and I’m a zombie and if there’s one thing I can’t do as a zombie, it’s make waves with a teacher – a counselor, no less.

I stand, look at Fiona and contemplate sending her through Mr. Thompson’s wall again but then, that wouldn’t help my case much, now would it?

“You take care of all that,” says Mr. Thompson to my back as I kind of slink out of his office, “and we’ll be right as rain.”

No doubt he winks at Fiona as she peels herself off the wall to follow me back out of the front office, but I don’t bother turning around to find out.

I hear her sensible brown pumps whispering behind me as I clomp back down the hall to my locker, and turn to meet her just past the library entrance.

“I don’t need an escort, Fiona,” I fume, just to fume. “And besides, don’t you think you’ve already done enough for one day?”

She cocks her head, her thick brown hair shimmering across one broad shoulder and says, “What have I ‘done,’ exactly, Lucy? If you really are sick, wouldn’t you rather know it now than… later? Maybe when it’s too late?”

I take a step – a BIG step – toward her and growl, “I’m not sick, Fiona. I already know I’m not sick. I… can’t… be sick, so just… butt out. You know my situation at home, you know I don’t have any extra money to throw around visiting some expensive family doctor, now I’ve got to come up with that before they’ll let me back into school. You think that’s going to help me, Fiona? Do you?”

We’re standing there, three inches apart, when she blinks twice and says, “I’m… I’m… sorry, Lucy. I forgot you live at… the Home. If you want, I can ask my Dad for the money and—”

“I’m not a charity case, Fiona,” I snap, just as the bell signaling the end of 6th period rings somewhere right above our heads.

I use the literal flood of students to wash me away from her, wash me all the way down the commons and back toward my locker before she can say another stupid word about another stupid thing and make this stupid day any worse.

Chapter 5

Suddenly, I have no idea why I asked Mr. Thompson for a pass out of 7th period.

I mean, it’s not like I detest Home Ec all that much, or it’s young, funky teacher Ms. Haskins at all.

I’m just not feeling it today, you know?

What I am feeling is a little Alex Foster “fix” and, lucky for me, I know just where to get it.

There is a door out of C-wing that, if you take it during the last period of the day, takes you to a place where nothing much ever really happens and no one really cares.

It’s called Shop class; and Alex Foster has it just… about… now.

I clutch my pass to my thigh, and keep my head down, because I don’t want to look too totally desperate, and although I don’t have a car, and although I’ve never owned a car, fortunately the student parking lot borders the outside of shop class.

I take it slow, because my window of opportunity is pretty small here; either Alex will be hanging out near the abandoned oil cans outside of shop class like he does every day, or he won’t, so the slower I go, the better the chances he’ll—

“Lucy? What are… you… doing here?”

Bingo.

“Alex? What… why… I mean, I didn’t know you had shop this period!”

(Careful, Lucy, don’t overdo it.)

He’s sitting on an oil can, hands where I can’t see them, talking to a scruffy senior in a grease-stained jeans jacket.

(Eewwww, retro much?)

I stop, but don’t approach.

“Yeah,” he says, as the senior snubs out a cigarette and wanders back into class.

“Or that you… smoked,” I say, a little hesitantly.

(Will wonders never cease?)

“Yeah,” he shrugs, dropping his smoldering cigarette to the floor, snubbing it out with his sneakers and waving the air in front of his face. “It’s not something I really like to brag about it, you know?”

“I dunno,” I say, inching my way over but trying not to look too desperate to inch my way over. “It kind of adds a little… character… to your rep.”

“Really?” he asks a little hopefully, standing off his oil can as if preparing to meet a proper lady.

I love the way his smile is crooked, and always reaches his eyes.

I love the way the sleeves of his rugby shirt are pressed up above his gangly elbows, revealing forearms covered in soft blond hair that glisten in the late afternoon sunlight.

“Well, I mean, so long as you don’t inhale, of course.”

He snorts – a little leftover smoke rolls out – and says, “What are you doing out here? I thought you had Home Ec this period?”

He did?

He did?

He thought?

About?

What I have this period?

This is news to me, but I try to keep my excitement inside as I cross the threshold from “heading to my (nonexistent) car” and formally enter “the shop zone.”

I shrug, making sure he sees my pass, and lie, “We’re making tuna casserole this period and I can’t stand that smell.”

“Ugghh,” he groans, leaning back against his oil can now as I reach the nearest one, “me neither. My Dad makes it every Thursday and it’s such a big batch it’s in the fridge all weekend, though neither of us eat it. He usually ends up dumping it out on Monday morning, and I remind him of this every Thursday but he bakes another one anyway.”

I smile, but only halfway, because I know a.) his parents are divorced and b.) it’s probably not the most smile-worthy thing, growing up without your mom.

(And I should know.)

Without invitation, I kind of crawl up on the oil barrel across from him; he sits back on his.

Again, I hold the pass from Mr. Thompson where he can see it; he finally does.

“Is that a pass from Old Man Thompson?” he asks, big, beautiful, green eyes wide.

I shrug; no big deal.

“Man, I heard those were pretty hard to get. How’d you swing it?”

I shrug; this is the extent of my knowledge of flirting – the shrug. “I just told him I was allergic to tuna fish!”

He snorts. “Good one.”

We kind of don’t have much to say at the moment, but I don’t care; I just want to see him, to take him in, to be near him.

I don’t have much to look forward to in this world, not like normal teens have to get them through their days.

I don’t get to go through a drive-thru after school, because eating normal human food makes me sick now.

I can’t even chew gum, because it deadens what few senses I still have left in my mouth.

I can’t take a nap, because zombies never sleep, can’t go mack on my human boyfriend because it is literally against about 3 of the 8 Zombie Laws to date mortals, can’t really dish to my gaggle of girlfriends because I just have one, and she’s not really the “dishy” type; she being a fellow zombie as well.

So I try to get my “Alex fix” as often as I can, and if we have something to say, great; if not, well, his fluttering eyelashes speak 1,000 words, trust me!

“Hey,” he says, suddenly remembering, “what was up with you and Fiona in Chorus today? I didn’t even know you knew her.”

I kind of freak for a second.

I mean, he was talking to two girls at the same time when Fiona burst in, who knew he was even paying attention to me?

