What was it? Maybe I was unsettled because that skull-faced jerk was my last image of Forest Grove. Seeing Scratchull under any circumstance was disturbing, of course. The way he felt about humans, there was no reason for him to be in town at all, and it was especially out of character for him to be hamming it up at Grandma’s baking booth. But he was probably just doing it to suck up to her, as usual.
I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out in a long, slow exhale. I just wanted to forget all about this stuff. That was the only way I’d be able to get out of this funk when I got back to Florida and maybe salvage the rest of the summer. And the rest of my life, I suppose. But some annoying little part of my brain wouldn’t let me.
So why is he sucking up to her this time? it asked. Why would he even want to help out with the festival, anyway? You’ve learned the hard way that he has a reason—a plan—for everything. He’s selfish and cruel, and he only does things to help himself. So how, exactly, is he helping himself at the festival today?
I don’t know! I almost yelled it at myself. Thankfully I kept it inside, though, because that would have freaked the driver out. He definitely needed all of his concentration to keep us alive on this road with all of its snaky switchbacks.
Wait…maybe Scratchull pureed his sickening little snacks in a blender and snuck some slug shake into Grandma’s recipe. Nasty. I looked down at the treats beside me in disgust and almost threw them out the window…but with my luck this summer, I’d probably get arrested for littering.
Anyway, that must have been what was gnawing at the corner of my brain: tainted treats. Scratchull would have a big laugh at the expense of all those hungry humans on their special day of celebration. And he had used up all the slugs in his aquarium for the scones, and now he needed a fresh supply for his personal enjoyment. So now he was at the festival booth for the chance to see the looks on all of those human faces when they took a big bite of slug surprise. Case closed.
I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes again. But that nagging sense of something being not quite right wouldn’t leave me alone. As much as he didn’t like humans, Scratchull would consider a practical joke like that as beneath him, wouldn’t he? And besides, he seemed to genuinely love the taste of slugs—he told Greenie that earthlings were “wasting their greatest delicacy” or something like that—so feeding them to the humans wouldn’t seem gross at all to him. In fact, he would probably see it as a gift wasted on the unworthy.
Revulsion sucked me into the land of sense memory, and suddenly I was back in the closet, crouching painfully and peeking through the slit in the door as Scratchull shared his slimy snacks with Greenie. He had slurped a stray slug off of his chin like the last spaghetti noodle, and then looked at Greenie and said, When I finally leave this planet, these delicious creatures will be the only things worth taking with me.
My eyes flew open. That really must be it! Scratchull was leaving. He had a backup plan. Of course he had a backup plan. And if he was having the teens gather up the slugs this morning—a onetime thing, Greg had said—then whatever he was going to do, he was going to do it soon.
That lingering sense of unease disappeared but was instantly replaced with an overwhelming sense of dread. He had to be stopped.
But what could I do? I considered telling the taxi driver to turn around and drive back to Forest Grove, but only for a second or two. What would I be able to accomplish back there? I didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to stopping Scratchull. I just made things worse. Grandma, Tate, and Amy were tired of hearing about my suspicions. And Scratchull would just find a way to make me look like a fool again.
The farther down the mountain we raced, the more my dread turned into panic. Panic quickly morphed into desperation. And desperation forced the unthinkable to pop into my head.
What if I called the police? The human police, that is. Told them the whole story. The alien guests, the transporters, Scratchull’s plan for destroying the world. Everything.
Pro: They might actually do something to stop him. If I could get somebody to believe me, they could send in a S.W.A.T. team, the National Guard, a secret army of ninjas, whatever and whoever. Scratchull might be brilliant and powerful, but I doubted he was invincible. And he would have lost the element of surprise. Team Humanity would at least have a chance.
Con: Grandma loses her business. Tate makes hunting David down his life’s mission. Amy hates David forever. David spends a lifetime of friendlessness and regret.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and stared at it. Sure, my life might be lonely if I made the call…but at least I would have a life. And so would everyone else on this planet. I’d rather have those three hate me and be alive than love me and…you know, not be alive.
I pressed the power button. The status bars flickered and faded. No phone service.
Crud. I clutched the cell phone in both hands, my knee bobbing up and down with fidgety energy. I didn’t want to lose my nerve. I forced myself to look out the window as long as I could stand, and then I checked the cell phone again. One bar lit up. Not enough.
“Beautiful country up here, huh, kid?” My body jerked in surprise. I had been so deep in my own world that I had forgotten all about the driver.
“Oh. Yeah.”
“We don’t get many calls up this way. It’s nice for a change, you know?”
I checked the phone again. All the service bars were lit up now. My heart instantly went crazy. There’s no way I could make that call. What was I thinking?
On the other hand, if I didn’t…
And back and forth I went. The next several minutes of driving in and out of the shadow of Mount Baker were brutal. Every time I made up my mind to call, the taxi would drive out of cell phone range. And every time the bars lit up, I lost my nerve.
Finally I decided to take my brain out of the decision entirely. With the bars dead I dialed 9-1-1 and then put my thumb on top of the send button. As soon as the bars lit up again I would simply push down.
