Zombie Apocalypse

by B. A. Frade

  As for us, we weren’t feeling motivated anymore to scare people. We agreed we had had enough of that, and even though we looked awesome and had the same haircut so we looked alike, we decided to be silly instead of scary.

  Tyler and I were wearing everything from the costume shop. We’d had a discussion about whether or not the clothing and stuff might be possessed too, since the lady who gave us the book also gave us the box, but in the end, we decided we were being paranoid.

  We put on the dirt-covered shorts and tattered shirts. Then we dug into the makeup. The fake blood was a little funky, since it was expired. It dried really fast, so I brought the leftover tube in case we had to reapply later.

  “You guys look spooky!” Soon-Yi came to greet us. Her clown costume was classic. She even had a spinning bow tie that glittered under the dance lights.

  Maya had eight large, hairy legs that she controlled by a pull string. She showed us how she’d used bundles of gigantic straws for the leg segments and wrapped them with cheap black fuzz. They moved as if they were joined. Very realistic!

  “I did a lot of research,” she said with a wink before rushing over to greet Eddie.

  There was a costume contest later, and I thought Eddie should win it. He was the best dog I’d ever seen. In fact, he looked a whole lot like the dog that had chased him.

  Thanks to Tyler, everyone else, anyone who had fears, had used their costumes to conquer them!

  Some of the students we talked to at lunch already had their costumes picked out, so we encouraged them to just add one thing to combat any fear they might have. Afraid of snakes? How about a cobra-themed bracelet? Afraid of water? Wear a life preserver! Scared of the dark? Bring a flashlight.

  And they did. We convinced them all. We’d even managed to talk to the teachers who’d be chaperones. Facing fears became a theme for the night.

  Tyler and I stood by the snack table admiring our work.

  “High five,” I told him, raising my hand.

  “Adios, Scaremaster,” Tyler replied, giving my hand a smack.

  There was still the little matter of what it was that scared me, but I put that aside. At least for now, our classmates seemed safe.

  There was a heaping platter of cookies next to the punch bowl. I reached for a celebratory cookie.

  “Hang on,” Tyler said, putting his hand into a hidden pocket at the back of his zombie shorts. He pulled out a handful of Dr. Rasmussen’s pink vitamins. “Mom found these in our drawers.” He handed me one. “She said she was happy we felt better.…” He imitated her voice. “‘But if you don’t take them, I’ll come back to the party and pick you both up.’”

  There was no laughing about it. We both knew she was serious.

  He directed me to pour two cups of punch while he got out his phone.

  “We have to prove we took them.” Tyler laughed. “Stick out your zombie tongue.” We were allowed to have phones at school parties so we could take pictures and call for rides and, in this case, show Mom we were healthy.

  I did. He put a vitamin in my mouth and videotaped me swallowing.

  I did the same for him, and then we both waved at the camera. “Thanks, Mom! Love ya!”

  “Why’d she send so many?” I asked. Tyler had a whole bunch of those vitamins in his pocket.

  “She didn’t,” Tyler said, as if that explained it. At my blank look, he continued, “She insisted I take a couple, but I didn’t want to be typical Tyler the Turtle and end up being late, so I decided to do what Ryan the Rabbit would do. I grabbed the whole bottle and poured them into my pocket.”

  I laughed.

  “Does Mom really think these cure everything on the planet and are harmless too?” I asked, noting what felt like a contradiction.

  “That’s what she said.” Tyler then sent her the videos after titling them “The Cure-All.”

  Once that was done, we each ate a cookie, then went to dance.

  The gym was completely transformed. Flashing lights and disco balls flickered at the center of the basketball court, where the dance floor had been set out. The hoops and bleachers were covered in black fabric. Carved pumpkins, fake gravestones, and plastic skeletons lined the edges of the room.

  “Fantastic dog costume,” I told Eddie, sliding up to him on the dance floor. I moved in slowly. If he was still mad at me, I could dance away.

  He wasn’t mad. In fact, he said, “Thanks for helping me with my fear. Dad’s getting me a puppy!”

