by Scott Craven
Tread hopped off the stage and wandered around a floor that housed ghosts of stains past, a canine Disneyland. With his nose millimeters from the linoleum, Tread explored his little bit of doggie heaven, his tail wagging furiously.
Before the shot of Substance Z, the tail would have gone maybe a dozen wags before flying off. Now it shook strongly in place, no hint of the slightest tear. Since the upgrade a few days ago, Tread no longer chased his tail. With no reward, it probably seemed so futile.
Something appeared out of the corner of my eye, followed by a brush of my shoulder. “Con su permiso,” one of Dr. Armendariz’s assistants muttered as he stepped off the stage and pulled the wheeled tables from the wall, arranging them in rows.
He didn’t look all that much older than me. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. The doctor told us he’d bring “followers,” whatever those were. Maybe anyone older would know better than to trust him.
I shook that thought out of my mind. I’d worked hard the last twenty-four hours to convince myself this was the right thing—the inevitable thing—to do. I imagined myself on a narrow trail in the woods. With each step, vines quickly grew into the space I’d just vacated, erasing the previous footprint. I couldn’t see where the path ended, only that I had no choice but to continue.
I’d finally made my decision last night, waking Dad. As he hugged me, I expected a speech, something like, “Son, the right choice is rarely the easiest choice, and when faced with obstacles in life,” blah blah blah, something or other and so on.
But all he said was, “I have your back. Always.”
It was the best thing he’d ever told me.
Even though fear kept trying to reach around the barrier I’d put up, Dad’s words gave me the strength I needed.
Or so I thought until the four of us met Dr. Armendariz at Colegio del Pinos. We assumed two things. First, that Dr. Armendariz was one of the featured speakers at the conference hosted by the Bureau of Unexplained but Reasonable Phenomenon. Secondly, that colegio meant college.
Wrong on each count.
As Dad navigated the Man Van through the narrow streets of Guadalajara, we expected to soon see a vast college campus housing an auditorium filled with scholars of the paranormal (if those convinced of spirits and yetis and chupacabras could be considered scholars, and as a zombie I had no right to quibble).
Instead, we pulled into the parking lot of a public school, leading us to our first finding. Colegio means school.
The empty cafetorium—there is no suitable translation—informed us this was not the BURP conference. It was, Dr. Armendariz informed us, an “adjunct lecture” of the conference. Turned out the doctor’s beleaguered colleagues prohibited him from presenting at the actual meeting several blocks away, but told him he could put up a few flyers that morning and hope for the best.
That explained the blue signs we followed from the lot to the cafetorium. Each had an arrow pointing toward the Bureau of Unexplained but Reasonable Phenomenon’s Grand Adjunct Symposium, which was boiled down to its initials. No surprise it led to a kitchen.
When we arrived, Dr. Armendariz was setting up an odd contraption center stage. Two metal tubes about a foot wide and six feet tall were placed about four feet apart. Wires fed from the bottom of each to a large metal console filled with dials, lights, knobs, and switches. I wondered if the 1960s science fiction film it came from ever missed it.
A girl about fourteen or so was kneeling behind the console, plugging the multi-colored wires into numerous slots. Her hands moved quickly, indicating she was familiar with the very complicated setup.
Dr. Armendariz greeted us in a long white lab coat, its pocket crammed with a dozen markers. Must be a mad scientist thing, I thought, with number of pens equal to the level of weirdness about to occur.
“Mr. Rivers, Jed, so nice to see you,” he said. “Even better that you decided to let me help you. This will be a remarkable day for all involved. Perhaps even more auspicious than the day I proved to the world the pyramids were built by an ancient time-traveling race who would later set up shop in a triangle off Bermuda.”
I nudged Dad and whispered, “Sounds like he’s getting his sci-fi movies confused.”
“He’s just joking, I’m sure,” Dad said.
I shut up, not really wanting to know.
The doctor excused himself to finish preparations, allowing me time to do the one thing I did not want to do.
