The Zombie Chasers #4 (7 page)

A
s the train accelerated into the underground tunnel, the headlights cast a pale yellow glow through the darkness. Zoe hitched Rice's leash to a pole and pointed at him. “Stay right there, you bad little monkey.”

Zack, now missing a shoe, took one off Rice's foot and put on the mismatched sneaker. They walked through the connecting door into the front of the train, where the conductor sat at the controls.

“Up to Eighty-first, sir,” said Zoe. “And step on it!”

“Now just wait a minute, little lady,” he said, turning around. “This train ain't making no more stops. You're lucky I picked you up at all. Thought you were a couple of zombies until I recognized you little rascals from the TV.”

“You know who we are?” Zack asked.

“Course I do,” he said. “You're those kids I keep seeing on the news who killed all them zombies!”

“Not killed,” Madison said. “Saved.”

“Whatever,” said the conductor. “You're all kinds of famous.”

“Hear that?” Zoe said, nudging Madison excitedly. “We're still famous. . . .”

“You got a name, sir?” Ozzie asked the man.

“Cecil,” he said, pronouncing the name “see-sill.”

“Well, thanks for saving us back there, Cecil,” Zack said.

He looked at them sincerely. “Old Cecil'd do anything to help out a couple of national heroes, any day of the dog-garn week.”

“Then you have to drop us off at Eighty-first Street, sir,” said Zack. “It's our only hope of getting the antidote to stop all this mess!”

“Oh, all right,” he said. “I think you're crazy, but I guess you have your reasons.”

“Great,” Zack said. “How much farther?”

“Just about three more stops after this one,” Cecil said, pointing out the window as they whizzed past another zombified subway platform.

“Thanks, Cecil!” Madison and Zoe said together.

“Oh, don't thank me. If it wasn't for you little rascals, Old Cecil'd still be a zombie.”

“You were a zombie?” Zack asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Until I ate that popcorn I was.”

Before Zack could process the dark realization creeping into his brain, the conductor retched and flopped forward, hitting the controls.

The train accelerated at a breakneck pace. Zack punched the buttons, and Ozzie yanked back on the handle, but the lever snapped off from the control panel and the subway topped max speed.

“Blaaarghhh!”

Cecil reanimated from his slumped position, craning his neck and jutting his jaw. The muckle-mouthed fiend hissed demonically and stared blankly at them with its white pupil-less eyes.

“Ahhhh!” Zoe, Zack, Ozzie, and Madison all screamed and retreated out of the subway cockpit, piling back into the train car where Rice was tied to the pole.

The zombie conductor clambered out of the subway cockpit, raking his claws through the air, swiping for their heads.

Zack unknotted the leash and pulled Rice toward him while Ozzie and the girls all grabbed their weapons. As the train zipped past the next subway stop, the zombie conductor rushed toward them in a frenzied outburst of deep-throated growls and belly-bumped Zack with the sack of blubber hanging over his waistband. Zack held Rice up like a zombie shield before backing farther to the middle of the subway car.

“Whoa, Nelly!” Zoe shouted, looking down at the other end of the train. The doors split open and a horde of zombie passengers crushed up the aisle and staggered toward them leeringly.

Zoe opened up one of the umbrellas and charged forward, slamming it into the zombies, pushing them back.

In the middle of the train, Ozzie and Madison wedged their fingernails in between the doors of the subway car, trying to pull them apart manually.

The too-fast train rocked back and forth violently, and Zack had to plant his heels to steady himself, riding the floor of the subway car as if it were a surfboard.

The light in the subway brightened as they zipped past another platform. “Two more to go!” Ozzie shouted.

A zombie old-timer with a long beard lumbered down the moving train car. He wore Bermuda shorts with suspenders over a T-shirt, and New Balance sneakers with high dress socks pulled up to his knees. The undead senior citizen snatched Madison by her forearm with both hands and clamped his slobbering maw down onto her flesh.

“Ahhhhh!” Madison screamed, anticipating the sharp pain of pierced skin and the prospect of her perfect face undergoing zombification. But all she felt was the dull clamp from the zombie's toothless gums.

She pried her arm out of the chomperless zombie's mouth and knocked him in his noggin with her elbow.

That was a close one!
Zack thought as he tightened up the slack on Rice's leash.

The subway shot through the tunnel like a bullet. The train car jostled and jerked, bumping the zombies off balance as it hurtled by the last subway stop before Eighty-first street.

