into a ball, and throws it into the driver’s blackened face. The driver’s
moans are momentarily muffled, but he plows toward Smitty regardless.
“Oops!” Smitty cries in mock concern. “Excuse me, mister, I don’t think
what came over me.”
What a maniac. I struggle to keep pace with him as the driver staggers closer. Two lunatics and one monster, galloping through the snow,
I don’t think my mother quite envisaged this scenario when she signed
the check for the school trip.
As the driver gets within a few feet of us, I dodge around him and run
flat-out to the bus. Throwing myself back into that dark confined space
goes against every instinct, but I have to get onboard and open the door.
I can only hope that Smitty doesn’t get too carried away with driver—
taunting to remember to shut the hold after me.
Back in the aisle, I fix the trapdoor shut over the hole in the floor:
better safe than sorry. Then I run to the front door, swiftly remove the
snowboard, and press the lever to open.
In the parking lot, Smitty’s driver-baiting is getting more and
more dangerous. He lunges at the driver, then quickly spins away before
the driver can grab him.
“Smitty! Close the hold!” I shout, a fist of fear and frustration
rising in my chest. He ignores me, obviously finding himself too funny
for words.
If you want something done right . . . I rush back out into the snow
and slam the doors to the hold shut. Attracted by the noise, the driver
does his head-spinning trick — starting to get old now — and begins
stumbling toward the bus.
“Smitty!” I shout. “Snap out of it!”
I bound back to the door to find Alice at the top of the steps, hand on
the lever.
“I was waiting for you to come back,” she says guiltily. “I wouldn’t
have shut them yet.” She peers out at Smitty, who is still running rings
around the driver. “That’ll end in tears.”
I turn, hands on hips, ready to shout at Smitty again, when something causes all the breath to leave my body. Smitty slips on the snow
and skids, right into the legs of the driver, who topples over on top
of him.
“Smitty!” I scream, momentarily fixed to the spot, unable to move or
to tear my eyes away from the pile of writhing limbs making deadly snow
angels on the ground. Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve grabbed the
snowboard on the steps and I’m rushing toward the pileup.
Smitty’s head and body are completely obscured by the driver, but his
legs stick out beyond the driver’s legs, kicking frantically as the driver tries to bite him. I raise the snowboard and smack it on the back of the driver’s head. It doesn’t even make him pause. Snowboards are not
built to knock someone out. Right now, that is a major design flaw. I
ram the end of the board into the driver’s side, trying to shove him off
Smitty, who gets a hand free. I ram again, and Smitty pushes, and suddenly we’ve rolled him to one side for a second. Just long enough for me
to remember the dangerous part of the snowboard and how it can be
used. I lift the board up high above my head and with a superhuman
surge of fear and desperation, bring the metal edge down on the driver’s
exposed neck.
There it sticks, stuck in his throat, like an awkward question.
The driver stops moving, a look of dull surprise frozen on his face.
Smitty scrambles to his feet, and the driver drops onto his back, the
board still sticking halfway through his neck.
I crouch down, hands over my mouth.
“Awesome job, Roberta.” Smitty stands up and brushes himself
down. “Although I totally had him.”
“My name’s not Roberta,” I whisper through my fingers, the cold of
the snow seeping up from the seat of my leggings and into my core.
“Whatever you say.” Smitty hunkers down next to me and smiles,
his eyes twinkling in a way that might have made my cheeks warm if I
hadn’t been staring past him, at the thing, the thing that I killed. “Not
bad going for a ski bunny.”
I almost feel the movement before I see it. The driver’s mouth opens,
an arm shoots out, and fingers catch the edge of my jacket. I fling myself backward, a scream falling out of my mouth as I tumble into the snow, then quickly scramble up on my elbows, ready to kick, to claw, to fight . . .
In a single movement Smitty stands, raises his leg, and drops his big
black boot down hard on the snowboard. There is a crack and a gurgle,
and the driver’s head is liberated from his body.
“Oh my god, what did you do?” Alice is behind us.
“That was incredible!” Pete enthuses. “Best use for a snowboard I’ve
seen all week!”
“Nobody is going to believe this when I post it!” Alice is holding a
phone up. She’s been filming the whole thing.
I feel the sting of bile in the back of my throat as I tear my eyes away
from the head. I half expect Smitty to pick it up by its hair, or kick it into the air and shout “Goal!” but surprisingly he stands somberly, almost in respect, gazing down at the driver and his head. Then the moment
is gone.
He gently pulls me up, puts a strong arm around my shoulders, and
together we walk toward the bus.
“We’re going to need a new board for the door.”
We leave the body in the snow. What else are we supposed to do?
Somehow Pete manages to drive the bus on fumes, out of the parking lot and down the road that leads past the gas station and to the café.
I feel empty. Should I be crying, or crazying it up? I killed the bus
driver — or Smitty did. Or neither of us did, because he was already dead.
