Will Naylor batted first. He’s pretty good. He can really hit a ball when it comes at him fast and high. But the Pirates’ pitcher—that’s Nick Walker, the kid with the mom and the minivan—seemed like he couldn’t get any power behind the ball. He’d pitched against us before, and he was usually okay. That day, not so much. First pitch barely reached the plate. It just rolled the last few inches. Will shook his head. Second pitch was even worse ’cause it was nowhere near the strike zone. I mean nowhere at all near.
Nick was getting this weird, messed-up action in his arm. Third ball went up, like he was trying to hit a bird or something, but it dropped toward Will, who stepped back and swung. The ball took off toward left field, and Will made it to first base. He looked around, saw the Pirates hadn’t got the ball back, and stole second.
I’m pretty sure he could have gone all the way round, but Will didn’t know that half the Pirates’ outfield was infected with the zombie-bite. They weren’t fully into grabbing and biting yet, though.
“It seems like it takes a while,” said Jermaine. “Like the little girl in Night of the Living Dead.”
I thought back. There was a sick kid in the movie who turned into a zombie and started eating her dad. He’d been pretty much a jerk through the whole thing, I have to admit, so I didn’t feel bad for him. But Jermaine was right. Earlier in the movie she was just sorta ill.
Our second batter was up. John Walters could hit ’em hard. But Nick’s pitching was getting super-crazy now, and John walked. Same thing happened with the next Tiger at bat, Gary Peavyhouse. Gary just laughed as Nick’s pitches came at him like he was a kindergarten kid playing T-ball.
Some of our guys were jeering at Nick. Some of the Pirates were booing their own pitcher. I’d have felt bad for him except for three things:
First off, you never feel bad for the other team. Not while the game’s on, anyway.
Second, the whole zombie thing. Hard to feel sorry for a zombie who can’t pitch.
Third, I was up to bat. I was gonna hit a home run.
KYLE: Okay, so the field was overrun with the undead, and you’re concerned about hitting a homie?
LARRY: Homer. We call it a homer.
KYLE: So it was just another Little League game, only with zombies on the opposing team?
LARRY: It was a chance to really win big! I mean, their catching and fielding just sucked. If I could just hit a ball, we had bases loaded. That’d be four runs in the first inning—a grand slam! That’s a heck of a start to a baseball game.
10
I’m not sure if I said this already, but I’m a lefty. I hit left-handed. I write and eat and brush my teeth left-handed too, but that doesn’t really come into the story. So, if I get a good swing, I can really surprise the opposing team by putting the ball into either right or left field, depending.
I was gonna get a real good swipe at that ball.
Nick pitched, and it went waaaaay over to my right. About knee height as well. Ball one.
Nick tried again. He wound up, but dropped the ball. It wobbled forward about nine inches. Umpire signaled ball two.
Third try just dribbled along the ground. It was sad. I’d figured the Pirates’ coach would take Nick out of the game before he let it get this bad. I was amazed he hadn’t done it already. Probably because their second-string pitcher had only just turned nine years old, was three-feet ten-inches tall and had forgotten his glasses.
No, seriously. We’ve played them before.
Nick was still on the mound. He squinted at me. His eyes were bloodshot. He opened his mouth in a crazy kind of grin. He wound up the ball and delivered it right at me.
At about half his normal speed.
I slammed it straight into left field. It went waaay far, and I dropped the bat and took off for first base. Will had made it home, and John and Gary were pumping around the bases. I made first, but I saw that one of the zombie van kids had picked up the ball and then dropped it. I kept going. The kid stumbled around and fell over. I headed for third.
Then someone stepped in front of me.
Alex.
He had those arms stuck out again, and he was moaning, “BRAIINNNSSS!!!!”
One of the fielders took up the groan. “BRAIINNNSS!! NNGAARRRGGGGHHH!!!!”
The umpire was signaling something, but it’s not like zombies worry about the rules of baseball or anything.
