Bad Taste in Boys

by Carrie Harris

  I was so busy that the only time I saw my players was when I was filling their plates. None of them seemed sick, nor did anyone loom over me like Count Chocula on crack. I saw a lot of chalky gray skin tones, but it was mid-October in the Midwest, so I wasn’t sure whether to blame their complexions on the mystery disease or our sucky weather. Mike didn’t show.

  I flipped pancakes at precisely timed intervals, and the line marched on. I took two paces to the left, squirted out six puddles of batter in row one, flipped row three, served row five, squirted out six more puddles, and so on. I had pancake making down to an art form.

  Then I heard an improper sizzle.

  My technique was so refined that I knew something was wrong. It was too early for row two to be sizzling, too late for row four. I didn’t have any sausages cooking right now.

  I did, however, have a hand on my griddle.

  It belonged to a woman with a mom bob, a vacant stare, and an athletic booster pin. She leaned across the griddle to offer me her plate, bracing herself with one hand. Palm down. Next to a bubbling pancake. I figured she must be an amputee, but I didn’t smell burning plastic. It smelled kinda like bacon, actually.

  I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed, but people were remarkably unobservant. A couple of guys from the offensive line stood behind her; they were busy discussing farts in great detail. Talk about offensive.

  “Kate, you better take those sausages off the grill,” Kiki said from the toast and juice station. “I think they’re burning.”

  I didn’t want to tell her it was the scent of fried hand. And I really didn’t want to embarrass this woman by drawing attention to her disability, so I leaned closer and said, “Ma’am? Could you please move your hand?”

  When she opened her mouth, a trickle of black gunk spilled out. There wasn’t a lot, so the stench wasn’t totally overwhelming, but I could smell it if I concentrated. Not like I was trying to smell it, because I wasn’t that masochistic.

  She said, “Uuuuuh.”

  Oh bleep. It was spreading.

  This woman might have been grilling her hand on my griddle, but the reality hadn’t quite hit me yet. I calmly scraped her skin off the hot metal with my spatula. Good thing I was so meticulous with the cooking spray; it came off without leaving much flesh behind.

  Still. Ewww.

  She kept staring at me. I held my spatula in what I imagined was a defensive posture, but she just held out her empty plate. The gesture was strangely reassuring. No way she could be a zombie, not if she wanted pancakes. Row four was torched by now, so I gave her some from row two. She shambled off peacefully.

  My heart started hammering. It was one thing to know that a bunch of far-off military guys had the mystery disease, but watching it spread right in front of you was something completely different. I knew I was only hours away from some lab results, but in the meantime? I was a cardiovascular incident waiting to happen.

  I was so busy obsessing about the possibility of a heart attack that I completely disregarded the possibility of a seizure. My epileptic episodes weren’t usually linked to my blood pressure, but there’s a first time for everything. I felt pretty sheepish when I came to a couple of minutes later with my head crooked uncomfortably against the wall and my feet sprawled halfway to the juice station.

  “Oh my god, Kate, can you hear me?” Kiki crouched over me, her hair tickling my nose.

  I sneezed. “I’m okay.” I flailed around in an uncoordinated attempt to stand up. I had to get the rest of the pancakes off the griddle before someone got a nice helping of hand flambé. “It’s just a seizure. I used to have them all the time, remember?”

  “Yeah, but they’re still freaky.” She took my arm and helped me up. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. Everyone in the room stared at me like they expected me to grow fangs and sparkle.

  “I’m okay.” I shook Kiki’s arm free.

  “Please sit down, Kate. You’re overdue for a break, and the line’s slowing anyway.”

  “But …” There were still about ten people in line. I couldn’t let them eat anything cooked on that griddle. But there was no way for me to explain why without sounding like a total wack job.

  I could only think of one way to stop the grill from being used again. I flung my arm out, knocking over the last jug of batter in the building.

