The road was empty and we walked down the middle of it, my eyes moving constantly, the bag in my right hand and Venna on my left. The street lights burned in long, isolated pools of yellow. Between them the dark sat thick and complete.
"What's your best memory from the plain?" she asked. Her voice was low, almost careful, the way people speak when the dark itself feels like it might be listening.
"I once watched two zombies having sex."
She laughed out loud before she could stop herself, then clapped a hand over her own mouth and looked around the empty street. The sound of the laugh bounced once off the shopfronts and died.
"Seriously?"
"It's the story I always lead with." I glanced sideways at her for a fraction of a second—blue hair catching the nearest street light in a soft, unnatural halo—and went back to the road. "That line has worked on three girls so far."
"It's original. I'll give you that."