Think.
I looked at my phone and saw there was still an hour to go before the symposium was to start.
The phone buzzed, and a text from Anna appeared.
Anna: Thinking about you. Hope you’re sure about this.
After telling Dad about my decision, I texted Anna. And like with Dad, I expected a series of text questioning what I was about to do. Instead all I received was:
Anna: I like you no matter what. And more.
The “And more” put a smile on my face bigger than the one I wore when she held my hand for the first time.
This was going to be OK. I knew it.
Luke and I wandered around as Tread followed the trail of a thousand tacos. Dad couldn’t take his eyes off the back of the space-age console because like all old guys, he loved gadgets, especially the ones he never would understand.
“We could help the guy roll out the tables,” I said.
“We could, but will we?” Luke said. “Nope. We don’t want to deprive him of his earning potential, since he’s probably getting paid by the hour.”
“If he’s getting paid at all.”
“True.”
Sunlight suddenly slashed across the floor, and Luke and I followed it to the source. Two, no, three figures were silhouetted in the doorway.
I put up my hands to shade my eyes as the shadows stepped in, the door closing behind them.
Even though I’d expected them to show up, I was still shocked.
“Well, don’t you look like a flea that just stumbled into a tick convention.”
Spike. It’d been weeks since I’d seen him, yet when Dr. Armendariz told me about his mysterious visitor who had supplied him with Substance Z, Spike instantly sprang to mind.
“You just going to stand there, or are you going to say hi to the folks who saved your zombie hide, thin as it may be?” Spike continued.
Marisa and Ryan stood on either side of Spike. I puzzled on how they knew each other, yet it struck me just as Spike introduced them.
“You know my daughter and son,” Spike said. “Go on kids, say hello to one of the coolest undead kids on the planet.”
My head reeled as it tried to accept the fact Marisa, Ryan, and Spike were family. Looking back it made sense, a connection that brought all of us together. Marisa and Ryan also spoke of a father who had connections and would know when a zombie dog was found crossing the border. A man with connections also would know how to get to that zombie dog if he wanted to.
Especially if he wanted someone else to, so he wouldn’t expose himself.
With all that spinning in my brain, it didn’t register Spike had said “one of the coolest undead kids” on the planet. But it would. Very soon.
Chapter Forty-Five
I shook Marisa’s hand, then Ryan’s, as if we were all adults. Luke grasped Ryan’s hand, and Marisa leaned in for a hug. Luke held her just long enough to confirm what I already knew.
If only we weren’t leaving in a few days. Assuming Dr. Armendariz’s little experiment left me in three pieces or less.
Wait. I’d better be in one piece if he succeeded in erasing my undeadness.
“Ah, Señor Vasquez, you’ve made it,” Dr. Armendariz said, stepping off the stage. He gripped Spike’s hand and gave it several vigorous pumps.
But if he was shaking Spike’s hand, who the heck was Señor Vasquez?
“Doctor, so good to see you again,” Spike said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Too long, Señor Vasquez.
But well worth the wait, no?”
“Not at all, Dr. Armendariz.”
“Come, I want you to meet Jed’s father, a wonderful man who’s helped make this possible.” Dr. Armendariz took Spike by the elbow and led him away, but not before Spike looked back over his shoulder and shot me a wink.
I turned to Marisa, who remained close to Luke, explaining my best friend’s goofy smile. “Señor Vasquez? What was that all about? And what are you guys doing here?”
Marisa swiveled on her heels and headed toward the kitchen. “Let’s go talk,” she said.
Luke, Ryan, and I followed before she put out her hand. “Just Jed for now,” she said. She looked at Luke pleadingly. “If you don’t mind.”
“No, uh, fine,” Luke stammered. I didn’t recall him ever being at a loss for words.
Marisa and I continued through the door to the kitchen. She led me behind the buffet table to a row of stoves in the back, as far as we could go.
