A Living Dead Love Story Series (26 page)

Ms. Haskins follows, leading the teachers after me, her skirt slit high and her blouse buttoned low; Lolita of the Living Dead.

“Nice look,” I say, jabbing Dane's copper stake in her direction.

“Nice try,” she says, avoiding it as the copper tip plunges into Coach Potter's stomach. He sizzles, jolts, and goes down for the count. His body lies in a heap. She uses the opportunity to slap me across the face. “I never
did
like teacher's pets.”

I slap her back, hard, with every word: “Yes”—
slap
—”you”—
slap
—”did!”—
slap!

She is older, but I have been dead longer. She is bigger, but I am stronger, my muscles and bones stiffer, harder, more marblelike and, thus, heavier. It's like my hand is no longer my hand, more like it's some rubber glove filled with fast-drying cement. With every slap, I hear a little bone break, a chunk of cheek, an ear bone, maybe her jaw crumble beneath her smooth alabaster skin.

She falls to the floor with a frustrated yelp, and I reach again with the copper stake but, out of nowhere, Mrs. Witherspoon knocks it away, taking off her big red glasses and holding them in her hands like a weapon. She jabs at me with the eye frames, her hands still plump and fleshy.

I avoid them easily and roll away on the floor, grabbing the stake just in time as my zombie teachers gather around my flailing body like Boy Scouts at a campfire. I kick at each of their shins, and they're still new enough to react to the pain.

They grab at their legs, mouths forming black, round Os of discomfort. They howl as they tumble to the ground and, one by one, I short-circuit the Afterlife out of them with the copper tip of my handheld stake. It's like Whac-A-Mole, only with human beings. (Whac-A-Teacher? Whac-A-Zerker?) One by one by one they fall, overlapping each other on the floor in their writhing, foaming electric agony.

They pile up like lumber and as their life forces drain away, I have to keep reminding myself they're only Zerkers now and that the teachers I knew, and loved, and sometimes hated, and occasionally even feared, were dead and gone the minute Ms. Haskins bit the Afterlife right into them—and the Normal life right out.

Finally only Ms. Haskins remains, but while her comrades have fallen, she hasn't rushed to their aid. Instead she's inched away from me, far away, until she has her back to Bones and he has his back to her while he faces off with Dane.

It wasn't going well when it was one on one; it's definitely not going well now that it's
two
on one. Dane looks battered, scared, and I rush to help.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees me coming and shouts,
“Stamp
, Maddy! Go help Stamp!”

I stop, torn between the two. Though battered, Dane
is
a zombie, has been a zombie, and can hold his own—even against an angry monster like Bones. But poor Stamp is a Normal—flesh and bones and blood and soft tissue—and currently surrounded by the entire Barracuda Bay defensive line and dying the death of a thousand hard jabs from his former teammates.

A few of the big, bulky players are down on the ground, limp and lifeless, but the rest—about a dozen of them left now—are slowly picking Stamp apart. His tuxedo is in tatters, one shoulder ripped through to the stiff white, bloodstained shirt beneath it.

I shiver, flinch. I keep forgetting he's not a zombie, not immune to pain. That his heart still pumps blood, that his body can be hurt, torn, can spill blood; that he can …die. I leap on the two nearest linemen, stabbing them each in the back of the neck with the copper tip of my stake. One goes down right away, and I think this is going to be as easy as silencing the teachers was, but the other goes down with a fight, tossing my stake across the gym even as he falls, sizzling and dead, to the ground.

Great, no spike, and my Taser is lying, useless and wet, back in the ladies' room. While a few of the linemen pummel Stamp, I struggle to my feet, dazed but not hurt from the fall to the floor with the 300-pound lineman on top of me. Meanwhile, two more gigantic Zerker jocks corner me against one of the tall Fall Formal tables.

One is thin and I snap his arm with a swift roundhouse kick to the shoulder. He flinches but keeps coming, so I repeat the process and break his other arm. Now he's like a cat with no claws, a marionette with no puppet master. While I push the thin one over easily, the other jock moves in behind me, and before I can lash out, he scoops me up in his arms for the mother of all bear hugs.

I squirm and stretch my arms out, his muscles tightly coiled. He is strong, physically stronger than me, but still he's only flesh and blood, while I am now granite and wiry muscle and dead, solid bone. I bite at his flesh, spit it out, kick at his knees, all while his grip grows stronger. I struggle in vain, until I remember the ruffles full of grave dirt.

