by Elle Klass
I thought about it. We lived in North Florida, mosquitoes lingered year around, especially during warm winters. It didn’t get cold enough to kill them, and the past winter had been unseasonably warm. All winter, we had three nights when the temperature dropped below thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit; usually we had a couple weeks. My news-watching confirmed our unusually high, record-breaking temperatures. Nobody complained, since most people lived in Florida to escape the cold.
“We also had a warm winter, so isn’t it normal then to have more flying vampires?” That’s what I called them, as I was highly allergic. When they bit me, I had to be given a shot immediately or I’d swell up like a watermelon. My mom bought me bug repellent nail polish to keep them away. It worked really well; so well they never bothered me and I forgot about them.
“Yeah, but that’s weird too. The whole continent has suffered warmer weather and higher mosquito populations,” his face was stoic as the words left his mouth.
I shrugged. “It’s possible. Mosquitoes are known to carry diseases, the Zika virus and malaria,” I mumbled off.
“Exactly, so maybe a virus has mutated or something.”
I wondered what else his father talked about in his work conversation, and what about lovebugs? Didn’t they eat mosquitoes? I’d been paying attention in science. If the mosquito population was up, then its natural predators, A.K.A. lovebugs, would be really bad this spring. “Doesn’t that mean we’re going to have a bad lovebug season?” I abhorred the nasty little black creatures with their orangey-red heads. They got their name because the male and female flew around attached while mating and died still attached. The creatures were a nuisance that love vehicles and paint. During the season, I had to wash their nasty, acidic juices off my parents’ cars. I cringed at the thought of more of them.
He chuckled. “You believe that rumor?”
I didn’t respond with words but body gestures, by crossing my arms over my chest and tensing my face. The “rumor” seemed like truth, or at least believable. According to various minds in Florida, lovebugs were made in a lab at the University of Florida.
His chuckle migrated into a full-fledged laugh. Between snorts he said, “That’s an urban myth. They migrated from Central America.”
I narrowed my eyes and stared him down. “So glad I amused you.”
He sobered from his glee-high and surprised me as he grabbed my hands, pulling me towards him, then leaned in and kissed my cheek. Its heat burned into my face and sent ripples of passion across my spine.
“I gotta go before my dad knows I’m gone. He was in a fender bender earlier and took a couple sleeping pills, but I shouldn’t chance it,” he stated, dropping my hands and walking towards the gate, leaving me in a quandary.
Chapter Two
Accident? Was his dad in the same accident as mine? Is that what causes the zombie takeover? I was paranoid. The warm sensations of his hands were replaced by a piece of paper. I unfolded it. Bryce left me his phone number, but so long as I had the compass it would lead him directly to me.
I called him. I know -- let the guy call first -- wait three days, yada, yada. We had a world to save before the population was lost to a virus or plague and might not have three days. He answered right away.
“Maddie, is everything OK?”
He’d only been gone a couple minutes; the zombies didn’t take over the world in that short amount of time. “I’m fine. Save my number. We may need to contact each other in an emergency.”
“You missed me.”
The same smart aleck charm as in the dream. “Text me when you get home so I know you didn’t get bit on the way. I don’t need you to turn before I have the chance to go Zombie Girl crazy.” Not that I knew a bite would do it, but it did in the movies and one had to consider all possibilities.
“OK.”
I woke up at five a.m. with another growing dread lump in my gut. My parents were still asleep, so I snuck into the garage and rummaged through my mom’s car, searching for the keys to Earnest Earl. They were on the floor of my mother’s car, exactly as they were in my dream. Goose pimples rippled across my arms. There wasn’t time to linger on it as I sent Sarah and Bryce a text to meet up at the park near the high school.
Sarah met me in the patch of trees behind the portables; from there we walked to the park. Bryce waited for us, leaning against a beat up blue Mazda.
“What’s going on?” he asked, looking sexy.
Sarah sucked in a deep breath as she checked him out, then glanced in my direction and fanned her face. It was our sign for hottie.
