Zombie Elementary

by Howard Whitehouse

  All the zombies turned around. I guess we got their attention all right. Francine took the opportunity to knock down a couple while nobody was looking.

  Chucky had this crazy look in his eyes. “Come on, kid! Do yew wanna live forever?”

  Um, yeah, kinda—

  But I followed him as he ran forward and held the chainsaw out and circled it in front of him.

  BUZZ!!!!

  The zombies all put their hands over their ears. It was the first thing I’d seen them do quickly. Then they all shrieked. And, slowly—because they were zombies, like I said—they all ran away from the chainsaw. At least they fell back maybe forty feet. Just so the sound wasn’t so loud.

  Chucky was mad at them. “Come here where ah can chop yew into pieces!” he yelled.

  I looked at Jermaine. He looked back at me.

  “We never told him—” he said.

  Jermaine was right. We had told Chucky all about the outbreak and the cheerleaders and the playground, but we forgot the part about meeting Mr. O’Hara and how zombies hate the noise of a chainsaw. Also the part about how we were supposed to just knock the zeds on the head so they could be cured later, maybe, we all hoped.

  But Chucky wanted to slice and dice the zombies into a million little bits of slimy, green gunk and crunchy bones and—

  I thought I was gonna throw up right there, in the mall parking lot.

  No, I wasn’t. I was gonna hit these three zombies who were swarming around me first. Then I was gonna stop Chucky before he really took the chainsaw to a zombie.

  And then maybe I’d throw up.

  ZOMBIE TIP

  There are many reasons why the chainsaw is not an ideal tool for zombie slaying, but we’ll just mention right now that being sprayed with zombie goop is high on the list.

  33

  I can’t really say what happened next.

  First off, Chucky was wielding his chainsaw like this was the best day of his life. He was laughing. He was hollering. He swore he was gonna spray zombie parts all across the parking lot. If he caught any, there’d be a lot of unhappy shoppers coming back to their cars. But he wasn’t having any luck, since they kept running away. Well, not running. You know.

  Second, Francine still had a crowd of zeds surrounding the hatchback, and she was cutting down the numbers pretty darn good. Thwack!

  And then there was me.

  I had a baseball bat, a weak stomach and a patch of tarmac with white parking spaces painted over it. Not good.

  So I jumped onto a parked car—it was a sedan, so shoot me. It was not like I had time to choose a better one, what with the three zombies coming right at me all “NYAARRRGGG!” and “BRAIIIINNNSSS!!” The one in front was a lady in a church hat, you know, pink and flouncy, which went with her mostly green face. She grabbed at me as I leaped up, moaning something like “Not so faaaaassstttt yung mannnnnnn!!”

  Okay, I might have been imagining that part.

  I half turned and caught her with the bat. Oof! She swung her purse at me as she fell over. Then I was up on the hood, taking up my batter’s stance, and swung as a guy in a gray suit with blood all down the front pounced at me. He had big white teeth and wanted to use ’em on me. I connected real hard, and his head went flying across the lot.

  I didn’t feel bad about him. I wasn’t going to fetch his head and match it with his body.

  The church lady was up and shaking her fist at me. Suddenly her whole arm came loose and just slid out of her sleeve and plopped on the pavement. Dang! While I was watching her, the third zombie came up and—oh—grabbed my bat. Guess I got distracted.

  I tried to yank it back. The zed was strong. He was wearing a tank top with the name of some gym on it. I guess he was a member. Used to be a member.

  I was in trouble now.

  I did something I’d never normally do. I dropped the bat and took off.

  The zombie didn’t follow right away—maybe he was trying to figure out how come I wasn’t on the other end of the bat anymore—but Church Lady Zombie did. She was waaay faster than I expected. Only had one arm to grab at me now, though, which was good, I guess.

  I was scared. I was running. I couldn’t feel my legs.

  Suddenly a truck pulled out and came straight at me. I dove to my left, cussing like my dad does when Mom’s out and the Orioles are losing on TV. Big Baltimore fan, my dad. But that’s not the point. I slammed into the side of a parked car.

