Zombified (24 page)

The biker zombie lay on his back and was trying to right himself like a turtle. The Russian dude walked up to him, put the barrel of the shotgun right up to his face, and pulled the trigger.

The Russian then noticed the zombie whose leg I'd chopped off. He walked over to it and gave it the same treatment he'd given its biker friend.

Phil and I hadn't moved since the shotgun-toting Russian had come out and made his presence known. I think we were too shocked to do anything, but now we'd recovered. Phil slowly stood, and I found the speed loader I'd dropped.

“You okay?” the Russian asked us. He walked over to me and gave me a once-over. “You hurt? Scratched?”

“I'm okay,” I said.

“And you?” he asked Phil.

Phil kind of patted himself down. “I'm all right,” he said.

Instead of saying anything else, the dude rushed up and took Phil in a huge hug. He actually lifted Phil's feet off the ground. When he set Phil down, he turned and smiled at me.

“Thank you so much,” he said. I thought he'd be happy with that, but then he charged me and gave me the same kind of hug he'd given Phil. All the air rushed out of my lungs. Jesus, he might have just hugged the zombies to death.

A woman called something in Russian from inside the house, and the guy answered back in the same language. Right in my ear.

He set me down as a woman wearing a long peasant dress and white head covering came out into the yard. She carried a baby, maybe a year old, and two little girls stood tentatively in the doorway looking out at us.

“I don't know where you come from,” the Russian said to us, “but I thought my family was dead. Thank you.”

“You're all okay?” Phil asked.

“Yes, all,” the guy said. “All of us. I got us into cellar when the zombies attack.” When he said it, it sounded like “zumbias.” “They were breaking down cellar door when you come.”

“Well,” I said, “we're glad everyone is fine.”

“You come in,” he said to us. “You come in and clean up.” He yelled at his wife in Russian again. “We have food, drink. Please.”

“We can't,” Phil said. “We were just passing by when we . . . when we saw. We need to be going.”

The guy's face fell, sad we'd rejected his offer. Then a look of wonder came over him.

“You just passing by?” he asked. “And you stop to help? You are sent by God.”

We really weren't,
I almost said.

“Maybe we were,” Phil said. “I've heard he works in mysterious ways.”

The Russian laughed at that, then hugged Phil again. Then hugged me. He had tears coming down his face by then, and they fell into his beard and made it glisten like dew in a thick, shaggy bush.

He finally let us go, following us to the car, singing our praises and telling us God smiled on us. He kept shaking Phil's hand as Phil tried to get in the car. The moaning of the zombie underneath the car's wheels finally tore his attention away from us.

“You go now,” he said to us. “I clean up here.” He reloaded his shotgun.

Phil started the car and backed up onto the road. He waved one last time at the Russian and then at the guy's little family back up at the house. The two girls in the doorway waved back shy little waves.

We heard the
pop pop
of two shotgun blasts as we drove away.

“I knew there were a lot of Russian Orthodox who lived out here,” Phil said, “but I've never met any of them. They mostly homeschool their kids.”

“That's very interesting,” I said. “You know what else is interesting?”

“What's that?” Phil asked.

“You running into a huge crowd of zombies and not waiting for any kind of help whatsoever!” I yelled at him. “That was super-interesting.”

I was so angry, I pounded on the dashboard and yelled. It felt dramatic and petty, but I also needed that right then.

“You came and helped out eventually,” Phil said. “I knew you would.”

“Not the point,” I shouted. My heart pounded, and I heard my blood rushing in my ears.

“The point is, you could have been hurt or killed and . . . and what the hell would I do then?” I asked.

He didn't answer. What answer was there to give? He just continued driving on for a few minutes.

Then, very abruptly, he pulled the car off the road and threw it into park. I was jerked back and forth by all the sudden movements.

“What the hell, Phil?” I asked.

“I was seven years old,” he said. He turned in his seat to face me, his left arm draped over the steering wheel.

“What are you talking about?”

“I was seven years old,” he repeated and something about the flat way he said it, a flatness masking anger or something scarier, made me shut up. “This was a couple of months after the dead came back. Do you remember what it was like back then?”

I nodded.

“People either thought it was the end of the world,” he said, “or they thought it was all going to blow over any day. That was before everyone had fences and gates. Hell, some people, like my family, hadn't even gone out to buy guns yet.

“My family—my mom and dad, my two older sisters, and me—we were all going to go up to a cabin that we had out in Eastern Oregon.”

“Phil,” I said. “You don't have to do this.”

“You asked, Courtney,” he said. “I told you I didn't know if I'd ever be ready to tell you. Guess what? I'm ready.”

