Queens of Geek

CHAPTER NINETEEN: TAYLOR

"So," Jamie says, peering down at me and clearing his throat. "I think I've come up with the perfect twitter hack."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yep. It'll say, 'Gary Busey is my new BAE. He's so much hotter than Jensen Ackles'."

I gasp. "You wouldn't!"

He narrows his eyes and grins. "Oh, I would." He leans closer. "And I'll be sure to include a ton of typos."

My jaw drops. "Oh, you are going down!"

A loud screech erupts from behind us. We snap our heads around to see three zombies coming after us. Jamie starts running, taking my hand and pulling me with him. He looks back at me and smiles, laughing as we speed down the dimly lit path.

We reach a crossroads. Jamie looks back and forth. "Left, right, or straight?"

"Um ..." A zombie materialises from the left, and then another two come at us from straight ahead.

We look at each other and both say, "Right."

We run past a wire fence with over a dozen zombies behind it, all reaching out for us. One grabs my trench coat and pulls me in, and I scream, slapping it away.

Jamie reaches out and covers me with his arm, stepping in between me and the fence. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as we shuffle through the dark hallway. He gives me a sideways glance and smirks a little when he sees me watching him, and I quickly look away.

"Hey," he says.

I keep my eyes down. "What?"

"Look."

He points to a door. We walk towards it and he pushes it open. It leads onto a quiet suburban street set. It's night, lit by a lone street lamp, and there are three houses on either side of the road. A crashed RV has been dumped at the end of the street. A few straggler zombies roam the area.

"Should we go into suburbia or take our chances in the maze?" I ask.

He glances behind us and his eyes widen. "Suburbia."

I look over my shoulder and see a horde following us. We run into the street, stopping and starting as we try to figure out which way to go.

"I remember this," he says. "In the movie, isn't this where Jase's parents live?"

"Yeah." I point to the first house on the right. "I think it's that one. His mum and dad were zombies, remember? He saw them through the window."

"Right. He did that awful crying face. Let's stay away from that house."

I look around. "How the hell do we get out of here?"

He keeps his eyes straight ahead as we walk, but takes my hand. I try not to read too much into it, but my mind immediately disobeys. I wonder if he meant to take my hand, or even realises he's doing it. It seemed like a very purposeful action, like he thought about it first.

Or maybe I'm just overanalysing it.

I'm good at that.

He looks at me. "Is this okay?" He nods to our intwined hands.

"Oh," I say, pretending I didn't even notice. I shrug. "Um, yeah. Whatever."

I see something move on the front porch of the house to my left, and stop walking.

"What is it?" Jamie asks, stepping closer to me.

I point to the zombie as it stands up and stumbles down the steps. More zombies emerge from inside the houses. There must be more than fifty. They've been waiting for us. I start to laugh hysterically because I don't know what else to do.