Zombies Don’t Swim:
A Living Dead Spring Break Story
By Rusty Fischer, author of Zombies Don’t Cry
www.zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com
Copyright © 2011 by Rusty Fischer
All rights reserved.
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: © Mashe – Fotolia
Author’s Note:
The following is a FREE living dead 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!
Zombies Don’t Swim
“Ugghh,” says Lavinia, shuddering as if it was 58-Degrees out and not 85.
She crawls out of the shallow end dramatically, dripping clear water all over our brand new pool deck from her long, volleyball limbs. “I hate it when they bump into you, you know? It’s so… creepy. Gawd, why does your Dad insist on hiring those clowns anyway, Viv? It’s so… retro.”
“Somebody has to hire them,” I point out neutrally, not sharing Lavinia’s massive distaste for the undead. “Dad likes to give back to the community, you know? Besides, it’s not like they don’t do a good job.”
“Anyone can do a good job, Viv; it’s pool cleaning, not... rocket science.”
She makes her “you’re so dull face,” which looks a lot like her “I’m trying not to pass gas in front of this cute guy in class” face.
“Besides, what’s the good of having a pool boy if you can’t ogle him while having cocktails with your BFF over spring break? I told you we should have used my pool.”
I avoid her eyes and confess, “Well, I’m waiting for Scott to call and I knew if he knew I was hanging with you, he wouldn’t.”
“Please,” she says, waving a fat-free arm dismissively, her dangling butterfly bracelet slinking up and down her bony wrist. I gave it to her for Christmas last year; I don’t think she’s taken it off since. “Get over that clown, will you already? He’s already gotten over you, trust me.”
“I want to,” I sigh, looking away. “I know I should after what he did with Sheila after the game last week, but… I can’t.”
“Please,” she reminds for about the 1,000th time this spring break. “You can’t take him back now, Viv. What kind of message would that send?”
“I’m not interested in sending a message,” I whine. “I just want him back.”
“Uggh,” she says, that patented look of distaste smeared across her otherwise flawless face. “There’s nothing worse than the tragic story of a good girl getting dumped by a bad boy. Oh, wait, here’s one: the good girl’s best friend who can’t abide the sight of a zombie cleaning her best friend’s pool. I take it back; that story IS more tragic.”
I grin just to shut her up, and try to see if my cell phone is chirping without her noticing.
Into an awkward silence she says, “Besides, you wouldn’t have to actually tell Scott you were at my casa; you could always lie, Viv, you know? Like the rest of the world?”
“Even if I did lie, Lavinia, you’re always blaring your music top-shelf and he knows I’m not into that speed metal crap, so… it was just easier to come here, no? Besides, I wanted you to see the new pool deck. Isn’t it sweet?”
She nods, admiring the cascading waterfall, the bubbling Jacuzzi, the potted palms and the brand new pavers Dad had put in the minute word came back that he’d finally gotten his new promotion.
“The deck I’m in love with,” she sighs. “The dead white guy at the bottom of the pool? Not so much.”
I put down my half-iced tea, half-lemonade and snort, “Well, why don’t you just wait until he’s through to take a dip? I’m sure he doesn’t want you rubbing up on him anymore than you want him rubbing up on you.”
“And why wouldn’t he?” preens my best friend, positively statuesque and stunning in her tiny bikini, the kind that doesn’t match with the barely there pink bottom and the almost there blue top. “Stupid zombies need to come when nobody’s using the pool anyway. I mean, it’s not like they sleep or anything, right?”
I knew it was a mistake to invite Lavinia over when the dude from Past Life Pools was scheduled for his weekly cleaning.
It had just completely skipped my mind that Thursday was pool day and, with spring break almost over, I figured Lavinia could overlook the marble heavy hunk scrubbing the bottom of our pool in order to catch some quick spring rays; guess not.
“I don’t know what your big deal is anyway,” I sigh, craning my neck to see if I can spot Zombie Pool Boy flexing his muscles by the pool drain; no luck.
I’d need to sit up a little higher to peep that and I’m too comfortable for that kind of abdominal gymnastics at the moment, thank you very much.
“You know if he was mortal you’d be all over that in a hot minute,” I tease.
She makes her frowny face and finishes drying off her hair, not just sliding down into the thick deck chair next to me but practically melting into one of the new khaki cushions Mom picked out to match the new deck.
Her limbs are honey brown from the early spring sun, her stomach empty and concave from her since-February diet.
