“Zack…” Mr. Clarke looked up desperately at his only son. “Anything.”
“Can I have Zoe’s room?”
“Sure.” He nodded.
“Hey!” Zoe shouted.
“Ozzie.” Zack put his hand on Ozzie’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go get some stuff from the nurse’s office. Can you wait to cut my dad’s leg off till I get back?”
“He’s your dad.” Ozzie shrugged. “Do what you want with him.”
“I’ll be right back,” Zack said, and hustled out of the room.
“You’re not supposed to say that, you know…,” Rice called after him.
CHAPTER 12
Zack bolted down the moaning hallway and barged into the nurse’s office. He whipped open the supply cabinet and swiped some gauze and bandages, then snatched a bottle of peroxide. He closed the mirrored cupboard, catching a glimpse of his own reflection…and the reflection of someone behind him.
Or rather, something.
It was Ms. Nancy, the school nurse, plucking things out of her hair and nibbling at her fingertips. Her head turned slowly toward Zack, and the former Nurse Nancy revealed the other side of its face. One eye was encrusted with curdled skin, and the cheek was missing, exposing her gums and jaw muscles.
Zack spun around, ready to battle the zombie nurse. But it just kept muttering gibberish, digging at its grub-infested scalp for little snacks. Zack cocked a wary eyebrow and slammed the door, racing back down the corridor with the first-aid supplies.
Back at the principal’s office, Zack closed the door softly behind him. “How’s he doing?” he asked.
“Not good,” Zoe replied. For the first time all night, she looked scared, too. Her eyes teared up as she looked down at their father. “Daddy?”
Mr. Clarke was sickly pale and sweating profusely. Mrs. Clarke was holding the back of his head. Zack raced over to his father’s side and twisted the cap off the peroxide bottle. Mr. Clarke lifted his head slightly and smiled weakly at his son. Zack smiled back. “It’s gonna be okay, Dad. I promise.” Mr. Clarke’s head dropped to the floor and he went limp.
Zack’s stomach dropped.
Rice came over and put his arm around Zack’s shoulders. “There was nothing we could’ve done.”
“We coulda lopped it off…,” Ozzie said gruffly.
“Shut up, Ozzie!” Zack poured the hydrogen peroxide on the infected gash, and his dad’s knee sizzled with white fizz.
“That’s not gonna work, Zack,” said Zoe.
“Yes, it will!” Zack started to choke up, his eyes shimmery with tears. “Come on, Dad. Come on…come on…”
Zack’s eyes prickled with teardrops. He was so tired, it hurt. All he wanted was to wake up and discover it was all a bad dream. And to have his dad back again. And their house. And his stupid little life.
“Brouharghah!” Mr. Clarke thrashed to a seated position and latched on to Mrs. Clarke’s calf. She howled in pain as her undead husband ripped into her flesh like it was a barbecued turkey leg. Zack’s mom fell to the ground, screaming in pain.
Zack and Zoe pulled Mr. Clarke off their mother and threw their zombie dad to the ground. Ozzie raised the aluminum bat to clobber Zack’s own pops, but Zack grabbed Ozzie by the forearm.
“I’ll do it,” he said. Zack took the bat and wiped his eyes, before bopping his zombie dad on the head.
Rice took off his lacrosse helmet, fit it over Mr. Clarke’s unconscious noggin, and fed him a handful of ginkgo biloba pills. “So he won’t wake up.”
“We need Madison,” Zack moaned.
“What does Madison have to do with anything?” Mrs. Clarke asked. She grimaced, gripping the zombie bite.
“Zoe used to be a zombie until Madison changed her back. Long story,” Zack explained.
“Great, let’s go get her,” Mrs. Clarke said hopefully. “Where is she?”
“Washington, D.C.,” Ozzie said.
“Washington?”
Suddenly, the interior office windows shook. Outside in the hallway, the zombified faculty battered the glass with their heads and fists.
Here we go again, Zack thought. He hopped onto the oak credenza and hoisted up the blinds to the outer windows. The parking lot was right across the narrow side lawn.
Crash! Bang!
