Zomburbia

by Adam Gallardo

  The one conversation I had with him was to arrange for a ride to school on Monday since I didn’t know if and when Sherri would be back. Dad mumbled that that’d work, we’d just have to go earlier than I was used to. After that we retreated to our rooms and didn’t talk for the rest of the day.

  I caught up on homework and trolled the Internet for a while. It had been days since I’d looked for news about the Army retaking New York. I resisted looking it up then. I convinced myself a long time ago that the longer I waited to look at the news, the better chance that it’d be good when I did. I knew it was stupid and I also believed it to be true. After I exhausted the wonders of the world wide web, I turned in to bed early.

  My phone rang sometime in the middle of the night. All I knew was that it was dark outside as I unwrapped my blankets from around my legs. Dad must have forgotten to turn on the air-conditioning because I was sweating like a pig. After groping around long enough that I thought I was going to miss the call, I found the phone and flipped it open.

  I must have said something understandable because after a second, Sherri’s voice came through the speaker. “Come outside, Courtney.”

  “Sherri?” I was wide awake. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Just come outside, shithead,” she said, “and bring your gun.”

  “My pistol?”

  “Just do it.” And the line went dead.

  I clicked on the light and hunted up clothes. I found my pistol laying on top of my nightstand, which is weird because I didn’t remember taking it out of my bag before I went to sleep. I picked it up and headed out into the hall.

  I paused as I passed my dad’s room. Something inside the room scratched on the door. I knew that it wasn’t my dad. I knew my dad was in there and that whatever scratched at the door had killed him. The scratching became more insistent, nearly a pounding. I tightened the grip on my pistol and thought about throwing open the door and shooting whatever was in there. I knew Sherri was waiting for me. The thing would wait. I’d be back.

  I had to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun. When had it become daytime? Before my eyes adjusted, I started hearing things. Moans and footsteps, shuffling. I knew what would be there once I could see again. Zombies, hundreds, maybe thousands, crowded the streets. They pushed against the fence that surrounded our yard, but none of them tried too hard to get in. Looking up and down the street, I saw that ours was the only yard the shufflers hadn’t gotten into. I heard far-off screams, maybe two or three streets away. It didn’t bother me. Then I smelled rotting meat behind me and I knew who was there.

  “Took you long enough to get out here.”

  “Hi, Sherri,” I said, and I turned. This time I wasn’t afraid to confront her. Most of her face was gone. How she was able to talk, I’m not sure. One milky eye squinted at me. “I think you need a new moisturizer.”

  “Very funny,” she said, and the one side of her face that was still attached pulled back into a smile. “You’re gonna need your sense of humor soon, culo.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked. I planted my hand on my hip and tried my best to look bored. For a second I felt like I was outside myself and watching this scene. I liked this new me, this unafraid me. I hoped I’d keep it up.

  “Hell, yeah,” Sherri said.

  Clouds covered the sun and the day darkened and grew cold. Then I heard something from a long way off—a kind of roaring sound. I knew what it was. It was the zombie from the lobby of Buddha’s building. The one that seemed faster and smarter than a zombie should. It was out there, a long way off, and it was coming for me.

  “Laugh it off, girl. I’m here to tell you some important shit.”

  No. It was all too much. I knew I was dreaming. Knew it. I hated it. I refused to play along. I sidestepped around Sherri and headed back toward the house.

  “Sorry, Sherri. Whatever you have to tell me is going to have to wait.”

  But as I got to the front door, I heard that scratching sound again. The one I’d heard coming from Dad’s room. Whatever had been in there had gotten out. I made a small mewling sound in the back of my throat. This wasn’t fair.

  I turned and Sherri stood where I left her. The super-zombie gave another roar and now it was much closer, maybe only a couple of blocks away. Beyond Sherri, the horde of zombies still clogged the streets.

  No way was I going to let some monster hunt me down; I was going to go to it and face it. I gripped the pistol more tightly, then I marched past Sherri and threw open the gate that stood between me and the zombies on the street.

