Read Zombies Don't Forgive for Free Online

kids these days. And I already know this one …” He’s flipping through the images, one by one, until he stops and holds the phone out to me, turning it around so the screen is glowing right in my face. “This one.” He points at Stamp and some short blonde chick at a club.
    â€œWhat one?” I take the phone. “You can barely see her with Stamp’s stupid arm in the way.”
    â€œKeep going.”
    So I do that little finger swipe thing so that the screen changes. Suddenly there’s another picture, same club, same night, and the petite chick with the spiky blonde hair is kind of purposefully hiding behind Stampnow. Like it’s a game. She’s smiling all cutesy, but no one’s able to get a good picture of her just the same.
    I keep going and see spiky, dyed blonde hair in one, a metal bracelet in another, a thick black sock in the next, a bare white belly over a short red skirt after that—but nothing more than flashes of her here and there.
    Dane takes the phone, and we look together at another picture, another night, another club: same thing. Someone’s taking a picture of them together, arm in arm, and spiky blonde chick is hiding. Even when you can tell it’s Stamp taking the picture, she holds something in front of her face: a cocktail napkin, a giant wineglass, or her shiny pink purse. You can see her fingers in one, all over the purse, but the flash is so bright even the purse looks dead, so how can you tell if she is?
    â€œSo she’s shy,” I offer, but the words feel limp on my lips.
    Dane’s tongue is out, a sure sign he’s working something over in his brain. His fingers fly on the phone’s keyboard once more.
    I sigh, then practically shriek.
    The key! In the front door.
    â€œHe’s back!” I say, as if Dane hasn’t heard it himself.
    â€œSit,” he orders.
    Like a dog, I obey. But I wasn’t even standing! I scoot back in my chair, and so does he on the couch.
    â€œThe phone,” I gurgle as I hear the key in the third lock and the quick puff of air that happens whenever thedoor slides open.
    Dane grunts, looks at me, then at the doorway, and quickly tosses me the phone. I’ve never been good at catching things, not even a cold, but here comes this sleek phone and—yes!—somehow I clutch it from the air and slide it onto the same end table we plucked it from only minutes ago. It doesn’t glide all the way to the end and hang there like it did for Stamp but stops square in the middle. I doubt he’ll notice, but with Stamp you never know.
    Stamp still looks surly, maybe even more so, with his hands buried in the pockets of his crisp new slacks and his chin tucked deep in his stiff shirt collar. For the first time, I notice how cheap the black shirt with red stripes looks. Not inexpensive but brassy and flashy. And I wish, for just a moment, he would have asked me to help him pick one out instead of trying to do everything for himself all the time.
    â€œForget something?” Dane says a little too loudly.
    Stamp hardly notices. “My phone,” he says, reaching for it in the middle of the end table without further comment.
    â€œGonna try Val again?” I say, if only to fill the awkward silence.
    He looks at me sharply, then softens. “Not really,” he says quietly, turning for the door again. “I just feel naked without it, you know?”
    Before I can answer, he’s disappeared again, shoes scraping the pitted concrete beyond our welcome mat, shutting and triple-locking the door behind him.
    I slump in the chair. “Phew, that was close. Who were you texting, anyway?”
    â€œNot texting,” Dane says, standing and dragging me into his room with those thin arms I always forget are so strong. “I was sending those pictures to myself so we could study them a little more closely and on a bigger screen.”
    â€œOh,” I say, a little