Dead (A Lot)

by Howard Odentz

  Trina was the one who finally got her going. She opened her door and climbed out of the Hummer, crowbar in hand.

  “Fine. Let’s go get him,” she said.

  Prianka, still staring at the front door, pulled the handle and stepped out onto her driveway.

  “This sucks,” I muttered under my breath but followed them both out into the open. I’m not sure if I was more pissed off that we were stuck in this situation in the first place, or if Trina was slowly trying to emasculate me by getting out of the car first. In either case, you know that adrenaline rush you get when you are just about to be attacked in a video game? Well multiply that by ten, and that’s how I felt. I was practically jumping out of my skin.

  We trotted to the front door. Prianka stuck her key in the lock and opened it. We stepped inside and closed the door behind us.

  “Sanjay?” Prianka hissed, barely above a whisper.

  We slowly made our way further into the house. There was nothing. No sound. No shuffling of dead shoes on linoleum. Everything was mausoleum quiet.

  Creepy, creepy, was all I could think. The Patels obviously had a passion for the color red, because everything looked as though a giant tick had exploded and doused the whole house in blood. Red carpets, red curtains—there was even a plush, red couch in the middle of the living room. We didn’t head that way, though. Instead, Prianka turned toward a long, skinny hallway where I assumed all the bedrooms were.

  It seemed to stretch a million miles long.

  “Listen,” I said. “If there’s a poxer here, I want to know now.” I started banging at the walls and shouting. “Yo, you dead piece of dirt. Come and get us. We’re right here. An all you can eat, multicultural buffet.”

  Prianka rolled her eyes, as did Trina.

  I shrugged. “Cover’s blown. Let’s get him and get out.”

  “Sanjay,” Prianka screamed. “Sanjay, where are you?”

  “Not to be pessimistic and all,” I said, “But, you know, he could be one of them.”

  Prianka whirled around and snapped at me. “The guy on the radio said immunity was genetic. Didn’t you learn anything in biology, Tripp? Or don’t you listen? If you and Trina are both immune and you’re brother and sister, than Sanjay might be immune, too. He might still be here.”

  Ah, that was the Prianka I knew and totally detested. But I couldn’t deny her logic.

  “So what about whoever was watching him?” asked Trina.

  The door at the end of the hall swung open. Question answered. An old Indian lady wrapped in orange robes fell out. The orange clashed against the red walls. She was definitely infected with both bad taste and Necropoxy.

  “Way to manifest,” I said.

  “Gimme that thing,” Prianka growled and grabbed the crowbar out of Trina’s hands. She raised it above her head, dashed down the hallway and brought the heavy iron down on the poxer’s head.

  Again and again and again.

  “Where,” thwack, “is,” thwack, “my,” thwack, “brother,” thwack, “you,” thwack, “crazy,” thwack, “old,” thwack, “witch?”

  There was blood and gore everywhere. Trina gagged. I fell in love. Go figure.

  Prianka stood over the mass of tissue and body parts that she just created. Her back was to us, heaving up and down. She threw the crowbar to the ground and frantically began opening doors.

  “Sanjay?” she screamed. “Sanjay, where are you?” She disappeared through a doorway to the left, and we followed.

  “What the . . .” I said when we caught up to her. We were in an empty room with a giant, green, metal tube filling up almost the entire space. It looked like a mini submarine. Up against the wall were a bunch of oxygen tanks, the kind you see creepy clowns use to fill up balloons. The ‘submarine’ had two portholes on either side. Prianka ran up to one, cupped her hands around her eyes, and peered in.

  “Sanjay,” she screamed. “Thank God.” She bent over, breathing heavily. I thought she was going to pass out.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  She looked up at us, her dark eyes wet but filled with relief. “It’s a hyperbaric chamber,” she said. “It’s for my brother’s treatments.”

  Trina and I circled around the other side of the chamber and each looked through a porthole. Sanjay Patel, a frail little ten-year-old was sleeping inside on a pillow, his arms wrapped around a ratty stuffed dog. He was wearing an old football helmet.

