27
Breaking & Tasering

“DO I REALLY have to do this?” I ask half an hour later, pulling up in front of the Barracuda Bay Sheriff’s Office.

“It’s the only way, Maddy,” says Dane, who’s riding shotgun in my tiny green Honda Civic.

“But it’s my dad. What if somebody finds out they’re missing? He could lose his job.”

“No one’s going to find out, Maddy,” Chloe says from the backseat. “They’re just Tasers; three stupid Tasers. It’s not like you’re breaking into the Pentagon and stealing government secrets or anything.”

“I just don’t want my dad to get hurt. I’m done for. That’s fine; I get that. But he’s still alive. He still needs to eat and make a living and have a roof over his head.”

“For now,” Chloe says.

I whip around. “What does that mean?”

Dane touches my shoulder and waits until I turn to face him. “Maddy, if we don’t do this, your dad’s going to get hurt in a way that can’t be reversed. Like Ms. Haskins; like …Hazel. If we don’t stop the Zerkers tonight, and stop them dead, this whole town could be infested by morning.”

“Fine,” I say, getting out of the car and slamming the door for good measure.

Inside the sheriff’s office, I smile demurely at a few of the folks I know from backyard barbecues or softball games or the annual Cobia County Employee Christmas Party, which Dad drags me to every year.

I get a few odd looks before I remember none of these people have seen Goth Maddy yet. (Oh, the grief Dad will be getting in the break room after this little visit.) My backpack is snug on my arm, emptied of books and papers and folders to make room for the three police-issue Tasers Dane and Chloe want me to steal from the ammunition room.

Dad’s office is across from it, but then again Dad’s office is also across from just about everything in the tiny building: the coffeemaker, the vending machine, the ladies’ room, the broom closet—you get the picture.

Dad is surprised to see me but not too surprised. It’s a small town, and the police station isn’t too far away from school. I’ve been known to drop by once or twice a week with a to-go dinner when I know he’s working late or a box of donuts and thermos of coffee if he’s working early.

“Maddy!” His eyes light up as he stands up from his desk chair. “What a nice surprise.”

“Hey, Dad.” I try to keep the sad sound of betrayal out of my voice. “What’s up?”

“What’s up with me?” he says, sliding his bifocals down to the tip of his nose so he can see me better. “What’s up with you? Isn’t tonight the night of that big dance you’ve been looking forward to?”

I slump down in a squeaky gray chair across from his desk and make a big show of being all tired-like. “Yup,” I say, between fake yawns. “That’s why I came to see you. I knew you wouldn’t have time to come home and snap pictures of me and my …date …so I thought I’d give you a sneak preview.”

Dad looks toward the doorway. “You brought your date?” he asks hopefully.

“No,” I say, looking pointedly at the display skeleton hanging in one corner of the room. “You think I want my date to think of corpses all night?”

He laughs and then looks at me more closely. “Well, you’re not wearing that, are you?”

I snort, looking down at the full-on Goth gear I chose for school this morning. So far, Dad’s been pretty understanding of the whole Goth phase. Not overly enthusiastic, mind you, but more understanding than, say, Hazel. (Of course, now I know why.) I fiddle with the short hem of my black pleather skirt and say, “Naw, I’ve still got to go home and change. That’s why I wanted to swing by here first; in case I missed you.” More fake yawns.

He looks at me funny. “Well, you need to perk up, Maddy. You’ve got a long night ahead of you, and you want to enjoy it. Hey, can I get you a cup of coffee? I’ve got a few minutes before my next autopsy; you can tell me about your dress.”

Bingo!

“I thought you’d never ask,” I say (and at least that’s no lie).

When he disappears across the hall to get me the coffee I’ve been angling for ever since I walked in, I reach over his desk, open the top drawer, and snag his key ring. Yes, I feel bad doing it; yes, I know I’m a rotten zombie, but I am a zombie and, after all, it’s for his own good.

It’s like Dane said: steal the keys now and feel like a jerk for a few minutes; don’t steal them, don’t stop the Zerkers, let the town be infested, and feel even worse when your dad becomes one of the Living Dead and tries to eat your brains after work one night.

The keys are safe in my pocket by the time Dad comes back with two steaming cups of coffee. I look into mine, and he’s put cream in there. I stop myself from making a face and take a sip to make him happy. We make small talk, and he says, “So, is this that new guy you were telling me about? The one who plays football? The one who looks like Superman?”

I nod, hoping that by not actually saying the word “yes” the lie is only half as bad. (You know, as compared to, say, stealing your dad’s keychain and a couple of Tasers from the ammunition room.)

“Oh, good,” Dad says. “He sounds like a nice boy.”

I nod noncommittally, picturing Hazel dragging Stamp from Art class and his helpless look as she ordered him away in the commons. Then I think of Hazel—poor, undead Hazel.