I feel the pass wrinkling in my hand and say, “Oh, that? I knew she was Mr. Thompson’s aide and I figured I’d float the ‘tuna fish allergy story’ by her first.”

I hold up the pass before finally shoving it deep in my pocket. “I guess it worked.”

He shrugs, smiles, kicks his legs against the side of the oil drum; they make a cheap, hollow sound.

I bet he did the same kind of thing when he was a kid in church.

“What are these, anyway?” I ask, eager to change the subject by patting the top of my oil can.

He taps the top of his. “Mr. Schaffer uses them for projects every once in awhile. He cuts them into, like, 12 pieces and we have to take the piece he gives us and make something of it.”

“Yeah, what’d you make?”

“A metal rose,” he admits a little sheepishly.

“Out of one of these?”

“Well, it wasn’t as big as all this but, okay, it was pretty big when I started.”

“When you started?”

“Well, I tried out a few different things, they didn’t work out so well, and when all I had left was a really thin strip, I hit on the rose idea.”

His voice has this lilting effect; it’s not gentle, just… soft.

His voice also matches his looks, almost… unsure.

It’s deep but soft, like he’s always afraid the wrong person might overhear.

I get a little sassy and say, “So… who was the rose for?”

Our oil cans are close enough together for me to kind of gently kick out and rub the side of his sneakers with my own.

“My mom,” he says, avoiding eye contact. “It was the last thing I made her before she and Dad split up.”

“Ouch,” I say. “Sounds like the end of a really sad Lifetime movie.”

“Or a country song!” he says, laughing through his nose.

(Which I also adore!)

He sighs when he’s done laughing, looks inside the shop room, toward the clock, and smiles back at me.

“What about you?” he asks. “I mean, are your folks still together?”

I kind of blank out because, hey, I wanted a little Alex fix but I wasn’t prepared for the 5th degree.

Then I cock my head and say, “I thought everybody knew I lived at the Home.”

He nods, uncomfortably, then stammers (adorably), “I d-d-do, I j-j-just, the way you are, the way you dress, the kids you hang out with, I always just figured you were going through your ‘angry young girl’ phase and there were folks back home waiting for you to get over it.”

“Really?” I ask, and I probably should be offended but I’m not, for some strange reason.

He kind of blushes, afraid that maybe he’s said too much; then nods.

I look down at my outfit – a rather subdued, by my standards, black on gray on black number– and ask him, “How is it that you think I dress, exactly?”

I’m just giving him the business, but suddenly he gets all squirrely for real.

“Oh no,” he says, waving his large, pale, long-fingered hands in front of his broad but flat chest, “I’m not going there!”

“No comment, huh? Well, and my friends? What’s up with that?”

“Nothing,” he says, and it’s funny because mostly we talk just in Chorus, where he’s more quiet and subdued, and here, with his sleeves rolled up and swinging his legs back and forth so close they almost touch mine, and his big crooked grin fixed on, it’s almost sensory overload; like he’s a whole other kid, with a whole other personality, altogether. “It’s just… Ethan Steele? I heard he went into the juvenile detention center last summer. And Dana Latherow? I heard she got caught boosting cars the summer before that!”

“What?” Now even I’m laughing – and he’s laughing – because it sounds so crazy when he say sit out loud. “This is nuts; those two are pussycats, seriously, you’d like them.”

He says, “Yeah, but would they like me?”

Then he tugs at his preppy shirt.

“Sure they would,” I insist.

(And, actually, they really would. Of course, he’d have to die first, and then get reanimated, but they’d love another zombie in town.)

“Yeah, right,” he grumbles. “They’d probably only pretend to like me until I agreed to go out to some abandoned field with them where they’d sacrifice me on some altar or something.”

Now I’m snorting, I’m laughing so hard; the laugh-so-hard-you-slap-your-thighs kind of laughing so hard.

“Hold up,” I say. “Are you calling me a Satanist, or yourself a virgin, because, I dunno, I’m pretty sure neither one is accurate.”

And he blushes so long, so hard, that I’m pretty sure I know why and, wow, does that make me like him even more.

“Alex?” comes a stern voice from the open doorway of the shop class.

(We’ve been laughing so hard, so long, I’ve forgotten we’re still at school!)

“Mr. Schaeffer, hi,” he says, abruptly leaping off his oil drum and sinking his sneakers in the gravel beneath. “This is—”

“I know who that is, Alex, I just don’t know why she’s here, or why you’re still out here. Bell’s about to ring, son, haul your butt back inside and tell your little girly-friend here to run along back to class before she gets a demerit, too.”

Mr. Schaeffer – a burly, stocky man in coaching shorts and a faded green golfing shirt – huffs off and turns away, and Alex kind of blushes and says, “Man, I didn’t realize I’d been out here so long. Time flies, huh?”

“Time flies when you’re insulting people, sure,” I say.

He laughs and kicks up a little dirt awkwardly, like he doesn’t know what to say – or how he should leave it.

“Listen,” I say, breaking the tension as I turn to go. (“Always leave first,” isn’t that what Dana always says?) “You should swing by the Home sometime, Alex. I know it’s not much to look at but Ethan and Dana aren’t so bad once you get to know them. Besides,” I call over my shoulder, “I promise they won’t sacrifice you or anything!”

His snort is all I hear as I force myself not to look back while I walk away.

Okay, well, I have to look back eventually because I’m walking into the student parking lot and, since I don’t have a car, it’s gonna look pretty stupid if I walk up to one and it turns out to be one of Alex’s friends, or even Alex’s car!

When I sneak a peek over my shoulder he’s still kind of lingering by his oil drum, not quite looking at me, not quite looking away, either.

It takes him a pretty long time before he finally returns to class.

That kind of makes me happy.

Even if half that time was spent smoking one last cigarette.

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

I’m not surprised to see Ethan Steele and Dana Latherow waiting for me when I turn up at my locker at the end of the day, their faces taut, their eyes dull, their expressions grim.

Watching them as I approach my locker, I think – not for the first time – how glad I am they’re on my side.

Ethan isn’t exactly huge or anything, but he’s a scrapper.