  “Um, what kind of treatments?” I said rather slowly. The whole world just turned zombie on us. For all I knew the Patel’s were some weird sort of mad scientist family, and Sanjay was their pet project. Yesterday that would have been a little far-fetched—today, not so much. I mean, really? A hyperbaric submarine tank in your house?

  “He’s autistic, isn’t he?” Trina said.

  Look who jumped to the head of the class.

  Prianka and I both stared at Trina with surprise.

  “We just read about hyperbaric chambers in health,” she continued. “There are a whole bunch of studies showing that oxygen therapy is helping kids with autism. This is one of those machines, right? It gives him, like, super oxygen.”

  “Um, yeah, that’s right,” said Prianka as if the Lights couldn’t possibly be as smart as her.

  We all peered into the portholes again.

  “Are you sure he’s not dead?” I asked.

  “I don’t think poxers sleep,” snapped Trina. “And quit being such a downer. Where’s the fun, huh?”

  “It died last night with your boyfriend.”

  “Oh my God, Chuck Peterson’s dead?” gasped Prianka. As if, like, everyone wasn’t dead.

  “Tripp killed him,” said Trina. “He was jealous.”

  “Shut up,” I barked. “Prianka, how do you open this thing?”

  Prianka moved around to the front of the chamber and turned a big metal wheel. After a moment there was a popping sound, and the door swung open.

  Sanjay Patel started screaming like someone was murdering him.

  “It’s okay, Sanjay. It’s okay,” said Prianka. Her hands shot out in front of her to try and calm her brother.

  Sanjay Patel scrambled to the back of the long tube, hitting his head several times as he went, hence the football helmet. He cowered up against the iron wall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw me and Trina looking at him through the portholes, which caused him to scream even louder and bolt back to the middle of the chamber.

  He was like a mouse cornered by a cat.

  Finally Prianka started singing a weird, lilting tune, obviously in some Indian dialect.

  Nini baba nini

  Mackhan roti cheene,

  Mackhan roti hoa gia,

  Soja Baba Soja,

  Mera baba soja,

  Ninnie Nina baba so gaya, gaya.

  She finished with, “Sleep, baby, sleep.”

  Sanjay physically calmed down. Then, in a tiny voice, he repeated every word she sang, accenting the end, “Sleep, baby, sleep,” just like she did.

  Prianka held her arms out, and he shot into them, fiercely hugging her. She unstrapped his helmet and pulled his head free. A mop of unruly black hair, thick and curly, spilled out. She stood, and he wrapped his legs around her waist and put his head on her shoulder.

  “Scary,” he whispered as he clutched the ratty stuffed dog. “I hid from Mrs. Bhoola with Poopy Puppy.”

  “Yes you did,” she whispered into his ear. “You were very, very smart.”

  “Poopy Puppy was very, very smart,” he said. “Poopy Puppy showed me how to close the door from inside. Mrs. Bhoola got real mad.”

  Prianka hugged him tightly and once again let loose with the waterworks.

  Yuck.

  And the whole thing would have been a lot more touchi
ng if three poxers weren’t staring in at us through the window.

  7

  “PLEASE TELL ME we locked the front door,” I yelled as I raced down the hallway, leaping over what was left of Mrs. Bhoola.

  No go. The door was wide open. That meant that, one, we didn’t lock the door, and two, we weren’t alone.

  I slammed the door, turned the lock, and backed up against the smooth surface.

  “Zombies in the house,” I screamed, half ready to crap my pants.

  Trina ran down the gore-stained hall and snatched up her crowbar from where Prianka had dropped it. It was slick with Bhoola juice, but she didn’t seem to care. Prianka came up behind her with Sanjay still clinging to her like a monkey.

  “Poopy Puppy says kitchen,” he whispered to her. “I’m shutting my eyes now.”

  “You do that, little man,” I said. “Prianka, where’s the kitchen?” She didn’t have to answer me, because I heard a crashing sound coming from somewhere behind where the red couch sat.

