Free Zombies Don't Forgive by Rusty Fischer

make her look at me. She’s young and cute in that fleshy, alive way, with the tan skin and full lips and lungs that breathe and heart that beats. She has on black jeans and a red golf shirt, the same uniform of Office Profits employees I’ve seen sauntering around the place,although none of them were bursting out of the seams the way this chick is.
    Wait. That’s a name tag. Brittni. Of course.
    Dane leans on the counter casually. “Actually, Brittni, we were hoping
you
could help
us.”
    I smell something funny and look at his face, and he’s chewing gum. Where’d he get gum? And why?
    â€œHow so?” She giggles.
    Dane finally looks at me. “My girlfriend and I here, we’re trying to play a prank on a friend.”
    I stand a little straighter while Brittni’s face does a kind of double crumble. What a weirdo Dane is. He chews gum for her but in the same nonbreath calls me his girlfriend for, like, the first time ever. Weird. Sweet, astonishing, brave, kind, and generous but totally, lovably weird.
    I slink into him a little more, waiting to hear where this is going.
    â€œWe’re trying to get some information out of him without coming right out and asking, so we were hoping you could help us think of a survey.”
    She’s gotten over the whole crush-worthy-guy-has-a-girlfriend thing and perked up again. Mood swing much? “Like, what type of survey?”
    Her voice is kind of chirpy, and I like it. She reminds me of someone I’d be friends with if I still went to high school. How odd. Only a few months ago I was attending the Fall Formal as a student, and now I’m looking at thischick as if she’s from another species: high school student.
    Yeah, I feel old, ugly, pale, and thin next to Brittni, but still there’s something about her I like.
    Now Dane looks at me. I guess
survey
was as far as his mind has gone.
    I look back at Brittni and smile awkwardly. “Well, like, let’s say we had a company and we were going to send people out onto the streets to ask them questions. That kind of survey.”
    â€œYeah, yeah, a survey taker’s survey,” Dane says.
    Brittni puts on her thinking face: pouty lips, flared nostrils, closed eyes.
    Dane and I give each other an arched eyebrow look.
    Brittni opens her eyes. “Well, what industry?”
    We give her major WTF faces, and she smiles. I knew I kinda liked her.
    â€œI mean, you need to build the survey around something your friend is interested in. So, like, skateboarding, dirt bikes, energy drinks, what?”
    See, this is the problem with lying. You tell one, you gotta tell 99 more.
    Dane looks at me. I can see where he’s going, and watching him look helpless is kind of a joy. It’s not a friend we’re trying to stump, and the survey is really just an excuse, I’m figuring, to walk up to Val and introduce ourselves without looking like stalkers.
    I wish zombies could read minds, ‘cause it would bereally nice to bounce ideas off him right now. I think of Val and her loft and blurt, “TV!”
    Dane looks relieved. “Yeah, let’s pretend we work for some company surveying, what, her viewing interests?”
    Brittni gets into it, whipping out a notepad. “That’s good. That’s good. We can ask what kind of movies she likes. Thrillers or rom coms—you know.” She has a pink pen with glitter in it
and
on it and an even pinker fuzzy ball on top, and she whips it around furiously while she makes up fake questions.
    We work on it for nearly an hour, Dane, Brittni, and I. She’s kinda awesome once she gets going, and I find myself wishing Stamp would go for someone who was at least fun to hang with, unlike the last few chicks he’s brought around: rude, anonymous, empty-eyed, bubble-head girls you’d rather strangle than spend 10 minutes talking to.
    When we’ve listed enough questions, Brittni helps us work up a