It’s well known that zombies have, like, 0.2% body fat – trust me, it’s one of the only benefits of the Afterlife – so everything Ethan has either bulges, curves or juts.

He has wheat-colored hair that’s close-cropped to his perfectly round head; it goes well with his milk chocolate eyebrows and dark chocolate eyes.

His cheekbones are male-model prominent, his cheeks vaguely hollow, his faded black T-shirt hugging his tight, firm pecs and barely containing his cannonball biceps.

His skin is marble pale and hairless, his gray jeans baggy and sagging at the waist and tapering down his long legs to his paint-splattered black sneakers.

Dana is curvy and tall, and surprisingly feminine for a girl with no meat on her bones, but all kinds of intimidating just the same.

Most zombies don’t smile much; I mean, what for?

But Dana looks like the type of gal who never smiled much when she was alive, either.

Her hair – this week – is dyed auburn with black streaks, her eyelashes thick with triple coats of mascara, her black lipstick a mirror of her deep, black eyes.

She has hoops dangling up and down both earlobes, with alternating fake ruby and diamond studs.

Today she has on a snug black velour track suit, over a white shirt with “Tramp” spelled out in pea-sized rhinestones.

“So?” Dana asks first, her dead black eyes cold and impatient as she looks me up and down.

“How’d it go?” Ethan asks second, finishing her sentence like they’re some old married couple.

Normally, we would look at each other and grin (like I said, there’s not a ton to smile about when you’re dead, but grinning isn’t exactly off limits), but there’s nothing normal about this stupid, stinkin’, rotten, no good day.

“How’d you guys find out already?” I sigh, avoiding their eyes as I take twice as long to dial in the combination for my locker.

Sometimes it’s nice being one of only three zombies at Barracuda Bay High; sometimes it can get a little cloying.

This is one of those not-so-nice, a-lot-like-cloying times.

Ethan smirks with his crooked grin and says, “Believe it or not, Piper told us herself.”

That actually IS pretty shocking.

I mean, it’s strictly forbidden, according to the Truce of the Living Dead (which, just because they’re not zombies, vampires actually are), for vampires and zombies to communicate with each other – unless absolutely necessary, of course.

(And, yes, if you’re keeping track, it IS one of the 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws. Just don’t ask me which one at the moment; I’m a little preoccupied what with getting kicked out of school and potentially “outed.”)

“She was pretty ticked off,” adds Dana, in a way that makes it sound like it’s my fault she was ticked off.

“What does SHE have to be ticked off about?” I snap, slamming my locker shut and standing awkwardly with most of my books stacked in my arms.

Although it’s not an actual law, it’s strictly forbidden for zombies to own a backpack, you know, for the uncool factor alone. “I’m the one who can’t come back to school until I get a doctor’s note clearing me from being a health hazard to Barracuda Bay.”

“What?” asks Ethan, chocolate brown eyes growing an extra shade darker as he inches closer to get a better look at the note in my hand. “They can’t do that!”

I shrug, too stressed to go into it right now.

“We can help you with that,” says a voice from over my shoulder and when I turn, Piper has already snatched the note out of my hand. “We have a doctor on call to handle just this type of thing.”

I go to snap it back but it’s well known that vampires are about twice as fast as zombies (and I was never exactly Speedy Gonzalez when I had a heartbeat) so it’s no great feat for Piper to hold the note just out of reach.

“I’m fine, Piper,” I bluff. “I’ll handle it myself.”

“Don’t be so quick to turn her down, Lucy,” says Ethan, of all people, a guy who hates vampires so much he once spent nearly half of his summer lawn mowing money on a voodoo doll that looked just like Piper – in vain, unfortunately.

(Though he still has the special edition “Piper and Bianca Yearbook Photo” dartboard in his room at the Meriwether Home for Wayward Boys and Girls, where all the good zombies live.)

“Yeah,” adds Dana. “If they can get you a note, even if it is from some grody vampire doctor, Mr. Thompson won’t care.”

“You’d do that?” I ask Piper. “For me? For… us?”

She sneers, “Of course not. The last thing in the world I’d do is help you worm smelling chunks of walking meat. If I do it at all, and that’s still a big ‘if,’ it’ll be to save my own skin, not yours.”

The worst thing about vampires is looking at them.

Ugghh.

Gawd.

Seriously?

They are so… gross.

I know everybody thinks they’re all sexy and hot and alluring but, come on over to my side of the Afterlife and I’ll show you a thing or two that’ll put you off vampires well… forever.

Seriously, just watching Piper talk turns my shriveled stomach.

As a zombie, as another Immortal, I can see right through her pasty skin to the black blood running through every vein in her body.

But vampires aren’t like you and, well, they’re certainly not like me.

The minute they “turn” into the Undead it’s like their veins double up on size so they can carry as much blood as possible to their hungry, evil hearts.

So with my super zombie x-ray vision I can literally see the veins and their black blood; it’s like tunnels of warms crawling all over their bodies, right beneath their skin.

You know that invisible guy in Anatomy class?

The big plastic one that sits on the teacher’s desk where you can take out his liver and his pancreas and even his brain and put them back in?

And the veins in his clear plastic arms and legs are red and blue?

Yeah, it’s like that; just… live and in person.

Seriously, it’s like a road map of nasty up one leg and down the other, up her arms, down her throat, around her face, wow, if you could use zombie vision you’d be squeamish, too.

In fact, many times during the day I’ll sit there in class watching the blood worms pump beneath Piper or Bianca’s skin and the whole class is sitting there, clueless to the vampires in their midst and I think, “Can’t you clowns see this?!? Why aren’t you as totally freaked out as I am here?!?”

Then there are the fangs; those slick, sharp fangs that we can see all the way back up her root canal and into her jaw line, pointy and long and just waiting for her to get the slightest bit ticked off so they can point past her gum line, down beneath her lips and straight into the air, where they quiver and shake until drool – actual drool – runs down them.

But the worst part of it all, far worse than the fangs and, yes, even worse than the blood wormy vein slugs crawling all day long are the eyes.

When you can see them, truly see them like we zombies can, vampires have these beady yellow eyes; like cat’s eyes, almost, only they glow all day long, even when it’s not dark out.

