Zombie Apocalypse

by B. A. Frade

  Chapter Ten

  We didn’t know how to stop the virus, but at least we had a start. We’d discovered the source.

  That was, until Tyler’s full-amygdala brain kicked in. “We ate the cookies too,” he reminded me.

  Okay, so that added a wrinkle. “Maybe the Scaremaster wants to scare us so much, he gave us some kind of protection spell?”

  “Does that make sense?” Tyler asked me. By his tone, it was clear he thought it didn’t.

  “Not really…” I didn’t have time to come up with an alternative because, just then, Soon-Yi smashed her hand through the cafeteria’s glass doors.

  I could see Tyler was torn between wanting to help her and wanting to run away from her.

  I made the decision for him.

  “Run!” I shouted over the very loud zombie sounds that were now echoing in the hallway. “Man, those dead dudes are noisy.” My ears were starting to hurt.

  More shattering glass came from our principal slamming his head through the door. The zombies had broken out.

  Tyler and I only had two goals: Keep feeding them so they didn’t eat us, then leave the building.

  “Can we give them more cookies?” I shouted over the insane din. Fun fact: Movie zombies are never as noisy as the real thing.

  “That’s all we’ve got,” Tyler said. “Cookies and…” He tapped his pocket, “Vitamins.”

  “I don’t think those count as foooooo…” My voice trailed off when Eddie, the fast-runner zombie-dog, grabbed my ankle. “Oof.” He knocked me to the ground, then I was instantly dragged by a stalker zombie wearing a torn-up ninja costume and a vomiter, who promptly puked green gunk on my tennis shoe.

  “Help!” I shouted to Tyler, who was now pretty far ahead of me. He didn’t hear me. “Wait, Ty!” I didn’t want to be zombie dinner!

  Two crawlers crawled on top of me and pinned me down. I guess they weren’t particular about whether the brains they ate were damaged because one of them, a hippie zombie, opened her mouth to reveal the sharpest fangs I’d ever seen.

  I had a feeling flood through me that was completely unfamiliar. Was this fear? All I could do was stare at her sharp incisors as the feeling became more and more pronounced. It wasn’t that she was a zombie… it was those nasty, pointed teeth. She leaned in toward my neck.

  I began to tremble. It was overwhelming, and for a moment, I didn’t know what to do.

  In a panicked move, I shoved back at her with all my might, managing to break away for a second before her friend, a ballerina crawler, pounced and pulled me back down to the hard floor.

  Now they both snarled at me with those same pointed teeth… decayed, brown, sharp, glistening with blood.

  I shut my eyes against them and shrieked, “TYLER!”

  I thought I was a goner, when suddenly I was showered with something crumbly. And sweet-smelling.

  The zombies got off me and moved aside just enough that I could scramble to my feet.

  “Cookies!” Tyler announced, standing there with a giant smile. He was tossing them in the air like confetti. “Delicious cookies! Come and get them!”

  The massive tray was about half empty from the dance, but there were still quite a few left.

  “Thanks,” I told Tyler, because what else is there to say to the guy who saved your life?

  “You’re welcome,” he answered, tossing more cookies in the air.

  “What are we going to do when they’re gone?” I moved closer to him. My heartbeat was finally settling back to normal.

  He gave me a shrug. “There’s punch in the punch bowl?” Tyler was now sprinkling cookies around the zombies as if he was feeding barnyard chickens.

  “Do zombies even get thirsty?”

  That was beyond his zombie knowledge. And I’d never seen movie zombies stop for refreshments. Tyler shrugged again.

  As he was getting close to the bottom of the tray, I started to worry. “We can open lockers to see if anyone forgot their lunch,” I suggested. “And we still haven’t checked the teachers’ lounge. I know they have coffee.… Maybe there are stale donuts?”

  “It won’t be enough,” Tyler said. Some of the zombies weren’t finding whole cookies anymore, and battles were breaking out over the few that remained. “Another problem: We only have about an hour before parents come for pickup!”

  I couldn’t even wrap my head around Mom walking in on this supernatural disaster.

