DEDICATION
To my sweet Jenny Lee from sunny Tennessee
—J. K.
For Dana and Hagen
—D. D.
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
A Few Months Later. . .
Excerpt from Galaxy’s Most Wanted
Back Ads
About the Author and Illustrator
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
The rain forest buzzed and hummed like it was alive.
Zack Clarke led the way through the damp Madagascar jungle, and his older sister, Zoe, followed close behind. His friends Rice, Ozzie, and Madison trailed along with Madison’s Canadian cousin, Olivia Jenkins, safe between them. Olivia was the key to unzombifying the undead masses—because of her strict vegan diet and obsession with Vital Vegan PowerPunch, her favorite flavor of the ginkgo biloba–infused vitamin water. Madison’s dog, Twinkles, trotted next to them, always on the lookout. The group had to make sure Olivia didn’t get ripped apart by a zombie, or all hope for the cure would be lost.
Their feet squished in the moss-covered ground as they pushed deeper into the rain forest. A high-pitched squawk chattered from above. Zack glanced up as two ring-tailed lemurs swung from branch to branch, then disappeared into the treetops. He wasn’t a big fan of the jungle. There were too many creepy noises: loud, wild cackles and unfamiliar hoots. A zombie could be lurking behind every corner. Or even worse, some kind of deadly zombie wildlife.
Zack hoped that their journey would be over soon and they’d be able to head back to Nigel Black’s lab to mix up the antidote.
Nigel Black was their newfound friend and zombie expert, who had an amazing lab on his private island fortress in the Caribbean. He was an aging ex-explorer who once had his own television show: Nigel Black’s Unnatural Wonders. Just like Zack, Nigel wanted to rid the world of zombies, but only if he didn’t have to leave his island.
Now Zack and his friends were some of the only humans left in the world. And they were definitely the only ones with the know-how to stop the outbreak once and for all.
Zack thought back over the last day and a half, when they had speared the giant frilled tiger shark and brought it back to Nigel—it already seemed like so long ago. The digestive enzyme of the giant frilled tiger shark was supposed to produce a cure that would reverse the mutated zombie virus.
However, after they added the enzyme to the serum, the super zombie antidote still hadn’t worked. Nigel then ran a few tests and had figured out that they needed “one more” ingredient: a special type of African mayfly larvae found only in Madagascar. And so Olivia’s brother, Ben, remained super-zombified back at Nigel Black’s lab.
Rice had a sample of the giant frilled tiger shark enzyme in his backpack, along with an empty container in which to bring back the mayfly larvae to Nigel.
That’s how they’d ended up here, tromping through Madagascar. It was the final stop on their journey to find the last ingredient for the super zombie antidote.
There was nothing they could do until they returned with the sample.
That is, if they returned.
The group had landed in the jungle less than an hour ago and left their plane safely parked on the coast.
Now as Zack trekked through the thick, leafy underbrush with his friends, his sister’s voice startled him and he froze.
“Yo, little bro,” Zoe said suddenly in a fearful voice. “Don’t move. . . .”
“What?” Zack looked back over his shoulder at his sister. “Why?”
“Because . . .” Zoe’s eyes bugged out as she pointed at the top of Zack’s head. The rest of the gang came to a halt behind her. “There’s a tarantula crawling up your shoulder!”
The mere mention of the word tarantula made Zack’s heart skip a beat. He was a huge arachnophobe. He hated spiders so much he couldn’t help but shudder at the sight of a harmless daddy longlegs.
“OMG, it’s a big one!” Zoe shouted.
“Wha—” Zack freaked out and smacked his head over and over, trying to knock the furry-legged spider off him. “Eek-eek!”
“Arf! Arf!” Twinkles barked in response, prancing on his tiny legs.
A burst of laughter erupted from the girls. Zoe, Madison, and Olivia doubled over, giggling like a bunch of maniacs.
“What’s so funny?” Zack cried, slapping himself and wriggling in place like he was doing some kind of weird hip-hop dance. “Get it off me!”
“There’s nothing on your head, dude,” Rice told his best friend. Rice loved pulling pranks, but even he knew when they needed to get serious. At least most of the time he did. “She’s just messing with you.”
Zack stopped his freak-out dance and glared at his big sis, his blood boiling. “Why would you do that?” he asked, knowing he wasn’t going to get a good answer.
“Cuz it was hilarious!” She was still bent over with laughter.
“Enough joking around,” Ozzie said. “We all need to stay focused.” Ozzie was good at taking charge and reminding the group that they had a mission. Zack appreciated that his friend kept them on track.
“Yes, sir, Ozzie, sir!” Zoe straightened up and saluted him.
Ozzie shook his head at her and kept walking.
As they headed inland toward the river, Zack couldn’t shake the feeling that someone or something was watching them.
They were following Nigel Black’s map and directions, which told them that the larvae would be along the riverbank, but Zack still had absolutely no idea where exactly. He hoped that someone did.
“Okay, show me the map. Let’s get the sample and get out of here,” Madison said. “This whole place could be zombified for all we know.”