Zack looked over his shoulder. The hallway window was now a hideous mural of zombie teachers’ facial features smashed into deranged expressions against the rattling glass.
“How do you open these things?” Zack cried frantically. The window wouldn’t budge.
“Just smash it, man!” Ozzie shouted.
Zack twisted into a batter’s stance and swung as hard as he could. The window shattered into pieces on the floor.
Behind them, the interior window looked like thin ice cracking over a frozen pond. CRASH! A zombie’s fist smashed through the glass. Its flesh peeled back, revealing white meat and bone.
“Come on!” Zack called. “Hurry!” He bashed the remaining glass shards off the outside window frame, and Twinkles leaped off the ledge, landing safely in a bush.
Zoe jumped out next and helped her mother maneuver her chomped leg gingerly over the windowsill.
Then Zack, Rice, and Ozzie lifted Mr. Clarke up and heaved him helmet-first through the window, away from the hollow yowls of the zombified parents and faculty. The boys hopped out last.
Safe outside, Mrs. Clarke hunched over, gasping.
“Put this on, Mom.” Zack held out his football helmet. “I know it’s annoying, but it’s so you won’t bite us.”
“I’m not going to bite you, honey….” Mrs. Clarke looked up. Her face began to mutate with swollen rot. “I’m gonna eat your brains!”
Mrs. Clarke’s neck twisted grotesquely, rotating completely around. Zack jumped back and circled his reanimated mother as she let out a wretched groan. He capped the helmet over her backward head.
Zoe helped Zack lug their moaning zombie mom into the parking lot. Rice and Ozzie followed, dragging Mr. Clarke along the sun-baked cement. As they dragged him over a speed bump, his keys clatter-jangled on the pavement, and Rice bent down to retrieve them.
“Dad works at the bank…,” Zack mused. Rice handed him the keys.
“You wanna rob it?” Zoe asked in perfect seriousness. “Let’s rizz-ole.”
“No,” Zack said, eyeing their zombified parents. “I wanna make a deposit.”
“That’s nice,” Zoe said, snatching the keychain from her brother. “But I’m driving.”
CHAPTER 13
Main Street was trashed and desolate, strewn with plastic bags and debris. Broken-down cars lined both sides of the uninhabited avenue, and most of the shops and restaurants had been demolished during the zombie attack. Goopy trails of zombie sludge baked on the blacktop. The junk-ridden road reeked of hot garbage. Amazingly, there were a few stores left untouched, like the lone homes remaining in the aftermath of a tornado.
Zoe slammed the brakes, and they lunged to a stop in front of their father’s local branch of Phoenix Savings and Loan.
“All in favor of Zoe never driving again say ‘aye,’” Ozzie said, still clutching the grab handle after their herky-jerky joyride through the Arizona suburb.
“Look!” Zoe pointed out the windshield.
Just down the street a majestic, tan-checkered giraffe nibbled at a treetop.
It must have escaped from the zoo, Zack thought.
The eighteen-foot beast swung its long neck toward the car, licking its chops. The giraffe stared at them for a peaceful second and walked away, whapping its black tail tamely.
The four of them hopped out from the Clarkes’ minivan, lifted the back door, and pulled Mr. and Mrs. Clarke across the sidewalk to the front of the bank. Zack swiped his father’s debit card, and the glass door opened.
Inside the sweltering ATM foyer, Zack tried the next set of doors, but they were locked. He riffled through the keychain until he found the right key, and then they dragged the zombified parental units
into the main lobby.
Behind the tellers’ counter, they stood before a giant steel door with a big metal wheel and a keypad. Zack found the key he’d seen his dad use before and stuck it in the lock. The keypad lit up: ENTER PASSCODE.
Zack ducked his head under the cashier’s post and looked up at the underside of the countertop for the number. “Dad has a terrible memory,” he explained.
“Maybe you should give him some ginkgo,” Rice said, and nudged Ozzie.
Zack punched in the numeric code on the touch pad, and the dead bolt clunked. He spun the wheel counterclockwise, and the thick iron door eased open. The walls were shelved with blocks of crisp cash wrapped in plastic.
“Yo,” Rice said. “We’re loaded!”
