THE ZOMBIE PLAYGROUND

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She went back and forth on it, but in the morning she decided to have Paul stay home from the funeral. Even though he himself had nothing to do with the deaths of Chace and Sawyer, he was a vampire, he was one of them, and Brin felt it to be in poor taste to have him dress up all nice and spiffy for the boys’ funerals. She was surprised when Paul actually agreed with her—he didn’t care to spend all morning in the sun surrounded by strangers anyway.

But as Brin stepped out of her car and started walking down the side of the street with Ash by her side, she felt bad that Paul wasn’t with her. She didn’t want him to think that she blamed him for what happened to Chace and Sawyer—because she didn’t. She hoped the funeral wouldn’t go on forever. She hoped she could be home in time for lunch, and for some friendly time with her vampire buddy.

“Do you know how long it’ll take to get there?” Ash said.

“I’m not going to dignify that question with an answer.”

“Where’s your mom? Did she come separately?”

“Yeah. She went with some friends like an hour ago. She’s probably in the front row, as if she actually gives a shit about these two guys.”

“Hey, at least your mom is going. My dads are in Napa all weekend.”

“Napa? What for?”

“Uhh, their anniversary.”

“Their anniversary?”

“Yeah. They’ve been together twenty-three years.”

“Twenty-three years?” Brin said. She pulled Ash closer to her. “Wow! That’s amazing. I had no idea it’d been that long.”

“Yep.”

“You’re lucky, you know? Your dads are pretty awesome.”

“I know,” he said. “You don’t have to remind me.”

After a surprising lack of whining from Ash for the last ten minutes of their walk, Brin stepped onto the familiar cemetery grass. She tried to forget about her little rendezvous with Lavender here a week ago, or the disappearance of her father from his very own grave. She tried to just focus on the sadness of today, with the hope of a promising tomorrow, when no more of her friends and fellow students would have to die.

Where is Lavender by the way?

Brin knew something was severely wrong with the cheerleader, and thought she might be turning into a vampire, but while she hadn’t reported to school last week, Brin hadn’t heard any tragic news that confirmed the worst. Apparently the girl was still alive, still human.

And she could see for herself when Brin and Ash approached the large assemble of funeral goers—some sitting, most standing—before a raised platform that contained a stunning, dark brown casket. A group of six people sat in chairs on the platform, and someone was already talking into a microphone for all the attendees to hear. Brin could see her mom toward the front, as well as Anaya and Dylan a few rows back. Brin was stunned to see two open seats to the left of Anaya.

“Look,” Brin said. “Over there.” She grabbed Ash’s arm.

As they trampled over multiple feet to reach the seats, the male figure at the podium stepped aside, and Chace’s mom Jeanie took the stand. She was adorned all in black, with her hair and most of her face hidden underneath a veil. Brin sat down next to Anaya just in time to see that Lavender was sitting directly in front of her.

“Lavender?” Brin whispered.

The girl turned around. A black veil covered most of her face, too, so Brin couldn’t make out many details. But she could still see that the girl’s face was as pale as the snow-covered Bodie, and that she had a small scab on the top of her forehead. Brin couldn’t tell if she was still human. She easily could’ve been turned by now.

But Brin didn’t say anything more to her; she merely smiled and waited for Lavender to turn back around.

“What have we missed?” Brin said to Anaya. She tried not to notice that Anaya was taking up two of the seats.

“Nothing. They played some sad music for a bit, and then some pastor droned on and on, mostly about how Chace is with God and that he is in good hands now.”

“Why is there only one casket?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought they were having a service for both Chace and Sawyer. I figured that’s why there’s so many people here.”

Anaya pursed her lips and looked back. “Wow. It got super crowded, didn’t it?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh. This is just for Chace. They aren’t doing anything for Sawyer.”

“What? They’re doing nothing?”

“I don’t know,” Anaya said. “They’re probably having his service later today, or tomorrow. I don’t know—”

“Shhh,” an old woman said from behind.

Anaya crossed her arms and turned back toward Jeanie, who was struggling to get through her heartfelt speech. Brin did the same, although she had trouble focusing on the speaker when the disturbed and homicidal Lavender was sitting just inches away.

“It’s humbling to me, the outpouring of support, the turnout we have here today. Chace was a friend to everyone. People loved him not just for his athletic abilities, or for his outgoing personality, or for his boyish good looks. He cared about others. My Chace, my wonderful, beautiful Chace, was truly a friend to everyone.”

Brin rolled her eyes. She missed and reflected upon Chace as much as the others this morning, but his mother was making him out to be the eighth wonder of the world. She spent all of that chilly day two weeks ago with Chace, and even got to spend time with him alone during one of his last hours left on Earth. He wasn’t that special. He wasn’t everything these people were making him out to be.

As Jeanie babbled on for another twenty minutes, Brin thought about the kind of crowd the quieter, less popular Sawyer would receive. She figured he would get five percent of this crowd, maybe less. And it didn’t seem right. Not only had Sawyer been more helpful to the group, definitely less full of himself, he had suffered far longer and far worse during his end than the luckier Chace did. 

And Sawyer didn’t leave me for dead, she thought.

Brin looked up at the podium. Jeanie was still talking, and now fighting away tears.

“What makes this tragedy so damn horrible is that we still don’t know, and we might never know, what happened to Chace. He was in California filming a movie for a class, but nobody knows how he died. For a mother to lose a son is hard enough. At the very least I could know what happened to my boy, at least that he went out a hero, at least that he—”

“VAMPIRES KILLED HIM!”

Jeanie stopped talking. A hush fell over the crowd. Nobody moved. All eyes veered toward Brin’s direction.

“What… umm…” Jeanie took a step back, and then faced the speaker in the crowd. “What did you just say?”

Dylan stood up and screamed it loud enough for all of Grisly to hear: “VAMPIRES KILLED CHACE! THEY TORE HIM APART FROM END TO END RIGHT BEFORE MY VERY EYES!”