by Elle Klass
He lowered his head, then glanced at me through his hair. With a solemn voice he said, “You’re a better fighter than me and I want you to always find your way.”
My senses and hormones were running rampant and I didn’t know how to respond so I stumbled off thinking about his words. I was a more ruthless killer than him, but I didn’t want to think of a world where he didn’t exist. Without him, I’d be truly alone in a world filled with flesh-eating walking dead people.
The water for the spaghetti was boiling. I dumped in a couple handfuls of hard, uncooked noodles and popped the bread in the oven. Fifteen minutes later, we had a feast. I propped the cabin door open, made two plates of spaghetti and juggled them between my arms, as I walked onto the deck of the boat.
Bryce, on his way down, stepped off the ladder and looked at me. “How did you think you were going to get both plates up that ladder without dropping the food all over yourself?”
I winced. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
He took a plate and strolled into the cabin. I followed on his heels and we stuffed our faces full of spaghetti. Food had never tasted so good. We ate every bite.
Our bellies filled, we sat on the sofa and I rested my head against his shoulder. Within minutes, I fell asleep.
Chapter Six
The scent of bacon drifted to my nostrils and woke me from a dead sleep -- no pun intended. Opening my eyes, I looked around. My pink and purple comforter wrapped to my chin and the familiar blades of my bedroom’s ceiling fan whirring above my head. What the heck? Where’s Bryce and how the heck did I make it back to my room?
My nightstand wasn’t propped in front of my door, and my bedroom window was closed. Cautiously, I slipped out of bed and stumbled over my textbook. It was open and my practice test lay resting between the pages. A corpse leg peeked out from beneath the edge of my test. I lifted the test and a diagram of the human brain stared at me. Dropping the test, I walked towards my dresser.
I gazed at myself in the mirror and my nighty was perfect, no blood stains. Around my neck was a gold chain with a compass. “Bryce’s? How?” I whispered. The last time I checked, it was impossible to bring physical objects outside of dreams or, in this case, nightmares.
On instinct, after killing zombies, I grabbed a pair of scissors from my dresser and listened at the door. My body was still in fight mode.
All I heard was the regular hustle and bustle of a Saturday morning. Twisting the knob, I opened the door and peered into the hallway. It was empty. I plastered myself against the wall and edged towards the end of it. The living room was empty and the soft sunlight streamed through the sheer blue curtains. My parents’ voices flowed to my ears. If they were talking and cooking they weren’t zombies.
I walked into the kitchen and stood in the doorway with the scissors grasped tightly behind my back.
“Good morning! You slept like a rock last night,” my dad jested.
“I did?”
“Are you OK?” asked my mother, her eyebrows forming a V as she studied my face.
I nodded and took a seat at the table, stuffing the scissors beneath my butt. Was I going crazy, or was last night a crazy dream? A meow and fuzz rubbing against my heels made me look down. My neighbor’s cat. I hadn’t seen him since boarding my dad’s boat
Chapter Seven
Monday, I returned to school and aced my test. I sighed with relief as my grade needed the boost. I hadn’t taken the compass off and was still perplexed and confused as to how I had it. If it was a simple dream, then I wouldn’t have Bryce’s compass.
“Hi Maddie,” said Sarah, as she leaned against the lockers. Her coffee-colored, life-filled eyes smiled at me. The last time I’d seen her face, she was a zombie. Chills traced my spine when I thought of it. She’d chosen to go natural today and wore her hair in tight curls. Sometimes I was jealous that she was born with ringlets, but she had to go through far more work to keep up her hair than I did.
“Hey Sarah.”
She twisted her mouth. “Chad talked to me at lunch. I almost dropped to the floor. Can you believe it?”
She’d had a crush on Chad since the fifth grade. He was tall, with a nice chest due to working out, vibrant brown eyes, and kept his hair cut short above his ears and parted to the side. He was clean cut and always had been. His dad was a hard core Navy lifer and no doubt Chad would follow in his footsteps. “You’ve known him since we were ten.”
