Zombified (2 page)

We sat there without talking for a while and then, as I'm prone to do, I started mentally turning over something Phil had said earlier.

“What dumb things?” I asked.

He stared out at the city and frowned a little.

“Too soon,” he said.

“When?” I prodded.

He turned toward me and said, “I'm not sure. But I'll know when it's the time. If it ever is.”

“And you expect me to be satisfied with that answer,” I said, teasing him.

“You don't have a choice,” he said, serious like a heart attack.

“I was joking.”

“Okay,” he said. “Good.”

The sun was behind us, but it must have started to set because we were in shadow by then and the air was getting cooler. I rubbed my arms when goose bumps sprang up on them.

“Let's head back to the car,” I said. “I've had enough of this scenic beauty for a while.”

“Okay,” said Phil. He stood and turned back the way we'd come, and then he froze. “Oh,” he said.

A zombie stood right on the path that led back to the car. Of course. She wasn't all chewed up and bloody, but her gray skin and the black slime that oozed out of her mouth were good indicators of what we were dealing with. I took a second to admire her Smiths T-shirt. It was the Meat Is Murder one. How's that for shitty irony? She looked like she was our age, maybe a little younger, and she used to be pretty. I guessed that maybe West Salem High was missing a cheerleader.

We just stood there for a minute. All three of us. She made no attempt to come at us, and we weren't exactly ready to rush her. I started to look around because the last few times I'd had run-ins with some shufflers, they'd sort of been traveling in packs. But if there were others with her, they weren't coming out to play.

“Courtney,” Phil shout-whispered at me.

“What?” I said.

“Don't you have a gun in your pants?”

No, I'm just happy to see you,
I thought and grinned despite the situation. I was so scared I felt a little giddy. But he was right, I did have a pistol. Making no sudden movements, I slid my right hand across my belly and under my shirt. I found the pistol and wrapped my hand around it—I was careful to keep my finger off the trigger so I didn't shoot myself in the gut when I drew it out. Just as slowly, I moved my left hand up and grabbed my shirt. I took a deep breath, let it out, then simultaneously lifted the shirt and drew the pistol.

Which stuck in my waistband!

I was so confused, I almost did shoot myself. I looked down to see what was going on and I heard the zombie snarl. I felt the gun's sight snag on something, but I wasn't able to tell what.

“Courtney!” Phil shouted.

I looked up to see the dead girl charging me. I yanked the gun free and felt a searing pain on my stomach. Then she hit me like a freaking undead linebacker. We both went over and she landed on top of me. I let go of the gun to grab her arms and keep her off me.

The bitch was inches from my face, snapping her jaws and drooling black shit all over me. I was trying to keep the ooze from getting in my mouth, and my arms were already shaking with the effort to keep her up.

“Philip,” I screamed, “grab the gun or something!”

I didn't hear him respond. Where the hell was he? I knew I couldn't last much longer. A whimper escaped my throat and I cursed myself for that. There was no way I wanted to go out crying in front of a goddamn zombie.

Just then something flew across my body and knocked the dead girl off of me. Phil had tackled her and now he wrestled on the ground with her. He'd ended up on top, but I knew that he couldn't let her go or try to get away without risking getting bitten. At least she wasn't leaking zombie tranny fluid all over him.

Despite just wanting to curl up into a ball, I got up on my hands and knees and started searching for the gun. Rocks and other junk dug into my knees and the palms of my hands as I probed under bushes and scanned the area. I didn't see the damn pistol anywhere.

“Courtney!”

Somehow, Phil was now lying flat on his back, the dead girl contorting every way she could to try and get her teeth into him. His eyes bulged, and his face and neck were a scary shade of red. I knew he wasn't going to last much longer. Screw the gun.

I found the biggest rock I was able to palm. It felt good in my hand—jagged and heavy. I stood and walked over to where Phil tangled with the zombie, stopped, and raised the rock high in the air. Phil's eyes turned toward me and something like relief washed over his face. If this were a movie, it's at this point I'd say something ironic, but I couldn't think of anything.

“Do it!” Phil screamed.

The dead chick turned to look at me and hissed through blackened teeth.

I brought the rock down with all my strength right on her nose. I felt more than heard the sickening crunch of her nose caving into her face, and more black ooze squirted from the wound. She screamed and let go of Phil to clutch at it. Then she fell over backward as Phil bucked her off him.