Something near the exit caught my eye. A large spinning wheel marked in alternating red and white wedges. Each section was labeled. Some I understood. Frijoles (beans). Arroz con pollo (chicken with rice). Salsa (salsa).
Others I didn’t understand. Albondigas and menudo for example. But one stood out, and not just because it was on most of the blue wedges.
“Carne de Misterio.”
That could only be one thing. I reached over, pinched the edge of the wheel, and yanked down. A plastic strip at the top slapped along the pegs until it came to a stop.
“Ah, ‘Mystery Meat,’ congratulations,” Marisa said. “That’s a favorite of las señoras del almuerzo.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The lunch ladies. The wheel is a proud Mexican tradition, and heavily weighted toward mystery meat, as you see.”
“All this time I thought we were the only ones who had a Wheel of Meat.”
“We?”
“My school. Pine Hollow. That wheel has Mystery Meat too.”
“This is called Rueda de Delicias, the Wheel of Delicacies. It has much more than just meat. Your school seems pretty single-minded when it comes to lunch.”
“I agree.” I paused, now very curious. “How do you know so much about Mexican school-cafeteria food?”
“We lived in Mexico for a few years,” she said. “Which is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Mexico? I love Mexico. Even more now that I know you have a way better food wheel.”
“Not about Mexico. About what brought us to Mexico in the first place.”
“If you were anything like Luke, it would be for the tacos and agua fresca.”
“Luke’s a really cool guy, but no. It was a medical emergency, and the help we needed wasn’t available in the States. At least that’s what we thought. Until we met you.”
“I don’t understand. What do I have to do with a medical emergency? Because I don’t have them. I lose a limb, and it’s more a medical inconvenience.”
Marisa leaned against the stove, the appliance squeaking slightly as it accepted her weight. She put her head down. “My dad would kill me if he knew I was telling you this.”
“Telling me what?”
She inhaled, held it, and let it out slowly. “My brother’s a zombie.”
“Is that a metaphor? Like, ‘My mom’s from another planet?’ Because you could have chosen a better one, given my alternative lifestyle as a proud member of the undead. Especially if it’s a metaphor telling me Ryan isn’t all there.”
“No, not Ryan. My other brother. Robert.”
“You have a brother named Robert who’s a zombie?”
“Yeah. We call him Bob.”
“Bob the zombie.”
“Yes.”
“Bob zombie.” I laughed. “You’re joking.”
If I felt pain like a norm, a jolt of lightning would have lit up my cheek, right where it connected with Marisa’s fast-moving and deceptively powerful right fist. Thankfully after a few adjustments, I popped my jaw back into place, allowing me to form understandable words.
“So you’re not joking,” I said.
“No,” she said. “What was your first clue?”
“That mean right cross of yours.”
“Good. You’re not brain-dead at all. And neither is Bob. He’s a funny, kind-hearted kid I love to death. No pun intended.”
“Of course not,” I said, noticing then my knees were shaking. Ever since hearing the story behind Substance Z, I’d wondered about its source. Could there really be another zombie? And if so, why not ten, twenty, a hundred?
Those were just thoughts. Maybe even dreams. Without proof, they remained thoughts and nothing more.
Until now.
Chapter Forty-Six
I hopped onto a steel table opposite Marisa, settling my undead rear end on metal that was about the same temperature.
I got comfortable, my body language telling Marisa I was ready to hear the story.
“I knew Bob was different when I was six, and he was nine,” she began. “We were playing hide and seek in the house, and it was my turn to seek. Bob was really good, so when I found him in the laundry room, I couldn’t believe he’d made the rookie mistake of leaving his hand sticking out of the washer.
“I grabbed his hand and pulled, expecting him to pop up and start counting as I ran to hide. But after a few steps, something seemed odd. I still had his hand. And that’s all I had. I was about to scream when I heard a voice from nearby. It was Bob. He said, ‘You have to find all of me for it to count.’ I’ll never forget thinking how cool it was to have a body part you could just pull off to fool people.”
