sigh, being careful not to let him touch me as I shuffled around to close the door. It wouldn’t matter how hot I looked if I smelled like a decomposing corpse.
The musty, slightly rotted smell of the Unsettled was hell to get out of clothing, and there was no way I was ruining the outfit that had taken me two hours to pick out. The white strappy sundress with brown and yellow flowers was retro without being too prissy. It picked up the goldish swirls in my brown eyes and looked great with my end-of-summer tan.
Over the summer I had finally outgrown the last of my awkward stage and looked good in clothes, even though I still had barely enough up top to fill out the built-in bra of my dress. My mother’s fault. We look scarily alike, and she’s always been super thin, with a not-quite-B cup.
“Hey, Meggy, heard you had a visitor.” Dad popped his head out from the doorway to the kitchen but didn’t come any closer. He still wasn’t completely cool with the zombie stuff, even though he’d been married to Mom for twenty-three years, the first eight of which she’d been on active Settling duty. Her zombie-summoning power had started to fade when her offspring—that would be me—started showing signs of power.
Dead people started showing up on my porch when I turned five. Dead kids, to be specific. Settlers usually attract people of around the same age, something to do with the quality of our Settler vibes that I never really understood.
“Yeah. What a great surprise, right?” I smiled at Dad, trying to act like this wasn’t freaking me out as much as it was. The dead guy grunted and shuffled on the papers, but his eyes remained fixed somewhere in the distance. I guess he could tell I wasn’t talking to him yet. Normal zombies are fairly perceptive that way and far more mannerly than your average Walking Dead movie would have you believe.
“Your mom said this might happen, you know, as you got older and started to . . . develop.” Dad looked like he’d just swallowed expired milk. I didn’t know what was bothering him more, the zombie or discussing my hormones. Mom had warned me almost a year ago when I’d started my period that hormonal fluctuations sometimes enhanced Settler skills.
As if T-zone breakouts and cramps from hell weren’t enough.
“Right. Did she find the book yet?” I asked, ready for a subject change.
“Not yet, but you know how things are in the Closet,” Dad said.
The way we say closet in our house makes it clear the c is capitalized. The Closet is great and fearsome and full of more crap than any three-person family should own, let alone try to squeeze into a four-by-six-foot space. I nearly killed myself trying to sneak a peek at my Christmas presents when I was twelve and hadn’t been in there since.
“Crap.” I checked my watch. Less than ten minutes to arrival if Josh was on time. “Dad, could you just grab me that notepad Mom uses for the grocery lists? I’ll write the stuff down there and transfer the info later.”
“Is that SOP?”
Dad’s retired air force and believes there’s an SOP—standard operating procedure—for everything.
“No, but neither is letting someone outside the family see an out-of-grave phenomenon.”
He nodded at the wisdom of that statement. “I’ll grab you something to write with and then help your mom look. Be back in two minutes.” He practically ran from the room, obviously not wanting Josh to see the zombie in our foyer any more than I did. Before I was born, a neighbor caught on to what was happening at the Berry house. My mom and dad had been forced to move halfway across the country from sunny California to Sticksville, Arkansas.
That would happen before I was born, so I couldn’t even have the cool factor of saying I was born in Cali despite the fact both of my parents grew up there. Luckily my dad had been able to transfer to an air base in Arkansas last
The musty, slightly rotted smell of the Unsettled was hell to get out of clothing, and there was no way I was ruining the outfit that had taken me two hours to pick out. The white strappy sundress with brown and yellow flowers was retro without being too prissy. It picked up the goldish swirls in my brown eyes and looked great with my end-of-summer tan.
Over the summer I had finally outgrown the last of my awkward stage and looked good in clothes, even though I still had barely enough up top to fill out the built-in bra of my dress. My mother’s fault. We look scarily alike, and she’s always been super thin, with a not-quite-B cup.
“Hey, Meggy, heard you had a visitor.” Dad popped his head out from the doorway to the kitchen but didn’t come any closer. He still wasn’t completely cool with the zombie stuff, even though he’d been married to Mom for twenty-three years, the first eight of which she’d been on active Settling duty. Her zombie-summoning power had started to fade when her offspring—that would be me—started showing signs of power.
Dead people started showing up on my porch when I turned five. Dead kids, to be specific. Settlers usually attract people of around the same age, something to do with the quality of our Settler vibes that I never really understood.
“Yeah. What a great surprise, right?” I smiled at Dad, trying to act like this wasn’t freaking me out as much as it was. The dead guy grunted and shuffled on the papers, but his eyes remained fixed somewhere in the distance. I guess he could tell I wasn’t talking to him yet. Normal zombies are fairly perceptive that way and far more mannerly than your average Walking Dead movie would have you believe.
“Your mom said this might happen, you know, as you got older and started to . . . develop.” Dad looked like he’d just swallowed expired milk. I didn’t know what was bothering him more, the zombie or discussing my hormones. Mom had warned me almost a year ago when I’d started my period that hormonal fluctuations sometimes enhanced Settler skills.
As if T-zone breakouts and cramps from hell weren’t enough.
“Right. Did she find the book yet?” I asked, ready for a subject change.
“Not yet, but you know how things are in the Closet,” Dad said.
The way we say closet in our house makes it clear the c is capitalized. The Closet is great and fearsome and full of more crap than any three-person family should own, let alone try to squeeze into a four-by-six-foot space. I nearly killed myself trying to sneak a peek at my Christmas presents when I was twelve and hadn’t been in there since.
“Crap.” I checked my watch. Less than ten minutes to arrival if Josh was on time. “Dad, could you just grab me that notepad Mom uses for the grocery lists? I’ll write the stuff down there and transfer the info later.”
“Is that SOP?”
Dad’s retired air force and believes there’s an SOP—standard operating procedure—for everything.
“No, but neither is letting someone outside the family see an out-of-grave phenomenon.”
He nodded at the wisdom of that statement. “I’ll grab you something to write with and then help your mom look. Be back in two minutes.” He practically ran from the room, obviously not wanting Josh to see the zombie in our foyer any more than I did. Before I was born, a neighbor caught on to what was happening at the Berry house. My mom and dad had been forced to move halfway across the country from sunny California to Sticksville, Arkansas.
That would happen before I was born, so I couldn’t even have the cool factor of saying I was born in Cali despite the fact both of my parents grew up there. Luckily my dad had been able to transfer to an air base in Arkansas last
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