Night of the Zombie Chickens

by Julie Mata

  My dad puts an arm around my shoulder and squeezes. I know he’s probably thinking the same thing I am—that my mother prefers a bunch of organic, free-range, overachieving, diabolical hens to me.

  Alyssa Jensen plays the part of Mallory in Night of the Zombie Chickens. She’s been my BFF since first grade. She wants to be a Hollywood actress, so she really knows how to scream and get worked up. Alyssa has long legs and long arms and long blond hair. She totally looks like an actress, except sometimes her face breaks out. On a bad day, she obsesses about it in front of the mirror and squirts weird ointments on her face while I tell her she looks fine. Luckily, when she comes over later Saturday morning, her skin looks clear.

  She brushes her hair in front of my mirror as we lounge in my room. Alyssa has always been taller than me, so sometimes people think she’s older. She’s only in seventh grade, but recently two different strangers asked her if she was in high school. It doesn’t bother me. Well, maybe a little. No one ever thinks I’m in high school. Just last week the supermarket cashier asked if I was in a sixth-grade class with her daughter. I tell myself it’s just because I’m short. Still, I shoot a sideways look at Alyssa in the mirror and sigh.

  “Who’s the zombie of the week?” she asks.

  That’s a standing joke because I’ve had so many people play zombies by now that I’ve pretty much run out of actors. One Saturday afternoon we even threw a picnic and invited all the neighbors. When we were done eating, they put on their zombie clothes and chased Alyssa around the yard. It’s one of my favorite scenes.

  I hesitate because I know Alyssa won’t like the answer. “Derek,” I finally say. “And his friend Trevor.”

  Alyssa groans. “I thought you said he wasn’t allowed in your movie.”

  “They’re the only ones left. The mailman said no.”

  “Maybe it’s time to finish this movie, Hitch. I mean, seriously, how many more ways can a zombie attack me?”

  Hitch is her nickname for me, after Alfred Hitchcock, one of my favorite directors. I had a bizarre nightmare about bloodthirsty attack hens after I saw his creepy movie The Birds. That’s what gave me the idea for Night of the Zombie Chickens.

  Alyssa fidgets with a bottle on my dresser. “I mean, aren’t you kind of tired of working on this? It takes up so much time.”

  I’m so surprised that my mouth actually drops open. Alyssa and I have been making movies together for years. It’s the first time she’s ever sounded tired of it.

  “It’s almost done,” I say slowly. “I’m working on the last scene.” Which is true, if you count the hours I’ve spent thinking about it. “Anyway, it’s good practice for you. It’s not easy to become a Hollywood actress.”

  Alyssa shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

  But her voice sounds bored. Alyssa must notice my face because she quickly says, “I want to finish it! I’m just saying, maybe next time we should try a romance. Something where I get to wear a dress and I don’t have to scream. I read somewhere that if you overwork your voice when you’re young, you can get lesions on your throat.”

  Now she’s starting to sound like my mother. What’s gotten into her? “A romance? Are you joking? Who would play the lead?”

  “Scot Logan,” she says with a grin. I snort because Scot Logan only comes up to her chin.

  “Nathaniel Morgan,” I offer. She throws me a nasty look. Nathaniel is a squinty, skinny boy who’s liked her since fifth grade. “Or how about...Jake Knowles?” I say slyly.

  Alyssa has had a crush on Jake Knowles for three years. That’s a long time in girl years. She keeps insisting she’s way over him, but I’m not convinced.

  She gives a dismissive snort. “Yuck.” But a second later, she gazes dreamily at herself in the mirror like she’s trying to imagine how Jake might do as a romantic lead.

  “They’re all yuck,” I say. “I’d rather have a zombie chasing me any day.”

  “Fine. But you seriously need to come up with an ending.”

  “I’m trying! But you’re the only normal person left, remember? I want to have a happy ending, but it’s kind of hard when everyone else is trying to turn you into a zombie.”

  We look at each other and then we both crack up. To a stranger, our conversations would sound pretty strange.

  “Remember that old couple at Mickey D’s?” Alyssa asks.

  I was just about to open my mouth to remind her about them. That’s the great thing about Alyssa—we’ve known each other so long we pretty much have the exact same memories.