I gave Sarah an ‘I told you so’ smirk, then got straight to the point. Saving the world didn’t allow us time to linger over trivial things like teen eye candy. “I got the keys to Earnest Earl. I think we should make a copy and stock up the boat.”
They both stared at me. Sarah spoke first, “Tomorrow is Saturday. We can do it then.”
“But what if we can’t?” I thought of how my dream ended with waking up to a ‘normal’ Saturday morning in my house. Today was Friday and that is when the premonition apocalypse began. I folded my arms across my chest.
“You’re suggesting we skip school. We’re kids, people are going to notice if we’re running around the city,” said Bryce, folding one leg over the other.
I pleaded to both of them, giving them puppy eyes. It usually worked on my parents. “Please. I think we should do it today. We can’t wait.”
They agreed. Bryce was the oldest and a senior, so we sent him in to make the keys. After, we stopped at my house and collected water bottles, canned foods, and weapons. At Sarah’s and Bryce’s we collected more food and a few items useful as weapons. The fact that our parents worked made it easy to slip in and out, then make it to the boat.
We dumped everything into a pile to take inventory. For food, we had plenty of drinks, boxed and canned foods; enough to last us for several months. We stuffed the cabinets and piled food into the bedrooms. I checked the windows, remembering my bedroom window was open in the dream. To the lack of my surprise, it was open a tiny bit. I slid it shut and locked it, then checked the others.
When I returned to Sarah and Bryce they were completing weapon inventory. We had a couple bats, a couple knives, a fireplace poker, a heavy hammer, two flashlights and extra batteries, an ax, and an oversized wrench, along with a couple shovels. I surveyed everything. “That’s not a bad collection. We’ll have to get pretty close.” I paused for a second. “We can knock them down with the bats then stab them in the head, or you can just lop their heads off with a shovel,” I said, smiling at Bryce as I picked up a shovel and ran my fingers over the sharp edge.
“Eww!” said Sarah, wrinkling her nose.
“Meet Zombie Girl,” Bryce said with a smirk.
I flashed him the eye.
“Zombie Girl?” She wrinkled her nose.
“She’s a killing machine,” he said, then climbed up the ladder and sat above us, his feet dangling over the side.
I shrugged and gazed up at Bryce. “We need to put all this away. Get down here and help us.”
His eyes stared hard at something in the distance. He squinted them like he was studying hard.
I sighed and mumbled, “Whatever,” under my breath then picked up the bats and shovels, stuffing them beneath the seats. They might come in handier outside the cabin then inside. “Sarah, can you hand me a flashlight?”
When she didn’t respond, I turned to see she’d climbed up the ladder too. They were both staring at something beyond my line of sight. “What the heck?!”
Sarah stared down at me. “Get up here, something’s going on!”
I sighed and joined them up top.
Bryce pointed. “Follow my arm, look beyond the tip of my middle finger.”
Lovebugs flew past us; yuck, the season was starting. I swatted at them, then gazed beyond his arm, noting how firm and muscular it was. There was a mess of lights and cars surrounding a wreck or something. I didn’t even
know what road it was, but it looked like a main artery. I remembered my dad’s binoculars and scrambled downstairs, grabbed them, then scrambled back up. It was definitely a wreck. My eye studied the ambulances, then saw paramedics loading a stretcher into the back.
“What do you see?” asked an anxious Sarah.
I passed them to her. She snatched them immediately, placing them to her eyes. “OMG! That’s a nasty wreck!”
Car accidents weren’t exactly news around here, but a huge one that backed up traffic might make the news.
“More cops just showed up. Look!” She passed the binoculars back to me.
We all stood in eighty-seven degrees, ninety percent humidity air, on the top of my dad’s boat, baking from the inside out like a microwave meal. I grasped the binoculars and placed them against my eyes. Three more State Troopers showed up, lights blazing and sirens blaring. I read the side of their cars. It had to be the freeway, I-95 maybe.
