One Foot in the Grave: An Almost Zombie Tale (5 page)

Sam gulps down the last of his coffee. “That sucks.”

Kind of yes, kind of no. All I can do is hope he’ll ask me out again sometime. Like, on a real date, not something that includes his tribe.

“Ready to bounce?” Farrie slides off his stool, leaving his empty cup on the counter.

“Dude, were you born in a barn?” Rhett follows suit, but tosses his cup into the trash can. It’s an impressive shot, considering the trash can is at the other end of the long counter. But then again, Rhett’s the youngest player in school to be offered a full ride basketball scholarship to the college of his choice. He’s the pick of the litter.

“I’ll call you later, Isis.” Sam winks at me before he follows Farrie and Rhett out.

All I can do is hope. This does suck.

Seven:

Me, Popular? Nah.

I’m seated at the row of computers in Father Moss’s office. It’s been a week since the whole Coffee Jar incident and Sam
still
hasn’t called, but my mom has, which got me thinking. If H.V.V. is a virus, then there’s bound to be a cure, right? After all, viruses don’t exist in a vacuum. So now my end-goal is to figure out not
if
I can be cured, but
how
I can be cured. Thus far, I’ve learned exactly nothing.

“Service is about to start.”

The voice startles me and I swing around. Dear Lord, why is it always Noelle? I sigh. “I’m about done here.”

Instead of leaving, she saunters into the office. “What’re you holed up in here for, anyway?”

I have no idea why she’s so invested in starting up a conversation. Noelle hates me and the feeling is definitely mutual.

“You’ve been in here every day last week, and now here you are again. Sitting in that chair; in front of that computer. For hours on end.”

She’s obviously not going away any time soon without an answer. “I’m looking for a cure.” I wait for her to laugh.

“Is that all?” She plops down in the chair next to me.

“It’s kind of a big deal to me,” I snap.

“It’s easy to be cured, Isis.” Noelle reaches into her pocket, pulls out a butterscotch candy, unwraps it and pops it into her mouth. “All you have to do is find, and kill, your maker.”

“
Excuse
me?”
Kill
someone? Kill
Andrew
? Is she serious?

She nods. “Werewolves do it all the time.”

“Why’re you telling me this?”

She gets up and brushes off her pants, as though there were crumbs on them. “The sooner you get your cure, the sooner you leave us all alone.” With that lovely parting shot, she walks out.

Typical Noelle. What a…pain. I’m not sure whether to believe her or not, but what she says sounds perfectly reasonable. Which should worry me, but it doesn’t. I type ‘werewolf cure’ into the search engine and
bam!
There it is; a whole list of cures ranging from medieval to modern times. I have a lot to read through, but it’s not like I don’t have the time. Frankly, I’m surprised Noelle told me the truth. I wonder what her ‘end game’ is, because there’s no way she’s helping me out of the kindness of her heart. I’m not even sure she’s got one. The question now is…can I actually hunt down my ex and kill him? My stomach rumbles and suddenly all doubts are gone. I can’t go through life eating brains. I just can’t. And Andrew
is
a monster. So it’s not like I’ll be killing an actual person. Maybe it’ll be as easy as luring him into the sun. Then it won’t be my fault. Technically.

“How’s it going?” Daniel’s voice startles me, but then again, he always startles me. He’s stealthy. I think it’s because of his vampire blood. At least now I know how Andrew moved around without making any noise.

“It’s going.” I tilt my head back and up to look at him. Yup, he’s wearing his canine caps, which is only a little less creepy than when he
doesn’t
wear them, because the white plastic tips of the caps rest on his lower lip. I wonder if he can get the caps in different colors…

“You know you’re not going to find out anything about the undead by sitting in front of a keyboard, right?”

“Wanna bet?” I point to the screen. “I just learned that werewolves can be cured.”

“Weres aren’t undead,” Daniel points out.

“But they’re still monsters.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to take them back. I don’t see Daniel as a monster. He’s too nice.

“Not all monsters are monsters,” the half-vampire’s voice is full of hurt.

“I know,” I mutter. “Sorry, I’m just frustrated.”

“Do you ever go anywhere? I mean, other than here?”

I shake my head. “Not really, no.”

“Go out with me,” he mumbles into his wisp of a beard.

I swivel around in the chair to face him. “
Excuse
me?”

“I mean…not
out
out. Just, y’know, out.”

