Zombified (23 page)

“It's not a for-sure thing yet,” I said. I felt I needed to hedge my emotional bet just in case I didn't get in.

“It'll happen,” Chacho said.

“And what's wrong with this town?” Karla asked.

“It's fine for us old fogeys,” Chacho said, “but not for kids who want to go out and save the world.”

Karla harrumphed and turned to Phil. “And what about you, Phil? What do you plan to do next year?”

He told them how he'd applied to the cartooning school. That really got Chacho excited.

“You're gonna draw comics?” he asked. “That's great. I'll tell the kids, they'll love that. Maybe you could draw them some pictures.”

“Sure,” Phil said, “that'd be fun . . .” He looked at me uncertainly. I just shrugged. There was no way he'd say no after the meal we'd just had, and how nice Chacho and Karla had been.

“Only if you want to,” Karla said. She smiled at him to let him know he could say no.

“No,” Phil said. “I'd love to. It'll be fun.”

So after everyone had eaten and everything had been put away, and quite a few folks had left, Phil sat down with the kids who were left and started drawing. At first he drew whatever came to mind, but pretty soon the kids called out requests and he did his best to satisfy them. “Vampire T-Rex” was the most interesting.

Chacho and I sat at the table, which had been cleared of food. We watched Phil for a while.

“He's a good one,” Chacho said.

“He is,” I agreed.

“Not like your last one.”

The last one definitely turned out to be no good, that was for sure.

“Let me run something crazy by you,” I said.

He sat forward and squinted at me. “Is this about zombies?”

“It is,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “I had a feeling this was coming.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you're more absorbed with zombies than anyone I know.”

I think he meant obsessed, but I let it go. Instead, I told him everything that had happened in the last few months. Everything, which meant letting him in on my less-than-legal activities when I worked at the Bully Burger.

“How long did you do that and no one caught on?” he asked.

“A long time,” I said. “Like, a year.”

He shook his head, but let me go on. I reminded him how last year I'd felt that zombies were getting smarter, that I'd been ambushed a couple of times. Then there was the zombie attack out at Brandon's cabin. That definitely felt coordinated. This year there was the assault on Buddha's place and then the group that killed my dad.

“I didn't know about that,” Chacho said. “I'm sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but what do you think of my theory?”

He scratched his chin and thought for a while before answering. I sipped on my lime-flavored Jarritos. The sky was starting to turn the color of an old bruise and soon it was going to be too dark for Phil to keep drawing.

“I think two things,” Chacho finally said. “One is that I don't know if I believe you. Just stop.” He held up his hand to keep me from arguing with him. “Let me finish. I don't know if I believe you because I haven't seen any change myself in the zombies. The ones I see at the Bully Burger seem the same to me.

“But, okay, saying that, I don't know if I need to believe you.” He rubbed his bald head and took a drink of the beer that sat in front of him. “I know you believe it, and that's enough.”

My heart beat faster. I could live with him not believing if it meant he didn't outright dismiss me believing it.

“So, an enemy that uses coordinated attacks, right?” he asked, and I nodded. “When I was in Iraq, the Taliban, they would target areas of concentration.”

“How do you mean?” I asked.

“Markets,” Chacho said, “mosques, army barracks, police stations. Anywhere the numbers of people concentrated. That's where they sent in suicide bombers.

“Once I got home, it took me years to feel comfortable in a crowd of more than three or four people.”

“Then where does that mean they might attack?” I said. “Because it feels like something's coming down the road.”

“I don't know, Courtney,” he said. “You're gonna have to figure that out on your own.”

“Thanks for not thinking I'm crazy,” I said.

Chacho grinned. “I never said that.”

Karla came out and sat in Chacho's lap. She sipped off his beer while we all watched Phil with the kids for a while.

“We really need to get those boys off to bed,” she finally said.

“Yeah,” Chacho agreed. “It's getting late.”

“It was very nice to meet you, Courtney,” Karla told me and she gave me a hug. “I hope you'll come by again before you leave for New York.”

I told her I'd like that and she went over to gather her kids, and to say good night to the last few partygoers.

