Sludgment Day Read online

  “Ay, Marvin,” Zoe said in a bad British accent. “Be a good chap and toss me one of ’em Smartfoods, won’t ya, love?”

  “One Smartfood, comin’ up.” Rice tossed her the 99-cent snack pouch, and Zoe pulled it open. She placed a piece of the cheesy popcorn on her tongue and chewed it slowly, staring at her brother. “Want some?” She offered Zack the bag, and he went for it.

  “Psych,” said Zoe, pulling it out of his reach. “This food is only for smart people.” She pointed at the package. “Not for you.”

  Zack scowled at his sister. “Yeah, then how come you’re eating it?”

  “Guys, chill out, have a Twinkie, okay?” Rice tossed Zack a pack of Twinkies.

  Zack unwrapped the yellow snack cake and stuffed it in his mouth, when suddenly—Briing! The phone started to ring. Zoe hopped over the counter and picked up the call. “Hello,” she said, clamping the phone between her ear and shoulder. “You called me, buddy… Who’s this?… How do you know my brother?… Yeah, right, and I’m the tooth fairy.” Zoe hung up.

  “Who the heck was that?” Zack asked, crinkling his eyebrows.

  “Some creep pretending to be the president,” Zoe mumbled, biting her nail.

  “Zoe, that might have actually been the president,” said Zack.

  “He did know your name,” Zoe scrunched her face.

  “Zoe,” Ozzie pinched his brow in disbelief. “You just hung up on the commander in chief!”

  “Big deal,” she said. “He’ll call us back.” The phone blared again. “See?”

  Zack picked up the receiver and put it on speaker. “Um, hello? This is Zack Clarke.” The line crackled with static.

  “Zachary, this is your president speaking,” said the voice on the other end.

  “Really?” Zack’s voice cracked and he swallowed hard.

  “Not so fast, ‘Mr. President,’” Rice interrupted, making air quotes around his head with his fingers. “How did you know where we were?”

  “We implanted a tracking device in Miss Miller’s hospital bracelet…”

  Madison gasped at the red light bleeping on the plastic band around her wrist.

  Rice nodded. “He’s the prez.”

  “What can we do for you, Mr. President?” Ozzie spoke up now.

  “My sources tell me you’re currently in possession of the antidote,” the President said.

  Zack patted his shirt pocket, which held the blood-red serum vial.

  “And one of our Marine One helicopters.”

  “Ummm…” Zack raised his eyebrows.

  “We need you to turn around and head back to Washington.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. President, sir,” Zack said. “We’re on our way back to Phoenix to unzombify my parents.”

  “That wasn’t a suggestion,” said the President. “That was an order!”

  “I’m afraid that’s not really gonna be possible, sir,” Ozzie said.

  “Why not?” asked the President.

  “Well,” Zack said. “The chopper’s kind of sort of … out of commission.”

  “What happened?”

  “Zack crashed it, Mr. President,” Zoe blurted.

  Zack stared at his sister in disbelief.

  “What?” she shrugged and whispered innocently. “You did.”

  There was a long silence before the President spoke again. “Then you’re the last chance we’ve got…”

  “What does that mean?” Zack asked.

  “It means you’ve just become our primary initiative to reverse the outbreak.”

  “Um, how do you, like, expect us to do that?” Madison asked.

  “Listen closely. You’re going to need to make more of the serum. There’s a secret lab facility with the capabilities—” The President’s voice cut out, replaced by the long bleep of the dial tone.

  “Mr. President?” Ozzie shook the phone. “Chief!”

  “You guys, this is serious.” Zack looked at his friends.

  “Seriously,” said Madison, twisting a lock of her hair around her finger.

  “We need a plan.” Zack stroked his chin.

  “And what plan is that?” Zoe snapped. “We’re in the middle of nowhere with no ride. We have no idea where the super-secret lab is. All we have is the stupid antidote. And we don’t even know what to do with it!”

  “Quiet down, Zoe.” Ozzie raised his eyebrows. “They’ll hear you.”

  “Who?” Zoe asked, looking around dubiously. “It’s just us.”

