Page 38 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

‘It gets very not-Portland very fast,’ said Nick. ‘But you find your people.’

‘Are you sure?’ whispered Zoey, pointing to another sign, which was even worse than the first one.

‘Uh-huh. You have to. Last turn: here we go.’

They pulled up at a lengthy unsealed driveway. Nick jumped out to unlock a pair of massive, rusted gates, pulled the truck forward, then hopped out again to close them.

‘That seems really inefficient,’ said Zoey, as he climbed back in.

‘Wait until you see all the holes in the fences. Something’s been getting in at night, and I have no idea what. All right, buckle up.’

It was an apt warning: the truck jostled and bumped like an ancient clothes dryer being used as a rock tumbler. Zoey’s innards resembled a can of Fanta being shaken up.

Finally, Nick pulled up in front of a charming yellow craftsman house with a wide front porch and a tiny upstairs window poking out of the roofline. ‘This is it.’

Zoey clasped her hand to her chest. ‘You have a red front door!’

All of the vintage illustrated kids’ books she’d pored over for her master’s came flooding back to her. A red door was up there with puffed sleeves in terms of whimsical aesthetic things she coveted.

‘That’s the bit that did it for you?’ Nick cracked the driver’s- side door, and Alice went bounding over his lap and off into the hydrangeas that burst in massive pink and blue pom-poms all around the house.

‘A red front door with stained glass,’ added Zoey. ‘Okay, now I’m understanding this whole hermit-in-the-woods thing. A giant Doug fir of your own! And best of all: no people.’

‘Just plenty of mushrooms, if you want to check those out?’

Zoey nodded, and he led her over to the greenhouse.

‘Plenty of mushrooms and moles.’ He nudged a divot with the toe of his work boots.

‘I have a soft spot for moles,’ admitted Zoey. ‘I grew up on The Animals of Farthing Wood.’

Nick put a hand over his heart. ‘Poor Mole. Life is short.’

Zoey wiped away a pretend tear. ‘Tragic. Almost tore me up as much as the ending of David the Gnome.’

‘I still haven’t recovered from that. Swift!’ Nick pointed out a fox tattoo on his forearm, which had little gnomes riding on its back. ‘Vintage kids’ media is brutal. So much death.’

‘So much,’ agreed Zoey. ‘I read The Plague Dogs in third grade thinking it was going to be a cute book about puppies. Scarred for life.’

‘Yep, one of the great lessons of childhood is that cute animal books are rarely cute. And also, never try to catch a falling knife.’

‘Do I want to know?’

Nick held out a hand to show a silvery scar on his little finger. ‘Cheese knife, intent on turning me into Jarlsberg.’

‘But did you die?’ teased Zoey.

‘It was an educational moment about how much blood a little finger can hold.’ Nick pushed open the greenhouse door; earthy, humid air swept over her, teasing her hair into an instant bouffant. She felt like she’d been dumped into the damp days of fall.

‘It feels like a butterfly house.’ She reached out a hand, half expecting a huge monarch butterfly to land on her fingertips. ‘But cooler.’

‘They’re not so big on heat, but they love the humidity. Especially the ones over there in the grow room – that has its own special climate control to encourage fruiting. But keeping rot and pests out is a whole thing.’

Zoey nodded, thinking of the moss and lichen that greened the cottage roof and smothered the decorative garden boulders.

‘Nothing worse than when your harvest has been blighted with mould,’ he said, leaning in for a closer look at some champignons.

‘How do you know if that’s happened?’