The Zombie Chasers Read online

“Hark, young squire! I do desire we may be better strangers, you and I, but milady requests the pleasure of your company,” he called up to Greg in his best British accent. “Come off your roost and join us hither.”

  Greg’s head shot up in a welter of blubbering snot. “My mom tried to eat me!” he said, sniffling up his tears.

  “Quit your sniveling!” Rice commanded. “There are droves of savage beasts on the gander. No time for molly coddling, you flop-eared knave! Get down hence!”

  “Why is he talking like that?” Madison asked Zack.

  “Mrs. Rice takes him to these Renaissance festivals in the summertime. It’s really weird. They all dress up in costumes and talk like they’re in the Middle Ages.”

  “Greg barely understands regular English,” Madison said.

  “I think that’s the point,” Zack said.

  “Don’t tarry now, boy.” Rice continued heckling like a court jester.

  More than a little befuddled, Greg obliged, shimmying nimbly down the gutter that ran up the house. He landed on the lawn and jogged toward the Volvo, a red gym sack slung over his shoulder. He was still decked out in his soccer gear: shorts, shin guards, cleats, and jersey, lucky number thirteen.

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Mad,” Greg said when he reached the car. “Who are these nerd-bombers?”

  “This is Zoe’s little brother, Zack. And this is his best friend, Rice,” Madison introduced her partners-in-slime.

  “You flushed my head in a toilet bowl about a month ago,” Rice reminded him.

  “Oh yeah, I remember you.” Greg chuckled. “But you look different…your face. It’s all disgusting. He’s not turning into one of those things, is he?”

  “No, it’s just chicken pox,” Madison said. “But Zoe’s in the back, and she’s a full-out zombie. We’re gonna save her, though.”

  “You got Zoe back there?” Greg said curiously, moving to the rear of the car.

  He cupped his hands over the back window and peered inside. Zoe huffed through the window steam and growled hideously at Greg. She bashed her lacrosse helmet against the glass, knocking him back on his heels. He tripped over the curb and fell on the grass behind him. “Oh snap, she’s busted!” he shouted, popping back up.

  Madison turned to Zack. “Get in the backseat.”

  “No way,” Zack protested. “This is my car.”

  “I don’t see your name on it, bro,” Greg said, opening the passenger door. “Unless your last name is Volvo.” Pause. “Is your last name Volvo, bro?”

  Zack just sat and stared.

  “Don’t be difficult, Zack,” Madison pleaded. “Just sit in the back with Rice.”

  Reluctantly, Zack surrendered his seat and stepped out of the Volvo, shoving the open door into Greg’s dominating sneer.

  “Hey, take it easy, dweebo,” Greg taunted.

  Now fully recovered from his splubbering rooftop sob show, Greg took shotgun next to Madison and gave her a wink and a smile. Twinkles skittered to the backseat and jumped up in between Zack and Rice. The little dog sighed, plunking down on the seat cushion.

  “Greg, did you see which way the zombies went?” Rice asked him excitedly, like an enthusiastic dog trainer would a well-trained collie.

  Greg pointed straight ahead and let out a short Neolithic grunt. Then he opened his gym bag and pulled out a grease-soaked BurgerDog takeout bag. The smell of fast food filled the car. Madison placed two fingers over her lips and puffed out her cheeks like she was going to hurl.

  They followed the side street until they saw the ramp to the expressway. Greg unwrapped the BurgerDog sandwich and laid it out neatly on his lap.

  “Greg, I swear if you take even one bite of that thing…” Madison recoiled.

  “No,” Rice said, mirror-tapping his fingertips like a delighted super-villain. “Let him eat….”

  Man, Zack thought. I would freakin’ love to see Bansal-Jones bite the big one on his sandwich. But what if the meathead actually turned into a zombie? He’d rip us apart. Then again, it’d be okay to whack him over the head with the shovel.

  Greg took the top bun off the BurgerDog. “This is the good stuff.”

  But it wasn’t the good stuff. No, certainly not. In the low light of the car, Zack and Rice both gasped at the revolting hot dog patty burger coated with its creamy lime green special sauce, wilted lettuce, and rubbery purple onion. Underneath the goopy extras, they watched in revulsion as the meat pulsated, bubbling as if it were alive.