Madison lifted her leg and kicked another zombie coming down the center of the aisle, while Ozzie pried at the door.

“It's not opening,” Ozzie yelled.

The Central Park subway stop was fast approaching. The zombies inched closer and closer. Twinkles barked and yipped ferociously, circling their rotting feet.

Zack took the metal tip of the umbrella and jammed it between the doors like a crowbar. He jerked the umbrella to one side and the doors flung open on the moving train.

“Everybody jump!” Zack grabbed zombie Rice by the leash and the five of them leaped off the train at the last second. They hit the subway platform and rolled as the zombified train flew roaring past.

“Everyone okay?” Zack asked, brushing himself off.

“Where's Twinkles?” Madison cried, and they all looked out at the train hurtling forward. Twinkles was still perched in the open doors of the subway car, too timid to jump.

Madison scrambled to her feet, racing after the runaway train. “Twinkles!” she called. “Come!”

Twinkles barked and wiggled his rump, then took a flying leap as the train shot into the tunnel. The little pup landed on the platform unscathed and pranced toward Madison. She clutched Twinkles to her chest and pressed her cheek to the little Boggle, who was now happily licking her ear.

“You okay, Mad?” Zoe asked her BFF.

“Mm-hmm,” Madison lied, biting her bottom lip to stop it from quivering.

Twinkles made a little whimpering noise and barked twice at his master.

“Uh-oh,” Zoe said, examining her friend.

“What?” Zack and Ozzie asked simultaneously.

“You might want to back up,” Zoe said. “She's gonna have a meltdown.”

“Well, what do you expect?” Madison broke into tears, sobbing. “We almost just lost Twinkles. And Rice is a zombie and I'm not the antidote anymore, and I just almost got bitten by that weirdo, and if he had had just one tooth, I'd be a goner right now, you guys!”

“Don't worry, Madison,” said Zoe, trying to comfort her friend. “Because the creepy weirdo didn't have any teeth and you're not going to turn into a zombie, okay? I promise.”

“We just gotta keep going, Madison,” Zack said, trying to be encouraging. “We're almost there!”

“Are we?” Madison pouted. “Because it seems like all we're doing is buying time. Face it: We're done for!”

“Madison, I know you're scared,” Ozzie said. “We're all scared. But right now we all need to be tough and stick together. We're only as strong as our weakest link.”

Zack looked at Rice trying to chew through the mouth hole of his gorilla mask.
Nom-nom-nom.

He hoped Ozzie was wrong about that.

N
ew York City's Upper West Side was a flash of red-white-and-blue ambulance lights. Police sirens blared their shrill whoops through the crisp night air. The whole street reeked like the gunk beneath a grungy toenail. Zack almost gagged on the pungent fumes as they hurried up to street level, now dragging Rice by the leash up the staircase one step at a time. Fresh off the subway, they found themselves on a familiar block. Zack looked up and noticed that they were back at the museum where the zombie exhibit had opened earlier that morning.

“Hang on, you guys,” Zack said, and raced up the stone steps. “I'll be right back.” He burst into the museum and looked around the entrance hall. Zombie moans resounded throughout the building, but Zack had a clear shot to the human brain sample, a part of the exhibit. Zack cranked back his arm and struck the display case with the butt end of his umbrella. The glass shattered to pieces and Zack picked up the human brain, then raced back outside.

Zack walked down the stone steps, holding the brain specimen in his hand.

“Ew, Zack, gross!” Madison cringed. “What's that for?”

“You know how they lead a horse by dangling a carrot in front of its face?”

“Yeah,” Madison said. “I guess.”

“Same idea,” Zack said, digging through Rice's pack for supplies. “Except zombies don't like carrots. . . .” He tied the brain with string from the backpack to the end of one of the umbrellas and held the strung-up brain over Rice's head, keeping it just out of biting distance. “They like brains.” He smiled.

Zombie Rice marched ahead, led by Zack dangling the brain in front of his face. They all crossed the street together, retracing their steps through the Central Park gates into the green oasis at the center of Manhattan. They worked their way down a dirt path winding through a patch of contorted trees twisting up out of the ground like giant hands clawing for outer space.

A patch of clouds blotted out the moon, and the night darkened, making it much harder to distinguish zombies from shadows. The park was less infested than Midtown had been, but there were still plenty of undead city dwellers prowling through this man-made wilderness.