  “Him.” Ozzie lifted his eyes to the vaulted ceiling lined with windows, where a zombie was crawling on the rooftop glass.

  “Yeah, guys,” Zack whispered. “We can’t stay here too long.”

  “Let’s just wait a couple minutes,” Rice suggested. “Hopefully the prez’ll call back and tell us where to go.”

  Zack sniffed his armpit and glanced down at the garbage stains on the front of his shirt. “Ugh,” he groaned. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Zack, how many times must I remind you? You’re not supposed to say that.”

  “Say what?” Zack said as he strolled away from the food court.

  “That you’ll be right back,” Rice grumbled. “It’s like a basic rule of thumb when you’re up against a world full of zombies.”

  “Thanks for the tip, Rice,” said Zack. “I’ll be back soon.” He grabbed a clean T-shirt from the gift shop and walked down the corridor. As he entered the men’s room he could hear the distant din of the zombie plague droning outside the rest stop.

  CHAPTER

  Zack tiptoed cautiously through the bathroom holding his fresh new T-shirt. When he reached for the faucet, a nasty brown cockroach shot up from the drain and skittered out of the sink. On pure reflex, Zack grabbed an old folded-up newspaper off the countertop and slammed the juicy bug. SPLAT! He was checking the splotch of squashed insect guts when the word “BurgerDog” caught his eye in a front-page headline. Zack carefully peeled open the newspaper and started to read:

  BURGERDOG CEO UNDER FIRE

  Days after an FDA advisory committee approved the use of genetically engineered animals for human food consumption, famed geneticist Thaddeus Duplessis has announced the grand opening of his new fast food chain: BurgerDog. The fledgling franchise features a hamburger that tastes like a hotdog—a BurgerDog—and a frankfurter that tastes like ground beef, called the WeenieBurger.

  Four years ago Duplessis earned fame and fortune when he developed the popular canine sub-breed Perma-Pup dog that stays a puppy forever. Since then, the geneticist has devoted his talents to this new food chain enterprise.

  Located in Billings, BurgerDog Enterprises produces and manufactures all of its own meat in a state-of-the-art processing facility next door to the ranch where the animals are raised. However, these animals are not your typical livestock. Mr. Duplessis has created a new species, recombining pig DNA with cow DNA and cloning the new genetic hybrid. The result—a bovine hog, as Duplessis has coined it—is where the BurgerDog gets its distinctive pork-beef flavor.

  However, animal rights activists are appalled at the lack of testing and evidence that proves genetically engineered animals are safe to eat. And local vegan groups are already organizing protests outside various BurgerDog locations across the country. Other researchers agree that recombining DNA from two different species can result in unforeseen mutations that may have dangerous side effects.

  Duplessis could not be reached for comment.

  Zack leaned over the sink and breathed deeply. Duplessis and BurgerDog. BurgerDog and Duplessis. Genetically engineered cow-pigs? Who was this guy? And what about his state-of-the-art processing facility?

  That’s it!

  Zack pulled his stinky shirt over his head and put on the clean one that read I MEMPHIS. Then he turned on the faucet and cupped his hands full of water. He splashed his face and scrubbed the garbage juice caked on his arms. Montana, here we come…, Zack thought as he heard a stall door creak open. He turned off the water and gl
anced up at his reflection in the mirror.

  A psychotic zombie beast was gazing over its shoulder, slurping up a rope of slime that dangled off its underbite. Zack froze. His heart skipped a beat. A custardlike blob of green-speckled ooze hung from its nostril, and an aura of stench wavered around its ZZ Top beard. “Raaaoow!” The reanimated grimeball let forth a deep guttural howl like Chewbacca the Wookiee.

  Zack dropped down to a crouch as the zombie swung its mammoth fist, barely missing Zack’s head and smashing the mirror to pieces.

  The undead madman stomped straight for him, snapping and gargling.

  Zack crabwalked backward into an open stall and hopped back up to his feet. He slammed the stall door shut, locking himself inside, and spun around. He glanced down and gagged at the stench of the unflushed toilet bowl.

  WHAM! The filthy beast banged the flimsy door with a loud crash.

  Zack leaped up onto the toilet seat and then grabbed the ceiling pipe above him with both hands.

