Excerpt: Rise (A Zombie Love Story)

Luci hugged herself tighter, turning her head from side to side, “No-o-oo. Nothing is r-right. I was b-buried and the dirt…and my hands and…and…and he said you’re a z-zombie and I just want to wake up now. This is the worst nightmare ever!”

She started to sob and blubber again only to stop abruptly when her mother reached out and hauled her to her feet, shaking her once. “Enough,” her mother said firmly. “That is quite enough of this nonsense. You may carry on like a ninny on your own time, Lucinda, but right now there are many people who are waiting and very excited about meeting you.” Luci blinked and met her mother’s steely blue gaze. “Act like a proper Randolph, girl, or so help me, the next few weeks will be filled with nothing but studying for you. Capichè?”

Luci blinked again and nodded slowly, trying to remember if she’d ever heard her mother use the word “capichè” before. She let herself be towed along, her mother’s hand firmly wrapped around her upper arm as they followed Jeremiah to the large wrought iron gates of the cemetery. Luci was quickly bundled into the back of a large black classic Cadillac, her mother taking the front passenger seat – the better from which to watch the road and the other passengers – as Jeremiah drove. Luci turned around, catching a last brief glimpse of the cemetery, only to gasp with a mixture of horror and awe. She’d been buried in the prestigious Lily Oak Gardens, the family cemetery of her best friend Emily Oakton. Plots were occasionally sold to dignitaries and notables, but few were simply given away. There was not a lot of room on Eden Island, so the Oakton’s family cemetery was usually reserved for their own family line. There was a smaller, nearly full cemetery near the local Methodist church, but most folks bought plots on the Georgia mainland or had their ashes scattered across the sea nowadays. Luci blinked and shuddered, wondering how she was going to explain this to Emily. It was insane, pure and simple. Who in their right mind woke up in their own grave? It was morbid. And not to put too fine a point on it, it simply Was Not Done.