  Tyler and I were gradually being backed into a corner as the zombies crept toward us, looking for more to eat.

  The tray was now empty.

  “I guess we’re going to become one of the pack,” I said, feeling like this was the end. “Think Mom will be mad if her kids are zombies?”

  “I’m sure she’ll immediately ask Dr. Rasmussen to invent a cure.” Tyler said, and in that moment, we both turned to each other and shouted in twin time, “That’s it!”

  To get away from the zombies gathered around our feet, Tyler threw the silver cookie tray. It made a loud clatter at the end of the hall, and some of the zombies headed toward it to see if there were any more crumbs. Others stayed put, but it was enough of a distraction that we managed to break away and fly to the gym like our feet were on fire.

  It was depressing. All the decorations had been torn down. The lights still glowed and the music played, but no one was dancing. The DJ must have eaten cookies too, because he’d come in a suit and now looked like he’d risen from the dead. Still, he manned his post at the turntable and continued to announce the next song in slurred uuhs.

  Tyler and I got to the punch bowl before anyone, even Eddie. He’d gone after the clattering tray, which bought us a few minutes before his inevitable realization that we’d gone.

  There were ten of Dr. Rasmussen’s Cure-All vitamins in Tyler’s pocket. He crumbled them up and dropped the entire collection into the punch bowl with a splash and started stirring with the ladle.

  “We ate the cookies but didn’t get the virus,” he said, voicing what we’d both figured out.

  “I’m guessing Dr. Rasmussen doesn’t know that his cure includes the zombie virus,” I said. “If this works, we should tell him.”

  “It’s an untouched market,” Tyler said. “He’d make millions.”

  There was a crazy-loud clang as the zombies began entering the gym. The moaning and the music and the scrape of dragging legs filled the room.

  Assuming our new drink concoction worked to cure the virus, we only had one last problem to solve. How were we going to get the zombies to drink it?

  Chapter Eleven

  “We have to search for donuts,” I told Tyler. “It’s our only hope.”

  “There’s no time,” he replied. The zombies were surrounding us.

  “Sacrifice yourself?” I suggested, but after seeing the horrified look on his face, then said, “Just kidding.”

  I actually had a plan.

  “Remember how we were going to switch places at the dance?” I touched my new short haircut. “No time like now.”

  Tyler didn’t have time to consider it.

  He stayed at the punch bowl, shouting, “Fresh, delicious brains,” while I ran to the entrance of the gym. I was counting on the fact that zombies couldn’t think clearly. And that they couldn’t process that there were two of us, even though most of them knew us personally, plus having just seen us together moments ago in the library and cafeteria!

  When they got close to Tyler, I whistled the family whistle and shouted, “Hey, lame brains!”

  It wasn’t enough. They were still gathering around Tyler. I saw the two girls with the sharp teeth working their way to the front of the crowd.

  I was going to need something louder to attract their attention. I hurried to the DJ stage and grabbed his microphone. “Follow me!” I shouted through the speakers, then whistled again. The zombies—all of them—turned toward me, and when I bolted to the door, they took off after me.

  I made it as far as the lockers before I need
ed help.

  How did Eddie get to be a runner? That was my first thought as he knocked me down again. He wasn’t usually athletic! My second thought was to be grateful that he was the only fast one. I’d have lost my brains long ago otherwise.

  I fell to the ground and scrambled to get up before the other zombies reached me. One ankle biter nearly had my toes when Tyler appeared by the library doors.

  “Hey, creeps! You can’t catch me.” He whistled, then slammed his hands against the library doors, making a racket before dashing off.

  We had to swap places one more time before I made it to the teachers’ lounge. I was concerned about leaving my brother in the hallway with a hundred hungry zombies, but he waved me off.

  “Go!” Tyler shouted. Then, having learned from our previous experience, he started ducking in and out of classrooms in a serpentine fashion. The zombies followed him into the front classroom doors and out the back. It would have been funny, if it wasn’t so dangerous!

  “Protect your fancy brains!” I shouted at Tyler as I opened the lounge door.

  Coffee. Creamer.

