by Anthology
Sarah started crying. "You always kill my ideas, Milton," she said, sobbing. She leaned against him. "You ruined people's lives. You have to stop the chemicals."
"But that would to destroy the device, and that could kill everyone in town, grownups and kids," he said.
"It's too late anyway." She stopped crying and stared into Milton's green eyes. "Even if the zombies don't get us, how can we survive? It'll be hard, harder than it was with parents. You've doomed us all."
She stood up and started to walk out of the room.
"Harder?" Milton asked. "How? All the grownups are gone!"
Without turning, Sarah said, "You've ended America. Not destroyed, but it will become that. It's the end of the world. Did you think it would be easy?" As she walked out of the lab, Dash came back carrying a bag of chips. "Come on, Dash, we're leaving."
"Why?" he said, his mouth full.
"Because that chemistry geek needs to think about what he's done."
* * * *
Wow. That's all I have to say about the hallway, wow.
School had never been like this.
Teachers were limping around, chasing or eating students. Blood and guts were everywhere. Edgar had to cover Mandy's mouth just to stop her from screaming every single time we saw a dead body.
Somehow, we managed to pass all the zombie teachers without being eaten. That really impressed me. Outside, there was a severed hand lying on the ground. The zombies were gone, though. I picked up the hand, right after Edgar had removed his hand from Mandy's mouth, and I held it next to her face. Of course, she screeched and started doing the severed hand dance, which was a lot like the bug dance.
"Gregor," Jake said, frowning and looking disgusted. "This is no time to be playing with leftover body parts."
"Fine," I said and threw the hand at Jake.
Do you know how funny it was to see a teenager in a tux do the bug/severed hand dance? It's the best thing ever. I even started laughing, something I hardly ever do.
"So hey, Mr. Vampire Guy," Edgar said, which sounded wrong on so many levels. "Why are the teachers eating people? 'Cause if you don't answer, I'm blaming you for the whole thing."
Now everyone was staring at me, like they really did expect me to know. I guess they probably did. I am the one always reading about zombies, horror and other fun stuff like that.
"Hey, this wasn't my idea," I said. "If I was going to start a zombie horde, I wouldn't start with the teachers."
"That is true," Dakota said. They all looked at him. "What? He's gone over it with me thousands of times."
"Oh yeah, and that's not creepy at all," Jake said. "Moving on. How do we stop these things?"
I was about to say something when a tall guy in a Pokémon shirt and cargo pants came running up to us. He had a gun in one hand and was holding a kindergartener in his other arm. Me and Dakota almost attacked him before we realized he wasn't a zombie and the kid wasn't a snack.
Then Edgar pushed past us. "Clay!"
"Eddie!" The kindergartener, Edgar's little brother, scrambled down and jumped into Edgar's arms.
"Uh," Coda said, "who's the guy with the gun?"
"I'm Bobby," the guy in the Pokémon shirt said. "This my gun. I getted it from the dead-police-guy who tried to eat us."
Edgar set Clay down and held out his hand for the gun. "Gun. Now."
Bobby moved the gun to his side and said, "No! No, no, no, no! I founded it! It mine! Mine, mine, mine! It go pew pew pew pew!"
"What the f---" Dakota began before Edgar glared with a not-in-front-of-my-little-brother glare.
"---freak," Coda finished.
A groan came from the side of the building. More zombies shuffled around the corner. I saw our mailman, a lady I recognized from the grocery store, a dude in a suit, and then I stopped counting.
"Let's go," I said.
"Where?" Mandy asked.
"Jake's."
"What?" Jake jumped in front of me. "You know you weirdos aren't allowed at my house. My father---"
"Is probably dead like every other adult. Now let's move!" I gave Jake a shove. We go way back, if you can call it that. He and his friends were the ones who started pushing me into lockers and throwing my shoes on the roof when I was about the same age as Edgar's little brother.
"Hey," Coda said. "That guy's an adult." He jerked his thumb at Bobby, then looked again at the Pokémon shirt, and added, "I . . . uh . . . I guess."