  I smiled. This was the best Halloween ever. I rushed to Tyler and grabbed him in a bear hug.

  “We rock, dude,” I said happily.

  “Uh, Ryan.” Tyler pushed me back. “Notice anything strange?”

  It was dark in the room, and the lights were flickering. The DJ was playing a song with a heavy beat.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I was dancing with Soon-Yi—”

  “Wahoo!” I cut in.

  “She’s one of the few people here who can still tell us apart.” He shook his head and went on. “We were having a good time, when suddenly, her eyes went blank. The pupils turned yellow. And she muttered something I couldn’t understand before limping off the dance floor.”

  “Did she pull a muscle?” I asked.

  “No. Look around.” He turned me around so I could see her standing with some other kids by the cookie table.

  Soon-Yi was wearing her clown costume, but now it was torn and dirty. Her arms appeared to be stiff by her sides. Her left leg dragged as she moved away from the refreshments and others filled that space. And she was making this strange sound that resonated across the gym. It was not quite a hum and not a growl but some odd combination of the two.

  “I think she’s a crawler,” Tyler said so softly I made him repeat it.

  “Nah,” I said. “No way.” As the words came out of my mouth, I started taking a closer look. A few kids from my history class were gathering near Soon-Yi.

  One of them was now walking on all fours, like a cat, back arched and arms locked tight.

  “Stalker,” Tyler said. I could hear the panic rising in his voice.

  Maya dropped to the ground and started dragging herself with her upper body.

  “Another crawler.”

  The small group by the punch bowl was growing. Now there were two kids who looked a lot like me and Tyler. They bumped into each other as they struggled to stay upright when their muscles tore away.

  “Boneys?” I asked, and he nodded. I tried to joke, “I think our costumes are better. We’d still win the contest for sure.”

  “Aren’t you afraid?” Tyler asked. He shook my shoulders. “Our classmates are turning to zombies. Doesn’t that scare you?”

  I didn’t know what to answer. I wasn’t scared. I was surprised, a little confused, and intensely curious, but not afraid.

  “You gotta be scared of something.” Tyler’s eyes seemed to say: “Find something. Anything. Fast.”

  I wasn’t scared. I shrugged. “What are they going to do? Eat our brains?”

  “Maybe…” Tyler’s eyes followed Eddie as he dashed past us at top speed. “Runner,” he sighed. Those were the fast-moving zombies in the movies that were the first to attack. “It’s just like the Scaremaster said. Everyone is turning into real zombies!”

  In a flash, Tyler turned and faced me. “Think about it again, Ryan. Are you even a little afraid of our friends turning to zombies? ’Cause maybe if you are, you can stand up to your fear like the rest of us and that’s how we defeat the Scaremaster.” With everyone else facing their fears, it literally was just me who hadn’t faced anything.

  I tried to be scared. I really did. I closed my eyes and trembled. But it didn’t work. I was energized and ready for whatever happened next, but no… I wasn’t scared.

  “I was doing some Internet research last night,” Tyler told me while we backed into a corner where we could hide in the shadows while everyone we knew continued to transform. “Did you know there’s a rare form of brai
n damage that keeps people from having any fears?”

  “Are you saying I have brain damage?” If this was his attempt at a joke, my costume contest one was funnier.

  “No… yes… Just that you might have damage to the amygdala.” He went on. “Which could be why the Scaremaster can’t affect you.”

  I considered what he was saying. Was there a medical reason I wasn’t scared of anything? And if there was, could the Scaremaster’s stories go on forever? That sounded terrifying… but still wasn’t bad enough to shake me.

  “Brain damage, eh? I prefer to think I am just really brave,” I told Tyler.

  “Uh, Ryan.” Tyler grabbed my arm. “It’s time to show me how brave you are.”

  He directed my attention to our zombie classmates, who had now formed a pack. They were moaning, crawling, limping, and dragging themselves toward us. They somehow sensed we weren’t real zombies like them. (I bet the Scaremaster had put that into the story!) And that meant, if they were hungry, we’d make a delicious snack.