  I nod happily. “Yeah, I thought they were going to call the police.”

  “Remember the old guy’s face when we were talking about the best way to run someone over with a riding mower?”

  “Yeah, and what about his wife? I thought she was going to lose her french fries when I said we needed a bigger blood splatter.”

  We’re both laughing by now. We’ve probably had this exact same conversation half a dozen times already, but it doesn’t matter. In fact, it only makes it better. It’s like eating your favorite food—the longer you’ve been eating it, the better it gets.

  I guess I can’t blame Alyssa for getting tired of Night of the Zombie Chickens. We have been working on it a long time. Even your favorite food will get old if you eat it too often. I need to come up with an ending, quick.

  Anyone who thinks it’s easy to write and direct a movie is crazy. It’s a lot of work, especially when there’s zero budget and no crew. Still, I already know that making movies is what I want to do. Why? Because most of the time, real life is about as exciting as melting Jell-O. I love how Hollywood can make changing your socks look like high drama. In movies, animals can talk, people can fly, and chickens can turn into zombies. Anything can happen (if your budget is big enough). I can take my wildest dream and make it real. That’s why I want to make movies. That’s why, one day, I will be a big-time, big-budget Hollywood director.

  Alyssa has gone back to brushing her hair. It looked fine ten minutes ago, but I try to be patient. Secretly I’ve always been a little envious of Alyssa’s hair. It’s blond and shiny and straight. Mine is brown and frizzy. In fact, it’s no big secret that Alyssa is prettier than I am. My mom says we’re pretty in different ways, but that’s because she’s my mom, so she has to say that. My dad says I’m beautiful and Derek says I’m pug ugly, so I’m guessing I’m somewhere in between.

  Alyssa finally sets down the brush. “Maybe I should build a raft and float away on a river like I’m finding a new life.”

  “There’s no river near here,” I remind her.

  She looks over, suddenly excited. “Speaking of water, did you hear what happened to Lydia?”

  “She drowned?” I ask in a bored voice.

  Alyssa snickers. “Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? Jack Timner pushed her into the pool at the Y last night and her bathing suit top almost came off and Jack got kicked out.”

  “She probably untied it herself just to get some attention,” I grumble. “Like she doesn’t get enough already.”

  Lydia Merritt is the MPG of our class—most popular girl. I’ve seen girls actually push each other just to stand next to her so they could laugh at her jokes and soak up the glow of her popularity. Picture a pretty girl with a motor mouth, and everything she says is ten decibels above everyone else. Then picture her sailing down the hallway, flip-flops flapping, gum snapping, laughter screeching, surrounded by eager wannabes, and that gives you a pretty good idea of Lydia Merritt. She looks like she could be in high school, too, maybe because of all the makeup she wears.

  Completely out of the blue, Alyssa says: “You know, Lydia’s never been a zombie. Why don’t you ask her?”

  I’m shoving a cookie in my mouth, and I actually spew crumbs at this. After I hack and cough, I finally get enough oxygen to wheeze, “Are you nuts?” It occurs to me that maybe Alyssa’s been ch
ased by one too many zombies. Lydia would probably be polite on the phone if I were crazy enough to call her, but I’m not about to provide her with yet another Pathetic Kid Tries to Be Lydia’s Friend story. She already has enough of those. Not that I’m pathetic. But I’d sound that way.

  Alyssa fiddles with a lock of her hair. “I was telling everyone about your movie yesterday and how you want to be a director, and Lydia overheard me. She thought it was really cool, you know, that it’s about zombies.”

  “Wait a minute.” I sit up. “Where was this? And who is ‘everybody’?”

  “A bunch of people were just hanging out in the park last night.”

  She says it carelessly, but I feel a stab of jealousy. Before we moved to the farmette, I lived five blocks from Alyssa’s house and right around the corner from Granger Park, the neighborhood hangout. I could run over to Alyssa’s whenever I felt like it. Now every time I want to do something, it has to be scheduled. It’s a half-hour ride into town, so I end up missing the get-togethers in the park and the last-minute trips to the YMCA to shoot hoops. I miss just about everything.