I shrank away from him a little. I didn't think I was ready for this.

“We'd loaded up the car,” he went on. “We were just about ready to go. I got away from my parents, the way kids do. You know what I mean, right?”

I thought about the couple of times my parents had lost me when I was little. I never even noticed that we'd become separated, and then they'd be in my face, angry and scared and telling me to never wander off ever again. I nodded.

“I'd actually gotten outside, was waiting by the car.

“And then I noticed that there were a bunch of zombies shuffling down the street toward me. So I did what any little kid might do, I started screaming.

“My mom ran out and saw what was happening. She told me to get in the car and I did. Then she ran after me. I don't know why she did that. If she'd just gone back inside, I think everything might have been okay.”

He took his arm off the steering wheel and sat back in the seat. He stared out the windshield and started talking again.

“She ran after me. Maybe she meant to get in the car with me.” He shrugged. “She didn't make it. The zombies were on her before she reached the car. My dad saw what was happening, and he ran out to help my mom.

“And he didn't close the door behind him.”

He turned his attention from whatever was outside back to me. “Do you understand what I'm talking about?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. I had to say it twice because the first time no sound escaped my throat.

“I sat in the car and I watched those monsters tear apart my family. Then they surrounded the car and tried to get at me. For hours I sat in the back of the car and watched those things pound on the windows. I can still see the bloody hand and fist prints they left on the glass. My family's blood.

“I passed out from the heat at some point,” he said. “I would have died from exposure—you know, like how dogs sometimes die if they're locked in a car? But some neighbors called the police to report the zombies. After the cops cleared out the shufflers, someone thought to look in the car and they found me. I was almost dead of dehydration and, what do they call it? Hyperthermia? Heat stroke?”

He took a deep, shaky breath. I bit my lower lip to keep from crying. For some reason it felt important not to cry about this in front of him, like he wouldn't have liked it. Oh, later, when I was alone, I'd become Weepy, the eighth dwarf, but for the moment, I intended to keep it together.

Phil shrugged again, as if there was so much to communicate that only moving his shoulders up and down might do it.

“I used to wonder if I was happy that I was saved,” he said. “Then, a few years ago, I figured out I was saved so that I could do things like we just did. There was no way. No. Way. I'd have just sat there and watched that family be attacked. Even if it meant I got killed in the process. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “But that won't stop me from trying to keep you alive.”

“I appreciate that,” he said, and gave me a grin. “Now, let's go home. I think we've done enough damage for one night.”

“Speaking of damage,” I said, “I still can't feel my body since that guy hugged me.”

“You're young,” Phil said. “You'll grow a new spine.”

We headed for home. We didn't talk much on the way. I'm not sure why Phil was quiet, but I could have ventured some guesses. I kept my lips zipped because I had a ton of stuff to think about. I understood now what Gene had talked to me about at Thanksgiving. I wondered if I got Chacho and Phil together to talk about their experiences, would they find them to be similar? I wondered if the term post-traumatic stress might come up?

And I have to admit, even though I told Phil I wouldn't try to stop him from joining a fight in the future, I was scared. Scared of what it might mean that he saw himself as some sort of anti-zombie crusader. What was the difference between being a zealous monster hunter and having a death wish? I wasn't sure, but I knew I didn't want to find out.

CHAPTER TWENTY

T
ime was growing short on the whole “preventing a mini zombie apocalypse” front. Finals were a week away and the senior kegger always happened the weekend after finals. So, call it two weeks. I refused to give up any study time, either. I mean, what good might it do me to survive a mass attack of flesh-eating ghouls if it meant I screwed the pooch on my grades? No thanks, I'd rather go down as zombie chow.

During the run-up to finals, Phil, Cody, and I had a lot of discussions about how to convince others to believe us about the coming attack. Or to at least prepare for it even if they didn't quite believe us. Nothing seemed like it might work. The most common thing any of us thought of was some variation of, “Trick them?” But that wasn't realistic, you know?

We also talked a bit about the zombie attack we foiled without Cody. He did act hurt—okay, he wasn't just acting, he really was hurt—but he eventually got into trying to dissect what had happened and why.

“Maybe Brandon is losing control of the other zombies?” he asked.

“Or maybe he sent them out on a foraging mission,” I said. “It's hard to know.”

“Well, I'm just glad there's, like, a dozen less zombies for us to fight later,” Cody said.

“Fewer,” I hissed, but Cody seemed to miss it. Phil put his hand on top of mine to help calm me down.

It was during a combination study-slash-strategy session at Denny's one night that Cody sat back and rubbed his face. We'd already been talking for hours about it, going round and round the same few crappy ideas.

