by Gayle Katz
They reached the top, and then had a quick look around. They were in luck. They didn’t have to head to the busy reception area of the police station. There was an exit door at the side of the building that led out. They took it.
“I should call Stewart,” said Charlie, taking out her cell phone. Then she paused. “Damn. What do I say to him? Like hey, I’ve befriended a zombie and we’re going to hang out?”
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Miranda.
“Oh, zombies can laugh,” said Charlie, joining in. “So, it’s like the zombie process was stopped, or something.”
“I know, right?” said Miranda.
“But, that guy I killed, he was a full zombie, right? Wait, you saw that?” she asked.
Miranda nodded sadly. “That was my bud, Glenn.”
“Oh my god,” said Charlie.
“It’s OK. I know it was too late for him. Besides, my sympathy seems to have left me. I know I should miss him, but I feel indifferent.”
“OK, look. My car is still here! The cop didn’t have it towed.”
“Cool,” said Miranda, stepping into the vehicle while Charlie held the door open. She walked over to the other side and got into the driver’s seat.
“OK. So, can you tell me who bit you?” asked Charlie.
“I don’t know,” said Miranda. “I don’t think anyone bit us. One minute we’re hanging out at Black Cat Donut Shop, the next we’re walking down the street and starting to change.”
“What a puzzle,” said Charlie, musing about the situation. She was driving carefully down the streets, just in case some drunk college students were out late at night and not watching where they were going.
“What the?” she cried, slamming on the brakes.
“Whoa,” said Miranda.
“Hold on,” said Charlie, quickly driving the car to the side of the street and stopping. “I see my friend, Owen. What’s he doing?”
The girls turned to watch as Owen headed down the block, then stopped in front of a store simply called The Pawn Shop. He headed inside.
“Wait. What is a store doing open at this time of night, and why is Owen going in it?” she asked. They sat in their car and watched.
Two minutes later, Owen left the store and walked down the street to the train stop.
“Are we going to pick him up?” asked Miranda.
Charlie shook her head. “No. I’m going to wait and see what’s going on.”
Charlie drove her to the local urgent care center. “Let’s see if they can do anything for you.” Charlie watched as Miranda got out and headed to the front door, while she parked.
She drove around and found the paid parking. She got out of her car, and then walked up to the entrance. Miranda wasn’t there. “Dammit!” she said, storming inside.
She asked reception if Miranda had signed in, but she hadn’t. She thundered out of the building. “How stupid of me! I should have been paying closer attention and not left her on her own.”
Charlie walked up and down the streets, searching for Miranda.
zzz
“Hey, Zan. Is that teacher still here? Are you going to work on your project all night?” called her dad.
Down in the basement, Stewart had turned on the lights in the storage closet. Inside, boxes and plastic containers were neatly arranged on shelves. Bored, he turned off the light and left.
“So, yawn, I’m getting tired. I hope Charlie shows up at school tomorrow,” said Zan.
“Yep, me too. Oh. Hi, Mr. Goldberg. Zan was just showing me her lab.”
Her dad looked angrily around the basement.
“Err, excuse me, I need to prepare for tomorrow’s lesson. Good night,” said Stewart, heading to the stairs.
Zan waved at him.
“Just what is the meaning of this?” he asked her.
“What? Just doing my homework,” she explained.
He looked around the basement again. “But you’ve taken over the entire space. Surely you can do your lab work at school? All the musical instruments are gone. Where are all the music books I bought for you?”
Zan just looked at him.
“That’s it!” he said. “You’re grounded. I want you to put some of this stuff away. You don’t need it all. You waste family money on worthless things.” He stormed over to the stairs and left.
“Whatevs,” mumbled Zan. “It’s not like I have a life anyway.”
zzz
Everyone was in school the next day. Charlie didn’t look forward to explaining to Stewart how she had let a zombie escape. She had killed one though. And while it was nice to see her friends again, she still didn’t know what was up with Owen. Anyway, at least Zan looked nice and alive today.
Finally, classes ended, and everyone assembled in Stewart’s classroom, waiting for him to return from an errand.
“Hey, where were you?” asked Zan. “Stewart was so concerned he even dropped by my place.”
“Oh, I’ll explain when Stewart returns,” Charlie said, frowning.
“Oh! Hey, Zan! I almost forgot. I bought you a gift the other day.” Owen whipped it out of his bag.
“What?” she commented. “How thoughtful! Umm, what is it?” The object was a dull silver tool with a sharp pointed end.
“They’re wire cutters!” he explained.
Charlie smiled. “You know, that’s a great gift, Owen.”
“Oh wow, cool!” said Zan. “They’re so big.”
“I know,” said Owen. “I looked at Home Depot, but they have nothing like it. These are wire cutters that were made last century. You can’t buy them anymore. I bought them from an antique shop.”
Charlie started laughing. So that’s what he’d been up to the night before. Antique shop, pawn shop, whatever. “Hey, Owen. You know that these wire cutters are used to steal wire and metal, right?”
