The Saga Of Tom Stinson (Book 1): Summer School Zombocalypse (22 page)

Through the door they entered a long hallway that went left and right. It was lined with benches and small recesses with stands that held statues. Strange creatures were depicted under the feet of triumphant humans.

“
Doors.” Tom pushed.

In the middle of the room, a statue just off of the very center was bathed in blue light. Its arms were outstretched and its head pointed upward.

“
A statue?” Anidea asked. “Now what, genius? If you listened to me in the first place. We wouldn’t be here.”

Winston limp-hopped to the center of the room; there was still blood dripping from his leg, but it had slowed down. “It can’t be just a statue. There has to be something. The map brought us here.”

Tom hung his head down and reached out to touch the statue. “I don’t know what to do next. I have no more plans.”

“
You promised to get us home,” Winston said.

“
Tom, we have a problem,” Emmett added.

“
What?”

Lizardmen burst into the room. “Disrespectful children. You thought you could escape.”

“
I should have known,” Tom said.

The lizardmen spread out from the doorway as they came in with their weapons drawn.

“
I don’t think we can shoot our way out of this one,” Anidea said.

“
Now is the time to figure out how the bomb works. Get on it, Emmett,” Tom said.

Emmett opened the case.

“
Go on, kill us!” Tom yelled to the lizardmen.

“
We have no intention of killing you. Your flesh will be consumed so your knowledge will live on in us.”

“
I don’t think so,” Tom fired at the lizardmen.

The lizardman in the lead vaporized, the rest scattered and retreated back through the door. Anidea, Winston, and Emmett crouched behind the statue.

“
Run, you stupid lizards,” Anidea said with some satisfaction.

Tom kept on firing wildly, disintegrating the entrance way.

“
They aren’t firing back,” Anidea said. “Kill them all.”

Emmett opened the case and inserted the key. “Code card. I need the code card. We don’t have it.”

“
What’s that then, dummy?” Anidea pointed to a hard plastic-covered card in the case pouch. “For someone that smart, you’re really stupid.”

“
That’s it.” He typed the code in. “How long should I set it for?”

“
Three minutes,” Tom said.

“
They’ll have to come in here sooner or later.”

“
They don’t know we have the bomb.”

“
Your plan was to tell them, Tom.”

“
Three minutes, it’s set.”

“
Listen up, lizards,” Tom yelled. “We have an Earth bomb. One that will destroy the whole city.”

A lizardman appeared from around the door and stepped into the room. It was the leader. “A bomb? You don’t want to detonate it. You’ll never see your father again if you do. This is your only way home.”

“
How can you know about my dad, that’s not possible.”

“
Believe me, food animal, it is. A garage door came to mind when I tasted your blood. I don’t know what it means, but it caused you much distress.”

“
Why is this room so special? Tell me now.”

“
You don’t know?” The leader said. “Look around you. What do the pictographs on the walls tell you? Don’t you feel your ancestry, or are you too primitive?”

“
The suspense is killing me. Come on.”

“
You will have no way of returning to your home if you destroy this room,” the leader took a step forward. “Your transformation is near complete. Even if you made it back to your filthy, polluted planet, what would you do when you look like us?”

Tom fired, vaporizing the lizardman. “I’ll figure that out later.”

“
Tom!” Anidea screamed.

Lizardmen charged into the room, Tom knelt and fired. The first couple to enter were vaporized. Lizardman arms hooked around the doorway and fired. Their shots went wild, melting holes in the walls, ceiling, and floor.

Winston lay prone and fired, disintegrating the walls and exposing the lizardmen’s positions. “Ha! ha!” he cheered. “Die! Die!”

The roof shook and large chunks fell around them, giving them some much needed cover.

“
Two minutes.” Emmett held onto the statue for cover.

The light around the statue widened, and a console rose up next to it. “What did you do, Emmett?” Anidea asked.

“
I touched the statue, that’s all.”

“
Get us outta here,” Tom said.

The statue exploded, and the outstretched arm fell, hitting Emmett in the head and pinning him to the floor.

“
Emmett!” Anidea yelled.

“
Make it work, Anidea.” Tom ducked and weaved.

“
There’s nothing on it except for a hand print.”

“
Put your hand on it.”

“
Nothing’s happening. My hand doesn’t fit.”

“
Winston, you do it.”

“
Neither does mine. Our fingers are grown together like the lizardmen’s. We need a human hand to make this work.”

Tom stopped firing. The lizardmen were retreating. “My hands have changed too.”

“
Emmett’s hands haven’t changed, look,” Anidea said.

“
One minute to go, Tom,” Emmett said weakly.