“It was different then. We were snotty-faced kids. Now he’s the biggest hunk in school,” she sighed.
“He was never snotty -- that was you,” I jested.
She jabbed a caramel-colored fist at my shoulder. “Whatever. Weirdo. What’s with you lately, anyways?”
I hadn’t yet told her about my crazy dream. Instead I stayed locked in my room all weekend, expecting the world to turn into zombies and preparing for when it did, but I needed to tell her. I had to save her. The traffic in the hallway made this a bad place to spill my guts with walking dead people talk. Rumors at school spread like spilled water leaking downhill and into every tiny crevice where they became perverted into something else.
Later that afternoon, in my bedroom, I turned off the lights, closed the curtains, shut the door, and lit a candle. It was important to set the mood. Then I sprawled across the floor in my bedroom with Sarah. Our legs angled in Vs with our feet touching. Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman played quietly from the playlist on Sarah’s phone. I would have chosen a spookier song, but Ariana Grande was her favorite. She sat wide-eyed as I recited the details.
“The cat was in your house? How?”
All the weirdness of the dream and she was worried about the cat. I shrugged. It figured --she wanted to be a vet. “My parents assumed it came inside when my dad took our inside recycling out. What’s even weirder than the cat or the dream, is this.” I pulled the chain off my neck and handed it to her. “This is Bryce’s compass.”
“Get out of here. No way!” she gasped as she stared at me in awe. “How?”
That question had plagued me since I woke up and saw it there. Solid objects don’t leave dreams and Freddy Kruger wasn’t a part of it.
“This wasn’t a dream. It’s going to happen,” I said, urgency shaking my voice.
She grasped the chain and puffed out her cheeks as she did when she was deep in thought. “I don’t want to be a zombie.”
“Neither do I or my parents, but I don’t know when it’s going to happen or how to stop it. I don’t even know what caused people to become zombies.” The weight and responsibility of saving everyone was heavy on my shoulders. The next thought plummeted into my head and I nearly shouted it. “It was a premonition. A warning of what’s going to happen.”
We decided to text every hour and never do anything without our phones. I even took it into the bathroom with me when I showered. In the event zombies did sprout and attempt to rule the world, we’d meet at my dad’s boat as a last resort, only after we were positive the other wasn’t a zombie. I was definitely taking that thing whether I knew how to drive it or not. It was a safe haven. My dream zombies couldn’t swim; they just dropped like bricks into the water. I urged her to keep a knife or weapon on her at all times and started carrying a large kitchen knife in my school bag. It was an older knife my mom wouldn’t miss or ask about.
I kept my senses always on high alert – fight or flight -- and I was ready to fight. I studied people’s behaviors and movements all the time, but never noticed anything odd. Every evening I made a habit of joining my parents watching the evening news. This made them happy because they assumed I did it to spend time with them. I loved them, but not enough that I’d watch the news for the pleasure of spending quality time.
After several months and a change of seasons, from fall to winter and now spring, I calmed, assuming it was a bad dream. No strange virus was lurking on the horizon. There hadn’t been any strange, unexplained deaths. Everything was normal, except the soccer ball-sized lump in my gut.
The normalness of life relaxed me and my anxiety became less and less in my memory and mind. Sarah and I slowly stopped texting every hour and fell into our usual routine.
I spent “family time” with my parents and appreciated them. I even kept up my science grade and dissected a frog without a queasy stomach. The frogs were far less disgusting and stinky then dream zombies. It was a female with little eggs inside. I took my scalpel and cut open one of the eggs. They were yellowish in color with tiny dark spots in the center. My teacher, Ms. Fickley, found that a little odd, but I figured it was as grossly normal as an amphibian egg should be. Tears lurked in the corner of her eyes as she commented on how happy she was with my transformation in science.
I didn’t transform for fun, but for my parents and the value of what biology taught me about life. If zombies were going to take over the world, my best weapon was knowledge. All the while, I waited for the world to change, even though I grew comfortable that it wouldn’t.
