Girl Z: My Life As A Teenage Zombie

by Verstraete, CA

  “I-I don’t know.” A quick glance out the window offered no clues. I didn’t see any smoke or dark puffs. “Mom said she was having trouble with the car, but I thought she had it fixed. Smell anything?”

  Carm shook her head. “No. What’s going on?”

  The car gave several staccato knocks and raps before it jolted and jumped again. “Darn, I think we passed the street we were supposed to turn on.”

  I kept going until Carm yelled, “here, East Drive.”

  Once we got to a bunch of trees, I pulled over and parked. Not ideal, but what choice did I have? I took in the gauges on the old Chevy’s dashboard. I didn’t really know much about cars other than this one was ancient, like ten years older than Spence, but everything seemed right as far as I could tell. Heat level, normal. Oil, okay. No flashing red lights. No…I cursed and let out a load groan.

  “Carm, what the heck happened?” I yelled. “I thought you said we were okay to go?”

  The blank stare my cousin directed at me only made me madder. I tried not to swear, well not real often, but I let out a few choice bombs before I took a breath. “Darn it, Carm, the car. You told me we had enough gas?”

  She stared at me, her face the image of a kid who got caught sneaking around where she shouldn’t, and then peered in the direction my finger pointed. “I-I thought we did,” Carm stuttered, getting more flustered by the minute. “I glanced at it, and then it got crazy, everyone was yelling, and—”

  I slammed my hand on the dash. “Never mind. You must’ve checked the wrong thing. We’re almost empty. The needle’s right at the E.”

  “Well, you didn’t check it either,” she whined. “How was I supposed to know?”

  Sighing in frustration, I glanced at the map, hunting for the street we should’ve turned on. There it was, North Edwards. Not good. We had to go back. Grabbing my phone, I punched in Grace’s number. Again, it rang and rang. I hung up. Ignoring my cousin’s frown, I handed over the slip of paper with Mr. Jensen’s number. “Quit moaning. Call Mr. J. I’m guessing we still have at least a few miles to go.”

  Carm stared at me, her bottom lip stuck out in a pout. “We’re so close. Maybe we can walk.”

  My turn to stare at her as I jumped out of the car and slammed the door. “Really?” I popped the trunk, called her over, and began pulling out bags. “Okay, here, you carry the paintball case and the guns. There’s the bag with my food. We can’t leave it.”

  She fumbled with the bags.

  I glared at her, and grabbed the food bag as my stomach began to gurgle. My anger growing, I hurriedly flipped open the water bottle and took a deep pull of the double protein-infused drink. The tension eased off a bit.

  “Then there’s that,” I commented, my voice hard. “Think we can handle all this and fight off Zs too?”

  After glaring at me, Carm threw the bags back in the trunk and slammed it shut. She held up her phone and searched for a signal. “No need getting snotty about it. No signal. I get nothin’.”

  I rolled my eyes and leaned against the car. “I’m afraid to keep driving. I don’t know how far we can go. We don’t want to get stuck out here, alone, in the dark, you know, with them around and we can’t stay here, either. I see a military car. We better get moving.” I paused. “Any ideas?”

  My observation seemed to make an impression as we climbed in the front seat. She glanced out the window and scanned the road. “Maybe we can stop and ask for help?”

  I started the car up again and pulled back into the road. “Yeah, better than sitting here or getting stuck somewhere, I guess. My mom always drove around with the needle below the E before she stopped for gas. I hope it works for us. We better go. We’ve got company.”

  The car sped forward and left the thing which emerged from the trees behind us. The vehicle bumped down the road past a church parking lot and a few other houses. The closeness of the trees on each side and the houses too close together made me think we’d picked the wrong road. I shook my head when Carm pointed out the window. “We don’t need a bunch of people seeing me and going crazy, right?”

  I almost suggested we turn around when the road turned to gravel. We continued on through the trees, ending up in a neglected yard covered with overgrown brownish grass. I pulled the car in and turned off the ignition.

  My cousin stuck her head out the window like a dog catching the breeze on his face.

  “There, I see a chimney up ahead. I’ll go see if anyone’s home.”