  “I could have told you how to make it through what’s coming,” Sherri said behind me.

  I wanted to say something clever and mean. Nothing came to mind. Instead I waded into the sea of monsters. They let me pass at first, taken by surprise at my boldness, maybe. But then they started to clutch at me as I strode past. Panic set in then—the dream wasn’t doing what I thought it would. By then I was too deep into the mob. There was nowhere to go. They had me. I screamed, sure I’d wake myself up before they could do me any real harm. I kept thinking that until their teeth tore into my flesh.

  My dad stood over me, shaking my shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said, “I thought you were going to get up early. We have to leave in a few minutes.”

  I did my best to pull myself out of the dream and into real life. It was slow going. I faked a smile and told him I’d be ready before he knew it. When he left, I pulled on my standard uniform—one of the benefits of wearing practically the same thing every day—and then ducked into the bathroom to wash my face. After that, I just grabbed my bag and was ready to go.

  The ride in with my dad was probably the longest of my life. I had all of this stuff I wanted to either tell him or ask him—my worries about Sherri and what happened Saturday night and wanting to know what the hell he was doing with Z in his drawer, for starters. I’m sure he had things he wanted to tell me or ask me, important stuff. But we passed the whole ride saying stupid, meaningless crap to each other. “Anything exciting happening at school today?” “Nope.” “Hey, can we have stew for dinner tonight?” “Don’t see why not.” Ad nauseam.

  The school has a turnaround area that’s patrolled by guards with assault rifles for parents who are dropping off their kids. Dad let me out there and we said really lame good-byes and he took off as I was walking through the gate to the school yard.

  I kicked myself for not talking to him about anything meaningful, and for not at least saying a real good-bye. Sometimes when I’m being mopey and dramatic, I tell myself stuff like Well, that might be the last time you see him. Even if I totally know that’s not the case, it’s just me trying not to act like I’m in a freaking soap opera.

  The whole day passed in this sort of fugue state. Sometimes I’d realize I was sitting in, like, AP English, and I’d have no memory of leaving AP History. Half the time I was really only aware of worrying about Sherri, the other half I wondered why Brandon hadn’t sought me out to talk to me.

  As I walked down the hall, my attention was caught by one of the gazillion posters advertising the end-of-year dance that was happening this week. I was offended by their forced joyfulness. The theme this year was “Make It Last Forever!” Ugh. Having a dance in the climate at the time? The theme should have been, “Masque of the Red Death.” Not that any of these melon-heads would get it.

  At lunch, I sat outside by myself on the bench that was farthest from the school. All my food tasted like wet cardboard, which was, I admit, a step up from what it usually tasted like. I ate mechanically—put food in my mouth, chew, swallow, repeat. I just needed to fuel my body so I could move on to the next thing.

  When I finished eating I went over my Trig homework. Normally as entertaining as talking to a jock, this time I lost track of the time. I think I also didn’t hear the bell that ends lunch. When I looked up, I noticed that the last of the other kids was now trooping back to the building. I wondered if anyone had tried to get my attention and ca
ll me back.

  I stuffed my book and notebook back into my bag and I was getting ready to go in when I saw something out past the fence. I started walking that way. I stole a quick look up at the two guard towers that command the back field. I didn’t see anyone. A state-mandated nap break, no doubt.

  Near where I saw the zombie kid a few days ago, there was definitely someone or something standing out there again. Maybe some of his little zombie friends missed him and had come looking for him. Sorry, little dudes, I think some fascist with a scoped rifle sent your friend to a farm where he could run around and play with other shufflers.

  I stopped a couple of feet away from the section of single-layer fence and stood there peering out at the figure in the trees. It was smallish compared to the other zombie, so I guessed it was a girl. I was trying to psychically will her to step out where I could get a better look at her when she actually did what I wanted and emerged from the shadows. I was amazed and proud of the powers of my mind for a whole couple of seconds.

