The Spy's Little Zonbi Read Online Free Page B

empty beer bottles and dirty laundry that had overrun every square inch of floor space.
    â€œ Shit,” Chase said, blinking hard to try and clear his vision.
    Stoney laughed, flicked the Bic lighter, and added more pot smoke to the blue haze in the second floor dorm room.
    â€œ You dumbass,” Stoney said, then choked back another hit, spiraling tendrils of smoke rising from the corners of his mouth and out his nose. Chase thought Stoney looked like a curly haired blond wizard when that happened. Not the Wizard of Oz kind of wizard, but the Merlin Gandolf Frodo Baggins kind.
    Chase’s brain was as foggy as the room. He was a bobble head doll with gigantic cheeks that he touched with his warm fingers. He needed to shave at some point and would kill for a bag of Fritos with their salty, crunchy goodness, oh, my. The cafeteria was closed, but there was a vending machine in the student center. If only he had a quarter.
    â€œ I need to find a quarter.”
    â€œ You lost your quarter.” Stoney pointed at the ceiling and Chase followed the wobbly finger down to the mess on the floor.
    Yes, right, there was a quarter down there, he thought, surveying the immediate area for some silvery glint off Washington’s face or an eagle’s chest. The bits of trash and colored dirty clothing—combined with a dozen or so bong hits—made the floor a kaleidoscope of amazing textures and earthy hues.
    â€œ I have to focus.” Chase rubbed his face, then swallowed a shot of some harsh, clear alcohol his roommate shoved toward him. “This is really freaking important. This is my future.”
    Stoney handed him the bong with its bowl packed tight. He flicked the lighter.
    â€œ Okay, last one.” Chase prepared by shaking his upper body and taking a few deep breaths.
    â€œ Heads,” Chase was accepting the summer journalism internship the Salisbury Daily Times had offered; “tales,” he was applying for a lifeguard job at a local community pool to work, party, and scam on bikini-clad girls until fall semester. David Eugene “Stoney” Steinmetz, his roommate for nearly three chaotic and often stoned years, was his connection for the lifeguard job. Stoney had miraculously risen through the ranks of lifeguard hierarchy, charged with training new guards and keeping children and adults safe for the last two summers, despite spending much of the time quietly sleeping in his perched chair behind mirrored sunglasses and an oversized umbrella. He’d fallen out of his chair at least a half dozen times, right onto the concrete deck. Luckily, he was always still drunk enough not to get hurt trying to break his fall.
    Remembering he was on a mission, Chase handed back the spent bong and exhaled the smoke.
    â€œ I gotta find the quarter.” But Stoney’s latest stash of Columbian Gold had rendered him a spastic marionette. Pinocchio , he thought and tried to spell it while rolling off his cluttered twin bed to the cluttered floor. He was as careful as circumstances would permit to search while still preserving the outcome of the flipped coin. “This is vitally important to my current life situation.”
    â€œ You’re gonna fry your ass, son,” Stoney said, referring to the maze of stereo and hot plate wires. Their appliances all came from various trash days, and even the slummiest frat houses tossed out anything with cords frayed this badly. One day they were really going to come through on the threat of buying some electrical tape and making these things as good as new.
    Chase paused to replay the coin’s arc, path, and last-known coordinates in his head. Under or behind his desk was the most likely spot.
    Who had tossed used fucking condoms under here?
    Oh, yeah. He should try calling that chick. Anna? Mary Ann? Ann Marie? If he could find this quarter he’d definitely call her. She smelled great and didn’t wear panties.
    â€œ The RA’s are