Page 20 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

Zoey folded her arms. ‘Are you sure you two didn’t work this out beforehand?’

‘She’s a sneaky girl.’

Say no, Zoey. Don’t do it. Don’t risk your heart.

Alice gave a mournful howl.

Dammit, how could she say no to that?

‘All right. Let’s do it.’

Zoey locked up while Nick grabbed Alice from the truck. As she came around to greet him, she heard a commotion at the dumpsters across the street. This wasn’t so unusual, as the dumpsters were a hive of activity after sunset. Or even on cloudy days, which was most of them.

Hang on. She knew those distinctive red polka-dot Keds. Wasn’t that Nestor from earlier?

‘Nestor?’ she called, hesitantly.

Nestor turned, slowly, taking Zoey in with bleary eyes. But he didn’t so much as wave or say hi. Perhaps he didn’t recognise Zoey outside of the smoothie shop (although with her sharp features and long auburn hair, Zoey did think she was quite distinctive-looking, really). Or perhaps …

Of course. Nestor was dumpster diving, and wanted to go about his business without rousing the attention of others. Well, Zoey was no narc. And besides, wasn’t it better to give something a good home than add it to the endlessly growing piles at the dump? If someone was willing to dig around with the raccoons and the fruity swill that lurked at the bottom of the trash, then who was she to judge? If Nestor came up with some fancy hard cheese and some untainted stationery, then good for him. Times were hard, and rents certainly weren’t dropping. It wasn’t like Zoey lived with a Brady Bunch’s worth of roommates for funsies. The smoothie shop did well, but not living-alone well.

‘Brains,’ muttered Nestor quietly, as he poked through the refuse in the dumpster.

A strange choice, but offal was growing in popularity. And every time an offcut hit the mainstream, it went from being cheap to being the new truffle.

I hope he finds what he’s looking for, thought Zoey.

She shot a sneaky glance at Nick, thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, she had.

7

Nick

‘Oh shush, Alice,’ said Nick, as the lights of the old Dodge lit up the green I-5 bridge that spanned the Columbia River, the dividing line between Oregon and Washington, Portland and Vancouver, sales tax and no sales tax.

His time with Zoey had kicked on well into the evening, and it had taken all of his willpower not to turn it into a sleepover event as well. Zoey had proven quite the dab hand at air hockey, had demonstrated mostly impeccable taste in movies at the retro video store, and had known all the best spots to chase squirrels at Laurelhurst Park, which had proven the perfect spot to enjoy a late-summer sunset over ice-cream and Belgian waffles, both of which were being sold from vendor carts along the park’s winding paths.

Between chasing the ducks and enjoying a lengthy petting session from the attendees of a silent disco, Alice had had the time of her life. Especially when Zoey had shown her a wonderfully bent tree with a little bowl-shaped outgrowth filled with a rotating assortment of miniatures. Alice had climbed well above Nick’s head before scrabbling back down again.

‘There are free concerts here most weekends,’ Zoey had said, as they’d strolled along. Had she said it a touch coyly?

Nick was well aware of the effect he seemed to have on women, but it had been years since he’d dated and he was unpractised in matters of the heart. His days were quiet and simple now: Alice, the farm, the mushrooms, his neighbours, his text threads with his family. A comfortable routine of chores, reading, working out and rounding up whatever livestock ended up on his property.

And yet here was Zoey, this beautiful tiny woman with sparkling eyes and impossibly shiny hair and an expressive face that showed every feeling. Who’d coaxed him into Portland with an honestly not-that-large mushroom order that had turned out to involve some volunteer manual labour that she’d protested the entire way. And with whom the conversation flowed easily, smartly, whimsically. Who made him suddenly want to stay up late drinking rum-infused smoothies at the park – no matter that they both had early starts the next day.

There had been some odd parts. The dumpster diver who’d gone lurching off down the street holding what looked like a giant wad of pink chewing gum, causing Zoey to hold up a finger and send a series of text messages asking after the wellbeing of a customer.

And then the way she’d held her hand to his chest when he’d dropped her off. She’d cocked her head in that quiet, teasing way that wasn’t explicitly an invitation, but certainly wasn’t not an invitation. At the sight of her full lips, with the lipstick worn partly off from the park-vendor snacks they’d shared, at those eyes staring up at him, Nick had almost thrown caution to the wind and swept her up in a dramatic, breathless kiss, one that wouldn’t have ended there.

But they were both tipsy – Zoey more than Nick, who needed to be sober enough to drive. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t, wouldn’t start something that Zoey might regret the next day.

And besides, the silhouettes of no fewer than three roommates had been evident in the front window.

So here he was, driving back to the farm, his head full of what if, what if?

Alice whined happily next to him as they chugged through Vancouver and towards Mill Plain, which hadn’t especially been on his radar for a farm, but sometimes opportunities popped up and people helped make them happen. Nick might be on his own now, but it hadn’t always been that way. He’d had close family and friends who’d propped him up every step along the way. He’d started as a union plumber thanks to the recommendation of a family friend. He’d saved his pennies and invested smartly thanks to his cousin Benji, who’d retired on his crypto earnings last year, but who’d also given much more moderate investing advice to Nick, whom he’d dubbed a ‘Boglehead’, which was apparently a boring, stay-the-course type of investor. (He’d not been wrong.) He’d become a mycologist after a lengthy conversation with an earth sciences professor slash truffle enthusiast, who’d put in a good word for him at the University of Oregon. (Was there a better, damper place to study fungi than Eugene?) And he’d happened across the farm listing after Cleo had texted him the Zillow Gone Wild Instagram account. All right, so there’d been some missteps. But just about everything that had happened in this life was thanks to someone looking out for him and helping him out. Not in a nepotism-type way – Nick didn’t come from money, or prestige, or power. But in a community-minded sort of way where everyone lent a hand.

It was half the reason he had Deirdre. Yes, the truck was handy for transporting mushrooms and farm materials. And Alice when she was too wet and muddy to ride up front. But it was also a vehicle designed for paying it forward. If you had a truck, you were the person people called for help. Since he’d bought the thing, he’d helped move equipment for a preschool, crates of records for a fundraiser, and a travertine table that was so heavy it was a wonder it had made it out of the quarry.