Zombie Dog Summer

My hat was practically screaming at me. Actually, it was just the brim flapping in the wind, but after three days of baseball camp with zero sleep, everything had a voice. Including my brain cells, which were definitely filing for divorce.

"You good, man?" Marcus asked, tossing me a water bottle. I caught it reflexively, which was impressive considering I was operating on pure caffeine and teenage stubbornness.

"Never been betcher," I lied, adjusting the cap like it held my entire personality together. It didn't. At seventeen, I was pretty sure my personality was mostly anxiety, baseball dreams, and an inexplicable crush on someone who definitely didn't know I existed.

Coach blew the whistle. "Again! Like you actually want it!"

We were running drills in ninety-degree heat, which should've been illegal. I was grimacing through another swing when *it* happened.

A dog trotted onto the field.

Not just any dog. A zombie dog.

Okay, not ACTUALLY a zombie dog, but this poor golden retriever looked like it had crawled through hell and back for a treat. Matted fur, one ear flopped wrong, tongue hanging out like it had forgotten how mouths worked. And it was making a beeline for home plate.

"Is that..." Marcus whispered.

"Zombie dog," I said, because sleep deprivation makes you say things.

The dog sat down directly in front of me, staring with ancient, knowing eyes. And then—because the universe has a messed-up sense of timing—*she* walked by. Emma. The Emma. The one whose smile made my brain turn into static.

"Cute dog," she said, and my soul left my body.

"Yeah, he's, uh, he's a zombie," I heard myself say. Stupid. So stupid.

She laughed. Not the fake kind. The real kind, where her nose crinkled. "He looks like he's had a long night."

She squatted down, offered her water bottle to the dog. The zombie dog, now officially hydrated and Blessed by Emma, looked at me like *this* was his plan all along. Sit in the outfield. Wait for pretty girls. Profit.

"I'm Maya," she said. "Almost everyone calls me Emma though."

"I'm," I started, then my brain blue-screened. "I have a baseball game."

**Crash. Burn. Die.**

But she smiled anyway. "Good luck with that, Zombie Dog Boy."

She walked away, and the dog—this random, matted, beautiful creature—licked my hand. Like he knew. Like he was saying, *"You'll get 'em next time, kid."*

I tipped my hat at him. He thumped his tail.

Coach blew the whistle again. "Less flirting with pets, more hitting!"

Marcus was dying. "Did you just—"

"Shut up."

That night I found out the "zombie dog" lived three houses down. His name was Barnaby. I walked him home. Maya was on her porch, reading. She waved.

I almost fell off the sidewalk.

My hat fell off instead. I left it. Let the zombie dog keep it. He deserved it more than I did.