The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories Page 24

  “We have to get to a hospital,” Kiri says.

  “We have to get Sid,” Natalie says.

  “Help me move the couch in front of the door,” Gord says.

  “What the fuck is he still doing here?” Joey points at Cal.

  I drop my end of the couch. “What the fuck are you doing here, Joey?” I snap back. My hands shake, curled into fists at my side with all the adrenaline. “You’re the one who’s bit.”

  “Everyone calm down.” Soo steps between us, pale, shadows around her eyes.

  “No one is going anywhere.” Soo pushes Joey into a chair. “Someone get me a towel.”

  Dazed, Natalie hands Soo a dishtowel. Soo bundles it against Joey’s head and makes him put his hands on top of it, keeping pressure on the wound.

  “Can’t you go talk to them or something?” Gord turns a desperate gaze on Cal. The panic edging his voice is the only thing that keeps me from hitting him.

  I edge closer to Cal, take his hand. His fingers are limp and cold in mine, and he barely seems to register my touch. I think of him on the porch a lifetime ago, the weight of his body against mine. He looked so inhuman. A dead thing like the zombies in the woods. Could he have called them? The moment the thought crosses my mind, I shut it down. This is Cal Flenders, the boy of my dreams.

  “That’s stupid,” I say, finding my voice somewhere. “Cal isn’t like them, at all.”

  Cal looks genuinely surprised, like he didn’t expect anyone to stand up for him. After a moment, he returns the pressure of my fingers on his, and it’s the best feeling in the world.

  “We’re all in this together,” I say, calmer than I feel. “We’ll figure it out somehow.”

  There’s a loud thump from behind me. We all turn at once as a hand hits the window in the door. The glass holds, but the door shivers. Other hands beat the plate-glass window beside the door. A blur of faces, indistinct in the dark. I’m glad I can’t see them clearly. I don’t want to know if those dead eyes are the same color as Cal’s, or see if their mouths are red with Joey and Sid’s blood.

  It’s everything I’ve been afraid of since the beginning, since Cal asked me to prom, since final exams, since the last year of high school began. It’s the end of the world, just not the way I expected it to be.

  I stare at the zombies throwing themselves at the plate glass. I can’t help thinking of moths, bumping up against the light outside the door. It doesn’t matter how many throw their little bodies at it, or how delicate that glass is, the bulb doesn’t break.

  “I think we’re safe.”

  “How the hell do you know?” Natalie’s eyes are red, her voice tight. Despite everything, she and Sid did love each other in their own way.

  I don’t have a good answer for her. Instead, I put my arm around her shoulder. She stiffens, then slumps against me. She’s not quite crying, her body tense and still, exhaustion warring with nerves.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, pressing my lips against her hair.

  Natalie nods, but doesn’t answer.

  “I’m tired,” Joey says.

  He slumps and Soo catches him before he slides off the chair, lowering him gently to the ground.

  “I think he’s going into shock.”

  “We need to call an ambulance,” Gord says, but doesn’t move.

  “No ambulance.” Joey’s voice is thick, words slurred but audible. “Those things, out there, they’d kill anyone before they could get here.”

  His head rolls to one side, eyes fluttering as if in dreams. He catches Soo’s hand and she gasps in surprise. He grips it so hard I can see her bones and his both, right through the skin. I take a step forward and so does Gord. Soo’s eyes are wide, but she waves us back.

  Joey’s lips move. Soo bends close and a shout freezes in my throat. What if Joey bites her ear off the way his ear was bitten? I wait for the crunch of flesh, but it doesn’t come. Soo straightens, and if possible, she looks paler than before.

  “What is it?” Gord asks.

  “He.” Soo stops, swallows. Her voice is thick. “He said if anything happens, if he starts to turn, we should kill him.”

  Soo’s eyes are bright, but she isn’t crying. Not yet. Cal untangles his fingers from my hand and touches Natalie’s shoulder. She draws in a sharp breath, but she doesn’t pull away when Cal helps her to a chair. He kneels in front of her, takes her fingers lightly in his and says something too low for me to hear. She nods.

  Soo tilts her head toward the kitchen. It’s a moment before I understand. My legs are shaking, the space between the couch and the knife drawer suddenly vast. I choose the biggest kitchen knife. I kneel beside Soo, and put the knife on the floor between us, so either of us can reach it, hoping neither of us have to.

  Cal kneels beside me, close but not touching. Joey’s chest continues to rise and fall, shallow breaths, but his eyes remain closed, his lids bruised.

  “I’ll do it, if it comes to that,” Cal says in a soft voice.

