by De Kenyon
Zombie Girl Invasion
By De Kenyon
Copyright © 2011 by De Kenyon
Cover image copyright © Dietmar Höpfl | Dreamstime.com
Cover design copyright © 2013 by DeAnna Knippling
Interior design copyright © 2013 by DeAnna Knippling
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Zombie Girl Invasion
Neil hated zombies. I mean, really hated zombies. If he ever saw a zombie, he would tear the refrigerator off the wall and smash it over the zombie’s head, so it squished out the bottom like a packet of ketchup. Or shoot it with a shotgun, right the head, so its head would explode like a tomato. Or burn it up with a flamethrower, or chop its head off with a samurai sword, or lasers.
It’s okay to kill zombies.
His dad understood that it was okay to kill zombies, as long as it wasn’t too loud, or in church or at school or at the grocery store, and then it was okay to kill zombies as long as you did it quietly. His mom didn’t understand at all, but that was girls for you.
Neil saw the zombie outside his window after he was supposed to be asleep. It was a school night, and he had to go to sleep before it was dark, which was stupid. He was playing with his last laser gun, pretending to shoot zombies, but not pressing the button because it would make noise and then his mom would take it away, too.
First he saw Mrs. Mary’s dog Booboo run out of the dog door into Mrs. Mary’s back yard. Booboo yap yap yapped all the way to the fence, then yap yap yapped some more, running back and forth along the fence between Mrs. Mary’s house and his house.
Then he saw a dark shape crawling out of the bushes behind his house. The bushes were full of thorns, so you had to get down on your belly and ooze under them like a snake if you wanted to get to the ditch behind his house, where the water rushed and splashed after a rain. His mom didn’t understand about wanting to play in the ditch, either.
He aimed his gun at the dark shape and shot it very quietly, whispering pow pow pow and pew pew pew until it fell down on the grass and lay still.
He’d killed his first zombie!
He tiptoed over to his bedroom door and listened. No breathing, from his mom listening to him on the other side of the door. No footsteps, from his mom trying to sneak up on him. He heard the TV. He heard his mom talking on the phone. That was good. Mom on the phone meant no sneaky mom.
He tiptoed back to his window and opened it, then whispered, “I killed you! Hah! Stupid zombie!”
Then the zombie started to move, pulling its hands under its chest and trying to crawl some more.
“You have to stay dead!” Neil whispered, but the zombie got on its hands and knees, then tried to stand.
Neil could see the zombie pretty good. It was definitely a zombie, with holes in its face with teeth sticking out, and black stuff leaking from its ears. But it was also a kid like him, with a dirty dinosaur t-shirt and jeans and shoes that sparkled with every step.
The zombie took one step closer toward him. The dog was barking and barking.
He took another step closer toward him. Mrs. Mary’s back door twitched, and Neil whispered as loud as he could: “Hide. It’s Mrs. Mary!”
The zombie boy dropped to the ground, then rolled back under the bushes, where the thorns tore into his skin, leaving a big black gash on one cheek. Ouch!
Mrs. Mary’s back door opened, and Neil dropped down on his bed. He didn’t want to get blamed for making Booboo bark again.
“Booboo! Stop that!” Mrs. Mary said. But Booboo kept barking and barking. Neil didn’t dare look, but after a few seconds, Booboo yelped, and the door slammed. The barking stopped, then started again, only much quieter.
Neil looked out his window. Booboo’s face was peeking out of the curtains in Mrs. Mary’s window. He was still barking.
“It’s okay now,” he whispered loudly.
The zombie boy rolled back from under the bushes, moaning “owwww owwww.” He crawled forward, then stood up again, walking shakily toward Neil’s window.
“You are supposed to be dead!” Neil whispered. “I shot you two hundred times.”
“You only shot me ten times,” the boy said. “And it was fake shooting. I was shot for real before.” And he pushed back the sleeve of his shirt and showed Neil a black hole in his arm, all ripped up with sloshy parts around the edges.
“Cool,” Neil said.
“So...can I eat your brains?” the zombie boy said.
Neil shook his head. By that time, the zombie boy was standing right under his window.
“Awww,” he said.
“Do you want to be a zombie too?” the zombie boy said. “I could just bite you a little. Or spit on your eyes.”
Neil backed away from the window until all he could see was the top of the zombie’s head. “You’re a zombie!” He shot the gun at the zombie boy a bunch of times, whispering pow pow pow, but it sounded kind of stupid when someone else was listening to you.
“There’s a bunch more zombies coming,” the zombie boy said. “So if I can’t eat you and you don’t want to be my friend, then you should probably run away with your mom and dad.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to be your friend,” Neil said. “But I really hate zombies. Zombies are my enemies. When I find a zombie, I want to kill it! Dead! For reals!”
A police siren started howling from far away, but it sounded like it was getting closer.
“What’s your name?” Neil asked.
“Max. But I have to warn you. I’m not just a zombie, I’m a girl.”
Neil hissed and raised his gun toward the window. “You’re a girl?”
The zombie girl’s head disappeared, and Neil heard a scraping sound down the wall. “Uh-huh. My regular name is Maxine, but nobody calls me that. Nobody thinks I’m a girl.”
“How did you get turned into a zombie?”
“Some zombies came to our house and ate my mom and my dad and my big sister. I hid under the bed but I was crying--”
“Cry baby! Cry baby!”
“You would cry if your mom and dad got eaten, too.”
Neil peeked over the edge of the window. Max the zombie girl was sitting on the ground with her back to the house. She didn’t look like a girl at all. She rubbed the back of her hand on her nose and sniffed hard. Her hand was covered with black gook.
“What’s the rest of the story?” Neil asked.
“I was under the bed and my sister’s hand crawled away from her body and clawed me on my face,” Max said. “It looked like a spider with pink glitter fingernails.”
“Yuck!” Neil said.
“I ripped it off but it was too late.”
Outside, a car screeched and crashed with a sound like a balloon popping, then broken glass tinkled softly.
Max said, “I think probably the zombies are here.”
Neil looked around outside. More dark shapes were coming from under the bushes, crawling or walking toward their house.
Neil ran toward his door and threw it open so it bonked on the wall. “Dad! Dad! The zombies are here!” He ran down the hallway toward the living room and the sound of the TV.
“Shhh,” his mom said.
His mom and dad were standing at the big window in the living room, looking into the front yard. Zombie after zombie after zombie was passing their house. The sun turned them bright orange on one side and shadow-night-black on the other. Dogs all over were barking and barking. Neil got between his mom and dad, and they hugged him. The zombies were quiet. The most sound they made was the shhh-shhh of their clothes rubbing togeth
er, or the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk.
Neil shivered.
His dad raised the remote control and turned off the TV.
“Wait,” Neil said. “I have an idea.” He wiggled out of his mom and dad’s hug and ran back toward his room.
“Neil!” his mom hissed. And he heard his dad’s footsteps behind him. But he ran into his room and peeked out the window. Max was standing up. The back of her head was pushed up against the bottom of the window screen. She was shaking and her teeth were rattling; she was as scared of the rest of the zombies as Neil and his mom and dad were.
“Max!” he whispered.
She looked up at him. Even though she was dead, she looked scared, and black ooze was running out of her eyes.
“I saw one zombie eat another zombie!” she whispered. She pointed at a stomped-on dark mess on the ground.
The zombies still crawled from under the bushes. More and more of them came through. The bushes were covered in gunk and hair and pieces of shirts.
“Is that a boy?” Neil’s dad put his hand on his shoulder.
“No, dad,” Neil