“Quit being so paranoid,” Olivia weighed in. “We’re on an island. Not a lot of tourists. I think we’re out of harm’s way for a while.”
Zack and Ozzie each shot their buddy a look.
“What?” said Olivia, flipping up the palms of her hands.
“Thanks for jinxing us!” Ozzie and Zack said at the exact same time.
“Hah!” Olivia pointed at them. “You just jinxed yourselves.”
Suddenly Zack heard a rustle in the underbrush and turned his head. “What was that?” He scanned the dark green thicket of the rain forest.
“What was what?” Ozzie asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.
A dozen yellow eyes flashed out of the shadowy spaces between the trees.
“That . . .” Zack pointed to their right.
A pack of six ring-tailed lemurs stalked out of the rain forest, frothing at the mouth, all gibbering like a tunnel full of crazed sewer rats.
Ozzie snapped into fight mode and whirled his nunchaku at the zombified monkeys. “Zack, Zoe, you guys distract them from the right,” Ozzie ordered. “Rice, Madison, you two flank from the left. I’ll go in straight on.”
“What do I do?” Olivia asked.
“You hang back,” Ozzie said.
“Why do I always have to hang back?”
“Because we have to protect you,” Rice said. “You’re the antidote.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Just because I’m a vegan and my blood unzombifies people doesn’t make me some damsel in distress. I can stick up for m
yself. . . .”
“They used to do the same thing when I was the antidote,” Madison said, getting into position. “It was super annoying. But it did save my butt a few times.”
“Okay, guys,” Zoe said, edging away from the zombified lemurs moving toward them. “Can we just get the heck out of here, please?”
“Heads up!” Ozzie shouted as one of the lemurs leaped forward. It hissed and drooled with poisonous spit, baring its bloodstained teeth.
Without hesitating, Ozzie spun around and whipped his arm out like he was snapping a shower towel after gym class. The nunchaku’s chain shot out and clocked the undead lemur, knocking it to the ground.
“Arf-arf-arf!” Twinkles charged at the zombie critters as they closed in. The lemurs paused, not knowing what to make of the ferocious little mutt.
“Twinkles, get back here,” Madison commanded, but the tiny pup barked and snarled. “Twinkles!”
The lemurs crept forward. Their black-and-white ringed tails arched over their heads like scorpions with their stingers about to thrust and stab with poison.
“Arf-arf!”
“Kah-kah-kah-kah-kah!” the zombified primates jabbered.
As the undead lemurs prepared to pounce, something else rustled in the leaves. Zack whipped his head around toward the noise.
Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! A high-pitched whistle sounded from the depths of the jungle, and the zombie lemurs froze in place. They put their grubby little paws over their ears, clutching their heads. Tweeeeeeeet!
Out of the dark foliage, a lone figure emerged.
Tweeeet! the noise came again. Zack recoiled in fear, wondering what this new danger could be.
The figure strode out of the shadows, coming straight toward them. Its hands curled up toward its mouth, which looked like it was full of wooden teeth. Its eyeballs bulged.
Zack squinted, trying to focus on the zombie and assess the threat. Then he realized that this zombie wasn’t a zombie at all but a young girl of about thirteen, holding a flute to her lips.
The piercing note sounded again, and the undead lemurs ran back into the rain forest.
“Could you please not hit the lemurs with your nunchaku?” the girl asked, looking at Ozzie.
“What was I supposed to do?” Ozzie said defensively. “That thing was going to rip my eyes out and eat my brains out of the sockets!”
“He’s right,” Rice said. “Those lemurs had it in for us.”
“I know,” she said. “Zombie lemurs are a big problem here right now, but lemurs are an endangered species. So next time, use this. . . .” The girl tossed her whistle to Zack. He caught it and turned it over in his hand. He saw that it was a square wooden flute made out of reeds, like a panpipe.
“What is it?” Zack asked.
“Made it myself,” the girl said. “It plays at a frequency these undead animals can’t stand. Discovered it by accident. It works on lemurs, most birds, even fossa.”
“What’s a fossa?” Madison asked.
“They’re, like, these really cute cougar things,” the girl said. “But they’re kind of vicious. Even when they’re not zombified.”
“And how do you know so much?” Zoe asked. “Who are you?”
“Oh sorry.” The girl reached out to shake Zoe’s hand. “I’m Nadie.”
“I’m Zoe,” she said, then pointed at her friends. “And this is my BFF, Madison, and that’s her cousin, Olivia. And those little nerd bombers over there are my brother, Zack; his friend Rice; and Ozzie.”
“So what brings you guys here to Madagascar?” Nadie asked.
“It’s a long story,” Rice said. “But we’re trying to find the super zombie antidote to unzombify everyone.”
“And stop the super zombies,” Olivia chimed in. “We already have the regular zombie antidote. That would be me.”
“But right now, we need to get to the mayfly larvae,” Zack added.
Nadie shot them a confused look. “What’s a super zombie?”
“We made them by accident,” Zack explained, “because we wanted to make a permanent antidote. Rice sorta dropped the ball on that one.”
“Hey!” Rice said defensively.
“What?” said Zack. “You did.”
