Last Summer Alive

I quit the baseball team three days before summer started, and apparently that also meant I quit having a life. At least, that's what Tyler's group chat implied before they quietly removed me. The 'Brotherhood' didn't have room for quitters.

Which is how I ended up working as a zombie actor at Apocalypse Falls, the local water park's newest attraction. The money was supposed to be for a car. Instead, it became money to avoid sitting in my room thinking about how badly I'd messed everything up.

The job consisted mostly of lurching around in fake blood and Contacts That Made Your Eyes Look Dead while middle schoolers screamed and took selfies. It was mortifying. It was also exactly what I deserved.

"You're walking too normal," said Marcus, the only other guy my age working there. He was already in full zombie makeup—a purple thing with peeling skin around his jaw. "You gotta commit. Embrace the shuffle. Be one with the undead."

"I can't believe I'm taking advice from someone who literally chose 'purple guy' as his character name," I said, but I slowed my walk, letting my arms hang loose and heavy. It felt embarrassingly like how I'd been walking around school for weeks anyway—just going through the motions, disconnected from everything that used to matter.

Marcus snorted. "Bro, we're getting paid forty bucks an hour to scare people. I'm living the dream. Also, purple is iconic."

The real problem started when Sarah Chen showed up with her friends. Sarah, who I'd had a crush on since seventh grade. Sarah, who definitely used to be in my friend group's orbit until I wasn't.

She saw me immediately. There was no pretending otherwise—I was a zombie in a blue employee shirt, looming near the lazy river entrance.

"Jake?" she called, stepping closer. Her friends giggled. "Is that—what are you DOING?"

"Living the dream," I said, like Marcus had, but it came out flat. I was so tired of this. Of everything. The masks, the performances, the version of myself I was supposed to be.

Something in my face must have shown it, because Sarah's expression shifted. "You okay?"

And that was the worst part—she actually sounded like she cared. Like she noticed I'd been gone.

I looked at Sarah, at Marcus giving me a thumbs-up from the concession stand, at the pool glittering in the distance where kids I used to know were probably having the summer I was supposed to be having. The summer I'd thrown away.

"No," I said, and it came out easier than anything had in months. "Actually, I quit baseball because I hated it. I hated the pressure, the expectations, the way everyone looked at me like I was supposed to be someone I wasn't. And now I'm here, and yeah, it's embarrassing, but at least I'm not pretending anymore."

Sarah stared at me for a long second. Then she smiled—really smiled, not the polite one she gave teachers. "You know what? That's the most real thing you've said since we were twelve."

She gestured to her friends. "We're going to the wave pool after this. You should come."

"I can't," I said, touching my zombie makeup. "Shift doesn't end for two hours."

"Then after," she said. "Unless you're too busy being undead."

Marcus was right about something else, too—sometimes you have to commit to the bit. But eventually, you also have to wash off the makeup and remember what your actual face looks like.

"I'll be there," I said.

For the first time all summer, I wasn't shuffling. I was walking. That felt like something.