No wonder we’d lost our way.
I paused, looked around. I’d come to a wooded area behind a small apartment complex. There was a gully with a small stream. I sniffed the air, nostrils flaring. My sense of smell was returning, better than ever. A new, worrying thing.
Meat and blood.
I smelled a fresh kill.
And there, down by the water’s edge, I spied a fox with a rabbit in its bloody mouth. The fox’s ears twitched and it froze, eyes locked on me.
Snap, a twig broke beneath my foot. My approach spooked the quick brown fox; it dropped the dead rabbit and darted safely away into the underbrush. For a horrifying moment, I felt an urge, like a tidal tug, to get down into the muck on my hands and knees to feast on the fresh kill.
I waited for the feeling to pass.
That wasn’t me. I might have been undead, but I refused to cross that line again.
I sat beside the stream, gazing at my shadowy reflection in the rippled, starlit water. Somehow from that perspective, a new thought entered my consciousness as clearly as if I were reading the words in a book. It was such a new thought—a 180-degree turnaround—that it took me a moment to fully accept the truth of it.
I was a zombie.
But I still had control. I was responsible for my own actions.
I wasn’t a coal-burning factory spewing toxic waste into the sky. I wasn’t an oil spill, a raging fire, a standardized test, an airborne disease, a science-denying politician, or a big-time businessman willing to destroy the planet just because our government had failed to protect us.
I wasn’t the problem with this world.
But I might be part of the solution.
In that sense, at least, I guess I was just like everybody else.
SETTING THE TRAP
On Friday, the day of the “Halloween Fandango”—don’t look at me, I don’t name these things—Principal Rouster made another major announcement:
Kkkccchh. Kkkccchh. Tap-tap. TAP-TAP—SQUAAAWWWKKK. “Good afternoon, Nixon Middle School! Due to the recent discovery of toxic mold in various locations around the school, the Department of Health has temporarily shut down gymnasium B, our proposed setting for tonight’s Halloween Fandango!”
My classmates wore mixed expressions: a contrast of (1) disappointed or (2) intensely relieved. Principal Rouster, however, had more to say. “Not to worry! We’ve moved the dance to … THE PIT!”
Churlish screams, anguished cries, and wails of despair filled the room. “Not the pit, anything but the pit!” Desiree Reynolds moaned.
“It smells like stale cheese!” groaned Arnie Chang.
“I got sick in the pit last year,” little Jessica Timmons confessed in her tiny voice, “and they still haven’t mopped it up.”
What’s the pit? If you imagine our ancient, half-condemned middle school building as a concrete giant, then the pit would be, well, the armpit: a cramped, damp, dank, and low-ceilinged basement, smelling vaguely of mustard, sweat, and old tacos. In other words, great if you are a mushroom, not terrific for a middle school dance.
I didn’t really care. Under normal circumstances, I would have skipped the dance altogether, except for Zander’s elaborate plot to finally gain the upper hand on Daryl Northrop. “We can’t let him bully us any longer,” Zander had decided. The plan was a simple con. We hoped to convince Daryl, for a little while at least, that I was honestly and truly a dangerous zombie, capable of hideous acts of violence and gastronomy.
It was an acting job, basically, with a cast of dozens. We planned to put on a performance, complete with special effects. Zander had recruited his cousin Clare, the makeup artist, and she had gladly embraced the challenge. She and some of her theater friends were set to meet me at an appointed hour in the woods behind school.
First, we had to survive the dance.
* * *
A crowd of girls moved and bounced on the dance floor, smiling and laughing to the music, perfectly happy. A few boys joined them, but not many. Over by the snack table, a lumpy knot of guys stood around, tugging at their ties, watching the girls. I found Zander, clutching a cupcake as if his life depended on it. “We’re all set?” I asked.
“Be ready,” he said, and walked away.