  I should have been scared. Zombie apocalypse was a legitimate fear, so WHY WASN’T I SCARED? I wanted to be. Really I did!

  I looked at the zombies and then at my brother. Sadly, I couldn’t face my fears, but if we ever wanted to find a way to stop the Scaremaster, then survival was important. In humans versus zombies, the humans were outnumbered. There was only one thing to do.

  “Tyler!” I shouted over the grunting, howling, humming din. “We gotta RUN!”

  Chapter Nine

  With the exception of Eddie the runner, zombies move slowly. That was the good news. The bad news was that we didn’t know what they wanted and they just kept coming. More and more kids from the dance were turning into zombies, and they all had just one thing on their tiny, mutated brains: Get us.

  Or more likely: Get Ryan. Of course, since we looked identical, the zombies couldn’t tell who was who!

  “I think they really do want to eat brains!” I told Tyler. The DJ was still playing loud dance music, so I shouted over my shoulder at the undead, “I have a malfunctioning amygdala! It’ll taste terrible!”

  That didn’t stop them. We ran into the hallway, but they kept coming and coming.

  Our school’s classrooms each had two doors: one at the front by the chalkboard, and one farther down on the same wall, at the rear by the cabinetry. The rooms were all the same, with both doors leading into the same long, twisting hallway.

  We rushed into a classroom by the main door and out the back door. The zombies, not smart enough to simply wait for us, followed. It was a parade of the moaning living dead, punctuated by the swish-swish of floppy body parts dragging against the industrial carpeting.

  “Where do you think all the teachers are?” I asked Tyler as we bolted past the last classroom on the hallway, around the corner, and into the library. Inside, we ducked behind a tall bookshelf.

  “I don’t—” he started, when we both realized the moaning sounds had doubled.

  A quick peek around the biographies answered my question. The teachers, staff, and dance chaperones were now all part of the zombie swarm.

  “It’s getting crowded in here!” I shouted over the constant hum of gruhhhhh.

  “This way.” Tyler led me to a side door that I didn’t know existed.

  “How?” was all I asked.

  “You don’t come to the library much, do you?” he called out over the racket.

  There was no reason to answer. We both knew it was true.

  We made it back into the main hall and down to the lunchroom only to discover that there were a few zombies already there. It wasn’t because they were smart and knew we’d be there eventually. No, these were the crawlers who had given up dragging their mutated bodies down the hallway after us. They were way too slow, so they’d just parked themselves in the cafeteria, where the food was stored.

  The zombies had the large refrigerator open and were eating everything they could find. There were spilled bins of coleslaw, baked beans, and hot-dog packages all over the floor. The zombies had bitten through the coleslaw and bean containers and were eating the plastic wrappers with the hot dogs.

  “Look,” Tyler said. “If we can keep feeding them, they won’t need to eat our brains.”

  “Your brain,” I corrected, reminding him. “Mine’s damaged.”

  “You’re not giving that one up, are you?” He rolled his eyes. “Let’s feed them!”

  In the movies, crawler zombies were far scarier than they were in real life. In reality, they were my favorite! Even a slow, non-athletic person like me could outrun them. They moved like slugs, slithering along the floor without working limbs. The decayed teeth and yellow eyes were spooky, but I kept my face turned away as Tyler and I stepped over them, moving around the serving counter and into the school pantry.

  “Oof,” I said as I slipped on coleslaw juice.

  Tyler grabbed my arm to stop me from taking a tumble.

  “Thanks, man,” I said, forever grateful.

  Once in the pantry, I began opening a box of crackers.

  “What are you doing?” Tyler asked, seeing me struggle with the wrapper. “Just throw the whole thing out there, and as far away from us as you can!”

  I tossed out two boxes of crackers, which landed near the drinking fountain on the far wall. The zombies scampered toward them, diving over one another for the prize. The winners tore at the cardboard. The moaning increased. It was a cracker frenzy.