Dad kind of senses something’s amiss and says, actually says, “And Hazel? Do you approve of her date?”

I almost spit out the coffee I’m pretending to enjoy. But what might have been a slapstick moment 24 hours ago finds me in a kind of sad, heartbroken limbo.

When I don’t answer, when I can’t answer (no more lies!), Dad stifles his hopeful grin and says, “Maddy, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. What’s wrong? Goodness, dear; you’ve been waiting for this dance for the last two years. I thought you’d be happier than this.”

And God, how I want to spill it all. To confess about stealing the Tasers, to explain what for, but most of all to tell him Hazel—his sweet caretaker Hazel—is gone and not coming back. And still I can’t talk, and still his concern grows more apparent by the second, but I can’t help it. I’m powerless to fake it anymore, to pretend my entire world isn’t collapsing around my head, that my best friend isn’t merely dead but worse than dead—a Zerker who in a few hours is going to try to kill me with her bare hands if she gets the chance.

A buzzer sounds somewhere, and soon enough I see a vibrating beeper shake itself across Dad’s desk like a Mexican jumping bean.

“Oh booger,” he says absently, pushing his glasses higher on his nose. “I thought we’d have more time. Listen, I’m really happy for you, dear. Maybe tomorrow morning you can tell me all about it?”

Sure, I think. If any of us are still alive, that is. Out loud I say, “Sure, Dad. I’ll make you breakfast and fill you in on all the gory details.”

“Splendid.” He hugs me on the way out. We stand in the hallway together, and he says, “Shall I walk you out?”

I wave the thought away and point to the ladies’ room. “I’m going to powder my nose, and then I’ll see you back home …whenever.”

“Whenever. Right.” He smiles mischievously. “Do you need a curfew, or can I trust you?”

I pause and blink twice. Dad? Asking me if I need a curfew? Has he forgotten his own house rules? He seems to read my mind and shrugs. “Hey, I’ve already broken one rule by letting you go to the dance with a guy I’ve never met; I might as well let you choose your own curfew, right?”

“Seriously? No curfew?” It’s not like I was going to obey it in the first place, not after what Dane and Chloe have planned for the evening, but the fact that he’s offering means a lot.

He doesn’t answer. His beeper buzzes again, and he presses it to shut off the annoying sound, then ambles away down the hall, turning back to wink at me before entering the autopsy wing.

I sigh, look around, find the right key, and let myself into the ammunition room. It’s not much bigger than a broom closet, just much better armed. The real guns, of course, are locked up tight. Dozens of rifles line one wall, locked safely behind a mesh wire gate. Ditto for the ammunition clips and pistols.

But the bulletproof vests are fair game, as are the walkie-talkies and Tasers. The Tasers are in plain view, stacked next to each other in their identical wall chargers. Time is ticking away. I don’t know how long I’ve been inside, but it feels like an eternity and every footstep outside seems to be headed right for the ammunition room door.

Finally I commit, I dunno, a misdemeanor—or is it a felony?—by yanking three supercharged Tasers from their solid black outlets. I shove them in my backpack, zip it up tight, and listen at the door before I can tell the coast is clear.

The Tasers are bulkier than I thought, and heavier, too, as I lean over Dad’s desk and return his keys. I stand by his desk for a minute, steadying my nerves for the final phase of Operation Dick Your Dad over to Keep the Whole Town from Being Infested.

On the way out of the sheriff’s office, I keep waiting for one of Dad’s colleagues to stop me, frisk me, lock me up, and throw away the key, but they just smile at Dad’s leggy 17-year-old Goth daughter, shaking their heads at the idleness of youth and eyeing my short black skirt on the way out the door, ignoring the three clearly Taser-shaped bulges in the backpack jostling directly above my dead derriere.

I stow the backpack with the Tasers in the trunk and barely stop myself from peeling out of the sheriff’s office and making a scene. “Where to next?” I ask cheerfully, almost casually, as if I do this type of stuff every day.

“You got them?” Chloe asks doubtfully.

I nod curtly and head downtown, our zombie shopping spree now in full swing.

First stop, the fireworks store. While Dane pops inside with a twenty dollar bill, I turn to Chloe to ask, “Are we going to scare them with firecrackers or something?”

She snorts but doesn’t look up from inspecting her chipped black nails. “Cherry bombs, actually. Zerkers hate them. Something about the sulfur reminds them of their graves, I guess; whatever the reason, they really freak out.”

“Does it kill them?”

She finally looks up and frowns apologetically. “I wish. No, it only makes them weak and panicked for a few minutes. Kind of like garlic to a vampire. You know, if they actually existed or anything. The goal is, freak them out with cherry bombs and tase them before they know what’s happening.”

I note her dour expression. “You don’t sound too confident of that working out.”