I leaned against the wall and took in the scene. The room was too dark, too loud, too crowded—and everyone seemed almost desperate in their attempt to have “the best time ever.” A sadness descended upon me like a heavy fog, a blanket of doubt. I didn’t belong there, and I acutely felt my separateness; my unlife was all a horrible mistake, somebody’s idea of a celestial practical joke. Hand over my heart, I felt nothing—not a beat, not a liquid thrum, not the faintest fillip. Gia once called me a survivor, and that was true. But I didn’t understand why. Curious, I had looked up zombie in the dictionary. It read: “a soulless corpse said to have been revived by witchcraft.” This was another definition: “a dull, apathetic, or slow-witted person.” There’s also the description, zombielike, meaning “characteristic of or resembling a zombie; lifeless, unfeeling.”
And there it was, that word: unfeeling. How that one word pained me. I felt, I cared, I hurt. I was a person just like everybody else, and yet it didn’t seem like that at all. Across the room I glimpsed Daryl Northrup, sneering and chewing gum open-mouthed, watching the girls dance. Talal threaded his way through the crowd toward Daryl.
“If looks could kill,” Gia commented. She handed me a cup of red juice. “You okay?”
“Just great,” I murmured. “Do you really think this plan will work?”
“I know it will,” Gia answered.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I just … do,” she shrugged. “You haven’t said how nice I look.”
I leaned away, surprised. Gia stared down at me—she was quite a bit taller—through calm, wide-set eyes. She wore a sleeveless black dress that stopped two inches above her knees, a thin belt clasped at her narrow hips. Her purple hair seemed to glow as if lit from within. “You look … amazing,” I admitted.
Gia took my tie playfully between her fingers. “Fancy,” she said.
“My mother found it in a closet,” I said.
“Ah,” Gia said. We saw Talal, who stood in ready position near Daryl’s elbow.
It was almost time.
“You look good,” she told me.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I chided her.
“No, seriously. Your face, your skin. Something has changed.” She searched my eyes for an answer.
I shrugged. “Shakes, I guess.”
“I guess,” Gia said, but not like she believed me. Right on time, she placed her hand on my chest, directly above my silent heart. If it was part of the act, it was worth an Oscar. Something stirred inside me.
At that moment, Zander charged over, grabbed Gia by the wrist, and yanked her toward the dance floor. “Get away from him,” he demanded, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
It had begun.
“Hey!” I shouted.
Gia gazed at me for a split second with an expression of loss, as if a cord had been cut, and she twirled away, dancing in Zander’s arms. They moved across the floor, spinning and whirling.
“Not too close,” snapped a chaperone.
I saw their hips move in rhythm. Funny, for a “supersize me” type of guy, Zander looked surprisingly smooth on the dance floor. Gia smiled, put her head on his shoulder. Across the room, a million miles away, she looked at me and nodded.
Now.
I pushed my way through the churning dance floor, barking accusations. “What are you doing with her?” I said. “I thought you were my friend!”
Zander turned his back to me, still holding Gia tight. “Get a life,” he said over his shoulder.
I reached for Gia’s wrist. Zander slapped my hand away. Eyes narrowed, mouth tight, he spit: “I said: Get a life, freak.”
He again turned his back to me, so I grabbed Zander by the shoulder, spun him around, and landed a right
cross to his face. Zander fell backward, spilling Daryl Northrup’s drink in the process.
“Fight!” Talal cried.
“Fight!” another voice called out.
The crowd jostled and pressed closer for a better view.
“Out!” a chaperone demanded. In a moment, Principal Rouster pushed me up the stairs and toward the exit. “This isn’t over!” I screamed over my shoulder. “Tonight, ten o’clock, Zander, by the log in the woods!”
Moments later, the school door slammed behind me. I found myself outside in a parking lot. Now it was up to Talal to do his work, whispering in Daryl’s ear. I hurried across the field, up the hill, and into the woods.
Things were going according to plan.
A REAL, FLESH-EATING ZOMBIE
I found Clare waiting by the dirt clearing with several other people I didn’t know. This was a location long established by neighborhood teenagers, the ground strewn with candy wrappers and abandoned beer bottles from years of weekend gatherings. It was an ugly sight. I promised myself that we’d return another day to clean it up.
“Right on time,” Clare said, stepping forward to greet me. “How did it go in there? Did you pull it off?”