“I dunno,” she hems, pouring a little more of the spiked lemonade from the cooler between us into her melted ice tea. “I’ve never been one for the strong, silent types, you know?”
She offers me some of the lemonade and I hold out my glass with one hand, using the other to make that pinched-off, thumb and forefinger “just a smidge” motion; she ignores me and does the whole glug-glug all over again.
I can’t yank it back because then she’ll spend the rest of the weekend telling everyone at school how I committed a “major beverage foul” so I just let her, figuring I’ll pour some in the planter when she’s not looking; which is usually.
She gets comfortable on the deck chair, all 6-feet-something of her, the late afternoon sun dappling off her still damp skin.
I sip at my spiked tea and lemonade, careful to pace myself.
It’s the first day with my parents out of town on Dad’s self-congratulatory “I finally got that damn promotion” weekend, and if I get too twisted too soon, well, there’s no telling what trouble I can get into.
Lavinia starts texting on her sleek, silver cell phone; nothing new there.
I drift in and out of wakefulness, the hot sun and cold drink lulling me the same way the sound of Lavinia’s fingers quietly clacking out some kind of romance novel next to me soothe my frazzled nerves.
“Jackpot!” she says a few minutes later, creaking up in her chair and slipping quickly into her tiny black yoga pants.
“What’s that mean?”
“That means I got Scott to agree to swing by here tonight,” she smiles, slipping into her pink baby toll t-shirt.
“What? Why? When?”
“What? Scott is coming over. Why? Because your loins are desperate and you obviously don’t care about getting his sloppy seconds. When? Tonight. I told him your folks were out of town and to bring some friends from the team, you know, liven things up around here.”
“Lavinia,” I groan, secretly happy, anxious, grateful and petrified all at once. “I thought you said it was just going to be us tonight.”
“Relax,” she says, reaching for her purse and sliding the offending cell phone deep inside. “I’ll be back before the festivities get underway.”
She leans down to air kiss my cheek, takes her drink to go and sashays sexily through the side door in the back fence, where her convertible Beamer sits double-parked at the curb.
I sigh and lean back, taking a hefty sip of my drink and wondering what I might wear when Scott…
A sudden rush of water catches my attention, derailing my train of thought.
“Oh, sheesh,” I clamor, sitting up and tossing Lavinia’s left behind towel over my teeny bikini and bare midriff. “I almost forgot you were there.”
The pool boy stands, dripping, on the second step in the shallow end.
He is of medium height, fat-free and marble pale.
His black hair is shorn close, his eyes as dark as the hair, his bathing suit snug and white with green stripes on the sides; it stretches to his knees.
“Is your girlfriend gone?” he asks, rubbing long, pale fingers across the deep black stubble on the top of his head as water cascades down his broad shoulders and slows to a trickle near his waistband.
“Oh god,” I chuckle. “Why, you heard her earlier?”
“Heard her?” he smirks, sitting down on the ledge of the pool as if he doesn’t want to track water any further onto the deck. “I almost came out of the water and turned her.”
I chuckle lightly; it’s such an odd thing to say.
“You guys can… do… that? I mean, just turn people when you want to?”
“Not legally,” he grunts. “But I’m sure if they heard what I did from your friend there, the Council of Elders would let me off with a slap on the wrist if I did turn her into one of us.”
“I tried to stop her,” I mumble, trying to remember if this is, in fact, true.
The look on his chiseled face says he doubts it.
“I didn’t think you could hear down there,” I say as he grows restless, looking like he wants to get back to work.
Or sit next to me; or eat my brain – you just never know with the living dead!
“Yeah, well…” he smirks. “Now you know!”
I sit up a little straighter, straining for conversation.
Dad’s been hiring guys from the Past Life Pool Service for years now, ever since they passed the Living With the Living Dead Laws and made it acceptable for zombies to earn minimum wage.
Usually the guys they send are okay, but pretty… creepy.
When the new guy showed up just after lunch and announced he was here to clean the pool, I almost dropped the last of my organic brine pickle!
“Well,” he starts to say, not quite sliding back into the pool.
“Wait, uh… can I get you something to… drink?”
He eyes the cooler at my feet and says, “Is there anything with sugar in there?”
I smirk; zombies are legendary sugar suckers!
Luckily, I’ve come prepared.
I reach down into the cooler, bypass the spiked lemonade and grab a Sunshine Soda, known the world over as every zombie’s favorite.
It’s ice cold from resting in the bottom of the cooler for so long, and feels strange in my warm hand.