As Marisa related the story of her childhood and various zombie adventures, it sounded much like my own, though I didn’t have any siblings. Life was normal even if Bob was not. It made perfect sense.
But not to Marisa’s dad.
Her dad hid Bob from society, home-schooling him, and forbidding him from venturing outside. On the rare occasions the family went to dinner or the movies, Bob spent an hour applying make-up to make him look like a norm. Bob also had to wear baggy clothes covering almost every inch of skin.
“The worst part was that my dad bought all of Bob’s clothes, so all of it was from online stores catering to old guys,” Marisa said. “Bob was so embarrassed going out in striped polos and shapeless dad jeans.”
Marisa and Ryan made the best of it, sneaking out with Bob when they could, to participate in a little zombie mischief.
“A lot of times we’d hang in a parking lot waiting for some old lady or a teen who looked like he’d just gotten his license,” she said. “After they got in the car, we’d sneak up behind it. Bob would hang his arm on the bumper, and as they backed out, we’d slap the trunk as loud as we could and ran. Oh man, the stuff people did when they got out and saw the arm. Yelling and screaming, and we’d walk up all casual, Bob would grab his arm, and we’d just walk away. Until the one time a guy didn’t stop and took off with the arm. That was a bike chase we’d never forget.”
Everything changed when Bob was fifteen, and they moved to Mexico. Marisa didn’t know for months that her dad was chasing rumors about a doctor who specialized in “post-life syndrome,” experienced by one-hundred percent of the zombie population (which, as I was learning, had just doubled). The term was used by her dad because it avoided the “z” word and implied it was a disease and, thus, required a cure.
Her dad used his government connections to keep an ear close to the ground. He’d disappear for days, Marisa said, always returning in a bad mood.
Until that day he came through the door with a huge smile. A few days later, he disappeared with Bob.
Spike found Dr. Armendariz, I thought.
“Exactly,” Marisa said.
“Sorry, didn’t know I said that out loud.”
“No, I’ve been talking too much as it is, and we have to get back. But there’re just a few mor
e things you need to know. Especially with what’s happening today.”
I should’ve been shocked. There’s no way Marisa and Ryan should have known what was about to happen, but everything fell into place once I’d heard about Bob.
Bob. What kind of name is that for a zombie? Fred was fine, Zed even better. I liked Jared. And Muhammad rolled off the tongue.
But, Bob? It sounded so normal.
“We never saw Bob again,” Marisa said, derailing my zombie-name train, which was a good thing.
“What do you mean you never saw him again?” I asked.
“What part of that sentence threw you? Never? Or saw?”
I almost said “Bob,” but luckily for me she kept right on going or my jaw would have been introduced to her left cross.
“Dad told us he ran away,” Marisa said. “He never talked about Bob again. Ryan and I were heartbroken. We left Mexico a few days later, and when we got back home, I stayed in my room for, like, months. I hated my dad. But that’s a story for another time.”
“What’s the story for now?”
“You. Tread. This whole program today with these idiot scientists who don’t even believe you exist, let alone need to be cured. This is everything my dad wanted. Except he wanted it for Bob, not you. Thing is, if this works, I mean, if it changes you, it could be a good thing for me and Ryan. We could see Bob again.”
“What does all this have to do with Bob?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question as soon as I heard it out loud.
“This is all about Bob,” Marisa said. “What do you think my dad’s going to do if you leave here like just another kid? He’s going to track down Bob, bring him home, and cure him.”
Marisa’s shoulders heaved as she tried to stifle a sob. The tears flowed, regardless of her wishes.
I hopped off the table and put my arms around her. As long as I hugged her, I didn’t have to think of anything else.
A creaking noise behind me grabbed my attention. I glanced toward the kitchen door just as it started to close. A familiar jingling announced the arrival of my best friend. I looked down the aisle, waiting for him to come around the corner.