The Zombie Chasers (14 page)

“W
ait,” Madison said, sniffling. “Where’s the headstone?”

“Oh, shoot!” Zack exclaimed, knocking his forehead. “It’s over there!” He pointed to the fallen giant still unconscious in front of the tomb.

“Umm, I don’t think we’re gonna need it anymore,” Rice pointed to Twinkles’s unfinished grave.

Twinkles was whirling around and around, chomping his own tail.

“Twinkles is alive!” Madison limped over to her precious pup. She reached down. He growled and latched onto her hand with his tiny teeth. “Owwwwww!” she
howled, and flung the puppy to the ground.

“I hate to break it to you, Madison, but that is one zombified dog,” said Rice.

“Are you sure?” Madison asked hopefully. “Maybe he just thought I was a treat?”

“Yeah, right,” Zack said. “And Greg’s lip was a snack?”

“The good news is, you’re immune,” Rice added.

“But
we’re
not,” Zack reminded him. He dumped out Madison’s handbag and crept up bravely behind the zombie pup. Twinkles was so busy trying to eat himself that Zack had no trouble pouncing on the crazed animal. He zipped up Madison’s purse and the little dog wriggled around inside.

“Are we good and ready now?” Rice asked with a sigh. Madison and Zack nodded in agreement. And with that, Zack and Rice dragged zombie Greg by the rope, and Madison gimped along beside
them with the captured pooch slung over her shoulder.

When they got to the truck, Zoe was slouched on the ground against the steel post of the
DO NOT ENTER
sign. Her eyes were open, but she was frozen in some kind of idiotic stupor, unable to move.

“She’s not growling anymore,” Zack observed.

“It’s probably all the ginkgo I gave her,” Rice offered, putting down the tailgate of the pickup. “I told you, man…zombie garlic.”

They hoisted Greg up into the back of the truck. “How long do you think she’ll stay like that?” Zack asked.

“No idea,” Rice replied. “We should probably tie her up just to be safe.”

Madison tossed her purse with Twinkles inside onto the small center seat cushion and boosted herself up into the driver’s seat, while Zack and Rice circled zombie Zoe with the leash. They spiraled the long cord around her until she was wrapped up like a mummy.

“At least she’s being cooperative for once,” Rice joked. Zack cracked a smile.

“Oh, before I forget.” Zack reached into his pocket.
“Greg wanted you to have this.” He handed the iPhone back to its rightful owner. Rice’s face lit with joy.

“Thanks, man!” Rice looked back at Greg’s limp zombie corpse. “I still hate him, though.”

Madison rolled down her window and stuck out her head. “Both you guys can’t sit up here. My leg needs room.”

“Ready?” Rice asked.

“Yup,” Zack said, making a fist.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” Rice bashed his rock on Zack’s scissors.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” Zack covered Rice’s rock with his paper.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!” Rice scissor-snipped Zack’s paper.

“Yes!” Rice shouted. “Woo!” He hopped in next to Madison. They buckled up, and he handed the gravedigger’s keys to Madison.

“Which way are we going?” Madison asked.

“There’s only one road to take,” Rice shouted.

The muffled whir of a helicopter hummed across
the sky. Rice and Madison leaned forward and peered up through the windshield. The chopper glided in the same direction as the road ahead. Its flashing lights sparkled in the night sky as the helicopter descended behind the craggy mountain peaks, not too far in the distance.

Clutching the baseball bat, Zack climbed in the back of the pickup and closed the tailgate. He crouched in between his catatonic sister and zombie Greg. “Let’s go, guys! Follow that chopper!”

Madison revved the engine and accelerated. The truck surged into the night.

Not too far down the road, the headlights flashed across another sign. A wide double-posted rectangle with the words
U.S. MILITARY ZONE: RESTRICTED ACCESS
.

“I told you we were close!” Rice shouted back to Zack.

A mile or so down the road, the scrubland vista was replaced with a flush pine forest. The zombie moans intensified as they pushed forward through the corridor of evergreens.

All of a sudden, Greg started to choke. Zack tightened his grip on the bat, ready to deliver another knockout blow, but Greg struck first. The ginkgo capsules shot out
from the back of his throat and nailed Zack in the face.

Greg opened his eyes. “I don’t want to go to school today, Mom,” he whined. “Mom? What’s going on? Where am I? What is this?”

“Be quiet, Greg.” Zack said.

“Who’s Greg?”

“You are,” Zack said, sliding open the little window between Madison and Rice.

“You’re Greg…” Greg said.

“Uhhh, guys? Greg’s, like, human again, but I don’t think he knows who he is. Can we stop, please?”

“What do you mean Greg’s human again?” Rice asked, peering into the back of the pickup.

“Stop calling me Greg!” Greg insisted.

“Okay, then what do you want to be called?”

“Not Greg,” Greg replied.

“Fine,” Rice said.

“NotGreg it is.”

“Are you going to untie me?” NotGreg asked.

“Not a chance,” Zack said.

They were driving straight into a zombie free-for-all. The undead poured out of the forest on both sides of the track. They stumbled toward the truck, tripping forward on twisted ankles. Madison accelerated, but the zombies were close enough to grab the sides of the car. Zack stood up, armed with the baseball bat.

“Don’t let them on, buddy!” Rice shouted through the sliding window.