  “See?” Greg replaced the bun and opened his mouth, ready to chomp.

  “Stop!” Madison snatched the zombie burger away from Greg. “Don’t eat that!”

  “Why not?” Greg asked.

  “Yeah, Madison…” Rice was disappointed. “Why not?”

  “Are you crazy? The last thing we need is another zombie on our hands. Look at this thing!” she yelled, holding up the sandwich. “It’s got a life of its own.” Madison put down her window and prepared to chuck it to the pavement.

  “Stop!” Rice yelled. He grabbed Madison’s wrist from behind and pried loose the throbbing sandwich. “We may need this for a specimen. Just to be sure. I’ll put it in my backpack.”

  Rice pulled out the bag of zombie fingers while holding the BurgerDog. Twinkles’s nose twitched from side to side. The hungry pup bounded off the backseat and nipped at the infectious meat patty. Rice whapped Twinkles on the nose, and the little dog cowered back on the seat, licking its chops.

  “Dude…” Zack whispered. He pointed at Twinkles, then at BurgerDog, then back at Twinkles again.

  “Ssshhh!” Rice whispered. “Only people can turn into zombies. I read it online.”

  Greg crumpled the wrapper and tossed it out the window.

  Madison revved the engine and cruised toward the highway entrance, dappled with clueless ghouls. Her confidence behind the wheel reached an all-time high as she steered the car coolly through the sparse cluster of walking corpses.

  They sped up the on-ramp and leveled out onto the skyway, which wrapped southbound around downtown Phoenix. The Volvo shuttled down the long stretch of gray desert highway, as Zombieville, USA, grew smaller behind them. Madison accelerated, whipping by four more hulking fiends. They growled at the passing Volvo like a crazed gang of undead hitchhikers looking for a lift.

  The tires whizzed along the freeway.

  Outside the car, the midnight sky was a menacing gunmetal black. Moonlit mountain ranges sprang off the horizon. Coyotes howled ominously from the fringes of nowhere. This was desert country, but Zack knew that skulking in the scrub brush, there were probably hundreds of unseen zombies camouflaged under the canopy of night’s shade.

  Zack felt his sister’s hot zombie breath puffing on the back of his neck. He gave her a look that meant “stop it,” but it was no use. She doesn’t understand anything, Zack thought. She never did, even when she was human. To his left, Rice’s eyes were glazed over as he zoned out the side window. Zack watched his fat little friend pick the crusty scabs spackling his forearms and then jam the very same finger in his nostril, digging away obliviously. Twinkles panted quickly, fast asleep between them.

  Zack settled into the lull of the car ride. The digital clock read 12:22 A.M., and the Volvo was dead quiet. Zack’s lids felt heavy. Deprived of the constant squabbling, Zack drifted to sleep to the hum of the motor. He woke up a minute later, yawning. The clock read 1:23 A.M. Was it really almost one thirty in the morning?

  On went the Volvo, rolling along swiftly. The headlights beamed through the darkness, illuminating the white dash marks scurrying toward them under the hood of the car. Greg was talking to Madison up front.

  “How’d you end up with these scrubs anyway, Mad?” Greg said.

  “I was sleeping over at Zoe’s. How’d you end up on that roof?” she asked.

  “Uh…I climbed, duh-uh,” Greg said.

  “After his mom tried to eat him,” Rice reminded anyone who had forgotten.

  “I’d stop talking i
f I were you,” Greg threatened.

  “I’m not scared of you, Greg,” Rice countered.

  “You wanna get your face flushed again, Poop Boy? Cuz this time, I’ll make you lick the bowl,” Greg warned. Rice gulped.

  “Leave him alone, Greg!” Zack yelled.

  “Who are you again?” Greg asked, exasperated. “I’ve never even seen you before.”

  “Zoe’s brother.” Madison knocked on his head, which made a hollow sound.

  They were now speeding up over a hill, easily going seventy miles per hour, when suddenly it appeared: a winding caravan of ticking red taillights flickering not too far up ahead. The other cars were at a complete standstill, but the Volvo kept picking up momentum as they hurtled headlong down the steep slope.

