The Zombie Chasers (11 page)

“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 if 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.

T
he 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.”

Using the dashboard like an operating table, Greg flopped Twinkles on his back and started pushing at his tiny rib cage with his pinky fingers.

“This is to keep the blood pumping to the heart,” Greg explained.

“Try not to break him,” Madison said. Greg lifted the puppy’s muzzle, pulled down its chin, and opened its mouth, which glistened with teeny-tiny pearly white fangs.

“Now I’m going to blow air into its mouth and
inflate the lungs,” Greg said. He puffed a long breath into Twinkles’s open snout, then pressed the Boggle’s itty-bitty chest again, counting to five. He gave the dog another breath, and Twinkles’s eyes popped open.

“Look!” Madison said. “It’s working.” Greg gave the dog one more sequence of chest pumps and leaned in for the third round of mouth-to-snout.

All of a sudden, Twinkles lurched up off the dash and plunged his tiny fangs into Greg’s bottom lip. Greg howled in pain, as the reanimated Zoggle clamped its itty-bitty teeth down deep into his kisser.

“Aaah-ha-ha…Aaaaaaah-ha-ha!” Greg shrieked. He grabbed the zombified puppy by the midsection, yanked hard, and ripped it from his lip in a bloodred spurt. Greg heaved the evil little creature out of the open window. Twinkles sailed, snarling, through the air, and splattered on a craggy patch of roadside bedrock. Greg’s mouth poured blood.

“Greg, how could you?” Madison cried. She stopped the car and smacked Greg in the face again, then hopped out and jogged to the spot where Twinkles had landed.

“Owwwww,” Greg yelped. “Stop doing that!”

At the side of the road, Madison stood over the lifeless puppy, her hands glued to her face. Zack and Rice left Greg behind in the Volvo, blotting his bloody lip with a BurgerDog napkin and wincing in the mirror on the back of the visor.

Twinkles lay motionless on the smooth beige rock. The boys stood behind Madison as she wept for her puppy. The crazed zombie grimace had vanished, and now the tiny dog just looked as though it were sleeping peacefully.

“Well, we can’t just leave the poor thing lying in the middle of the desert,” Madison whimpered, teary-eyed.

“You’re absolutely right, Madison,” Rice agreed. “Twinkles will make an excellent specimen.” He reached down for the zombified dog, but Madison slapped his hand away.

“Back off, twerp,” Madison cried.

“But, Madison, we have to—”

“Rice, just shut up, okay?” Zack pleaded. He knelt next to Madison as she lifted poor Twinkles off the cool flat rock and placed his body gently in her purse.

Back in the car, the mood was gloomy. Madison drove on ahead until Rice broke the silence. “Does this mean Greg is going to turn into a zombie now?” he asked. Zack said nothing, quietly rooting for the zombie virus coursing through Greg’s bloodstream.

“I hope not,” Greg said. “’Cuz that would not be too cool.”

“You know what else isn’t that cool?” Madison asked, stomping on the gas pedal. The engine revved and sputtered. Steam rose from under the hood of the Volvo, and the smell of scorched gasoline seeped in through the air vents. The fuel gauge pointed to
E
. “That we’re out of gas!” she shrieked, slamming the steering wheel in frustration.
Hoooooooonnk!
The car horn blared across the zombie desert. A tortured moan swelled in the distance.