"Stop! Stop!" I hear Zoey yelling from across the street. I am out the door in an instant to only find Zed tickling her mercilessly as she giggles.
"'Liza! Help me! Stop!" Her adorable screeches don't even bug me.
"Come here you." I grab her out from under Zed swinging her up onto my hip. She is still tiny despite being almost 7.
"Lucky Zoey, saved by Eliza" mutters Zed as he stands up.
"Cause she's the best!" I smile. Zoey is without a doubt the only one who can always make me smile.
"Look at that! It smiles." Zed teases.
"Shut up Zed" I glare. And roll my eyes as he straightens and winks at the girls walking around the corner. I'd seen enough of his flirting to know that it never went anywhere and only resulted in more girls hating me thinking I was the cause of that…like ew. I've grown up with Zed and sometimes you just know way too much about a person. Or as Zed likes to say sometimes I just don't have a heart.
"Liza, can we do the computer game?" Zoey leans over so she is right in my line of sight. "Last time I almost got it to work!" I've been teaching her to code and she's trying to make a program for a virtual pet since Xander, though awesome, can only do so much.
"I'd love to kid but you know Zed and I have to go to school." I put her down and turn to Zed. "Come on, we have to go make sure Bonzo's up." Zoey scampers back inside while Zed and I head down the street. Zed with his usual swagger and me with my usual glare. Bonzo, surprisingly is already on the stoop of his house when we get there. He nods by way of greeting. "Sup, dude?" Zed bounds up the steps to grab him in a half hug exuding more energy than the rest of the zombies our age combined.
Together we head towards the remains of the power plant. The power plant itself, the site of the explosion that changed everything, creating zombies and leading to us all being isolated on this side of the barrier, is officially abandoned. Occasionally, we will use it as the site of a zombie mash since the remnants provide some trippy décor and there was plenty of leftover technology for me to create a pretty sweet sound system. The old administration building from the power plant is our school. Well, correction, the basement of the old administration building is our school. The first floor is sort of Zombietown central hall. We call it the Base. My dad works there in the maintenance office. He is everyone's go to for solving problems. My mom runs the community center in the old storage facility where most of the little kids go. Before she started it, we all were left to our own devices. She is super friendly and everyone loves her. Which makes people wonder even more about me. It's not that I'm mean or don't like people. I've just learned that it isn't worth being positive when you know everything is going to go wrong. My mom says I have an overactive brain. Sometimes I think she's right. Other times I just think I'm the only one who truly sees how messed up things really are.
"Uh oh" starts Zed as we head down the dim, grimy stairs to the even dingier basement. "She already has her rampage face on."
"Shut up Zed" I mutter for the second time today.
"Come on Eliza! It's only 8 in the morning! A brand new day. Thank about all the great things that could happen!"
"Za!" chimes in Bonzo. "Zerd tza zy unze nunzemen horza."
"Announcement about what?" I ask Bonzo having heard nothing about this. He shrugs.
"What if they're announcing we can have sports teams finally!?" Zed's excitement shines in his eyes as he mimes throwing a football down the hall. One of the other boys in our grade pretends to catch it and yells back "I wish!" Before the explosion, Seabrook's football field was near the power plant so when the barrier went up it was still on our side along with the storage shed. Zed's dad taught all of us to play football when we were little. I was more fascinated by making the electric score board work but Zed's actually pretty good. Or at least I think he is. It's not like we have much to go off.
We file into the windowless classroom and find our seats on the stacked crates we use as were only 10 actual chairs and those were claimed by the students who came early. Ms. Zigman, wearing her usually coverall-converted-into-dress and lab coat combo, was standing by the board with a man I didn't recognize. He was a zombie but his coveralls looked more a like a human business suit than anything else.