  As a unit, we quietly slipped through the living room and peered into the kitchen beyond. The side-by-side refrigerator and freezer were wide open, and there was food everywhere. There was a fat guy, without a shirt on, sitting on the floor and gnawing on a piece of frozen steak.

  “That’s gross,” I said.

  “Which part?” asked Trina.

  “Fat people without their shirts on. I bet he has butt crack showing, too.”

  The fat poxer looked up at us from where he was sitting amidst the Patel’s weekly groceries and let out a long, low snarl.

  “Prianka. I don’t suppose you have a panic room?” I asked.

  She put Sanjay down. The poxer snarled even louder but seemed unwilling or unable to pull himself to his feet and away from the frozen piece of steak.

  Sanjay held Poopy Puppy up to the side of this head like a telephone. A moment later he spoke.

  “Poopy Puppy says in the 1968 version of Night of the Living Dead, running time one hour, thirty-five minutes and seventeen seconds, zombies can be killed by a bullet, a sharp blow to the head, or by fire.”

  Trina and I stared at each other in that silent way that implied that Sanjay Patel and Poopy Puppy were every bit as weird as the fat zombie in the kitchen. Prianka, however, reached over to a small end table that was positioned against the red couch and yanked open the drawer. She rummaged inside and pulled out a lighter. My mouth dropped open as she picked up one of a set of little plush pillows that were neatly arranged on the couch and lit a tasseled end.

  “Sorry, Mom,” she whispered to herself.

  “Are you kidding me?” I said. “What’s that supposed to do?”

  “You got a better idea, genius?” Prianka barked.

  “The crowbar worked really well on the old lady in orange,” offered Trina.

  “And I have years of therapy to look forward to for that,” said Prianka. “Just let me try something.”

  By that time, Fatso the frozen steak-eating poxer had gotten to his feet and began moving toward us.

  “Here, catch,” yelled Prianka just about the time that she would have had to drop the pillow anyway, because, you know, tacky polyester burns really fast. The burning fashion faux-pas hit the poxer square in the chest and dropped to his feet.

  It was like someone had doused the guy with gasoline. He went up in flames in a matter of seconds—clothes, skin, blubber, everything. The fire got so big so fast that the flames reached up to the Patel’s kitchen ceiling. In the middle of the tower or fire, Zeppo the zaftig zombie began to scream and scream and scream.

  Finally he exploded all over everything, and the kitchen was engulfed in flames.

  Prainka, Trina, and I turned and looked down at Sanjay Patel and the ratty little stuffed dog that somehow told him how to make a zombie barbeque.

  “Poopy Puppy’s smart,” he said with a big smile. “Poopy Puppy’s really smart.”

  Sure, I thought to myself. Creepy, creepy.

  8

  WE PUT OUT THE FIRE with a mini fire extinguisher that the Patel’s kept in their front hall closet, but their kitchen was trashed. Sanjay sat on the couch, his feet dangling because they didn’t reach the floor, with this big smile plastered on his face.

  “My parents are going to kill me,” Prianka said when the last of the flames were finally put out. The kitchen was a mess, and the whole house stank of too many fast food dinners all wrapped up in a pig’s blanket.

  “Where are they, anyway?” I asked.

  “My parents? They’re in India,” she said. “For three weeks. Might as well be three hundred thousand years at this point.”

  Uh oh. I braced myself for the waterworks again, but they never came.

  “At least I have Sanjay,” she said.

  “And Poopy Puppy” he quipped.

  Enough with the Poopy Puppy crap already—it was just too weird. Besides, we had bigger things to worry about. Trina had positioned herself by the front window. The poxers that had been staring in at us when we were in the hyperbaric chamber room were now clustered around the front stoop. I think they were deciding if the door was something they could eat or something they could go through.

  “What about your parents?” asked Prianka, so I told her about their trip to Vermont, their late night text, and their instructions to meet us at Aunt Ella’s house.