I immediately collapsed onto her chest and, with my free hand, pushed her arms out of the way. She looked up at me with one ruined eye and I almost hesitated because of what I saw there. Almost. Instead, I brought the rock down on her face and felt/heard another crack. Then I did it again, and again. I lost track, but soon the crack was replaced with a sucking, squelching sound.

I felt fingers close around my wrist as I raised the rock one more time. Phil stood over me, his blank expression taking me in, then looking toward the zombie's busted gourd.

“Okay, Courtney,” he said. “It's done. She's done.”

“I should have let you bring the bat,” I said, and the last few words came out strangled because I started to cry. I was only marginally less embarrassed to cry in front of Phil than I had been about squirting a few in front of the shuffler.

Phil pulled me off of her and helped me walk back to the rocks. We sat there for a few minutes while I got my shit together and the last of the sunlight disappeared.

“We need to get out of here,” Phil said. “Just in case there are more.”

“My gun.”

“You can buy a new one,” he said. “C'mon.”

We made our slow way back to the car. My knees were killing me, and something had happened to my hip that I was just starting to feel. Also, I had a deep gouge in my stomach where the pistol's sight had dug into me. After a lot of tripping and sliding, we made it up the steep embankment and over to the car.

I sank into the seat and tried to ignore all of the flares of pain. Phil flipped on the dome light and we examined each other for gouges and bites. We didn't find any—not that finding any would help out a whole lot at that point. We'd be zombies before we made it to the hospital.

We sat back down and Phil started the car. Elvis Costello, Phil's favorite, came pouring out of the speakers. I sat there thinking about how, earlier, I'd been fantasizing about Phil's hands on me. Well, he'd just been pawing all over me, and I couldn't think of anything less sexy.

“Thanks,” he said, “for saving me. I wasn't going to last much longer.”

“You bet,” I said. “Do me a favor in return?”

“Anything,” he said.

“Never bring me to this damn place again.”

“Done,” he said.

He put the car in reverse and got us turned around. Then we drove off toward home and the start of the school year.

CHAPTER TWO

P
hil picked me up the next day and drove me to school. Over the last couple weeks of summer, he'd undergone an intense screening process conducted by my newly security-conscious father. This included more than one dinner at my house, which featured more questioning than they did eating. Sample query: “Have you ever done Vitamin Z, Philip?” The response was a slow blink followed by a “No, sir.” Mr. Subtlety just grunted at that. But I guess Phil passed the screening process because there I was in his car on the way to school. It might have been that Dad was tired of hauling my ass everywhere and wanted to give someone else the pleasure of my company.

An entire flutter of butterflies had taken up residence in my stomach as I thought about facing all my old friends—people I hadn't been allowed to have contact with over the summer. Dad didn't even let me have any friends over for my birthday in June. It was either the saddest or angriest birthday in the world as Dad and I sat by ourselves in our favorite Mexican restaurant—not even the giant Happy Birthday Sombrero was able to make me feel better. I knew my exile had been because my dad had locked me away like a delinquent Rapunzel, but my friends might actually interpret it as me being arrogant and standoffish and generally a douche bag. It wasn't like I was able to tell them the truth—you know, that Dad discovered I was selling drugs that were addicting and killing our classmates so he made me stick close to home. I'd rather have everyone think I was a stuck-up bitch, thanks.

Phil cleared his throat and asked, “Everything okay?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Maybe “snapped” was a more accurate descriptor.

He took it in stride. “You're usually more talkative than this,” he said. “So I thought maybe something was wrong. That's all.”

“Just thinking about the first day and all,” I said. “Wondering who will still talk to me, who'll want to shiv me in the girls' room.”

“There may be some overlap between those two groups,” Phil said. I smiled despite my queasiness. I liked when Phil made jokes.

“Har,” I said. “My social status was up in the air at the end of last year, and then there was my enforced absence from the scene. You see why I'm a little worried.”

Phil nodded. He pulled the car to a stop and looked both ways before moving on. His driving habits were very different from what I was used to. My old friends, Sherri and Willie, both drove like there was no tomorrow, and why not hurry up and get there, for Christ's sake? I guess for them there really was no tomorrow.

The butterflies started doing aerial maneuvers.

“Listen,” Phil said. “People will either be cool, or they won't. There's not really much you can do about it either way, so why sweat it? If they're cool, then, you know, cool.” I restrained myself from making fun of him, since I recognized he was trying to make me feel better. “If they're not, you've dealt with worse.”

