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ended up this way, too.
    I follow him to the door, forcing myself not to slam it on him as he walks out. Scratch that. Saunters out.
    “Brock?” I ask, just to make him stop, mid-stride.
    He does then turns. “Yeah?”
    “Do you really think Brand’s cheating on you?”
    He smirks. “I doubt it, but…I still want to know what she’s up to when I’m not around.”
    “Why?”
    Then he gives that Brock Thornton smile. “Because I can.”
    I wait until he’s down the hall, down the stairs, and starting his car to shut my door behind me and lock it tight. It’s early evening now, too early for Brandy to be home but not too early for me to take a spin by where she works and see what I can see while I can see it.
    The Bagel Barn is across town, but I walk anyway because believe it or not, a driving zombie draws a lot more attention than one just walking down the street. True story.
    It’s a pleasant evening, nearly dusk, and I have three hundred-dollar bills in my wallet. I smile, wishing I could still eat human food because whenever I got a wad of cash in my Before Life, the first thing I would always do was buy something to eat.
    The only thing I can hold down now is soda, the sugarier the better, but I want to keep my hands free since I’m on the job. So I pass by the convenience stores and smoothie shops and pizza parlors and just keep strolling.
    People look at me funny. But then, they always do. At last count, there were one hundred twenty-nine zombies—legally we’re referred to as “Reanimated Persons,” but let’s be real—in Beaver Falls. So it’s not like I’m so unique that people are running away screaming, but it’s still enough of a novelty that folks are mostly like, “Hmmm, there’s one of those guys again.”
    Plus, lots of people when they’re seeing me, they’re seeing the zombie who ate their mom, their dad, their little sister or girlfriend or cousin or neighbor, so I’m not exactly Mr. Popular. Not that I did any of those things, mind you, but to them, a zombie is a zombie. I can’t say I blame them. I’m no fan of the zombies who ate my family, either.
    They’re not allowed to touch me, thanks to the Reanimated Persons Safety Act of 2019, but that doesn’t stop them from assassinating the hell out of me with their eyeballs, that’s for sure. I find the Bagel Barn tucked in between the Smoothie Shop and the Yogurt Shack and go inside.
    “Randall?” Brandy asks right away, giving my long-dead, atrophied heart a little flutter. Then she kills it by saying, “But, wait…I didn’t think zombies ate bagels.” Then she flutters it again, two times maybe, by blushing all over. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. Did I offend you? I offended you, didn’t I? I used the Z-word, that’s why. I knew it the minute it flew out of my big, fat mouth—”
    “Brandy, really, it’s fine. I’m used to it. I know you didn’t mean anything by it and, actually, you’re right. We can’t eat bagels. But can I get a raspberry Slushee?”
    She looks at the machine, then back at me. Brandy has thick, black hair, and cherub-y cheeks with dimples and olive skin and a figure that even makes her red and black polyester Bagel Barn uniform look like something Victoria’s Secret would put on their catalog cover every year.
    “You sure?”
    She’s so earnest, I have to chuckle. “Yeah, trust me, it’s fine. The only thing that might happen is a permanent brain freeze….”
    It’s a little thing I do, with the brain jokes. Most people get them, but most people aren’t Brandy Hutchins. She ignores me and pours the bright blue Slushee to the brim. I thank her and pay with a twenty, not one of her boyfriend’s hundred-dollar bills. Because, you know, that would just be too ironic. And, actually, a little bit cruel.
    She hands me the change and I tip her five bucks, just because—this week anyway—I can. She smiles sweetly and tries pulling it out of the plastic fish barrel next to the cash register