“I hope so,” I said, rubbing the knuckles of my right hand. “I punched your cousin pretty hard.”
“It had to look real,” Clare said, absolving me of guilt. “Come, let me show you the props.”
We went over the routine again. Clare introduced me to the others, friends from her improvisational theater club at school. They wore colorful outfits and complicated haircuts. To them, tonight was just another show, a fun piece of performance art for Halloween, a zombie play with blood and gore. Clare picked up a heavy tree branch that rested against the trunk of an oak. “The fight has to look convincing,” she said. “So you’ve got to really bring it down hard when you hit Zander across the back.”
“You sure it won’t hurt him?”
“Don’t worry about Zander, he’s wearing extra padding. And look,” Clare said. She ran a finger across a thin crack that ran midway across the stick. “It’s already broken, pieced together with clear packing tape.” Clare stepped back and waved the stick through the air like a Jedi knight. “It should hold together when you swing it, but the stick will snap easily when it comes down on his back.” She carefully laid it on the ground.
“What about the intestines?” I asked.
A boy stepped forward. His skin was a shade lighter than mine. “I’m Ahmed,” he said, shaking my hand. He explained that his father was the butcher in town and that he had “liberated” a long strand of uncut sausage links. “The problem is the meat’s not cooked, so you’ll have to fake eating it.”
I nodded. Raw meat would not be a problem.
Ahmed turned to Clare, gestured to the half-dozen teenagers gathered around. “The sky is overcast, so it’s plenty dark, and we’ll make sure your target doesn’t get too close a view.”
“Remember, it’s got to be chaotic and loud,” Clare told the group.
A garble of voices filtered up from below. “Here they come,” someone said.
“All right, we’ll disappear into the woods for now,” Clare said. She winked at me. “Break a leg, Adrian.”
Down below, a small mob of students crossed the field in a dark blob. Spotlights from the school building threw long shadows across the grass as the bubbling, burbling mass drew near. I could make out Zander in the lead, hand still held to his cheek. His long strides were purposeful, like he was eager for a fight. Talal walked close to Daryl, yammering in his ear, surely urging him to come see the great entertainment: Zander Donnelly versus Adrian Lazarus, fighting over a girl—may they both beat each other senseless! Dozens of students tagged along, many of them in on the deceit. That had been Gia’s job, to let everybody know we were pranking Daryl, who surely deserved it.
Our little play worked to perfection. Zander charged forward, tackling me to the ground. We tussled and rolled around in the dirt and leaves. The crowd gathered around, with Clare’s friends stepping forward, half blocking Daryl’s view. Zander gained the advantage and viciously kicked me in the stomach while I was still on the ground. I didn’t feel a thing; zombies never do.
“Kill ’im, kill ’im!” I heard Daryl scream.
My hand found the stick. I rose, swung it menacingly in the air, and smashed Clare’s prop down on Zander’s back. Zander cried out in pain, staggered for a moment, and fell into a thicket. A stunned hush fell over the gathered throng. I gave a guttural groan like a feral beast. Before anyone could move, I leaped beside Zander’s fallen body, making sure to keep my back to Daryl. I burst a large packet of fake blood that had been planted inside Zander’s shirt. While Zander shrieked in agony, my two hands tore up the string of sausages that had been hidden in a hollow. They dripped with bloody sauce.
“Oh my God, that’s his intestines!” Clare cried, followed by bloodcurdling screams.
“He’s a cannibal!” another person howled.
I spun around in the dirt, crawling like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Daryl and the others backed away, staring in horror. I moaned hungrily, pointed a crooked finger at Daryl. “You’re next,” I threatened. My teeth violently tore into a fistful of sausages; I groaned with animal pleasure at the taste of delicious blood (watered-down marinara sauce!) that gushed from my mouth.
“He’s gone crazy!” Gia shrieked.
“Run! Go! Go!” other voices screamed.
The crowd, on cue, imploded into chaos. Someone, somewhere, lit off a packet of firecrackers. A smoke bomb went off. Students fled in blind terror. From behind, Ahmed knocked Daryl to the ground. Daryl scrambled desperately in the dirt. Tears streaming from his eyes, he called out, “Help me, Mama! Help me!”
