Zombies Don't Forgive by Rusty Fischer Page B

things, don’t you think?”
    Dane grunts, sinking deeper into the passenger seat. Yeah, like anyone’s going to notice him at the busiest ice cream parlor on the planet.
    Literally. It’s in the Guinness World Records or something. Look it up. Frozen Planet. Never heard of it? Me neither. At least, that is, until I moved to Orlando, otherwise known as the Neverland of Chain Restaurants.
    Frozen Planet is about as big as your average restaurant, only it serves nothing but ice cream 24/7/365. The building itself is painted brown with little black lines crisscrossing it to make it look like a waffle cone. All thewindows have sprinkles painted over them: red, green, white, pink, and orange. On top is the world’s largest scoop of ice cream. They say you can see it from the top of the Epcot geosphere, though I don’t know who would know that except maybe the unluckiest maintenance worker in the world. This ice cream cone is huge, I’ll give it that, and it’s ringed by neon lights so you can see it at night too, which is helpful if NASA runs out of power and the shuttle needs a little help landing.
    We’re parked in front with about a dozen other cars, despite it being late as hell. This town never sleeps. I see all kinds of kids in there too. Eating ice cream in the middle of the night? Yeah, that’s good parenting. Real good.
    My phone is on my lap. I texted Iceman about 10 minutes ago that we were on our way for our weekly pickup. He said he’d text me with the phrase
chocolate chip
when he was ready.
    â€œGod, he takes this stuff so seriously,” I say to Dane, window down, the evening warm and muggy and soft on my arm. In my mouth, the red hot heats things up by about two degrees a minute. By the time I’m inside, I should be hot enough to pass as human. Kind of. Maybe.
    â€œProbably watches a bunch of spy movies or stuff.”
    â€œOr zombie movies.” I grunt.
    Dane grunts back.
    That’s how we met, actually. In an online chat room for zombie fans. It was a week or two after we’d movedto Orlando and we weren’t having any luck finding a friendly local grocer, coroner, or funeral director to help us out in the brains department. We were getting desperate but feared that if we tried breaking in someplace, the Sentinels might have it under surveillance.
    Dane and I hopped online and found this site called
Zombies R Us
and set up my profile. (My screen name is LvingDedGurl, by the way.) We found Iceman in a late-night chat for humans interested in the taste of brains. Yes, such people exist. In this world. In Orlando.
    Dane and I perked up, and I asked Iceman what that was all about. He said he’d love to tell me in person, so we set up a date at his second job. At Frozen Planet.
    His first job? The local coroner’s office.
    Trust me, we checked first. Dude was legit.
    Dane showed up early for that first meeting, got a seat, ordered a sundae, didn’t eat it but tipped well, so the waitress let him stay. I got there an hour later, took the corner booth as directed, and boom, five seconds later this giant of a kid shuffles over in one of those paper hats, peppermint ice cream stains all over his XXL shirt, and introduces himself.
    â€œLiving Dead Girl?”
    â€œIceman?”
    He sat; we talked. His breath smelled; I pretended not to notice.
    Eventually I showed him a wad of cash and said thatif he could get me three human brains a week, I’d make sure he’d never need to work overtime again.
    So here we are, nearly five months later, and I have to go do the trade-off.
    The text comes in: Iceman.
    I shiver and take the envelope full of cash out of the glove box. Every week Dane, Stamp, and I put $60 from our paychecks toward our brain fund. Every week, I hand it over to Iceman. Brains, meet mouth.
    A cowbell over the door rings, and the smells of ice and cream and sugar and peppermint and chocolate nearly knock me over. My zombie