  Gun in hand, I got out and did a quick scan. It was quiet, which didn’t mean anything, or it could mean a lot of things. “Wait, we better go together. Take your gun. We can’t get too comfortable.”

  Carm slung the squirt gun over her shoulder and rushed a few steps ahead. I scanned the grass and trees in the distance, but nothing stirred. The quiet made me uneasy.

  I kept the paintball gun ready, my finger on the trigger, just in case. Nothing moved. Not even a bird chirped. Normally I wouldn’t mind being outside on such a nice day, but nothing felt right here.

  I tried to ignore the icky, squirmy feeling growing in my gut and couldn’t.

  “Carm, wait, maybe—”

  I left off telling her maybe we should go back when we cleared the tall grass and came upon an old cabin. The dirty windows and worn-away paint made me think no one had lived here for years.

  Deserted. Probably nothing to get nervous about.

  We turned and stopped at the end of the cracked and chipped stones that served as a front walk. “No one’s home. We better go.”

  We’d gone no more than a few steps when the squeak of a screen door opening made us jump. Carm and I shared a quick look of surprise when a raspy voice called out.

  “What do ya want?”

  Carm turned and tiptoed toward an older woman with short, messy gray hair, her large frame surrounded by a billowing, dirt-blue housedress.

  “Youse stay right there,” she warned. “Skedaddle. We’re not buyin’ nothin’.”

  I turned to the side slightly and tried not to attract the woman’s attention while Carm talked to her. “We’re not selling anything,” Carm explained and held up her phone. “We’re almost out of gas and I can’t find a signal. We wanted to know if we could use your phone and call our friend. He only lives a couple miles away.”

  A hoarse yell from the doorway made both of us take a huge leap in the other direction. “You get outta here!” the man bellowed. “Go on now. We don’t want none of your kind around here. Get off a my property!”

  The stout man inched to the edge of the decrepit porch, his face a mottled mask of hate and fear. He raised the rifle and aimed it in our direction.

  “Carm, look out!” I yelled.

  “Go on,” he ordered. “Git. Take your dang germs and go infect somebody else.”

  The momentary shock I felt ballooned into full panic as a blast rent the air. Oh crap, he was shooting at us!

  Good thing he was a bad shot. The bullet zinged to my right.

  Or maybe he’d only wanted to scare us? Well, he’d succeeded. We didn’t need to be asked a second time.

  “Run!” I yelled. “Run!”

  I grabbed Carm’s hand and pulled her down the path back to the car. Not even the sight of a pack of hungry Zs emerging from the trees could’ve made me move any faster.

  We flew down the path, kicking up rocks as we ran. Well, Carm flew. I stumbled and dragged my feet, but urged her not to stop, no matter what. I didn’t care if I fell and she had to drag me, or I’d crawl if needed. Anything to get us out of here.

  “Go, GO!” I screamed. “Keep pulling me. Don’t stop!”

  We finally reached the car. I yanked open the door and flung myself behind the wheel. The engine cranked with a groan and a squeal as I threw the car into reverse and spun around, gravel flying like popcorn.

  The car pointed again in the direction of the road, I punched the accelerator and hoped we could get away before we ran totally out of gas and a Z, or tha
t gun-toting madman came after us. The panic threatened to overwhelm me.

  Wow, I would’ve had a heart attack by now, if my heart worked right, of course.

  “We still can’t go far,” I told her. “We’ll go up one more street, put a little distance between us and him. Hope we don’t meet up with another crazy.”

  The only sounds for the next few minutes were the tires hitting gravel, the car zigzagging down the path back to the road, and our heavy pants as we tried to catch our breath. I slowed the car and stopped at the end, thrilled we’d escaped in one piece.

  At least I thought we’d escaped. Carm’s pale face and her quietness worried me. My stopping didn’t even register with her.

  “Hey, you all right?” I studied her, eyeing every inch of her clothes for blood or something out of the ordinary. I didn’t see anything. “Carm? You didn’t get hit, did you?”

  “No, I-I’m fine. Never been shot at before. Shook me up.”

  “Me, too. So, now what? See if you can call Mr. J. again.”

