Brandon stood beside me then. He screamed into my ear, asking what was going on. Then he looked into the room and saw that it was filled with the monsters. Saw Natalie and saw that Ken and the others must be dead. He fired his own gun, let loose with both barrels. I ran forward and pulled the door shut. It shook as the undead on the other side threw themselves at it.
“They were waiting for someone to open the door,” I said to no one in particular. “They planned another freaking ambush.”
“We need to get out of here,” Brandon said.
We ran back into the living room.
“Where’s Nat?” Cass asked.
Brandon shook his head and the girl broke down in tears. He asked one of the boys who didn’t rate a gun to help her.
I grabbed more shells out of the ammo box and loaded the shotgun. We were going through the ammo too fast. We needed to move out now or things were going to turn really ugly. Uglier than they already were. Brandon was about to call to the crew in the kitchen that it was time to go when Phil interrupted him.
“Brandon, is this place insured?”
“What? Why are you asking that?”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Phil slung the AR-15 over his shoulder and walked over to the fireplace at the end of the room. Over the mantel were two oil lamps. He took both and walked to the near end of the hall. He hurled one of the lamps down the hall where it smashed against the wall.
“Hey!”
Phil took a lighter out of his pocket, lit the second lamp, and then threw it after the first. The whole back of the hallway filled with flames. The heat reached us just a second later.
“That back room is filled with zombies,” Phil said. “I don’t want them coming out behind us.”
Brandon didn’t say anything. He didn’t look too happy, either.
“As soon as I tell the guys in back to go, drop your stuff from the windows and get in the circle,” I told the guys at the windows. I turned to a couple of kids manning the front door. “Then you guys open the doors. The people with guns go out first and clear the porch, then everyone else comes out behind us and we move as a group toward the cars.”
“I still don’t know why we’re listening to her,” Cass said.
“That’s why you don’t have a gun,” Brandon said to her. “Let’s go,” he yelled to the people in the kitchen.
After a pause, there was the sound of them dropping the table, the sound of splintering wood, and then the boom boom boom of gunfire. The four of them came running in a second later.
“We’d better go,” Crystal said. She stopped and surveyed the faces in the room.
Crystal said, “Ken?”
No one said anything. She figured it out.
The guys at the windows dropped the tables and bookshelf and ran to join us. The two guys at the door let their bookshelf drop and did the same. There was a pause before the door burst open and a zombie ran in. Phil opened up with his rifle and the thing flew out again. Then the debris in front of the windows was pushed in and monsters started climbing in. Four of us—Brandon, Cody, a kid I didn’t know, and me—rushed out onto the porch and let loose with our guns. The others stayed inside and took care of any zombies that made it in either through the windows or the kitchen.
It only took a few seconds to clear the porch and we called the others out. We gathered outside and started down the wide steps to the sandy lawn.
“Stay close together,” I yelled as we started to slowly move toward the cars. The cars were maybe twenty yards away. We moved so slowly it felt like we weren’t making any progress.
I saw that the whole back of the cabin was on fire. I hoped Phil was right, I hoped a ton of zombies were caught in the blaze.
The whole world narrowed down to those cars. Get to the cars. Whenever a zombie popped into view between them and me, I pulled the trigger. My arm ached like it was going to fall off from the recoil. Once again I heard the click as I fired on an empty chamber. I was almost relieved to not feel the kick of the shotgun.
“I need to reload,” I said.
“Me, too,” said someone else.
There was too long a pause before I heard Cody’s voice. “We’re out of shells.”
“Jesus,” Cass said, her voice high and keening. “We’re all dead. This was such a good idea!”
“Someone had better shut her up,” I said. I was tired of being understanding and sympathetic.
“We just need to keep moving,” Brandon said. I could tell he was trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
Phil was apparently the only one with ammo left. The assault rifle kept up a steady chatter that almost drowned out the fact that we were all arguing ourselves to death.
“We need to head back,” Cass insisted.
“We can’t go back, you stupid skank,” I shouted. “The damned house is on fire!”
“And whose bright idea was that?”
We had beaten back the zombies as we walked along and fired at them. Now they lurched closer and closer. It made me crazy angry to see our doom walking slowly toward us while we stood still talking. There was no way Phil could keep them off of us. Then I noticed that there were too many of the monsters between us and the cars.
“We need to use our guns like clubs,” I said. “We might be able to fight them off. We need to move, dammit!”
“Wait,” Brandon said. “What’s that?”
Then I heard it. Sirens, and not too far off. Natalie’s phone call must have gone through. I would have breathed a sigh of relief if I didn’t have to get busy beating zombies to death with the butt of my shotgun. Thank God we’d killed most of the runners or else we would have been toast.
As we kept at it, the sirens got louder and we could see the red and blue lights strobe through the trees as the police came up the twisty driveway.