  Church Lady Zombie didn’t get out of the way. The truck went right over her and kept going. I could see her legs poking out from underneath. No, it was just one leg. The rest of her was being dragged under the truck. That couldn’t be good for her.

  The truck stopped. The driver wound down the window. It was Jermaine. The truck was Chucky’s. I didn’t make the connection, what with—

  “Get in!” he yelled. I ran and jumped into the bed of the truck. He gunned the motor again and drove right into a mass of zombies, just mowing them down. Arms and legs were flying all around. I stayed as low as I could get. The truck ran over some speed bumps. (Maybe they weren’t speed bumps.) Then it slowed, like it couldn’t get traction. The pavement was slippery. The engine whined. The truck lurched to a stop. I heard Jermaine clashing through the gears, looking for reverse. I guess it’s not like the go-karts at the county fair. We jerked backward and stopped again.

  I heard a noise like a “BUZZZZZZZ,” and then it cut out. Something big landed beside me. Two things. Landing on their feet.

  I figured I was dead.

  I was undead, or I would be in a minute. Please, I thought, let them just eat my brains. I don’t wanna be a zombie. Better to just be a zombie’s lunch.

  But it wasn’t zombies at all. It was two live people.

  “Hey, Larry!” yelled Chucky. “Long time, no see!” He was laughing.

  “Hey, Larry!” shouted Francine. “You guys arrived just in time! I was getting worried!”

  Jermaine found his gear and put pedal to the metal again, and the truck leaped forward. I looked up. Behind us, the zombies were chasing the truck. I guessed there were maybe ten or twenty of them left. They didn’t give up. I recognized Alex Bates and the ambulance driver, Mr. Phalen, among them. Plus the coach of the Pirates and a couple of kids in team uniform. And Luke and Jonathan Torres from my school, with their dad carrying shopping bags.

  The truck fishtailed as it went faster. I guess Jermaine wasn’t thinking about getting a ticket for speeding, or not having a license, or being ten years old.

  About a mile down the road, he pulled over.

  “Good driving, kid!” shouted Chainsaw Chucky. “Yew done good!”

  34

  “When did yew learn to drive a truck?” asked Chucky.

  “About five minutes ago,” Jermaine answered.

  “Yew done good!” yelled Chucky again, and punched Jermaine on the shoulder. Jermaine winced.

  Chucky jumped out, ran around the outside of the truck, and got in on the driver’s side. Jermaine, Francine, and me were all squashed in on the bench seat.

  “I lost my bat,” I told Jermaine.

  He grinned at me. “Could’ve been a lot worse.”

  Yeah, it could. But still, it was my bat.

  “You could use mine,” said Jermaine. “I don’t think Little League is gonna be a priority for me anytime soon.”

  What with probably being banned for attacking zombies on the ball field, he was probably right. I appreciated the offer. Even if Jermaine is four inches shorter than me and his bat’s way too small.

  I wondered if Dad would let me use his old Louisville Slugger. It’s a great bat, made from hickory. I think I already said that. Dad said I gotta bat 300 to use his bat, which is, like, impossible.

  It was in Dad’s closet. I’d found it when I was looking for my Christmas presents a couple of years ago.

  I was thinking about this stuff ’cause Chainsaw Chucky’s driving made me real nervous and I had to keep my mind on something other than “I
escaped the zombies but hit a streetlamp on the way home.”

  “Let’s git some of Granny’s lemonade!” said Chucky. He swung the wheel and we pulled into his driveway. I didn’t notice where we’d gotten to. Lemonade is good after a morning slugging zombies.

  “Whoa!” yelled Jermaine as we pulled up.

  Francine gripped her lacrosse stick real tight.

  What was up?

  Then I heard the sound of gunfire. Lots of gunfire. Shotgun blasts.

  Chucky opened the truck door. “Yew kids stay here. Lock yourselves in.”

  He grabbed a chainsaw and fired it up. Then he ran inside the house.

  ZOMBIE TIP

  Never run through a door while operating a chainsaw. Even if it’s your own door to your own house. You knew that, right?

  Francine pulled up the, uh, the peg thing, you know, and opened the door.

