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three, zombies don’t eat faces, they eat brains.”
    â€œHow do you know?” Tripp challenged. “You’ve never even seen a zombie.”
    â€œAnd you have?” Priya asked.
    â€œYeah, in like a hundred movies and stuff.”
    I slapped my hand over my forehead. You always knew Tripp was going to lose an argument when he started adding “and stuff” to the end of his sentences.
    â€œSeriously, Tripp, you watch way too much TV.” She turned to me. “But you can’t possibly really believe he’s a zombie.”
    â€œAll I know is he was very creepy. I’m pretty sure he’s related to the Grim Reaper. His name is probably Mr. Death. And he wasn’t just holding the box and bag, he was
taking
them somewhere. Out there.” I pointed toward the tree line. Priya’s forehead scrunched up as she considered it.
    â€œMaybe it was just trash and he was littering,” she said. “He is moving in, after all. When my aunt moved, she had tons of trash.”
    â€œStill a criminal,” Tripp said triumphantly. “Just like I was saying.”
    Priya held up a finger. “One, a litterbug is not exactly the same kind of criminal as a murderer. And two, you weren’t saying he was a criminal, you were saying he’s a zombie.”
    â€œI’m pretty sure it’s illegal to eat people’s faces, Priya,” Tripp said.
    â€œBrains! Brains, not faces!”
    They continued to argue, but I tuned them out, concentrating instead on Mr. Death’s house. I saw movement behind the curtains in one of the back rooms. I knew that room from going in and helping Widow Feldman move a TV once. Mrs. Feldman had always hung sheer white curtains back there, and when the weather was nice she’d open the window and you could see the curtain fluttering in the breeze. But now the window was covered with heavy curtains, and they were pulled together tightly.
    But there was definitely movement behind them.
    â€œYou guys,” I whispered. But they didn’t stop arguing, so I said it louder. “You guys! Look!”
    They both stopped, and all of our eyes were glued to the curtains as they went from slight fluttering to more notable rippling.
    â€œDo you think he’s watching us?” Priya asked.
    â€œWhat are you scared of, Priya, if he’s not a zombie?” Tripp asked, but you could hear it in his voice—he was totally scared, too.
    â€œShut up, Tripp,” I said. I squinted harder. Harder. Harder.
    And then suddenly the curtain was yanked backcompletely, and Mr. Death’s pale face and penetrating eyes were staring right out at us.
    We all screamed and grabbed at one another, then scrambled back through my bedroom window.
    Well, Priya and I scrambled. Tripp … tripped.

4

The Black Hole of Las Vegas

    One night, a few weeks later, I was up in CICM alone. I’d come up with an idea about refracting the light off a closer mirror in order to get a brighter flash, and I wanted to try it out. I strapped a couple of old compact mirrors that Mom donated to CICM onto the sides of the flashlight and clicked the button a couple of times. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like the beam got brighter.
    And that’s when I heard noise coming from around the side of the house again. Quickly, I snapped off the light and shimmied backward. Now that Mr. Death definitely knew about CICM, I was afraid that he’d use his superhuman zombie climbing powers to scale the side of my house and eat my face off before I could even cry for help.
    Not really.
    Okay, yeah, really.
    The point was, I didn’t want to get caught.
    I held my breath and prayed that he couldn’t hear my heartbeat. I watched until my vision got grainy and I wasn’t sure if he was moving or if I was just seeing things. There were more noises and maybe a meaty smell, but I couldn’t be sure, and then just as he rounded the corner and our