by Gayle Katz
They both ducked into the same alley, waiting for the worker to finish closing up the shop.
Finally, he exited the building and locked the door. He’d forgotten to take his apron off, but he had his backpack on his back.
Charlie and Zan raced across the street, getting honked at by a car that was going a bit too fast. The barista looked up at them, not thinking anything was amiss. Zan rushed forward, grabbing the back of his jacket and his arm. Charlie took his other arm. They pulled him back to the entrance of the coffee shop. At least there was a small alcove where they should have minimal privacy, though it was pretty quiet at night, and nothing much was happening.
“Hey! What’s up?” cried the guy.
“You’re going to tell us where you got the drugs,” said Zan.
“What are you talking about?” he cried out.
“Hey, Z. Let me handle this,” said Charlie.
Zan nodded.
“OK, you’re going to tell us where you got the drugs,” said Charlie.
“What drugs?” the guy asked obliviously.
“The ones you gave John, the drug dealer, in the coffee shop,” said Charlie.
Zan was shaking the guy back and forth and wouldn’t let him go.
“The zrugs,” clarified Charlie.
“OK, OK, you got me,” he said. “Yes, I sold zrugs to John.”
“Good,” said Zan. “Where did you get them from?”
“Nowhere,” said the guy. “We make them here at the coffee shop.”
“Really?” asked Charlie. This was fantastic! Her work was nearly done. Find the source of the zombies and then she could go back to retirement.
“Yep,” he said. “We make it in the back. There’s a tiny storeroom beside the bathrooms you may not have noticed. Say, what are you going to do with me?”
“We’ll beat you up unless you tell us everything,” said Zan.
Charlie pushed her off of him. “No, we won’t.”
“Say, if I give you some zrugs, will you let me go? We’ve got some stored in the back here.”
“No,” said Charlie. “We’re not actually after the zrugs.”
“No?” asked the guy, relieved.
“We actually need to know where you got the zombies to make the drugs.”
“Oh, is that all?” he said. “We’ve got one in the back.”
“What the?” exclaimed Zan, grabbing his arm again.
“Easy,” said Charlie, trying to block her from grabbing him again.
“Yep, in the back.”
“Is it alive? Errr, you know what I mean,” asked Charlie.
“Yep,” said the guy. “You can come have a look if you want.” He took out his keys and unlocked the door. He opened it, and the group walked inside. He flicked on the light switch to reveal the coffee shop.
“Where do we go?” asked Zan.
“This way,” he said. He headed to the back where the bathrooms were located. Beside the two bathrooms was another door with a deadbolt on it.
“My name is Steve, by the way. I’m the barista at the shop here. I’m just trying to get some work experience under my belt and save some cash. I desperately want to get outta this dead end. Unfortunately, that means roommates, so I have to deal with Stan and John a little while longer until I can get my own place.”
“You’re quite the chatterbox, aren’t you?” Zan said.
“Hey, Steve. Anyway…” Charlie shot a dirty look at Zan. “I’m Chi and this is Z,” said Charlie, not wanting to give him their real names.
Steve found the proper key and opened up the door. When it opened, there was a terrible reek from inside. The girls immediately covered their faces.
Steve flicked on the light. The room was quite large, considering it was only a storeroom. “This used to be our back room for events, but the owner decided he wanted to sell drugs instead.”
“Geez, Steve. Couldn’t you have found another job?” asked Zan.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Again, I’m trying to work my way up, making something of my life. Right now I live with two other drug dealers, John, who I give the drugs to, and Stan, who isn’t such a bad guy, but like I said before, I wanna get out of this dead end place. And it helps that they pay me $30 an hour to keep my mouth shut.”
“Wow,” said Charlie, impressed. “Do you think I can get a job here?”
He shrugged, and led them into the back. At the very back was what appeared to be a body bag in the shape of a human. It was attached firmly to the wall. Every now and then the bag rippled.
“I can’t believe you’d keep a human being in here,” said Charlie. “Not only is this ethically unacceptable, but it’s illegal too.”
Zan smiled. “You tell him!”
“Take a chill pill,” Steve said. “We don’t always have one here. This one arrived this morning.”
“So, some guy brings you zombies, and then you extract the blood from their brains to make the drugs?” asked Charlie.
“Something like that,” said Steve.
They watched as Zan unzipped the bag. She pulled the fabric apart. Inside, there was a man, considerably decayed. He tried to lean forward to bite her, but his mouth was duct-taped shut.
“Say, if he’s completely dead, can you still extract the chemicals from his brain?” asked Zan.
“Well, no,” said Steve. “He has to be alive for them to be useful.” Steve looked at Charlie. Then her eyes widened.
“Zan, no!” she cried.
Steve turned to watch as Zan lifted her dagger and plunged it into the zombie’s eye socket. The zombie was soon a hundred percent dead.
“Hey!” cried Steve. “How am I going to explain that to my boss?”
Charlie grabbed Steve’s arm and pulled him from the room. She made him sit down at one of the tables.