I step from the chair, aware his eyes are on my legs as I let the towel drop and do my best saunter over.
I’m nowhere near as good as Lavinia, but it’s not my first time at the rodeo and I’m not sure if zombies can blink or anything, but he doesn’t so I’m hoping that’s a good sign.
“Thanks,” he says, standing up to accept the drink.
He didn’t look so tall before but now I see I have to look up a smidge to gaze into his soft, black eyes.
“I wasn’t sure what… you guys… drank,” I stammer, sounding stupid.
“Not much,” he confesses, and I realize I’m still holding the can and his fingers are on mine; I can’t tell where they end and the can begins. “But this is perfect.”
I let it go and step back, finding myself at the edge of the pool.
I know he’ll go back to working if I don’t drag this out a little longer, so I sit down and slide my legs in.
The water is cool against my shins and laps, gently, clinging to my warm, brown skin.
He takes it as it’s intended; an invitation to join me, sitting back down on the ledge and putting his feet on the second step.
He opens the can and drinks slowly.
His Adam’s apple is hard and pronounced as it works, up and down, like everything else about him.
“Have you been doing this long?” I ask, slowly swishing my legs back and forth through the water.
“A year or so,” he answers, careful to avoid staring.
If I’d known he was coming, I wouldn’t have worn my skimpiest layout bikini.
“Do you like it?”
“What? Your bathing suit?”
I snort, not expecting a zombie to be so… quick.
Or funny or pervy or… interested.
I slap him on the cold, hard shoulder and say, “No, silly; your job.”
“Not as much as your bathing suit,” he sighs, finishing his soda and setting the empty can down on the deck. “But, sure, some jobs are better than others.”
“What’d you do before this?” I ask.
“This and that,” he sighs, leaning back on his open palms the way guys do; I try to avoid the way it stretches his body out, long and lean, like cold vanilla taffy. “Things got a lot better when they passed the Living with the Living Dead laws.”
“Yeah, how long have you been, I mean… are you… oh gheez…”
“It’s okay,” he says, looking over at me from the semi-reclining position. “I’m 19, but… I have been for a few years. Not too many, though, so don’t think I’m some 98 year old creep who’s ogling you by the…”
I snicker, but quickly fall into his trap when I say, “Now who’s ogling who?”
By the time we’ve blushed our way through an awkward silence – well, that is to say, I’ve blushed enough for both of us – I ask, “How did it happen, I mean?”
“Do you always interrogate your pool boys, because… your Dad wasn’t this thorough when I came for my interview last week!”
“Let’s just say my Dad’s had more experience with the living dead than I have.”
“I see that. It’s okay, I’m just kidding, you know. I don’t mind talking about it; not really. Not when someone actually seems to care about the answer, that is. Anyway, I was a freshman at college, pledging this stupid fraternity. Some of the guys had this bright idea to chain us to a cemetery gate during a lightning storm. You know, as a kind of initiation…”
He looks down at his knees, as if suddenly remembering all over again.
I feel bad now, because I don’t want him to have to relive something so unpleasant but, with that setup, I don’t want him to quit telling the story, either!
“Didn’t they know lightning is, like, the leading cause of reanimation?”
“Sure they did! Why do you think they did it? I mean, who wouldn’t want a fraternity brother of the living dead?”
He says that last part there in one of those creepy movie announcer voices, but I can tell there’s still a little bitterness left behind it as well; his eyes are darker now, too.
“The funny thing, it wasn’t the lightning that got us, it was what the lightning got that got us.”
“You mean…”
“Yeah; lightning struck this iron grave marker. It was some kind of angel, I think. Anyway, we were all breathing a sigh of relief, you know? Near miss and all that. Anyway, five minutes later this hand reaches up through the ground and… bam, instant zombie!”
“But I don’t see any bite marks on you,” I point out, his hairless torso just shy of perfection, his long legs scar-free.
He smirks and gently slides up the left side of his pristine white baggies; there, just about mid-thigh, is a huge bite mark, long since healed over and now merely a distant, rubbery, reddish gray.
“Ouch,” I say, desperate to reach out and touch it.
He shrugs and says, “Seems like ages ago.”
Then he waits a beat, extends a hand and says, “I’m Flynn, by the way.”
I blush, look away, bite my lip and say, “I’m Vivian, but… everyone calls me Viv.”
“Yeah,” he says, taking my hand gently and then quickly releasing it, like he doesn’t want me to get freezer burn. “I heard your friend say it a few dozen times earlier.”