I growl, kick, turn, squirm until I'm finally facing the gigantic beast. He looks surprised as I head butt his face, but even his broken nose doesn't stop him from trying to grind my spine to dust in his huge, python arms. The cemetery dirt does, though. I inch closer, not squirming anymore but embracing him, reaching around his back and clasping my hands together in a kind of finger lock to pull him closer to me, scrambling up his chest to his face until his nose is buried deep in the ruffles, into the dirt-filled ruffles Chloe sewed into my dress and we both laughed about once upon a time.

His scream fills the auditorium; the howling nearly shatters my eardrums. He tries to drop me, but I'm fused to him now, following him like a second skin wherever he turns, wherever he falls, wherever he runs, my granite fingers piercing his thick hide and sticking to him like a rodeo rider to his bucking bronco.

The footballer leaps away, falls to the ground, rolls, and still I cling to him, his nose sizzling, his face seared black and crusty by the effects of grave dirt shoved straight under his broken nose. I stick close until I know he's gone, and out, and down for the count, his face still smoking, his eyes open and coated with a thin, gray film.

Shoving him away, I look for a weapon of some sort and spot Chloe's clutch purse lying on top of a nearby table; I'd know it anywhere—it's the only purse in the room with a rhinestone skull clasp. Reaching inside, I grab the lighter and a handful of cherry bombs.

They feel pebbly and rough, and I've never been a big fan of the Fourth of July—or boys' room pranks, for that matter—so I don't exactly know what to expect from the little suckers. But I trust Dane, and he said they work (although he only read about them in
The Guide)
, and it's too late to stop believing him now.

Standing slightly back, listening to Stamp's screams, desperate to help, frightened that I will suck at this, I light the first cherry bomb and toss it into the crowd of growling, chewing, snarling Zerker jocks. The sulfur spews like a great green gas, following the first bomb as it circles end over sparkling end, the fizzing and sulfur spewing from my hand to the crowd.

One by one I light,
sizzle
, toss, and throw; light,
sizzle
, toss, and throw.

They land, spew, spout,
sizzle-crack-boom-BOOM!

Suddenly it's a sulfur explosion, sparks spitting where one left off, explosions shattering the floor, the tables, the very air I don't breathe anymore. Immediately, the Zerkers freak out, fighting each other, pounding fists to faces, kicking bent knees with shiny shoes, and punching bloody knuckles in order to get away from the thick sulfur smell filling our corner of the gym. Seeing his opportunity, Stamp scrambles away, favoring one awkwardly bent leg, his left arm limp and twisted, his face scratched, scarred, bruised, and bloody.

He reaches me in a heap of trembles and tears, his boyhood back, his manhood gone, obviously grateful and embarrassed and hating me and loving me all at the same time.

And here is Stamp, at my side, and there is Dane, screaming in frustration, trapped between two Zerkers, and I have only the slightest, barest, craziest notion of what might possibly come next.

I ignore Stamp's thanks, drown out his pleas, and reach for his Taser, yank it from his bloody, trembling hands, apologize profusely with my eyes, and zap every one of his former teammates until the spasms stop and they crumble to the floor, heads hitting the polished hardwood with thickening, crunching finality.

They lay in a twisted, beefy pile, more like a heap, slashed tuxedos, bleeding eyes, skin seared from the sulfur, necks fried from the Tasers, Zerkers no more, their skin pale and already yellowing, their eyes black and dead, and even
that
is sad to me; more pawns in Bones' crazy, twisted game of Zerkers versus zombies.

In their short, violent Afterlives, the jocks have managed to succeed at one thing. By Tasering them all, I have wasted precious time, and steps, putting me farther away from Stamp, separating me from Dane. Now we are at three points of a distant and dangerous triangle: Dane battling Bones, Stamp in grave peril as Ms. Haskins gets him in her sights, and me standing awkward and triumphant above a pile of twisted corpses still sizzling and cold: Queen of Jock Mountain.

Behind me, Stamp is whimpering, his ankle twisted, his arm sprained, his face bruised and flushed with pain and fear and shame.

Across the room, Ms. Haskins is advancing on him. Her eyes are full of Zerker hate, her circuits fried by Bones' bite, her only goal to serve him, to ruin us, to separate Stamp from his brains and me from the only guy at Barracuda Bay High who ever looked at me twice.

