by Marty Chan
I had to save him. “I’ll be okay. When your parents come back from bingo, you can tell them what Monique did.”
Remi grinned. “Yeah, I’ll tell them everything you did, Monique.”
“Go ahead,” she dared.
“And what you’re going to do with Brian,” he added.
She glared at him. “Marty, get your stuff. Brian will take you home now.”
“I have to wash my face first,” I said. “Or my mom will kill me.”
Brian smiled. “Take your time. Monique, you want to keep me company until the kid’s ready to go?”
She beamed. “Why don’t we warm up the truck?”
Brian left the window and Monique hurried out of the bedroom. Remi ran to the window and slammed it shut.
“Do you believe the zombie story now?” I asked.
“I still need proof,” he said.
“What kind of proof?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“We have to check out the graveyard.”
I shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.
ELEVEN
Remi and I had agreed to investigate the cemetery after school, but the thought of what we might find distracted me all day; zombies kept popping into my head. At lunch time, Samantha McNally took a sip from Trina’s slushie and suffered a brain freeze that made her moan like a zombie. The Boissonault brothers replayed their sandwich joke, which seemed kind of stale without the costumes, on a French boy, and he stumbled in a daze through the yard just like a ghoul. In class, Ms. Hawkins talked about stories having two sides and the truth standing someplace between them, but all I heard was that the undead stood on both sides of me.
When the last bell of the day finally rang, I headed to my locker and pretended to organise my books, waiting for the kids to clear out. Then I grabbed a brown paper bag, checked its contents and headed `off. As my footsteps echoed on the floor, I had the creepy feeling that zombies were watching me.
At the shed, Remi was waiting impatiently. “What took you so long?”
I held up my bag. “I had to get protection against the zombies.”
“We’re not even sure they’re zombies,” Remi said.
“In case they are . . . ” I reached into the paper bag. “Vampires don’t like garlic. The same should work on ghouls.”
I pulled out a spice bottle of garlic powder.
“It could save us from being eaten,” I said.
“Do you have one for me?” Remi asked. “In case you’re right.”
I pulled another spice bottle from the paper bag and tossed it to Remi.
He shook the glass bottle. “It’s oregano,” he said.
“It’s all I could find. Don’t worry, I mixed some garlic powder in with it.”
My partner unscrewed the orange cap of his bottle and sniffed the contents while I folded up the bag and stuffed it in my back pocket.
“How much did you put in there?” he asked. “I can’t smell any garlic.”
“There should be enough.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then run really, really fast,” I said.
“Okay.” He pocketed the spice bottle. “We’re going to have to cut through the high school grounds.”
“In broad daylight?” I asked.
“It’s the only way to get to the cemetery. We can’t walk along the highway.”
“How about we cut across the field between your house and the cemetery?”
“If my mom spots me,” said Remi, “she’ll make me clean up my room, and we won’t be able to get to the cemetery before dark. Don’t worry. Teenagers don’t stay at school longer than they have to. Everyone should be gone by now.”
He was almost right. The school looked pretty empty. Five cars sat in the parking lot, but no people were hanging around the yard. Remi and I climbed over the fence and flopped on the grass.
“Okay, on my signal, we do six forward rolls to the school and then maintain the position against the wall.”
“Why don’t we just run?” I asked.
“I’m the commander of this mission,” Remi said. “You do what I say.”
“Okay, okay.”
We rolled across the lawn. After the second roll, I lost control of where I was going and my momentum picked up until the sky and grass became one big blur, and SPLAT! My hands and face smacked into the school’s brick wall. Remi smirked.
“Nice rolling,” he teased, dusting the grass off me.
“Do I have a bleeding nose?”
“No, you’re okay,” he said. “But was your nose always that flat?”
I rubbed my nose, panicking, but Remi chuckled. “Kidding,” he said.
“I knew that,” I lied.
He peeked around the corner, then signalled for me to follow. We slipped around the corner and inched along the front of the school as if we were on the ledge of a high-rise building, ducking out of sight under the windows. But we couldn’t duck under the all-glass doors of the main foyer.
“Move fast,” he whispered.
He rolled across the pavement; I sprinted past him and waited on the other side of the doors. Remi rolled right into me, his head smacking into my special place, the one spot no one is ever supposed to hit. I doubled over while he flopped back on his butt.
I grunted, trying to shake off the pain. I opened my mouth to scream, but Remi clamped his hand over it.
“Shhh. No noise. Just take deep breaths and don’t think about the pain.”
How was I supposed to ignore pain that hurt a million times worse than a nurple?
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “The pain will go away if you breathe slowly.”
Taking his advice, I breathed through my nose. My friend’s hand smelled of grass and sweat. I pushed it away and walked off the pain.
“You okay now?” Remi asked. “Do you need to lie down?”
“Forget it. I’m good. Let’s just go.” I walked until I reached the far end of the school, where only the track field stood between us and the graveyard.
“How are we going to get across without anyone seeing us?” I asked.
“We can commando crawl on our bellies,” he suggested.
“Where do you come up with these weird ideas?”
“My dad likes to watch war movies.”
“I’m not crawling,” I said.