  BOOM! The hinges popped off the doorframe. The burly beast busted into the stall and reached for Zack’s swinging legs. Zack flung his feet up on the zombie’s shoulders and brought the revolting slob crashing down on the backswing.

  The zombie fell face forward into the toilet, and Zack dropped down full force onto its head and shoulders. KERSPLASH! The undead goon gurgled into the porcelain bowl, blowing bubbles in the rancid sludge. It was the most unfortunate swirly since middle-school bully Greg Bansal-Jones dunked Rice at the beginning of the school year.

  Zack bounded off the zombie’s backside and sprinted for the exit. At the door, he skidded to a stop and doubled back, grabbing the newspaper off the sink counter. He couldn’t wait to show his friends what he’d found.

  CHAPTER

  Zack jogged down the corridor, where he snatched a road map from the info desk and headed back over to the seating area. The undead moan had grown louder, and the zombie on the rooftop pounded its fist on the windowpanes overhead.

  “I told you not to go off by yourself,” Rice scolded. “Where you been?”

  “I had a little scuffle, no biggie,” Zack said. “What’s going on?”

  “No word from the prez,” Madison lamented.

  Outside, the rest stop was swarming with zombies on all sides.

  “We need to get out of here,” Zoe said. “Like, now.”

  “We need a vehicle…” Ozzie gazed out the window, pointing beyond the parking lot full of zombies. In the distance a brightly lit car dealership glittered with red, white, and blue flags rippling in the breeze around the top of the fenced-in lot.

  Just then, a crash pierced the silence. Shattered glass cascaded down from the ceiling as the rooftop zombie fell to the floor with a crunchy plop. Every one of its joints was dislocated, angling out like a bent-out-of-shape action figure. Its mouth was a black hole with teeth. The kill-crazy cannibal croaked and spattered red specks of disease as it rose up on its pigeon-toed feet. On the other side of the food court, a pack of zombies wedged through the unlocked doors.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Zack and Rice yelled as they picked up the gas jugs that Zoe filled earlier and lugged them over to the main entrance. The automatic doors slid open, and they all stared out at the zombified boulevard.

  Briing! Briiing! Behind them, the phone started ringing again at the cash register. “The prez!” Rice gasped. But it was too late. There was no turning back.

  The zombies tottered toward them, hobbling on invisible canes, jerking and convulsing. They moaned and gurgled, snappity-snap, gnashing their own tongues into hunks of half-chewed food.

  “Ready…,” Zoe said.

  “Set…” Ozzie ground his crutch into the pavement.

  “Zombies!” Rice and Zack shouted.

  “Arf arf arf!” Twinkles led the charge as they dashed head-on into the zombie mayhem. First there were a dozen, then half a block later an even hundred brain-craving corpses rambled up the road, congesting the sidewalks.

  Zack plotted a course and tore up the undead gauntlet, staying low to the ground, running against the one-way zombie foot traffic. A gangly zombie brute wearing a red bandana and a long ponytail zigzagged at Zack with both hands thrust forward. The side of its face looked like a plateful of onion rings. Zack cut to the right, past the flaky-faced miscreant.

  To the left, Rice gripped the handle of the gas jug with both hands, spinning around like an Olympic hammer thrower. BAM! He clocked a zombie lady in the shins and swept her legs right out from under her.

  In front of Rice, Madison scooped Twinkles up and cradled the puppy under her arm like a football. She ran behind Zoe, who carved out a path, kickboxing through the undead psychos in their way.

  To the right, a middle-aged zombie fellow rushed at Ozzie. Its swollen head bulged to twice its natural size. Ozzie planted both crutches and swung his injured leg up—BLAOW! He blasted the bulbous-headed freak in the face with his cast.

  Zack sprinted, dodging through the nonstop barrage of demented zombie mutants, when he heard Madison let out a high-pitched yelp. He turned his head and saw an undead high-school girl thrashing wildly at Madison. Its bent-back finger was tangled in Madison’s hospital bracelet.

  “Ick!” Madison shrieked. “It’s touching me!” She ripped her arm back and broke free, but the White House tracking device snapped off. The bracelet seemed to hover in midair before it kerplunked down a sewer grate and was gone.

