Lucy Tisdale - Menthol and Fire

I leaned over the guy in the robes on the floor. Looked like he was knocked out. Who’d’a thought that when Rambo scorched the head zombie guy he’d also scorch the rope holding the cage, and it’d come crashing down on top of the guy in the robes?

Maybe I wouldn’t’a looked twice at this guy if he were at Valley View, but guys who weren’t zombies weren’t too thick on the ground these days. And I had to admit, this guy was pretty cute. Nothing like Bobby, of course, but then, Bobby was dead. And he didn’t have any legs anymore. Ew, don’t think about that.

I wasn’t counting my chews anymore. I was too busy liking the gum to count how many times I chewed it. Jeez, why’d the freakin’ zombies have to take my purse? I had two whole packs of gum in there! What the freak do zombies need a purse for anyway, really? Well, at least Rambo seemed to be on toppa things.

More than I could say for Robe Guy here. Out cold. Jeez.

“Kinda cute when he’s sleepin’ ain’t he?” Rambo said. Then he kicked the cute guy in the robes in the side of the head with his big clunky combat boot. “Hey! V! Wakey-wakey!”

“I’ve got some boots like that,” I said to Rambo.
He stared at me with his mouth open. He looked me up and down. “No you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do. They’re in my closet.”
“No, you don’t, sweetheart. Not like THIS. You’ve got Doc Martin’s is what you’ve got. These are Zombie Stompers. You got a pair of Zombie Stompers?”
“No.” I popped my gum.
“Quit that.”
I popped it again.
Rambo stared some more, then kicked Robe Guy in the side of the head again.

Robe Guy’s eyes fluttered open. Nice. Hazel.

“Wha . . . what happened?”
“You got tromped by a cage, V!”
“. . . What?”

Robe Guy stood up real slow, holding his head. He looked at me. Nice eyes, yeah. I smiled and popped my gum. “Hey,” I said. I winked.

He looked confused. “Lucy?”
What the hell? “How’d you know that?”
“I . . . I was dreaming. So . . . none of it was real?”
“None of what?”
“Um . . . nothing. Sometimes I know things. I thought that you and I . . .”
Rambo spoke up. “He he, V, you must’ve been dreamin’ real fuckin’ hard. Ha ha! Get it? Hard?”
“Yes, okay, I get it.”
“But if any part of the dream included a big goddamn zombie apocalypse, then, yeah, that part’s real.”
“Oh. Damn. Where is Selig?”
“Crispy crittered him! But then his undead fuckin’ minions dragged him out. I don’t know how good I got him.”
“Damn!”

The other guy, the one controlling the rest of the guys in uniforms, said, “Okay, we’ll split up! We need to case all four direction, we’ll communicate with the CB in—“

“Fuck that, V’ll track ‘em! V, which way’d they go?”
Robe Guy closed those nice hazel peepers like he was concentrating really hard. After a minute he put out his arm and pointed. Rambo started running that way. “Come on!” Everybody poured after him, Robe Guy included.

I started to run. Ew! It felt really, really weird! No way, no way NO WAY! I stopped and just stood there. Robe Guy noticed I wasn’t running.

“Lucy? Come on! We’ve got to hurry!”
I shifted my weight again. Ew. “Anybody got a spoon?”