  She tried and shook her head no. “Nothing. Wait—”

  “You got something?”

  “No. Shhh, did you hear something?”

  I stopped talking, leaned out the window, and listened. “I don’t hear…” A far-away crack. “Was that—?”

  Carm’s yells and cries cut me off. She pounded my arms. I felt my eye spin slightly.

  “Go, go,” Carm yelled. “Hurry, he’s shooting again. Bec, he’s going to kill us!”

  “Wait, quiet. I heard something else.” There it was, a faint call. “Someone’s yelling. We have to go back.”

  “No, Bec, don’t. Please, let’s go!”

  This time I ignored my cousin for being a scaredy cat. Sure I’d been just as scared as her, but we’d had each other to lean on, at least. “If somebody’s over there alone, they’re going to need our help, right?”

  Seeing nowhere to turn, I threw the car in reverse and drove backward. I wasn’t very good at it so several times—okay, quite a few—I slowed down, straightened out, and backed up at a slower pace.

  We were about halfway down the path when I saw something move. I stopped and threw the car in drive, ready to take off, but paused and took another quick glance in the rear view mirror. Someone was running toward us.

  “Go, go!” Carm got so upset she started to hyperventilate. “Someone’s coming! Stop them.”

  She grabbed a bag and breathed into it. Once she was okay, I threw open the door and got out to see better. “It’s a girl.” I waved her down. “She needs help.”

  I ran, stumbled to a stop and stared at her, stunned. The silver ring above her eyebrow and the small stud above her lip glinted against the unusual duskiness of her complexion. “You’re like me? You’re a part Z?”

  She stared back and shrugged, not as impressed as I was. “Yeah, so? C’mon, the dude’s crazy. He tried to kill me. Let’s go.”

  Her lack of surprise at seeing me was, well, surprising. Ever since this happened, for some reason, I’d seen more guys and not as many girls my age affected though I knew they were out there. I hated the idea of being sexist, but could guys fight off the virus better than girls? Bad news if it were true. But maybe the girls were staying hidden. I knew how I’d felt at first about anyone seeing the new, not-improved me. It took a lot of getting used to. Weird how this girl didn’t have that problem.

  “We’re almost out of gas,” I explained. “We’re going to another house until we can reach our friend.”

  The girl jumped in the car’s back seat. She raised a hand, the top covered with Goth-style black tattoos, her fingernail tips painted jet black, and shrugged. “Whatever, just go.”

  Carm and I exchanged looks about whether this was such a good idea after all, but it was too late to do anything about it. I started the engine and drove. I eyed our new companion, my uneasiness growing. “I’m Becca and this is my cousin Carm.”

  The girl gazed at me, her dark eyes dull. She didn’t seem interested. “Z for Zoey. Cool, huh? Like I was destined.”

  I took a breath and drove. Oh, boy. This was going to be fun.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Carm tried to make conversation but soon fell quiet with a frustrated snort at our passenger’s continued silence. I gazed into the mirror, noting Zoey’s affection for black and her unique tattoos. No question my taste for purple and Carm’s for pink would’ve put us in totally different social circles if not for recent events.

  I wondered how many tattoos Zoey had. It didn’t matter, of course. Her appearance didn’t bother me as much as her attitude.

  Our passenger had made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with either one of us.

  Huh. Funny way to treat somebody helping you.

  I turned onto the road, half-tempted to drive the next few feet on the shoulder, in the hope someone would notice us and call the police. Mean as it sounded, maybe we could dump Zoey and all her potential problems. Maybe someone would help us get some gas so we could get to Grace’s house.

  Our biggest problem: traffic now was as dead as the two ugly, blood-streaked male Zs making their way down the road in our direction. I sighed and pulled the car ahead.

  Darn. I was so tired of this…Tired of them. Tired of it all.

  We passed the next three houses, hoping we were far enough from the crazy neighbor. I turned on Lawton and followed another bumpy road, hoping the house up ahead was as well-kept and welcoming as the bright red mailbox before it.

  The car knocked, clunked and clanked with each thump and bump. Each sound made me fear I’d glance over and see a bunch of pieces we’d left behind.

