Zombie Hayride

by Kyler Doss

  "Do you see them?" Eric said.

  "Yeah, I do."

  The two zombies backed off. The wagon moved on toward the outer turn, which it would get to in a few minutes. Beyond the outer turn was the place that no one ever got to, the edge of the woods. Eric staggered that way.

  "Next time around," he said, "we attack."

  "Really?"

  "I've had it, Zander."

  Zander didn't know if that was part of the zombie game or something else. It sounded like something else. For one thing, he didn't expect to be called by his name when he was doing his zombie show. It didn't sound right.

  "With what?"

  Eric wouldn't answer. He went in the direction of the woods, zombie-like. Maybe he was caught up in the game.

  Zander knew what it was like to get caught up in that other game, when the hayrides were about the stolen kisses. That was over with. It was a different hayride now with different rules.

  Zander himself was getting scared when he was not the one that was supposed to.

  He and Eric were gonna ambush the hayride for real on the second time around. If Eric wasn't so serious, it would be fun and games. But Eric was serious about something, looking way too much like a real zombie out there.

  And Zander was the one who had painted him. Plus Eric had painted Zander. This was getting weird.

  You didn't feel like a zombie exactly, because you were still yourself, but you felt like you could do stuff you would never normally do. No one would question it. After all, you were a zombie.

  Eric kept going toward the woods. Zander didn't know what to do but Eric turned and appeared to look at him hard.

  "This is it," Eric said.

  Zander walked his normal walk, not the zombie shuffle they were supposed to do. It didn't seem to matter when there was nobody around but him and Eric.

  A little confused, Zander came up with a question.

  "What do we do?"

  "I'm gonna take Kit. I want you to take York."

  "Then what?"

  "I don't know."

  In that way that you can see dots of light in the distance, you could see the lanterns of the hayride pushing toward the yellow and red of the canopy's fringe. If you squinted, maybe you could make out the blue. The wagon went into its longer curve to make the turn and come back out this way.

  "Nine minutes," Zander said, just for the sake of saying something.

  Eric turned his back on them. "I don't know what to do."

  It was up to Zander to watch the progress of the wagon. It dipped a little with the uneven ground of the field.

  Your job as a zombie was to scare people. And Eric was scaring Zander, if Zander was still a person and not one of the undead.

  "Like what?" Zander said.

  "Are you gonna kiss York?"

  The wagon was cutting through the distance, a minute or two closer now. So this was still about the kissing game.

  There was nothing to say to York. Just kiss him and say goodbye.

  "I was planning on it earlier."

  "Do you like him?"

  "Things have changed."

  Zander knew he would answer the question that was coming.

  "How?"

  "I like you."

  Zander must have had the natural skills of an Aunt Lily because he knew things about people and who they liked, including himself. The only guy he couldn't figure out was Eric. And he was afraid to ask, especially with Eric in this zombie-like trance.

  The Eric he knew was the man who could sing the blues as well as he could play it on the harmonica. Without his cowboy hat, he looked less country, more Mississippi. Zander got up close to him.

  "Did you bring your harmonica?"

  "I think so."

  Zander reached in through the rags and unbuttoned Eric's left shirt pocket. He came out with the harmonica that sparked some light from one of the dull sources around them.

  "Play it country," he said. "Maybe they would like that."

  The blues was for tighter quarters, the shed with its good lighting and its greasepaint.

  "Hold it for me," Eric said. "They're almost here."

  "Okay."

  That meant Zander didn't have any idea what was about to go down. Eric was out of his mind, that was for sure. He was maxing out the zombie role and Zander was part of the audience.

  "We'll board them if we have to," Eric said.

  The wagon closed from a hundred yards up the line, lumbering through the ruts. Around 60 yards off you could see things. But you couldn't see Kit or York just yet.

  The wagon got closer and the zombies Eric and Zander did, too. Zander tried to remember his zombie walk but probably walked normal when he wasn't thinking about it.

  It must have been convincing anyhow. Girls screamed. Boys did, too, only not as good. You would hire the girls for the movie.

  Eric crossed in front of the wagon and got to the infield side of it, which was what they would call it if this was a racecourse. He was moving pretty fast. The thing of it was, you couldn't see Kit or York from the side Zander was on.