  Until I noticed it was Sherri.

  I fell against the fence and caught myself from hitting the ground by lacing my fingers through the chain-link. I felt sick to my stomach as I watched her walk closer. I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t her but there was no way it could be anyone else. Unlike in my dream, her face was fine. In fact, she looked like she hadn’t been touched. Her clothes were intact, even if they were filthy, and I couldn’t see any bites or scratches on her.

  She walked toward me. My heart beat faster because I thought she must be alive, but as she got closer, I knew I was wrong. Her skin was ashen, her eyes sunken and glassy. Then she opened her mouth and hissed at me and black fluid dripped down her face.

  The image of her went blurry as I started to blink away tears. She stopped just a little way away from the fence. I stood and took an involuntary step away from her, hating myself as I did. A long, soft moan escaped her lips.

  “Oh, Jesus, Sherri,” I said. “Oh, I’m so sorry. We should have never gone to Buddha’s. It was stupid and I knew it. I should have said no.” She didn’t respond, just stood there panting, watching me like a cat watched a mouse.

  A sob escaped me and I wiped at my eyes. I wanted to turn away from her, to get her out of my sight. I needed to call her parents. As shitty as they were, they needed to know what happened to her.

  I was just about to turn when an idea came to me. Despite the revulsion I felt when I looked at her, there was something I had to try.

  “Sherri,” I said, “Sherri, if you’re still in there, I know you’ll hear me and be able to answer.” I waited and got no reply. “Listen, can you tell me what it’s like? Is it like when we took Z? Does it hurt?”

  She took a step forward. She opened her mouth like she was going to start speaking.

  “Cor . . . ,” her voice rattled out of her throat.

  “Yes,” I sobbed. “It’s me, Courtney!”

  Sherri looked right at me and something passed between us, some connection or understanding. Then her eyes went blank again.

  “Cor . . . ,” She said again. “Cor!” The sound became a roar and she threw herself at the fence. Her mouth opened wider and wider. It looked like a snake dislocating its jaw to swallow a rat.

  “No, don’t,” I moaned. I stepped back from her.

  With her mouth opened wide, Sherri pressed her face against the chain-link fence. She started to work her jaw up and down.

  “Stop it.” My shoulders shook as I held back a sob. “Please, stop it.”

  When biting through the fence didn’t work, she started to rub her face back and forth against it, working her jaw the whole time. The fence was acting like a cheese grater, gouging bits of flesh out of her face.

  This couldn’t get any worse.

  Then, of course, it did.

  As Sherri pressed herself against it, the fence lurched forward. I jumped back in surprise and then noticed that the concrete moorings stuck in the ground were barely half a foot deep. She gave it another shove and the fence moved again.

  “Stop it, Sherri,” I said. “Don’t do this. It’s me!”

  With one last push, the fence fell inward to the ground and Sherri rode on top of it. I had to run backward to avoid being caught underneath it and I tripped over my own stupid feet as I went. I landed hard on my tailbone but didn’t take any time to nurse my sore ass. Sherri was already scrambling toward me over the fallen fence and she was closer than I would have guessed possible.

  I meant to tell her to stop again, to beg and reason with her. What came out when I opened my mouth was a scream that burned my throat. I just kept on screaming as I pushed myself backward as fast as I was able, my mind blank except for the thought that I wasn’t going to get away. Sherri was crawling faster than I was.

  I finally found my words, or word—I just started screaming, “Stop, stop, stop!” Over and over again. Not that it did any good. Sherri was practically on top of me and I decided to stop crawling and got ready to use my energy to kick her as hard as I could. I cocked my knee and got ready to kick her in her stupid, mauled face.

  Just as her hand wrapped around my ankle, the top of her head exploded in a black mist. She managed to pull herself forward once more before she fell forward and stopped moving. That’s when I heard the warning klaxon coming from the guard towers.

