Dead Signal

Maya clutched her cracked iPhone 12 like a lifeline, though the battery was at 4% and her crush hadn't replied in three hours. Typical. She was hiding in the school bathroom during lunch again—her sophomore year survival strategy—when she noticed something weird.

Her phone's camera, which she'd left open, was flickering. Not like a glitch. Like it was detecting something.

Maya squinted at the screen. The hallway outside appeared grainy, digital. Then she saw him—Tyler, the junior everyone whispered about. He moved wrong. Stiff. jerky. His skin had that weird grayish tint people got from filtering their selfies too hard, except this was real.

"No way," she whispered. "Zombie?"

She'd spent way too many Friday nights watching The Last of Us with her older brother. This was exactly how it started, right? The strange behavior, the pallor, the...

Tyler's head snapped toward the bathroom door. Even through the screen, Maya felt seen. Panicked, she ducked, heart hammering. Her thumb accidentally hit record. The app's audio pickup caught everything—the creak of the door, the shuffling step, the strangely flat voice.

"Maya? I know you're in there."

She pressed herself against the cold tile wall. The phone continued recording, capturing what happened next through the crack beneath the stall door. Tyler wasn't attacking anyone. He was... placing tiny devices? On the walls? Near the vents?

"Signal booster," his voice murmured. "Just need more bars."

Maya's brain connected the dots. Tyler's weird behavior? The way he always wandered the school during lunch? The rumors he was dealing?

"Spy," she realized. "He's a spy."

Not a corporate spy—boring. A real one. Tyler was tapped into the school's network, intercepting messages, gathering intel. Who knew why? Blackmail? College admissions dirt? The mystery was irresistible.

She stopped recording and opened Notes, fingers flying. Possible ally? Or threat? Her zombie theory had been ridiculous—Tyler wasn't undead, he was just chronically online in a way nobody suspected.

The bathroom door creaked open. Maya's breath caught.

"I know what you are," she said, before her courage could ghost her.

Silence. Then, "You gonna tell?"

"Depends." Maya stood up, opened the stall door. Tyler looked tired, not zombie-tired, but like someone running on caffeine and secrets. "Can you get someone's deleted Insta messages?"

Tyler's tired eyes lit up. "Maya Patel, right? Your ex deleted that whole DM thread before you could screenshot his gaslighting act?"

"You've been reading my messages?"

"Spy, remember?" A crooked smile. "Give me your phone. I'll teach you how to get everything back."

Maya hesitated, then handed it over. Sometimes the most interesting alliances started with a 4% battery and a zombie theory gone wrong.