“Okay, you can run, but zigzag a lot.”
“Can’t we just walk?” I asked. “No one’s here.”
“Hink ahin,” a voice sounded from over my shoulder.
Patrick, the spiky-haired stock boy from the hardware store, stood behind us, his tongue stud still making him hard to understand.
“What did you say?” I asked.
Patrick unscrewed his tongue stud. “I said, think again.”
Beside him a beefy boy in a jean jacket snickered, while a guy as tall as a basketball net laughed like a donkey. Just behind them, a girl with long, straight, jet-black hair crossed her arms and sneered. Her entire face was pale except for her black lips. She looked like someone had fed her black licorice until she got sick.
“You boys lost?” she asked. “You’re a long way from Chinatown.” She squinted at me, pretending to be Chinese.
“We’re taking a shortcut to my place,” Remi said.
“Yeah right.” The beefy boy hawked a loogie on the ground.
“Watch where you’re spitting, Dough Boy,” warned the white-faced girl. She checked her black army boot for saliva.
“It’s a free country, Snake Girl.”
The skinny goon slapped his thigh and hee-hawed. “Good one. If anyone looks like a freak, it’s Beth.”
Patrick whacked him in the stomach. “Shut it, Warren.” Then he stepped toward my friend. “You live in the cemetery? Because that’s where it looked like you were headed.”
Remi said nothing.
“I bet he’s a T.P. punk,” Beth said.
“Is that right, kid?” Dough Boy asked Remi. “Do you live i
n the trailer park? Do you live in a ‘man-you-fractured’ home?”
Warren hee-hawed, “You should call them T.P. Punk and Chinatown.”
“You read too many comics,” said Beth.
“You spend too much time in your coffin,” Warren shot back.
“That’s so funny I forgot to laugh,” she said.
Patrick interrupted the bickering, warning Remi and me: “You brats know only high-schoolers are allowed here.”
“We didn’t know,” I lied, hoping they’d let us off the hook.
“Hey, Chinatown, you know what happens to punks we catch on our grounds?” Dough Boy asked.
I clammed up. I knew exactly what happened. I scanned the schoolyard for garbage cans.
“What’s the matter, Chinatown? Cat got your tongue?” Dough Boy said.
Warren disagreed. “It’s the other way around. My brother says they eat cats.”
Was Warren’s brother the one who spread that awful rumour at my school? I wanted to tell him that his brother was wrong.
Dough Boy strolled toward me, “That true, Chinatown? You got a little meow-meow in your tum-tum? I’ll bet your old man makes cat stew. That’s why your store always stinks.”
My stomach twisted into a knot, and I felt like throwing up. Another case of teasitus, and I had it bad this time.
Dough Boy sniffed me. “Smells like kitty.”
“Leave him alone,” Remi warned. “He didn’t do anything to you.”
Beth stepped in front of my friend. “Trespassing and talking back. Tsk. Tsk.”
“You punks’re in deep trouble,” Patrick said.
Warren’s mule snicker cut through the air. “What do you want to do to them?”
The four teenagers surrounded us.
Beth said, “Let’s start with atomic wedgies.”
“Hang them from the soccer net,” Dough Boy suggested.
“Give them pink belly,” Warren said.
Beth added, “Nurples.”
“Hurts Donut,” Dough Boy said.
Warren yelled, “Wet willies!”
“I say we do it all,” Patrick said.
Patrick and Beth grabbed me while Dough Boy and Warren roughed up Remi. Dough Boy grabbed a fistful of the back of my friend’s underwear and yanked until Remi yelped. Meanwhile, Beth stuck her index finger in her mouth and pulled it out slowly. A string of saliva hung on her fingernail. I squirmed backwards, but Patrick held me. Beth waved her sticky finger in front of my face. I squirmed and twisted my head away. She waved her wet-willying finger so close to my face I could see that the rings on her hand were shaped like snakes.
“You guys have a problem?” The voice belonged to Monique.
Everyone turned.
Her arms crossed, Remi’s big sister glared at the goons. “No one picks on my brother,” Monique said.
Dough Boy laughed. “This punk’s related to you?”
“Let them go,” Monique warned. “Or else.”
“I can take care of myself,” Remi said.
“Yeah, and you’re doing a bangup job of it,” sniped Monique. “It’s a good thing I saw you two dorks sneaking around. You should know better.”
“Maybe this will remind him.” Dough Boy punched Remi in the arm. “Hurts, donut?”
Remi glared at Dough Boy but said nothing.
“Don’t do that again,” Monique ordered.
“Who’s gonna stop me?” Dough Boy taunted.
“My boyfriend Brian is supposed to pick me up any minute.” She flicked her long brown hair and glanced back at the street alongside the schoolyard.
“So?” Warren said.
“He’s probably coming with his hockey buddies. You remember the Bouvier Bobcats. Most penalty minutes for fighting.”
Patrick let go of me. Warren and Dough Boy glanced toward the street nervously. Only Beth didn’t seem fazed.
“The punks learned their lesson,” Patrick said. “Let’s go before they start bawling.”
