Never Slow Dance with a Zombie

by E. Van Lowe

Wait to be called upon. Do not raise your

  hands or make any sudden moves. No one

  hates a know -it - all more than a zombie.

  Rule # 5: If a zombie should attack, do not run.

  Instead, throw your steak at him. Zombies

  love saw meat. This display of kindness

  will go a long way.

  Rule # 6: Wear a vial filled with fish oil around your neck at all times. Zombies detest the smell of fish. This is your way of saying

  "Hey Mister Zombie, respect my space."

  If students and zombies respect each

  other's space, our school will be a very

  happy place.

  When I finished writing, Taft pulled out a Baggie. It contained hunks of raw steak. "You need to carry Baggies filled with meat slivers with you at all times," he said.

  "Gross," said Sybil, turning up her nose at the raw meat.

  "Does it have to be steak?" I asked.

  "I don't know. Why?"

  "We're more of a hamburger family,"

  "Any raw meat should work, but if hamburger doesn't work, or if you ever find yourselves in close quarters with a zombie for any reason, a sharp rap on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper should stun them long enough to get you out of the tight spot."

  And that was it. That's all he'd been able to figure out so far.

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  That tiny bit of information was all we had to keep ourselves alive for the next seven weeks, until the end of the semester. On the bright side, I was being given the opportunity to live out my dream and realize my manifesto. I'd always wanted to be an it-girl, but the Amanda Culpeppers of the world were always standing in my way. But no more. If I went along with Principal Taft's plan, my junior year would be exactly what I'd always dreamed it should be. And all I had to do to enjoy it was stay alive.

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  Chapter Eleven

  "What a crazy day," Sybil said with a sigh. Sybil and I AZ EW had been out of school several hours and were in my bedroom. When she spoke I realized we'd been there for quite some time and neither of us had said anything. That was unusual. Normally when Sybil and I were in my room we were buzzing with chatter.

  For my part, I'd been distracted ever since our meeting with Principal Taft. Something inside me was different. I knew I was excited over the prospect of living out my manifesto, but something else was going on. It was as if a door had opened inside me, and something dark within my soul had stepped through it.

  "Very crazy," I replied.

  "Margot, I'm sorry for not telling you I asked Dirk to go to the carnival with both of us. It was deceitful."

  "If I'd gone to the carnival with Dirk I'd probably be a zombie now." My voice was somber. The thought had been on my mind for a while. Our argument had saved my life.

  "I know. I saw him this morning in a pack of jock zombies

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  patrolling the corridor, "Her voice lowered. "Margot, I need to know we're still friends."

  "Of course we're friends. Best friends. Friends have fights."

  "Not us."

  A smile blossomed on my lips. "I guess we can't say that anymore. Can we?"

  "Guess not," she replied, returning the smile. And just like that, all was forgiven.

  Despite the perk of being head lunchroom monitor-- which I didn't see as a perk at all--Sybil still felt we needed to help our fellow classmates. I no longer shared the sentiment.

  "What can we do for them? They're zombies." I was surprised I felt no pity. "Besides, I'm sure Principal Taft is doing all he can to find out what happened."

  "But maybe we can help, too. Maybe we can find a way to change them back ourselves."

  I stared at her. I was trying to come up with a reason why I'd want to change them back, I couldn't come up with one. Some of those kids had been nothing but pains in the butt my entire time in high school. They were the ones who'd made my two years and two months at Salesian so miserable, with all their little cliques constantly reminding me of what an outsider I was. I didn't say it out loud, but I was actually happy I didn't have to deal with them anymore.

  "What can we do?" I repeated. I knew what I wanted to do-- nothing.

  "We can go to the carnival and look for clues to find out what happened to them," Sybil said.

  Leave it to nice Sybil to come up with a logical answer to my question. She clearly lacked the mean gene.

  "But suppose we run into zombies at the carnival?"

  "We'll bring raw meat and wear fish oil. And we already

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  know how to act. Come on, Margot. You know it's the right thing to do."