I raise one eyebrow, waiting for the explanation.

“I don’t mean on a
date
,” he rushes on. “More like…an outing. Tomorrow night.”

I haven’t been out since Andrew. I wonder where we can go. Daniel and his fangs aren’t exactly low profile.

“I see
you’re
making yourself right at home.”

Why’s she back? It’s like she’s incapable of leaving me alone. If Daniel hadn’t said Noelle was a half-fae, I would swear she was part cat. The woman
always
hears what I’m saying.
Always.
I don’t know why she has it out for me, but holy cow, I’m tired of it. “Oh, look,” I’m pretty sure my smile would melt concrete. “It’s a wingless fairy.”

She stalks toward me, but Daniel steps between us.

The half-fae glares at him before marching away, her back stiff.

“I am getting sick to death of her,” I growl. “I really wish she’d just leave me alone.”

“Noelle’s sensitive,” Daniel says. “What’d you do to chap her hide?”

I lean back in the chair. “Nothing, as far as I know. She’s just being ugly for no reason.” Even as I say it, I know it’s not
exactly
true, so I amend my answer. “When I first got here, I asked what she was. I didn’t mean anything by it, but c’mon. Those eyes aren’t what I’d call normal.”

He laughs. It’s nice. “Boy, you really know how to make friends, don’t you?”

If anyone else said that to me, I’d be pissed off. But Daniel’s already proven himself to be one of those nice guys you pretty much find only in books, so I just shrug. I’m not particularly interested in making friends with Noelle. A shared avoidance would be great, but that doesn’t seem to be on her radar.

“Okay, so what about this outing?” I change the subject away from the half-fae.

“It’s an underground club,” Daniel says. “Just a place for us to hang out, get to know each other. You know, the normal stuff.”

I’m pretty sure what Daniel thinks is normal, isn’t. And I have one more rather pressing concern about the whole thing. “How do I know you won’t try to bite me?” Call me paranoid, but the possibility
does
exist.

A frown wrinkles his brow. “Why would I bite you?”

“I assumed…I mean…well, you
do
drink blood, don’t you?”

He tilts his head to one side. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

He takes my silence for assent.

“I have to drink blood, but I don’t drink people.”

My opinion of him goes up even further. “Then what do you do? Drink animals?”

Daniel shakes his head. “I just go visit the local blood bank.”

“That’s people,” I state.

“Yeah, but it’s not directly out of their necks or anything, so you’re not in any danger.”

He’s trying so hard to be reassuring. It’s cute. “All right, I’ll go out with you.”

“Great,” he says. “So I’ll pick you up around seven?”

I’m not thrilled with the idea of any halves knowing where I live. “I’ll meet you here.”

“I’ll have Lydia call you and set something up. Unless you own a modern Gothic gown, that is.”

“Wait, you didn’t say anything about dressing up…”

He grins at me. “It’s a club, Isis. Don’t you want to fit in?”

Before I can think of what to say, he leaves.

I stare at the screen for a moment before hitting the ‘print’ button. My eyes are blurring. The printer buzzes to life, then spits out a single piece of printed paper. I grab it and start scanning. It’s full of weirdness, but all I really want to do is go home, climb into some comfy pajamas and go to sleep.

Eight:

The Wrath of Mom.

I’m not paying much attention to anything when I walk up the steps to my apartment building; after all, I’ve lived here for close to six months. It’s home. My inattention is my downfall, as it turns out. The apartment door is ajar. Not a lot, but enough to be worrisome because I’m 99.999% sure I locked it earlier. I fumble in my pocket for my pepper spray until I hear a very familiar voice.

“Isis, is that you?”

“Mom?” Seriously, she’s home? She didn’t say anything about coming home when I talked to her last week. What’s going on? “Are you okay?”

“Quit yelling at me from the hall,” she chides. Never mind that I’m not yelling at all. I’m practically at the door by now. “You sounded weird on the phone, so I cut my trip a little short.”

I dread what she’s going to say once she gets a good look at me. It’s not like I resemble anything close to healthy. In the span of one week, I’ve gone from pasty white to, well, undead; a kind of yellowing ivory. I’m definitely not anything remotely attractive anymore. I push the door all the way open and walk inside.

“Great good gosh, what’s happened to you?” My mom totters forward on her 3” heels, still one of the shortest women I’ve ever seen.

