Zombies Don't Forgive Read Online Free Page B

just to impress Stamp’s stupid girlfriend.”
    He sighs, obviously resigned to the fact that he can’t control me any more than he can Stamp. “So how is he this month?”
    â€œHe’s fine,” I offer, distracted with layering the thick, hearty meat sauce through the noodles in the brand-new lasagna pan. All the utensils I’m using are new. We never needed them before.
    Dane leans against the kitchen entryway, looking dashing in gray slacks and a purple dress shirt, which has two buttons opened at the top. A thin gray belt winds around his narrow waist. “Sentinels still following him?”
    I nod, smoothing hearty tomato sauce over another layer of twisty vermicelli. “He says it’s down to twoteams now and only every other day. I guess they’re still hoping we’ll come back and that my house is the first place we’ll stop. Dad thinks maybe they’re giving up and will go home soon.”
    Dane shakes his head and looks at me sympathetically. “They’ll never go home. Not without us anyway. Get used to that. And tell your dad to get used to it too.”
    I nod, biting my lip.
    â€œI’m sorry, Maddy. That’s just the way it is.”
    â€œBut it’s been four months. I mean, what’s the point after all this time?”
    â€œFirst of all, we’re zombies. Time means nothing. And they’re Sentinels, so time means even less than nothing. Their entire Afterlife is spent destroying other zombies. And us? Well, we broke the Zerker-Zombie truce and a few dozen zombie laws. We set an entire high school—with the Living Dead bodies of an entire football team, a cheerleading squad, and a dozen teachers—on fire. So we’re pretty much the Bin Laden of zombies, you know.”
    I shake my head, picturing myself in an apron and Dane looking like the cover of
Zombie GQ.
“Can someone tell me how we became the most wanted of the Living Dead? I mean, suddenly we’re the baddest zombies around?”
    He smirks at last, and all is good in the world again. “No, just the baddest zombies who were also dumbenough to get pulled into an all-out Zerker killathon. That’s all. Anyway, tell your dad I said hi. That is, when you talk to him next month.”
    I chuckle. “Will do.”
    The scent of Dad’s special recipe makes me wistful and homesick, but at least Dad sounded good today: hopeful, happy I was safe and nothing had changed for me, for him.
    It was hard leaving him behind without saying goodbye, but we both understood that with the Sentinels on our tail, with the high school burning down, with sirens wailing, there was no way to leave town the right way. Only the fast way. And we barely made it out of Dodge leaving the fast way.
    Since then we’ve settled into a routine, Dad and I. Like fellow spies or something. Communicating is complicated and tiresome, and Dane says we should only talk for 15 minutes at a time, just in case, but we usually stretch it to 20 just because there’s so much to catch up on and we miss each other so much. And tonight Dad is with me, if only in meat sauce and oregano and vermicelli.
    â€œHow’s it looking out there?” I say, hearing Dane setting the table.
    â€œPretty cramped.”
    The million-dollar spaghetti needs to bake for 35 minutes, so I wash my hands and join him outside the kitchen.
    We’ve made good on our promise to relocate the exercise equipment, at least temporarily, to our two back bedrooms. We dragged the couch and coffee table from Dane’s room and the two chairs from mine into the living room. So now at least the living room looks like a living room and not some triathlete’s home gym on steroids.
    â€œNo, Dane, place mats for real.” On the table, the clearance wicker place mats from Dockside Imports are practically on top of each other, the table’s so jam-packed. It’s really designed for two people, and none of