Garret

I was beginning to reach the point where Ember’s sudden, random phrases didn’t startle me quite so much anymore, but still, this one threw me a bit. “What?”

It wasn’t exactly my fault. This morning, I’d woken with a massive, raging headache, the inside of my mouth feeling like I’d swallowed cotton soaked in vomit. The events of last night were a bit of a blur, but I think it involved Tristan, a karaoke bar, and alcohol.

Lots of alcohol. When I’d stumbled into the kitchen this morning, red eyed and bleary with pain, my partner had laughed, slid a cup of black coffee my way, and pronounced me a real man. I was too hung over to talk, so I had to be content with flipping him the finger. Fortunately, I had a high recovery rate, and by this afternoon I’d felt almost normal again. Enough to track down the girl partially responsible for my temporary lapse of judgment, anyway. But apparently, I wasn’t one hundred percent recovered from my first experience with hangovers, because I was almost certain Ember had just said something about shooting zombies.

She laughed, taking my hand and pulling me upright. My senses buzzed at her touch. “I take it you’ve never been to an arcade before, either. Come on. I’ll show you.”

She led me across the crowded mall, past dozens of clothing stores interspersed with the random phone or jewelry kiosks. Finally, at the end of the mall in a dark little corner, she pulled me toward an entrance lit with hundreds of flashing neon lights. Strange sounds came from within: automated shouts and screams, revving engines, and metallic buzzers, bells, and whistles.

“What is this place?” I asked, peering through the door.

“It’s an arcade,” was the reply. “I always see it when I’m here with Lex and Kristin, but they’d rather shop and do boring things, so I’ve never been inside.” Her arm rose, pointing to a boxy black machine near the front, a screen glowing blue in the center. “See that one?

It’s a zombie shooter. I’ve always wanted to try it, but the girls aren’t interested and Dante is never at the mall, so…”

She looked at me hopefully. I followed her gaze, trying to understand what she wanted. Zombie shooter? At least the “shooter” part was somewhat familiar. “This is…a game of some kind?” I guessed.

“Well, yeah. Of course.” Her eyes sparkled as she glanced back, eager and excited. “How ’bout it, Garret? Wanna give it a shot? Or are you scared I’ll beat you?”

I smiled. A game that involved shooting things? She didn’t know who she was dealing with. “Lead the way.”

A few minutes later, I stood in front of a boxy black machine, a flimsy toy gun in my hand, gazing at the screen in the middle. Island of the Hungry Dead, it spelled out in dripping letters, just as a deep, automated voice said the same. Ember grinned at me and hefted her “gun.”

“Ready?” she challenged.

“This is extremely impractical,” I told her as a dark swampland appeared on the screen before us. “There’s no way a firearm like this would shoot anything.”

And then a zombie lurched out from behind a tree and lunged at

the screen. A bright, fake spatter of blood appeared on my side, and Ember hooted, clicking her plastic gun. The zombie exploded into completely unrealistic clouds of red ooze and disappeared, and the girl blew on the muzzle of her fake pistol like it was smoking.

“That’s one for me,” she announced, as more zombies lurched toward us with arms outstretched. A grin quirked her lips as she glanced at me, smug and challenging. “Come on, Garret, aren’t boys good at this kind of stuff?”

I looked back at the approaching zombie hoard, raised my gun, and smirked. All right, I thought, imagining myself back in the Vas-yugan Swamps, facing a murderous juvenile dragon and its gang of human smugglers. You want me to shoot things? Here we go.

“You are a total cheater,” Ember announced later that afternoon, after our fourth play through. I grinned at her, the handle of the toy gun smooth and familiar in my palm. She glowered at me, small form bristling with annoyance. “And a liar.”

I blinked innocently. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no way you haven’t played this before,” she raged, pointing firmly to the screen, where the words Victory! Player Two were flashing again. “No one can be that good a shot on their first try.

You’ve done this before. Admit it!”

“I have never played this before,” I told her honestly, hoping she wouldn’t ask why I was so good at shooting things with a toy gun.

Because I’m very good at shooting things with a real gun. She gave me a doubtful look, and I held up my hands, grinning. “I swear.”

“Okay, fine. I believe you.” She brandished another quarter, eyes gleaming. “One more round?”

“You’re on.”

At that moment, however, my phone buzzed. I dug it out of my

pocket and held it up, immediately recognizing Tristan’s number, flashing across the screen. “Sorry,” I told her, backing away. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.”

Retreating to a more quiet corner, I ducked behind a flashing crane-type game and put the phone to my ear. “Yes?”

“How’s the mall excursion going?” Tristan’s voice held traces of amusement. “I assume you found your target, because I know you haven’t been walking around for three hours doing nothing.”

A bell rang out somewhere behind me before I had a chance to answer. Tristan’s voice took on a suspicious tone. “What the heck was that? Where are you guys?”

“Uh…the arcade.”

“Well, it’s good to know that while I’ve spent the afternoon researching our potential targets, you’ve been messing around at the arcade.” Tristan’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Did you at least get any useful information out of her?”

“I’m still working on it.”

“Fine.” Tristan didn’t sound convinced, but he backed off for now.

“If you say you’ve got this. I just wanted to tell you a few things I discovered about the Hill residence. Seems the original owner never put the property up for sale. And when the lot did sell, it sold for twice of what it was worth.”

“Sounds like somebody bribed him just to acquire the house.”

“Exactly. And get this—according to the home owner’s association, extreme renovating around the property isn’t permitted, but the new owner had a team of contractors at the house for nearly a month, and nothing was changed on the outside.”