  It fell in a slow-motion arc, or at least that was what it felt like. “Nooooo!” Kiki yelled, and leapt for it with her arms outstretched. But she was too late. The jug hit the floor with a tremendous sploosh. Within seconds, we stood in a sea of batter dotted with a bunch of dust-bunny floaters.

  Kiki shot me a stricken glance. So I weaved a little on my feet to illustrate how shaky the seizure had left me. Her expression instantly changed from exasperation to concern, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty for manipulating her like this, even if it was for the greater good.

  “Come sit down,” she said, taking my arm. “Don’t worry about the pancakes. If anybody wants seconds, they can eat toast and sausages. Let me get you some juice.”

  She parked me in a corner with a glass of oj. It did nothing to get the image of the frying hand out of my head, but at least now I wasn’t dehydrated and freaked out. I was just freaked out. It was a minor improvement, but I’d take what I could get.

  “Okay,” Kiki said, patting my leg. “You stay here while the girls take down the griddle.”

  “I can help.”

  I started to stand, but she pushed me back into my seat.

  “Absolutely not. They need to pull a little extra weight since they were so late. You can supervise if you want.” She grinned at me before walking off.

  I wasn’t so good at following orders. Besides, lounging in an uncomfortable cafeteria chair wasn’t going to make my postseizure headache go away. The best thing to do was to distract myself until the pounding subsided. So I helped Mindi and Lacey scrape down the griddle and dismantle it. I felt much better as I took the tray of cooking utensils into the kitchen to be washed. No one would accidentally ingest human flesh on my watch.

  I turned on the water, and someone grabbed my shoulder from behind. I whipped around with a wet spatula in one hand, spraying water all over the place. I didn’t really think soapy water would discourage an attacker, but it was all I could come up with on short notice.

  “Hey!” Kiki yelled right in my face.

  “Sorry! You scared me,” I said.

  “No problem.” She frowned. “I thought I told you to sit down. Do I have to yell at you for not following my orders?”

  “I’m really okay, Kiki. If you’d drop the whole epilepsy subject, I’d really appreciate it. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  “Deal.” She picked up a towel and started wiping the water off the floor. “Hey, maybe you can help me.”

  “Help with what?” I asked.

  “I need someone to lock the cash boxes in the principal’s office. I’d do it myself, but …” She blushed. “Logan offered to take me home, and he’s got to leave now. Do you mind?”

  “Logan?” I turned.

  Logan Smith stood by the registers with his hands in his pockets. From a distance, he looked pretty good, considering that he’d recently been puking up black mucus. In fact, he looked so normal that I started to wonder if Aaron had been wrong. It put me in an awkward situation, because I wasn’t sure if I should let Kiki ride home alone with him. It might be dangerous.

  Then I stopped myself. Logan was a genuinely nice guy, and Mike wasn’t. That had nothing to do with the virus. So why shouldn’t Kiki go out with him? I could see why she liked him; they were both really popular but didn’t have a stick up their butts about it. They’d make a great couple.

  It was a good thing I was a quick thinker, because I ran through this entire deductive process in a matter of seconds. “Yeah, I can take care of it,” I said. “No problem.”

  “Are you sure you feel okay? Because I can tell him I’ve got to stay.”

&n
bsp; “I’m absolutely sure! Go and have a good time.”

  She kissed my cheek. “You are such a doll. You deserve to be an honorary cheerleader for this.”

  I suppressed my urge to snort. “Go before Logan turns into a pumpkin or something. Later, Logan!”

  I waved to him, and he held up his hand. The gesture was reassuring in its normalcy. No zombie would ever wave like that.

  And I didn’t believe in zombies anyway.

  Once I dragged all the cash boxes to the principal’s office and locked them inside, I realized I had no way home. It was hard going back to a carless state after having one for a while.

  All the cheerleaders had left. I could walk—if I took the shortcut through the woods behind the school, it only took about ten minutes. But it was dark now.