He pulled the car into the school's driveway and we waited for the guards to let us in.

“Is that how you deal with it?” I asked. “You just ignore it when people are shitty?”

He pinned me with his gaze; his brown eyes seemed lit up. “Shitty is what I expect from people. If I get anything else, I'm pleasantly surprised. Or suspicious.”

He pulled up a space and rolled down his window. We went though the ritual of getting through security—having guns pointed in our faces, displaying our IDs, being polite to men who might very easily shoot us.

We got out of the car once we parked. Phil stood close to me and I was really aware of his presence. “I'll see you later,” he said.

“I wish we had lunch the same period this semester,” I said. I kept the whine to a minimum.

“Me, too,” he said. “But I'll see you at the pep rally.”

All I was able to say was “Guh.”

Right before we turned to go our separate ways, Phil put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me.

“You're worth ten of anyone else at this school,” he said. “They'll only affect you if you let them.”

Then he turned and walked off and I wondered if I'd have time for a good cry in the girls' room before homeroom.

 

I didn't make it to the bathroom. On my way, I ran into Crystal Beals. She and I were friends back in grade school, but we had drifted apart when it became apparent she was destined for the upper reaches of the social hierarchy. But we connected again at the end of last year and we'd been texting all summer. Unfortunately, Dad's Draconian disciplinary methods meant I hadn't actually seen her at all. She's super cute and happy—on the outside, at least—and she didn't make me feel weird about pulling a vanishing act over vacation.

“Hey, Courtney?” she said. She still made most sentences sound like a question. “It's really good to see you.”

“You, too,” I said. “Look at you with the school spirit.”

Crystal had been named captain of the cheerleading squad, and she was decked out in a frighteningly short cheer outfit for the upcoming pep rally. I noticed that she wore long sleeves under her top despite the September heat. One of the things I learned last year was that Crystal either had been or was still a cutter—scars crisscrossed her upper arms. Not so sexy for the cheerleading, I guess.

“I hope we can get together later,” she said. “Maybe for coffee?”

“That'd be great,” I said. I meant it. I was relieved she was the first person I'd run into on the first day.

“We can talk about it later in Journalism,” she said. “I took your advice, and I joined the school paper.” She twirled away and ran off to practice making human pyramids and whatever it is that cheerleader types do.

She stopped and twirled back to me.

“Oh, and there's been a boy asking about you?” she said.

“What?” I said. “What boy?”

She turned away again and, over her shoulder, said, “He's
very
good-looking!”

A slightly different tingle erupted in my stomach. Who was this mystery guy? I grinned after her, then I put on my game face and marched off to homeroom to face the day.

Turns out she was the first of four or five people to tell me that a boy had been looking for me, or asking about me. Whenever I asked them who the guy was, or at least what he looked like, they all got weirdly vague. They all said pretty much what Crystal had. “He's good-looking.” Though one person did mention that he was also tall. It was all very annoying.

Whatever. I needed to keep my guard up in case the day took a turn for the crappy.

 

The day was as bad as I worried it might be. I got the collective stink-eye from both the ruling glitterati—Brandon's friends, who felt like I'd stepped above my station when I'd dated him—and from my usual peer group, the wasters. The only person who was sort of nice to me was Elsa Roberts. But that may have been conditioning more than anything else.

Let's just say that I was happy to see Phil by the time the pep rally happened. I'm usually loathe to attend these things, but I wanted to stay and be supportive of Crystal. I'd have been lying if I said I wasn't curious to catch a glimpse of Brandon. The rally would climax with the introduction of this year's football team, and I already knew he'd been named captain. I wanted to torture myself by seeing how easily he'd moved on from me and how great he looked. Oh, great, the butterflies were back!

The student body endured Principal Ibrahim's welcome-back speech and a painfully unfunny skit put on by the boys' JV football team. Then Coach Amara came out and told us all how great a year it was going to be based on how many games the pumped-up football team were certain to win. Then the lights dimmed and the coaching staff took turns introducing the football team. The entire team, all four thousand of them. The cheerleaders did their thing for each player. I really admired their stamina.

Finally, the mic was handed back to Coach A and he said, “And here is this year's fighting Seagulls quarterback and captain . . .” dramatic pause . . . “Zander Matthews!”

