Page 44 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

‘I thought you were going to say carnivorous plant, so it could be worse.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Zoey, drinking in the impossibly green landscape.

They sat for a bit, perching on one of the larger stones at the top of the hill and tossing a stick for Alice to fetch. Alice happily complied, racing back and forth with her feet scrabbling and tail wagging like a flag.

When at last Alice flopped down on her belly, panting, Nick stood up, reaching out a hand for Zoey.

‘Let’s get back down before it gets too dark,’ said Nick. ‘You don’t want to be bumping around the property in the dark.’

Zoey folded her arms. ‘Why, what’s out there? Bigfoot?’

‘I truly hope not, because Bozo is not restrained with his Tannerite. And whatever else he’s stockpiling over there. Definitely a whole lot of canned food that he’s not rotating the way he should.’

They hopped back in the truck, cruising slowly down the hill.

‘Can I go through the fields?’ said Zoey. ‘The daisies are so pretty.’

‘Just avoid the one with the patch of clover in it. It tends to get boggy.’

‘It’s summer,’ said Zoey. ‘How boggy could it be?’

She floored the accelerator, and they went racing through the flower-filled fields. Tall daisies and lupines tapped at the side of the car like bright fingers.

Until. The truck slowed, then stopped.

Nick said nothing, but he didn’t have to.

Zoey jabbed the accelerator. The engine roared, and the wheels spun. But nothing happened.

Oh shit.

‘I’m not going to say it,’ said Nick.

‘No,’ Zoey said. ‘It can’t be bogged. It’s a simple fact of life that you can’t get bogged on your own property.’

‘I’d love to see the book you learned your facts of life from.’

‘Encarta. The CD-ROM and everything.’

‘Lies. Absolute lies. That would make you … forty.’

‘Thirty-ish. My dad was a bit of a Luddite. In the being-slow-to-the-tech-party sense. Not in the smashing-up-technology-for-the-proletariat sense.’

‘I was hoping for the latter, because then we could be friends.’

Zoey doubted this, but not because Nick lacked charm.

‘Anyway, I’m sad to say that getting bogged is absolutely a thing. Even if you own the land. Owning it doesn’t give you jurisdiction over the squelchiness quotient of the soil.’

Zoey guffawed in what was probably an extremely becoming way. (She hoped.) ‘Squelchiness quotient. Is that a mushroom- farmer thing?’

‘It’s the technical term, obviously,’ said Nick, deadpan. He had an astonishing aptitude for delivering a remark without a whit of a giggle. If he’d put his mind to it, he would have been the standout performer at the regrettable First Thursday slam- poetry night.

‘So, what do we do?’ asked Zoey. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, then jammed her foot on the accelerator once more. The engine roared with determination, then sobbed at the brutality of it all. The wheels spun uselessly, whirring with all the use of a yo-yo in a sleeper manoeuvre. (Visually appealing, but not going anywhere.)

She cracked open the driver’s-side door and poked her head out, grumbling at the fact that the mud mark on the tyres was now a solid inch higher. ‘Fuck, it’s like we’re in quicksand, but mud. Mudsand. Quickmud.’

‘Tow truck,’ said Nick, mildly.