#zombies missing scenes

Addison learns Zed’s locker combination

Addison had an idea of how she could still talk to Zed without Bucky knowing.  However, it would involve more than a little sneaking around, as well as the possibility of detention if caught.  Not a problem.  After all, she had only been keeping a secret about herself for her entire life and there was no way that any teacher or faculty would dare to do anything that would jeopardize the cheer championships.  Which would include giving a cheerleader detention this close to the date.

It was currently lunch, which meant that everybody not in the cafeteria was outside or, in the case of the office workers, in the staff room. The office was empty.  All she had to do was find where they kept the student locker assignments for the sophomore class.  Easy-peasy. In typical Seabrook fashion, there was a row of binders along a short bookcase.  Four light pastel coloured binders, and one slightly darker, worn, and obviously quite old.  One for each grade and one for the incoming zombie students.  Zed’s locker combination had to be the last binder.

His name was about halfway down the list.  Zed Necrodopolis.  One of the lockers in a study area off from the rest of the school.  Combination two sixteen eighteen.

Quietly, she slipped the binder back onto the shelf.  Locker fifteen. Combination two sixteen eighteen.  Locker fifteen.  Combination two sixteen eighteen.

“Late for lunch today, Miss Wells?”

Addison looked up.  “Principal Lee.  Yes.  I was just, you see Bucky, my cousin, and, um,” she looked up, offering her best innocent smile.

To her surprise, Principal Lee’s face softened.  “I understand, Miss Wells.  Mister Buchanan can be a driving force, to put it mildly.  I won’t tell him, if you won’t,” she offered a cheery, girlish grin and shrugged her shoulders mischievously.

“Um, thank you.”  Addison watched as the principal went into her office, then glanced back at the binder.  (Two sixteen eighteen.)  Bucky might be a controlling factor in her life, but he did not control it.  Nor did anybody else.  And with Zed’s locker combination, she had the perfect way to take back the control with a little pop of her own.

Addison runs out of the cafeteria

Bucky was waiting for an answer.

“I want to be a cheerleader.  That’s all I ever wanted.” Addison looked away from Zed, away from her cousin, her voice trembling slightly as she realized that he could expose her as a freak in front of the whole school if he wanted.

“Good.”

“Hey Addison!”  Zed was waving at her from the zombies’ table in the corner.  She couldn’t look at him.  Her mind was a jumble – she’d made the cheer squad, she had a crush on a zombie, her closest cousin had just threatened her (a threat that hit a little too close to home, coming from someone who was supposed to be on her side), and she had a crush.   On a zombie.  She felt the first waves of panic and turned, running out of the cafeteria.

Bucky was her cousin, practically her big brother.  She could trust him to look out for her.  (Right?)

Addison was only vaguely aware that she had stopped running when she caught sight of her still reflection in the trophy case display.

She was a cheerleader.  She fit in.  The only thing that was different about her was her hair and that was easily covered by a wig, but as Lacey had just pointed out, it wouldn’t take much for her to lose it all.  This had been what she had been working towards for her entire life.  Summer after summer of cheer camp.  Which she loved.

But there was also something inside her, whispering that she could grow to love Zed.  A zombie.  She definitely hadn’t imagined the connection that she had felt when he had saved her at the pep rally.  Thinking back on it now (a whole, what, two hours later), Addison could have sworn that she had seen something in his eyes, something soft that was the same way he’d looked at her right after she had punched him in the nose.  He was definitely attractive.  Sweet.  He was a zombie, but Addison was starting to think that he could also just be a boy.  One that she definitely had a crush on.

She could admit it to herself.  She, Addison Wells, had a crush on a zombie.  She said it quietly, once, twice, then grinned.  She like liked Zed.  And she was pretty certain that he likeliked her, too.

The original dilemma still existed.  She liked Zed.  She wanted to be a cheerleader more than anything.  She’d left Zed hanging back in the cafeteria after running out.  She’d left Bucky satisfied that she was committed a hundred and ten percent to the squad and  their ‘ideals’.  She herself didn’t even make the cheer squad’s ideals and the other cheerleaders had looked for anything that might have been different about her, picking apart every tiny detail about her appearance.  But this was something that she had been working toward ever since she could remember.  Her entire life had been dedicated to Seabrook cheer.

The warning bell rang, interrupting her pensive thoughts.  Instantly, her brain shifted gears.  She had five minutes to grab her chemistry books from her locker and make it to the lab on the other side of the school.  Time to get moving.