It was a warm day in early May. I stared out the living room window. Little kids played on my neighbor’s lawn, kicking a ball back and forth. I smiled, then turned my head back to my homework. Within minutes, I heard the familiar sound of my mother’s car in the driveway. She was home early I noted, as I checked the time on my phone. It was only four. She shouldn’t be home for another hour.
“Maddie,” she called as she walked into the living room and spotted me perched on the couch.
Her brows furrowed. “I have to pick up your dad. He was in a car wreck on his way home.”
My heart lunged inside my chest. Dad! “Is he OK?”
“Yes, but his car is totaled. He was rear-ended and it sent his car plowing into the car ahead of him.” She hefted her fallen purse onto her shoulder.
“I want to go with you,” I said, slipping my flip-flops on and stuffing my phone into my back pocket.
“Alright honey. For the past few months you’ve been… so attentive,” she said, an eyebrow raised and her light blue eyes questioning my motives.
I hadn’t always been the best child, and pre-zombie premonition dream I wouldn’t have gone with her, but the little voice that’d been hanging out in my subconscious pressed me to go. It was one of those strange sixth sense urges that ate away at a person if they didn’t do what it said, like something bad was going to happen unless I went.
We got to the hospital. Several green cloth chairs, typical of all waiting room chairs, were situated in the room. I wondered if all offices bought from the same supply depot, when I spotted my father sitting on one of them. “Dad,” I said, his head turned and he stood when he saw me and Mom. He opened his arms and I ran up to him, wrapping my arms around him, placing a kiss on his cheek.
He lifted a brow. “Wow! Maddie. You act like I just woke from a coma,” he said, and kissed my cheek.
“Don’t joke like that, Dad. I’m glad you’re OK.”
“All good, the doctors gave me the green light. Thank the car makers for airbags.” My dad had a strange and sometimes morbid sense of humor.
My mom shook her head. “Are you two ready?”
The hospital doors slid open automatically as we walked in front of them. A young man walked past me through the opened door. His hand brushed mine, causing him to turn towards me. His chestnut hair tied back in a ponytail, his clear green eyes met mine then drifted towards the compass bobbing on my chest. Time stood still and dread tingled through my body like a wriggling snake. Bryce!
Infection
Zombie Girl Book 2
Chapter One
After we picked my dad up from the hospital we stopped at Sonic and grabbed burgers. It was late and Mom didn’t feel like cooking. I picked at my tots on the way home and managed to eat about half my Chili Cheese Coney. My stomach gurgled and rolled as I thought about Bryce. He definitely recognized me, and I tried to think of any excuse to go back into the hospital, but my dad was tired and sore, luckily not injured seriously, but ready to get home. I couldn’t make him wait for me. Bryce’s touch was real. He was real. Did we share a dream? I’d gone back and forth with the premonition idea. Today confirmed it or did my course of action modify the sequence of history? My thinking was crazy, but Bryce and I shared the premonition --- the recognition in his eyes told me. I was sure the zombie-takeover apocalypse was near. I felt it in every pore of my skin, and in my bones.
I went to bed early, locking my door in case tonight was the night. In my dream, I’d gone to bed without dinner after getting chewed out by my parents for my F in science. They made me leave my phone with them. Today probably wasn’t the day, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Do premonitions always happen as seen? I wasn’t sure, so I Snapchatted Sarah to hear her voice and see her face.
She answered with a huge smile. Her tight curls sprang everywhere. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I responded, and then told her about my dad’s accident and seeing Bryce at the hospital. The moment he brushed past me and we touched made the entire dream a reality -- finding him behind the crate, stuffing the metal object into the brainstems of the zombies and Bryce and I making it to Earnest Earl, my dad’s boat.
“Maddie, do you know what this means?” she asked with an edge of excitement.
“It means my dream really was a premonition and the zombie apocalypse is happening soon,” I answered hypothetically.
“Maddie, off the phone,” hollered my mom from her bedroom across the hall. I really needed to talk with Sarah but it would have to wait until morning.