She shrugs. “You know why we call them Zerkers, Maddy?” When I shake my head, she explains, “It’s short for ‘Berserkers.’ So, the thing is, you can plan on this and hope for that; you can go by the rules of what’s supposed to happen, but at the end of the day, you have to remember that these are just plain crazy, strong, mad, angry, mean, vicious zombies who occasionally go berserk.”

I frown, staring over her head and expecting Dane to stride out of the fireworks store any second. When he doesn’t, Chloe explains, “It’s the Fall Formal. Kids like to stock up on fireworks and set them off on the beach afterward. You know, kind of like a tradition. It’s probably a madhouse in there right now.”

“Is that what you and Dane like to do?” I ask, girlfriend to girlfriend.

She thinks for a second, smiles. “What, you think Dane and I are …an …item?”

“Hmmm.” I sigh, chin still on the back of my seat as I stay on the lookout for Dane and his cherry bomb stash. “Let’s see, you’ve been inseparable since you showed up at Barracuda Bay High at the beginning of this year. You drive to school together, eat together, live together. What should I think?”

She looks nonplussed, like maybe she doesn’t care what I think. “We’re just trailer mates, Maddy. I’ve already told you my sad story; his is not quite as bad.”

I start to ask, but she barely pauses before plunging ahead and granting my secret wish to know what turned Dane the boy into Dane the …zombie.

“When his car went off the road and slammed into that power plant, well, the body they pulled out of the wreckage was dead. When he woke up in the morgue, late at night, Dane just …walked away.

“No one ever reported the body missing. His parents already figured he was dead; no reason to muddy the waters, right? He wandered from town to town for a few weeks, walking at night, lying low during the day. I was the first zombie he met, so I became his chaperone; that’s all. Kind of like we did for you. That’s it, Maddy, really.”

“Yeah, but you guys live together; I mean, surely you must be tempted every now and again.”

She snorts and smiles. “Tempted? By Dane? Maddy, he’s still a zombie baby compared to me. He’s still a little …young for my taste.”

“Hmm, zombies have a taste?”

“Not every …impulse …dies, you know. Electricity goes everywhere. Yeah, I have a taste—”

Suddenly the passenger door opens, cutting her off midsentence.

“Taste for what?” Dane says, clutching his bag of cherry bombs triumphantly as he clambers into the shotgun seat.

“Nothing,” I say, turning forward in my seat and backing out of the parking lot. “Just …girl talk.” Looking in the rearview mirror, I wink at Chloe; she winks, too—a first!

It’s slim pickings at the formalwear shop at the mall, where the best dresses were snatched up weeks ago. I find a sleek little emerald number, just formal and sexy enough, but a size too big.

“I can alter it,” Chloe says confidently.

“You sure?”

She smiles. “I’m going to have to alter anything we wear anyway, so …sure. I think you’ll look good in that.”

She finds something in burgundy, which looks a little too …ruffly …for my taste. But hey, at this stage of the game, beggars can’t be choosers, right?

We find Dane in the men’s department picking out a smooth powder blue tux—the only color left in his size. He looks embarrassed, but as Chloe settles up the bill (who knew zombies had credit cards?) I lean in and whisper, “I think you’ll look good in something other than …black …for a change.”

He bites his lower lip doubtfully.

Our last stop is the cemetery. “Seriously?” I ask as we pile out of the car.

“I’m sorry, Maddy,” Dane says. “We need some fresh grave dirt; it’s like Kryptonite for the Zerkers. Plus, I think, well, I think you’ll feel better if you see where Scurvy was laid to rest.”

They lead me to a grave in the older part of the cemetery that looks like all the rest. Well, at least until you take a closer look; then it’s easy to see where the earth has been disturbed.

“After you told us what happened,” Chloe says, filling her backpack with cemetery dirt, “Dane and I came here and found Scurvy. It would have attracted too much attention to leave him like that, so we found an old grave we knew nobody would be visiting anytime soon, dug it up and, well, buried him above the old casket.”

“You did him a favor,” Dane says as Chloe fills her bag to the brim and zips it up.

“What, by beheading him?” I ask, shuffling my feet.

“Better to rest in peace here,” Dane says, “than to wind up a Zerker for eternity.”

He squeezes my shoulder gently, lets his hand linger there, and then follows Chloe away from the grave. They linger for a minute, then start walking away.

“Maddy?” Chloe asks over her shoulder.

“Five seconds,” I say, holding up a hand for emphasis. “I want to …pay my last respects.”

When they’re out of earshot and heading for the open cemetery gates, I say, quietly, reverently, “Scurvy, you were always nice to me, and you were the only person on the planet who liked my oatmeal and peanut butter cookies, and I’m sorry I got you into this. I know it wasn’t your fault, and you won’t understand, but tonight, with a little help from my new friends, I’m going to make it up to you. I promise.”