I heard a scream behind me. I had to ignore it because I had troubles of my own. I started swinging the gun like a club. My lungs hurt as if I’d been running all night long and I worried I was going to lose my grip on the gun because my hands and upper arms were covered with black zombie gore. Just when I thought I couldn’t go on anymore, I heard the first of the shots. A zombie stumbling toward me fell as the top of its head peeled off. I looked up and saw a squad of police in riot gear and armed with automatic weapons slowly advancing through the mass of zombies. That was the good news. The bad news? We were in their line of fire.
“Everyone get down!” I yelled as I dropped to the grass. I hoped everyone heard.
I spent the next eternity or so lying on the ground, covering my head and hoping the SWAT guys reached us before the oncoming horde of zombies. I lost all sense of time because the only thing I heard was the sound of rifle shots, and it started to mesmerize me. After a while, I was aware that someone stood over me. I opened my eyes to see a pair of combat boots. I looked around and saw that the line of cops had reached us and were now breaking to walk around us.
A second line of cops came up behind the first and started looking after us.
“Stay down for the time being,” a cop yelled at us through his helmet’s visor. “We have medical teams on the way. They’ll assess you before we move you out of the area.”
It occurred to me that they were less worried about whether or not we were okay, and more concerned if any of us had been infected. I was positive I was going to have to spend a few more days under guard at the hospital. Not to sound shallow, but none of this was my idea of a great kickoff to the summer.
The medical guys showed up a few minutes later and did triage on all of us. I was relieved that they cleaned up my arms and face and said I was good to go, no hospital for me.
The cops gathered up those of us who didn’t have to go to the hospital. Only three kids had to go. Two because they’d possibly been bitten or scratched by a zombie and one, Cody, because an overzealous jock had clubbed him in the head when they were both going for the same zombie. The rest of us were given bl
ankets and cups of coffee while we were told to wait. Coffee! Like the zombie invasion is sponsored by freaking Starbucks or something.
I sat on the tailgate of a truck next to Phil, sipping my java, not saying anything. Just listening to the dwindling sound of gunfire as the police cleaned up the last of the zombies. That’s where Brandon found me. He came up and gave me a big hug.
“I’m really glad you’re okay,” he said into my hair as he hugged me. I was mostly worried he was going to spill my drink all down my front. After everything we’d been through, the last thing I needed was a scalding burn on my temporary cleavage.
After he pulled away, I said, “Brandon, I think we should talk.”
“Sure,” he said.
“Why don’t we go over . . . ? Well, anywhere else.” I gestured toward Phil.
We walked a few feet away. With nothing between us and the burning house, the flames warmed the night air. I wouldn’t need my blanket for long in the heat. I wondered if anyone had called the fire department.
“What’s up, Courtney?” Brandon asked.
No way to sugarcoat it.
“I can’t see you anymore.”
His mouth fell open. “What?” he demanded. “Is this because I had the party out here after you said I shouldn’t?”
“No,” I said, then corrected myself. “Yes, but not totally.”
“Not totally? Then why?”
“Look at me, Brandon,” I said. I spread my arms. “This dress, my makeup, my hair. I didn’t do any of these things because I wanted to, I did them because I thought you’d like them.”
“I do like them.”
“Not the point. I was trying to change to get you to like me. Look at me—I feel like freaking Sandra Dee in reverse.”
Brandon looked confused. “Sandra who?”
“It’s from Grease,” Phil piped up from the tailgate of the truck. “It’s good, even though it has a lousy message. You should watch it.”
I turned and glared at him. I said, “Some privacy, Phil?”
He slunk away to where most of the others were gathered.
“So, that’s it?”
“Also, your friends don’t like me.” He opened his mouth to interrupt. I steamrollered over him. “They don’t, Brandon. Trust me. I don’t want to leave the few friends I have left because I’ve gotten an unexpected bump in social status. And . . .”
“What?”
“It’s the Vitamin Z,” I said. “I really don’t like that you and Ken were doing it after the experience we had.”
“That is so hypocritical,” he said, his face flushed. “I can’t take it, but you can sell it.” He pitched his voice low so that, hopefully, none of the cops milling around would hear.
I was expecting that. “You know what? You’re right.” He looked so hurt and angry and confused, I wanted to do something to try to comfort him. I didn’t, though. It would just make things even worse later. “I’ve been a hypocrite and I’ve been really stupid and selfish. Well, I’m going to stop. I decided that I’m not selling anymore.”
“You had some sort of what, epiphany, while you were slaying zombies tonight?” he asked.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, I guess. I hadn’t been selling it since last week, but I’ve decided to make it permanent. Yeah, tonight made it all come together,” I said.
We stood there in the glow of his dad’s burning cabin, undead bodies scattered around and police questioning our friends. I couldn’t have asked for more in the teen-romance department. I felt bad that I was doing this to him now, but I thought it was best to just be done with it.
“Does it help if I say I’m sorry?”
“Not really. No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
I can’t believe I’m saying this—I was actually saved by the police. An officer walked up to us. He’d just removed his helmet and his head steamed in the cold night air.