He headed past Monique toward a blue car in the parking lot. Dough Boy and Warren let go of Remi and followed. The last to move, Beth sauntered toward Monique and bumped into her.
“You might want to lose some weight. I feel like a space ship in orbit around Uranus.”
“I see you’re still buying your accessories at the pet store,” Monique said.
The pale girl’s face reddened, but she recovered. She lifted her snake rings to her ear and pretended to listen to them.
“Do you know what they’re saying?” Beth asked.
Monique shook her head.
“They’re telling you to bite me.”
“Why don’t you slither back under the rock you came from?”
Snake Girl walked away, joining the guys as they climbed into a rusty blue two-door car. They sat in it, watching us.
Monique walked over to Remi. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, plucking at the seat of his pants.
“Good,” she said. She punched his arm.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“That’s for making me stand up for you. Now go home.”
A horn honked. Brian’s pick-up truck pulled into the parking lot. The truck’s box was full of the Bouvier Bobcats, the town’s hockey champions. Patrick and his gang drove out of the lot while Monique walked toward Brian’s truck.
Remi whispered, “This is our chance to get into the graveyard.” He sprinted across the track field toward the cemetery.
I followed him to the chain-link fence and row of fir trees that separated the track field from the graveyard. Even in broad daylight the cemetery looked creepy. The trees blocked out most of the light and the pine needles killed most of the grass. The tombstones looked like stubby fingers clawing out of the ground.
We climbed over the fence and landed next to a patch of prickly bushes. Most of the yellow leaves had either fallen off or were about to. A few yellow leaves attached themselves to the back of Remi’s jean jacket, but he didn’t stop to brush them off. He crept along a row of tombstones. Some were short and black, others were tall and grey and one section had plaques for a bunch of nuns who all died in the same year, 1918. I walked behind Remi, taking the time to read each marker. The inscriptions were in English and French — either “Rest in Peace” or “Au Revoir.” The English were buried next to the French. There were no divisions like there were at my school. Maybe only the living cared about Crossing The Line.
Then I spotted a marker that stopped my heart. On the squat stone base of a tall tombstone, an inscription read:
ALIVE
I whispered, “Someone’s buried alive under there. I think I can hear them thumping against their coffin, trying to get out. It’s horrible, terrifying, gruesome.”
“Duh! It says ‘Auve.’ That’s my great aunt’s tombstone.”
“Are you sure? It looks like it says ‘alive’.”
“Positive.” Remi knelt down and wiped dirt that had collected on the bottom of the ‘U’. The inscription now read:
AUVE
I breathed a sigh of relief. He crawled past the marker to the other row and picked up a beer bottle.
“Whoa.” He let out a low whistle. “Jackpot.”
Several beer bottles littered the patchy lawn around the tombstone.
“Whose marker is this?” he asked. “It might be a clue.”
I read the tombstone: “Dylan Green. Loving son and brother. Survived by parents Hank and Anne and sister Elizabeth.” The date was recent. “This guy died two years ago. He might be one of the Gangsta ghouls. That’s why the beer bottles are here.”
“That’s not proof that they’re drawing graffiti,” Remi said, sounding unsure.
A glint from the ground caught my eye. A metal can partly covered by wilting flowers sat beside a tombstone. I picked up the slender can. Black spray paint.
“Graffiti Ghoul was here!” I said.
Remi looked at the can. “You might be right, but why is he painting graffiti?”
Snap.
“Was that you?” I asked.
Remi shook his head and pointed behind me. “It came from over there.”
Four rows away, a shadowy figure ducked behind a tombstone.
TWELVE
“Garlic!” I yelled as I fumbled with the cap of my spice bottle. “Get the garlic!”
Faster than a gunslinger, Remi drew his spice bottle from his pocket, uncapped it, and shook it furiously over his hand. Nothing came out.
“It’s clumping!” he yelled.
“My cap’s stuck.”
“Turn the other way.”
I spun on my toes to the left. “This way?”
“No. Turn the cap the other way,” he said.
Finally, the cap popped open. All the garlic powder spilled out, leaving only a dash of zombie protection.
“I’m out,” I said.
“You had the full bottle.”
“The powder’s on the ground.”
“Scoop it up!”
I dropped to the ground, sweeping the grass for garlic but finding only dirt.
“It’s blown away,” I yelled. “Run!”
Instead, my friend waved his clogged bottle of oregano/garlic in the air and advanced toward the tombstone: “Get back, creature of the undead!”
“Don’t use it like that,” I ordered. “Throw it like a grenade!”
Remi nodded and lobbed the bottle high in the air.
Trina Brewster stood up from behind the tombstone and caught the bottle like an outfielder snagging a pop fly.
“Just what are you two doing?” she asked, examining the bottle.
“Trina?” I said.
“You guys said something about garlic and grenades?”
“I just farted,” I lied.
“Yeah, gas grenade,” Remi said. “Silent but deadly.”
“Smelled like garlic,” I added.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “Don’t tell me. Marty, you’re helping Remi find a tombstone for his sister to read.”
I stammered for an answer. “Well . . . it’s like . . . Remi . . . he . . . I . . . ”
“You wanted to cook something?” Trina waved the spice bottle.