“No, we’re not,” Zack said. He grabbed his father under the arms and dragged his catatonic pops inside the big safe. Zoe followed, dragging their snaggle-toothed mother. Mrs. Clarke snapped and snarled loudly behind the face mask of the football helmet.
“Zack…” Zoe looked down at their parents. “Are they going to be okay?”
“I hope so, Zoe. I really hope so.”
“At least we know Madison will give us first dibs on the antelope. I’m her besty.”
Zack turned to his undead mother. “We-yer go-ing to come back for you….” He spoke in slow, broken syllables, trying to make her understand.
“She’s not listening to you, dude. Maybe this will help.” Rice unloaded a half bottle of ginkgo biloba from his backpack. He tossed some pills into Mrs. Clarke’s mouth, and she choked them down. “Nighty-night, Mrs. Clarke,” he said softly.
“You guys almost ready?” Ozzie asked.
“Almost.” Zoe snatched her mother’s purse, ran through the lobby of the bank, and sat down behind Mr. Clarke’s desk.
“What do you need that for?” Rice asked.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Zoe said, pulling out a makeup case. The boys watched her flip open the compact and look nervously in the little square mirror. She turned away and began her post-zombie emergency makeover.
“Zoe, do you have to do that now?” Zack asked his sister.
“Yup.”
Rice and Ozzie filed out of the vault, and Zack cast one final look at his zombie parents. Mrs. Clarke snarled and hissed. “Don’t worry. We’ll come back,” he promised her before clicking the bank vault locked. Zack stood in shock, leaning with his back against the door. He was running out of ideas.
Zoe spun around in the desk chair. “Ta-dah!” Her face was painted up like she was a seven-year-old beauty pageant contestant. She looked like a finalist in the World’s Grossest Sister competition.
“Looking good, Zoe…,” Rice said. “But does your face still hurt?”
“Not really,” she said, slathering her cheekbones with another layer of beige gunk.
“Well, it’s killing us!” Ozzie shouted. He and Rice laughed and bumped fists.
“Will you three quit screwing around?” Zack said. “Don’t you realize that without Madison, our parents are goners? That everyone’s a goner?”
“It’s true,” Rice said, his shoulders slumping. “We don’t know anything about the zombie life span or the antidote time frame or the recombinant vectors for cross-immunization….”
“We need Madison,” Ozzie and Zack thought aloud.
“If we only had a plane,” said Ozzie, “we could get to Washington in no time.”
Rice’s mouth dropped open. “You know how to fly?”
“Of course I do,” Ozzie answered.
Zack rolled his eyes. Of course he does.
CHAPTER 14
A short while later, Mr. Clarke’s minivan slowed to a stop next to the barbed-wire fence surrounding the runway of Phoenix’s International Airport. Zoe, Rice, Ozzie, and Zack hopped out, and Zack stretched his legs in the hot morning sun.
It felt good.
“You really know how to fly one of those?” Zack asked Ozzie, peering at the big commercial jets parked on the other side of the fence.
“Relax, Zack.” Ozzie stuck one foot onto the metal mesh and pulled himself up with both hands. “I’ve had my pilot’s license since I was, like, ten years old.” Ozzie scaled up the tall fence easily, straddling the barbed wire at the top.
Rice nudged Zack. “I can’t do that,” he whispered. “Can you do that?”
“I don’t think so, man,” Zack said, looking up at the sharp spiral wire.
Ozzie dropped down on the other side of the tall barrier. “All right now, Zoe. Throw Twinkles to me. But make sure you throw him high enough, cuz…”
“No prob, Bob.” Zoe turned her back to the security fence and arched her neck backward so she was looking upside down through the fence. “Ready?” She took a wide stance and cradled the puppy in the space between her knees. Twinkles flattened his ears, boggle-eyed with fear.
“Zoe,” Zack said. “Don’t even think about it.” His sister smiled her sinister smile.
“Zoe, don’t!” Zack commanded.
She lobbed the little Boggle skyward.
“Yip, yip, yip!” Twinkles bow-wow-wowed over the high, treacherous fence. Ozzie caught the yelping pooch on the other side, and Twinkles hopped safely to the ground.