Waiting…waiting…one bar lit up…then two more…pretty soon four of the five would be in range…that would be enough….
“Hey, kid. This is kind of a long drive, isn’t it?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Down to two bars again.
“Well, I was just wondering…are you, um, planning on eating all of those goodies you got back there?”
The third bar lit up. Almost there.
“Because I can’t help but notice they smell pretty good,” he said. “Must be fresh.”
Two bars disappeared. Down to one. Crap!
“So, like I said, I was wondering…” The lone bar flickered. “If you’re not going to eat all of those, maybe I could try a bite? You know, one for the road?”
“Huh? Oh, sure.” I kept my eyes fixed on the phone but handed the plate of treats over the backseat. “Have as many as you want.” I wondered fleetingly if I was right about Scratchull saving all those slugs for himself, but mostly I was focused on the phone.
“Thanks, kid. Forgot my lunch today, you know how it is.”
“Uh-huh.”
We rounded a corner, the trees parted, and sunlight streamed in through the windshield. Suddenly all five status bars lit up. I automatically mashed my thumb down on the button.
It rang once. I had just enough time to realize I had no idea whether I wanted to go through with this—I had spent so much time trying to keep Grandma’s secret that my whole brain cramped up in protest at actually giving it up—before someone answered.
“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”
“Um…” Good question. They probably didn’t have a police shorthand code for Unspecified Alien Attack.
Slight pause. “Yes? How may I help you?”
Oh, man. Was I really going to do this? I put my thumb on the End button. But I didn’t push it.
“Sir?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
I couldn’t let Scratchull do a
nything disastrous. I just couldn’t. One deep breath, and then forge ahead. “I need to talk to somebody about…a secret.” Now that I was actually doing this, how could I put it into words?
“Yes? Go ahead, sir.”
“It’s a secret that could turn into an emergency pretty quick if we don’t—”
“UNNNNGGHHARGHH.”
The driver turned to look at me, but I’m not sure if his glassed-over eyes even recognized what he was seeing. There was no spark of intelligence behind them at all. His mouth hung open, and crumbs from Grandma’s treats were stuck all over his beard. I dropped the phone.
The taxi was hurtling down the mountain at over sixty miles an hour. Driven by a zombie.
And he wasn’t even looking at the road.
“Turn around!” I shouted.
Zombie driver obediently faced the windshield, but that didn’t do much to improve his driving. The road was curvy, and with his arms locked onto the steering wheel in an unwavering death grip, the taxi moved in a straight line, the yellow center stripe weaving from one side of the car to the other.
When we drifted into the left lane we scraped up against the guardrail, its thin band of metal the only thing between us and a sheer cliff that plunged a thousand feet straight down. When we swerved back into the right lane we were in danger of smashing into the craggy wall of the mountain. Back and forth we went. It was lucky we were the only car in sight—usually there were huge semis on this road, hauling tree trunks down the mountain.
We came up on a bend in the road. “Turn right!”
The driver swung his head and shoulders to the right so that he was staring out the passenger side window. “UHHGNGHHNNN!”
“No, the steering wheel! Turn the steering wheel to the right!”
His arms jerked stiffly at the wheel. The taxi lurched into the right lane and kept going, over the white line and onto the narrow shoulder between road and mountain. The edge of the bumper clipped a bit of jutting rock, and the impact rattled my teeth painfully. The taxi scraped by and continued tearing down the mountain.
But coming up was a series of sharp S-curves. There was no chance of our making it if I kept steering this thing by remote control. Mr. Night-of-the-NASCAR-Undead was not exactly a finely tuned instrument.
I leaned my torso over the seat and grabbed the steering wheel over the driver’s shoulders, but it was locked in place.
“Let go!” I shouted. His arms shot straight up in the air. I could steer now, but I couldn’t actually see much.
I caught a glimpse of the guardrail rushing up to meet us, and yanked the wheel to the right. The paper plate slid off the seat and the zombie treats scattered all over the floor. The driver turned his head to tell me something very important—“HAGGNNGHGH!”—and I could feel his hot breath on my face. I lunged forward to get a better view of the road and nearly smashed us into the rocky side of the mountain.
Finally, the right thing to say came to me in a blinding flash of the obvious.
“Stop the car!”
“UNH?”
“The brake. Stomp your foot on the brake!”
The engine revved and the car shot forward, the speedometer needle shooting up to 90 mph. Trees and rocks rushed by in a muddled blur. The whole car started to shake.
“No, the other pedal! Step on the other pedal!”
Eeeeeerrrrrchh! The taxi skidded to a halt, its side resting squarely against the guardrail. The wooden posts creaked, and the metal siding groaned under the weight of the car.
I chanced a look out the driver’s side window. A hundred feet below us was a bird. Another several hundred feet below the bird was a jumble of rocks. They looked…hard. I sort of forgot how to breathe for a few moments.
The car’s engine hummed steadily, still very much alive. I had to be extremely careful about what I said next—if the driver took his foot off the brake he would send the car crashing right through the guardrail.
“Don’t. Move.”
The zombie driver’s body and limbs obediently remained stiff. A drop of sweat dribbled down my forehead and stung my eye.
