The Zombie Chasers

by John Kloepfer

  Madison sat down again and sipped her drink. “How’d you get out anyway, loser? And where’s all your makeup? I put a lot of effort into your new look.”

  “I found a rope ladder. I washed my face. And I hate your guts,” Zack answered.

  Madison’s ringtone burst into a Gym Class Heroes hook: “Take a look at my girlfriend, girlfriend….” She took a look at herself in the cell phone, pressed TALK, and shouted into the receiver, “Greg, I told you not to call me until you’re finished acting like an infant! There’s no such thing as zombies.” She hung up.

  Zack froze. “Zombies?”

  “What’s the matter, Zack? Are you afraid of the boogeyman?” she taunted him, a spooky tremble in her voice.

  “Who was it?” Zack demanded.

  “Greg Bansal-Jones,” Madison replied. “If you must know.”

  Oh, that Greg, Zack thought. He hated that Greg.

  Suddenly, a tremendous crash shook the whole inside of the house, and they both spun toward the kitchen doorway.

  “What the heck was that?” Madison shouted.

  A scalp-tingling triple scream rang out from the living room. But the wild Zomanthyan shriek was cut short, replaced by an uncertain silence.

  “Zoe!” Madison called.

  Slow footsteps boomed across the first floor. They grew louder, shuffling closer. “Do you think it’s a zombie?” Zack wondered out loud, realizing just how stupid the question sounded.

  “Okay, dill weed, new rule,” Madison ordered. “The next person who says the word zombie gets smacked upside the head, get it?”

  There was another loud crash, and they could hear a faint tortured moan that rose in volume with the footsteps.

  “Where’s Zoe?” Zack asked, his voice quivering.

  Madison pushed past Zack and listened through the doorway. “Zoe?” She paused. “Ryan?…Samantha? You guys okay?” Nobody answered. “Zoe? This isn’t funny. What’s going on?”

  A third crash interrupted the long creepy silence, followed by the low, deep-throated groan, rumbling with each unearthly gasp. They stood silently as the staggering, uneven footsteps grew louder. Zack inched closer to Madison.

  “Zack, what do we do? He’s coming this way!”

  Suddenly, the phone blared. Brrrrrrring!

  Startled, Zack leaped on to Madison and clung to her soft zip-up cardigan.

  “Eww, dude! Not so close!” She shoved him to the floor. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the kitchen table. Brrrrrrring!

  “Quick, Madison! Hide!” Zack lifted up the tablecloth. Madison rolled her eyes and trotted after him. She grabbed her purse from the seat and crawled underneath the table. Zack crouched down, settling next to her in a nervous clump.

  “Careful—I don’t want to get nerd all over me,” Madison whispered.

  “Shut up, Madison.” Zack jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow. She elbowed him back three times as hard. He mouthed the word ouch and pressed his finger to his lips for her to shush.

  Brrrrrrring!

  The limping shuffle grew even closer, the guttural moaning now in surround sound. The growling prowler stomped into the kitchen and stopped. The phone went silent. The intruder took heavy breaths punctuated with an abbreviated snarl.

  “He sounds gross,” Madison observed at full volume.

  “What do we do?” Zack mouthed the words, hoping she’d catch on. “What about Zoe?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, a little worry in her voice.

  The footsteps headed straight for the table. Madison and Zack both gulped air and held it in, exhaling silently through their nostrils. Petrified, Zack peeked under the bottom of the tablecloth, which hung only a few inches from the floor.

  A pair of tattered, muck-stained sneakers and khaki pants frayed at the cuff appeared in front of his face. The legs wobbled. The sneaker soles squished and squirted as he shifted his stance, reeking like week-old cold cuts.

  Madison pulled her shirt collar over her mouth. Zack’s stomach churned, and he did the same. Something flapped, dropping on the linoleum with a soggy thud. Zack gasped. It was a paperback book covered in a thick dark sludge.

  Old Man Stratton grunted and started wheezing in and out. He groaned and let out an awful wet cough that splatter-painted the kitchen floor with bloody red specks and gray-tinted globs of mucus. Zack shut his eyes.

  Brrring! Brrring! The phone started up again.

  The old man grunted once more and limped in the direction of the telephone. He grabbed the handset and ripped the cord right out of the wall, thrashing wildly. He heaved the receiver across the room, and then, whirling around, he battered into the fridge and tore the freezer door clean off. Soy ice cream thunked to the kitchen floor. A gust of cold steam obscured the man from the neck up. He reeled around, half-hunched and wild-eyed, his face deformed with massive swollen knots of flesh.

  The crazy old man staggered out of the kitchen and plodded into the hallway, his footsteps fading.

  “I think he’s leaving,” Zack whispered, his heart pounding.

  Madison grabbed Zack by the arm and dragged him out from under the table. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” Zack said. “We’ve got to get Zoe.”

  “She’s probably hiding somewhere. Or they got away already. Now come on!”