  “What was Lydia doing there?” I ask. “I thought she lived on the other side of town.”

  “Her parents got divorced last summer, remember? Her mom got a place on Sycamore Street, so she and her sister live there now.”

  Sycamore Street is just a few blocks from my old house, which makes Alyssa and Lydia practically neighbors. I feel another twinge of jealousy.

  Alyssa has grown quiet and I know why. She’s thinking about her own parents. They divorced when she was only nine. I still remember crying with Alyssa the day she found out. Mr. and Mrs. Jensen were like my second parents. I couldn’t understand why they wanted to split up. I still don’t really get it. For a long time, Alyssa hoped they would get back together, but last year her dad remarried. She was so upset that she almost didn’t go to the wedding.

  “I know Lydia’s kind of annoying,” Alyssa tells me, “but she was practically begging to be in your movie. So I told her she’d be a good zombie....” She breaks off when I glare at her. “I had to say something! She kept asking me questions. I told her you’re always looking for zombies and maybe you’d call her.” She says this last part in a rush.

  And here’s the thing—I make a huge you traitor face at Alyssa, but secretly I’m kind of pleased. Lydia Merritt thinks my movie sounds cool. Which it is. But still. I get a funny tingle at the idea of Lydia coming over to my house, chumming around with us. What is it about fame and its feeble cousin, popularity, that makes normal people turn into mindless zombies? Alyssa senses I’m not totally dismissing the idea.

  “You have to admit, she’d be a lot better than Derriere and his weirdo friend.” Derriere, which is French for butt, is her nickname for Derek. He calls her Duh-lyssa. They’re definitely a mutual fan club. Alyssa hates that nickname, probably because her best subjects in school are gym and choir. After that, her grades go downhill fast. Derek only calls her that from a safe distance, because it definitely sends her off the deep end.

  The upshot is, after endless discussion, decisions, reversals, nervous screams, and picking up the phone and banging it down a dozen times, I finally call Lydia’s cell phone number, which, it turns out, she gave to Alyssa. I’m praying she won’t answer, but Lydia picks up right away, like she’s been waiting for me. As soon as I hear her voice, I wish I hadn’t called. My face gets hot and my brain freezes over, but it’s too late. Lydia’s waiting and I have to say something.

  “Uh, hi, Lydia, it’s Kate Walden.”

  “Kate!” she screeches. “The zombie director! That is so cool you’re making a movie! Alyssa told me about it, and I’m totally jealous she’s the star. When do I get to be a zombie?”

  That’s Lydia. She can totally charm you in half a second. I try to remember why I don’t like her. Even I have to admit, Lydia is pretty nice.

  Deep breath. “That’s why I’m calling. Alyssa and I are shooting another scene today and we need a zombie.” My mind is whirling. Should I try to be funny? I was going to use my little brother, so that just tells you how desperate we are, ha-ha. But if it doesn’t come off right, it will just sound lame. I decide to play it safe. “I was wondering if you might want to do it?”

  A loud, ear-ringing screech. “Are you kidding? Should I wear zombie clothes? What are zombie clothes? I’ve got these ripped jeans, and I could mess up my hair—oh, and I’ve got a vial of fake blood from last Halloween, only I think it might be dried up, but I could bring it along, and I’ve got black nail polish, and I’ve got some vampire teeth. Do zombies have fangs?”

  I have to admit, I’ve never had such an excited zombie, except maybe my dad. We get all the wardrobe stuff taken care of, and Lydia announces that her mom will Google our address and she’ll be there in an hour. I get off the phone feeling nervous. Really nervous. Because a lot can go wrong. And because I’ve just invited the MPG of our class to my home...and my home happens to be a chicken farm.

  Everyone I know lives within the city limits of Medford except me. We live in a farmhouse that was built a zillion years ago. It’s been “updated” over the years, which means it looks like it’s from the nineteen seventies instead of the eighteen seventies. It’s got orange shag carpeting and fake wood paneling in the TV room. The bathtub is harvest gold, which is secret code for puke-colored. We moved here a year ago after my mom decided she really wanted to be an organic chicken farmer. She says we’re going to redecorate as soon as we have the money, but now that she’s quit her high-paying job, that could be a while.