This is way worse than Mr. Taylor. I killed a person I had been trying to
heal a few hours before. I’ve heard of post-traumatic stress disorder — is that what I should be feeling? I sit, silent and strangely unafraid, as Pete teeters the bus down the hill, Smitty shouting directions, Alice watching for movement through the binoculars. I feel a catch in my throat, like
some kind of weird, flipped-out pride. We’re still alive.
The bus creeps past the gas station at a respectful distance. The black
smoke has almost gone. I glance at the ground for blackened bodies, but
there are none. Maybe they disintegrated in the explosion?
Likewise, the spot in the road where Mr. Taylor lay has been covered
by fresh snow. I think I see a lump, but I can’t be sure.
Good. It’s easier not to see.
By the time we reach the café, I can feel the blood running through
my veins again. This is no time for wallowing, or crying, or imagining,
or asking why. That time will come later. This is the time for pulling
together every ounce of strength and reserve and hope. I clench my fists
until the white bones of my knuckles show through the skin.
Pete draws the bus to a halt outside the Cheery Chomper.
“Last stop, everybody off!” he calls. He’s almost enjoying this. “End
of the line.”
“Don’t even,” says Alice quietly, but Smitty and I are ignoring him anyway.
The inside of the café is dimly lit — and there’s an erratic flickering,
like a strobe light. I can’t see anyone, alive or dead or in-between.
CARROT MA
N VEGGIE JUICE!<
br />
PUT SOME FIRE IN YOUR BELLY!
The banner that was hanging above the entrance to the café has come
undone at one end. It’s flapping gently in the wind, beckoning us in.
“I think we can safely assume that everyone who was in there is now
gone,” Pete says. “Vaporized by Smitty at the garage, probably.” But he
stays at the wheel, and the engine is still running.
“Yeah?” Smitty says. “How about you test out that theory?”
Pete turns off the engine, but stays put.
We all stay put.
“We’re not going to get anywhere chillin’ on the bus.” I try to convince
myself, as much as anyone else. I peer into the café. There are Christmas
lights twinkling by the counter. It’s January 9th; they should have been
taken down. Isn’t that bad luck? “We have to assume nobody’s coming,”
I continue. “They would have come by now.”
“Where’s Gareth?” Alice asks suddenly. “If he was heading here with
the laptop, how come we can’t see him?”
“He’s probably in another room, in the back,” says Smitty. “I am going
to kick his arse when I see him.”
Alice turns, blinking. “And the arses of anything else hiding in the
back, too?”
She has a point. Just because we can’t see jack doesn’t mean that
Undead Jack and Undead Jill aren’t lurking in there with all of their
friends, ready to Cheerily Chomp on us. But the fact remains, we have
to do something.
OK, I’ve seen the movies. Believe me, I have shouted at my TV with
the best of ’em. Don’t go in that haunted house, you losers! Don’t walk through that graveyard! Don’t check out that noise in the basement! Stay on the nice, safe bus and don’t go in the creepy café! I know, I know. We are relatively safe here. We’re mobile — up to a point. Ms. Fawcett has packed way too many sugary drinks than is wise for a group of teens. We have all of our limbs.
There’s even a bathroom. We should just sit tight, right?
What you don’t realize until you’re right there in it, is the itch to keep moving. Maybe it’s hormones, or a death wish, or the lack of access to Facebook, but jeez it’s hard being cooped up on a bus. And we’re curious.
We’re hardwired to go into that café and face potential death, no matter
how you slice it. It is on. It’s just a matter of how long it takes to build up the courage.
“I’m going in.” Smitty moves to the doors. Not too long, then.
I sling my own backpack over one shoulder, then arm us with skis,
poles, boards — because hey, it worked last time — the door is opened,
and we all troop out. Pete thoughtfully shuts the door after us. There is
a fresh layer of snow on the café steps, but it is lumpy with the footprints of our Undead classmates, and we advance up to the door awkwardly, walking like the first men on the moon. We look through the glass.
All clear. Smitty slowly opens the door . . . a little, then wider, then all the way.
As he steps in, there’s a loud beeb-beep, the modern equivalent of the shopkeeper’s tinkling bell above the door.
“Great.” Smitty stops as if he’s stepped on a landmine. “So much for
the element of surprise.”
I step past him. Beeb-beep. Then Alice and Pete follow in quick succes-sion. Beeb-beep. Beeb-beep.
“Friggin’ fantastic!” Smitty snarls. “Why don’t you play a sodding
tune on the thing!”
“Sorry.” Alice isn’t, particularly.
“I thought it was the door,” I mutter.
Smitty points to the welcome beneath our feet. “Pressure mat.”
“Oh,” I mouth, as if I’m suddenly all about the quiet.
The door swings shut, Smitty holds up a hand, and we listen. There’s
an irregular buzzing noise that matches the flickering lights. And a
strong smell of burnt oil. I guess the cooks forgot to switch the fryer off before they turned all dead and dribbly. To our left are the tables, with plates of half-eaten food and packets of opened sandwiches. There are
coats draped over chairs, abandoned, their occupants no longer needing
their warmth.