“Steve, where does your boss get the zombies from?” she asked.
He had his hands over his face. “Umm, some weird lady comes in with them on a regular basis. One every three days.”
“Weird lady?” asked Charlie.
“Yeah. She has these weird green glowing eyes. Fancy contact lenses, I guess. But sometimes she’d come in without them on too.”
“Steve, I love ya!” she said, patting him on the back. Then she sniffed the air. “What the?”
Zan came running out of the back. “Run! The shop is on fire!”
The group raced from the coffee shop and ran across the street. A loud explosion was heard from inside the shop. The entire building went up in flames. The windows burst and loud explosions were heard as the flames hit the gas pipes.
“Thanks, guys!” said Steve, running down the street. “You’ve saved me from working for that gang owner.” He actually seemed happy. He hummed aloud as he headed for his car.
Charlie was furious. She punched Zan on the shoulder. “Why did you do that?” she screamed at her.
“Relax. We could never have had enough time to search that place. This way, the evidence of zombies is gone, all the drugs are gone, the lab equipment, the formulas. And Steve can lead a happy and fulfilling life.”
“Yeah, except that we still need to find the zleader,” said Charlie.
“Well, one step at a time,” said Zan.
“You know what,” said Charlie. “I don’t need your help anymore. I’m done.” She turned and walked away.
zzz
“I’m really angry at you,” said Stewart. They were in her backyard, far away from the house, so that Gran wasn’t woken up.
“It’s not my fault! She’s crazy,” said Charlie.
“She was your responsibility. And I thought that you wanted to work alone.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. What a mess.”
“And what happened to Owen?”
“Right. He didn’t want to get involved and took off.”
“And you should have gone with him,” said Stewart. “Well, the one benefit is that we’ve put a stop to their drug operation. I’m just really d
isappointed that we missed out on the further opportunity of finding the zleader though.”
“OK, what’s the next step then? It took me a long time to get this far, and it’s led nowhere.”
Stewart paced the yard. “I’ll have to see if there have been any more sightings.”
“Maybe I can go back to the area tomorrow and check out the rest of the businesses, maybe some of the apartments. I think I can gain access to that building with the broken window, unless they’ve fixed it. I’ll bet she’s holed up there.”
“Well, before you do that, let me make some calls first. And I’d be surprised if she sticks around after the fire. She may realize that someone deliberately torched the place.”
“Well, either that or making drugs is dangerous. Could have been related to that,” she suggested.
“Yes, I expect that’s what the police report will say. We will have to see. I’m still not certain how much brainpower a zleader really has. Usually their one goal is power, and to control not only the human population, but the zombie population as well.”
“Same thing,” said Charlie.
They both had a good chuckle over that.
“Well, I supposed I should get at least a few hours of sleep tonight. I hope you aren’t still mad at me.”
“No. I’ll have a chat with Zan. We don’t need anyone interfering in our project.”
Chapter 6
________________________________________
The next week was fairly uneventful for Charlie. She had decided to focus on her schoolwork. While Owen remained friendly, he didn’t want to hang out with her. Zan wanted to hang out, but she declined. She didn’t know how the meeting had gone between Zan and Stewart, but she didn’t care.
It seemed fairly quiet in the city. There hadn’t been any more sightings of zombies.
Charlie felt that it was all a well-deserved rest. Perhaps this was the end of it. Maybe the zleader would go away and she wouldn’t be required to do anything more.
zzz
It was almost too quiet, and while Charlie enjoyed the peace and quiet, she wondered if any progress had been made. She decided to send Stewart a text.
“Any news about the zleader?” she typed. She pressed send.
The answer came back quickly. “None. Maybe someone else did our job.”
“Keep me posted,” she typed.
“CU in class,” he responded.
She headed off to her philosophy class.
“Students, next weekend is our annual camping trip. I hope everyone will sign up. It’s going to be a collaborative type of experience. We’ll leave early on Friday morning, and come back on Sunday night. This is a great time to learn about the great outdoors and become a community.”
Charlie rolled her eyes. Of course, she was in camping world.
The teacher handed out the signup forms.
Owen sat beside her, enthusiastically filling out the forms. “Psst,” he said to her. “You going?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” she replied.
Class finished and they both hung behind.
“Hey, I’m sorry for abandoning you the other day. I heard about the fire. What on earth happened?”
“First of all, don’t worry about leaving. I would have done the same thing if I could’ve,” she replied. She placed her books back into her bag. She glanced up to make sure that the teacher and the other students had left the classroom. “It was crazy. Zan just took charge and did her own thing,” she explained.
“Man, that’s crazy. I see that you two aren’t talking to each other,” he said.
“I’m still furious with her. And Stewart, err, Mr. George was mad at us too. She set fire to the coffee shop to destroy the zombie and the zrugs, not thinking that was only half of our case.”
“Geez,” he said.
“Now all trails have gone dry for finding the zleader, which was our goal in the first place,” she added.