We talk for awhile, then awhile longer, until at last the shadows start to spill across the sky, and then we talk even longer.
His voice is soothing; quiet and deep.
His stories are sad and funny and quail on mine.
I’m telling one, badly, when suddenly the fence door swings open and Lavinia stands there, regal and alluring in a crinkly skirt and pink top; the kind she wears when she plans on swimming later and is merely wearing actual clothes to hide her skin tight bikini.
“The hell, Viv?” she says, and she’s not alone.
Stumbling up beside her, beer in hand and hot pink baggies snug against his lean, swimmer’s body, Scott echoes her sentiment: “The hell, Viv?”
Flynn rockets from the water and grabs his Past Lives Pool Cleaning shirt; the one with the headstone for a logo.
He slips it on in record time, then some matching white deck shoes and says, to me, “Sorry, Viv; I mean, Vivian. Tell your Dad I’ll be back to finish up tomorrow, okay? I’m sorry, the time… just… got away from me.”
“My Dad’s out of town,” I say quietly, so only he can hear. “It’s just a little party for friends, nothing major. Please… stay?”
He flickers me the kindest smile, so quickly, like he’s actually, maybe, almost considering it.
Then Lavinia and Scott trundle through the gate dragging a beer keg and he frowns.
“I really can’t,” he says. “It wouldn’t be… professional.”
“Damn straight it wouldn’t,” says Scott, trundling past with the keg and trailing a giant sleeve of red plastic cups in his free hand. “Don’t you dead heads have some kind of curfew or something?”
“Scott!” I snap, but Lavinia is right there with him.
“No, Viv, Scott’s right. One call to the Council of Elders and your undead pool boy here is—”
“Bye Viv,” Flynn says, face stern, all trace of light gone from his eyes.
“Yeah, you better bolt,” Scott huffs, whipping out his phone, you know, as if he has the Council of Elders on speed dial or something.
At last Flynn smirks and sys, “Actually, the curfew isn’t for two hours, but thanks for reminding me.”
On his way past, Flynn leans in with just the slightest mischievous intent and, with barely a tap, sends Scott flying over the keg.
Lavinia rushes to help him while I stifle a snort.
“Sorry about that, friend,” says Flynn over his shoulder as he creaks through the side gate. “Those kegs can be tricky.”
I rush to follow him, to explain, but he’s already climbing into his service van.
He rolls down the window as I lean up and say, “Flynn, they’re just buzzed, or drunk, or…”
“Stupid?” he adds, firing up the van with a rumbling snort.
“All of the above?” I offer weakly. “But, you know, they’re still my friends.”
“I’d watch out for that Scott guy, Viv.”
“What? Why? He’s harmless. I mean, how bad can a guy who wears pink baggies be?”
I’m shooting for a joke; he’s scowling back.
“We’re not just dead, you know. We can… sense… things. One thing is aggression, greed… lust. Your boyfriend—”
“Ex-boyfriend,” I lie unconvincingly.
“Whatever, Viv; either way, I can tell, he’s up to no good tonight. Just… be careful, all right?”
His eyes are dark and gentle again; my reaction is anything but.
“You don’t even know him, Flynn,” I shoot back, inching out of the driver’s side window. “I mean, for all you know, he could be… could be… trying to protect me.”
But even as I say them, the words ring hollow.
“Me too,” he says, waiting until my foot is out of range before peeling down from the hill atop which our house sits.
* * * * *
I wake the next morning in a haze, my body bent and half-naked on the couch.
When – and how – did I fall asleep in my bikini?
There is a hammering in my ear and as I look up, I see Scott’s body sprawled face down across the deck chair just on the other side of the sliding glass door.
I groan, figuring the pounding I hear is just my massive hangover.
The living room is trashed, throw pillows everywhere, candle wax on Mom’s favorite coffee table, the bottles on top of Dad’s wet bar empty and sticky.
I stumble into the kitchen, grabbing a pool cover up on the way, and reach for an iced coffee in the fridge.
I shake my head, the pounding louder now; coarse and insistent.
“The hell?” I snap, poking my head around the fridge and seeing Flynn tapping his fingers against the slider; he’s smiling.
“Ugghh,” I groan, reaching for a Sunshine Soda and stumbling over a broken coat rack to reach the door before he can bang any louder.
“Annoy much?” I snort, handing him the cola.
He smirks and says, “At least I waited until sunrise, Viv; you don’t know how hard that was seeing as I’ve been awake for, I dunno, the last four years!!!”