I watch helplessly, too far away to reach them with my stiff limbs and with only one cherry bomb left, sitting squat in the middle of my trembling hand.

Behind me, Bones is lifting Dane high, his strong, granite arms rising. They are both in tatters, their formalwear ripped to shreds, their skin exposed, their mouths open and angry.

“What now, Maddy?” Bones cackles casually, as if lifting Dane above his head is no more trouble than flicking a fly across the dinner table. “Who do you save? Stamp from Ms. Haskins? Or Dane from me? Who do you let die? Which boy is worth risking your Afterlife for?”

He is only too right. I watch helplessly while Bones brings Dane down onto his knee like some WWE wrestler even as Ms. Haskins yanks Stamp up by his collar and gnaws on his neck like a fat kid with an all-day sucker.

I scream, Bones laughs, Stamp squirms, and as I stare at the ceiling, praying for help from above, I suddenly see a tangle of pipes and nozzles. Bones lifts Dane up again, cackling even louder this time, and I light my last cherry bomb behind my back, scramble to the top of the nearest tall table, and throw it as high as I can. It ignites on the way up, the scent acrid and coppery, already spewing thick black fumes as it spins and spins, one sparkling end over the other.

Bones smells it first, his head snapping to one side to watch the cherry bomb ignite and climb, climb, climb into those pipes and nozzles. Meanwhile he holds Dane high over his head like some kind of zombie umbrella. Ms. Haskins ignores it, her head buried too deep in Stamp's life force to bother with anything as paltry as the end of her own.

And Stamp? Stamp is too far gone to know what's happening when the sprinklers spring to life, showering the entire gymnasium floor with hundreds of gallons of water in a huge, gushing tidal wave. And me?

I pray and curse and lean down from my table, ignite Stamp's Taser with a crackling sizzle of bright blue voltage between its two metal vampire fangs, and plunge it so far into the gymnasium floor I can see the crack in the varnish even through the searing wave of pure electricity flowing out like a bright blue mushroom cloud across the rippling, sizzling waterfall.

T
IME DOESN'T STOP
, exactly; it just slows wwwaaaayyyyyyyyyy doooowwwnnnnnn. In my head I know the events are whipping by at lightning speed, but my eyes reveal them one at a time, almost in slow motion. The scene plays out not in real time but frame-by-frame-by-frame; death by slideshow.

Frame 1: Bones screams.

Frame 2: Bones looks up at Dane.

Frame 3: Bones looks down at the floor.

Frame 4: Bones drops Dane.

Frame 5: Dane does one slow roll through the air.

Frame 6: Then two.

Frame 7: Ms. Haskins stops biting Stamp.

Frame 8: Ms. Haskins screams.

Frame 9: Stamp groans.

Frame 10: Ms. Haskins drops Stamp.

Frame 11: Stamp falls to his knees.

Frame 12: Then his hands.

Frame 13: Stamp slumps over.

Frame 14: Ms. Haskins pivots.

Meanwhile, in a million simultaneous frames all at once, the floor flickers to life as electricity sears across the football-field-sized varnished floor. It spreads like an oil fire, with a faint crack and swift sizzle. There is not an ounce of rubber in sight, only gallons and gallons of gushing, rushing water.

As the electricity races, the frames speed up now, from slo-mo to fast-forward. Dane topples silently to the floor, his eyes wide as gravity sucks him down to earth. Nothing in his zombie powers is strong enough to stop the downward pull.

I hold my breath and at the last minute, just as Dane passes Bones' head on the way down to the floor, he reaches out and grabs the Zerker in a choke-hold. His arm in its torn tuxedo sleeve looks like a thin log against Bones' white throat. From across the room, I hear the powerful Zerker's Adam's apple crunch and watch his face erupt into a map of surprise and rage—mostly rage.

It's too late. Buck as he might, struggle as he must, time is finally against Bones this time, and the slow-motion replay mode continues speeding up until it's almost back to normal. Down they go, water sloshing, Dane toppling, death in the balance, his arm still clipped tight to the Zerker's throat.

I close my eyes, can't stand the suspense, open them again, and suddenly Bones is on the floor, jerking like a fish on the deck to buck Dane off of him and reverse their positions. Dane is on top of him now, wiggling frantically to stay there like a vacationer on a life raft coursing through the gnarliest part of the raging rapids.