He got to his feet—I lunged forward, arms outstretched, clawing at his shirt—and Daryl ran screaming out of the woods and into the night.
I almost felt sorry for him.
But not quite.
For a long instant, we held our breath and watched Daryl flee. Finally, the coast clear, I hugged Gia, clasped an arm around Zander’s shoulders. Talal joined our celebratory group, depositing a cell phone into his coat pocket. “That was awesome!” he screamed into the night.
Clare congratulated Zander, then me. “You guys deserve an Academy Award. That was fantastic! Hysterical! Brilliant!”
“Thanks to your help,” I replied.
A frown crossed Clare’s face. She appeared troubled. “But … if you don’t mind my saying so … I don’t see what you guys accomplished tonight. The next time Daryl sees Zander, he’s going to realize that he was tricked. He’ll get angry, maybe even dangerous.”
“That’s why I texted him a link to the video I just filmed,” Talal said.
“You got it on camera?” Clare asked.
Talal smiled. “Oh yes, I sure did—and it’s very entertaining. Four stars, easy.”
We roared with laughter, once again congratulating Zander for a brilliant plan.
Finger flicking, Talal scrolled through his cell. “I included a note. Here, let me read it:
“‘Dear Daryl, don’t stress, Zander’s fine. You got punked, bigly. Before you get angry, please take a moment to view the short video attached. Pretty embarrassing, don’t you think? We promise not to share this video … it will be our little secret … as long as you never bother anyone at school ever again. If you do, we’ll download the video for all the world to see. We think it could go viral. Yes, this is called BLACKMAIL.
“‘Sincerely, Adrian Lazarus, Talal Mirwani, Gia Demeter, and Zander Donnelly.’”
TALAL PAYS A VISIT
I awoke the next morning feeling refreshed. Alive, almost. Ready to go. When I rose, I clapped my hands and did a little shuffle. Here was something to celebrate. A new me, a whole new way of looking at things. The next question was simple yet troubling: How does a seventh grader go about fixing the world? I replayed the previous night’s triumph over Daryl and chuckled to myself
. The answer was obvious: We’ll have to save the world one creep at a time.
Still dead, but cautiously optimistic, I considered the day ahead. It was Halloween. I had promised to dress as the Tin Man and take Dane trick-or-treating. Zander would be the Cowardly Lion. Gia had agreed to dress as Dorothy in red shoes and a blue gingham dress. Together, we’d follow the Yellow Brick Road to Candyland.
When I went downstairs, I glanced out the window and saw Talal kicking a soccer ball with Dane. Unnoticed, I paused to admire them at play. Talal tossed aside his trench coat and dazzled Dane with his nimble moves. Dane squealed and fell to the ground, laughing.
I stepped onto the front stoop. “Who’s winning?”
Dane leaped up and ran to me. “Your friend is here again! He’s really good at soccer!”
Talal rolled the ball in our direction. I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Try, Adrian,” Dane encouraged me. “It’s fun.”
I gave the ball a soft tap with the side of my formerly floppy foot. It held firm. Dane darted forward, gave the ball a mighty boot across the yard, and flew after it. Dane was funny when he ran, the faces he made, as if squinching his eyes tightly made him go faster.
“That kid cracks me up,” Talal said, gathering up his coat.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“We should talk,” he said. “We haven’t since, you know, that night.”
I knew that he was right. I couldn’t ignore the Borks any longer.
I shouted to Dane, “Hey! Don’t cross the street!”
Dane stood at the edge of the grass. He looked longingly at his ball, which had bounded across the road to a neighbor’s lawn. He called back, “Now can I?”
“Did you look both ways?”
Dane made an exaggerated show of looking down the road in each direction, hand flat above his brow like a sailor in the crow’s nest. There wasn’t a car in sight.
“Go,” I said.
Dane went like a miniature lightning bolt. He fell on the ball with an outrageous tumble, scooped it up, and ran back again.
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