“You should come back for sure,” Chacho said. “Bring Phil. He's good with kids.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'd like that.”

I heard the boys both proclaim, “Aw!” when Karla told them it was time for bed. Phil gathered up the drawings and held them out to Tomas.

“You have to keep those safe, okay?” he said. Tomas took them and looked so solemn, I almost laughed.

“Yeah,” Chacho said. “He's much better than the last one.”

On the way home, I turned to Phil and said, “You have the Chacho stamp of approval.”

“Really,” he said. “I don't know why, but that makes me feel oddly happy.”

“It probably ought to,” I said. “Minus the ‘oddly' part.”

“What else did you two talk about?”

“Lots of stuff,” I said. “You know?”

Phil nodded and I watched the city roll by past the window. The last bit of light was about to disappear over the West Hills.

“I figured something out, though,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?” Phil asked. “What's that?”

“I know where Brandon and his zombies are going to attack.”

I turned back to the window and the light was completely gone.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I
felt like there was a lot to do, but I needed to talk to Crystal Beals first, and the next day was Sunday.

“What time do people get out of church?” I asked Phil. We sat in my room, me on the bed, Phil at my desk. The door was open, which was the house policy if we were in one another's rooms, so we whispered.

“I'm not sure about Crystal,” he said. “But I can usually get a hold of Cody around one on Sundays.”

“I forgot,” I said. “His family goes to church. Seems kind of weird to me.”

“Not sure why that is,” Phil said. “Seems like a lot of people are religious nowadays. I mean, c'mon, the dead rose up and walk the earth. Don't you think that's going to lead people to have a lot of spiritual questions?”

“I'm not going to keep talking to you,” I said, “if you're going to insist on being logical.”

“I know it's annoying,” he said. “I've been told that a lot.”

“Well,” I said, “it's twelve thirty now. I'm going to try her.”

I punched in her number and pressed send.

They picked up on the third ring. “Beals residence,” a man's voice said.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I said. “I was wondering if I might be able to talk to Crystal.” There, Phil wasn't the only one who was able to turn on the politeness.

“May I ask who's calling?” he asked.

“Please tell her it's Courtney,” I said.

There was a pause.

“Courtney Hart?” the man asked. I said yes. “Courtney, I remember you. This is Rob, Crystal's dad. Gosh, it used to seem like you lived here with us. We haven't seen much of you lately.”

“No, sir,” I said. “I haven't been around much.” Like, for the last four or five years.

“Well,” he said, “let me go get her. It was nice to talk with you, Courtney. I hope we can see you soon.” He set the phone down and called for Crystal.

Phil gave me a look, wondering what was going on.

“I used to hang out over there a lot,” I said to him. “He remembered me.”

Over the phone, I heard Crystal come into the room and ask what was up. Her dad told her I was on the line for her.

“Courtney!” she said. “How are you?” She pitched her voice lower. “You were smart to leave Safeway when you did. Me and Gabe barely made it out of there when the police showed up.”

“I'm glad you got away,” I said. “Listen, the reason I called, Crystal . . . It's about the senior kegger. Are you somewhere you can talk?”

“I can't tell you anything about that,” she said. “You know that.” Her tone was scolding, like I was a little kid she'd caught being naughty.

“Okay,” I said. “Just let me ask you a question. Not about the location.”

“I guess that'd be okay,” she said, dubious.

“When he was still alive,” I said, “was Brandon helping to plan the thing?”

Silence on the other end of the phone.

“I mean, he was friends with those guys, right? With Mike and Tyler and Dillon?”

“It's Michael,” she said.

“Right,” I said. “He was friends with them, though, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And was he helping to plan the kegger?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said. “What's this about, Courtney?”

“One more question, Crystal,” I said. “I'm just going to ask a yes or no question. All you have to do is answer it, okay?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“The kegger is going to be out at Brandon's cabin, isn't it?” I asked.

She gasped. Then she said, “I still can't tell you, Courtney. I don't even know why it's so important for you to know.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll stop pressing you. Sorry. I was just trying to figure out if a hunch I had was correct. You know how much I love to be right.”

Phil cocked an eyebrow at me over that. I waved away his look.