  “Hey!” I said. “Chucky said to—”

  Except I was talking to an empty cab, because Jermaine had already gone out the driver’s side door.

  So I jumped out too and ran into the house. I felt naked without my bat.

  LARRY: I didn’t mean, like, actually naked. Like, in my birthday suit, you know. I had my regular clothes on.

  KYLE: Yeah, I think everyone will get that, Larry.

  35

  You know how I said that Chucky’s place was kind of a mess?

  It was a real mess now. Totally destroyed. Lots of holes blasted in the walls and furniture. The furniture was mostly blown to pieces. Granny’s shotgun, I guess.

  Even Francine went pale.

  We could hear Chucky’s chainsaw as he ran through the house yelling for his granny.

  “No zombies,” said Jermaine. “Not live ones, anyhow.”

  “How can you tell?” asked Francine.

  “The sound of the chainsaw hasn’t changed,” answered Jermaine. “So it’s not cutting into anything.”

  Like I said, Jermaine’s real smart. He knows how the whine of a chainsaw gets higher when it’s biting.

  I heard a shotgun blast. Then another. It was outside. I guess Chucky heard it too, ’cause he came running down the stairs two at a time and hauled butt across the room to the back window. The glass was all broken out like someone had climbed out of it. Or, someone had climbed in. Except there was nobody here, and no blood or body parts. Which was good, right?

  “Hey, Granny! Ah’m comin’ to git yew!” he yelled.

  I got to the window a moment after. Across the yard there was an old-time outhouse with a half-moon shape cut out of the door. A shotgun barrel was sticking out through the half moon.

  BANG!!!!!

  I ducked. Everyone ducked.

  The outhouse door opened. Granny stepped out. She was carrying the pump shotgun and the box of shells Chucky didn’t want to take earlier. I guess that worked out, then.

  She looked around. “Huh,” said Granny. “Ah coulda sworn there was a hundred zombies out here.”

  We all looked around. There was no sign of any zombies at all.

  “Sorry ah was so long,” said Chucky. “Mall was packed.”

  “’Bout danged time,” she said. “Ah got four shells left and ah’m all out of Marlboros.” She grinned at us. “House is kinda untidy right now, but if yew want lemonade, ah could rustle some up.”

  KYLE: So, how many zombies did she really shoot?

  LARRY: None. There was no sign of any zombies at all.

  KYLE: You think she imagined they were there?

  LARRY: Yeah. And then—no.

  KYLE: Huh?

  So we drank lemonade, and Granny griped about the house being attacked by zombies. I noticed her arm was wrapped in a dish towel, and there was dried blood on it. Jermaine did too.

  “Uh, did you hurt yourself?”

  Chucky’s grandmother grinned again. Four teeth on top, five on the bottom. “Oh, it was jest a scratch.”

  “The zombies?” asked Francine.

  “Oh, no,” answered Granny. “Ah was peelin’ the taters fer supper tonight.”

  All the same, I noticed she cut her eyes toward Chucky when she said that.

  We finished our lemonade and headed home. Francine rode on the frame of my bike. (She could do that ’cause she’s all gymnastic.)

  “I think Granny just imagined there were zombies in the house,” said Francine. “And started shooting and holed up in the outhouse blasting away at nothing.”

  “Maybe,” said Jermaine.

  “There was no blood or bodies or anything,” Francine went on.

  Jermaine didn’t say anything else. I thought about it for a while.

  36

  KYLE: So, you understood something was wrong with Chucky’s grandmother?

  LARRY: She said she cut herself peeling potatoes.

  KYLE: But you realized that—what?

  LARRY: Huh? Like what?

  So, we rode home on our bikes. Didn’t see any more zombies. I gotta say, we didn’t look for any more zombies. I’d had enough for one day, and only Francine had anything to fight with. A weapon, I mean.

  When we reached the corner of Cedar Street and 4th street, Jermaine said we should have what he called a “conference.” I guess he meant we should talk about what to do next. We just sat on a wall and “conferenced” about school tomorrow.