  I don’t have to ask him what he means, and I swallow around a sudden ache in my throat, wondering whether I should be frightened or grateful.

  “What did you say to Natalie?” I ask.

  Cal’s attention is still on Joey. He reminds me of a cat, watching for when the mouse stirs. Behind us, the zombies continue to bump softly against the glass.

  “I told her dying’s not so bad.”

  There’s a wistfulness to Cal’s voice when he says it that makes me wonder if he’s lying. Is he remembering his own death? But being torn apart in the woods by zombies is nothing like a car crash. But if the result is the same, does it matter how you go?

  “Why did you come back?” My voice is barely a whisper. I didn’t mean to say it out loud, and I wish I could take it back as Cal turns to face me.

  His eyes are unfathomable, endless and silver. “I don’t know,” Cal says after several infinitely long seconds. “You spend your whole life moving toward this point where you think the world will make sense, but…” Cal shrugs. “Things don’t make anymore sense from the other side.”

  Cal lapses into silence for a moment. He turns, looking at the zombies outside the window, except his gaze is unfocused in a way that makes me think he’s really seeing something else. Maybe the padded, satin lining of the coffin his parents buried him in, or headlights bearing down on him out of the dark and refusing to stop.

  “I don’t remember waking up, just like I don’t remember being dead, not really. I just remember this burning thought in my head that wouldn’t let go: More time. I need more time.” Cal’s fingers flex, clenching and unclenching like he’s still trying to pull himself out of the grave. “I didn’t want it to end. It couldn’t end, not like that. There was more I wanted to do. Ask a boy out. Dance with a boy. Kiss him. I knew there had to be someone special out there who would make me feel the way people feel in sappy love songs. My first thought when I dug myself free was find that boy.”

  Cal looks at back me. My face is burning. My heart is burning.

  Silence for a moment. The sound of Joey’s breath, steady, but louder than it should be. Gord perches on the arm of the couch that’s still only halfway to blocking the front door.

  “So what do we do now?” Gord asks.

  I know what I want to do but no one here can marry me to Cal.

  Cal Flenders, captain of the basketball team, star of my wet dreams, has just said the most romantic thing to me that anyone has ever said in my life. But the zombie apocalypse is still happening outside, and I can’t melt into a puddle on the floor right now as much as I want to. I glance around the room. My friends all look the way I feel, wrung out, frightened, uncertain.

  “I guess we wait,” Soo says.

  Kiri sits on the opposite side of the couch from Gord.

  “We have plenty of food, at least,” she says.

  “Well, this is a shitty way to start the summer.” Gord slides to sit on the couch proper, kicking his feet up to land on the coffee table with a thu
mp.

  The sound is a jolt I feel deep between my ribs. A hollow sound. It breaks something free, a knot of tension I’ve been holding onto even since before the zombies showed up. I can’t help it, I start to giggle. My blood is still fizzing from Cal’s words and the adrenaline and everything else. The giggle turns into a laugh, and soon I’m doubled over, gasping for breath, my eyes tearing. Everyone is staring at me, and it only makes me laugh harder.

  My muscles are aching, my throat raw with the sound by the time I’m finally able to get myself under control. I wipe my eyes, still grinning even thought it makes my cheeks ache. Soo looks at me like I’ve lost it, and maybe I have.

  “Sorry. I couldn’t…. I was just thinking about what you wrote in my yearbook, Soo.”

  Soo continues to stare, then comprehension lights her eyes like a spark drifting from the fire into the sky.

  “REM,” I say.

  Soo’s grin spreads across her face. “Actually, I was thinking of the Great Big Sea version.”

  Everyone else is still staring at us. I stand, shaky, but maybe now it’s from the laughter more than the fear. There’s a wire tower of CDs next to the stereo system. I run my fingers along the jewel cases.

  “Ha!” I pull out the case and wave it triumphantly before slipping the CD in the player and skipping to the right track.

  “Shall we?” I hold my hand out to Soo.

  She hesitates a moment, then carefully pries her hand from Joey’s. I don’t even care that her fingers are tacky with blood. We cross our arms one over the other, and spin the way we used to when we were kids. The room turns into a dizzy blur, but we refuse to fall down, gripping tight against the centrifugal force that wants to spin us away from each other.

  In this moment, here, now, even though there are zombies outside the window and after this summer everything is going to change, I know without a doubt it’s going to be fine.

  Soo sings along, keeping time even as the song speeds up. I’ve never known the proper lyrics, so I make up my own.

  “Light bulbs, airplanes, gummy worms and zombies!”