  Zander kept pace and looked in the faces as best he could. No sign of those two guys.

  No doubt they had done what York did before. Jumped off at the end of the first circuit.

  If they liked each other, it was okay.

  York was an okay guy, the first guy you kissed. Kit was okay, too.

  Not much of that was really known to Eric, who was standing in the middle of the hayride not far from the bale where he had spun out tune after tune of mostly country music. But this time he was very menacing.

  He pulled off a mask or two. He went to the front and he went to the back, and he got in the faces of everyone on board.

  They loved it. The girls screamed and the boys protected them. This was a show where you got your money's worth.

  Zander jumped up.

  Eric went to his old bale, where he raised his arms in the air. The direction he was facing was the side that Zander had come from, but honestly his direction was nowhere.

  He clenched his fists at the height of his reach. "Where is anybody?"

  Zander got to him and put his arm around his waist. He edged him toward the side of the wagon that would put them back on the outside of the hayride track.

  "Time the jump," he said. "On three."

  They got down unhurt. The riders gave them a big round of applause. The wagon started into its wide bend at the outer turn.

  "Are you okay?" Zander said.

  Eric grabbed him. He wouldn't let go.

  Zander held on.

  The woods seemed like a place to shut out the far-off lights. And the sounds of the party if that was going to start.

  Kit and York were somewhere. It didn't matter where, not to Zander. He could only hope it didn't matter to Eric.

  "I've got your harmonica," Zander said.

  He had it in his pocket. He had buttons on his own pockets, too. If he could lose the zombie rags, he could show Eric.

  Eric held on.

  "Did they get off together?" he said.

  "I think so."

  Other people who had agreed to play zombies for the evening dotted the fields. It was hard to see them but their vague shapes followed the wagon back toward the start point, which was the finish of this particular ride. If another was coming, Zander didn't want to put on the show for them.

  The trees started to break up the field. They weren't thick to begin with but the farm wagon would never go near them.

  "How come?" Eric said.

  He knew the answer if he thought about it. Or else Aunt Lily could explain it to him step by step, how it was that people liked other people and it was never simple.

  Zander worked on Eric's rags. "We aren't zombies."

  He got the rags off of him, and some of his own.

  "If it wasn't dark," Zander said, "we look better."

  "We've got painted faces."

  They had to get back to the shed if they were going t
o clean up.

  "You wanna walk back there?" Zander said.

  "No."

  "Don't you want to find him?"

  "No."

  They stood among the trees around them. They held each other up because Zombies aren't that steady on their feet.

  "You scared them," Zander said.

  "That's because it was real."

  "Did you hear how they screamed?"

  "I'm gonna kiss you."

  Zander waited. Nothing happened. He would go first but he thought Eric should. Another thought occurred to him.

  "That was a good prom picture," he said.

  "We'll get one for real."

  "As zombies?"

  "No."

  It didn't matter who kissed who first. It was obvious what was happening.

  "Can you get me in?" Zander said.

  "Yeah."

  Zander let his arms go limp and danced off some steps toward the canopy lights. "What about now?"

  "We've got plans."

  Eric caught up and they zigzagged like the zombies they had been hired to play.

  "Are we getting paid for this?" Zander said.

  "The show is over."

  They walked normal, shoulder to shoulder, until they weren't going anywhere at all. Somebody had to spell things out.

  "First thing we do," Zander said, "we get this paint off of us."

  "I don't care about that."

  And Eric kissed him, greasepaint or no.

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  Also by Kyler Doss

  Zombie Hayride

  I'm Not From Here

  A Shortstop's Play

  Why Do You Touch Me

  Stuart's Wall

  Hard Footwork

  Watch for more at Kyler Doss’s site.

  About the Author

  Kyler Doss has got a pocketful of chocolate milk receipts from the bus depots he has gone through. His note on the reverse side of one of the receipts: Arizona rules. A graduate of the University of Arizona, Kyler writes novellas set in a lot of places - the coming-of-age stories boys in love would recognize on any map you can google or unfold.

  Read more at Kyler Doss’s site.