“Yeah, of course. Now I’ve just saved Portland from metal thieves.”
Footsteps were heard coming down the hall. Zan quickly put the wire cutters in her backpack.
“Hi, Charlie. It’s nice to see you back,” Stewart said, addressing her directly.
Charlie smiled.
“But next time, please tell one of us where you are going first.”
She stopped smiling. “Well, it’s not entirely my fault. I was hunting zombies, when one of them knocked me down.”
“Wait a minute, you were zombie hunting?” asked Stewart.
“Yep. Well, I’m a zlayer, remember?” she responded.
“Yes, but there shouldn’t be any zombies left in the city. I was going to send you to Seattle for our next run.”
“They were definitely zombies,” she explained.
“Has anyone else seen zombies, except for me?” asked Stewart, greatly annoyed. But both Owen and Zan shook their heads to the negative. Stewart frowned.
“OK, so, you killed the zombies?” asked Stewart.
She nodded. “Well, I killed the dude. But the girl, she was alive when she took off.” Charlie decided to omit the part about the cop, at least for now. She needed to find out more about what he was up to.
“That’s just great,” said Stewart.
“Well, there was something weird,” she said.
Everyone looked expectantly at her.
“The zombie girl hadn’t fully turned. It was like her body was rejecting it. I dropped her off at urgent care, but then she took off.”
“That’s odd,” said Stewart.
“Wow,” said Owen. “Just imagine if there were a zombie cure.” He looked at Zan and she smiled at him.
“She told me she’d been infected since the previous day,” explained Charlie.
“Well, it’s possible,” said Stewart. “She wasn’t a zleader?”
Charlie shook her head.
“Well, my best guess is that she was infected with something else,” suggested Zan.
“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Stewart. “No way is this the same. If she wasn’t acting feral or rabid by the next d
ay, then it has to be something else. Any idea how she got it?”
She shook her head. “No. She said she and her friend hadn’t even been bitten. They had eaten at the Black Cat Donut Shop right before though.”
“Oh, I like that place!” said Owen.
“OK, folks, I suggest you do not eat there,” said Stewart.
Just then, Zan’s phone rang. “Oh crap, I forgot to tell you that I’m grounded. Gotta go,” she said, waving goodbye.
“OK. So, what do we do now?” asked Owen.
“Well,” said Charlie. “I’m going to go pump some iron as I need to increase these muscles.”
“OK, later tonight, head to Black Cat Donuts, but be careful. Don’t eat or drink anything from there,” said Stewart.
“What!” said Charlie, clearly agitated. “That’s where the geeks hang out.”
“I can be a geek,” said Owen.
“Well, just do it discreetly,” suggested Stewart. “At this point, I have no clue. Let’s start with the shop and take it from there.”
“What about moving the meetings to a different location?” asked Owen.
“Forget it,” said Stewart. “This is convenient. I’ll do a sweep of the classroom once a day for recording devices.”
Everyone left to complete their personal tasks before the big night.
“So, Zan got grounded, huh?” said Owen, as they walked to the parking lot.
“Yep. If her parents knew that she was on our zombie fighting team, then they would permanently ground her.” They laughed.
Charlie drove Owen home, and then headed for the gym to work out for a bit. Later, she’d get a bite to eat, and then pick up Owen and head to the donut place. It was too bad that Zan wouldn’t be able to join them, but they would fill her in on the details later. She also needed to follow up with the cop who had held her and the zombie at the jail. If her hunch was correct, neither had been properly booked in, even though the cop had taken her ID, which she later retrieved from the table.
She had an uneventful evening, then headed over to Owen’s house to pick him up for their evening’s surveillance activities.
“So, how did weightlifting go?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said. “But I’ll probably be sore tomorrow. OK, let’s head over to the donut shop and find out if anything is up there. It’s possible that Miranda may even be there.”
Chapter 4
________________________________________
Black Cat Donuts offered some humongous, fancy donuts in weird flavors, but Charlie was always watching her weight. A fat zlayer was a dead zlayer. She sat at the table with Owen, who had a donut the size of a pizza in front of him. She pulled the tab on her diet soda. She took a sip. Owen drank from his soda can too. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to eat the donut. That would be going straight to Stewart for lab testing.
“Say, how are things going? Seems like there isn’t a lot of time for idle chit chat nowadays,” she asked him.
“Pretty good,” he replied.
“How is that part-time job going?”
He shook his head. “Got laid off. Not enough work.”
“Oh, sorry about that. Are you looking for something else?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been so wrapped up in our team that I haven’t had time. Fortunately, my mom got a big legal job that will keep her busy for some time.”
Charlie smiled. “That’s great. Things often work out in the end.”
He smiled and nodded. “Yep, if you’re a bad person, you turn into a zombie and have your brain done in.”
She chuckled, finishing her diet soda. “Say, it’s quiet here. Is this another instance where the shop worker is up to no good, like that coffee shop we had to deal with last September?”
He shrugged. “Not much happening here. If the shop were deliberately infecting people, it could be totally random.”