  Kiri, Gord, and Natalie all watch us. Cal watches me and only me. Even though my palms are sweating, I keep hold of Soo’s hands and we continue spinning, belting out whatever words we feel like, falling out of time as Alan Doyle’s voice rushes on, faster than any voice has the right to.

  It’s like the high-dive board. It’s like high school ending, and the rest of our lives opening up into unknown territory. Maybe Soo and Gord won’t always be Soo and Gord, and maybe they will. Maybe we’ll all be eaten by zombies before sunrise. Maybe Cal will keep me safe and maybe I’ll keep him intact. Maybe. Maybe.

  But all that comes later. This is now.

  Softly, I hear Kiri join us, singing along. Joey’s fingers twitch, tapping out the rhythm on the floor. He’s not dying just yet.

  It’s the infinite now, before the world ends, or doesn’t. And when it comes to the chorus, we all belt it out together, as loud as we can: It’s the end of the world, and we feel fine.

  “After Midnight—A Fairy Tale Noir” copyright © 2006, first appeared in Fantasy Magazine / “And If the Body Were Not the Soul” copyright © 2015, first appeared in Clarkesworld, issue 109 / “The Astronaut, Her Lover, the Queen of Faerie, and Their Child” copyright © 2016, original to this collection / “Evidence of Things Unseen” copyright 2014, first appeared in What Lies Beneath (Circlet Press) / “Final Girl Theory” copyright © 2011, first appeared in ChiZine.com / “For the Removal of Unwanted Guests” copyright © 2013, first appeared in Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre (ed. Paula Guran, Prime Books) / “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” copyright © 2016, original to this collection / “Juliet & Juliet(te): A Romance of Alternate Worlds” copyright © 2016, original to this collection / “The Kissing Booth Girl” copyright © 2016, original to this collection / “The Last Survivor of the Great Sexbot Revolution” copyright © 2013, first appeared in Clarkesworld / “A Mouse Ran Up the Clock” copyright © 2009, first appeared in Electric Velocipede / “The Poet’s Child” copyright © 2011, first appeared in Jabberwocky, 2011 / “The Pornographer’s Assistant” copyright © 2013, first appeared in Geek Love: An Anthology of Full Frontal Nerdity (ed. by Shanna Germaine, Stone Box Press) / “Sisters of the Blessed Diving Order of Saint Peter and Saint Andrew” copyright © 2009, first appeared in Strange Horizons, January 5, 2009

  Writing is a strange business. For the most part, authors spend hours inside their own heads holding conversations with imaginary people. We pour out words and send them into the world and sometimes it feels like shouting into a void. Every now and then though a voice comes back, and we know we aren’t actually alone. Thanks are due first and foremost to Derrick Wise for putting up with me, and to my family (including the four-legged members) for years of love and support. I also owe a huge thank you to Steve Berman and Lethe Press for believing in my stories, Matthew Bright for making the collection look lovely, and Reiko Murakami for the stunning cover art. Thank you to all the editors who gave the reprinted stories in this collection their original homes. As always, I owe more than I can say to the members of my various critique groups in their many iterations: Anticipation, Sparkle Pony, and Not-Bridge (we really need a better name for ourselves) folks - I could not do this without you. Thank you for commiserating on days when I wanted to quit and refusing to let me do so. Thank you for the celebrations. Thank you for reading countless drafts and revisions, helping me find the places my stories were broken, and giving me just what I needed to fix them. Finally, a special thank you to Barry King who was in my very first critique group. He was a good friend, and he left this world too soon. Barry, you are missed.

  A.C. Wise was born and raised in Montreal, and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Shimmer, Uncanny, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2015, among other places. Her debut collection, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again, was published by Lethe Press in 2015. In addition to her fiction, she co-edits Unlikely Story, and contributes a monthly review column, Word for Thought, to Apex Magazine. Find her online at www.acwise.net.

  When the world is endangered, there's no point in sparing the spangles, spilling the drinks, or withholding the glitter. In this collection of whimsical stories of fierce femmes and brave butches, the Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron is a phone call away.

  "A.C. Wise’s The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again is as beautifully, sparklingly camp as the title suggests, mixing elements from raygun sci fi with a drag aesthetic. Whether drag queens, trans women, or cis-gendered women, the heroines in Wise’s novel are FIERCE. Whether fighting homophobia and misogyny at home or amongst the stars, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron challenges assumptions and pushes for change. These characters are complex, powerful, and absolutely fabulous! " - Speculating Canada

  To read the first story in the book here at Ideomancer.