I dropped the binoculars. “It’s late. School’s out, we need to get home.”
Bryce grabbed the binoculars and Sarah stated, “Its Friday. No school tomorrow. Hello!”
I nodded. “But I want to get home before my parents.” Sarah was right, but I felt that I needed to be home. What if today was the day?
Bryce dropped the binoculars. “I agree with Maddie. I need to check on my dad. Since the accident, he hasn’t been good.”
I understood what he meant. My dad had suffered joint pain since his accident. Today he went to work. The hospital cleared him and gave him a prescription of muscle relaxers. That reminded me. “There’s a first aid kit on the boat, but that may not be enough. We need to collect medical supplies. Bryce, can you pick us up in the morning?”
We made a tentative plan on the way home. Bryce would pick us up in the morning and tonight we’d raid our parents’ medicine chests and gather supplies. I knew my mom was a prescription whore. She never threw them away when we didn’t use them all.
Chapter Three
The drive was slow going. I guessed they must have rerouted traffic because of the accident, stuffing the other roads with excess commuters, so I sent my mom a text that we’d gone with a friend to the mall after school.
When I walked into the house, my mom flashed me the evil eye.
I forced a toothy smile, hoping it looked natural. “Hi, Mom.”
“Where have you been?” My father’s voice boomed from the living room. My mom stared at me, arms folded over her chest and her toe tapping against the tile floor. It echoed inside my head.
“I texted you, Mom. It’s Friday we went to the mall after school,” I stated in my no big deal voice.
“Take a seat,” my dad offered, his voice gentle.
Oh no, they were getting ready to grill me. I dropped my smile. My mom followed me into the living room. “I’m going to jump right to it, Maddie. You weren’t in school today.”
What? How did they know? “Sure I was,” I countered.
“Then explain this message.” She replayed a message from her cell phone. It was a recorded message, “Your child, Maddie Smyth, missed one or more classes in school today.”
I grinned, then sighed, coming up with a response that rolled off my tongue so naturally it surprised me. “I was late for math today. Mr. Johnson must have forgotten to mark me present.”
My mom dropped her arms and relaxed. “Maybe. I’ll call and clear it up Monday, but for tonight you’re staying in. No Sarah’s. Late isn’t as bad as skipping, but it’s still not acceptable and you need to know that.”
If only they knew… “No Sarah and no phone. Drop it on the table before you sulk off to your room,” my dad ordered, his voice firm yet pleasant at the same time. He had a way of doing that.
My dream poured back into my head as I dropped my phone on the table. I changed the course of history, but only the small events. I wasn’t in trouble for my science grade, but for tardiness. Monday, they’d know I actually was skipping. I let out a breath and stalked to my room, dragging my heels. I heard my mom join my father and the squish of the couch then their low voices as they talked, most likely about me.
The events were happening: my dad’s keys; being in trouble; even the darn lovebugs were out. I remembered them in my dream, stuck in zombie blood on the windshield. It all ran through my mind as I fell backwards on my bed and stared at the ceiling.
After a couple hours, I strolled outside my room. I hadn’t been sent to it, I just couldn’t use my phone or see Sarah, so I decided I should act normal. For several months now, I’d been joining them in the evenings for TV when I was home.
Shock clutched me as I strolled into the hallway. Their eyes fixed on the TV. An SUV crossed the median into oncoming traffic, injuring the driver and passengers of the other vehicle. The driver of the SUV was pronounced dead… The voice drowned as I watched shaky video footage like someone took it from their cell phone. A covered body lying on a stretcher lifted upward, the coverings dropping from her face. Her legs fell to the side in stiff movements and she tumbled off the stretcher. Whatever pedestrian was shooting the footage zoomed in on her face. I recognized it and fear rushed over me like a tidal wave.
Her dark skin, a couple shades lighter and ashy. Her oval face solemn, with a straight, gray line replacing the vivacious smile she always wore, but her eyes were the most perplexing, usually a coffee brown, now dull and pallid. Her blouse hung haphazardly around her shoulders. Sarah’s mother! This was it. How Sarah turned into a zombie too!