How was I going to talk him through this? He wasn’t exactly the best student, and I wouldn’t be taking Driver’s Ed for another few years.
But then another idea—one that should have been obvious—kicked me in the head. I pushed with my legs and extended farther into the front seat. I jerked the emergency brake all the way up. Then I lunged forward, grabbed the keys hanging from the ignition, and turned off the car.
The engine noise died, along with the possibility of death by flying taxi.
But the dread remained. I had to get back to Forest Grove, fast. If everyone in town tried one of those treats, then what was Scratchull planning to…?
No time to finish that thought now. The first thing to worry about was getting back to town. Walking would take forever. And I couldn’t just leave the driver and this taxi sitting here on a curve in the road. Somebody whipping around the corner would smash right into it.
Right. I’d have to drive back by myself. Which meant I had to get in the driver’s seat.
The driver couldn’t get out of his door—it was pinned against the guardrail. So I had to get creative.
I climbed over into the passenger’s seat. “Okay, you’re going to have to sit still for a minute.”
And then—eeewwww—I had to push myself up and across until I was more or less sitting on his lap. My legs had to go under the steering wheel, which pinned me against the driver.
“HHHNNNUGH!”
“I know, I know. Trust me, I don’t like this any more than you do.”
I lifted myself off him as much as possible, my head jammed up against the roof of the car.
“Slide over. Quick.”
“UNNHH.” The zombie driver wedged himself up against his door. A distant part of his foggy brain got frustrated when he couldn’t go any further, and he started banging away at it. I swear I could feel the center of gravity shift and the taxi tilt in that direction, grinding against the metal guardrail.
“No! Stop! Other direction! Slide to your right! This way!”
I reached around and grabbed his jacket and tugged him toward the passenger’s seat. He finally figured it out and lurched over. I plopped down behind the steering wheel, the edge of the cliff just a foot away. My whole body shook. I remembered about the importance of breathing, just before I would’ve passed out. I sucked air in ragged gasps.
After all of that, getting the car up the mountain again was actually pretty easy. It was just like video games—fire up the ignition, press on the right pedal, and use the steering wheel. I didn’t like being too close to the edge of that cliff, though, so I straddled the center line the whole time and prayed another car wouldn’t come barreling down at me. I was thankful that the road was so quiet…until I realized what that must have meant: people in Forest Grove were in no shape to drive.
I had just enough brain cells still working to realize I probably shouldn’t go racing down Main Street in a bright yellow taxi. If Scratchull was indeed unleashing his new plan at the festival, then my approach needed to be a little stealthier.
I hit the brakes too hard and brought the car to a skidding stop behind the sign that read welcome to forest grove: your oasis in the wilderness at the outskirts of town.
The driver directed his vacant gaze in my general direction.
“AAAAGHGHNN.”
“Thanks for asking, but I actually have no idea what I’m going to do. Any suggestions?”
“UNNNGHGHNN.”
“Sounds good.”
I stepped out of the taxi and shut the door. Then I turned and looked back through the window.
Hmmm. What to do with this guy?
“Stay.”
The driver remained planted in his seat but continued to stare at me. What if he saw something that caught his interest and wandered out of the taxi?
I remembered Tate staggering to bed after his little zombie episode.
Grandma said he had slept in and been groggy but normal in the morning. Well, normal for Tate, anyway.
“Lie down.”
The zombie driver tipped over and spread out on the seat as if he’d been waiting for the invitation all along.
“Now, go to sleep.” Within a minute his breathing became deep and rhythmic. “Good zombie.”
I set off for downtown, approaching the festival area carefully. I jogged in a half crouch behind parked cars and tried to keep buildings between me and the town common. The element of surprise was the only weapon in my pathetic arsenal at the moment.
I heard it before I actually saw anything: hundreds of Forest Grove’s finest doing the ol’ zombie air-gargle in unison. It sounded like the whole town had an urgent complaint about a very important matter but had forgotten how to use actual words. Extremely creepy.
I dashed over to the brick city hall building and peeked around the corner.
It looked like a scene from a horror movie, with hundreds of mindless zombies roaming around the open common area with their mouths gaping open.
But this was way worse, because horror movies don’t really try to look real. You never see the little-girl zombie holding a helium balloon on a string. Or the old-woman zombie in a pioneer costume, dragging a purse. Or the guy-in-a-wheelchair zombie spilling ice cream all over himself. But all of these—and more, so many more—were on display before me.
And in movies, you never sense the real person trapped behind the listless zombie mask. In this case, innocent folks who had only been trying to enjoy a sunny day at a small-town festival.
And okay, so maybe I’ve made better friends with the aliens at Grandma’s place than with the humans in town, but it still killed something inside me to see all these people like this. Time to move.
I had no plan—it’s kind of hard to make a plan when you have no idea what’s happening—but I at least had a first step. I had to get over to Grandma’s booth to see whether she was a zombie, too, or if she was being held hostage or something. And after that, of course, I would have to face Scratchull.
Yikes. Best just to think about step one right now.
Alien on a Rampage Page 20
