Reanimated Readz by Rusty Fischer Page A

“Reggie 4.”
    “What’s the four stand for?”
    “It means I’m the fourth zombie named ‘Reggie’ in Calumet County, is what it means.”
    “Is there a Reggie 5?”
    “Not yet.” I sigh, peering out the window.
    It’s late afternoon, but this time of year, that’s close to early evening. Traffic is light in this neighborhood. She chose the café across town so nobody would see us sitting together.
    Across the tree-lined street, there is a yoga studio, a pita place, and a cupcake bakery called Mama’s Muffins. There are random cars parked at meters up and down Blythe Boulevard, and one black van.
    “Reggie?” she asks, waving the white voice recorder in my face. “Come back to earth.”
    There is an urgency in her voice that grates, as if she can’t stand me looking anywhere but at her.
    It was the same way when we were dating, once upon a time. We had to stop going to movies because she got tweaked if I, you know, wanted to see what Jason Bourne or Iron Man or Captain America were actually doing .
    I sigh and turn back to her, not sure why I agreed to all this.
    “Well, ask better questions,” I blurt. “You could have gotten all this crap off the Reanimation Relocation website, Julia.”
    She makes that fake smile of hers and says, “Yeah, but this way I get to say I interviewed a real zombie, you know?”
    I flinch; she ignores it. I remind her, “You know we prefer the term ‘cranially challenged,’ Julia.”
    “Yeah, like the Hillcrest High Gazette is going to print that .”
    I cock my head, feeling the tendons tighten around my throat. “Are you sure they’re going to print any of this? I mean, just because they let me back into school doesn’t mean they’re going to let you write about me. And even if they do, they may want to wait until my probationary period is over next month.”
    She gives me her know-it-all face and waves away my self-doubt. “I’m Editor-in-Chief. They have to print it.”
    Before I can ask “Print what?” she settles back into the booth and gets a predatory gleam in her eye.
    “So, Reggie, take me back to that night. What was it like to lose your whole family and survive?”
    I glower at her, clenching my fists atop the tiny black table. I take a sip of my frothy, sugary drink to put my rage on pause. My counselor at the Relocation Camp says I’m going to have problems with rage control for the next few months. I guess this is one of those times.
    The sugar helps a little. We can’t eat human food anymore since we can’t digest stuff in our dead stomachs, but for some reason straight sugar—and a little caffeine never hurts—makes me feel less dead.
    “You said we weren’t going to talk about that,” I remind her. “That’s the whole reason I decided to do this in the first place. You said it would just be a ‘fluff piece’ about what it’s like to eat a human brain or never have to sleep again. You said it would help you get an A in Journalism this semester, maybe even help you get into State next year. Now you’re pulling this? That’s the thanks I get?”
    She waves her hand in my face. “Like you said, Reggie, I can get all that off the website. What I want to know, what other kids want to know, is what happened that night.”
    I peg her with my eyes and squint a little. I’ve practiced the look in the mirror at the Relocation Center, so I know that with my black eyes and the furrowed brow, it’s pretty intense.
    Most mortal chicks would be quaking in their berets.
    Julia?
    Nothing. Not so much as a flinch.
    I guess I forgot how heartless she is. I thought I remembered from the way she broke up with me. I guess not.
    I guess I wanted to forget. I guess that’s the real reason I’m here. Not to help her get her story published or have another “clip” for her college applications or even extra credit in her Journalism class.
    After all that’s happened, after how cruel she’s been, I guess I just wanted to sit with her again,