“What is going on?” Ash said, looking back and forth between us.
Dad took pity on him, taking his eyes away from me. “Zoey’s mother lives in a small town, Constance, in Nebraska. No one is sick there. It’s safe.” He directed the last line toward me pointedly.
I felt like I was losing. “No, Dad, really. I’ll do anything. I’ll drop out of school, I’ll stay inside all day, and I’ll stop breathing. Just please don’t send me to Mom’s. I want to stay here with you.”
It was the truth, but I knew the words would have the desired effect. I was pulling the guilt card, the affection card. His resolve was beginning to crack. “I don’t know, Zoey…”
“Dad, I’ll stay inside all day. I’ll be safe,” I promised.
“I’m worried about you being alone with me gone all the time.” He sounded uncertain, his shoulders sagging. I was getting closer and closer to a victory.
“It’s never been an issue before,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but people weren’t getting sick from a mysterious virus, and bodies weren’t disappearing,” he pointed out. Okay, maybe I wasn’t as close to a victory as I thought.
“I’ll stay with her,” Ash offered, sounding serious. “My parents have been pushing for me to stay home too. We can hang out together, keep each other company.”
“Um, no,” I said, automatically. “That’s a terrible idea.”
Dad sat up looking interested. “I like this idea.”
“Dad!” I protested. Ash’s face lit up with triumph, and I had to resist the huge urge to stick my tongue out at him.
“Zoey,” he interrupted. “I would just feel safer about the both of you, if you were together.”
“Yeah, Z, I can protect you,” Ash said, sliding his arm around my waist. I pulled away from him, opening my mouth to protest again.
“It’s either this or I’m shipping you off to Constance,” my dad offered up.
I shut my mouth and glared at both of them. “You both suck,” I said frustrated, turning on my heel to stomp upstairs.
“I THINK THAT WATCHING BUFFY is a better idea,” Ash insisted.
“After the news, Ash, we can watch it after the news. I just want to watch the news,” I said, through clenched teeth.
“Why would you want that?” he grumbled, smashing his face into a couch pillow. “It’s so depressing.”
“Five people from our school alone died in the last week! And we don’t exactly go to a large school, Ash,” I said, indignant. “It’s kind of chaotic right now.”
Ash sighed, exaggerated and loud, and I resisted the urge to throw the pillow at him.
It had been like this every day for about two weeks now. Ash came over in the morning and stayed until my dad came home, no matter how late it was. I tried staying away from him as much as possible, angry that I was hiding from him in my own house. At lunch, we came together and usually ordered in. I would take my food to the basement to watch the afternoon news. Ash usually followed and complained.
The death toll was mounting higher and higher, and the bodies kept disappearing. It was frightening. Panic was beginning to increase daily. People were choosing to die in their homes, afraid of their bodies being snatched. That only seemed to help the disease spread further. Most people had stopped going to work and school but there was still a great amount that carried on, like nothing was happening and everything was normal.
No one knew how the disease was spreading. Doctors were either sick themselves or too scared of the body snatchers. They were too scared to study the bodies long enough to figure out what was wrong.
People were dying, and I was scared.
Ash wasn’t, not yet anyway. Instead, he was intent on driving me absolutely insane.
“What do you want for dinner, Z? I’m thinking Chinese.”
“Yeah, whatever, fine,” I said, vaguely. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and I yanked it out. It was Madison, and I immediately answered. “What’s up?”
“What are you doing right now?” came the immediate response.
I looked over at Ash, bent over a takeout menu from Water Street Wok. “Contemplating the many ways to murder a high school quarterback.”
“Don’t murder Ash Matthews,” Madison said, sighing. “There are only so many perfect specimens in the world, and it would be a shame to lose one of them.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t respond.
“Seriously, Zoey, can you just admit that Ash is incredibly hot and that you’re madly in love with him?”
I looked back over at Ash, noticing not for the first time how incredible he looked. You didn’t live next door to that for nearly ten years without noticing. There was a reason he was one of the most popular guys at St. Joseph’s and dating Heather Carr, one of the most popular girls. The deep, dark brown hair falling into impossibly pale blue eyes, broad shoulders, flat chest and stomach, slim hips and yes, the impressive backside in well-worn jeans, all added up to make Ash Matthews.