"I'm in first grade," Bobby said proudly.
Edgar leaned over and kind of whispered at us. "He got shot in the head or something when he was in the army. Messed up his brain. He's, like, six. Like, forever."
"Can't we just go already?" Mandy jingled her keys. "My car is right over there. Hurry up!"
* * * *
"Sarah? Dash? Mom? Dad? Anyone living?"
Milton wandered through the house, not finding anyone.
"Hello? Someone answer me!"
In the kitchen, his mother's purse lay on the counter, its contents spilled out. The back door was open. There was blood on the floor, and bloody footprints led onto the porch.
There was groaning outside.
He didn't even want to look. He just shut the door and locked it. Then he went back to his lab. The Machine was still going. It bleeped and it blooped. Lights flickered. The vents hummed. Inside, chemicals bubbled. Wisps of green steam came out. He looked up through the skylight and saw the pipe leading outside, still shooting out a big plume of green smoke.
Sarah wanted him to turn it off.
Turn off his Machine!
After he worked so hard!
And it was too late anyway. The chemical formula was already in the atmosphere. It was circulating all around the world. Even if he turned it off now---if he could turn it off without having it explode and leave a crater where the town used to be---the reaction wouldn't stop.
He sat on the sofa, and that made him cry. It was the sofa where his friends sat when he was working. The sofa where his mother and father sat when he was showing them something. The sofa where he had lost his best friends.
The sofa where he sat, crying, continuing to call out for his friends and parents.
* * * *
We crashed the car.
Well, Mandy crashed the car. Mandy, it turned out, only barely passed her driver's test. That was when she wasn't freaked out and trying not to run over zombies.
When we ran into the wall, Edgar swore like a sailor, Dakota only swore once but loudly, Mandy screamed, Jake grabbed at the side of the car, Clay and Bobby both whimpered, and I, being great and all powerful, said, "Well, anyone want some food while we're parked?" Groans of mental pain came from the high schoolers.
We managed to pull ourselves out of the car. Lucky for us, the brick wall was in front of the perfect place, a hunting shop, named Guns 'n' Stuff.
Guns 'n' Stuff. Sometimes I love this town. I went up to the storefront and peered in.
"This is no time to be window-shopping, Gregory," Jake said from behind me.
I flipped him off as I opened the door to the shop. It creaked outward and a zombie fell on me, knocking me down. I landed on the sidewalk with this cold, greasy, heavy, stinky chunk of meat on top of me. Crazy Old Brian, the owner of Guns 'n' Stuff. He was trying to eat me.
As I struggled with him, I heard the others shouting but nobody was being much of a help.
A gunshot rang out.
Crazy Old Brian's head got a big hole in it and I was splashed with gunky cold blood and lumps of brains like thick oatmeal and jelly. The smell got worse. Unbearable. But he stopped moving. Headshot. Just like it was supposed to work.
I pushed the body off and got up. Bobby stood there with the gun. He grinned at me. I grinned back. For a second, I thought of licking the blood off my lip. Mandy was already pointing at me and doing the icky blood dance. It was a lot like the bug dance and the severed hand dance.
But it really smelled bad, and I figured it'd taste even worse.
I wiped my face with my sleeve.
We went inside and started looking for weapons. Dakota went right for a shotgun, broke into the glass case, and grabbed some ammo as well. I went over and smacked the boxes out of his hands.
"Dude!" he yelled, getting everyone's attention. "What was that for?"
I glared at him. I'm nice to my only friend, aren't I? "Can you use a gun? Can anyone in here besides Bobby the Barbarian use a gun?"
"Ah, yes," Jake said raising his hand. "My dearest father is a huntsman and took me . . ." He trailed off as I stared at him.
"No one asked, Tux Man. And no one cares," I said. "Get a gun."
Edgar handed a gun to Jake and everyone else put their guns down to pick up the "stuff" half of Guns 'n' Stuff. Hatchets, batons, tasers, knives.