  She pointed to the sliding glass doors, and they raced across the kitchen. Zack fumbled with the lock.

  “Come on, hurry up!” Madison urged, chugging the last of her VitalVegan.

  Just as he was about to slide the door open, a pale gray fist pounded against the glass, cracking it into the shape of a spiderweb. Clutched in the hand was a limp, lifeless rabbit. Madison covered her mouth, heaving a little, her eyes bugging out.

  A swift wind carried a dark cloud across the moon, and the bunny squasher’s silhouette came into full view. His bloody, mangled arm glistened bright red. His torn black Burton T-shirt revealed a massive chest wound, ripe with rot, and his Etnies were destroyed. The zombie teen gripped a skateboard with his other decaying hand.

  “It’s Danny! One of the Zimmers!” Zack exclaimed in a shocked whisper, gazing directly into his neighbor’s cold, vacant eyes. Pale, sagging skin drooped from the twin’s face. His jaw jutted out a bit, and his upper lip was raised, revealing his yellow incisors. Zack and Madison watched through the shattered glass as the Zimmer raised the dead bunny to his open mouth and bit into its middle, spouting blood up onto his wretched face.

  “Zack, I don’t know what a Zimmer is,” Madison proclaimed, dumbstruck, eyes bulging, “but I think I know a zombie when I see one.”

  Zack paused for a second, cocked back his hand, and smacked the side of Madison’s head. She glared down at him; her eyes flashed fire. Zack just shrugged.

  “It was your rule,” he said.

  They turned around just in time to see the Zimmer twin, now a zombie twin, lifting his skateboard to smash through the door.

  “Okay, no more games, Zack! Run!”

  Madison and Zack whipped around and sprinted out of the kitchen and up the stairs, the crash of shattered glass echoing in their wake.

  CHAPTER 4

  Madison slammed the bedroom door behind them. Zack’s forearms tightened with goose-flesh as a chilly breeze whisked through the open window. The rope ladder hung ominously off the window ledge, its rungs smacking against the side of the house. Clack. Clack. Clack.

  Zack looked outside at the horrifying sight below: The neighborhood was alive with the undead. Zombie Samantha and zombie Ryan were ripping out clumps of each other’s hair, and whole chunks of flesh had been chomped right off their necks and shoulders. Mrs. Mansfield, Old Man Stratton, the other Zimmer twin, and all the neighbors were hideously deformed, every one of them hacking up blood, gutter-logged with zombie goop, flesh bubbles bulging and then bursting. They were everywhere, covering the lawn, the sidewalk, the street, staggering aimlessly, wailing deep subhuman moans.

  “Madison, get over here,�
�� Zack called.

  “How do you lock this door from the inside?” she asked, jiggling the doorknob.

  “You can’t. Just come look at this.” Zack’s eyes were glued to the scene below.

  Madison fished out another VitalVegan from her handbag and sidled up next to Zack. She took a casual sip, then looked out at the shambling swarm of bloodthirsty fiends. The zombies tottered randomly in every direction. Their arms were outstretched, disjointed limbs dangling out of their sockets, some slashed to shreds with bloody gashes.

  Madison let out a choked yelp, dropping the plastic bottle out the window. It seemed to pause in midair before the plastic clinked noisily off the wooden slats of the ladder.

  The zombies turned in unison, craning their necks toward the house.

  Madison sucked in air, preparing to let out a full-fledged scream. But Zack cupped his hand over her mouth, and instead, she just sputtered into his palm. He shot her a sideways glance and wiped his hand on the side of his pants. Gross.

  And then she screamed anyway.

  The festering mob’s dead milky eyes stared up at Zack and Madison. The zombies limped toward the house, converging in a slow, synchronized attack.

  “Great job, Madison,” Zack said sarcastically. “Just what we needed.”

  “Whatever, loser—” she started to say, before the phone rang again. Zack grabbed it off the windowsill and answered.

  “Let me call you back, Rice,” he said in a hurried whisper.

  “Zack, I swear…if you hang up on me, you can find a new best friend,” Rice threatened.

  “I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

  “Yeah, Zack, you and everyone else. Your neighborhood’s infested, man. The news is calling it a hot zone. I thought the zombies got you for sure.”

  Back at the window, Madison let out another hair-raising shriek. Zack wheeled around to look at her.

  “What the heck was that?” Rice asked.

  “Rice, sorry, just hold on a second. I’m not hanging up, just…” Zack’s mouth fell open, his eyes widening as Madison unhooked the rope ladder from the windowsill and tossed it over the ledge.

  “What’d you do that for?” he asked, the phone pressed to his shoulder.

  “One of them started to climb up!” she told him.

  “Well, how do you expect us to get down now?”

  “Did you really expect me to climb down into that…that…zombieville?” Madison crossed her arms and shook her head “Uh-uh, no way!”

  But before Zack could respond, the cracking hinges of the front door downstairs shot a tremor that rippled up through the wall and rattled the windowpanes.