I fold my arms across my chest. “I…uhhh…” My mom is a force of nature when she wants to be; she’s like a tiny tornado wrapped in 4’8” of long skirts and hippy-esque tops. I’m not sure how to handle it.

Her eyes narrow. “What are you hiding, Isis? What’s that marking on your wrist?” She grabs at me, but I move away.

“It’s nothing, Mom. Honest.”

I’ve been finding little tubes of crazy glue in Ziploc baggies on my doormat, along with the same handwritten note: ‘Dearest Isis, I hope the glue helps with your prosthetic wrist. Let me know if you need any screws. My grandson works in hardware supply. Yours truly, Rohanda Castemar.’ It’s hilariously creepy. But it’s better than walking around with an Ace bandage all the time.

“Sit down. I’ll make you…” I pause. Double crap. I don’t have anything in the blasted ‘fridge except raw brains. I mean, why stock food I’ll never eat?

“I looked in the refrigerator already. Isis, what on earth is going on?” She stares at me, her arms crossed and a familiar, determined look plastered on her face. There’s no way I’m going to be able to lie my way out of this.

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” I hedge. “I mean ‘lock me up, throw away the key’ crazy.”

Mom nods, though I’m not sure if it’s in agreement with my statement, or a gesture for me to continue.

I pull my wrist out of her grasp. Gently, because I don’t want to risk the glue coming loose. “Remember Andrew?”

“Sure, the nice boy you were dating before I left for China. Did something happen between the two of you?”

I try to stifle a snort of laughter. ‘Nice boy’, indeed. “He got me sick.”

Mom’s eyes widen. “Did he give you A.I.D.S, Isis? I swear to the Father, if he gave you A.I.D.S. I’ll kill him.”

If only she could. “No, Mom, I don’t have A.I.D.S.” I blurt out the truth. “He gave me H.V.V.”

‘He gave you…what? I’ve never heard of that.” She taps her foot on the carpet. “Whatever you’re trying to say, just spill it.”

“I’m a half-zombie, Mom.” There. I say it and wait for her response.

It looks like Mom’s eyebrows are going to crawl into her hairline and hide. “A half-zombie,’ she says. “How’d it happen? Is it reversible?” She’s taking the whole thing a lot calmer than I did.

I really don’t want to go into any details. “It was a hickey gone wrong.”

“Andrew.” Her voice is completely flat. She is beyond pissed. “Are you sure you’re a zombie?”

“Half. And yeah. I’m pretty sure.”

She stares at me.

I wait. Mom isn’t stupid and she reads a
lot
of fantasy, so I know she knows what a zombie is. After a minute that I’m sure lasts much, much longer, she sighs.

“Well, that explains the raw brains.”

And, just like that, she accepts my situation.

“Please don’t tell anyone.” My voice shakes a bit.

“No, dear, of course not. Where would I even begin to explain this?” Mom’s preoccupied, and I wonder what she’s planning. It doesn’t take long to find out. “Now, what are you going to do about it?”

I’m not sure if telling her my plans is such a good idea. I doubt she’d condone her daughter killing anyone. Then again…I sigh. “I have a piece of paper that talks about cures.”

She presses her lips together. “Cures, huh? Can I see it?”

I pull it out of my pocket and hand it over. She unfolds the paper and starts to scan it. “Isis, this is about werewolves. I see nothing that applies to you.”

“Someone at…at church…told me it would work.”

Her eyes light up. “You’re going to church? Oh, Isis, I’m so glad!”

Welcome to Georgia, where even hippies have religion. “Yeah, well.” I’m not ready to tell her about Father Moss or Lydia, and definitely not about Noelle. I steer the conversation back to the original topic. “If this person is right, then I can be human again.”

“So you’re planning on what? Trying everything on this list and hoping it works?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because there are some rather inappropriate things on this list. There’s no reason to be that desperate.” She peers at me. “Unless…you haven’t…those aren’t
human
brains in the ‘fridge, are they?”

“Oh,
ewww
… no, Mom, they aren’t. I’m not eating people!”

“Then we’ll figure something out.”

I narrow my eyes. “Why is this so easy for you to believe?”

“The only other option is that you’ve somehow contracted leprosy. No leper I’ve ever heard of eats raw brains, though.” She peers at me. “Unless you’re a new strain…are you, Isis? Are you a brain eating leper?”

I frown, not quite sure she’s joking. “No. Definitely not.”