Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,63
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“Mia, thank God you’re here,” Simon says, moving past air kisses and hugging her properly.
Is it the door closing, or is the zombie in the stairwell actually quieter now that she can’t see us?
“Where are the others?” Linus asks Simon.
“I don’t know. It was bedlam.” Simon gives his head a little shake, tossing his perfect glossy black hair back from his eyes.
I stare for a moment, not just because he’s gorgeous, but also because something is very discombobulating.
Beyond standing in a dressing room with some of the actors I love from my favorite show. And Janet O’Shea.
And beyond the fact that actual zombies are trying to get to us.
And then I realize what it is.
Simon’s hair is clean.
On the show, they always look sweaty, and their hair is always swept back in sloppy ponytails or hanging down in greasy hanks.
It’s odd what elements the show’s producers are sticklers for detail on. Like, it’s the zombie apocalypse, yes, so NO GROOMING SHALL OCCUR.
In my opinion it’s a ridiculous hill to die on, because it’s a television show; just show someone enjoying the last charge of an electric razor they found on a supply run or something . . .
I realize I’m sort of in a shocked, wool-gathering fugue about grooming when I notice Linus has said my name twice.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Sorry,” I say. “Just tired for a moment.”
Linus turns back to Simon.
“. . . and that led you to hiding out here?”
Apparently, the group of actors on the panel scattered once in the backstage corridor.
Simon went into the greenroom, where he found Janet waiting. She was supposed to go onstage for an “Interview with a Horror Legend” after the panel.
Together, they waited, thinking that the disruption would be taken care of, not realizing the extent of what had started.
“Did you see a skinny girl with white-blonde hair?” I interrupt Linus to ask Simon.
“Sorry, there was a lot going on,” Simon says.
“She came backstage. She can’t be far,” Imani says, squeezing my arm reassuringly.
“What about the scientist guy?” I ask Janet. “Did he get brought back here?”
“The weirdo who interrupted the panel?” Annie asks, incredulous.
“He’s not such a weirdo now, is he?” I ask, but it’s not really a question. “This is his backpack.” I touch the battered navy backpack hanging on the front of me.
“Hey, I meant to ask, how did you know that key was in there?” Linus asks me suddenly. “Or that it was his?”
I explain quickly, about seeing him messing with the doors in the exhibit hall at the end of Autograph Alley. About how I thought he was maintenance, even without a uniform.
And that makes me sound completely clueless now.
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Janet says, squeezing my arm.
“So, what do we do now?” Linus asks. “I take it neither of your phones has a signal, either?”
Janet and Simon shake their heads.
“We should stay here,” Annie says.
What is it with this girl and staying put?
“I’m not staying,” I say. “Y’all go ahead, though.”
Janet meets my gaze, her blue eyes steely. “I want to hear your plan.”
I . . . don’t have one?
But Janet said I was supposed to trust myself. And my instinct to keep moving is tugging at me like a fire alarm going off in my head.
Move, move, move.
I take a deep breath, and try to put the fire alarm feeling into words.
“I just think we’re sitting ducks here,” I explain. I point the microphone arm at the door. “That’s not a deadbolt, it’s a button lock. We don’t know if any zombies can get through to this hall, but if they do, we are trapped here. There’s nowhere to run.”