“I have a thought,” he said. Phil and I waited. I might be able to add that I waited dubiously, but that would make me sound like a bitch.

“What if we told them what we thought?” he said. “We keep thinking of ways to try to trick them or something. Why don't we treat them like fellow human beings we respect and walk up and talk to them?”

I thought of a lot of reasons not to do that. Being laughed at, getting stuck in a nuthouse. Getting further ostracized at school. Those were all pretty good reasons not to try the honest, direct approach.

“I mean, it's like me and girls,” Cody said. “I spent so long trying to think of a way to game some girl—any girl—into liking me. Maybe if I dressed a certain way, did certain things, wore the right clothes.

“Then I decided to forget all of that and just be myself and tell a girl that I liked that I liked her. And now? Now I'm getting my wick dipped on the regular. Know what I mean?”

“Yes, Cody,” I said. “Despite your subtlety, I do think I know what you meant.”

“Jesus,” Phil said and rubbed his eyes. “I didn't want to know that.”

“You're gonna think about it later,” Cody said with an evil grin. “You are welcome.”

After I swallowed down some vomit, I asked, “What do you suggest, Mister Darcy?”

“I don't get that,” Cody said, “but it's simple. Start with one person. One person that you know and like, and that you think, you know, trusts you. Tell them. See how it goes over.”

“I can't think of a single person not already at this table who might trust me,” I said. I took a bite of my Moons over My Hammy.

“I can think of two,” Phil said. “Crystal and Elsa. And all the kids who were at Brandon's party last year? The ones you helped save? I bet they'd listen to you.”

“Right,” Cody said. “Start with one or two, get them to be a, what did you call it? An advocate, right? They'll help convince others, and so on.”

I forked more cold, chewy potatoes into my mouth to buy some time. I was really going to have to do this, wasn't I? Stake whatever little reputation I still had on trying to convince one or two people to believe me.

“Screw it,” I said. “I'm leaving town the moment I can anyway. What do I care if people think I'm even weirder than they already do?”

“That's a good attitude,” Phil said. “It works for you.”

“I'm only going to do it if you give me the rest of your chocolate shake,” I told Cody. He picked up the glass of ice cream goodness and started sucking it down for all he was worth.

“Fine,” I said. “I'll do it anyway. Are there any people you two can talk to?”

They both thought there might be.

I figured it would be easiest to talk to Elsa first for a couple of reasons. One, Crystal seemed way invested in the success of the kegger and she'd likely resist any suggestion that it might not go off according to plan. Two, Elsa had a relatively low social standing and if she laughed in my face and started talking smack about me around school, very few people would listen. A fairly brutal assessment, I know, but I needed to go into all of this with my eyes wide open.

I was glad that she seemed excited when I asked her to go to coffee with me that Friday.

We met up at the Starbucks in downtown where we'd had coffee the last time we hung out. Elsa ordered some blended monstrosity that claimed to be a coffee drink. I figured, what the hell, and ordered the same thing. It was like a milk shake that got you buzzed. Why had no one ever told me about them before? I resisted getting a second one after I sucked down the first.

We caught up on what had been going on this past year. Elsa was careful not to bring up my dad. That was a relief, actually. While I liked to remember Dad, I sort of hated talking about him. It felt like talking about him would make me stop remembering how he was when he was alive, and start remembering him like he was in the stories I told. I wasn't even sure if that made sense.

Elsa got accepted to Smith College and was getting ready to move to Massachusetts in a few weeks. I congratulated her and she smiled demurely, but I knew she was proud. I got hung up on the fact that I thought Smith had originally been founded as a religious college. Was Elsa religious? Not that it mattered.

“What about you?” she asked.

Am I religious?
I thought, but thank God, I didn't say it out loud.

“What are your plans for school next year?” she clarified when I gave her a totally confused look. I told her about the Columbia thing.

“Damn, Courtney,” she said. “You've always got to top everyone on everything, don't you?”

“That was the main reason I wanted to go to Columbia, yes,” I said. “The other reason is their bitching football team. It just worked out this way, Elsa.”

“I know,” she said. “It's just frustrating.”

We fell into a somewhat uncomfortable silence then. She sipped at her coffee drink and I wished I had one to sip on some more.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. That was not the stealthy and elegant conversational opener I'd been planning to use.

“What's that?” she asked.

“It's about zombies,” I said.

“A favorite topic, if I remember correctly,” she said.

“Did I talk about them a lot?” I asked.

“Only all the time,” she said, but she smiled, which made me think she might be teasing me. “What about zombies?” she asked.