“That was a waste of time,” she muttered, as she tossed her can into the recycling bin. Owen closed the cardboard box of the big donut and tucked it into his backpack. They left the shop.
“So, where to now?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I suppose it’s homework time.”
They stopped and looked at an art installation in front of the donut shop. It was a large twisted metal sculpture of a woman with a lot on her back—laundry basket, computer, child, pet, dishes, shop tools and more.
“Hey, that’s neat,” Charlie said, taking a step closer.
“Wow, that’s something,” said Owen. “I hope no one tries to climb that.”
“I know, right? Don’t give me ideas,” said Charlie, walking around the sculpture.
“Hey, Owen. Check this out,” she said, beckoning to him.
“What is it?” he asked, coming around to the back of the structure.
“There’s this sharp pointy bit here.”
“What? I’m shocked that the city would put up a structure that someone could cut themselves on.”
“I know, but I think something trashed this part of it on purpose. Look, it appears that this was a table leg or something, but someone broke off the end.”
“Whoa!” exclaimed Owen. “There’s something red on that, and it looks like blood.”
Charlie removed her backpack and opened it up. “Exactly my thoughts. Let’s grab a sample and take it back to Stewart.” She pulled out a plastic bag that contained a vial. She unscrewed it and removed the swab inside. There was a bit of fluid on the end so she let that drop back into the vial. Then she took the swab and rubbed it against the red on the metal. It came away easily. She replaced the swab back in the vial and twisted it tightly shut.
“Darn it. I was hoping that was just paint,” she said.
“We should cover that up with something so no one else gets hurt.”
“Good idea. I think I have some duct tape in here.”
“Wow, you really have everything in your bag.”
She nodded.
Soon they had the structure mended. They were careful not to touch the metal at all. It could be nothing, but was worth checking out, as Miranda and her friend had turned into zombies without being bitten.
Charlie was disappointed that Miranda wasn’t here. She wished she had collected basic contact details from her first. The only given was that Miranda was in Portland or surrounding regions, somewhere, as the rules of zombie dictated that she wouldn’t be able to go too far out without dying.
“OK, let’s get this to Stewart. I guess it’s another night of unrest.”
They headed to her car.
zzz
At home, Zan was back in the basement. She was angry that her dad had cleaned up some of her lab. She furiously pulled open drawers. At least her supplies were placed in the drawers and had not been tossed out. But instead of her lab supplies being neatly laid out in the middle of the table, there was a large vase full of bright and fragrant flowers.
She expected that was some sort of an apology from him. He’d even gone so far as to put the guitars back on the walls.
She dug around in her bag and pulled out the wire cutters that Owen had given her. It was a strange gift to give the average girl, but he wasn’t the average friend, and she wasn’t the average girl.
She walked up to the wall and pulled down the guitar. She placed it on the table. Picking up the wire cutters, she slowly pulled them open. She slid one of the sharp metal ends under the wires of the guitar. Then she squeezed. The strings on the guitar broke, giving off a strange dissonant sound. She smiled.
Then she picked up the guitar, lifted both arms in the air, and then smashed it down on the table, hard. The guitar broke into pieces.
“Oh my god, what are you doing, Zan?” cried her dad.
“I don’t want it anymore,” she said.
“I can’t believe you did that! That belonged to my father.” He walked up to her, trying to control himself.
“Then you should have looked after it better,” she said defiantly.
He g
rabbed onto her arm. “What’s gotten into you lately? Ever since you started hanging out with those friends, Charlie and Owen, you’ve changed. You’re not the Zan I know.”
She swatted his hand off of her arm. “Oh, you mean quiet Zan who just does as she’s told? I’ve got news for you. I have a brain. You may treat Mom like she’s a doll, but I’m not. I’m out of here.”
Zan headed to the stairs.
“Zan! You get back here!” her dad called out. “If you go, you aren’t coming back!”
Zan raced up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door shut. She grabbed a bag from the closet and started filling it up. She heard her dad walk down the hallway and knock on the door.
“Zan? Are you OK? I’m sorry. We can talk this out.”
Zan headed to the window, her bag in one hand, and her purse in the other. She hopped out the window and headed to her car.
zzz
As Charlie drove, she thought about how she needed to visit Sergeant Bourne to get more details from him. Something wasn’t quite right about that situation. She guessed that he was the one-tenth of the police department that really believed there were zombies around.
They reached Stewart’s apartment and found a parking space. They buzzed his intercom, and then entered the building after the door unlocked. They headed up to his apartment.
“Hi, folks! I hope this is important,” Stewart said, opening the door.
“I’m hoping it isn’t,” said Charlie. “But it could be.”
“We might have a clue as to the latest zombie outbreak,” explained Owen.
“Well, good,” said Stewart, waiting for everyone to settle themselves in the small living room.
It was rather sparse for a high school teacher who could likely afford some decent furniture. But one of the clues in the decor was that he wouldn’t be sticking around for long. Stewart had no spouse or family to hold him in one spot.
