Summer and July by Paul Mosier

Author:Paul Mosier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

16

JULY 19, AND it’s another day of Summer being mysteriously unavailable. I didn’t ask her why she couldn’t hang out when we said good-bye yesterday, but it’s weird that she doesn’t just tell me. I don’t want to walk past her house and spy on her.

I’m also weirded out that I feel this way. That less than three weeks after meeting someone I can feel so attached and needy. It’s different from the way it has been with Fern or any other friend. I used Fern to protect me from things I didn’t want to do, or feel, but it feels like Summer is the key to everything I want to become.

I take a bag with my library books and grab a water at the little market on Fourth Street, then head toward the park on top of the hill. Sitting cross-legged on the cool grass in the shade of a tree that smells like a can of air freshener, I reach inside the bag and take the book my hand touches first.

Zombies Slurped My Eye Sockets at Dawn.

I look around the park. No zombies. Not even any homeless people at the moment.

I turn to the first page.

Violet was having a dream. A nice dream. She and Sully were hanging out at the convenience store like they used to, back in the old days. Back before the zombies came. They were drinking those slushy drinks with the bright colors. Violet’s was red. Sully’s was blue.

“Cheers,” Violet said, lifting her cup.

“Cheers.” Sully hoisted his own.

They put their lips to the straws.

Then, the awful slurping noise. Slurping, and screaming. Violet looked around the parking lot, but she couldn’t see anyone in any kind of trouble. She looked back at Sully, who smiled and winked.

The slurping got louder. And the screaming, rising.

Violet bolted upright, sleep torn away. On the bunk to her right, one zombie held Sully down while another’s mouth was glued to his face. Slurping.

“My eyes!” Sully screamed. “My eyes!”

I close the book. I’ve seen better eye-slurping-zombie novels.

I put it back in the bag and reach for the next title.

Eat or Be Eaten.

This time I open the book to a random page near the middle.

For months I’d wanted Brandonne to give me exactly the hungry look he was giving me now. But I never dreamed he’d give me this look with a spear in one hand and ketchup packets in the other. Or that I’d be gazing back at him, salivating, holding a small hatchet and a squeeze bottle of horseradish sauce. But we were the last Morsels, and this was what our lives had come to.

My stomach growled—roared! I flipped the top of the horseradish bottle, and gripped the hatchet tightly. Then I slowly advanced upon the boy I once loved.

I sigh, and shut the book. Then I drop it in the bag and lie back on the grass.

The breeze asks me to close my eyes. The birds sing me a song. It seems like a good day for a daydream, if I can remember how.

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