“Ladies first,” Zoe said, pushing past the boys. She shot up the fence next and paused at the top, looking down at Zack and Rice.
“Are you doofuses coming or what?” Zoe began to scale down the opposite side. “Or is it ‘doofi’? Because of, like, ‘cactuses,’ which is actually ‘cacti’…” She found her footing back on solid ground. “You know what I mean, though—right, doofi?”
“How did she do that?” Rice asked. “She’s like a freakin’ acrobat.”
Zack tried to climb up the fence next. It didn’t go very well. He dropped down. It went from bad to pathetic when Rice tried next, failing miserably.
“Sorry, guys.” Ozzie shrugged. “It looks like you two are gonna have to go through the airport. We’ll get the plane and meet you at the boarding gates at the far end of the terminal.”
“You’re going to leave us?” Rice asked nervously.
“We can’t risk getting bitten just because you guys are out of shape,” Zoe explained.
“Plus, I’m the only one who knows how to fly,” Ozzie added.
“He’s right, Zack,” said Rice.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be there,” Zack called after Ozzie and Zoe.
“Check you on the flip side, turd brains,” Zoe said, and frolicked off after Ozzie.
Twinkles barked and made a sad puppy face at Zack through the fence.
“Go on.” He shooed the little dog away with his hand. “You can’t come with us. Uncle Ozzie will take care of you…. Go!”
Twinkles ran away, then stopped and turned to look back.
“Go!” Zack commanded, and the confused little pup chased after Zoe and Ozzie.
“Come on, Rice. Let’s go,” Zack said. And they raced to the front of the airport terminal.
Zack and Rice paused halfway through the doors, holding their weapons from the school’s equipment room. The vast airport lobby bustled with the living dead. Dozens of airport personnel and frequent flyers tottered aimlessly around check-in counters slathered with guts. Stray body parts decorated the floor.
“Dude, we definitely need Ozzie…,” Rice said.
“Will you forget about your bromance for one second?” Zack said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“‘He’s right, Zack…. He’s right, Zack…,’” Zack said in a nagging voice. “You’re always agreeing with him.”
“What’s your problem, dude?” Rice defended himself. “He’s right a lot.”
Just then, a nearby zombie tourist caught sight of them and bellowed.
The rest of the zombies turned. “Whatever.” Zack sighed, gripping his bat. “Just run!”
They blasted into the mass of snarling beasts, bobbing and weaving their way toward the zigzagging se
curity lane. The zombies swung their arms, but the boys batted them down like piñatas.
“Down there!” Zack pointed toward the lower level of the terminal. But a crew of zombie travelers trudged up the down escalator, slurping and slobbering.
More zombies poured in from the duty-free shop, cutting off their only other exit. Zack and Rice darted through the cordoned-off maze, racing to the security gate.
The zombies converged inward, knocking over the stanchions.
Zack and Rice were trapped, dead center, in a crazy cat’s cradle of black vinyl straps tightening around their legs.
“Keep your knees up,” Zack instructed, untangling his buddy from the tricky obstacle course. They high-stepped away from the zombie mosh pit toward the metal detectors.
“Hold it right there, kiddo!” An elderly airport security officer appeared out of nowhere. “Boarding pass and ID, please.”
“You’re not a zombie…,” Zack said, stunned. All around them, the undead staggered and swayed, but this old man was completely human. And completely oblivious to the zombie pandemonium coming their way.
“A what? What did you say?” The old man squinted at Zack. “Boarding pass and ID!” he repeated with more authority.
“Fine.” Zack took out his Velcro wallet and showed the man his library card. The man nodded.
“Take off your shoes and remove all metallic items from your person.”
“Sir, don’t you see all these crazy zombies behind us?” Zack asked.
“Huh?” The old crackpot cupped his ear.
“Just let us through!” Rice yelled, looking over his shoulder at the mad free-for-all raging out of control behind them.
“I’m sure you’re in a rush, but so are these good people.” He motioned to the zombies, then handed the boys each a gray plastic bin. “Don’t hold up the line, now.”
“But they’re not even people!” Zack told him.
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