So I dropped my shoulder left, like I was gonna run in front of Alex. As he staggered forward with his teeth showing, I took off to my right and cut behind him. I might have caught his ankle with my foot, but I’m not admitting to that. He tripped, spun around and almost grabbed me as I sprinted past him. I’m lucky that he was trying to grab with his glove. He couldn’t get a grip on me.
I made it past third.
ZOMBIE TIP
Baseball gloves are designed for catching a ball, not grabbing a player. Not that you need to know that, unless you are already a zombie.
If you are a zombie, quit reading this book right now. I mean it.
All the Tigers’ parents were yelling. The non-zombie Pirates were yelling. The Pirates’ coach was screaming at his team, ’specially at the zombie fielder who had fallen over again. The ball was lying somewhere out on the field, but I don’t think anyone even knew where it was.
Grand slam!!!! Four–zip, Tigers.
KYLE: You were happy?
LARRY: Sure! I hit a home run with bases loaded! What’s not to be happy about?
KYLE: I mean, weren’t you worried that you were on a field full of zeds trying to eat your brains?
LARRY: Well, I guess I figured that they weren’t going to catch me. I mean, I run pretty fast. And those gloves aren’t designed for grabbing zombie victims.
I gotta tell you, I was thinking that we’d go through the whole batting order and start over again with Will. I mean, how were these guys gonna get any of us out?
I found out how.
The coach took Nick out, but he didn’t put the little nine-year-old in to pitch. He had a new kid, a transfer student who had just come to our school after Christmas. I think he’s called Eric Roof. Anyhow, Eric’s okay. He’s better than okay.
He struck out Jermaine right away. Jermaine’s not the best batter on our team, but I figured he could hit at least one ball. Not that day, it seemed. Oh well.
Then we had the coach’s kid, Joey Chicka, who’s no better with a bat than with pitching. He swung three times, missed them all, and we had two outs.
It was Hunter Jordan up next. He’d laced his too-big shoes up real tight, and there was this serious look of concentration on his face. Hunter was gonna hit that ball, you betcha!
We were all rooting for him. I had my fingers crossed so hard it hurt. Eric was ready to take a third Tiger out (which would finish our inning). He fidgeted with the ball and turned to face away from the batter. You could tell he was thinking about the pitch. But I guess turning around wasn’t a great idea, ’cause he saw that Alex was stalking him. Alex had come up behind him quietly, arms outstretched. From where I was, I saw Eric’s eyes bug out. He turned around again, slung the ball toward Hunter and took off across the field toward the parking lot. Hunter swiped at the ball and it went straight to Alex.
No, it went straight at Alex. Like, right into his chest. And stuck. Umpire called Hunter out.
KYLE: What, the ball was, like, embedded in Alex’s chest?
LARRY: Yeah, like stuck right in like it was mud or something.
KYLE: Was there a noise? Like a “squelch”?
LARRY: Couldn’t hear from where I was.
KYLE: But the umpire declared it was a legal catch?
LARRY: Sure. Rules of baseball. Baseball is pretty strict.
KYLE: But Alex was a zombie!
LARRY: Rules don’t say nuthin’ about exceptions for zombies catching a line drive!
11
It was the Pirates’ turn to bat. Normally the changeover is pretty much what you’d expect: one team goes
off the field and into the dugout; the other team takes up fielding positions. It’s a no-brainer, right? I said this to Jermaine.
“Yeah, but the other team has no brains, Lar. And they want ours.”
He was right. I looked over the whole field.
The Pirates had six guys shambling toward the dugout. Alex was in front, arms out, all “NNGAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!” A couple of the other kids were doing the same thing. One younger boy was chirruping, “BRAIINNNSSS!” in a real high voice. The others were just sorta dopey. Nick fell over his feet.
Wait a minute. I knew Eric had taken off running a moment before. And the catcher had run away from the minivan before the game began, though that didn’t change the number of players on the field. There should have been nine, minus Eric, which equaled …
I had to think about it for a sec.