  So what if it is? I thought. I don't want to change them back. I want to be on the Homecoming Committee and the Prom Committee. I want to be prom queen!

  The conversation was putting me in a really bad mood. I should be spending my evening thinking up themes for the homecoming celebration, not how to help my classmates out of their little zombie problem. Didn't I have my own problems? Like should the new cheerleader outfits be royal blue or teal?

  Just then a brilliant idea hit me. It was as if a light bulb had actually clicked on above my head. I would go to the carnival with Sybil not to look for answers, but to keep her from finding any. If we didn't find anything, I was guaranteed our classmates would remain zombies forever--or at least until the end of the semester.

  "Sybil, you're right. We should go to the carnival and look for clues that might help us change our classmates back to normal," I said with fake sincerity.

  "Thank you, Margot. I knew you'd come around," she replied.

  The dark thing inside me smiled.

  The carnival was set up on a vacant lot at the edge of the industrial part of town. There were several rides: a Ferris wheel, Tilt-a-Whirl, and the Hammer, along with an assortment of gaming booths where people tried their hand at tossing rings over pegs, knocking over milk bottles, and bursting balloons with water pistols.

  We arrived at the carnival site just after 8 p.m. to discover the carnival was gone. No tents, no rides, no booths, nothing.

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  The area that just last night had been lit up by hundreds of multicolored lights and teeming with excited teenagers roaming the midway was now a desolate wasteland.

  "It's gone," Sybil said as we surveyed the empty lot.

  "I can see that."

  "But how? Nobody said last night was the last night."

  "But apparently it was." With the crisis averted my mind began to shift. "You know, I've been thinking about the new cheerleader outfits," I said. "Belly shirts are so passe."

  "Not now, Margot. We have to find out what happened out here last night."

  Sybil's niceness was starting to get on my nerves. I thought of all the causes she had taken up since I'd known her: Save the Bay, Save the Seals, Save the Whales. Now it was... Save the Zombies.

  "How?" I barked. "The carnival is gone. There's nothing to see, no one to talk to. We should thank our lucky stars there aren't any zombies hanging around." Fumes from the icky vials of fish oil we'd hung around our necks wafted up my nose. It did nothing to brighten my mood.

  "We need to search the area," Sybil said, rummaging in her purse.

  "It's dark out. We can hardly see our hands in front of our faces."

  "I have my lucky flashlight."

  "Oh. Right."

  I'd given her a set of exercise DVDs for her birthday. The tiny key chain penlight was a premium that came with the gift.

  "It's perfect!" she had said when she opened the gift and saw the penlight. Turns out she'd dropped an earring under her bed getting ready for the party. We went right to her bed-

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  room and used the penlight to find it. When we did her face lit up: "Oh, Margot, you always know the perfect thing to get me."

  I secretly cursed that penlight: Who needs a flashlight to exercise? Stupid premium.

  She pulled the tiny penlight from her purse and began searching the dirty, filthy, sme
lly lot, digging through soil and refuse. Then an even more putrid stench hit me. "Ew! Something smells like stinky tennis shoes covered with cheese and then left out in the rain."

  I knew that particular stink very well thanks to my cheesy little brother.

  "What are we looking for, anyway?" I grumbled, pinching my nose to shut out the repugnant odor.

  "I don't know. Something... relevant."

  "Let's see. Ooh, there's a corn dog stick. Is that relevant? Or maybe that mysterious soft drink cup is just what we need to save our classmates." Sarcasm flowed from my lips. "Or how about that rock? Yes, that's it! The magic zombie rock. Sybil, I do believe we found just what--"

  Crunch!

  Both our heads whipped around as we stared in the direction of the sound. Blackness greeted our eyes.

  "What was that?" Sybil whispered.

  "Zombies," I whispered back.