  Besides, now that I had accidentally introduced the Z‑word to my mental vocab, I couldn’t get it out. And I knew what happened to pretty young high schoolers who went out into zombie-infested streets. I could only imagine that something similar happened to socially awkward, braided high schoolers.

  I texted Rocky and waited for ten minutes, tapping my foot impatiently. No response. So then I called. Her phone was off. I tried her house, but no one answered there either. I wanted to call Aaron, only I didn’t know his number.

  So I called home.

  “Yo,” my brother answered. He thought he was street.

  “Hey, Jonah. Can I talk to Dad?”

  “Nope.”

  “Come on. Don’t be a jerk.”

  “Seriously, he’s not here. He’s got some meeting thing tonight. He called to say we shouldn’t wait for dinner because he’s going to be superlate.”

  “Damn.”

  “Damn” was an understatement. I didn’t want to die young in a freak zombie attack. I mean, sure, I was glad I’d had a chance to kiss Aaron before my untimely demise, but I hoped there were more kisses where that one came from.

  “What’s wrong?” Now Jonah sounded alarmed. “Has that stupid jock been bothering you again?”

  “No.” The pressure was suddenly too much to bear. My voice came out all shaky and teary-sounding, so I had to swallow and try again. “I’m stuck at school, and I don’t want to walk home by myself. I’m—I’m not feeling so good. I had a seizure. I know I’m being a total wuss, but—”

  “Kate?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut up. I’m coming to get you.”

  And then he hung up. It was very dramatic and also very stupid, because he didn’t know exactly where I was. I was tempted to let him wander around the school for a while, but then I’d have to sit and wait for him to find me. Patience wasn’t my virtue. I called him back and told him where to pick me up.

  Jonah was fifteen, so he only had a learner’s permit; he wouldn’t get his license for another couple months. Frankly, he was lucky he still had the permit after he put Dad’s car into drive instead of reverse and took the whole garage off the foundation. So I was understandably freaked when he cruised up in my car. Maybe it smelled like puke and I couldn’t drive it right now, but if he crashed it, I would not be happy.

  He stopped in the bus loop, and I stalked out of the school. At least I was pissed enough not to be even remotely worried I might be the victim of a bite-and-run. There’s a bright side to every situation.

  He rolled down the window. “Hey, sis. Want a ride?”

  “I can’t believe you took my car!” I snapped. “What did you hit on the way here? And you’d better be careful. If the cops pull us over, you’ll be in big trouble. You’re supposed to have a licensed adult in the car at all times.”

  Jonah’s face fell. “I didn’t hit anything. And Drew has his license. We’re going to drop him off on the way home.”

  His friend smiled at me hopefully from the backseat. His face was one big zit.

  I scowled at them both. “I said ‘adult.’ ”

  “Just get in the car, Kate.” He leaned over and opened the passenger door. “I came here to help keep you safe; I’m not going to wrap you around a tree.”

  I got in the car.

  Drew lived just down the street; we dropped him off and then headed home. By the time we turned off Washington Avenue into my subdivision, it was raining so hard that I could barely see the yellow line dividing the lanes. Unfortunately, our neighborhood was one of those places where streetlights have been outlawed in the interest of ambience. We had cutesy little lanterns instead. The ambience would probably have been great, except you couldn’t see a darned thing.

  So I couldn’t be blamed for screaming when someone appeared abruptly in the half-moon of the headlights.

  “Jonah! Watch out!”

  I had just enough time to see a familiar beefy face topped by a baseball cap before we ran him over.

  The car bounced so violently that my teeth snapped closed on my tongue and my mouth filled with blood. Jonah slammed on the brakes, but we were going too fast. The car screeched to a stop, but not before we were tossed around by another thump as the back tires passed over the body too.

  “Holy crap!” Jonah shouted.

  He threw the car into park while it was still moving. We jerked to a stop, jouncing me around in my seat, and barely missed an ornamental lantern.

