Zombies Don't Kiss & Tell: A YA Short Story Read online

Zombies Don’t Kiss & Tell:

  A YA Short Story

  By Rusty Fischer, author of Zombies Don’t Cry

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  Zombies Don’t Kiss & Tell

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2012 by Rusty Fischer

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © rangizzz – Fotolia.com

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a FREE living dead blind date story. (Say that three times fast, why don’t you?) Any errors, typos, grammar or spelling issues are completely the fault of the zombies. (They’re not very patient with the editorial process!)

  Anyway, I hope you can overlook any minor errors you may find; enjoy!

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  Zombies Don’t Kiss & Tell:

  A YA Short Story

  My blind date is a zombie.

  Wow; just… awesome.

  Okay, no, I mean… that’s fine.

  No biggie.

  I’ll just make sure to ask for a corner booth, blow out the candle the minute we get there and order her steak (really, really) rare; we’re cool.

  I’ve been quiet too long, standing just outside the cozy little café where in his maniacal, laughing voice Cosgrove told me to meet “the woman of my dreams.”

  Now I can see why he couldn’t stop that insane giggle of his when we spoke on the phone earlier that day.

  She’s looking at the yellow carnation wedged between the letter on my jacket and my three varsity pins that surround it, so it’s a little too late to back out now.

  “Hi,” I say, putting out an eager hand. “I’m Jordy. Are you… Tia?”

  She doesn’t look like a Tia.

  Don’t get me wrong, even though it’s obvious she’s a zombie she’s not… ugly.

  Far from it.

  In fact, she’s pretty darn cute; just not exotic-sounding like I’d pictured when Cosgrove told me her name.

  Tia smiles quickly, raising a hand to cover her yellow teeth but not stopping to shake mine, either.

  I’m good with that; some girls just don’t do handshakes.

  I get it.

  “Good,” I say. “Are you… hungry?”

  She looks around, maybe wondering if anyone is listening and growls in a mock B-movie zombie voice, “I’m always hungry.”

  Then she snorts.

  Not, like a “Feed me BBBBRRAAAAIIINNNNSSS!” kind of snort but a goofy girl snort, like girls will when they’re sitting in the library among friends and forget that a few jocks are sitting a few feet away in the magazine section looking at the swimsuit issue of Sports for Sports.

  I smile and wonder if maybe it’s just gas.

  I’ve heard zombies have a problem controlling that kind of thing, so I give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Actually, she smells pretty good.

  The downtown curb is bustling this time of night, the Saturday evening crowd in downtown Ambrosia, Alabama milling about and everybody waiting for a table, so we’re bunched kind of close there near the front door to the Gouda Café.

  She smells like lilacs, maybe; some kind of flower, anyway.

  She’s wearing black heels, not too high, black tights, black fingernails and a silver hoodie in this kind of shimmery, metallic material.

  The top is pulled up, covering what used to be red hair but is now a kind of wispy, faded orange.

  She has on those sexy rectangular glasses and I wonder if, being dead, her eyesight has suffered any.

  She looks like any other fun, funky teenage girl on a Saturday night, except for the ghostly pallor and waxy white fingers.

  I dunno, it’s not like the zombies are required to wear identification or anything, you just… know… when you see one.

  And it’s not just me, either; I can already see folks moving away from her, whispering about her, curling up their noses and rolling their eyes.

  She doesn’t seem to notice or, if she notices, care; I wonder if that’s just because she’s so used to it by now.

  I open the door for her, even though it was partially wedged wide from the crowd standing in front of the hostess stand.

  She catches my eye and winks, waving me forward.

  “Hey Melanie,” I say.

  The head cheerleader for Ambrosia High leers at me and says, “You know this crowd is going to hate me when I give you a table before any of them, right?”

  “It’s okay,” says Tia quietly, in a new voice I haven’t heard before.

  I notice her pulling her hood over her head a little tighter as the crowd around us grows and swells and grumbles as we push forward. “We can wait.”

  “Forget that,” I say. “Melanie’s got the hookup. Right, Mel?”

  Melanie rolls her eyes and I add, “Hey, I didn’t ask you to go out with my best lineman. But since you are… it’s time for me to cash in some chips!”

  More eye rolls from Melanie as she grabs up one menu and one roll of silver and sashays in front of us through the busy restaurant.

  Tia keeps her head down, following closely.

  I’m racing ahead because that’s just how I walk, but Tia moves so slowly I kind of have to keep reminding myself to hang back.

  She gives me a little half-smile, as if she’s noticed.

  We keep walking and walking, past all the good seats.

  I mean, I know I wanted something out of the way so nobody from school would see us together but… this is craziness.

  Finally Melanie stands next to a tiny little table just off the kitchen.

  I see what she’s doing; so does Tia.

  The table isn’t just out of the way, it’s practically… hidden.

  I see a cozy booth for two just a little ways away and tug the closest sleeve of Tia’s shiny silver jacket; we sit there instead.

  “That’s reserved,” says Melanie with a fake smile on her face.

  I lean toward her and say, “I have some very revealing photos of you and Cosgrove that say differently, Mel.”

  She blushes slightly and says, “Fine; whatever. Roy will be your waiter. Enjoy your… date.”

  Melanie makes a big show of handing me the silver and giving me the menu and totally snubbing Tia as she huffs on by.

  Tia kind of looks down at the white cloth covering the table.

  When Melanie’s gone, I slide over the menu and the silver.

  “I don’t really need it,” she says quietly, but I see her eyeing it carefully.

  “They’re supposed to treat you equally,” I say, quietly.

  She does that little snort thing again and says, “They let me in, didn’t they? According to the Living with the Living Dead Treaty of 2017, that’s all they have to do.”

  I hear a little fire in her voice and see a flicker of emotion behind her glasses.

  “What color are your eyes?” I ask, partly to make small talk but, mostly, to diffuse the situation. “It’s hard to see back here.”

  She snickers and says, “You mean, what color were my eyes?”

  “They change?”

  She kind of forms a sneer across her lower lip, which is thin and gray beneath maroon lip gloss, until she sees I’m generally interested in her answer.

  Then she says, “Yeah, after about six months they drain of color. Mine were… hazel… I think?”

  “You think?” I chuckle, reaching for a breadstick from a heaping basket in the middle of the table.

  She shrugs
and says, “My mom always called them green; my Dad brown. I settled for hazel, but… it’s been awhile since I’ve seen.”

  “How… awhile?” I ask, offering her the woven stick of bread covered in a light toss of olive oil and toasted with sesame seeds.

  She snorts again – I have to say, I’m kinda digging the snort – and asks, “What, you want to know if you’re on a blind date with a 98-year-old or something?”

  “Yeah, actually,” I bluff.

  (Secretly, I’ve always been attracted to older women. That’s kind of the reason I let stupid Cosgrove set me up on a blind date in the first place.)

  “Would it matter?” she says, kinda dragging the joke down. “I mean, it’s not like anything’s gonna happen anyway.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Not on your part, anyway. I mean, why would you want to with… a girl like… me? See… I knew I shouldn’t have come on this stupid thing—”

  She starts to get up, flustered, but it’s a good thing zombies move so slow because I can reach out and touch her sleeve before she’s even in the half-crouch position.

  “Please,” I say, despite the curious eyes of the other diners as they look a little more closely at the striking figure in the shimmering hoodie. “We’re already here, so… we might as well have dinner, right?”

  She sits back, but I think that’s