Diana Rowland: White Trash Zombie Apocalypse

Marcus snorted, pretty obviously amused by my enthusiasm. “That’s the plan, if you want to. And judging by the gleam in your eyes, I’d say it was a yes.”

Okay, it’s possible that I gave a squeal of excitement worthy of a teen girl at a Justin Bieber concert. “Oh my god. I have to find something to wear!”

Marcus laughed. “You have time. Don’t sweat it.”

I gaped at him in horror. “Easy for you to say! You have a closet full of clothes, and you’re a guy .”

“Okay, okay,” he said, grinning. “Just make sure you get something with elastic in the waistband. Lots and lots of food.”

“I’ll undo the top button. Not a problem.”

“Sounds good to me.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss which I didn’t mind returning. “Go veg out and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sure thing,” I said, giving him a smile as I climbed out of the truck. He waited until I had my car started before driving off. Good dude.

Yet on the way home, my thoughts went back to the weirdness on the movie set this morning. What the hell was Philip doing there? And why save me from a world of hurt and then run away? He was tied in with Dr. Kristi Charish, which left me more than a little unsettled. I didn’t want that psycho bitch anywhere near me. There was only one person I could think of who might have some answers—Pietro Ivanov.

He’d thrown me to the wolves a few months ago when he’d allowed Charish to kidnap me, but had since admitted he’d screwed up and had done a lot to try to make up for it. Like the pardon. About two years ago I’d been arrested for possession of stolen property—while driving a car my loser-ex-boyfriend had insisted was a totally legit purchase—and ended up with probation and suspended sentence, and a felony on my record. But shortly after I managed to pull off my escape from Charish’s secret lab, my probation officer let me know that I wasn’t on probation anymore because I’d been pardoned. Totally clean record. Fresh start. And I had no doubt Pietro was responsible. As well as being the head of the local “zombie mafia,” he was rich as hell and had a zillion political connections. No one else who gave a shit about me had the power to pull off a full pardon from the frickin’ governor. No way did I trust Pietro yet—or forgive him, for that matter—but there was certainly a truce and potential to rebuild.

There was no sign of my dad when I got home, but since it was barely seven p.m. I figured I could hold off worrying that he was out drinking. He never drank at the house anymore—probably because he knew I sure as hell didn’t approve—and to his credit he was pretty damn careful about not drinking and driving.

Unfortunately, that was primarily because a few months ago Mr. Jimmy Crawford got stopped for driving while intoxicated. Fortunately, it was Marcus who had pulled him over. And even though Marcus bent rules like crazy and called me to come get my dad—saving us a ton of hassle and thousands of dollars—the incident pretty much shattered the shaky peace the two men had made, and my dad had gone right back to an active dislike of “that cop.”

Scowling in annoyance and frustration with the whole situation, I slugged down about half a bottle of brain smoothie to make up for what I’d burned off in my exertions with Marcus, then flopped onto the sagging couch to watch TV.

I woke later to screeching laughter on some nighttime talk show. A glance at the clock told me I’d crashed for a solid four hours.

Which meant that now I could worry about my dad’s drinking.

Not that worrying did a damn bit of good. Or arguing, or lecturing, or yelling. I knew that. I could wait for him, brace myself for an argument or worse when he finally came through the door. And for what? It wouldn’t accomplish a damn thing.

I shut off the TV and went on to bed, unsure whether to be upset or relieved that he still wasn’t home.

“Five days and counting,” Nick said with a smile.

I could only groan. For the past few months Nick, my oftentimes annoying but basically good-hearted coworker, had been tutoring me for the GED—the high school equivalency exam. Passing it had been a condition of my probation. But then I’d received my mysterious pardon and suddenly I didn’t have to pass the GED.

Except that I did, for my own self-respect. Hell, having any self-respect at all was a new experience for me, so why not go full tilt, right? Besides, I’d learned that zombies had the potential to live a very long time. Living a hundred years or so as an uneducated loser wasn’t all that appealing to me, therefore the first step was to get my damn high school diploma.

However, being chock full of self-respect didn’t mean I wasn’t totally intimidated by the whole process.

“I’m not ready,” I said, looking with dismay at the pile of workbooks that Nick had forced me to plow through in the past months. “There’s no way.”

His green eyes narrowed. “You won’t be if you keep saying that. You went through the practice test last week and did pretty well, and you’ve been studying your ass off since then.”

I took a deep breath. “Right. Okay. I can do this.” But then my self-confidence wilted. “I’m still so damn slow on the reading part though. I’m afraid I’ll run out of time.”

“And you get slower when you’re flustered,” he pointed out for about the billionth time. “So you need to keep focused on what’s right in front of you and not on what’s left to do.”

“At least I’m good at the math part,” I said. Too bad I had to get passing grades on all of it—math, science, reading, writing, and social studies. But it was only the reading part that had me worried sick.

Nick leaned back and gave me a considering look. “Have you ever been tested for dyslexia? I mean, it’s not that you aren’t smart enough or don’t understand the words.”

I blinked at him. “Um. Isn’t that the thing where you see words backward or something? I don’t think I have that.”

He shook his head. “It’s not always like that. Dyslexia can show up in a lot of ways. Sometimes it’s only noticed because reading is slow for no other apparent reason, then testing can be done to determine if that’s the cause.”

“Well, what difference would it make at this point?” I asked with a slight frown. “I mean, I read slow as molasses. Not sure anything can be done about that.”

“Not much to be done about the slow reading right now, but if you get diagnosed you can probably get extra time for the test.”

“Oh, wow.” I blew out a breath. “Now that would make it worthwhile.” Even if I didn’t end up needing the extra time, it would take my stress level down by a fair amount.

“No kidding,” he said. “I don’t know how long it takes to get tested and diagnosed and all, but it’d be worth looking into.” He tilted his head. “And then you could get tutoring to specifically address whatever issues you have.”

“I have lots of issues,” I said with a laugh.

He grinned. “Yes, you do!”

It was an interesting thought. Could it be that easy? And if it really was something like that, then why hadn’t any of my teachers noticed it and done something about it?

Or maybe they did , I realized. A whisper of memory intruded, of being pulled out of class when I was in fourth or fifth grade to go to the school office and do all sorts of reading and comprehension tests for a round-cheeked woman. It was more than possible that the school had contacted my mother to let her know I had a problem, and she’d simply never pursued it. She sure as hell wouldn’t have exerted any extra effort for me. And my dad had been working on an offshore oil rig at the time. He wouldn’t have known there was a problem.