Tom pulled Emmett free using all of his strength. “You can make this work.”

“
This machine will send you back to earth,” Emmett said. “See the pictures on the console, they are like the drawings in the engine room of the spaceship. It’s what the lizardmen wanted to learn how to use, and it’s why they needed me. With an open corridor to Earth they would have free access to anywhere on the planet. They could infect any area they wanted to, if not the whole planet. Then they would colonize. When I activate it you have to jump in.”

“
What? You’re not coming?” Tom said.

“
I can’t. I have to finish this so they won’t come back to earth. We have to to destroy the machine.”

“
What about the bomb?”

“
I don’t know if it will work, it’s probably too old. And now that they know how to use the machine ,we can’t let them have it. If they use our DNA to mutate themselves, they will be able to activate the portal.”

“
Thirty seconds,” Anidea said.

“
You can’t stay,” Winston pleaded. “You promised to help me find mom.”

“
Dad and mom are dead,” Emmett said. “I have no reason to go back. What could my life possibly be like without them? We have no other family, I don’t want to live like that.”

“
We’re brothers, twins, two halves of one!” Winston stood next to Emmett. “If you’re not going back, then neither am I.”

“
There has to be another way,” Tom said. “I promised to get you home.”

“
Tom, you helped us. Now it is our turn to help you,” Emmett said, and put his hand on the console. The ancient machinery powered on. The room vibrated, and ribbons of electricity danced in the air. The beam of light intensified. “Ten seconds left, no time to argue. This time it’s MY plan. Do it now. Goodbye. Go.”

Tom and Anidea stepped into the beam. Balls of electricity swirled around them. Their bodies disintegrated into the light, and everything went black. Tom felt cold; he couldn’t see Anidea, but he could feel her near by. Then, like a seam splitting open, light fell through the blackness, and Tom and Anidea stepped out into the world.

The world was a blur of color through their lizard eyes. Distance and shapes were indistinguishable, neither near nor far, round or square. It took a moment for their senses to come back. Tom and Anidea found themselves outside of the lizardmen’s spaceship on the school yard. Their bodies shivered from being pulled apart and reassembled.

“
The spaceship?” Anidea stood rigid. “We’re on Earth? How is it possible that its here when we went to Mars in it?”

“
Anidea, if there is anything I have learned through all of this, it is to accept that there are many things that are beyond our control. We need to roll with the punches.”

“
But we’re still lizards!”

The rough breathing and moan of a zombie came from behind a smashed ambulance.

Tom pulled Anidea down to hide behind a melted slide. “Crap, zombies are everywhere.”

“
Tom,” Anidea squeezed his arm, “Your tail just fell off.”

“
I don’t think we have to run. The lizardmen are immune to the virus.”

“
There’s your dad’s truck.”

“
There’s my dad!”

“
What’s he doing?”

“
He’s leaving the note for me,” Tom broke into a run. “I don’t know how, but we must have traveled back in time a few days. Follow me.”

They ran across the destroyed schoolyard past crushed vehicles, burnt school books, test packets, and the remnants of children eager to learn.

“
Dad! Dad!” Tom called.

His dad turned, his eyes bulged and he ran.

“
Wait!” Tom called after him. “It’s me, Tom!”

“
We’re still lizards, Tom!” Anidea tried to stop him from chasing his dad. “He’s scared, we’re still lizards. What are we going to do now?”

Tom smiled. “We are going to catch him.”

“
Then what?”

Soldiers appeared from behind a school bus and fired. A dart pierced Tom’s chest. “Run.” He turned, but fell.

Anidea pulled a dart from her neck. Together they collapsed, and the soldiers surrounded them. Tom’s vision blurred, he could barely keep his eyes open.

“
They’re changing into humans,” a soldier spoke. “What should we do with them, sir?”

A man in a lab coat stepped forward. “That’s because they are human. Take them to the facility. I’ll erase their memories and implant new ones. They will be relocated to California, everyone’s a crazy abductee there, and if anything goes wrong no one will believe them. Oh, and get that man too, we can’t have him causing trouble.”

“
What will you make them think?”

“
This was all an unfortunate tornado. Yes that’s it, an unfortunate tornado.”

“Yes, sir!”

Book Two

Razor Point

After surviving the attack in Summer School Zombocalypse, the saga of Tom Stinson continues. Worse than the zombies, stupid jocks are making his senior year a living nightmare. On a field trip to the beach, his dreams of revenge come true when monsters take his class. All hell breaks lose in his sleepy sea side community. Tom, the only survivor must dodge grieving parents, fight against a DHS cover up, and lead his friends in a quest to discover the truth.