  A pink box! I was so happy I could sing. Then I opened the lid.

  There was one crummy donut left. And it was the gross kind with coconut topping.

  This was a real-life nightmare.

  I started tossing school supplies, teaching manuals, and paper plates onto the floor as I went from cabinet to cabinet, hoping to find something edible.

  I was ready to feed the zombies a kindergarten diet of construction paper and paste when I found what I needed behind a stack of mugs. Two big bags of potato chips. The bags were a little dusty, but the chips would soak up the punch and I didn’t think the zombies would care if they were expired. If they’d eat brains, who’d complain about stale potato chips?

  I took the bags, then told Tyler to reverse course back to the gym.

  He got to the snack table first, while I had to fight off Mr. Ramirez, who had grabbed my waist. With my free hand, I tossed Tyler the bags. He opened them and dumped the chips into the punch bowl.

  Tyler was grabbing soggy potato chips by the handful out of the punch bowl and throwing them at the zombies when Mr. Ramirez suddenly let go and dove for Tyler instead. It was in that moment I remembered the guy was also the basketball coach. He was fast and fit.

  Tyler went down with a crash and a loud “ouch.”

  But worse than the fact that he’d have a bruise on his butt was that the coach knocked over the table. The punch bowl teetered, as if in slow motion, then slammed to the floor, spilling punch-soaked potato chips everywhere.

  Every zombie in the school went crazy. They were slipping in punch, stepping on chips, sliding all over each other, and growling with bared teeth as they put their faces to the floor and lapped up the last remaining food in the building.

  Tyler managed to get up, holding his butt. He carefully stepped over the zombies, walking through chip gunk, and made his way to me. “If this doesn’t work, we’re doomed.”

  There was no way that either of us was going into that undead slippery pile to make sure everyone got a treat.

  So we stood by the side, as far out of the way as we could, and hoped that no parents arrived early for pickup.

  “Should we leave?” I asked. “Save ourselves?”

  As long as the zombies were having a juicy potato-chip picnic, we could make a dash for the door.

  “Common sense says yes,” Tyler answered. I knew what that meant. Curiosity meant we should stay.

  We stayed.

  We wanted to know what would happen. Besides, if the cure-all didn’t work, we’d be zombified anyway. We’d never get far enough away that Eddie couldn’t catch us and drag us back again.

  Soon-Yi was the first one to stand up from the zombie pile. She rose, licking her lips, which were pink from the punch. In the light from the disco ball, I could see her eyes tracing the room.

  “I think she’s looking for us,” Tyler said, pulling me back into the shadows.

  “I think she’s looking for you,” I replied, and then spontaneously shoved him into the light.

  Her eyes immediately caught his.

  “Oh, that was a bad move,” I said, trying to drag him back. “I think maybe we should make a run for it. It’s our only chance!”

  “No.” Tyler pulled his arm out of my grip. “It’s working, Ryan. The cure is working.”

  Soon-Yi still looked like a zombie to me.

  “She recognizes me,” Tyler explained. “She’s not brain-dead anymore. She knows who I am!” He was more excited than I’d seen him since the day she’d first asked what page we were on.

  Gradually, other kids stood up from the floor. Maya glanced around, looking confused. I heard her ask Rachel, “Is this a new dance?”

  Rachel gave me a hard stare from across the room. I couldn’t wait to hear what tales she’d tell on Monday.

  It wasn’t just that people were getting their heads back together, but the yellow in their eyes was fading, their arms were working, their legs stopped dragging, their fangs disappeared, and the costumes that had gone all zombie were back to being clean, pristine, and looking as if the last two hours had never happened.

  “Ryan, look!” Tyler drew my attention to the DJ, who was wandering around by the stage. He was still a zombie!

  “We need to get the cure to him, or he might spread the virus all over again,” I said, but it looked like the chips were gone and there was no way we’d get him to lick the floor to get a last drop of punch.

  “Maya!” Tyler rushed over to her and asked if he could have a part of her spider arm. She didn’t understand, but he promised to give it back.