  I jerked my leg away and stood up. I started to walk back toward the school and saw two of the stupid little golf carts the guards use rolling toward me. A ride back to the school sounded good at this point. Also, a chance to lay down, and be given super-strength sleeping pills, please.

  I was pretty surprised when the carts stopped about ten yards away, the guards got out and three of them pointed their assault rifles at me. The fourth guard kept his hand on his side arm and started pointing to the ground with his free hand.

  “Get down on the ground!” he yelled at me.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Get on the ground. I will not tell you again!” I noticed that he had unsnapped the strap that held his pistol in its holster.

  I got down on my hands and knees and he yelled at me to lay down flat and put my hands over my head. What the hell? I’d just survived a freaking zombie attack and these guys were going Rambo on me.

  I saw a couple pairs of shiny, black boots come into view.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, and I was annoyed at how shaky my voice sounded.

  “Did the zombie scratch or otherwise hurt you?” the guy yelled at me. He was like a foot away and he still felt the need to yell. It came to me that these guys were probably all hopped up on adrenaline and they were pointing weapons at me. I was in really deep doo-doo.

  “No,” I said, trying to be calm, trying to smack them in the face with my total badass serenity. “I’m not hurt.”

  Another voice cut in, high-pitched and way too excited. “Look at these scratches on her arms! Did that thing do this?”

  That totally blew my cool. “It was a cat! A cat did that!”

  “You just need to lay there until Health Services comes for you.”

  The guard tower klaxons had cut off by then and far off I heard a new siren. I knew that would be the HS ambulance. I raised my head enough to see that a pretty big crowd had gathered out by the school. They were all gawking, trying to figure out who was being held down by four rent-a-cops.

  The HS ambulance pulled right onto the lawn and made ruts all along its path. I thought how the custodians were going to be pissed and I felt a giggle rise up in me. I stifled it. The last thing I needed in this situation was to lose it.

  Three people in Tyvek Hazmat suits climbed out of the truck. They also wore full-face respirators, and I couldn’t see any sign of humanity behind the mirrored faceplates. They stood and talked with one of the guards. Then they went back to the truck and brought out a stretcher and something else before coming over to me.

  “Will you roll over, please?” one of them asked, and I did.
“We want you to slide onto the stretcher, please, then we’re going to put these restraints on you.”

  One of the HS guys held a confusing tangle of leather straps with padded cuffs. I think the guy could tell that was freaking me out, because he quickly followed up with, “Don’t worry, it’s just procedure. We’ll let you out once we get to the hospital.”

  I know he meant that to reassure me. Coming from that mask, however, it was like finding out Darth Vader is your dentist and he just told you, “This won’t hurt a bit.”

  But I did as he asked and scooted my body up onto the stretcher. The guy with the harness moved in, and so did one of the guards—covering me, I guess. The dude with the harness knew what he was doing because in less than a minute, my wrists and ankles were secured to the rails of the stretcher. Once I was strapped in, they extended the thing’s legs and wheeled me toward the ambulance.

  As we bumped along the grass, I heard a voice calling out my name again and again. I lifted my head as much as I was able and looked out toward the crowd. Brandon stood there, separate from the rest of the kids. He had his hands cupped around his mouth and he was trying to get my attention.

  “Call my dad!” I screamed. “Call my dad!”

  Then they hit the bumper of the truck with the stretcher, which threw my head back. They slid me into the ambulance, and two of the guys climbed in behind me as they shut the doors. A few seconds later, the engine rumbled to life and we took off across the grass.

  “I’m going to take some vital signs from you, okay . . . ?” one of the guys said to me. I knew he was fishing for my name.

  “Let me alone,” I yelled at top volume. Then I just started to scream. My best friend was dead on the football field and I was being abducted by men in black. I was officially losing my shit.

  I felt a searing pain in my right arm and stopped screaming long enough to look down. One of the EMTs had stuck me with a syringe. I wanted to start shouting about this new indignity, but I suddenly felt like it didn’t matter. I felt like I was falling down a hole and everything that mattered was still up on ground level.