  My heart was pounding. Every ounce of me wanted to run, but I stood by as Sybil aimed the tiny beam in the direction of the sound. Nothing. Whatever we had heard--crunch, crunch--was moving. The tiny beam of the light now slid shakily across the lot in the direction of the moving sound.

  "It's time to go," I said, my voice quaking. I yanked on her sleeve.

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  And then the flashlight's beam discovered the thing moving in the shadows. "Ahhh!" we both screamed as the black cat zipped away into the darkness.

  "See. Heh-heh. It was just a cat," Sybil said, trying to laugh it off.

  "Yeah," I replied. "Heh-heh. A cat." But I knew we were both thinking that the sound we'd first heard couldn't have been a cat. It was most definitely the sound of human, or inhuman, footsteps. Someone or something had been watching us.

  Later that night, I sat alone in my room contemplating the future. The darkness lounging in my soul was happy my classmates were all zombies. It told me there was nothing anyone could do about it. We have to get on with our lives. It promised me a new life where 1 was no longer the girl on the sidelines passing the time, observing the good life from the outside instead of living it. I was about to become the queen bee of Sale-sian High.

  It told me to enjoy it.

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  Chapter Twelve

  Zombies are incredibly predictable.

  Our first day at school among the living dead started out uneventfully. The zombies came to school and went to the same classes they'd gone to when they were among the living. They lumbered through the halls with a lazy gait, moving on instinct and muscle memory rather than free will or desire. At first, it was frightening moving amongst them with their pasty complexions and mouths twisted into grotesque smiles. But eventually, Sybil and I shook our fears. We moved easily from pack to pack, navigating the corridors of Salesian High.

  Don't get me wrong--we could never totally relax around them. They were zombies. A sudden move, a joyous laugh, even a raised eyebrow, any expression of individuality, and we could be dead meat--literally. But as long as we remained expressionless and our movements mirrored the pack, we were safe.

  Soon going to school amongst the zombies, walking stiffly and staring off dreamily became second nature to us both.

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  One day while Sybil and I were on the third floor, traveling in a pack of grunge zombies, headed to history class, something out of the ordinary happened. As we passed the science lab some mice escaped, darting from the room and across the corridor. This sudden burst of frenetic energy got the zombies' attention. They seemed to awaken from their dreamlike state. Slowly, they got down on all fours in an attempt to catch and eat the mice.

  It was a ridiculous exercise. The herky-jerky movements of the mice dumbfounded the sluggish zombies, who ineptly grasped at the tiny rodents, but wound up with handfuls of air. I glanced over at Sybil. We were the only two in the corridor still standing. She shot me a warning glance, then got down on her hands and knees. I didn't move. The zombies were too preoccupied with the mice to notice me. Sybil's eyes were on me, signaling me to get down.

  I shot her a look of exasperation. Do I hove to do everything they do? I wondered. Suppose I did join them. Heaven forbid I actually caught a mouse in my bare hands. Yechf If I didn't scream, I'd faint, and that would be the end of me. So I figured it was better to stand passively, observing the silly exercise, than to get on my hands and knees, which might lead to my demise.

  Just then a pack of zombies turned the corner, led by Amanda Culpepper. She looked horrible. Her pasty complexion was accented by a sickly green pallor. Her once cute yellow Bebe sundress was smudged with dirt and frayed around the hem, draping her tiny frame like a rag. I stood silently, hoping she and her friends would move on. No such luck. Their dead, black eyes all moved to me.

  Sheesh! The things a girl has to do to be prom queen.

  Slowly I got down on the floor, pretending to reach in the direction of the darting mice-- ick, ick, ick!

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  Amanda and the it-girl zombies got down on the floor as well, joining the fray. How embarrassing, I thought. The former queen of Salesian High crawling around on her hands and knees, trying to make a meal out of mice. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

  I thought back to when Amanda ruled the school with her designer wardrobe and movie-star good looks. I remembered the cutting laughter that could send me and others home sobbing, our psyches in shreds. I promised myself as the new queen of Salesian High, I would be different. I would lead with dignity and grace, and never look through a classmate as if she didn't exist just because she didn't look or act like me. I would be a shining example for it-girls across America--once I got up off the floor.