  “Ahhh!” A split second later, Zack was kissing the pavement, palms on the ground, scraped up badly. He looked behind him to see where he tripped.

  “Ghlarf! Ghlarf!” Two zombie pit bulls growled, dragging their undead dog walker by twisted leashes lashed around its decomposing forearms. At the end of its leash, one of the undead dogs bit the air less than a foot from Zack’s nose.

  Zack scrambled to his feet and spun around to see a crowd of slime-gurgling misfits with their arms outstretched, stomping straight for him.

  Zack wheeled around and spotted an abandoned Cadillac with both front doors standing wide open in the middle of the road. He took off and dove headfirst in the passenger side door, just in time to avoid a zombified college kid stumbling by. Zack scooted to the driver’s side as the undead frat boy tore the door off its hinges and chucked it into the air. The keys jangled, still in the ignition. Bingo! Zack cranked the car key, and the engine began to purr.

  “Rargh!” The zombified preppy stuck its face in the passenger side and grappled across the seat. Zack lifted his feet up, with his knees to his chest, and launched a two-footed push-kick into the zombie’s slobbering face. POW! The undead undergrad toppled back and slammed to the ground.

  Zack pulled his own door closed as a five-man zombie platoon staggered toward the Cadillac. To see out the windshield, he stood up and gripped the steering wheel like a ship’s captain, then shifted into gear and pressed the accelerator. The car lurched forward, and Zack steered over to his friends, who were fighting an endless battle against the monstrous zombie swarm.

  This isn’t so hard, Zack thought. It’s like a giant go-cart. “Get in!” he shouted, poking his head up through the sunroof.

  BLAMMO! Zoe rocked a zombie square in the chest with a straight kick and jogged to the Cadillac along with Ozzie on his crutches.

  Rice retreated, too, gazing up at his pal with a look of admiration. “Yo, dude, you’re freakin’ driving right now!”

  “Shotgun!” Madison called and hopped in the door-less passenger seat, carrying Twinkles. Rice jumped in the back with Zoe and Ozzie, who were out of breath after the intense hand-to-hand combat. Zack peeled out quickly, swerving toward a pack of ravenous ghouls tottering in front of them.

  “Don’t hit them!” Madison reached across the front seat and jerked the steering wheel away from the undead pedestrians.

  “No!” Zack tried to the hit the brake but missed, flooring the gas pedal instead. The car sped, careening off the boulevard. They flew forward in their seats as the Cadillac smashed dead cen
ter into a lamppost.

  “Everybody okay?” Zack asked, wedged between the windshield and the dashboard.

  “No thanks to you.” Zoe rolled her eyes and opened the side door.

  “We’re all good.” Ozzie looked out the back window as the zombie parade craned their necks toward the accident. “Let’s roll,” he said, helping Zack off the dash of the totaled car.

  “Thanks, Oz,” Zack stuck the newspaper and the road map in his pocket as everyone took off, racing away from the undead madness.

  CHAPTER

  When they reached the used-car lot, the front gates were padlocked. “Just gimme a second.” Ozzie pulled out a pair of wire-cutters from his pack and clipped out a corner of the chain link.

  Madison lifted the fence away from the metal post, while everyone slid under to the other side.

  Across the lot, an RV sat parked in the shadows—a Winnebago with bullhorns lashed to the grill front.

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Zack ran over and opened the side door.

  Rice stepped in first and flicked on a light. There was a fridge, microwave, bathroom, shower, bunk beds, two leather twirly chairs, and a breakfast nook. It was off the hook.

  “This,” Rice said slowly, “is our destiny.”

  “What is?” Madison asked, eyeing the RV with disgust. “Bed bugs?”

  “Hey,” Rice said, staring at Madison’s wrist. “Where’s your tracking bracelet?”

  “A zombie ripped it off…” Her voice trailed to silence.

  “Ah, man!” Rice moaned. “How’s the prez gonna find us now?”

  “Looks like we’re officially on our own,” Ozzie said.

  “It’s all good, guys.” Zack threw down the newspaper article. “Check this out.”