“Over there!” Jermaine pointed out a body lying in the outfield. “He fell over and couldn’t figure out how to get up again!”
Not too smart, these zombies.
“And there—there’s another one!”
I looked to where he was pointing. Another boy was running like crazy through the parking lot toward the highway.
ZOMBIE TIP
Although you may have been told to “finish what you started,” there’s no point in making it even easier for the zombies to get you. In case of a serious threat of ghoulish attack, you are best advised to leave your vegetables, give up on your spelling test, or—in this case—run away from a sporting event in which you are participating. It won’t go on your Permanent Record.
None of the adults noticed a thing. Our coach was arguing with our players. The Pirates’ coach was yelling at his players. He was shouting real loud because most of them were just not listening to him.
“He doesn’t get it,” said Jermaine. “You can’t make a zombie follow instructions. They are mindless brain-eating creatures.”
I guess that was true but, all the same, the Pirates were getting ready to bat. Even the mindless brain-eating creatures. Maybe zombies just like to play baseball. I know I do.
KYLE: That makes no sense at all!
LARRY: What can I say?
12
I’m not about to tell you all about the first couple of Pirate batters up. I can only say that Joey Chicka enjoyed the best pitching he’s ever done.
Not that Joey could pitch worth a lick. He could throw at a tree stump and give the thing a walk. If he gets one ball out of three anywhere near the plate, it’s a good day in baseball for Joey and his dad.
But, first guy came out, stumbled around, Joey pitched, guy fell down. Umpire signaled he was out.
Second guy stood there, waving his bat like he’d never seen it before. Struck out as soon as Joey threw the third pitch. Guy tried to bite a kid carrying water and staggered back to the dugout. Thing about these zombies was—far as I could tell—when they first turned they were just dopey. Slow, stupid. Like, undead but draggy. It took a while before they got all “NNGAARRRGGGGHHH!!!!” and started attacking people. I’m not counting the water boy as a real attack. Kid just stepped out of the way and gave the batter a dirty look.
Dirty looks won’t get you far with real motivated zombies, I can tell you.
ZOMBIE TIP
Larry’s right. Smart remarks and writing stuff about them on bathroom walls have no effect on zombies, either.
And talking of which, Alex was up third in the batting order.
Joey was feeling pretty confident now. Too confident. People with no talent should never get too confident. (My tip for the day.)
He pitched. Alex wasn’t really standing like a batter was supposed to. He was frothing and making hissing noises and sorta swaying from one foot to the other. The ball came and he swatted at it with one hand. Really, that’s not legal. I could show you in the rules. Ball connected and went off toward Joey. Easy catch, you’d think. Only Joey’d finally got the message that something was real wrong in today’s game. Soon as Alex hit the ball, he let out this enormous yell (which I recognized right away as “BRAAIIINNNSSS!” although a non-zombie-expert might just think it was a shriek of pain). Either way, Joey’s great day on the pitcher’s mound kind of—what’s the word—evapeerated?
KYLE: Evaporated. Like the milk. I guess.
LARRY: Yeah, whatever. Evaporated, then.
Joey ran like heck, so nobody was there to make a real easy catch. Not that I think that part really mattered, because Alex did not drop the bat and run to first like he should have. He stumbled across the diamond, ignoring first base. He was headed straight for Jermaine, who threw his cap right in front of Alex, sorta like a bullfighter, you know? Alex swung the bat at Jermaine’s cap and hit it. Or he might not have. Doesn’t matter much—it’s only a cap. Can’t turn a cap into a zombie cap. Either way, Alex dropped the bat, tripped over his own leg and sorta veered off in my direction.
Dang, he was coming right at me!
(Whoops, I guess that’s a bad word. Can you edit that part out?)
Anyhow, Alex had gotten a pretty good bit of speed for a shambling corpse. Or maybe it just seems that way when a ghoul is coming for you. I felt like I was rooted to the ground. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. I was a goner. I was lunch. I was ten seconds from being a zombie—
And then Jermaine swiped Alex over the head with the bat he had just dropped. Best strike Jermaine Holden ever made.