  Would we make it? I shivered, not ready to spend the night stuck huddled behind the wheel in the middle of some dank, dirt path.

  Carm’s whoosh of breath echoed my own feeling of relief as we reached the end. “Whoo, we made it. Seems better than the last place.”

  “That’s a good thing.”

  So far, I thought.

  I pulled into an open spot in the gravel and got out with a growing sense of hope. Unlike the house from hell we’d just left, this place had a nice stone drive and walk lined with pockets of sunny yellow and deep maroon red coleus. Zoey jumped out and started down the path by herself. I let her go and waved at Carm to ignore her. If she wanted to go off by herself, I wasn’t about to stop her.

  The place appeared normal, but I grabbed my gun and urged Carm to get hers, in case we needed them.

  More flowers peeked between the mounds of gravel in the planting beds surrounding the front porch. Carm seemed more nervous with each step up the green and white painted stairs. I knew she wondered, like I did, whether someone would jump out the door and come at us.

  Zoey sat in a chair on the porch, eyes vacant, her face as bored as before. Carm and I crept to the window, peeked in, and stared at each other in shock. Although the well-used wood deck chairs and tables could’ve used a fresh coat of paint, they weren’t bad. They’d been cared for. This had probably been a favorite place to sit on a warm night, (it would be mine, I knew)—pre-Z, of course, if not lately.

  Carm shook her head in disbelief. “Nobody lives here. There’s nothing inside.”

  Zoey glared at Carm, her contempt evident. “Could’ve told you that.”

  “Never mind.” Better to cut my cousin off before the fight started. “Guess this is as good a place to stay as anywhere else.”

  We peeked through the window at a spacious living room next to a small kitchenette. Nothing covered the painted gray floor except some puffs of dust and a couple of discarded piles of sheets. The only visible piece of furniture, a lone broken chair, globs of foam billowing from a hole in the back, sat discarded.

  Carm grabbed my arm as I reached to knock on the door. “Wait, maybe we shouldn’t,” she warned.

  “Don’t worry, no one’s home.” I opened the screen door and turned the doorknob. Locked tight. “We still have to make sure no unwanted guests have moved in, right?”
>
  I leaned closer and listened as her knuckles rapped on the wood. Nothing stirred inside. Good. Now to get in.

  Stepping off the porch, I picked up one of the rocks next to the walk and came back to the door.

  “Wait, if you break a window, then they can get in,” Carm cautioned.

  “They can get in anyway if they want.” Zoey glanced at Carm and snorted. “Is that a squirt gun? What are you gonna do? Drown ’em?”

  Shaking my head, I managed to stay silent as I searched under the mat and everywhere else for a possible hiding place. “I didn’t find a key anywhere. You see one?”

  “Nooo,” Carm answered, her voice cheery. “But I have something that’ll work.”

  My eyes widened (well, one did) as I watched her slip a credit card from her wallet and insert it between the door and the jamb. With a smirk, she flicked the card a few times. “You know that saying, don’t leave home—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I gave in to my dark side, unable to resist being snotty. “What’s wrong, Carm Angel, magic card not working?”

  “Just wait, smartie.”

  The card flicked again and then seemed to get stuck. A second later, I heard a click and the card slid down. She turned the knob with a triumphant giggle. “See? Ta-dah! Please enter.”

  Zoey gave a shrug of admiration and slipped inside ahead of us. “Clever. Hope there’s something to eat in this dump. I’m starving.”

  Her remark got my attention. I followed the two of them in wondering how she handled her condition since she didn’t have a cooler or anything. “You eat food?” I asked. “Real food?”

  Goth Girl looked disgusted and pulled out several packets of powder, “Huh? Hell, no. I prefer liquid protein, except I have a sweet tooth. Lucky, I can still eat that stuff.”

  Her tongue snaked across her lips as my mind pondered what she meant. Pills didn’t work for her either, I guessed. So she ate junk and…I didn’t want to know what else she ate that I couldn’t—or wouldn’t. Uh-uh.

  My attention went back to my cousin though she was too interested in searching around instead of listening to any part of the conversation.