  “Madison, slow down!” Zack shouted, starting to panic. The flashing taillights doubled nearer—bumper to bumper to bumper.

  “Umm,” Rice said. “We’re gonna need to start stopping, like, now!”

  Madison pressed the brakes, but the Volvo was fast approaching the traffic jam. Greg held on to the grab-handle above the door, grinning like a wide-eyed thrill-seeker on a screaming roller coaster.

  “Now, Madison!” Zack screamed.

  “I am, Zack!” Madison yelled back.

  “Press harder!”

  She smashed the pedal, and the car began to rumble and grind. The rear of the backed-up traffic was so close that Zack began to think they couldn’t possibly stop in time. He shut his eyes tightly, but all he could picture was his mom’s Volvo blasting into the wall of cars.

  The tires ground into the slanted pavement. Madison floored the brakes. Rice crossed his heart and hoped not to die. Zack watched the collision happen over and over on the backs of his eyelids.

  As they dipped back up from the downward tilt, the car jerked to a stop, and zombie Zoe rammed full force into the partition, clanking the metal bars of her face mask against the iron-mesh cage. Everyone shot forward, bruising their collarbones on tightening seat belts. Everyone that is, except for Twinkles, whose teensy frame went sailing sharply into the front console and turned on the radio.

  “Omigosh! Twinkle-face!” Madison scooped him up with one hand.

  The same beeping alert signal pierced their stunned silence. They heard the same robotic voice as before, announcing updates over the system: “Security checkpoints have been set up between cities to prevent illegal zombie crossing. Police searches will be conducted on every vehicle. Law enforcement and military personnel will be working together to contain the spreading zombie epidemic. Any undead passengers will be terminated on sight. The cause of the outbreak is still unknown.”

  “What was that all about?” Madison asked.

  “It means that if we wait here and they find Zoe, then it’s bye-bye Zoe,” Rice answered, concealing his glee. “Geez, Zack. I told you we shouldn’t have brought her along!”

  “But…” Madison sounded completely baffled. “They can’t just kill them, can they?”

  About ten cars ahead of them, two mustachioed Arizona state troopers sauntered down the endless line of packed traffic. They were accompanied by two huge droopy basset hounds, sniffing at attention. The patrolmen shined their flashlights inside the car, questioning the passengers. They checked the backseat and then ordered the driver to open the trunk.

  “They’re checking every single car!” Zack said, distraught.

  “What are we going to do?” Madison asked nervously.

  Suddenly, the troopers jumped back and reached for their holsters. An old lady shot up out of the trunk. The driver of the car threw himself in front of his undead mother, blocking her from the trigger-happy cops. The old zombified lady attacked the driver, biting him on his shoulder.

  “Yo!” Rice shouted.

  “Sweet,” Greg said.

  “We’ve got to get off this road pronto.” Zack wondered how it would feel if he were an only child.

  “Do you see any other roads, genius?” Madison asked in a panic.

  “There’s a gate right there.” Rice pointed east. An open metal gateway marked a dirt road, which ran from the highway over a small ditch into the desert. “It could be a shortcut.”

  “You want us to go off-roading in a Volvo?” Greg asked.

  “You got a better idea?”

  Greg didn’t respond.

  “That’s what I thought,” Rice said, addressing Madison now. “Kill the headlights. I’ll use my iPhone to navigate us through the back roads.”

  “Assuming there are even any roads back there,” Zack said glumly.

  Rice opened his bag, rummaging around. The zombie fingers wiggled around next to the BurgerDog. “Here it is.” Rice pulled out the phone. “Full steam ahead.”

  Madison steered the Volvo off the highway and onto the gravel path. The headlights went dark, and the phantom Volvo crept into the twittering hush of the desert.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Volvo crunched onward over the gritty unpaved road, spraying a cloud of rocky dust behind them. Rice palmed his phone, awaiting the exact directions for the military outpost, but the device was stalling. Over and over again, the message flashed across the screen: Network busy.

  “Just keep going straight,” he instructed.

  “At this point, I don’t think we have any other choice,” Madison said anxiously.

  “Don’t worry,” Rice assured them. “We’ll get there.”

