Page 61 of 10 Things I Hate About Zombies

‘Bloody hell, would you take a look at that,’ said Reba, awed. ‘Celeste, I reckon you could use one of those in your next show. Give it a bit of the old pyrotechnics razzle-dazzle.’

Celeste glanced over from where she’d been chatting with Ainsley – happily, it seemed like, and without any scratching or screaming.

A bit of fresh country air really did work wonders. Well, country air, and the air inside Reba’s van.

The crew set to work on the fencing job, which was astonishingly harder work than Zoey was expecting. Why was the ground so hard? How were there so many rocks? Why hadn’t they just paid a guy? Was that a snake?

They’d managed the tiniest section of fencing before dusk started to dust the horizon. Zoey wasn’t even sure it counted as fencing, really. There were some upright posts, a few artistically stacked rocks, and some precarious wire that might ward off an intruder or two. Most likely by garrotting them.

‘It’s the thought that counts, right?’ asked Zoey, as a duck waddled straight through the fence and towards the marshy field.

Reba chuckled. ‘Pretty sure it’s the fence that counts. And the weed. The weed definitely counts.’

‘I’ll toast to that,’ said Kenard, who was sheened with sweat and grime from all the holes he’d bored along the edge of Nick’s property. Well, part of Nick’s property. The Punk Broc team were going to have to clear their calendar for weeks to come if they were going to make any actual headway here.

‘I kind of thought we’d be further along after a full day’s work,’ admitted Zoey, wincing at her blistered palms.

Nick chuckled. ‘I respect the vision. But a van full of reformed punks and another van full of irredeemable punks are no match for this property’s fencing needs.’

‘Sorry. I did try the Fencing Academy, but they had the wrong type of fencers.’ She turned to him, swiping dirt from her forehead as she tried to find the words she needed. ‘I actually am sorry, though. I wanted this to be a sort of olive branch. To show you that … I’m in as well. In on this thing between us. Tattoo or not.’

Nick’s dark eyes were luminous as he stared down at her. He touched a hand to her cheek, then kissed her gently, ever so gently.

‘Well, good,’ he said. His eyes crinkled as he added, ‘Because Alice would be heartbroken if not.’

‘I am mostly in it for Alice.’

All right, just a bit. But a man who loved a dog the way Nick loved Alice was absolutely a keeper.

The mismatched group of punks and others were starting to return now, shrugging out their shoulders and comparing blisters and scratches. Ouch – Zoey was going to have to run back to the house for some antiseptic and Band-Aids. She probably should have confirmed that everyone was up-to-date on their tetanus shots as well.

‘All right, crew.’ Nick shielded his eyes against the evening sun as he addressed them. ‘Who’s up for dinner?’

A rumble of assent went around.

‘He’s a really good cook.’ A bit of pride had edged into Zoey’s voice. That’s right, this man of hers was a good cook! She would’ve shouted it from the hilltop, but she didn’t want to get bogged again on the way back down.

‘Can we do s’mores?’ Reba rubbed her hands together. ‘I love a good triple-marshmallow stack.’

‘I brought some ugly-looking but delicious veg,’ called Kenard. ‘It’s in the cooler in the van. We can have kebabs.’

Nick checked the fire-danger rating on his phone, then nodded. ‘All right, it looks like we’re good to do a campfire. Is anyone here a safe person to light a campfire? Because I’m going to run back to the house and grab some supplies. And maybe some tents.’

‘Ooh, tents!’ Reba wrapped Gracie in a tie-dyed hug. ‘You should have seen the tents we did for this wedding last year. I can’t say too much – NDA – but they were astonishing. Each one enough to house an entire road crew. Tie-dyed, with Moroccan lanterns and cushions everywhere. And the debauchery baskets! Shame the wedding didn’t go ahead.’

‘Reebs,’ warned Gracie. Zoey suspected that Gracie spent a lot of her time around Reba being the voice of reason.

‘Hang on, that rings a bell,’ said Ainsley, inspecting a blister on her heel. ‘You don’t mean Venus Cargill, the toothpaste magnate, do you? The one who runs VOOP as a competitor to GOOP?’

Reba made a lip-zipping motion. ‘I’ll never tell. Although I am glad that I offloaded my shares before that whole debacle. My Frank would never have forgiven me if I’d blown our life savings on bad toothpaste intel.’ She patted the necklace that contained poor Frank’s ashes.

‘I read all about it in Us Weekly,’ said Kenard excitedly. ‘What happened was …’

Kenard, who apparently spent a lot of time at the supermarket checkout reading glossy magazines, led the group through an in-depth discussion of the toothpaste-empire merger that wasn’t, followed by a boisterous accounting of Venus’s recent travel habits and the small island she’d recently acquired for her new wellness retreat business/tax write-off.

By the time Nick came back dragging a battered wheeled cooler, Kenard was seated on a flat rock, thoroughly cataloguing the celebrity-owned wellness retreats that he’d had the pleasure of reading about. Zoey hadn’t realised that so many punk rockers owned such retreats, but she supposed that even punks needed some quietude. Probably more quietude than anyone else, actually.

‘This is some quality journalism,’ said Ainsley, impressed. ‘Someone should get this man on 60 Minutes.’