  The zombie DJ began to wander through the room. He hadn’t eaten all night, and I wondered whose brains he would pick first. If the Scaremaster were still telling the story, it would most definitely be mine.

  Tyler handed me one of the straws that made up Maya’s spider arms.

  I scraped potato goo from the bottom of Tyler’s shoe and make a spitball from it.

  “You have to have perfect aim,” Tyler warned me. “One chance.”

  I took a deep breath. I had to wait until the zombie came toward me, his mouth wide open. I could smell his rotten breath.

  “Are you scared?” Tyler asked. “Maybe this is what we’ve been expecting all night?”

  “I… no… I…” I pushed away a small thought that was forming at the back of my head and lifted Maya’s straw arm to my mouth.

  “Face your fear!” Tyler shouted at me.

  I let the zombie get a few steps closer. When he bared his decayed teeth, I shot the spitball into his mouth.

  He swallowed hard.

  It wasn’t clear at first whether it had worked, but then the DJ suddenly backed away from me and, just like that, he was back at the turntable.

  The teachers wandered the edges of the room, back to being the chaperones.

  Everyone paired up to dance.

  There were no more snacks and the floor was sticky with punch, but no one cared. The DJ changed tunes, and as the music got louder and faster, everyone began to rock out.

  “We beat the Scaremaster!” I cheered.

  “Was it the last zombie that did it?” Tyler asked, but then answered his own question with a laugh, “A hundred zombies attacked, and it turned out you were afraid of the DJ!”

  I didn’t laugh because back in the hallway, and again facing the DJ, I’d realized there was something else. The Scaremaster had indeed uncovered my biggest fear. I just didn’t know if he knew what he’d done.

  I shook off my suspicions.

  Now wasn’t the time to think about what the Scaremaster had or hadn’t done. I didn’t want to think at all.

  Now it was time to dance!

  Tyler and I jumped into the middle of the dance floor, not worried this time that we’d be tackled.

  We danced for a few songs and then noticed that it was almost time for the party to end. The teachers had
forgotten about the costume contest, which was fine. Everyone who had faced a fear that night deserved the prize.

  I pulled Tyler to the side. We had a few things to do before Mom showed up.

  I was pretty sure that Mrs. Clancy would find out about the mess in the cafeteria and the hall, and had no doubt that somehow Tyler and I would get blamed.

  “I’m not afraid of detention,” Tyler told me.

  “It’s not so bad,” I said. “We can pass notes.”

  “But no telling stories.” Tyler gave me a small smile.

  “No stories,” I agreed.

  Tyler had stashed the Scaremaster’s journal behind the DJ station when he’d first come back to the gym to get the cookies. He went to get it.

  Rachel stopped him on the way back across the room. I rushed over there to find out what she was saying. The last thing we needed was her reminding everyone that there’d nearly been a zombie apocalypse at school.

  “So,” she said as Tyler tried to hide the book under his shirt, “is that really the Scaremaster’s journal?”

  “Huh?” Tyler and I looked at each other. I knew what he’d say later—it was statistically impossible that we hadn’t just heard the same thing.

  “My cousin went to summer camp. She came home talking about a book whose stories came true,” Rachel said. “It’s just a rumor, though. No way what she said actually happened.” Rachel pointed at the book, which was a big square lump under Tyler’s shirt. “I hate rumors,” she said. “Don’t you?” Rachel raised an eyebrow. “By the way, I’m allergic to chocolate.” She winked and walked away.

  “Does that mean she didn’t eat the cookies?” Tyler asked me.

  “She’s smart! She stayed safe by pretending to be a zombie,” I said, adding with a laugh, “I’m starting to really like her.”

  We were dressed like zombies, but we’d never actually acted like them. From the moment we had realized what was going on, we’d run. I wondered what would have happened if we’d joined the moaning pack instead.

  It also crossed my mind to wonder whether there were other kids who’d faked their transition. Who else might have avoided the cookies? Was anyone allergic to other ingredients? I had a vibe that Eddie might have avoided gluten, but I couldn’t remember for sure. Hmmm. Very interesting…