I crack my iced coffee and tap his can, saying, “I’m just glad I lived until sunrise.”
I drain half the can in one gulp, the caffeine and sugar instantly making me feel at least a fraction more alive than old Flynn here.
“I see you’re not alone,” he smirks, sneering down at Scott’s body splayed sideways across the deck chair; all he wears is his ridiculous neon baggies. “Everything all right?”
“Fine, fine,” I say, waving him off casually. “Nothing a few aspirin and a cleaning crew won’t fix.”
He smirks and eyes the litter and junk and clothes and purses and sea of red cups drowning in the waterfall, gurgling in the still running Jacuzzi and floating in the pool.
“Where should I start?” he asks.
“It’s not your job to clean up my mess,” I sigh, finishing the last of my coffee and slipping my feet into what could be my flip flops; they are. “Let me just get this out of the way and then…”
“I’ll start with the Jacuzzi,” he says, walking over to turn it off.
I sigh, smiling secretly, until he says, “Uh, Viv? Can you come here for a sec?”
“You don’t waste any time, do you? What’d you find, a bikini top or something?”
He’s peering into the bushes to the side of the Jacuzzi, which is still gurgling; the smell of chlorine and vodka ripe in the humid air.
“Not quite,” he answers, finding one of those sleek “Flarp” video cameras strategically planted on a camouflage tripod in the new potted palm right next to the hot tub. “I wonder who could have planted this?” he asks knowingly, spying Scott’s body sprawled out on the nearest deck chair.
“You got me,” I say, a blush rising to my cheeks at what might be on that camera.
Everything happened so fast, so hard, so hot, I can barely remember it all.
I do know I stayed out of the hot tub, though; I think.
“Well, somebody did,” he smirks sitting down on the ledge of the hot tub with his bare feet sliding inside the gurgling bubbles.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I pout.
“It means somebody at your little shin dig,” he begins, until he remembers the crumpled beer cans and red plastic cups littering the pool deck, to say nothing of those floating on the pool’s suddenly fugly surface. “Or, should I say, big shin dig?”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I guess things did get a little… out of hand.”
He looks from the video camera to the hot tub. “Anything get a little… out of hand… in here Viv?”
“Possibly,” I shrug, looking guiltily at Scott’s half-naked body splayed out on the deck chair. “Probably.”
He nods, dark eyes darker than usual and looking almost… disappointed.
“Well,” he says dryly, handing the camera over. “You should probably do something with that before the whole world sees you and Scott getting—”
“Hold up,” I spit, causing Scott to stir, drool and moan all in the same motion. “Who says Scott and I did anything in there?”
He seems suddenly taken aback.
“N-n-no one,” he stammers, handing the video camera over. “I just, I dunno, I assumed I guess. I mean, when I left last night, you were pretty much on Team Scott, that’s all.”
I roll my eyes and push “Play,” squinching down toward him and sliding onto the deck next to his chilly body.
I slide my legs in the hot tub to inch closer so we can both watch.
The background noise on the video is loud and hard to decipher but the image is crystal clear.
It’s the hot tub all right, and Scott is sliding in opposite some girl.
He looks stellar, as always, but his eyes are glassy and predatory and… greedy (just like Flynn had warned me the night before).
He’s got on the same baggies as he’s wearing now, hot pink with black stripes down the side.
“Nice,” Flynn chortles, but I can see he’s anxious to find out who the girl is just the same.
She has blondish-brownish hair and next-to-nothing on, which means she could basically be anyone at the party; even… me.
Her shoulders are wet, her hair around her shoulders wet, a glass of something in one long, elegant hand; you can’t see the other one, where it is or… what it might be doing.
We grow quiet as Scott slides into the water; slithers, is more like it.
His blond curls are damp and wet, like he’s already been in the pool, his hairless chest smooth and radiant in the glowing light of the deck lamps.
He has a beer can in one hand, and the other gently laps at the bubbling surface of the pool.
His smile is churlish and wide, his eyes raking up the front of the girl he’s sitting across as if she’s a slab of baby back ribs and he’s just gone off a hunger strike.
He says something we can’t hear because of all the background noise, nods his head and slowly the girl reaches around to the back of her neck with her mystery hand and unties her bikini top.
“Wow, he works fast,” Flynn says quietly; almost… admiringly.
“Not on me,” I whisper back; because suddenly I think I know who the girl is.