  “Listen,” said Jermaine. “The good news is we don’t have thousands of zombies milling about, like all the movies do. Bad news is there are more zeds every day. Chances are, school’s gonna be full of ’em.”

  “We could all fake sick,” I said.

  Francine didn’t like that idea. “What, just hide from the zombies?” Sarcastic tone. She was right. We had to fight them.

  Jermaine went on. “You know what Chainsaw Chucky was saying? About finding the source of the outbreak, yeah? We need to do that. If we could destroy the cause of the infestation, all we have to do after that—”

  “—is bop about four hundred zombies on the head,” said Francine. “Easy-peasy.”

  We didn’t say anything for a while.

  “You’re right,” said Jermaine after a few moments. “But it’s the logical place to start.”

  So we all went home.

  I was still thinking about my bat. I mean, thinking about my dad’s Louisville Slugger, and whether I should ask if I could use it. I wasn’t batting 300, but pretty much nobody bats 300. I didn’t think my dad had said that just to, you know, tease me. He’s not like that. One day he’d let me use it, probably when I got a bit taller and showed that I’m serious about baseball. Which I am, and he already knew that. Plus, I’d had a growth spurt. I was, like, five-one. So, it would have been a pretty good time to ask to use it. I needed the bat, ’cause I didn’t have a bat.

  But that was the problem. If Dad knew I’d lost my old bat, he’d never let me use the Slugger. I couldn’t tell him what happened. He wasn’t gonna accept “a zombie grabbed it at the mall” as an excuse. He was gonna call me irresponsible. And I was not going to get the Louisville Slugger at all, ever.

  ZOMBIE TIP

  Your batting average is probably not that important. Either you hit the zombie, or you don’t.

  37

  KYLE: So, you were conflicted?

  LARRY: No, I just didn’t know what to do.

  Next morning I did something very bad. Dad had to leave early for work, so while Mom was making breakfast, I snuck into my parents’ room. I rooted around in Dad’s closet, crawling over his shoes. He leaves ’em on the floor, like I do. The bat was behind a pair of cowboy boots he bought on our vacation in New Mexico last year. He hasn’t worn them since.

  I carried the Slugger downstairs, where Mom was making oatmeal for Honor and me, and put it in my sports bag. Mom didn’t check if it was my normal bat inside my bag. I mean, why would she? Plus, it was raining and she had to help Honor look for her coat.

  Jermaine was already on the bus when I got on. “You got the Louisville Slugger, then?” he said.

  �
�Sure,” I replied. I guess he knew I’d do it. “Do you have your BB gun?”

  Jermaine’s eyes went all big. “Nuh-uh! I’d get suspended until twelfth grade. Except I’d never get to twelfth grade!”

  ZOMBIE TIP

  Jermaine’s priorities are wrong here. If you are in possession of a weapon that could save you from having your brains eaten by ghouls, and the ghouls are at your school, you are well advised to break school rules about bringing forbidden items. Despite what school authorities may tell you, suspension is better than becoming a drooling zombie. Also, no running in the hallways. (Unless the zombies are after you.)

  The bus ride was about normal. Nothing happened. Not a zombie anywhere. Maybe they didn’t like rain, either.

  I was ready for trouble when we pulled up in front of Brooks Elementary, but everything seemed fine. No, that wasn’t true. Everything was silent, pretty much. The kids weren’t chattering or pushing in the hallways. The only noise was made by teachers, yelling and ordering us around, like always.

  Adults, y’know? No clue. All the kids knew about the zombies. In fact, there really weren’t too many kids there. I guess a lot of them had faked sick, like I’d thought about doing.

  But they weren’t zombie hunters. Francine, Jermaine and me—we had a job to do.

  Francine met us by the entrance. “It’s quiet,” she said.

  “Too quiet,” said Jermaine. He gave me a wink, ’cause we both know that in old western movies that’s what someone always says before an arrow knocks a sentry off the fort wall.

  It was too quiet.

  The bell rang, and we went into homeroom. I stashed my bag with the coats and stuff in the closet at the back.

  Miss Scoffle was about the same as usual. There was maybe half the normal number of kids in class. Did they all ditch today? Or did they get turned into zombies since Friday?