Everyone around us went wild, but Phil and I just exchanged glances. Where the hell was Brandon? Phil shook his head in answer to my unasked question.

I immediately dug my phone out of my pocket and texted Crystal:

I knew she wouldn't respond right away, and yet I still fought the urge to check my phone every ten seconds.

Phil shot me a questioning look, but there was no way to shout this conversation over the roar of the mini-circus going on all around us. We waited it out to the bitter end, then hightailed it out of there the moment the fluorescents zapped to life overhead.

As we walked out to Phil's car, my phone chimed. It was a message from Crystal:

“Of course she texts in all caps,” I said.

“What?” asked Phil. I ignored him and climbed into the car.

“Help me think of something to tell my dad,” I said after he'd gotten in and closed the door.

“Tell him about what?” he asked. He was completely deadpan. With anyone else, I'd think he was mad at me, but I decided it was just his default state.

“I want to meet Crystal for coffee and I want to get my dad to let me.”

Phil thought for a moment. “Why don't you tell him you want to meet Crystal for coffee?” he asked.

“What?” I asked. “There's no way he'd . . .” My voice trailed off as I thought about it a little bit. Was Phil right? Maybe my dad wasn't a game I had to figure out—maybe I could just be straightforward and honest with him. I supposed that stranger shit had happened. I shrugged and hit the speed dial for my dad.

“Hi, Courtney,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, Dad,” I answered, then paused and took a deep breath. “I was wondering if I could get a coffee with Crystal before coming home.”

There was silence on the other end and I was ready to start moping, but then he said, “Crystal Beals? I don't see why not. Is she driving you?”

“Um, no,” I said. Even I was able to hear the surprise in my voice. “Phil will take me there and then home. I'll go right home after, okay?”

“That's fine,” Dad said. “Why don't you turn on the oven when you get home and I'll stop for a pizza on the way home. Maybe Phil will want to join us?”

I started to wonder who was really on the other end of the phone. Obviously my dad had been replaced with a highly agreeable replicant.

“I'll ask him,” I said. Then Dad said he loved me, and I couldn't bring myself to say it, too, so I signed off with a lame, “Me, too.”

“What'd he say?” Phil asked as I took the phone away from my ear.

“He said it was fine,” I said. “He also asked if you'd want to have pizza with us tonight.”

“Can't,” he said. “I'm having dinner with my family tonight. But tell him thanks.”

I was more than a little relieved, actually. Which was weird, since Phil had already had dinner with us a few times. Those had always been my idea, though, and that made it different somehow. I decided I'd ponder this later. Or I'd completely suppress it and never think about it again. One or the other.

“Okay, let's head to Starbucks,” I said. “The one on Liberty.”

“Which one?” Phil asked. “There are two.”

I rolled my eyes. Phil had just said a true thing. My town had two horrid franchise coffee places within
one block
of one another. It was mortifying.

“Just head to Liberty and we'll figure it out,” I said. I knew it was petty, since we live in a world with zombies and all, but that felt like reason number 1,000 why I wanted to get out of Salem.

 

Crystal found us at the first Starbucks she tried. Her smile faltered a little when she entered the place and saw Phil sitting next to me, but she recovered quickly and walked up to give me a hug. I doubt that Phil noticed or cared. I was thankful she'd changed into jeans because I didn't want to imagine her sitting in that cheer skirt. I'm sure that much exposed thigh might grab even Phil's attention.

“I hope you don't mind,” I said as we sat down. “Phil gave me a ride . . .”

“I could go sit somewhere else,” he said. He said it the way he'd mention he had to go to the bathroom, and not like it would be completely insulting for him to leave the table.

“Don't be silly,” Crystal said and she shook his hand. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. I guess I thought she wouldn't be cool about Phil? “I'm Crystal,” she said to him with a megawatt smile.

“I know,” Phil answered and introduced himself. He grinned at her. Phil actually grinned. I started to tense up again.

“How have you been, Courtney?” Crystal asked. “I'm sorry I didn't see you over the summer.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, “it was my fault.” And before Crystal could ask what I meant, I pressed on. “Say, do you know why Brandon wasn't introduced as part of the football team?”

Her face clouded over. She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. My heart beat a little faster. Had something happened to him over the summer and I missed it because I was out of the action?

“Oh, God,” she said. She turned her head away a little to look out the window. I realized her hands were way up on her upper arms. I thought about the scars I'd seen there. “It's so
sad,
you know?” she went on.