So it’s a combination of revulsion and relief when I finally turn from Piper and say, “Whatever the reason, if you want to take care of that for me, for us, for you… whatever… well then, I guess I’d appreciate it.”

Piper and Bianca share a laugh, their yellow eyes glowing, their fang buds glistening.

“How hard was it for you to use that word?” asks Piper knowingly.

I grin and say, “Pretty darn hard and, I’m not trying to be a jerk or anything but, I’ve got a Social Theory test I really need to take tomorrow so…” I hold out my book for emphasis “… I need to know if I should study tonight or not.”

“Study,” says Piper, pocketing Mr. Thompson’s sticky note and turning on one polished high heel. “We’ll get you the doctor’s note before school tomorrow, no questions asked.”

I say, “Sweet, you wanna just bring it by the Home on your way to school because that would just about make my—”

“Puh-lease,” Piper pouts over her shoulder and even from across the commons I can see blood worms pulsing up and down the back of her neck, “it’s bad enough I have to speak to you two days in a row let alone swing by that trumped-up dive you zombies call a home.”

Chapter 7

For once, much as I hate to admit it, Piper is right.

We do live in a dive.

(And a dumpy one at that.)

The Meriwether Home for Wayward Boys and Girls is actually one of those old school Florida roadside hotels the state bought years ago and turned into a modern version of an orphanage.

You know the type.

Heck, you and your family have probably driven past a few dozen of the same type of identical roach motels on your way down to Disney World, Daytona Beach, Miami or the Florida Keys; as in, driven RIGHT past them – and straight to the nearest Holiday Inn.

Holiday Inn it ain’t.

There are two floors, no elevators and vending machines that rarely work at the top of each of the four sets of stairs.

Most of the parking spaces are empty because most of the residents of The Meriwether Home for Wayward Boys and Girls either a.) Can’t drive, b.) Can’t afford a car or c.) Could drive before they got arrested one too many times and had their licenses taken away.

Now, don’t get me wrong, “the Home” as we zombies like to call it, isn’t exactly without its amenities.

There is a kidney-shaped pool in the courtyard, with a deep end that’s pretty shallow and a shallow end that’s really shallow, plus a few sets of rusty old-school patio tables and chairs surrounded by a low chain link fence.

The neighborhood isn’t so bad, either.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, it is a ROUGH neighborhood, but not for the Living Dead.

There is a 24-hour Stop ‘N Shop right around the corner, to help fill those endless nights with last-minute puzzles or playing cards or scratch-off Lottery tickets.

There’s a Laundromat next to the Stop ‘N Shop, which comes in handy because the two “complimentary” washers and dryers at The Home haven’t worked since 1972 when they were first installed (probably).

And, if you’re feeling extra guilty about the sins of your past life, there’s even a church right next door, The Chapel of the Holy Redeemer, complete with an all-night confessional and 24-hour gift shop, where for $5 measly bucks you can buy rosaries, mass cards and/or all the holy water you can cart away.

(You know, if you’re into that type of thing.)

The rooms are doubles, not co-ed, with girls sharing with girls and boys sharing with boys.

Since zombies never sleep or eat and generally wander around 24-7 and tend to get on each other’s nerves if stuck together for long periods of time (kind of like ferrets), the Florida chapter of the Council of Elders squared it with the folks who run the Home to make sure each of us had our very own space.

(Of course, they left out that whole “because they’re zombies and will disrupt the sleep patterns of your mortal orphans” part.)

At this hour the Home is deserted, the rooms dark, the pool empty except for the lonely family of ducks who float around most days and which Dana and I feed from time to time.

As usual, Ethan and Dana follow me into my room, which because of its bare walls and stripped down furnishings seems to be the hangout room of choice.

Each room at the home comes complete with two double beds, a table, two chairs and a lamp – TVs are optional and you have to get them on loan from Mrs. Hellman (yeah, like the mayonnaise) in the front office.

(I try to stay out of her hair as much as possible, so I don’t have a TV.)

I also don’t like clutter, so the minute I moved into the Home a few weeks before freshman year started, I got rid of everything that wasn’t nailed, bolted or sealed tight; the second bed, the lamp, the TV stand, the alarm clock, even the ice bucket!

I shoved the lone single bed into the corner to leave me as much pacing room as I could finagle for those long, lonely 10-hour nights spent walking back and forth, back and forth across the faded orange carpet.

And since I never use it, the only reason I kept one bed in the first place was so people wouldn’t keep asking me, “Hey, where do you sleep?” every time they walked past my room.

I kept the little table and the two chairs because that’s where I set up my laptop and do my homework (and, I confess, play the occasional game of Diner Dash 18), but gradually Ethan brought his chair in, too, and so now we all have a place to hang out after school and on weekends.

Dana went the other way; her room is cluttered with everything mine is not.

She uses her second bed as a combination scarf-slash-belt-slash-accessory table, has her closet and dresses jammed to the gills with her frilly Goth-inspired but not quite outfits and has covered every available inch of counter space with makeup, makeup and – believe it or not – more makeup.

She painted the walls purple (Shhh, don’t tell Mrs. Hellman), added silver mirrors from the thrift shop down the street and covered her lamps with maroon scarves, which gives her room a kind of psychic-at-the-carnival feel.

Everywhere you look, where there isn’t makeup or belt buckles, that is, are tiny jeweled boxes in all shapes and sizes that she’s collected throughout the years.

There’s nothing really inside of them, old movie tickets, phone numbers that are probably no longer even in service, a single earring she’s hoping to find the match to someday, she just likes the way the light catches them in the afternoon.

I’d call Ethan’s room a “man cave” but man do I hate that term, so I’ll call it a “bachelor pad” instead (although that’s not a whole lot better).

Ethan works odd jobs when he can and spends every single penny he earns (the Council of Elders gives us a monthly stipend – kind of like zombie welfare – so we don’t really need money) on computers, monitors, joy sticks, joy chairs and video games, so walking into his room is like navigating a sea of wires, cables and potentially neck-breaking chords strung here and there.

He gets movie posters free from the Mom and Pop video store two blocks over, and hangs them up to cover the holes he’s punched in his walls when he gets really frustrated at losing a new game.

