A Single Girl's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse by JT Clay Page A

red.
    He’d made them matching necklaces.
    â€œThat’s pretty,” she said, kicking water and thinking corrosive thoughts.
    Rabbit dropped the snake as if it had bitten him. Maybe he was thinking corrosive thoughts, too.
    â€œKate came up with the design,” he said, glum. “She gets upset if I don’t wear it.”
    â€œWhat’s the deal with you two?” Q asked in a careful tone, in case she got an answer she didn’t like.
    Rabbit watched the moss-covered rocks beneath the surface of the water. “We’ve been best friends since kindergarten,” he said.
    â€œMy best friend’s in kindergarten, too,” Q said.
    â€œWe were thrown together. The only two vegans at school.”
    â€œOh!” said Q, with sudden understanding and relief. “You were the little Cantonese kids!”
    â€œWhat?” Rabbit’s face crinkled into that expression so familiar to Q because it was what people wore when they were trying to interpret her.
    â€œThe two kids who didn’t fit in. You smelled weird. You had weird food. Your parents were weird. Everyone picked on you.”
    â€œThanks for bringing it all back,” Rabbit said.
    â€œBut it’s okay now,” Q said. “No one cares any more. We’ve grown up.” Q thought of her online crew. They would never have found each other as children, but as adults they stood together against the darkness, with Jeremiah BownZ off to one side and downwind – acceptance had its limits.
    Should she venture a hand onto his shoulder? Or just throw herself on top of him and pin him to the ground for a kiss? It was a flawless plan, unless he knew Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. She was about to make her move when he spoke up.
    â€œWe should head back,” he said. He put on his sneakers. “You need to soak the lentils.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou’re rostered on to cook tonight.”
    Q guffawed. Rabbit did not join her. “No, seriously?” Q said.
    â€œSure,” said Rabbit. “We take turns.”
    What would these hippies expect? Would she have to do it alone? Would Angela help? “Me and my dad don’t do much fancy cooking at home.”
    â€œMake a dish you’ve made before,” Rabbit said. “What do you usually eat?”
    â€œTakeaways. Microwave dinners. Sometimes Dad makes dyslexia stew, where he accidentally replaces every ingredient in the recipe with the wrong one, then adds bacon. It was good once.”
    â€œAh.”
    She could tell by his tone that she had lost face. What had she said? She dropped her head and concentrated on tying her shoelaces, which were much more difficult to fasten than they had been for the past eighteen years. “It’s not like I don’t know how to cook. Sometimes I grill up a couple of ginormous steaks, two huge piles of beef, and we smother them in barbecue sauce on the grill and cook them rare so they’re all gooey and bleeding inside…” She stopped talking. Rabbit was pale. He looked like he was about retch. She took a step back. “I mean—”
    There was a brain-shattering scream from the direction of the camp, followed by four clear gunshots. After a pause there were several more shots in quick succession.
    â€œThank God,” said Q. She ran toward the sounds.

Chapter Fourteen
    The walkers had returned.
    Tinkabella, in tears, paced a small, tight circle. The Scarlet Terror made indiscriminate posies from pink flowers and strands of grass. Sheath of Power looked as if he had just eaten the porridge.
    â€œRabbit, see who’s hurt,” Q said. “Angela, go find my phone and check the cabins.”
    Q jogged round the campsite but saw nothing to justify the churn in her gut. She had known something was wrong! Why hadn’t she done something?
    When Q returned, Angela handed over what was left of her phone. It had been smashed into pieces. Someone had cut them