  “We’ll never have enough food for them all,” I exclaimed, watching the stream of zombies now flooding in from the library. The entire school had been zombified.

  Tyler checked out our food supply. “It looks like new deliveries come on Mondays. We have leftovers here, which isn’t much.”

  “Gimme anything you got,” I told him, warming up my throwing arm and wishing I was better at baseball.

  “Uh, Ryan,” Tyler said, pushing a box of dry noodles toward me, “we’ve got a problem.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I shoved the noodles out toward Mr. Ramirez, who had just arrived on the scene, leading the zombie teachers’ pack. “Wha—” I started, turning around. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Tyler was holding the Scaremaster’s journal. “It was behind the noodles! But, Ry, I left it at home! I swear!”

  “Figures.” I grabbed the book and opened the first page. “That thing won’t let us go.”

  How’s it going, Ryan? Scared yet?

  We didn’t have a pen, but there were some little mustard packets.

  I tore one open and wrote NO with a yellow finger. I wasn’t going to give in, plus he’d know if I lied. We would defeat him some other way.

  Let’s make this scarier, then.

  I sighed. I wish I knew how we were going to defeat him!

  When I pulled away, I realized there were cookie crumbs stuck to my finger nail.

  “Hey, Tyler,” I started, but didn’t have time to finish. The zombies, most likely thanks to the Scaremaster, had realized that the food was coming from the pantry. They didn’t need me and Tyler to give it to them when it would be so much easier to serve themselves!

  A hundred zombies made their move at once.

  Okay, so I had to admit it, this was frightening. The way they marched or slithered forward as if they were all working together. But then again, I knew they weren’t actually after me and Tyler—they just wanted the food—so I let whatever twinge of fear I might have felt pass over me.

  We ducked under their outstretched arms and ran into the center of the room.

  Tyler had the journal.

  Rachel raised her head from the crowd of zombies and looked at me oddly. Her eyes didn’t seem as yellow as the others’, and yet she was moaning even louder than most. I turned away.

  It was easier not to think of the zombies as our classmates and friends.

  “Where do we go?” Tyler asked, voice high and tight. “Once they eat everything, they’ll eat us.” He knew a lot about
zombies, so I trusted him. “After that, they’ll spread into the neighborhood around school and break into houses to eat other people.”

  I’d seen a movie just like that. It was gruesome. Lots of blood and guts.

  That should have scared me. But it didn’t. “We need to stop them before they eat us, then.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder. We were still in the cafeteria, but the food was disappearing fast. “We can trap them inside,” I suggested. “It’ll buy us time.”

  “Time to do what?” Tyler was sounding pretty hopeless.

  “Figure out how to stop the Scaremaster,” I said. “And turn all our zombie friends and teachers back into normal friends and teachers.”

  We hustled out of the cafeteria and began dragging desks and chairs from the closest classroom to block the doors. The doors were clear, and the zombies were pressing up against them, faces smashed against the glass. It looked like a zombie zoo. I hoped the doors wouldn’t break.

  “We need to keep feeding them until we figure out how to turn them back,” I said, adding another chair to the furniture pile. The zombies rattled the doors. “Maybe there’s more food in the teachers’ lounge? And maybe, if we keep feeding them, they eventually get full, tired, and take a nap?”

  “Zombies never get full!” Tyler shouted at me.

  “Okay, calm down,” I said, knowing he hated when I said that. “You’re the logical one. If there’s no food in the teachers’ lounge, then…” I paused as my damaged brain began to spin. “There are cookies in the gym.”

  “And crumbs in the book,” Tyler said, which inspired me to joke, “Let’s feed the zombies the book!”

  Hang on… it was so clear. Why hadn’t I realized…

  “Dude!” I gave my brother a fist bump. “He’s using the cookies to turn everyone into zombies!”

  “Of course!” Tyler said, feeling super excited to have part of this puzzle solved. “Everyone ate cookies!”

  “There’s a virus in the cookies.” I hit my hand against the Scaremaster’s journal. “Gotcha!”