“You Brandon Ikaros?” he asked. “It’s your dad who owns this place?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Want to come this way? We have some questions. It won’t take long.”
Brandon followed the guy away. I waited to see if he was going to glance back at me. Because, you know, I like to torture myself. He didn’t. Which broke my stupid heart.
I found Phil. He and a boy I didn’t recognize stood together and talked about the assault rifle that Phil had used—and that the police had taken away from him. They were apparently bonding over weapons of all sorts. I tugged on his sleeve to get his attention.
“Can you drive me home?” I asked. “I mean, assuming you got the keys from Cody.”
“Sure,” he said. “As soon as the police get our contact info, they said we can go. I guess they’ll be calling everyone in the next day or two to ask what happened.”
I looked around at the mess. “Seems pretty obvious.”
Phil just shrugged. “We can find an officer and give him our info.”
We found a cop and he wrote down everything he needed. He said we’d get a call tomorrow to schedule a time to go to the police station and answer some questions. I heard a few kids complaining about it. I didn’t mind. I figured it was the best possible circumstances under which I would visit a police station.
The police made me give them their blanket back. Phil actually took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders as we walked. Cody’s car was a battered old station wagon. It looked totally unsafe. I thought about going back to see if anyone else could give me a ride. I was so damned tired, though, that I just climbed in. After everything else that had happened that night, I figured I was charmed.
Phil steered down a narrow dirt road toward the highway. We rode on in silence for a while. I didn’t want that. I needed noise, music, something. I went to turn on the radio and found a gaping hole full of wires where it should be.
“Seriously?”
“Cody bought a new stereo a while ago and ripped out the old one before he made sure the new one would fit.”
“Well, that just seems like the perfect capper to the evening.”
“It was an interesting night,” Phil said. He said it so seriously that I burst out laughing.
“Was that funny?”
“The fact that you don’t know that it was funny, makes it really funny.” He smiled, just a fast smile—there and gone. “You should smile more often.”
“Should I?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re cute when you smile.”
He just nodded his head slowly and blinked a couple of times. Same old Phil. “Maybe I’ll find some reason to start doing it more often,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, and I turned to look at the darkened road that we were driving down. The headlights could barely cut through the darkness. If you didn’t know better, you might think that the world didn’t exist beyond the reach of the headlights and it was being created one second at a time as we hurtled forward.
“Something’s bugging me,” I said.
“What’s that?” Phil asked.
“The zombies.”
“No crap,” he said.
“No,” I said. “Not all of them. Just the runners.”
“The fast ones?” Phil asked. “Yeah, those guys were murder.”
“Where’d they come from?” I asked. “Why were there so many of them? And why’d they look like they hadn’t been chewed on?”
“Good questions,” Phil said. “What are the answers, Nancy Drew?”
“You just made a cultural reference,” I said, and he smiled again. “I don’t know, but I feel like I know the answer. I just need to put it all together.” I also noticed, though I didn’t mention it, that Phil was the first person to not call me crazy for talking about the new runners. Another point in his favor.
The hum of the tires on asphalt started to lull me to sleep. My defenses were down. That’s my best guess for why I said the next thing.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
�
�Yes,” Phil said.
“Say someone had a plan,” I started, and I laid out my grand scheme for him—New York, the Mailman Center, all of it. And then I told him why I wanted to do it. I left out how I planned to finance the operation.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, and I braced myself for the worst.
“It’s good to have a goal,” he said.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“What else?”
“Most people think I’m crazy when I tell them my plan,” I said.
He frowned a little, then went back to his usual poker face.
“Why would you give a damn what anyone else thinks about it?” he asked. “It’s your plan. If it’s crazy, you’ll figure it out. But watching you handle yourself the last few days . . .” He shrugged. “I can’t imagine anything will stop you.”
I stared at him in amazement. I wasn’t used to feeling gratitude toward one of my peers and I didn’t know what to do with it.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You bet.”
I turned to look out the window. Trees barely visible in the darkness flashed by. I smiled, sure he couldn’t see it.
We fell back into a comfortable silence. Just like in Crystal’s car, I became aware of Sherri’s voice again in the back of my mind. This time she was laughing at me because I’d let my guard down with Phil, and because I’d decided to play detective. I figured that was okay, I probably deserved her laughter.
But I knew I’d figure it all out and get the last laugh.
EPILOGUE
Score One for Me
Dad took the news of the zombie attack relatively well. I mean, sure, he stormed up and down the living room and swore that he was going to sue Mr. Ikaros into the poorhouse. But I say he took it relatively well because when you compare it to how he reacted when I told him I’d been dealing drugs for nearly a year, he’d been a peach about Mr. Ikaros.
He stopped, became absolutely motionless, but his face grew this really frightening shade of red.
“What did you say?” he asked. His voice was brittle like cracked glass.
“I wanted to tell you sooner,” I said. It sounded lame even to me. “But it’s not the easiest . . .”
Zomburbia Page 30