They’re all zombie movies – Zombie Bride 3, The Cheerleader Who Wouldn’t Die, Date with the Living Dead; his little inside joke that no one really gets but Dana and I (and isn’t all that funny to begin with).

The other residents of the Home come and go, literally.

Most don’t stay long and, if they do approach us (something we don’t generally encourage), don’t hang out regularly.

It’s not that we’re unfriendly, just not overly so.

Plus, unlike the kids at Barracuda Bay who don’t pay us much mind, at the Home there’s nothing for the other kids to do BUT check us out, and the closer we get to people, the more likely they are to discover our pesky little secret.

So today, like most days, like most nights, like most mornings, like most seasons and weekdays and holidays and weekends, it’s just the three of us.

Not that I mind, exactly.

Dana hasn’t been around long – only a couple of semesters – but we clicked right away.

She showed up about halfway through sophomore year, and I knew the minute I saw the words on her ironic black T-shirt under her purple paisley vest over her maroon skirt and black fishnet stalking – “My eyes are up there” – we’d be fast friends; and we were.

I mean, we are.

Although she is sexier than me, more feminine than me, taller than me, curvier than me, we still share makeup tips, graphic novels, funny YouTube videos and accessories just like human best friends; sisters, even.

Unlike most zombies, her eyes still have a little green left over the deep black they will eventually become.

Her skin is grayish, like mine, like Ethan’s, but somehow… not quite like ours, either.

There is still a lifelike quality to her, as if her body hasn’t quite gotten the message that she’s long since dead.

Her limbs don’t seem quite so stiff, her skin not quite so gray, her eyes not quite so dull.

As a result it’s a lot easier for her to “pass” at school, which is just as well because according to Law # 5 of The 8 Absolutely Unthinkable, Unbreakable Zombie Laws (i.e. “Thou Shalt Not Associate With Other Zombies Unless Absolutely, Positively Necessary”) Dana, Ethan and I aren’t technically supposed to hang out at school together.

That’s fine with me.

I was a loner as a human, so it wasn’t such a big transition to the Afterlife, but Dana has pictures of her old self in her room and they are so night and day from who she is now it’s not even funny.

(Well, it actually is funny so, scratch that.)

I mean, to look at this hardcore, tough-talking, sassy-walking, bully-punching chick now you’d think she’d always been a toughie but, in fact, in her past life she was a real doll; bowties in her pigtails and khaki slacks and pastel blouses and braces!

Braces!

It helps that she’s made a few human friends at school; nothing special, nobody she’d ever bring around the Home, that’s for sure, but at least she hasn’t had to cut humans off cold turkey like I have.

And Ethan?

Ethan is Ethan; like no zombie you’ve ever seen, alive or dead.

He keeps his dirty blond hair cut close to his skull, sometimes closer than others on account of he does it himself with a pair of electric clippers he bought for $2 at the pawn shop around the corner from the Home and they only work about half the time; and the rest they work twice as well, so he never can tell just how close a shave it’s going to be until he’s done and looks in the mirror.

It could be long or short, his hair, because you never see it anyway thanks to his perpetual hoodie.

And this guy wears a hood like nobody’s business.

I mean, it’s like Ethan was born to wear a hood, like Obi Wan Kenobi or Darth Vader, you know?

And he likes the wide kind, too, the kind that puddle on his shoulders and cast his face in shadows and come way down over the top of his head so only his shiny aviator shades, blunt nose and thin lips stick out when he cruises silently through the halls at school like a shark slicing through a school of fish.

He is bad without being too terribly bad and good without being too terribly good.

He showed up a few semesters before Dana (the Elders don’t like to “clump” zombies by having them all show up at the same school together on the same day because, well, obvious much?) and we kind of started hanging out at the Home just because we were the only ones still awake after the official “lights out” at 11.

One of the great things about being a zombie is you can see in the dark; I mean, there IS no dark, not for zombies.

So when I say I threw out my lamp, it wasn’t because I’m an anti-hoarder and can’t stand clutter, it’s because, really, why would I keep something around I didn’t need?

And zombies don’t need lamps.

The minute the sun goes down, the sky takes on this, well, it’s hard to describe but it’s this yellow sheen, like when Ethan switches to night vision goggles in one of his video games – not that I sit around watching Ethan play video games all day – but I’ve seen him do it once or twice and that’s what it’s like just the same.

And all night long, it’s like it’s still daytime out; at least for us.

So even when I’m pacing around my little empty hotel room at night, with no lamp and the light in the bathroom turned off, it’s still light.

Not like noonday bright, but bright enough; like mid-morning or late afternoon.

Even if I’m in the graveyard doing Reanimation Patrol, it’s like it’s the middle of the day.

But now it is the middle of the day, and the mood inside my cramped little room is anything but “light.”

“I don’t know, Lucy,” Dana is saying, her left foot fidgeting on the bare linoleum floor.

(Oh, I didn’t tell you? I ripped up the carpets, too. Sorry, Mrs. Hellman; you can keep my security deposit!)

“That was a pretty amateurish move, trying to use the hand dryer like that.”

Huh, shows how much Dana uses the C-wing girls’ room.

“It’s not a hand dryer, Dana; it’s a hand towel dispenser.”

“Same difference,” Dana snorts, but it’s not an “I’m so mad at you I could snort” snort, it’s more like a “How could you be so stupid?” snort.

(Which I’ve just decided is a lot worse.)

“The point is,” she sneers, “it’s like coming to school without three coats of makeup on or something.”

I make a kind of clicking noise with my tongue against the roof of my mouth and let out an anguished, “Don’t you think I know that, you guys? I’m ticked off enough at myself already.”

“Maybe so,” adds Ethan, “and we’re not trying to kick you when you’re down but, what were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking, Ethan, that’s just the point. I’ve used that bathroom 8,000 times and never thought twice about it. How should I know they went and changed the dispensers overnight?”

“Well,” Dana points out, playing with one of the jeweled coasters she gave me for Christmas last year, “it’s kind of your job – our job – to pay attention to those kinds of details.”

“Yeah, I know that, Dana; I get that. I just, I slipped up, guys, I’m sorry.”

