Chapter 29
Zoey
‘Welcome to Down-to-Earth Mushroom farms!’
Peeking out from the hood of her raincoat, Zoey greeted the group of foragers standing out on the muddy path. As was the case now each weekend, there were a dozen or so of them here for the tour of the greenhouse, a foraging expedition, and then a damp night out under the stars.
With Nick and Zoey working together (and a small investment from one of Terriffany’s VC connections), the farm had become more than just a place that served markets and restaurants.
They ran multiple tours and foraging expeditions a week, introducing visitors and school kids to the mycology life.
Darina had also helped them set up a formal arrangement with Punk Broc, which was a huge help with farm labour – and also meant that Kenard and his punks had some steady funding for at least the next year.
She’d also stressed that in no way should they mention the short-lived smoothie fad that had gripped the city of Portland and its surrounds, and the concurrent virus that was in no way connected.
‘But—’ Zoey had said.
‘In. No. Way. Connected,’ Darina had reiterated.
A task force had been set up to manage the occasional remaining zombie, and numbers remained manageable – although every now and then Zoey read a news article that made her wonder whether perhaps the issue was more widespread than it seemed: the Gen Z stare. The veneers trend. The carnivore diet.
It was a strange modernity, but then it always had been.
Alice’s tail thumped the ground as Zoey walked the latest group of visitors through the farm’s history and warned them about the possibility of a Tannerite detonation during the visit (fifty-fifty odds on that).
Alice couldn’t wait to go racing off into the thickets, showing the visitors the best mushroom spots around the mossy trunks of the huge trees or at the shady bases of the fern-covered hillocks.
But then Alice whined. Zoey glanced up as she felt a gentle touch against her back.
‘Hey, babe,’ whispered Nick. ‘We’ve got one out back. Can you do the honours?’
‘Sure, babe.’ Zoey dropped a kiss on his bearded cheek. ‘You take over here.’
She pushed back her sleeves, revealing not only her vibrant Frog tattoo, but the fresh tattoo of Alice in a field of mushrooms she’d had Joaquin outline in vegan ink.
Then she grabbed her sharps container and her quiver of syringes and strode out towards the back of the property.
There, a zombie hairdresser shambled about, clad in a blood-spattered leopard-print apron and moaning braiinnsss at the pair of rusted scissors she held in one hand.
Her roots had grown out dramatically, and her wavy pink hair had a touch of a mullet going on, but in an unkempt way, not an ironic way.
Poor Nova. This probably wasn’t the hair trend for which she’d been hoping to get the attention of Alternative Hair Magazine.
‘Oh hey, Nova,’ said Zoey, nervously. She glanced around, wondering how Nova had made it all the way across the bridge and up here. A bus? Uber credits? Hitchhiking?
In the several months since the great dezombification, Zoey had encountered a few zombie strays.
There was the couple who’d gone off-grid at Mount Hood, startling her and Nick when they’d snuck out for a midnight hot-tub dip.
The travelling nurse who’d left her smoothie in the fridge for weeks before finally unearthing it in potent, fermented form – she’d pounced on Nick and Zoey while they’d been at the pharmacy getting their flu shots.
But Nova was the first to make it to the farm.
(Tow Truck Guy didn’t count – they’d dealt with him in the ditch outside the gates.) To be fair, Zoey did have a cut and colour in her calendar, but she’d assumed that she’d get a call when it was closer to her appointment.
‘Braaaaains,’ repeated Nova, shambling towards Zoey.
Zoey held up her hands. ‘How about I just …’
Nova dove forward, veneers chomping. But Zoey was well practised at dealing with zombies at this point. She and Nick always carried their ink quivers and sharps receptacles, just in case.
She jabbed with her syringe, sticking Nova in the leg. She depressed the plunger on the needle, unleashing a full dose of the vegan ink into her hairdresser, then leapt back as she waited for the antidote to kick in. Nova blinked, then groaned.
‘Wait, Zoey?’ she muttered, her voice hoarse. She glanced around, rusted scissors clicking in confusion as she tried to get her bearings.
‘You’re on Nick’s farm,’ Zoey explained.
‘Damn, I had the worst fever dream.’ Nova rubbed at her forehead with a grubby hand.
‘I was just going around biting people. Could you imagine! I’m a pacifist – I won’t even shave someone because there’s the possibility of blood.
Your hair’s looking good, by the way. Have you been doing egg-mask recipes at the smoothie shop or something? ’
‘Possibly,’ said Zoey, because she wouldn’t put it past Terriffany to add such a thing to the menu. (With an avocado alternative to align with June’s sensibilities.) ‘Although I sold the shop. I live here these days.’
‘These days?’ Nova recoiled, almost stabbing herself with the rusty scissors. ‘Just how long was I out with the flu?’
‘Long enough for Opal to switch to a side part,’ said Zoey. ‘Do you want me to call you a Lyft? Or maybe show you where the shower is?’
‘Shower first, then Lyft. I want to keep my five-star passenger rating.’
Zoey showed Nova to the farmhouse bathroom, then retreated back to the front of the property, where Nick was guiding the mushroomers into the greenhouse. Steam poured from the door as they entered, marvelling at the shelves of white gold that surrounded them.
‘Ooh, I love a porcini!’
‘Look at those enoki!’
Nick hung back, waiting for Zoey. He frowned when she didn’t give him a thumbs up.
‘How’d the old … you know … go?’ (Nick mimed stabbing a zombie, then the subsequent death rattle of said zombie.)
Zoey sighed. ‘So, I think we have a bit of a problem. It was Nova, my old hairdresser.’
Nick grimaced. ‘Did she recommend you get bangs?’
Zoey shook her head.
Nick sighed. ‘Thank God, because my list of things I hate about zombies is looking pretty full.’
‘But she did say she had a fever dream in which she bit about five hundred people.’
Nick ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Not a fever dream, huh?’
‘You’ve seen those veneers. They’re made for industrial-scale biting.’
‘All right. We’ll let Darina know, and we’ll step up the zombie patrols. And until then, we’ve got—’
‘—twenty acres in the middle of nowhere,’ finished Zoey.
‘I was going to say each other.’
Zoey smiled. ‘All right. Twenty acres in the middle of nowhere to enjoy each other.’
‘And maybe a taller fence,’ added Nick. ‘I’ll apply for permits tonight.’
‘Naturally permits are still a thing during a zombie apocalypse,’ said Zoey with a sigh.
‘It’s just a few smoothie-drinking hipsters who can’t hold their drink,’ said Nick. ‘Hardly an apocalypse.’
Of course he’d put a positive spin on it.
But then, when they had all this, the odd zombie wasn’t so bad, was it?
‘Look at you, all sunshine and rainbows,’ said Nick, when Zoey said as much. ‘Perhaps you’re Frog, after all.’
Zoey smiled. ‘It’s easy to be Frog with you around.’
Nick leaned in to kiss her. ‘Now that is a compliment for the ages. Or at least for my next tattoo.’
Hand in hand, they surveyed the home they were building together. The life they were building together. The two of them, against the zombie world.