With hesitation I said, “I gotta go, see you tomorrow.”
I checked my window, making sure it was locked tight, then stuffed my phone beneath my pillow and drifted off to sleep. A tapping at my window woke me. My heart beat like a marching band as I twisted my head towards the window. The curtains were drawn, but I saw the distinct outline and shadow of someone on the other side.
I shuddered involuntarily then eased out of bed and stalked towards the window. The shadow hadn’t moved. It tapped again. What if it’s a zombie? They don’t tap and wait. Get a grip! I told myself, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I clenched my fists together. Realizing my hands were empty, I scanned my room for a convenient weapon. The lamp on my dresser was the closest thing, so I grabbed it. It yanked back at me and I fell sideways towards my dresser. You gotta unplug it dummy! I said inside my head, then pulled the cord from the wall. Taking a deep breath, I moved the curtains aside and peeked out. I sighed relief and my heartbeat returned to normal when I saw it was Bryce kneeling below the window. He smiled when he saw my face. At least he wasn’t a zombie. I undid the lock and slid the window open.
Through the screen I asked, “Bryce?” His hair was still tied back in a neat ponytail unlike the haphazard one in the dream.
“You had the dream too?” he asked with wide eyes.
I nodded. “I don’t get it,” I stated, then my mind switched gears. How did he find me? We were never at my house in the dream. “How did you find me?”
His chestnut hair hung in waves touching his shoulders and the moonlight made his green eyes sparkle. He was better looking in person. “The compass.” In the dream he’d given me the compass. Somehow I brought it out of the dream with me. “My uncle makes them. It looks old, but it’s not. He just makes them that way. Inside is a GPS chip. I didn’t think to check it until I saw you today and it led me here. Look,” he said, holding up his phone. It displayed a map with a blinking green light in my room.
“That’s kinda creepy and stalkerish,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
He shrugged it off. “We need to talk. Can I come in?”
I thought about my parents and decided it would be safer for me to go outside. “I’ll meet you by the back gate.”
Within minutes, I’d quietly snuck down the hall and through the living room, glided the sliding glass door open and slipped outside. He waited by the gate like I asked, and I let him in and steered him to an area furthest from my parents’ room to the back of the yard by a ta
ll, bushy maple tree so they wouldn’t hear us.
He shifted on his feet and his eyes soaked me in. “Um… I don’t know what’s happening or why, but something is going to happen.”
I knew that. “People don’t share dreams. Somehow we’re connected. Like a spiritual link. It sounds insane but I haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
He shifted onto his other foot, then clumsily grabbed my hands, as if nervous either about touching me or saying what was on his mind. “This is going to sound crazier, but I think we’re supposed to figure this out and prevent it.”
I enjoyed the touch of his hands on mine. My silly crush on him started the moment he kissed me in the dream, since my mind wandered to that moment frequently. In fact, it distracted me, and I almost missed hearing what he said. All I got was ‘figure it out and prevent it’. How could we prevent something we didn’t understand? I glanced at him, his green eyes blazing into mine. Did he know something?
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you know?” This was definitely weird and awkward. We’d never actually met before yet were talking like we’d known each other for years or had gone on a zombie killing spree. Life and death fighting had a way of bringing people together.
He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s an observation, and it’s stupid.”
I wanted to stomp my foot and roll my eyes, but controlled myself. If I wanted to wrench it out of him, I needed to be patient and gentle. “Nothing is stupid. We don’t have a clue what we’re dealing with, and the premonition didn’t give us any ideas about how the apocalypse starts, so please tell me what’s on your mind.”
He heaved a breath. “The premonition?” he repeated, as if he’d never thought of it that way or didn’t know what it was. I stared at him, my eyes blazing ‘get on with it’ into his. As if his brain heard me he began. “The mosquito population has been heavier than usual this year. I noticed it, but when I heard my dad talking about it over the phone, I realized it wasn’t just me. He’s an environmental scientist who works in water management, and it's his job to keep track of species populations and other environmental factors.”