Even before she stands up and inches toward him, dropping her top along the way, even before she leans over and kisses him, even before he stands up and turns around with his back to the camera and we finally get to see her rapturous face, I know it’s Lavinia; I’d know that dangling butterfly bracelet anywhere.
“Turn it off,” I spit, rising from the pool and splashing him with water. “Turn it off before I can see the rest.”
He does, and hands it over.
I stomp over to Scott, feet wet, and shove the side of his bony hip with my damp toes.
“Get up!” I shout, kicking him until he starts.
“Huh? What? What’s going on?”
He rolls over and I toss the little blue camera into the pit of his concave stomach; it’s sweaty and grimy from crashing on my deck chair all night.
“Here’s your little souvenir from last night,” I say, standing in front of him; hands on my hips, Wonder Woman style. “Take it and go!”
“That was supposed to be you and me,” he grins, standing quickly and looking around for his shirt.
“Oh, wow,” I snap, literally shoving him out now, my hands upon his naked back for the very last time. “Which part of that revelation am I supposed to be impressed with? The part where you hid a video camera across from my Jacuzzi or planned to seduce me on the video camera cross from my Jacuzzi?”
“Either?” he grunts, stubbing his toe on one of the rock-shaped speakers on the way to the patio gate. “Both?”
“How about neither, creep. I should be calling the cops right now. In fact…” I reach out and, while he’s stumbling into his $200 flip flops, snatch the camera from his fingers. “I think I’m keeping this for evidence.”
“Hey, that’s mine!” he shouts, reaching for it back.
“Exactly,” I snap, holding it behind my back and secretly sliding it into the side pocket of my flowing black bikini cover-up. “I’ll be sure to tell the cops that when I tell them you videotaped me without my consent.”
“But it wasn’t you,” he sneers, reaching for the back fence door to beat a hasty retreat just the same.
“Thank God!” I spit. “You tell Lavinia to come by and get it herself. She better hurry though, Scott; I can upload it to a lot of websites by then!”
He sneers at me one last time, face scruffy and feral in the early morning light, eyes bleary with hangover, tongue thick with Lavinia’s drool.
I slam the gate in his face and stomp back to Flynn, who is already busy scrubbing the sides of the pool.
I splash the water until he turns and, seeing me, smiles and rises to the surface like some kind of zombie Aqua man or something.
“You too,” I spit, kicking water in his face.
“What? Me? What’d I do?”
“You thought it was me on that video,” I point out, watching him rise from the shallow end and forcing myself not to drool over his marble physique.
“I didn’t,” he argues, drying himself off with a random towel from last night’s party.
“You did,” I spit. “You only watched it to prove me wrong, Flynn!”
“I watched it because I wanted to prove myself wrong, Viv.”
His eyes are haunting, sad and clear.
I shake my head, trembling, wanting to do anything but fall into his arms; then doing exactly that.
“How could I be so stupid?” I ask, blubbering into his refrigerator chest.
“Stupid?” he asks, wrapping his arms gently around me and enveloping me in his cold, kind world. “You’re not the one in the video, Viv.”
“Yeah,” I snuffle-snort. “But… I wanted to be!”
He chuckles and pushes me away, gently, knowing to cling to him too long is to grow cold and uncomfortable.
Already the warm morning sun heats my body back to warm, glorious normal.
“If that’s really true, Viv,” he says quietly, not meaning a word of it. “Then I really should go.”
I look around at the pool area, head sore with the pressure of cleaning it up myself.
“If you go,” I snort again, drying tears that were never really there to begin with. “Who will help me clean this up?”
About the Author:
Rusty Fischer
Rusty Fischer is a professional freelance writer who lives in sunny Florida with his beautiful wife, Martha. They enjoy riding bikes, long, leisurely walks on the beach, romantic dinners and zombie movies; lots and lots of zombie movies! (Well, Rusty does, anyway!)
Rusty is the author of several YA supernatural novels, including Zombies Don’t Cry (Medallion Press, 2011), Ushers, Inc. (Decadent Publishing, 2011), Detention of the Living Dead (Quake Books, 2012) and Vamplayers (Medallion Press, 2012).
Visit his blog, www.zombiesdontblog.blogspot.com, for news, reviews, cover leaks, writing and publishing advice, book excerpts and more! And if you can’t wait for his next release, download his complete YA novel Vampires Drool! Zombies Rule! absolutely FREE at www.scribd.com/doc/38953974/Vampires-Drool-Zombies-Rule-by-Rusty-Fischer.