“That’s a drag,” he said. “But I don’t think I could have stopped any of that, even if I had stayed.”
She smiled and nodded.
“I’m looking forward to this upcoming camping trip next weekend. Should be fun,” Owen commented.
“I think it’s stupid, but it’ll be good to have a rest. Interact with nature, instead of horrific creatures,” she said.
“Oh, but you haven’t seen squirrels. You really have to watch those guys.” They both had a good laugh about that.
zzz
The school buses loaded up with students. This trip involved about one hundred 11th grade students, so a fair chunk of the school. Principal Allan oversaw the loading of the buses. He seemed quite pleased with himself.
“We’ve never had such high attendance for our camping expedition before,” he bragged to Zan. She just rolled her eyes.
“Some of us were told by our parents to go,” she commented.
“Grrr!” commented Charlie. “I can’t believe she’s going!”
“Cool down,” said Owen. “Just ignore her. What could possibly go wrong on a camping trip?”
“Right. After all, the zombies are in the city, not in the country, right?”
He nodded.
“Actually, that’s a fact. In my entire history of zombie slaying, zombies are always skulking around in the busiest sections of the city. They like to have a ready food source.”
Owen nodded. “That’s comforting to know.”
“Say, have you been practicing your self-defense skills?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yep. I got some DVDs and everything.”
“Good,” she said. “Because there’s a class in the early afternoon.”
He nodded. “I’ll be there.”
The trip to the campsite took a short length of time. It was near Multnomah Falls. Charlie wished she’d been able to bring her own car, but there were rules.
The students hopped out of the bus, collecting their gear from the stowage compartment at the back of the vehicle.
“This way,” called Principal Allan. “We’ll get everyone settled in at the campsite before we start our classes.”
“Groan,” said Zan. “Can’t even get away from them on the weekend.”
“Good, then you won’t be in mine,” Charlie said to her.
Zan just walked away.
Charlie and Owen headed up to the campsite. There were several small tents set up close to each other.
“Cool,” said Charlie. In the distance, she could hear Zan groaning.
“Hey, maybe we can share a tent?” said Owen.
Charlie laughed.
“What a drag,” said Owen. “You’re right. They won’t let us.”
Charlie was relieved when she didn’t have to share a tent, because there were an odd number of girls. She didn’t know where Zan was, and she didn’t care.
Her tent was situated in the middle of the clearing, beside Owen and Mike’s tent. Mike was one of the other 11th grade students, but she hadn’t really had an opportunity to say much to him.
“Hey, Charlie. This is Mike,” said Owen.
“Hi, Mike. Nice to meet you,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Mike is looking after his mom. She has cancer.”
“Oh, that is wonderful of you,” said Charlie.
“Thanks,” said Mike. “I’m looking forward to graduation this year. Then I’ll have some extra time with her. It’s only a matter of time,” he commented.
“Who’s looking after her while you’re here?” asked Charlie.
“My sister. She’s 16. She can manage for a day or two.”
Charlie and Owen smiled at him.
“OK, so, where’s the food?” asked Charlie. “I’m hungry.”
The group found the cabin with the dining hall in it. The food was fairly basic, salads, mac and cheese, and hot dogs, but it filled them up.
zzz
It was early afternoon when several students met near the bonfire site to participate in a self-defense class. After ten minutes,
the teacher was a no-show.
“That’s odd,” said Charlie.
“Maybe we should just start without him?” suggested Owen.
She smiled. “Listen up, class. I’ve had martial arts training. I can show you some basic self-defense moves until, or if, the teacher arrives.”
Some of the students looked disappointed, hoping that this would be a free period instead.
After a few minutes, Charlie was getting frustrated. She should give a lot more credit to teachers. How did they do it? Here were ten students. Half of them didn’t even want to be here. The other half did, but of these, most of them had trouble following basic instructions about defensive moves.
“OK, whoever doesn’t want to be here, get out. You’re wasting my time,” she yelled.
“But, we need our card stamped for the credit,” protested a guy in the back.
“Then go bother another class,” she said. She was pleased when half the students left. That left just the five, plus her. That included Owen and Mike, who were doing surprisingly well.
“OK, so a zombie is coming up at you from the front. Let’s pretend you have a sharp object in your right hand, or left, if you’re left-handed. Raise your arm to a level with their eye socket. Then take the dagger and plunge it right in,” she recommended.
“Excuse me?” asked Mike. “Zombies?”
“Yes, we’re going to have some fun with this,” she said. “In the event there is a zombie uprising, then we must be prepared.”
Owen raised his hand. “But, what about if we’re attacked by humans? We wouldn’t use as much violence,” he said.
“True,” she said. “But we’ll get to that next. First things first.”
She spent the next half an hour telling them how to defend themselves against zombies. Then she covered attacks by humans, which was a whole lot simpler. When she got their scorecards back, she saw that everyone had given her a ten out of ten.
Their next class was on knot tying, which was somewhat interesting. Charlie thought it would be good to know how to tie up zombies. Everyone took it in good humor.