Since my older brother was lost in the second outbreak, and my mom in the third, it’s just me now, and my request to move back home is denied every month. By the time it’s approved, there might not be a home to go back to.
I walk by it just because, frowning at the broken windows and hanging shutters, the big white “U” on the front door for “Unoccupied,” the weeds around the mailbox and front gate. The garage where they finally got Mom still has yellow crime scene tape up. Same for the tool shed out back, where the Shufflers got my brother Randy.
I haven’t been inside, not even to get old clothes or keepsakes. I didn’t want anything and, besides, I get a government Zorphan’s credit of $125 a month for clothes, school supplies, stuff like that. I just walk by it every day because, well, I guess my feet just take me there on the way home from school.
The Shelter’s only a few blocks away, and although they stopped posting Sentinels on every street corner a few months back – budget cuts, you know – I don’t feel scared. There are axes fastened to every light pole in town, in those glass “break in case of emergency” boxes like you see next to Exits in hotel lobbies. Plus, between the gun I’m allowed to carry in my backpack and the switchblade in my purse, I’m pretty good.
There’s a coffee shop across from the Shelter, just a bare bones place and nothing like Nightshade used to have before the first outbreak. Now everything’s instant and packaged, stuff the government had in surplus or is making on their own.
I order a small coffee and a Doo Dad snack cake and sit alone in the corner, picking at the glue and glitter still stuck to my fingers. The coffee is complete crap but after a few powdered creamers and a sugar packet or two, it’s doable.
The Doo Dad is the same as ever, stale chocolate cake, sticky white cream in the middle, bright orange frosting sweet enough to make a zombie beg. I eat mine quickly and use the last of this month’s credits to buy another, saving it for later.
I stare out the window at the empty street. They impounded all the cars after the second outbreak. The government uses them now, so everyone either walks or rides a bike.
The afternoon sun is making the sky more orange than blue and shadows fall from the tall buildings all around. I still have an hour or two before curfew, so I settle in, enjoy the caffeine and sugar buzz and drag my Biology book out of my backpack.
I’m just opening it up when the cow bell over the front door rings. I know from the shuddered breath and dropping forks a Shuffler has just walked in, even if I couldn’t hear him – or her – shuffling.
In the reflection of the giant napkin holder on my table I can see it’s a he, a tall he, and wearing the blue track suit of a student, which is weird because only the red track suit workers are allowed out this close to curfew. I turn to find Zed/Brody standing there, holding his little kindergarten backpack nervously.
Right away the manager is heading over and I stand to greet her. “He’s… he’s with me,” I stammer, tugging Zed’s arm toward my table.
“You know I’ll have to report this to the Sentinels,” she says, face red with emotion, voice reeking of her own coffee.
“Okay, okay, but… can you give us a few minutes?”
She looks at Zed, his gray skin, close cropped hair, ill-fitting blue track suit and sighs. I notice she’s wearing a heart-shaped pin on her Cruller’s Café apron and, above us, foil red and silver hearts hang from the rafters on clear fishing line.
“It’s Valentine’s Eve,” I tell her, inching closer. “He… he used to be my boyfriend.”
She looks at Zed, frowns, then nods. “I saw my husband three weeks ago, on a road crew, in one of those red track suits the Sentinels make them wear. He didn’t even look up. At least this one seems to recognize you…”
She bites her thin lip. It looks dry and chapped. “I’ll give you ten minutes but if he’s not gone by then, I’ll have to report him.”
I squeeze her arm and drag Zed to my table. “The hell, Zed?”
He looks worried, and I don’t think it’s about the lovesick coffee shop manager.
“I… I wanted to see you one last time.”
“One last time, why? What?”
He shakes his head, waves his hands, like he’s frustrated. “Let me start over. I wanted… wanted to give you this.”
He opens his ridiculous backpack and pulls out a sheet of construction paper. It’s red, heart shaped, but only half-heart shaped, like he forgot the other half. (Silly zombie.) He slides it across the table and I watch loose glitter leave a trail from his backpack to my coffee cup.
“Zed?”
He looks away, at the diners at the other tables, who have only just now picked their coffee cups and Danish spoons back up.
I pick the heart up and see the rough cuts he made around the edges. I also see it’s not that he’s forgotten the other half, he folded it in half. I open it up to reveal a whole heart, a whole uneven heart but… who’s counting.