“Yeah, now there are all these weirdo freakazoid zombies running around, thinking they’re smarter than us,” Zoe said. “And they want to kidnap Olivia so they can unzombify the regular zombies and feast on their brains.”
“Are you serious?” Nadie’s eyeballs bugged out of her face. “That sounds like a totally unsustainable ecosystem.”
“Totes,” said Madison, pointing at Nadie. “What she said.”
“Huh? What’s totes?” Nadie asked, looking confused. “You mean like a tote bag?”
“No, like totes . . . ,” said Madison. “Totes magotes? Totally.”
“Oh . . .” Nadie’s voice trailed off.
“You’ll have to excuse them,” Rice jumped in. “They’re speaking Moronese.”
“Yeah,” Zack said. “It’s kind of like English, only way stupider.”
“It’s better than speaking Dorklish,” Zoe snipped, and then turned to Nadie. “That’s their preferred language.”
“I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” Nadie said. “But we should probably get out of here. The jungle’s not safe. Even with the zombie whistle.”
“But wait a minute.” Ozzie stopped them. “We have to get the mayfly sample first, remember?”
“Why do you need mayfly larvae anyway?” Nadie asked, scrunching up her face. “I don’t get how that’s a cure.”
“By itself, it’s not. We need to mix the larvae with the giant frilled tiger shark enzyme so it can counteract the super zombie virus mutation by shortening its life-span and dissolving the Caribbean sea plankton from the Spazola Energy Cola that caused the super zombie virus in the first place . . . ,” Zack said quickly before running out of breath.
“Oh,” Nadie said, considering Zack’s explanation thoughtfully. “That makes sense.”
Madison furrowed her eyebrows. “It does?”
“Sure, but you’re not going to find any mayflies around here,” Nadie said. “They’re way upstream. I can give you a ride if you want.”
“That would be totes amaze—!” Zoe said, then corrected herself. “I mean, that would be totally amazing!”
“Riiiight,” Nadie said. “But we should hurry. The mayfly’s mating season is half over and their larvae are about to hatch. So if you’re trying to get a sample, it’s now or wait another six months. . . .”
Six months? There’s no way we can wait that long, Zack thought. If they didn’t get the mayfly sample back to Nigel as soon as possible, there wouldn’t be anything left for them to save. By then the world might be totally overrun by Uncle Conrad, Aunt Ginny, Cousin Ben’s pirate hordes, and the rest of the super zombies.
“We have to hurry,” Zack said. The jungle was full of undead danger, and the clock was ticking.
Nadie led them back through the gloomy rain forest until they reached her Jeep. They all piled in as Nadie revved the engine. They raced out of the jungle and onto a narrow dirt road that wove through the grassy plains of Madagascar.
“What are you doing in Madagascar?” Ozzie asked Nadie as they drove along.
“Well, my parents are wildlife conservationists and they’re stationed here, so . . . that kind of means I’m stationed here, too. It’s pretty awesome actually. There are all types of cool animals here and I’m allowed to drive. Well, it used to be awesome before everything got zombified, anyway.”
As they cruised across the flatlands, a slew of baobab trees stood tall, raising their tangled limbs to the dark clouds overhead.
“Looks like we’re going to get a free shower,” Nadie said, glancing up at the sky.
“Awesome,” Zoe said, pinching her nose. “No offense, Zack, but you’re really starting to stink.”
Zack lifted his arm and sniffed his armpit. “Am not!”
; “Are, too!”
“So, Nadie, where are your parents?” Rice asked while Zack and Zoe continued their debate over who smelled the worst. “You can’t be the only person on the island.”
“Well,” she said. “I might be the only non-zombie person. I haven’t run into any locals yet who are still human. My parents rezombified and started going berserk. Before anyone knew what was happening, they had bitten a few people and then they zombified and bit a few people and then our whole village was totes zombified except for me. Did I use that right?”
“Totes.” Madison nodded and gave her a wink.
“I corralled everyone I could into the rehabilitation facility and locked it. The rest are quarantined in the pen where we usually keep the sick animals. So they’re safe, for now. Ever since they all zombified or rezombified or whatever, I’ve taken over as wildlife conservationist.”
“Wow,” Olivia said. “It’s amazing you haven’t been bitten yet.”
“I’ve had a few close calls. My trusty whistle got me out of a few scrapes with the fossa,” Nadie said. “But no bites yet.” She crossed her fingers and smiled.
“But wait a minute,” Ozzie said. “How did your parents rezombify if you live in Madagascar? The first outbreak was only in America.”
“We’ve only been here for about six months,” she told them. “Before that, we lived in Michigan. I was lucky enough to survive the entire outbreak, but my parents weren’t so fortunate. We hadn’t eaten anything in days. We came across an abandoned rest stop on the side of the highway. BurgerDog was one of the restaurants. We didn’t know that that’s what was turning people into zombies. I didn’t eat the burger patties. I had chips instead, but they ate the burgers and turned into zombies right then and there. I ran away from them, but soon after, I heard planes zooming overhead and all of a sudden all this pink popcorn rained down from the sky and unzombified everything. It was a miracle.”
World Zombination Page 1