  At that moment a mouse darted between two pursuing zombies. The scrambling mouse leaped into the air, and landed in my lap.

  "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

  They say time stops in moments of crisis. I've heard stories of people in horrific car accidents who've said the whole thing played out moment by moment in front of them in slow motion. I never believed any of those stories. I always thought the people who told them were being overly dramatic. I couldn't fathom that something occurring in a split second could play out like a DVD stuck in slo-mo--until it happened to me.

  The next several things I am about to tell you happened in a matter of seconds.

  Slow Motion

  My ear-piercing scream alerted the zombies. Their heads jerkily whipped from side to side as they tried to determine the origin of the sound. Then one by one their eyes all fell on me. Dark eyes.

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  Ravenous eyes. Their mouths opened, revealing fangs dripping with saliva.

  The zombies began crawling in my direction.

  I glanced over at Sybil. Terror was frozen onto her face. It seemed at any moment she'd faint dead away.

  Thinking more quickly than I ever thought possible, I grabbed at Sybil's hand. "Grrr," I said.

  I pulled her hand open, pretending to snatch something from it. Then I cupped my hands to my mouth and began making noisy, gobbling sounds. I pretended to chew, swallow, then glanced around at the leering zombies. I screamed again.

  "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" But I filled this second scream with the primal delight of a cavewoman who had just discovered fire.

  Normal Time

  I put my head down and went back to sluggishly swatting at the remaining mice, keeping a watchful eye on the zombies around me, hoping, praying they'd fall for my little charade. Slowly they too went back to the task at hand. A fleeing mouse somehow landed in the hand of one of Amanda's bunch.

  "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," she croaked, mimicking my scream. Then she picked the squirming rodent up by the tail, lowered it into her mouth and... well, you get the picture. Ick!

  I glanced back at Sybil. The color was slowly draining back into her face. She looked at me. "Grr," she growled gratefully.

  "Grrwelcome," I replied.

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  Chapter Thirteen

  From there the day proceeded uneventfully until I got to gym class. I'd been looking forward to gym, figuring
Sybil and I could use the free period to work on themes for the homecoming celebration. I entered and climbed into the bleachers as I always did.

  "Margot Jean Johnson, where do you think you're going?" It was the unmistakable throaty rasp of Mrs. Mars.

  I wheeled around, surprised to find a very much alive Mrs. Mars standing in front of the class, a class consisting of zombies dressed in ugly green gym uniforms. The zombies leered up at me with hungry eyes.

  "Be careful, Mrs. Mars. They're dangerous," I warned softly.

  "Who's dangerous?" she bellowed.

  "Why... them." I pointed in the direction of the zombies.

  She shot the ghouls an incredulous stare. "What's Miss Johnson talking about?" she rasped.

  Surprisingly, all the zombies took a step backward, as if they were afraid of her. Then it dawned on me. Sense memory, of course. These girls had been afraid of Mrs. Mars since

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  before they'd come to Salesian. Her evil reputation was legend in every junior high and middle school in the area. As humans they'd never dream of challenging her. Now that they were zombies, something in their bones told them she was way more dangerous than they were.

  "Remember our little pact? Note or not, you're mine." She wheezed.

  "I think you need to check with Principal Taft." My voice rose with indignation. "I'm sure he'll tell you I am exempt from gym for the rest of the semester."

  Cackling laughter burst from her lips. "Principal Taft?" The zombies all took another step back. "Principal Taft has no jurisdiction over my PE class."

  "But... but... he's the principal."

  "We're hitting the track in preparation for the state endurance exam this morning. I expect you'll be joining us, won't you, Miss Johnson?"

  I wanted to scream, Who cares about the state endurance exam? The school is overrun with zombies who eat live mice, and Principal Taft promised me I'd never have to participate in gym class ever again.