“What if the Council finds out, Lucy?” Ethan asks pointedly, his dark eyes judgmental. “I mean, they could split us up, they could send you to Afterlife Academy; they could send all of us to Afterlife Academy. I’m just saying, it’s not just you anymore; you have other… people… to care about.”

I shoot Ethan a look, because he normally doesn’t talk like that.

I mean, for Ethan, that’s about as sentimental as he gets.

I kind of gasp, look at them both and say, “I would never want anything to happen to you guys, ever. You know that, right?”

Dana looks from Ethan then back to me and rolls her eyes.

She knows I’ve been crushing hard on Ethan for years now, knows he’s made a few comments along the way that indicated he might, maybe, could, possibly, sorta, probably feel the same way, and she gets a big kick out of the occasional moments of not-so-sexual tension that crop up from time to time.

“What Ethan’s saying, Lucy, is that we have to look out for each other, that’s all. We can’t afford to get… lazy. Ever.”

I groan, leaning back against the wall.

“I’m sorry, really I am. I’ll make it up to you guys, I promise.”

“How?” Dana asks, cutting me a dark look; few chicks can cut a dark look like Dana Latherow.

“How… what?” I ask, looking from one to the other and back again.

I mean, what do they want me to do, turn myself into the Council of Elders because some stupid chick got a bee in her bonnet about my cold skin?

Ethan sighs, looks at Dana, who sighs, and he looks back at me and asks, with a rough edge to his voice that I don’t hear often, “What she means, Lucy, is… what are you going to DO about it?”

“Do about it?” I ask. “What’s there to do about it? The vampires are getting me a doctor’s note,” I can’t believe I just said that out loud, “and by tomorrow Fiona will have forgotten all about it.”

Well, one out of two ain’t bad…

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.

Chapter 9

She has absolutely horrible taste in music, no sense of humor, isn’t very bright and is duller than dirt.

Seriously, I once overheard a conversation where she talked about nothing but how she arranges her panty drawer – for an entire free period.

And it wasn’t just like, “Let me start talking about keeping your thongs separate from your Brazilian cuts and then I’ll move onto something else,” like we all do from time-to-time (don’t get me started on the whole topic of powder foundation versus cream), it was a full-on 50 minutes of nothing but panty drawer arranging specs.

But since she and Bianca and their vampire friends systematically and over time – so as not to make it look too suspicious – killed off the cooler kids one by one, well, by default she’s the coolest kid left.

So now everyone follows her, and she leads them in so many different directions it’s hard to keep up.

One week she’s dressing like a rock star, so all the wannabes run out and buy rock star clothes, begging their moms for advances on their allowance to buy white vinyl boots and pink micro-mini skirts and navel rings and extensions and then, next week, she’s pulling a supermodel vogue with skinny jeans and shimmering blouses and spiked heels and scarves, so all the popular girls have to go buy an entirely new wardrobe.

This week she’s dressing like a French movie star with little hip-hugging leather jackets that flair at the waist and calve-high boots and fuzzy white (ick) berets and gaudy brooches, so gawd knows the town’s vintage consigner stores are going to run out of the same by tomorrow night – and then where will all the pretty mortal things be?

God knows Piper doesn’t need the slight rise in her boot-like heels to give her height, but the extra inch or two doesn’t hurt as she towers over the poolside fence and glares down at me with an almost feral expression in her cat-like yellow eyes.

(I’ve never seen their “real” color, but I’ve overheard the humans call Piper’s eyes hazel.)

“Don’t dry off on my account,” she oozes, literally, the words spilling hot and wet from her mouth as I watch the vile green vapor that is vampire breath ooze from between her lips.

(Yes, vampires have vampire breath and it is rank; at least, to zombies. No, scratch that; I’m pretty sure it’s vile to the entire world.)

“Although,” she adds, dangling a signed doctor’s note in one of her long-nailed fingers, “you don’t want the ink to smudge on this very important document.”

“You got it?” I ask, tousling my limp brown hair and struggling not to reach out and grab it right away.

“Didn’t I say I would?” she asks with a challenge in her voice, pulling the note back just a smidge to tempt me even further.

“Sure, you ‘said’ you would, but…” I let the sentence die off as I slip into flip-flops while tying the generous – and stolen – Holiday Inn towel around my waist.

“But what?” she slithers, backing up all the more. “You still don’t trust vampires?”

I look around to see if any civilians are listening, as if the slobs from “the Home” would ever get up before the last possible minute before school anyway.

“It’s not that, Piper, it’s just, in all my years at Barracuda Bay you’ve never even spoken to me, let alone offered to get me a doctor’s note so I can get back into school. So, I’m just kind of wondering, why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?”

She sniffles, apparently satisfied with my answer when, of course, what I really wanted to scream was, “OF COURSE I DON’T TRUST FRICKIN’ VAMPIRES YOU FRICKIN’ VAMPIRE SCUM!!!”

I count to five inside my head to calm myself, then look over her sleek vampire head to the blinking cross that tops the Chapel of the Holy Redeemer, using it to center my chi (or whatever) and take my mind off of separating Piper’s head from her neck (gorgeous though it may be).

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she sighs, straightening her hair under her fuzzy white beret. “I already told you, getting you back into school is the fastest way to clear all this up so nobody asks anymore probing questions.”

I nod. “Okay, I get that; sure.”

“But next time,” she warns, still keeping the note just out of reach, “try to be more careful, okay? I don’t like to call in favors unless I have to, especially for a… zombie.”

She hisses the word the way most people say, “Cockroach.”

Or, “Puss.”

Or, “Boil.”

My hands are dry now, my joints limber, my eyes clear, the morning racing past 5 now and approaching 6.

I see Piper itching to get away now, see her beady yellow eyes focused on a car I hadn’t noticed before, idling there in the distance.

I shift my stance to get a better look, the flip-flops making sucking noises on the wet pool concrete as I spy Bianca’s trademark Jaguar sitting in neutral by the newspaper box at the corner.

“Got a hot date?” I ask, snatching the note from Piper’s hand when she’s not looking.

She smiles languidly and says, “Does picking up Alex Foster for school count?”

I shrug, making sure the note’s legit before folding it up and holding it tight.

“Only if you’re a petty witch who can’t get her own man,” I purr between clenched teeth, fixing her with my not-exactly-un-scary zombie glare.