Beyond the eating area is a diner-style kitchen with ovens and a grill.
This is the source of the flickering light.
To the right is a small shop selling snacks and magazines, and ahead
of us a corridor leading to bathrooms and who knows what else. We wait
for something to happen. Nothing does.
“On three,” Smitty says. “One, two —”
“On three what?” Alice says.
He rolls his eyes. “We get off the mat. One, two, three.”
As one, we tiptoe off the mat. Beeb-beep. Again. We wait to see what we’ve disturbed. Nothing comes.
“If Gareth was here —” I begin.
“He would have popped his cowardly head out the door to say hi?”
Smitty finishes. “Not necessarily.” He advances toward the dining area
and kitchen, brandishing a snowboard. I follow, checking out the shop
on the way.
The good — or bad — news is that there aren’t many places to hide. I
check the corners. You always have to check the corners of the room — it’s like Danger Situtation 101. That’s where the bad guys lurk. There’s an old-school phone on the counter in the shop. I try it, but the line is dead.
Not dead, exactly — I can hear a kind of static, like it’s plugged in but
there’s no dial tone. I press the buttons a few times, and I hear them
dialing down the line but connecting to nothing. It’s as if I’m already on a call and the person on the other end is listening, but not saying anything.
Too eerie for words . . . I give up on it — disappointed and almost relieved in equal measure — and glance around the room for other options.
Leaving Alice and Pete standing back-to-back in the middle of the café
as if tied to a stake, I make myself walk through the tables, gripping my
ski pole as I peer around a half-partition into the booths beyond. No one.
Smitty whistles at me and points to the counter at the open-plan
kitchen, making some elaborate SWAT team hand signals. I think he
just made them up, but it’s clear what he means. We need to check the
kitchen. Looks clear enough, but it would be simply amateur not to check
it. Smitty approaches from the aisle; I’m threading my way through
tables. If something jumps out, he’s got a free run back to the exit while I’ll be hurdling bolted-down furniture. Great. We reach the counter, the fluorescent light fluttering on and off with a metallic ting. Smitty holds up a hand, three fingers held upright. OK, another countdown. The boy clearly likes his countdowns. Three, two, one . . .
I jump onto one of the plastic stools and scramble on top of the counter, ski pole aloft, my eyes darting — below, then to the corners of the
kitchen, looking for a dark shadow, a nook, a cranny where evil lurks.
The light strobes make everything into monsters.
Smitty giggles. He hasn’t moved.
“All clear?” He’s flat-out laughing now. My irritation makes me bold;
I leap off the counter into the kitchen. It’s empty. I stroll up to the
counter door and swing it open.
“Want me to do all the work?” I saunter out past him, controlling my
breath, not letting him see that I’m bothered.
“Hey, losers,” Alice hisses. “What about up there?” She’s pointing to
the rooms down the corridor.
Before I think about it too much, I’m walking up stained blue ca
rpet.
I call to Smitty, “You take the men’s, I’ll take the ladies’.”
“No, this time we go together.” He’s by my side. I hate that I’m grateful.
There’s nobody in the bathrooms. After we’ve checked them, we wait
while Alice does what a girl’s gotta do. She absolutely refused to go on
the bus. I know where she’s coming from, but man, that’s some bladder
control.
A storage room beyond the bathrooms is empty. Well, empty of
people, laptops, and monsters. The door is ajar, and the light is on — which I can’t help feeling is strange — but there’s nothing in there except boxes of cleaning supplies and toilet paper.
Back in the corridor, there’s only one room left, and it’s marked staff
only. Smitty tries the door, but it doesn’t open.
“What the fu —?” He kicks out at it halfheartedly. There’s a keypad
on the wall with a little red light. Seems like the Cheery Chomper might
have something worth protecting other than 10%-off-your-next-visit
coupons. “You!” Smitty points at Pete. “Do something.”
“Me?” Pete stares at him. “What am I, C-3PO? Just because I’m the
brains of this particular outfit, do you think I can circumnavigate a digital keypad locking system?” He holds a finger aloft and walks toward the keypad. “Excuse me while I access the security files through my wires.”
He sticks his finger on the keypad and jolts around a bit, eyes flashing.
It’s quite a performance.
“You should get an award for lame.” Alice pushes past him. “Place like
this, they’ll keep it simple. Anything too complicated and the pondlife
who work here wouldn’t be able to remember it.” She types 1234. For a
second, I think she’s onto something. But the little light stays red, and
the door won’t budge. She tries 0123. Same deal.
“We should just smash it,” Smitty says.
“No!” I say. “What if it breaks and the door still won’t open?”
He makes a face. “I mean, we should smash the door.”
“And then what?” I counter. “This is a pretty good spot to hide. It’s
warmer than the bus, we’ve got food and running water, and who knows
what else behind that door. But if we smash the door down, it means we
can’t lock it again. We won’t be secure.”
Undead (ARC) Page 8