Zack was doing his best to lead zombie Rice quickly along the trail, but the brain was attracting some unwanted attention.

“Glyrghlphle!”
Dozens of flesh-hungry lunatics stumbled down the hills and rocky slopes.

“Are you sure this was a good idea, little bro?” whispered Zoe from behind.

“Actually,” Zack whisper-yelled back, “I guess I didn't really think it all the way through.”

“Ahhh!” Madison shrieked as a balding zombie man with long stringy blond hair shambled onto the pathway.

“Hey!” Zack shouted, and swung the tethered brain in front of the zombie freak like a hypnotist's pocket watch. The undead creep stopped in place and grunted, his blank white eyes following the brain.

“Hi-ya!” Madison cranked back her arm and thumped the zombie on his noggin. The beast dropped to his knees and fell face-forward into the dirt.

“Come on, you two,” Ozzie called back. “Keep up!”

Zack held the umbrella over Rice's head again and zombie Rice marched forward, still desperate to get at the brain. The closer Zack held the brain to Rice's face, the faster he seemed to go. Zack picked up the pace, speed-walking now, and caught up with the gang.

Madison and Zoe were tag-teaming a zombified guy in tennis shorts and a white collared shirt. Madison whipped her handbag at the zombie's legs and at the same time Zoe clobbered him in the side of the head. The undead tennis pro flipped head over heels and landed on the grass with a crunchy splat.

Ozzie ran up to a zombie lurching forward out of the tree-lined path. The mutant grown-up looked like a giant dweeb, with baggy khaki pants and a tucked-in polo shirt. A nasty growth of scabby boils hung off its eye cavity like a cluster of overripe grapes. Ozzie thwacked the undead madman in the face, squashing the mass of clustered boils, which burst like a pus-filled piñata.

Zack paused, taking a second to scan the park. He kept Rice still by lifting the brain over Rice's noggin. This was the right spot, Zack thought, though the place looked different in the dark.

“Are we almost there?” asked Madison, stopping beside him.

Then Zack saw it, the trash can holding the key to their salvation.

“Over there,” Zack said, handing the umbrella to Madison as they ran to the spot. “Here, take Rice.” Madison brain-teased Rice with one hand and shined her iPhone's flashlight app into the trash can with the other so Zack could see what he was doing. Zack peered down into the garbage bin filled with people's disgusting trash that had piled up throughout the day. Zack reached down and riffled through the can in search of Madison's magical Band-Aid.

Zack tossed out old Chinese food containers and sticky coffee cups that stank of sour milk, but he didn't care. He was so close to getting exactly what they came for. He pulled up another handful of garbage and sifted through it— a brown-spotted banana peel and some used Kleenex.

“Yuck!” said Madison, bringing her iPhone up to her mouth to hold back her nausea. “It's not there.”

“Wait. Gimme the light,” said Zack, pulling out yet another handful of trash, this time a greasy paper plate from their pizza picnic earlier in the day. Stuck on the end of the plate, a lone Band-Aid hung. Zack's eyes grew wide, and he plucked it off, pinching the unzombifying bandage in front of his face like an old-school movie director looking at a strip of film. A large red dot of Madison's vegan blood stained the white pad. “I got it!” Zack shouted. “I got it!”

Behind him, zombie Rice spun around in a circle as he bit through his King Kong mask, chomping futilely at the museum brain dangling above his head. He still looked like a person with an ape's head, although now the gorilla had a human mouth and teeth. Rice spun and spun, making himself dizzy.

“Guys!” Zack said, and turned to show Ozzie and Zoe. “We got—”

“Rice!” Madison shouted, losing her grip on the umbrella. “Get back here!”

“Blarghle-snargle!”

Wham!

Zombie Rice bumped into Zack, gnawing blindly at the air. Completely caught off guard, Zack put up his hands to block his best friend's zombie assault. Rice's two front teeth nipped the Band-Aid from Zack's fingertips, and time slowed to a standstill.

“
Nooooooooo!
” Zack screamed, his eyes widening. He grabbed for the King Kong mask, but zombie Rice thrashed him to the ground before he could. Zack's rear end hit the damp grass as he watched his monkey-headed friend gobble up the Band-Aid.

Zack crawled over quickly and grabbed Rice by the face. “No!” he yelled. “Spit it out!”

But it was too late.

Rice had just swallowed their only hope.
“Guggh!”
Zombie Rice belched once and keeled over as his whole body fell slack in the grass.