Piper just smiles even wider and says, “What do you care anyway, Lucy? You know zombies can’t date mortals, isn’t that one of your stupid 9 laws—”

“8 Laws, Piper, and who says I want to date him? I just like spending time with him is all.”

“Me too,” she says cryptically before stepping off the rough concrete slab that is the pool and onto the even rougher blacktop that makes up the Home’s parking lot.

From behind, without the yellow eyes and blood-black squiggles so visible, she looks normal; well, far from normal.

Who am I kidding?

She looks beautiful.

The kind of beautiful even a sweet kid like Alex Foster can’t resist.

“I guess the feeling’s mutual,” she calls over her shoulder.

Ugghh, and I hate myself for even taking the bait but can’t refuse it as I ask, “Yeah, Piper? How so?”

And she turns, just as I knew she would; just as she knew she would.

And she smiles, oozes is more like it, and says, “What, haven’t you heard? He just asked me to the Fall Formal next week. Kind of late notice, I suppose, and of course he wasn’t the first mortal to ask, but… what can I say, I’m a sucker for the guys who play hard to get.”

I watch her sashay away, her butt cheeks perfectly rounded like an apple ripe for picking, and no wonder Alex would rather spend time with a blood-pumping vampire than a dried out old zombie hag like me.

Still, the Fall Formal?

I mean, I know we hadn’t talked about it, specifically, and of course I would never ask him, but, the way he’s been talking in Chorus the past few weeks, asking me if I was going, who I’d go with if I was going, it was kind of like he was, I dunno, hinting around that he’d ask… me.

And, not that I would admit it to anyone, least of all Dana or even Ethan, but I’d even taken the bus to the mall and scouted out a few formal dresses, keeping my eye in particular on a sleek little black sleeveless number with a maroon under hem.

And… and… now?

For him to ask Piper Madison at the last minute?

I just, it’s too much; I can’t process anymore.

Not one thing more.

I’m still watching her butt when I realize it’s not her butt in front of me anymore, and when I travel from her zipper up past her cashmere sweater to the curl of her fang-peeking smile I realize she’s turned around.

Smiling, licking her fangs, she says, “One more thing, Lucy. If Fiona does anything else to make waves for the Living Dead here in Barracuda Bay, and I mean one little, tiny, stinkin’ thing, you can be sure I’ll take care of—”

I think of chubby, mousy, nosy Fiona, with the dimples and the hair and the plain Jane clothes and the do-good instinct and interrupt, “No, no, I’ll take care of it, seriously. And without sticking my teeth in her neck and sucking her soul dry, too.”

“You better,” she threatens before turning on her heels and stomping – no, that’s not the right word – before stalking to her VFF (Vampire Friends Forever) Bianca’s car and oozing into the buttery leather of the passenger seat.

As soon as her door shuts, Bianca guns the engine and squeals away from the curb.

I’m not surprised to hear the bushes to each side of the pool gate slither and shake as Ethan and Dana slowly emerge, both holding the ancient wooden stakes we carry with us at all times – just in case.

Dana’s has a pearl handle and a sharp edge, just like her.

Ethan’s matches his personality as well; it’s rough hewn with no fancy handle other than a half-price auto rag he’s duct taped to the non-business end for comfort.

Its point is blunt and worn but he’s so strong it doesn’t matter; I’ve seen him shove that thing through a vampire’s chest so quickly, so effortlessly, it looked like a warm knife through butter.

“Glad to know somebody’s got my back,” I say sarcastically, flipping and flopping toward them as dawn finally breaks, suddenly realizing I’ve been standing all this time in my no-one’s-ever-supposed-to-see-it man-kini!

“Always,” says Ethan, checking out the doctor’s note as I unfold it and slide it over the fence.

He nods approvingly and passes it to Dana, who also gives it the seal of approval from between her hooded eyelids and thin, maroon lips.

“She’s right about one thing,” Dana says as we mount the concrete stairs up to our rooms.

“I know, I know,” I say. “I’ll take care of it, first thing this morning.”

Ethan nods as we reach my room, walking three doors down to his own room to get ready for school.

Dana lingers near my open doorway, handing back the note.

“I couldn’t help but overhear what our friend Piper had to say about Alex, Lucy,” she says, cold shoulder meeting the cold metal strip lining my door.

I stare into the bleak, white, mostly empty room and feel the cold grip of another endless day in Barracuda Bay wash over me.

“What?” I ask a little defiantly, looking away from my cold room and into Dana’s even colder eyes. “Now I’ve got to give that up, too?”

She kind of steps back, surprised, and says, “No, that’s… not… what I was going to say at all. I was going to say, her telling you about the Fall Formal like that well, that’s a cold thing to do. You know, even for a vampire.”

And with that she slinks away, leaving me with the day’s first – and likely only – smile.

Chapter 10

The headline is the first thing I see after sliding the forged vampire-friendly doctor’s note across Mr. Thompson’s cluttered desk at school later that morning: “BREAKING: Zombies Are Walking the Halls at Barracuda Bay High!”

He’s on his sleek metallic cell phone, one crooked, hairy-knuckled finger still up in the air in the universal “wait right there until I get off the phone with this much more important person than you” position.

I wait until he turns around to consult his old school, big square and black numbers wall calendar behind him and slide the crisp, folded-over morning paper out from beneath his lukewarm cup of coffee.

At first I couldn’t see it, because it was right under Mr. Thompson’s coffee cup, but not only has stupid, naïve, has-no-idea-the-kind-of-vampire-beat-down-she-just-opened-up-on-herself Rutherford hasn’t just named me as the “Zombie,” but has also used my sophomore yearbook picture right.

Under.

The.

Headline.

So now there’s no mistaking it: Fiona has called me a zombie.

In print, out loud, and, in this day and age, no doubt online as well.

I shake my head, just shy of trembling, and begin reading:





Cold hands.

Pale skin.

A certain stiffness to her gait.

Could our humble little high school star in the next Living Dead movie?

Only time will tell. One thing is for sure, though: this reporter has breaking, firsthand knowledge of a new “zombie-like” virus spreading like wildfire around Barracuda Bay High.