“Yeah, I guess I've noticed that,” Crystal said.

“We should get together this week,” I said. “We can grab something to eat, or coffee. My treat. And I won't bring up the kegger, I promise.”

“I'd like that,” Crystal said. “Yeah, let's keep in touch and do that.”

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and then we hung up.

“The kegger is definitely at the cabin,” I said.

“And Brandon was planning it when he was alive,” Phil said, “so we can guess that he'll remember that now that he's a zombie.”

“I think so,” I said. “If we can call what he does ‘remembering. ' ”

“How many seniors will be there?” Phil asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “A lot. Like ninety percent of the seniors show up, right? What's ninety percent of a lot?”

He sat back in the chair, arms crossed over his chest, and stared at the ceiling.

“What do we do now?” he asked finally.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “Well, that's not true. I know what we have to do, I'm just not sure how to do it.”

He stopped staring at the ceiling. “What do we have to do?”

“We have to convince everyone that there's going to be a zombie attack at the senior kegger. And then . . .” I trailed off because the next part seemed crazy even to me.

“And then what?” Phil asked.

“And then we have to convince them all to go anyway,” I said.

 

Having such a monumental task ahead of us, we did what any other people in our situation might do. We waited for it to get dark, then we sneaked out of the house to go hunt zombies.

I mean, sometimes there's just nothing like ripping into a bunch of the undead to clear your head. If we were able to find any, anyway. So we treated it like a Sunday drive—windows down, music on. Pleasant. We'd just happened to bring some deadly weapons along just in case.

I asked Phil to lay off the punk music, so we listened to this British guy named Billy Bragg. Phil said he was a punk folk singer. I was dubious until he popped in the CD, and then I was won over pretty quickly.

We headed right for the outskirts of town since that was the last place we'd run into any Zs. We were in Phil's car with him behind the wheel. I was seriously thinking I needed to sell the Subaru that Dad left me since I didn't really drive it. Or maybe I'd give it to Phil to make up for how often he'd had to taxi me around to different places. As we drove, I did my best to peer into every shadow as we drove slowly down the rural roads. I was seriously thinking about paying for one of those super-bright lights that can be controlled from inside the car. The kind the police have. I would definitely be able to afford it. It wasn't like I was spending my money on much else.

I sat up a little straighter when a thought popped into my head.

“We didn't call Cody,” I said. “We've never gone out hunting without him.”

Phil grimaced. “We can't tell him about this,” he said. “Especially if we find something.”

“I can't believe we forgot.”

We drove on for a while, stopping from time to time to study a yard where maybe we'd seen movement. The moon was only half full, but it seemed like it was bright enough for what we were doing. There didn't seem to be any shufflers around.

“Did he tell you he took that girl out?” Phil asked. “Hannah?”

“No,” I said. “What did he tell you?”

He got a sort of pained look. “Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. If he'd wanted you to know . . .”

“Too late now, mister,” I said. “You brought it up. Besides boyfriends and girlfriends don't keep things from one another.”

As soon as it was out of my mouth, I realized what I'd said.

“Not that we're, you know,” I said. “I wasn't trying to imply . . .” I didn't know how to finish.

“You're funny,” Phil said. “One minute, you're like Wonder Woman—kicking ass, taking no prisoners. Then sometimes I almost swear you stepped out of some sort of, I don't know, Victorian novel where none of the characters are allowed to actually talk about what they're feeling.”

“You and I both know that I can talk about my feelings,” I said.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Sure, but sometimes, the most obvious times, it's like you try to pretend you don't have feelings at all.”

“The most obvious?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I didn't believe it. My superpower used to be the ability to hide any emotion—that and Reed Richards–level intelligence, of course—and now the boy who couldn't comprehend human interactions was able to read me like an insecure book. Fantastic.

“Can other people see these feelings?” I asked. “Or is it just you?”

“What's that?” he asked, pointing up the road.

From where we were, it looked like a house up the road was having a party. The front door was open, light spilled out into the yard, and a bunch of people were crowded around the front door.

“Get closer,” I said.

Phil gunned the gas, the acceleration pushing me back into my seat.