  “I—I think that was Coach,” I stammered. “I’d been wondering where he was.”

  And now I knew. He was decorating the pavement on my street.

  “Oh god … I can’t get my seat belt off.”

  Jonah didn’t have years of experience stalking the Red Cross like I did. If Coach needed medical attention, I was the logical one to give it.

  “Stay here,” I ordered. “I’ll go … check on him.”

  “No!”

  “Stay here!” I opened the door before he had time to argue any further. “Keep the window open; I’ll shout if I need help. I might need you to bring the car closer.”

  I smiled reassuringly because that was what you were supposed to do in situations like this. Then I got out of the car, shielding my glasses from the rain with one hand.

  Coach wasn’t in the road; the only thing left on the pavement was his shoe. With shaking hands, I picked it up.

  His foot was still inside.

  I was remarkably calm. At least it wasn’t spurting; I began to consider the non-gush factor the most beneficial side effect of zombieness. Because standing there in the middle of the street with a severed foot in my hand, I pretty much bought into the whole zombie idea for good.

  The virus? It was a zombie virus.

  There just wasn’t any other workable explanation.

  I was halfway across the street when my cell beeped. I checked out the text just in case. If Rocky was stuck in her house with a million rabid zombies at the door, I wanted to know.

  It said, Almost forgot to ask you to h‑coming. Interested? Aaron.

  I stood there and gaped for a second. Then I did the unthinkable. I shut the phone without answering. I’d squeal later, provided we were both still alive. Right now? I had to see Coach for myself. I needed some kind of evidence to prove to everyone else that the zombies were real. If I showed them the foot, they’d just think I was a grave robber.

  I shielded my eyes from the rain and inched toward the shadowy ditch. The closest lantern was about twenty feet away, and it adequately illuminated an area about the size of a postage stamp. My heart thumped at breakneck speed, and my instincts screamed that this was in no way a good idea. But I had his foot. He had a total handicap when it came to chasing me down.

  I heard a wet rustle in the pile of leaves clogging the bottom of the ditch, but I couldn’t see very well since I was backlit. I took another half step forward and craned my neck like a little head jiggle was going to miraculously give me the ability to see in the dark.

  “Coach?” I squeaked.

  “Graaable.” Coach’s voice drew out into a rusty croak. Total stereotypical zombie speech pattern.

  “What?” No answer from the ditch. “Coach,
are you okay?” I spoke slowly and deliberately, like he was stupid instead of undead. Which only resulted in my feeling stupid.

  When the response came, it was so quiet that I edged closer to the ditch in an attempt to hear him better. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Bite …”

  At this point, I realized I was half stooped in front of a ditch containing a flesh-eating monster, and this was probably a bad idea. That conclusion was only made more obvious when Coach thrashed out of the leaves at me. I scrambled backward, but he grabbed my ankle before I could get away. One jerk of the foot and I toppled into a puddle and sprayed water into my face, making myself even blinder than usual.

  When my vision finally cleared, I kind of felt like splashing myself in the eyes again. Coach was still attached to my ankle, and he looked totally freak show. His skin was mottled and his nose was barely attached to his face. Ink still tinted his lower lip blue. An honest-to-god tire track ran across his torso and off his right shoulder, and his left leg ended about midshin, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

  He probably outweighed me by about a hundred pounds, so when he tried to pull himself out of the ditch by my foot, we both started sliding down the muddy bank. I scrabbled for a handhold; my fingers raked the soft ground without accomplishing much. Coach snarled and sank his teeth into the sole of my shoe, like he just couldn’t wait to devour me and needed to start while we were in the middle of a miniature mudslide. I kicked and flailed in an attempt to shake him loose and tried to climb back up at the same time. I didn’t have much success on either front.

  When somebody grabbed me under the armpits, I thrust my head back as fast as I could and felt pretty triumphant when it hit something hard. Even if it did hurt like blazes.