Who is “Patient X” in this latest outbreak? None other than our very own junior Lucy Frost has come down with an “unknown affliction,” according to her doctor, that results in freezing cold skin and a pale, almost ghostly pallor.

In short, one of our very own COULD JUST BE A ZOMBIE.

Okay, maybe not really, but students are still urged to avoid all physical contact with Lucy until further notice, and to report to their teachers – or the school administration – if they see Lucy showing evidence any of the following signs: hives, trembling, nausea, vomiting, external bleeding, chafing, coughing or, of course, stumbling through the halls looking to snack on your brains!

Although no evidence exists – yet – that this new strain of bug might be contagious, cautious school officials were so alarmed by Lucy’s condition yesterday that they literally barred her from attending school until she could secure a doctor’s note. As of this printing, there is no word as to whether or not “Zombie Lucy” obtained a physician’s permission to attend school…





Zombie Lucy?

Really, Fiona?

Zombie?

Lucy?

I stop reading, snatch the 10-page edition of our stupid school newspaper and stand from the wobbly pleather chair across from Mr. Thompson’s desk.

He’s not done with his call but he sees me, sees the paper in my trembling hands, puts two and two together and slides the open cell phone across his shoulder so the other person can’t hear and stands up, too, saying, “Lucy, I’m sorry about that; it was… premature… to say the least. Not to mention immature and well, frankly, extremely catty. We’ll get Fiona to print a retraction in the next edition and—”

But it’s too late; I know it’s already too late.

A retraction?

A retraction?

What good is that gonna do now that the cat’s already out of the bag?

I ignore Mr. Thompson, who follows me all the way to his doorway but not a step further, and stumble out of the front office, across the hall and directly into the library, where the normally jovial Mrs. Klinger clings protectively to her desk as I stride right past her to the row of computers just south of the magazine rack.

It’s no surprise why she’s holding her breath and covering her mouth; a quick glance at the desk in front of her reveals today’s “cover story” and my beaming, gleaming yearbook photo from last year.

Great, so now even the “nice” teachers are going to be afraid of me?

Stupid Fiona and her stupid headline and her stupid, so-called “reporting” skills!

The library is crowded this time of morning with kids killing time in the last few minutes before homeroom Tweeting or updating their Facebook pages or getting the local surf report (‘cause that’s how we roll in Barracuda Bay), and as I stroll down the line of student desk chairs looking for an open seat at a live computer terminal I don’t find one.

Instead, I make one, literally dumping a timid freshman out of the last seat in line and taking his place.

“Hey,” he shouts with a squeaky freshman voice before I flash him one of my patented zombie growls and off he goes, scampering to slide into the arms of his Gamma Man backpack on his way to complain to Mrs. Klinger.

I ignore them both and Google the term “zombie + Barracuda Bay,” hoping against hope that the online edition of the Barracuda Bay Bugle hasn’t gone live yet – sure enough, there it is, the very first hit I get (naturally), posted less than an hour ago.

What’s more, several other high schools – looking for a quick and easy morning story without actually, you know, sitting down and writing one for themselves – have “lifted” Fiona’s “scoop” and posted it on their online editions as well!

I shake my head and step from the chair, storming past the still trembling freshman and even Mrs. Klinger as the kid looks from the morning paper to my face and says, “Hey, that’s the girl with the mysterious virus everyone’s talking about…”

I cringe and flee the library, not realizing until I’m almost to my locker that I’ve been balling the newspaper from Mr. Thompson’s desk into a golf ball size wedge of paper with every step.

Like overly protective grandparents, Ethan and Dana are hovering there, tripping over themselves to shove their own copies of the Bugle in my face and asking, simultaneously, annoyingly, cloyingly, “Have you seen???”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” I snap, not bothering to stop at my locker but instead storming straight to Fiona’s homeroom class.

They follow closely, shouting out warnings as we stomp through the crowded halls.

“You know the Council of Elders has a whole team of Sentinels who monitor the internet looking for crap like this,” says Ethan. “They’re bound to see it.”

“Maybe it hasn’t posted yet,” says Dana hopefully.

“It has,” I say, dashing her hopes. “I’ve just come from the library and it’s spreading; quickly.”

We round the final corner in the commons and dash down D-wing.

I see Mr. Simpson’s open door and barrel right through it.

At the first sight of me – Dana and Ethan don’t want to be seen as “guilty by association,” so they hang back, just out of sight around the corner – half the class flinches.

Flinches; it’s like half the class does the wave – with their faces.

Sheesh, I didn’t think anyone read that rag the Bugle; let alone the students!

As if she hasn’t just signed her own death warrant, Fiona sits in the middle of the class, basking – for once – in the positive attention of her classmates.

It’s like, overnight, she’s become Piper – of the geeks in homeroom, that is.

(And you can tell she more than kinda likes it.)

Her newfound fan base (most of whom have never even spoken to her before) now pepper her with questions and she volleys back answers like a pro.

Here is the quick snippet I hear before the rest of the class gets wind of my presence and shuts down like an old folks’ home after an early bird dinner:



• “Did you really get frostbite just from touching her, Fiona?”

• “Practically; see the blister on my finger?”

• “Do you really think she could be a… a… zombie, Fiona?”

• “You tell me!”

• “How’d you know which doctor she went to?”

• “I was right there in Mr. Thompson’s office when he ordered her to go. You should have seen her face, man she was sooooo ticked… oh hi, Lucy!”



She stands hesitantly when she sees me, and only then do I realize that the rest of the kids in homeroom have literally pulled their desks around hers in a kind of semi-circle, like she’s some strange new version of the campfire storyteller.

No wonder she’s happy to see me; I’ve made her popular!

“Fiona,” I say, managing to keep a lid on it (for the most part) and ignoring the questioning look from Mr. Simpson as he watches the proceedings with some amusement from his big brown desk at the front of the room, “we need to talk – now!”

“Mr. Simpson?” she asks, although she is already headed out the door with me.

He grumbles his permission and quickly goes back to reading the 900-page World War II book he has open on his desk; the same 900-page World War II book he always has open on his desk.

Fiona is smart enough to close the classroom door behind us, but not smart enough to anticipate that Ethan and Dana would be as ticked off at her as I am right now.

Not to mention standing right around the corner.