Zombie Thanksgiving: A YA Short Story Read online

Zombie Thanksgiving:

  A YA Holiday Short Story

  By Rusty Fischer, author of Zombies Don’t Cry

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  Zombie Thanksgiving

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2013 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: © katafree – Fotolia.com

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a FREE holiday short story. 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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  Zombie Thanksgiving

  “The hell?!?”

  I don’t quite scream, but I might as well have. The room is tiny and I’m wet and it echoes, even if only through my own ears. “I’m changing here, do you mind?”

  I turn my back immediately, but that only makes things worse because I’m clutching my towel at the front, and the back is open and… when I turn around he should be blushing.

  He’s not. And then I see the familiar, yellow and blue triangular “Zombie Job Squad” patch sewn over the brown pocket of his tan work shirt.

  “Oh,” I say, because that explains a lot. The vacant stare, the cocked head, the fact that he’s actually looking into my eyes even when I’m half-naked beneath this sorry excuse for a bath towel and dripping wet from a midday shower.

  “Oh,” he says, in that hoarse way they do. And then, a few delayed seconds later, “Sorry.”

  He turns to the door and looks at the knob. I know he knows what it’s for, it’s just that maybe he doesn’t know what he should do with it that’s the problem. I shake my head and slip my panties on under my towel, like the way surfers get into their baggies at the beach, then shimmy into my jeans.

  By the time he turns around, scratching his head, I’m just wriggling into my Paranoia Prep School pullover. The school is really named Parnassus Preparatory Academy for Troubled Adolescents, but kids started calling it “Paranoia Prep” during the very first outbreak in 2015, and I guess it stuck. (Hey, what do you expect from a bunch of troubled adolescents, anyway?)

  “Oh,” he says, upon seeing I’m dressed. “Should I still leave?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. What are you doing here in the first place?”

  I slide into some handy flats because I hate anyone seeing my bare feet, and crinkle-dry my hair because obviously Joe Zombie isn’t going anywhere fast and using the blow dryer would confuse him, probably. Or maybe even startle him, and even though he’s a zombie he’s kinda cute and, even if he wasn’t, I’m major lonely.

  “We… we didn’t think anyone would still be here.”

  He is tall, and angular, all bones and skin under his baggy tan uniform. The hat on his head is brown; so is his hair. His eyes are gray, but not entirely scary-gross the way some of them get after awhile.

  “Well, I am.”

  He nods. “I see that now.”

  “So leave.” I’m playing hard to get. He’s a guy. He should still pick up on that, right?

  He blinks, twice. “You don’t have to be rude about it.”

  He says it so gently, so genuinely, I immediately agree. “You’re right, I don’t, but… you just saw me naked, so, I’m a little emotional at the moment.”

  He corrects me. “Only half-naked.”

  Oh God, it’s worse than I thought. “You saw that?”

  “Just a little.” He looks away, but probably not because he’s embarrassed. It’s just there’s a lot going on on Carmen’s side of the room, what with the movie posters and aromatherapy candles and bonsai trees and Christmas lights and moody red kerchiefs on every available lampshade.

  “I thought you guys were supposed to be slow.”

  He smirks. No, like… really smirks. I didn’t even know they could do that. Smirk, I mean. “Not that slow.”

  There is a desk-slash-table thingy in our dorm room, between our single beds built into the cinderblock walls. I sit down at it, half from the shock of him – a zombie, I know, but still, a guy – seeing my bare behind and, two, to cover said behind just in case he’s formed a fixation on it.

  He watches me with curious eyes while a crooked smile creaks across his face. “So… you’re staying?”

  I look around the place for emphasis, the unmade bed, the half-open bag of chips on the desk, the humming laptop with the second season of Horror High all queued up and ready to go on HitFlix and say, “Yeah, pretty much.”

  He scratches his head again, pushing his cap even further up his gray, unlined forehead. “Well, we’re supposed to clean the floors.”

  I kick a Cheese Poof under Carla’s bed, ignore the pile of laundry I’ve been meaning to do all week and say, “It’s super clean, what are you talking about?”

  He opens the door and there is a big red machine just outside, like a lawnmower only instead of a square thing with blades in front there is a circular thing with a powder puff on the bottom. “I mean, professionally clean them. While the students are away.”

  “But I’m here.”

  “Right, I get that, but… you’re supposed to be away. It’s Thanksgiving, you know.”

  Yeah, like I need to be reminded I’m a loser, by one of the living dead no less. I wag a righteous finger righteously. “Look, zombie, I’m here and I’m not—”

  “Reggie.”

  “What?”

  “My name’s not ‘zombie.’ It’s Reggie.”

  So, this one’s got an attitude, huh? That’d be a first. Most of the Zombie Job Squad just roam around the halls in the morning, picking their cold, gray noses with one hand while pushing their maintenance carts with the other. Which I think says more about their boredom level than their IQ level.

  “Is that insubordination I hear in your voice… Reggie?”

  He frowns. “Does that word mean what I think it probably means?”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “No, it isn’t. You’re not hearing anything in my voice other than my name.”

  I flare my nostrils in response, because… what do you say to that? It’s zombie logic, but it’s still logic.

  I sigh. Dude seems legit. I mean, he is with the Zombie Job Squad, and that is a giant floor cleaner powder puff thingy sitting there, and the floor is pretty grody. I could go to the library, I guess, if it’s even open during Thanksgiving break. I could grab a soda and go watch my Horror High marathon in the quad, but that would be so pathetic. I’d feel like the last girl on earth. I could—

  “You could help,” he offers, eyes a little wider, voice a little less hoarse.

  “What, like… do work? Physical work.”

  His eyes go back down an inch. “Yeah, like work.”

  I shake my head automatically, but that actually doesn’t sound that bad. I mean, I’ve been meaning to get some exercise all week, but the weather’s been so crappy, to say nothing of my mood, and I’ve skipped it. Altogether.

  “It wouldn’t take long,” he says, “with the two of us.”

  “What about your zombie friends? Aren’t they supposed to help?”

  He shrugs. “You know how many rooms there are in this building?”

  I roll my eyes, a personal specialty. “Aren’t there, like 200 of you zombie job corps guys?”

  He rolls his eyes back at me, but it takes awhile. “There are nine of us. There used to be ten, but Simpson had… an incident… last
month and they haven’t replaced him yet.”

  Yeah, they do that; have “incidents,” from time to time. That’s why ever since they ratified the Zombie Right to Work Amendment in 2018, they also installed a glass cased axe box next to every fire extinguisher, trash can and water fountain in the school.

  We haven’t had to use them yet, but… you never know.

  “Do I get paid or anything?”

  He bites his gray bottom lip with big, yellow teeth. “No.”

  I don’t say anything to that. Then he gets a kind of light bulb moment and says, “But we’re having a party later, for Thanksgiving, you could come to that.”

  “And that represents payment… how?”

  He looks personally hurt. “Well, there’ll be food.”

  “Zombie food?”

  “Not just zombie food. Our supervisor will be there, and the secretary lady. They eat human food.”

  “Is that because they’re still human?” I ask hopefully.

  He nods, but looks like he resents having to answer.

  I shrug, and finally stand. “All right, let’s do this thing.”

  “Really?” He sounds like I used to when, after six straight hours of begging, Mom would