My heart is pounding as I find a bunch of cut out letters, like you’d see on a kidnap ransom note or something. “Hapy Valentimes Day, Sara. Luv, Brode.”
“Oh my God,” I squeak, clutching it to my chest, glitter bombing the front of my red and gray striped hoodie. “Brody, you… you remember?”
He shrugs. “A little, now and then. Not… not as much as I want to.”
“But, you’re not supposed to remember what happened before.”
“I don’t, not really. I just… remember you. And me.”
“But… you remember your name?”
He shakes his head. “You said it to me, that first day in the Art class. I, I hope I spelled it right.”
“You did,” I lie, because… really? Suddenly I’m going to go all Grammer Queen on the poor guy?
His eyes are deep and probing, happy and sad and hopeless all at the same time. I look down at the crooked paper heart to avoid them. “Where did you get all these letters?”
He smiles, nods, like a little kid who’s wrapped his own Christmas present for you. “I used the cards you made for those other girls.”
“Becky and Shanna and Elaine and Velma?”
“I needed lots of letters.”
I shake my head. “I… I can’t believe you did all this for me.”
“I wanted to. It’s Valentimes Day.”
“Almost,” I murmur, but he is already getting up.
“Where are you going?”
“I broke curfew to come here,” he says.
I stand across the table from him, give him a sly look. “How’d you know where I lived?”
He smiles. “It’s not the first time I’ve broken curfew.”
He starts to walk away and I follow him out. I see the manager, picking up the phone as I pass.
The air is crisp and cool, always is this time of year. The sun is almost down now, and my own curfew is coming soon. There are Sentinels at both ends of the street, but they’re in their guard shacks, waving cold hands in front of space heaters.
He turns down a side alley, one he seems far too familiar with. “What… what are you going to do, Brody?”
He smiles. “I like that name. Say it again.”
“We don’t have time for that, Brody.”
He shakes his head. “I have all the time in the world now.”
We stand near a dripping heating unit, humming overhead. “I mean, we don’t have time before that lady calls the Sentinels.”
He waves a hand. “I can be in the Z-Zone before they get here,” he says.
I grab his track jacket by the closest arm, dragging him near. “No, Brody, you can’t go in there.”
“Why not?”
“That’s for the Abandoned, not the Shufflers. They’re… they’re animals in there.”
The Z-Zone is a restricted area, just outside of town. It’s for zombies only, but the real zombies; the Abandoned. They feed on animals, mostly. It was a state park, before the second outbreak when they started walling up the city. But newcomers to town sometimes stum
ble into the Z-Zone along the outer walls, where the Sentinels don’t patrol as much. Pretty soon, the Abandoned find them, and make them their own.
“They’ll eat you up alive.”
“Zombies don’t eat each other,” he says, turning, walking.
“You don’t know that, Brody!”
He smiles to hear the name again. Stops, turns around, puts a hand – a gentle hand – on each shoulder. “I know that I can’t go back to the Center, Sarah. Not again, not ever again.”
“But school, Brody?”
“What are they going to teach me? To push a broom? Unclog a toilet? That’s all the work crews do, and that’s all they’ll let me join when I graduate.”
He turns again, shuffles another step or two away. “But… me?” I stammer after him. “Us?”
He stops again, turns, but only halfway this time. “All I know about us is what’s in your eyes, Sarah. And that’s not enough.”
I kind of clump into myself after that, watching him go. He’ll be lucky to get to the Z-Zone without being snatched by the Sentinels, and luckier still to get past a guard station without being seen. Either way, in or out, he’s doomed.
I hear crinkling in my book bag and gasp, racing to catch up. I hold the extra Doo Dad cake out, the one I’d been saving for later. “Here, Brody, for your trip.”
He stops and smiles, takes it, shoves it in his jacket pocket. “A valentime? For me?”
Huh, I wasn’t thinking of it like that but, it works. “Sure, of course!”
He smiles, mostly to himself, and turns, shuffling off without another word. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m watching him walk away again. So much is different, but nothing has changed.
I watch him go, feeling like a freshman all over again. The valentine is still clutched in my hand, crackly with dried glue and sticky with glitter. And to think, I wondered why anybody would give a valentine anymore?
* * * * *
Rusty Fischer specializes in seasonal short stories for the YA paranormal audience. Read more of Rusty’s FREE stories at www.rushingtheseason.com.
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