Excerpt: from Chapter One
When the light rail train glided to a stop at the 3rd Street station, Vance Campbell scooped his four-year-old daughter Claire into his arms, kissed her on the forehead, and stepped through the door into a mob of zombies. Claire tensed and squeezed her arms tighter around his neck. “Don’t worry, honey,” he said tenderly. “Zombies aren’t real.” Claire turned her gaze bravely back to the zombies, but still held tightly to his neck.
Vance surveyed the scene in front of him: a crowd of happy zombies stomping and lurching in the bright Friday sun of Phoenix, Arizona, visitors with badges in lanyards around their necks, a few unfortunate locals struggling against the throngs, and police officers on the corners directing the whole mass of humanity across the street to the Convention Center for this year’s Comicon. Vance glanced back to make sure his wife was still with him.
“I’m here,” Tabitha said, reading his mind the way people can do when they’ve been married for nine years. “Lead the way.”
Vance turned back to the front and worked through the crowd across 3rd Street and toward the far entrance to the Convention Center.
“Why did they have to make the entrance so far away?” Tabitha wondered out loud. “Why didn’t they just use these doors?”
“I don’t know,” Vance replied. “But if the crowds are like this today, I can’t imagine what they’ll be like tomorrow.”
A pair of zombies with particularly bloody face makeup passed by close to them. Claire wriggled and pressed herself against him more tightly. “Zombies aren’t real,” he said to her again. “It’s just people wearing masks and makeup.”
“It’s pretend?” she asked him, not loosening her grip.
“That’s right, honey,” Vance said, giving her a comforting squeeze. He didn’t want her to be afraid, but he had to admit he liked being her hero and protector.
Officials had closed 3rd Street for Comicon, and Vance passed a line of food trucks parked on the closed road. The colorful trucks each offered food in a different theme, from standard fare such as cheeseburgers and burritos to more exotic offerings like grilled cheese sandwiches and fry bread. Vance felt enticed by the aromas, but repulsed by the high prices marked on the sides of the trucks. Despite the inflated prices, however, most of the food trucks had long lines of people waiting to order food.
Past the food trucks, they found a variety of other vehicles on display in the street. Crowds flocked around replicas of vehicles from famous movies—or maybe they were the real ones, who knew? They passed a DeLorean like the one in Back to the Future. It looked smaller than it did on the big screen. Next was a hearse like the one in the Ghostbusters movies, though this looked different from what Vance remembered, and looking closer, he didn’t see any logos from the movie, which he suspected meant it was a knock-off.
Next in line were a dune buggy and two jeeps. The vehicles at first reminded Vance of cars from Mad Max, but when he looked closer, he saw logos emblazoned on their sides: Zombie Defense Crew. The dune buggy had a machine gun mounted on the top of its roll bars. Both had elaborate gun racks, and the jeeps also sported mounts on the back for axes with wooden handles. Beside the dune buggy was a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties and having a good time. He had a bushy mustache, and he wore dark sunglasses beneath a floppy hat and tan desert camouflage festooned with bandoleers of shotgun shells.
Claire had perked up at the display of vehicles. “Guns, Daddy,” she said.
Vance looked at the guns in the gun racks. “They’re not real, either, honey,” he said. “You can tell by the …” His voice trailed off as he looked closer. “Wow,” he said finally, turning back to give Tabitha a quizzical frown. “Those are good fakes.”
“In the event of a zombie outbreak, try to get behind these vehicles,” the man said, his smile showing teeth, “because the bastards aren’t getting past us.”
Vance steered them back toward the Convention Center. Though it was only May, the Arizona sun felt relentless on his skin. Near the entrance of the building, they passed a mermaid exhibit, consisting of an elaborate but shallow above-ground pool painted to look like a mermaid lagoon, in which lounged several young ladies dressed as mermaids. Vance smiled as they passed, wondering how they would fare in the harsh desert sun. It was before eleven in the morning, and only a sliver of shade still fell in front of the building, but Vance stepped gratefully into it.
They joined a line of people heading into the building. Many of the people coming to Comicon had put on costumes for the occasion, and they waited in line amid Transformers, Hello Kitty, and lots of superheroes. Vance put his daughter down and stretched his tired arm. “Is there a different line you can go in because you’re working here?” Tabitha asked him.
“I don’t think so,” Vance said with a shrug. “They didn’t mention it in orientation last night.”
Tabitha stepped closer to him and gave him a squeeze, then stepped back and tilted her head up for a kiss. “Thank you so much for volunteering here,” she said after he’d kissed her. “Claire and I are so lucky you do things like this for us.”
Vance smiled at her. “I’m just happy they give event passes for the families of the volunteers,” he said. “I know how much you like these things, but the prices are a little steep for a common garbage man.”
“Truck driver,” Tabitha corrected. “The truck happens to pick up and drop off garbage, but you’re a short-run truck driver.”
Vance laughed. “If you say so.”
The line passed much more quickly than it had looked like it would. The security people inside were putting only minimal effort into their task, spot-checking bags here or there and waving people past. And good thing, too, Vance thought. With any actual security checking, the line would have been impossible. Instead, they were inside within a minute.
Just inside the door, they saw a wooden cutout of the giant actor Vernon Downs, dressed in the space barbarian costume for his role as the villain in the second Solar Flare movie. Vance noted that the costume even included a large sword, and he wondered how useful that would be in space. He had seen all the Solar Flare movies, but that had been years ago.
“He’s not that big in real life, is he?” Tabitha asked him.
Vance looked at the cutout again. He drew himself up to his full height of six feet, but he estimated the cutout of the giant still towered at least a foot over him. “No,” he said. “Can’t be.”
Bold printing on the bottom of the cutout listed the next day’s date.
“He’ll be here tomorrow,” Tabitha said. “Would you like to meet him?”
Vance looked at the hulking giant and smiled. “Sure,” he said, “I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy.
The line pushed them further inside. In front of them now, in front of the food court, was a circular information kiosk. Above it hung a large banner with black and yellow letters in a comic book font: Welcome To Comicon.
“Do you have time to go to the exhibitor floor with us?” Tabitha asked.
Vance looked at his watch, made a face, and shook his head. “My shift starts in a few minutes.”
“It’s a long shift today, right?” Tabitha asked.
Vance nodded. “I need to pull sixteen hours total, and I want to get most of them out of the way today so I can enjoy tomorrow and Sunday with you and Claire.”
Tabitha smiled at him, her brown eyes twinkling. She already knew this. “Okay,” she said. “But you’ll have time to meet us for dinner, right?”
“I think so,” Vance said. “They have to give us a dinner break, right?” He bent to give Claire a hug, and she hugged him back. “Be good for your mom, okay, honey?” he said.
“Okay, Daddy,” she said, giving him a smile that showed she’d inherited her mother’s twinkling eyes.
Vance straightened. “Okay, honey,” he said. “I’ll see you later. Do you know where you’re going?”
“Doctor Who panel,” Tabitha said to him with a smile. “First of six.”
“Wow,” Vance said. “Sounds like fun.” He gave them a wave, and as he turned to go, he heard his daughter call out to him.
“Daddy,” she said.
He turned back to her.
“If you see any zombies, don’t be scared,” she said, “because zombies aren’t real.”
“That’s very smart, honey,” he said with a smile. “And you don’t be scared, either, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy,” she said. “I won’t.”
