Reanimated Readz by Rusty Fischer Page B

together, like the old days. In a coffee shop, staring at her eyes, the cheekbones I would kiss, the lips that made me melt.
    She’s waiting on me, and I’m angry now, so I tell her the unpolished version. “You wanna know what happened, Julia? Now you wanna know? I’m just saying, when I found out what I was, when the town found out, and I woke up in the Relocation Camp with the rest of the zombies, you never once asked about what happened then. Of course, you would have had to come see me to ask me, but since you didn’t, here’s what happened: I’m in my room, texting you, probably, listening to music, when I hear some grumbling downstairs. I don’t think much of it. I figure it’s the neighbor’s dog. But it’s not. It’s the neighbor, Mr. Croft, growling like a dog. And I see, in his eyes, in his walk, all the things they tell you to look for in a zombie: the shuffling walk, the gray skin, the dead eyes. Oh, and the human elbow in his mouth didn’t hurt.
    “So I yell down to Dad, to tell him to bolt the door and call the Zombie Relief Squad before Mr. Croft can get in, but it’s too late. By the time I get downstairs he’s already in, chomping on my mom, Dad lying in a pool of his own blood, foot still jerking.
    “I go to help him and, well, I don’t know who bit me. Mr. Croft, or my mom, maybe even my dad. But when I turned, when the hunger came over me, I still had enough of me left in me to get revenge. I took one bite out of Mr. Croft, and didn’t stop until he was in pieces, lying on the floor at my feet. I did, Julia. I ripped that dude apart. After that, my eyes go dark and that’s the last thing I remember before waking up in Quarantine.”
    Julia is smiling that little self-satisfied smile again. I shake my head. “Don’t you want to hear what happened next? About my first bite of human brain? About life in the camps? About what it’s like to live among a hundred zombies? I thought that’s what you—”
    She smirks, clicking off the little white recorder. “Nope. I got what I wanted.”
    “Which is what, the gory details?”
    “No, your confession.”
    I pause, a little road flare of rage swelling up inside my chest.
    “W-w-what confession?” I stammer.
    “Just now, when you told me what really happened that night.”
    What really happened?
    I sit back, a little stunned. What is she on about?
    She opens her leather sack and pulls out a file. I recognize it from the Camp. We each have one, all the new zombies. “In here it says you didn’t retaliate that night, that you didn’t bite anyone else. The neighbor’s death was put down as ‘undetermined,’ but just now, on tape, you said, and I quote, you ‘ripped that dude apart.’ So, my job is done.”
    “Job?” I ask.
    And that’s when I stop to look around the café. It’s empty. All the couples who’d been sitting there, texting each other when I arrived, gone. Butterfly girl: gone. Her assistant manager, the one with the goatee: gone.
    I turn to find Julia standing, file in her bag, bag on her shoulder, smile wider than ever.
    “Bye, Reggie,” she says with a little wave of her short, stubby fingers. “I won’t be seeing you around school anymore, I guess. After all, with your confession, you’ll be expunged from the Relocation Camp and taken to the National Center for Violent Offen—”
    “Why?” I ask, standing up.
    There is movement from behind the counter and out of the corner of my eye I spot a Relocator, clad all in black, carrying one of those long metal poles with a leash at the end, like the dog catchers used to.
    That is, before the zombies ate all the dogs.
    I inch closer and another one emerges from the bathroom, this time with a stun gun.
    She holds up a hand to still them and looks up at me, eyes like slits and mouth pinched with revulsion. “Why, Reggie? Why do you think? I go to sleep one night with a boyfriend, the next morning I hear he’s a…a…zombie? I know some kids at school think