Poolside Undead

Maya pulled her bucket **hat** down lower, wishing it could make her invisible. The graduation pool party raged around her—Jessica's Instagram-perfect world splashing in expensive chaos. Maya's palms left damp marks on her phone as she doomscrolled through memes about being the awkward friend at the cool kid's house.

"You coming in?" Jason called, treading water. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and Maya's stomach did that annoying fluttery thing it did whenever he looked at her.

"Maybe later," she called back, lying. She wasn't **swimming** today. She wasn't swimming ever if it meant exposing herself in a bikini to everyone who'd silently judged her since sixth period English.

But then the backyard went dark.

"What the—" someone yelled.

"Power's out!" a voice shrieked.

Chaos erupted. Phones lit up faces like a hundred tiny constellations. Maya spotted Oliver—resident theater kid, self-proclaimed expert on all things supernatural—scrambling toward the patio. "Guys, what if it's the zombie apocalypse?"

Everyone laughed, but something about his intensity made Maya's actual **palm**s go cold.

"No, seriously!" Oliver grabbed the loose **cable** snaking across the concrete. "This thing's been frayed for weeks. My cousin's an electrician and he says that's basically an invitation for—"

"For what, undead hordes to attack suburbia?" Jessica rolled her eyes, but her voice wobbled.

The porch light flickered once. Twice. Then a neighbor's backyard erupted in screams.

Maya's heart hammered against her ribs. Everyone froze. And then—laughter. Real laughter, from next door.

"Just kids messing around," Jason said, climbing out of the pool. Water streamed down him like liquid confidence. "But you know what? This is actually sick."

He grabbed Maya's hand. His palm was warm and damp and everything she'd imagined.

"Let's go **swimming** in the dark," he said. "Nobody can see anything. Including how weird we all feel about graduating and leaving everything behind."

Maya looked at her crushed **hat** on the lawn. Looked at Jason's crooked smile. Looked at Oliver now dramatically reenacting a zombie attack for a captivated audience.

She kicked off her flip-flops.

"Okay," she said. "But if any actual zombies show up, I'm sacrificing Oliver first."

Jason laughed. "Deal."

As she slid into the cool dark water, surrounded by whispered secrets and splashes and the terrifying beautiful unknown of everything that came next, Maya realized something. Nobody knew what they were doing. Not Jessica. Not Jason. Not even Oliver with his apocalypse plans.

They were all just zombies moving through it together—awkward, scared, and somehow, perfectly alive.