When we got up to the house, I saw it wasn't a party at all.

A one-level farmhouse was under attack by zombies. They were crowding into the front door, creating a bottleneck. I counted at least a dozen of the creeps.

There was a sturdy metal rail fence all around the place, its gate twisted and open with the effort the zombies used to push it in until the chain keeping it closed snapped. A zombie lay on the ground just past the gate—it must have been semi-crushed by the crowd that charged the gate. It was down, but still trying to crawl to meet up with its buddies.

Phil pulled the car into the drive and made sure to park the car's front tire right on the prone zombie.

“Phil,” I said. “There are too many of them for us to handle. We need to call the cops.”

He killed the engine, and we heard a scream coming from inside the house. High-pitched, it was either a woman or a kid.

“You stay and call the cops,” he said.

He climbed out, slammed his door, then went to the back of the car, where he keyed open the trunk. He came back into view a second later carrying the shotgun Buddha had given him. He racked a shell into the chamber as he walked to the house.

Dammit. I climbed out and ran to the trunk, which he'd left open. I grabbed my wrecking tool. Then I checked to make sure I had my pistol and speed loaders.

As I ran to the house, I saw Phil approach the group of zombies who were re-creating a Three Stooges routine in the front door. They never even saw him as he walked right up, stopped, and raised the shotgun to his shoulder.

His first shot took out two of the things. He racked another round and fired. Then he ran a little ways back toward me, turned, and waited.

I caught up with him and drew my revolver.

The runners figured out that something new was happening outside. A group of them peeled away from the house and ran right for us. Phil took the time to load a few more shells into the shotgun's magazine. His face was completely blank. I could take lessons from him on how to hide my emotions.

As the first runners got to us, Phil raised his gun and fired, and kept firing. He didn't need to tell me to do the same.

I pulled the trigger six times pretty quickly. I wasn't sure how many I got, but more were coming. There wasn't time to reload, not even with the speed loaders. I holstered the pistol and raised the wrecking tool. Phil got off a couple of shots, then he was empty. He raised the shotgun like a club.

They were on us in seconds. A guy with a mangled eye and a J
UST
D
O
I
T
shirt ran at me, and I buried the blade of the tool in his skull. He kept going for a few steps before falling. I used his momentum to wrench the tool out of his noggin. I heard Phil crack open a zombie's head next to me, but didn't check on him. By the time I stood up, another runner was right on top of me. I fell backward and swung at the thing's legs as it ran past. It went sprawling into the grass, its right leg a few feet behind it. I'd have to deal with that one later; more were coming.

A shotgun blast came from the house, then I heard yelling in some language I didn't recognize.

I barely had time to react as the next zombie, a girl in a miniskirt and UGGs—very fashionable—came at me. The best I was able to manage was to club her on the shoulder and knock her down. I jumped down on her chest, raised the wrecking tool, and brought the spike down right on the center of her forehead.

“Courtney!” Phil called. He struggled with a huge biker-looking dude with no lower jaw, using the shotgun to keep the guy at bay. At least biting seemed like less of a danger. The biker must have been the last zombie—I didn't see any others.

I tried to pull the wrecking tool out of the skull of the chick, but it didn't budge. How deep had I sunk it in? Did it go all the way into the ground? Screw it, I thought. I stood and drew my pistol. I popped the cylinder and ejected the empty shells. As quick as I was able, I got out one of the speed loaders and fumbled with it. I watched it tumble into the grass.

“Shit,” I said.

“Courtney!” Phil and the biker zombie went down.

I couldn't see the loader I'd dropped. I went to get the one that was still in its pouch on my belt.

A shotgun roared right next to us, and the biker zombie flew off of Phil.

A guy who looked like he'd just stepped out of a high school production of
Fiddler on the Roof
stood there with a double-barrel shotgun. He had a huge, bushy beard and wore something that looked like a peasant's shirt. He cracked the thing open and ejected the spent shells. He then reloaded it and snapped the barrels back into place. The whole time he did that, he kept up a steady stream of muttering in what I thought was Russian. I wasn't able to understand any of it, but I'd know a steady stream of cursing in any language.