  The moon broke through the clouds momentarily, and a dim glow flared over the cactus fields. Squinting out the side window, Zack could barely make out three highlighted figures, kneeling in the dirt, jamming their bloated, lumpy hands into their faces like three gluttons devouring a bucket of chicken wings.

  As the Volvo advanced everyone saw the trio of zombie cannibals.

  “They’re feeding,” Rice observed.

  “Change the subject!” Madison demanded. “I don’t even want to talk about what that was.”

  Zack held Twinkles on his lap, petting the traumatized puppy until Twinkles’s eyes closed and he dozed off again.

  “Madison,” Zack said, worried, “Twinkles isn’t looking so good.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s breathing kind of funny.”

  Twinkles slept, purring out little growls between wheezy breaths.

  “He’s fine,” Madison said. “Just let him sleep.”

  Rice smacked the phone into the butt of his hand. “What’s wrong with this stupid thing?” he cursed.

  “It stinks in here,” Madison mumbled, fanning the air in front of her face. “That’s what’s wrong.” The Volvo was filled with an unbearable combination of the BurgerDog fumes leaking from Rice’s bag and Zoe’s pungent funk of rot and decay.

  Zack felt like he could reach out and touch the toxic stench. Inhaling through his mouth, he felt the thick syrupy odor melt on his tongue and become a flavor.

  Madison put down her window and gasped, sucking in a great big helping of fresh air. Zack, Rice, and Greg did the same. “Rice, if you don’t figure that thing out really, really soon, I’m really, really turning around.”

  “And then the cops will really, really blow Zoe’s brains out,” Rice said. “Is that what you want?”

  “Of course not. We’ll just explain to them that she’s with us and then—”

  Zombie Zoe snapped and snarled, butting her helmet continuously into the metal barrier.

  “The cops will blow her brains out,” he repeated slowly, shaping his index finger and thumb like a pistol and pointing it at his temple. “Bang.”

  “Rice! I refuse to keep driving when we don’t even know if this road will take us anywhere,” Madison complained.

  “She’s got a point, bro,” Greg snipped.

  “I’m sure she does, bro,” Rice countered. “Do you?”

  “How about if I give you one on top of your fat head?”

  “Yeah, whatever, Greg.…” Rice looked down at the phone. “Hold on, you
guys. Here we go. There’s gonna be another road in point three miles. We make a right, and that will take us directly to the Tucson Air Force Base!”

  “Finally!”

  “It’s about time.”

  “Rice, that’s awesome, man,” Zack said.

  “Just kidding, guys.” Rice started to crack up. “I have no freaking clue where we are….” He paused, trapped in a silent full-on belly chuckle.

  Greg twisted around in his seat and yanked the phone easily from Rice’s pudgy mitts.

  Rice let out a pitifully helpless yelp. “Hey, give that back!”

  “Mine,” Greg said forcefully. The bully mammoth looked at the digital screen of the iPhone. He flicked his wrist out the open window, and the phone vanished.

  “Thanks, idiot,” Rice said. “Now you owe my parents three hundred bucks.”

  “What’re you gonna do about it, dork?” Greg wiggled his fist under his eye and mouthed silently, “Boo-hoo! Wah-wah!”

  Zack glanced down at the slumbering pup, lying stone still in his lap. Something wasn’t right with Twinkles.

  “Madison?” Zack said hesitantly. “Twinkles isn’t breathing.”

  “What!” Madison cried. “What do you mean?”

  “Your dog is dead,” Greg said. Madison’s right arm flew out on reflex, backhanding Greg in the face. “Owww!”

  “What are you, some kind of doctor?” she cried.

  Zack cupped the lifeless puppy snugly in his hands. Madison’s concerned face softened into sorrow. A lone tear twinkled in the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. Twinkles was gone.

  “Can’t you give him CPR or something?” Madison wept.

  “Yo, I used to be a lifeguard at the summer day camp,” Greg spoke up. “We all had to learn mouth-to-mouth in case some loser forgot how to swim, but I’m not kissing that dog on the mouth.”

  “Yes, you are,” Madison ordered. “Zack, give Twinkles to Greg, now!”

  “Gladly,” Zack passed Twinkles’s limp cadaver up front.

  Rice nudged Zack. “This oughta be good.”