I leaned forward, my arms on the table, and laced my fingers together. I cleared my throat. All of these were stalling tactics, of course.

“What, Courtney?” she asked.

“What if I told you that I thought zombies were acting differently?” I asked.

“You mean, how they seem to be smarter?” she asked. My jaw came unhinged. “And they seem to be able to plan? And they move faster now, too, right?”

I closed my mouth before something fell into it. Well, the bit about them being faster was easy to figure out. All you had to do was look at them, but how did she know about their being smarter?

“How did you . . . ?” my voice trailed off.

“Brandi Edwards,” Elsa said. Brandi? “She told us a few months ago about getting attacked at her job—she works at the bookstore downtown. One night she had to take the recycling out to the alley. She got ambushed by three speedsters who were working together.

“If she hadn't been carrying the store's shotgun, she'd have been toast.”

Months? Speedsters? They'd known for months and they had their own lingo for the new zombies. I felt totally out of the loop and useless.

“Well,” I said, “why didn't you tell anyone?”

“Tell who?” she asked. “Who would believe us? About anything. If we walked inside soaking wet and said it was raining outside, people would look outside to double-check.”

“That's true,” I said. “That's the same reason I haven't really brought it up to anyone other than Phil and Cody until recently. Listen, if you vouched for me with Brandi and Carol and them, do you think they'd be willing to talk about how to maybe stop the new zombies?”

“I think so,” Elsa said. “Honestly? I think they've missed you. They'll probably act like bitches, but that's just what they do. It won't last.”

“They miss me?” I asked. I got a little choked up.

“Yeah, but if you mention it to them, they'll deny it all,” she said.

“That's what I'd do,” I said.

“You don't say,” she said. “Let me talk to them over the weekend. I'll get back to you Sunday or Monday, okay?”

I told her that would be great.

She finished up her coffee drink. “What do you want to do now?”

“Want to catch a movie or go hang at the comics shop?” I asked. I knew I was on a mission to stop the zombie hordes, but I figured I had time to hang out with my newly discovered friend.

“Let's hit the comics shop,” she said. “I ought to have new stuff in my pull box. Besides, it's been a while since any strange boys have said inappropriate sexual comments to me. The comics shop is always good for that.”

I couldn't argue with that, so we headed off.

The next day, Saturday, Phil, Cody, and I got together and compared our progress. We sat in Phil's room, him at his desk, me on his bed, and Cody on the floor. We all had surprising successes. Phil talked with Ray Simmons, the unofficial head of the goths at school.

“Ray was really open to the idea of the new types of zombies,” Phil said. “He said he'd been hearing rumors for a while. And I was surprised how willing he was to start killing zombies,” Phil went on. “I always thought that they were sort of on the side of the shufflers.”

“I think that's vampires,” Cody said.

“Oh,” Phil said. “Then I'm glad it's not bloodsuckers we're facing.”

Phil had also talked to the art school and drama department kids. He basically had an in with all the artistic types. They were on board.

Next, we moved on to Cody. He'd talked to the vo-tech crowd and got buy-in from them. He'd also talked to his girlfriend's clique. They were sort of middling popular, maybe two steps up the social ladder from those of us down on the bottom.

“They seemed happy just to be invited to play with everyone else,” Cody said. “They're like the Ringo Starr of the high school groups.”

“We all did pretty well,” I said.

“Yeah,” Phil said. “There's really only a couple of groups left to talk to.”

“The jocks and rich kids,” Cody said. “Lots of overlap there.”

“Yeah,” said Phil. “Seems like you'd be able to talk to one person and touch both groups.”

I stared at him and my heart sank. I knew what he was getting at. And even though I'd already said I'd do what he was suggesting, I still didn't want to.

“I can talk to Crystal,” I said finally, “but I don't know how open she'll be to any of this.”

“She was with you when you got attacked at the cabin,” Phil said. “Twice. Remind her of that.”

“I doubt I'll have to remind her,” I said.

“When will you talk to her?” Cody asked.

I got my phone out of my pocket and texted her. Can you meet with me soon? I wrote.

“As soon as she answers this,” I said. “If she'll see me.”

Phil went back to drawing and Cody looked through his collection of comics. Phil had a better selection of comics than the local library.

“Say,” I said, “does this house have a basement?” I didn't think it did since there weren't any doors that led to a basement, but I thought I'd ask.

“Not a basement, really,” Phil said without looking up from his drawing board. “But it has a root cellar, crawl space thing.”

“How do you get into it?” I asked.

“There's a trapdoor in the kitchen. It's under a rug.” He stopped and looked up at me. “What's up?”