I gawked with my parents, almost positive this was the accident we’d seen earlier, anxiety filling me as I watched the footage. The camera operator zoomed out as Sarah’s mother walked towards a paramedic, her movements rigid, but not as stiff as the zombies in my premonition. Yes! Everything was happening and so quickly all I could do was stare and mumble inside my head: It’s happening! It’s really happening.
My mom looked at me, her face solemn and a tear lingering in the corner of her eye. Sarah and I had been best friends since forever. She knew her mother well. “Maddie, are you alright?”
No, no I wasn’t alright, but how do I tell them? It was too late for Sarah’s mom but not her. Please not her and my parents. I could save them. How do I save them? “I—”
My phone ringing cut me off. We all stared at it as if it was a giant moose, swiping its feet at the ground as it readied itself to annihilate us.
I glanced toward them, meeting their gazes, my eyes shifting from one to the next. The phone was still on the hall table and close enough I saw the screen. It was Bryce. “I have to get this,” I stated with a shaky voice, reaching for the phone. I wasn’t going to wait for their response but they didn’t fight it and probably thought it was Sarah.
Before he got a word out, mine tumbled out of my mouth. “It’s happening. Sarah. We have to get her!”
“She’s with me and we’re on our way.” The unmistakable sound of urgency in his voice.
“Is she OK?”
“For the most part. She saw…” He paused for a second. “There’s more. Our ETA is ten minutes.” The phone cut off.
I turned, my parents staring at me. Their eyes wide and wearing matching confused expressions.
There was no way to say ‘the zombie apocalypse is here’ without sounding ridiculous and insane. It wasn’t the time to worry. I was going with Bryce and Sarah and, if I had to duct tape them and force them into the car, my parents were coming too! “Listen to me. There isn’t any time. You saw it, same as me. People are turning into zombies and we need to leave.”
My mother turned down the TV volume and narrowed her eyes, but her voice was soft. “Honey, the paramedics messed up in pronouncing her dead. She wasn’t.”
“Yes, she was. Didn’t you see what she looked like?!”
“Maddie, sit down. You’re not going anywhere, and zombies aren’t taking over the world,” Dad said, the normal flushness of his cheeks gone, substituted with white and his eyes missing their normal shine.
“Do you feel OK, Dad?” I asked, taking a seat beside him.
He took a deep breath. “I’ve been lethargic since the accident, and sore, but I’ll recover. It takes longer when you get older. You’ll see,” he answered with his usual smile and a tiny spark in his eyes.
My mother watched us, her eyes bouncing from us to the TV. I turned towards it, moving my head turtle slow. The volume low, I read the bulletin running across the bottom of the screen. Jess Thomas escaped from the ambulance after killing two paramedics and a state trooper after a near-death accident earlier today. She is considered dangerous.
The news changed from the morbid scene to the newscaster. “There are more reports coming in of people attacking other people, biting into their flesh. Our phones are ringing off the hook. If you don’t have to leave your house, don’t! Stay inside,” the newscaster urged in a desperate tone.
I stared, unblinking. Without turning my head I stated, “Do you believe me now? You’ve known her as long as I’ve known Sarah and she’s not dangerous, but she’s not her!”
My mom nodded, grabbing and clutching my father’s hand. He nodded in agreement. “Let me pack us a few things,” she stated and stood as someone pounded on our door. One minute they didn’t believe me, the next Mom was packing a bag. The power of the news since it was announced to thousands of people, rather than a fifteen-year-old girl saying it, then it must be true.
Sarah’s shaky, tear-filled voice outside confirmed it was her and Bryce. I flung the door open wide and she collapsed into my arms. “Maddie! She’s one of them. Maddie, she’s one of them,” she sobbed. I walked her inside, followed by Bryce.
I sat Sarah on the couch and dabbed at her face with a tissue. “I’m sorry.” At this point I forgot about my dad, solely focused on Sarah.