I handed Bobby the shotgun and he smiled and set the pistol down. I pocketed it while no one was looking. We continued gathering weapons for a few minutes.
"We're wasting time," I whispered to Mandy, who was next to me.
"Do you think it's a good idea to go on foot to Jake's house from here?" She pulled me over to an area of the shop where the others weren't. "You're the expert here, Gregor. Walking past the firehouse and police station can't be a good idea."
I sighed. I've known Mandy for as long as I've known Coda, almost my whole life. My mom and her dad even dated for a while, which made it weird the one time she asked me out. I said no. Mandy didn't take that so well. I, as it turned out, was the only guy that had said no to going out with her.
"We don't have to go to Jake's anymore," I said as Mandy lifted up a set of stupid girly throwing stars in a pink case. I quickly took them from her and put them back. I gave her a big honkin' machete. "We just need to get out of here soon. We're making a lot of noise and zombies still have their ears unless they were cut off."
Mandy made a face at the last part, but managed to whisper back, "Well, it seems like you're in charge, because Mr. King-of-the-School is too busy looking at guns."
Jake was voted King of the School because he was popular, had money, and bribed the entire school. I looked over at him. He was scanning different guns like he was shopping for a new car.
"Me? In charge?" I put my hand on her forehead. "Are you feeling okay? Don't zombie-out on us."
She looked at me and I realized I was touching her. I removed my hand from her forehead in a hurry.
"Okay, my group of losers." I stood in the center of the shop to get their attention. "We're heading to my house."
"Why? Who put you in charge?" Jake said.
"You got a better idea? Let's hear it."
He just stared at me, and we all knew he didn't have a better idea.
"Actually, we have three choices," I said, turning to everyone else. "We could go to my house and get the key to my Z-Shelter."
Dakota smacked his head. "Dude, please, not the Z-Shelter stuff again. That place creeps me out."
"We could hide out in Coda's junkyard fort," I continued, "or we could find out what is actually happening."
Mandy raised her hand. "Um?"
"What?" I asked, annoyed.
"Do you think maybe---this is crazy---but maybe it might have something to do with that cloud of green smog? You know, the one that's been floating around town the past couple of days?"
"Hey, yeah," Edgar said. "That's about when all the grownups started getting weird, isn't it? I thought that was from a factory or something."
"There's no factory in town," Coda said. "It's just coming from that geeky homeschooled kid's house."
"Hang on," I said. "What geeky homeschooled kid?"
"The one who's friends with that creepy Masterson girl, and the kid who's always starting fires."
"The Thidwicks, Mastersons, and Petersons are well respected families and---" Jake said.
I punched him. Not in the gut like normal, but in the face. Guess I'd just had enough of his voice.
He stumbled back and grabbed his nose. For a few seconds everybody just looked at me, then at Jake, then at me again.
Edgar changed the subject. "I don't get why we have to go talk to people younger than us," he said. "They're like twelve or something. We can take care of ourselves."
"Good point, Skullcrusher," I said. "That makes as much sense as Jake and Mandy letting you follow them around and then letting me and Coda follow you around."
Edgar just looked at me. He's normally quiet when around anyone that isn't on the football team or the cheerleading squad. You wouldn't know it but he's actually pretty smart. He's one of the best students in school but asks all the teachers to treat him badly like any other dumb jock. "You win, Vampire-guy," he said.
"I'm going to go check out this green smog," I said. "If you guys want to come, you can. Even Loser-Tux-Man can come if he wants."
When I reached the end of the block, I turned to see who was following me. Mandy was the closest, then Dakota, Edgar, Clay, Bobby.
In the back, pretending he wasn't following, was Jake. I smiled and kept walking.
* * * *
"Sar', you're mad, aren't you?" Dash asked. He was flipping through channels on the TV in Sarah's house. Breaking news. Zombies. News flash. Zombies. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this zombie update. Zombies in your house, film at eleven.
"Me? Mad? What would give you that idea?" Sarah punched a wall, then buried her head in her hands and started crying.