A pair of bloated, doughy zombie paws grappled at the passing vehicle. NotGreg was crying hysterically. The zombie latched onto
the truck and pulled itself up, roaring psychotically and dripping pus all over NotGreg’s face. Zack swung hard and felt a clunk as the bat caved in the zombie’s skull like a rotten cantaloupe.

“Speed up!” Zack could see the radar towers just past the rocky foothills, where the pine forest ended but the dirt road continued. “We’re almost there!”

The road tapered, narrowing at a downward slant, and they seemed to be descending underground. The truck drove under a steel entryway and rumbled into the access tunnel. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered and buzzed. All of a sudden, Madison
slammed on the brakes, and the truck screeched to a halt. The headlights beamed on a tangled knot of zombies ahead of them, blocking their path.

Madison and Rice froze with unexpected dread. Twinkles wriggled around in Madison’s handbag. Zack tried to remain calm. “Madison,” he said, “honk the horn.” She honked twice. The zombies staggered toward them. “Now, turn on the flashers and put this bad boy in reverse.”

Madison hit the switch and backed up slowly. The passageway flared and dimmed. The hideous horde of diseased fiends followed the pickup in the blinking light.

“Madison,” Zack continued to direct, “keep it slow and steady. We have to lure them outside. Rice, man, you keep a head count and make sure we get all of them. Set the alarm on your phone for one minute from right now, too,” Zack ordered.

“Okay…” Rice agreed hesitantly, and pulled out his phone.

“Set it as loud as it’ll go,” Zack instructed, then reached for the phone.

“Zack, what should I do?” Madison shrieked.
“We’re almost out of the tunnel.”

“Okay, Madison, this is important,” Zack said. “You need to speed up and park out of sight. Then turn off the lights and the engine.”

Madison sped up the incline in reverse and cornered around the entrance of the tunnel. The phone alarm blared in Zack’s hand, and he threw it as far away from the tunnel as he could. It landed in a puff of dirt, beeping at full volume.

“Dude!” Rice whispered angrily. “That’s the worst plan of all time!”

“Sshhhhhhh…” Zack pressed his finger to his lips.

The zombies staggered out of the tunnel, past the truck, and followed the beeping alarm in the middle of the road. As the zombies gathered around the cell phone, Madison’s purse stopped growling and began to whimper instead. Rice carefully unzipped the bag, and a very confused looking, but also very puppy-looking puppy poked out his head.

“Um, guys?” Rice’s eyes darted from Zack to Madison to Twinkles to NotGreg. “If this mutt’s okay…and Bansal-Jones is okay…and they both bit Madison,
that can only mean one thing.”

“That I’m extremely lucky?” Madison asked, scooping up Twinkles.

“That you’re the zombie antidote!” Rice exclaimed, a look of wonder on his face.

“Awesome! Wait. What does that mean exactly?” she asked, her brow furrowing.

“It means that if we feed you to enough zombies—”

“Not a chance, nerdbrain!” Madison sneered. “Get your own antidote.”

“Okay then we’ll have to clone you and let the zombies eat your clones.”

Twinkles barked happily. “See, even Twinkles thinks it’s a good plan.”

Ruff! Ruff!

The zombies whipped their heads back around toward the truck.

“We’ll figure out what that means later, but right now we gotta move!” Zack said, pointing to the zombies.

Madison flicked the headlights and started the truck. The engine sputtered and coughed. “It’s not
going!” Madison cried, twisting the key in the ignition over and over.

The ragged mob of zombies lumbered back toward the truck.

“Mommy, no!” NotGreg whined, and curled into a ball, clutching his knees into his chest.

“C’mon, Madison!” Zack and Rice shouted.

“Don’t die on us now!” Madison pleaded, turning the key again.

At the head of the undead pack, the zombie nearest the pickup stumbled and lunged, latching onto the tailgate. The truck grumbled to life. The engine purred, and Madison yelped excitedly, shifting into gear. “Go!” Zack shouted. “Hurry!”

Madison hit the accelerator, and the zombie flew off the back of the pickup as they swerved into the tunnel.

“That was a close one, huh?” Zack said to no one in particular.

“I just want my mom….” NotGreg sobbed.

“Hate to break it to you, N.G.” Rice yelled from up front. “But your mommy’s a zombie.” Greg frowned and
burst into tears. “Hey, that rhymes.”

“Shut up, Rice.” Zack wobbled, balancing himself on the cargo bed with the truck’s rough bounce.

The zombie moan disappeared as they reached a silver metal gate, which looked like the door of a spaceship.

“Great,” Madison said. “All that for a dead end.”

But she was wrong.

Behind the rearview mirror, a light ticked green. The tunnel vibrated and hummed. The metal gate lifted.

“E-Z Pass,” Rice said. “Sweet.”

Madison guided the pickup into the subterranean bunker as the gate lowered slowly behind them. Zack crouched down for balance and peered through the back window of the cabin. Inside the darkening tunnel, rapid spurts of gunfire crackled through the bunkered ceiling, like distant fireworks.

Just then, Twinkles licked Zack’s face. “Thank you for saving me, Zachary!” Rice was doing the Twinkles voice again. “You’re my all-time hero.”

“Quit playing around, Rice,” Zack said. “Do you hear those gunshots? It doesn’t sound like they’re messing
around up there.” Twinkles wriggled out of Rice’s hands.