  “But who even knows if they’re still alive,” I said. The words felt funny coming out of my mouth, like I was trying them on for size for the very first time. The truth was we really didn’t know if they were still alive, or if they had been bitten, or something worse.

  “But they might be,” said Prianka. “So that’s where we’ll go.”

  “We?” I said a little too quickly.

  “Yes, we,” said Trina. “Anything has to better than this place. Littleham was already Deadsville before yesterday, anyway. We just have to figure out how to get through this little group of trick-or-treaters out front because they’re about to . . .”

  Bang!

  “Figure out how to get inside.”

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The gruesome trio had started on the door. Sanjay’s hands flew to his ears, and he screwed his face into a grimace of terror. I gathered up the remaining pillows from the couch. Truth be told, they should have been burned a long time ago, anyway.

  “Prianka, give me the lighter.”

  “As if,” she spat back at me and pulled it out of her pocket. “My house, my fire.”

  Ugh. Prianka—control freaking—Patel.

  “Whatever. So how do we do this?”

  Trina stood at the window and watched the poxers claw at the door. After a moment she quietly flipped the lock and tested to see if she could silently slide it up. She could. Trina pushed the window back down and turned to Prianka.

  “Pri,” she said. “Light one up for me.”

  Prianka plucked a particularly ugly pillow from my hands, lit one corner, and turned it upside down as the fire took hold. When the fabric started to burn she handed it to Trina.

  “Make it count,” she said. Trina pulled up the window, stuck her head out, and yelled at the poxer closest to her.

  “Hey, ugly,” she screamed. “Hot potato.” She winged the burning pillow at the poxer, slid the window down, and flipped the lock.

  The doorway immediately lit up like the fourth of July. The poxer she hit burst into flames, and the other two soon followed. Just like with the fat guy in the kitchen, they started screeching so horribly that Sanjay started to screech too. Within seconds we heard a series of loud pops and nothing more.

  I ran to the window and peered out with Trina and Prianka. The poxers had exploded all over the walkway. The front lawn looked like the gory floor of a slaughter house.

  Unfortunately, th
e front door was burning, too, as though someone had smeared tar on the wood and lit the place on fire.

  “Put it out,” I screamed.

  “You put it out. I’m not opening the door,” Prianka screamed back at me.

  “This is your house,” I screamed back.

  Sanjay just screamed and screamed and screamed.

  We both faced each other, our chests puffed out like chickens, until she turned from me and ran over to Sanjay.

  “Really, Tripp. You’re my hero,” muttered Trina. She grabbed the small fire extinguisher and ran back to the window, pulled it open, and climbed out right on top of the Patel’s shrubbery. She swore as I heard her stumble through the garden to the front door and start spraying. All the while, Sanjay kept screaming until Prianka, in her practiced way, calmed him down.

  Right about the time that he stopped screaming, Trina stopped spraying. A moment later she was back at the window.

  “Hate to be a killjoy, but we’ve got incoming from the golf course, and your roof is on fire. I think we have to leave.”

  “I need some things,” Prianka said. “Tripp, can you please sit with Sanjay. I’ll only be a minute.”

  Sit with him? And do what? Before I had a chance to say anything she disappeared down the bedroom hallway.

  “Hurry up, Pri,” Trina yelled. “We’ll have poxers here any minute, and your roof is smoking.”

  As for me, I just stared at Sanjay Patel and Poopy Puppy. We were light years apart. Sanjay rocked rapidly back and forth, his tiny shoulders hugging his ears. I had to confess I knew nothing about autism. He looked pretty normal to me. In fact, he had the same features as Prianka, with the same deep, olive skin and dark eyes. I reached over to touch his arm, and he practically jumped out of his skin.

  “It’s cool, Buddy. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He sniffed and stared straight ahead. “Who’s Buddy?”

  “Ah, um, it’s just a nickname.”

  “What’s a nickname?”

  I gingerly sat down on the couch, being careful not to get to close and spook him. “It’s a name you call someone instead of their real name.”