  The kitchen is the worst. It has a border near the ceiling with clownish roosters doing silly things: crowing, running—there’s even a rooster talking on an old-fashioned telephone. I wince whenever I look at it, but my mom thinks it’s cute.

  Another thought stops me cold. What will Lydia think of the real chickens? They’re free-range, which means my mother lets them wander all over our acreage. My dad is building a huge pen so they can roam outdoors and still be protected from foxes and hawks, but it isn’t finished yet. Hopefully Lydia will think they’re cute. I don’t have time to worry about it, because I still need to whip up a batch of fake blood.

  Making good fake blood is an art form, and I’ve become a bit of an expert. First, I have to decide how much blood I’ll need. Sometimes all I need is a cup. For the riding mower scene, I made a gallon, and it took me an entire day to wash down the garage.

  I love making blood. I feel a little like Dr. Frankenstein as I carefully measure out the ingredients. First, I dump some cornstarch and warm water into a bowl and stir them together. Once it’s smooth, I add corn syrup and a few tablespoons of red food coloring. Finally, I reach for my secret ingredient.

  The trick is to get the right color and texture. My early batches were too thick, and they ended up looking like watery cherry Jell-O. Definitely not scary.

  My secret ingredient isn’t really so secret, because I found the recipe on the Internet. It works really well, though. My blood was always the wrong color until I discovered powdered cocoa. Cocoa makes a deeper, darker red—something Count Dracula would really love to sink his fangs into.

  I stir and fuss, adding a little more cocoa, until finally my blood is perfect. The first couple of times I made up a batch, Alyssa and I would dip our hands in the blood and pretend our fingers had been cut off, or we’d roll back our eyes and let it dribble out of our mouths. But now we don’t even bother. We’d probably make great surgeons because the sight of buckets of blood doesn’t bother us at all.

  As I store the blood in a Tupperware container, a thought hits me. What if Lydia thinks my fake blood is stupid? I show the batch to Alyssa to see what she thinks. She swirls it around and holds it up to the light like it’s a fine wine. She dips in a finger, inspects the red smear, then licks it off.

  “Perfect,” she announces. “Lydia will love this.”
>
  I grin at her. Alyssa’s right—what’s not to love about fake blood? Of course Lydia will think it’s cool. She’ll probably scream and want to dip her whole hand in it.

  Still, some girls would get squeamish around fake blood, or they’d worry about staining their clothes. That’s the great thing about Alyssa. She’s always game for just about any crazy idea.

  Once, when I still lived in town, I decided to climb Medford’s old water tower after I saw Leonardo DiCaprio climb one in a movie. I thought about trying the new tower, but it was way too tall, and the security fence looked nasty. The old tower was perfect, though, just waiting for someone to climb it. Judging from the graffiti, a lot of people already had.

  “You’re nuts,” Alyssa said when I told her. “I wouldn’t climb that thing if you paid me a million dollars.”

  “It will be an adventure,” I told her. “If we don’t do crazy things now, pretty soon we’ll be too old.”

  “Jumping backward off the high dive is crazy,” she told me. “Climbing the water tower is suicidal.”

  “Leonardo did it in a movie,” I pointed out, but Alyssa just rolled her eyes.

  I set my alarm super early one Saturday morning and hopped on my bicycle. The sun was a round yellow yolk on the horizon as I pedaled to the edge of town. I imagined someone taking a huge fork and poking it until it broke. Would there be a nuclear explosion of gooey light pouring down Medford’s streets? I filed the idea away for a possible future movie.

  When I arrived at the tower, there was Alyssa leaning on her bike, grinning and pretending she’d been waiting for hours. She’d woken up early and was going to climb the tower with me even though she didn’t want to. That’s a true friend. I was really excited to see her, until I looked up. The tower suddenly looked enormous. It blotted out the egg yolk sun and threw its long shadow over the entire block. Still, I couldn’t back down, not with Alyssa there.

  We started up the narrow ladder. At first, it wasn’t too bad. As we got higher, though, Alyssa started to mutter that I was crazy. Pretty soon, she was saying it about every ten steps and her voice got more and more shaky.