Alex hit the ground hard. I hit the ground about half a second later. I was out like a light.
13
They were gonna take me to the hospital, but John’s mom told the coach and umpire I’d only fainted, and she’s a nurse, so they had to listen. Which was good, I guess, because they did call an ambulance for Alex, and I did not want to share an ambulance with him, even if he’d been knocked cold by my best friend and second baseman.
ZOMBIE TIP
It’s okay not to want to share an ambulance with a zombie. Or any sort of enclosed space.
Anyway, the coaches and the umpire were having a real yelling match. It was hard to know what they were really arguing about, except that Jermaine was in a whole lot of trouble for hitting an opposing player with a bat. Coach Chicka was shouting that Alex had broken the rules by running right across to second instead of going to first; the Pirates’ coach was upset about the whole skull-smacking thing; and the umpire was mad because the game had sorta come unglued. It was only the bottom of the first, after all.
None of them seemed to have seen that there was anything wrong at the ballpark. I figured the adults couldn’t get their heads around “game abandoned due to zombies on field.”
I guess about half the players had gone home with their moms and dads, and the rest had just run away. Except for those guys hanging around in the dugout with the crazy staring eyes and the drooling and—
Holy %*&^!!!! They got the water boy this time!
Jermaine’s dad pulled up in their Ford Explorer, and we jumped in right away. “Lock the doors and drive, Pop!” Jermaine’s dad’s always in a hurry, so he didn’t argue.
He did seem surprised when we went to the McDonald’s drive-thru and neither of us wanted anything to eat.
“You guys must be getting sick or something!”
Like that was the worst thing in the world.
The worst thing in the world was happening, and none of the grown-ups were catching on at all.
14
We didn’t go to Cheesehead Ed’s Pizza that night. I know that surprises you, cause we always went there after games, but Jermaine said something about being “persona non bratwurst” with the coach, and I really wasn’t in the mood, what with the fainting and the zombie trying to bite me in the face. The grown-ups would only have griped the whole time, anyway. We were up by four when the game got called, and nobody likes that.
So, Jermaine and I were in his room.
“Thanks for … you know,” I said.
He grinned at me. “Yeah, best hit of the season for me.”
I
thought about it. “You are gonna be in a whole lot of trouble with the league for hitting Alex like that. Hitting another player over the head with a bat is a serious no-no. I mean, I think it’s illegal. Like Juvenile Court illegal, not just Little League suspension.”
“Sure it’s illegal. But did you want me NOT to do it? I mean, just tap him on the shoulder and tell him to play nice?” Jermaine had me there.
“No, I mean, I’ll stand up for you. I’ll say Alex was trying to, you know—”
“Bite your face off and rip out your guts with his bare hands and turn you into a living corpse bent on cannibalistic, um, something?”
Yeah. It did sound like stuff you couldn’t say to an adult. Especially an important adult, like a principal or a judge or the tribunal of Little League officials.
“Come on,” said Jermaine. “This is bigger than baseball. We have to do some more research. Someone has to take on the zombies. It’s not gonna be the coaches or the teachers or even the cops. It has to be people like us.”
I was still figuring out this whole “bigger than baseball” thing when Jermaine turned on the TV. He was gonna put a DVD in—Land of the Dead, maybe?—when the “Breaking News!” sign came flashing on. Some local reporter was standing by the side of a highway with a microphone, telling us about an ambulance that had run off the road and rolled down the bank.
“We don’t have a lot of confirmed information, Bob, but it seems the ambulance swerved through the barrier and went down the embankment. The authorities aren’t telling us very much, but a witness said the vehicle suddenly lost control for no apparent reason. No, no sign of any casualties. I’m hoping to talk to the police officer in charge in just a few minutes.”
Jermaine looked at me. I looked at him. His mom brought Pop-Tarts, but we didn’t eat any of them.
Zombie Elementary Page 3