Dash stood there for a while, thinking that he should hug her, but that would mean hugging a girl. Eew city. After a long time of Sarah crying, Dash finally embraced her. Quickly. Then let go.
"Milton was just being himself, Sar'. He can't stop that, 'cause, well, he's Milton," he said.
"A really freaky geek that uses chemistry for his job," she said. "That same Milton we became friends with back in preschool. Wasn't that an exciting day? Let's bring two really smart people and a pyromaniac kid together in the same room at the same time!"
Dash laughed, then paused. "Hey! I'm smart, too!"
"What's ten times twenty-five divided by two?"
"Uh . . ."
"Exactly."
"What's the correct amount of gunpowder to add to a firecracker?" he countered.
"How should I know that?"
"Because you're 'smart.'"
She sighed. "Why do I hang out with you?"
"Because we're both friends with Milt."
"Oh, right! Zombies! We have to do something! Let's go back!" She grabbed Dash's wrist and ran toward the door. "Maybe if we talk to him again, we can figure something out to---"
There was a knock on the door; they stopped short.
"They're here," Sarah whispered.
* * * *
I kept pounding on the door.
"This is the Masterson Place, right?" I called over to Jake.
"It has to be!" Jake yelled as he hit a zombie with the butt of his gun.
The group fought zombies while I knocked on the door. How unfair was that? I've been waiting all my life for this and I got put in charge, so I had to knock on doors while they busted heads.
They all had horrified looks on their faces. These were their neighbors they were killing, and I guess for some reason it bugged them.
"Hey!" I pounded harder on the door. "We're out here fighting zombies and we want to talk to you about your nerd friend!"
The mail slot opened a bit and I crouched down to look in. Eyes stared out at me.
"What?" the eyes said.
"Can we come in? There's zombies out here."
The door opened and a couple kids were in the doorway. A black-haired boy and a light-brown-haired girl. I quickly stepped into the house and the others ran in after me. After we all got inside, the girl shut the door and we all looked at each other. Jake made introductions like we were at a fancy party, except his voice was stuffy because I may have broken his nose.
"So, what makes you bring the zombies to my house?" the girl, Sarah, asked.
"We want to k
now what's going on," I said, ignoring how Jake was about to go into a long explanation about it.
"Why would you think we know?" Dash said.
"Because you hang out with that geeky kid, and he's got weird green smoke coming from his house, and now there's zombies," I said.
"Yeah, and wasn't he the one who crashed that Town Hall meeting saying something about making parents pay for forcing their kids to do chores?" Edgar said.
"I remember that," Mandy said. "Wasn't he also the one who let a yogurt monster loose in the park?"
"So," I said. "How'd he do it? Voodoo? Necromancy? Old spell book? Raising demons?"
"Milton doesn't know anything about magic!" Sarah said. She sounded all offended. "He's a scientist!"
"Okay . . ." I said. "You're saying it is his fault, though."
"Fine," Sarah said, rolling her eyes. "But he didn't mean it. I guess it started with me saying it would be nice to have no rules and no parents bossing us around all the time. And, being Milton, he was just trying to help. The chemicals he used were only supposed to hypnotize them or something, not turn them into zombies and make them go around eating people."
"The green smoke," Mandy said. "Told you so."
Sarah nodded. "He's got this machine---"
"You mean Machine," Dash said, so we could all hear the capital letter.
"And it's affecting anybody over eighteen," Sarah continued, giving Dash a look. Then her face went sad. "Animals, too."
"Except Bobby," Edgar said. "He's twenty-five."
"Brain damage," I said. "He's only about as smart as Dakota."
Dakota punched my shoulder.
"Sorry, I mean a six-year-old," I said, not really sorry. "So, all we have to do is shut down this Machine, right? Then everything goes back to normal?"
"What about the grownups?" Mandy asked. "Would they go back to normal? What about the people whose heads we smashed? Or the ones who got eaten?"
"We can worry about all that later. The Machine is the big problem right now," I said.
