My Zombie Girlfriend

Epilogue

Zane checked his hair one last time in the mirror and sighed. He had a big yellowish bruise on his jaw and dark circles under his eyes, never mind that his hair still looked a bit like he'd hacked it off himself. At least his clothes were clean. He flashed himself the Zane smile. Not so bad.

And really, thought Zane as he walked through the hall with his shoulders back ("Fake it till you make it," some great philosopher had once said), no one looked great after everything that had happened.

The past week had been full of funerals and hospital visits, of DPW crews patching the roads and downed telephone poles, and construction crews rebuilding the hospital. Anyone who wasn't too dead or injured came together to help piece the town back together.

Zane had spent most of his days alongside his father and Owen helping to reconstruct their neighbors' fences and gardens and get their street back to its normal curb appeal. He hadn't spoken much to his friends outside of Wilson. Everyone seemed to feel the same way Zane did: wanting to spend lots of time with their families.

Still, he felt closer to his new friends than he ever had with his old friends back in Florida, and he was looking forward to seeing them again. Especially Tamiko.

He hadn't spoken to her at all. No one had. He'd tried calling and texting, with no response. That worried him.

"Z! My man!" Wilson emerged from the crowd with one hand held high. He clearly expected a high five. At his old school, high fives had been sneered at. But here, well... Go big or go home, right? Zane slapped hard enough to make Wilson's palm sting. "Nice power, man. Ow." Wilson flopped his hand on the end of his wrist.

"You're looking better," Zane said, appraising his friend. Wilson wasn't wearing a baseball hat for once. He had put some kind of product in his short brown hair so that it was artfully tousled, and it looked like the ends had been hacked off at random intervals. Zane puffed up a little, feeling like a trendsetter. "What's that behind your back?"

Wilson twisted so that Zane couldn't see. "Oh, nothing... So can you believe no one on the news has mentioned the word zombie? Except FoxNews, of course, but they don't count. I mean, geez, you think they'd still be talking about it. Hunter posted a video and everybody's just like, it's fake, there aren't zombies but obviously there were. 'A contagion.' It was a freaking zombie apocalypse!"

"Are those flowers?" Zane asked. Being half a foot taller, he could easily see what Wilson was trying to hide. "Why do you have a bouquet of roses?"

Groaning, Wilson brought the flowers out from behind his back and looked down at them. He grumbled something that was lost in the chatter of students who hadn't seen each other in a week.

"What was that?"

"They're for Tamiko, okay?" Wilson shouted. "I'm gonna ask her out."

"Oh," was all Zane could think of to say.

"I'm gonna do dinner and a movie, like what you did with Har--" With a glance to the empty locker just down the hall, Wilson stopped himself short. "It's the perfect date, right? Can I borrow your copy of The Notebook?"

Wilson sounded so excited. How could Zane tell Wilson that he had been planning to ask Tamiko out? "Uh, sure."

"And maybe you could give me some cooking tips, because I don't know anything about that."

"Yeah. No problem."

Finally Wilson got a look at Zane's face. "Shit, what's wrong?" He leaned in and whispered, "Is it happening? Are you turning?"

"What? No!" Zane shook his head. For a few days he had worried that he might become a zombie. And who knew, maybe when he did actually die, that would happen. But he wasn't planning on dying anytime soon. "No, I'm fine."

Wilson punched Zane on the arm. "Good. I can't have a best friend for the first time in my life and then have him turning zombie on me. Anyway, what do you think?" Wilson spread his arms wide to present himself.

"You look great, man," Zane said honestly. He was sure Tammy would like Wilson's faded concert t-shirt, some band Zane had never heard of, and the camo pants had remained in style despite the "contagion" being "contained." Who was Zane to judge anyway? "But I thought you and Tammy hated each other. Plus she's kind of a murderer?"

Wilson shrugged. "Dude, if you had know Harmony before she was zombified, you would have killed her too. And... I don't know, I think beneath our traded insults, Tamiko and I have a certain chemistry, you know?"

Zane nodded. Yes, Wilson and Tammy would make a great couple. Zane would never be able to keep up with all of Tammy's nerdy references, and he was a foot taller than she was. Besides, he wouldn't want to date Tammy on the rebound from Harmony - everyone knew rebound relationships didn't last.

Maybe it was time for Zane to find himself instead of trying to find a girlfriend. Time for Zane to be the wingman instead of the leading man.

He imagined long walks on the beach at sunset, hands in his pockets, gazing meaningfully out over the horizon. And then a beautiful girl with long flowing hair – or maybe even short black hair with purple streaks – would be walking her dog at the same time, and the dog would run over to him and she would apologize and -

No. No beautiful girls. Self-discovery and solitude. Maybe hiking a mountain. Or meditating or something.

Behind Wilson, Zane caught a glimpse of Tammy walking slowly past Harmony's locker. She looked alone and worried and small. But she was alive, and maybe had a little more perspective on her past actions than she did before. Just like Zane. Just like everyone in Palos Verdes.

They could still be friends, though, right?

Nodding again, Zane brought forth his trademark Zane smile. "You're gonna do great. Go get her."

THE END

.... and it's all over... Thanks to everyone who read this far, all you commenters and silent voters and even you who might be reading this and thinking it sucked but you somehow had to finish it anyway.  You are all wonderful <3