My Zombie Girlfriend

Chapter 4

The steady drip of water. Damp air, metallic echoes, the floor hard beneath his head. Zane cracked his eyes open and tried to reconcile the pipes and struts in the ceiling to his last memory of Levi Marsh's mansion. He rolled over and stared at the vaguely familiar pattern of tiles on the floor. Then he saw the blue lockers, and recognized where he was: the boys' locker room at school.

How had he gotten here? His head throbbed. He reached up and felt the spot where the throbbing was happening. A lump the size of a grapefruit pushed out from his forehead.

"Shit," he groaned, and used the wooden bench running down the center of the locker room to push himself upright. It was too much, and he sank down to sit on the bench for a moment while his head stopped spinning. At least it wasn't too bright in the locker room – only a couple of the overhead fluorescent track lights were on.

The last thing he remembered was licking Harmony's hand.

What had that been? She had told him, right after he tasted the weird burning powder. Bath salts. He had thought of the lavender bath salts his mom used, and wondered a) when did bath salts become a drug, and why wasn't Bath and Body Works shut down by the DEA already? and b) why didn't the powder taste salty?

Then things got weird.

Hell, things were still weird.

Zane had absolutely no memory of driving to the school or why on earth he would have done so. And where was Harmony?

He had no sooner had the thought when he heard a growling noise.

"Harmony?" Standing, his head swam again, and he leaned against the lockers as the floor tilted under his feet. Slowly he staggered toward the sound.

Between the patches of black that flooded his vision, he realized one of the fluorescent bulbs was flickering. The strobe effect cast a nightmarish tint over the metal row of lockers and the ghostly frosted shower curtains. He tried blinking rapidly and rubbed at his eyes, but the shadows remained, and the sound of growling had resolved into a moist tearing sound.

It reminded him of the sound Harmony had made while eating at the restaurant.

The mere thought of Mexican food made the bile rise in his stomach. He paused and bent over, unleashing a flow of half-digested black beans and rice. When he stood back up, it seemed like time had passed that he didn't know about. There was no vomit on the floor. He turned around and realized he was in a different row of lockers.

A clank came from right behind him, and he turned again, losing his balance and falling to the floor. As he fell, he thought he saw something move behind the row of lockers. Then he hit the ground and lost more time.

The next time he sat up, the entire room spun. He threw up on his pants, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve and hauled himself up using the lockers. "Gotta get out of here," he told himself. It would help if he knew where the door was.

He turned and moved away from the showers. Logic. He still had logic. Keeping a grip on the metal edges of the open locker doors – when had the doors opened? Had they been open this whole time? – he literally clawed his way to the end of the row of lockers.

The door out was there. EXIT in big red letters.

That noise again, close this time.

With his fingers wrapped around the door handle, he turned his head to look.

And froze.

It couldn't be.

A Palos Verdes Titans baseball cap was lying in a pool of dark liquid just beyond the entrance of Coach Thompson's office. Further back, Harmony was crouched into a fetal position. Her blonde hair obscured her face. That noise, that wet tearing noise. The squeak of teeth chewing gristle. And was that... Coach Thompson's jacket?

He looked away. Back at the door, back at what was real.

Checked back over at the office.

Harmony was looking at him, her face smeared with blood and a strip of flesh between her teeth, flesh that was still connected to Coach Thompson's face.

This time Zane didn't hesitate. He opened the exit door and pushed out into the cool night air.