  “Rice, we’re in real trouble, man. What do you know about zombies?”

  “Okay, Zack, first and foremost, don’t get killed by the zombies. If you die, I don’t really have any other pals to replace you with. So your primary objective is to stay alive and remain my best friend,” he finished.

  “Thanks, Rice, but seriously…” Zack pleaded.

  “I am serious. So…just be good and don’t die. Now, who else is with you?”

  “Just me and Madison.”

  “Oh, man, you’re in deep trouble,” Rice said. “Have either of you been bitten? Because if you get bitten, you die and, like, your body is reanimated, but your skin starts to rot and your eyeballs fall out and sometimes you have to pick them up and put them back in your face. Oh, dude, it’s so nasty—”

  “Not bitten, Rice,” Zack interrupted. “We just ran upstairs into my bedroom.”

  “You have Madison Miller in your bedroom?”

  “Rice!”

  “Okay, okay, just let me think for a minute.” He paused. “What’s she wearing?”

  “Rice, c’mon, man!”

  “Well?” Madison pursed her lips, losing patience.

  “He’s thinking.” Zack shrugged.

  “Give me the phone,” she demanded, grabbing it off his ear. She hit the speaker button and handed it back to Zack.

  “Excuse me, who am I speaking with?” Madison asked in a stern voice, pacing back and forth.

  “Uh…this is Rice,” he mumbled sheepishly.

  “Well, Rice, you better tell us everything you know about these things right now, or I’m gonna turn myself into a zombie, come hunt you down, and rip your guts out, understand?”

  “You can’t turn yourself into a zombie, Madison,” Rice said in a know-it-all tone. “Only a zombie can turn you into a zombie.”

  “Just lose the ’tude and tell us everything.”

  “Okay,” Rice began, sounding a little nervous. “The first thing you have to realize about zombies is that they’re just dead people who walk around and try to bite you.”

  Zack peered down at the carnage below. Zombies lurched across the lawn, heading toward the house. Some of them trampled through the bushes, smashing through the first-floor windows. The rest converged on the stoop, storming ravenously through the doorway. Black blood oozed out of their diseased bodies, dripping on the grass and the cobblestone walkway. Zack could hear them ransacking the first floor.

  “Dude, are you listening? If they bite you, you’ll get infected and become a zombie. This is what the zombies want most. That is, if they don’t devour you entirely. Luckily, though, zombies are pretty slow, so it’s easy to outrun them, but…”

  Zack swiveled his head around the room, looking for something with which to defend himself. “Okay, what else, man?

  Tell us everything!” He placed the phone down flat on the carpet.

  “Now listen up, guys.” Rice was getting serious. “You said you were up stairs in the bedroom? You have to get out of there. If you let the zombies box you into a corner like that, you’re both goners.”

  Zack reached under his bed and pulled out a toy gun. Across the room, Madison sat on the swivel chair, looking at her reflection in a compact mirror.

  “We’re being attacked by walking corpses who want to eat us, and you’re worried about how you look?”

  Madison pursed her lips. “If I’m gonna get killed by these zombie freaks, I’m gonna go out in style.” After applying lipstick, she offered some to Zack. “Wanna touch-up?”

  He aimed the gun at Madison and pulled the trigger. It flashed a red laser light, bleeping a futuristic melody. Madison stuck her tongue out.

  Suddenly, the unlocked door boomed and rattled. Someone-slash-thing was in the hallway, trying to pound its way into the bedroom. Madison stood up and pressed against the door with both hands, stiff-armed.

  “What’s going on over there?” Rice’s voice sounded from the phone on the floor.

  “Wuh-huh-huh…Rice, wh-what do I do?” Zack stuttered.

  “Okay, pay attention. The only way to kill a zombie is to completely destroy its brain or chop its head off.”

  Zack rushed to the closet, rifling through boxes, pulling down coat hangers. Nothing. He scurried deeper past his old DragonBall Z cards, kicking them out of Madison’s sight line. There was nothing except the thin yellow Wiffle ball bat propped in the corner.

  He backed up on his hands and knees, holding the flimsy plastic club. Madison exploded with laughter.

  “What? What’s he doing?” Rice spoke up.

  “He’s got one of those plastic baseball bats,” Madison scoffed. “The thing weighs like two ounces.”

  “Zack, get a grip,” Rice scolded. “You’re killing zombies, man! This is serious business. You need serious weapons.”

  Zack ran to his desk and started opening drawers frantically. He found a Swiss Army knife he never used and shoved it in his pocket. Then he pulled out a hammer he had forgotten to put back in his dad’s toolbox and raced back to Madison.

  She was bracing the door as the zombie banged relentlessly on the other side. Madison laughed abruptly, snorting through her nose.

  “What’s so funny?” Zack asked.

  “The door’s not even locked. Zombies are really stupid, huh?” Madison giggled, when suddenly the
wood splintered with a menacing snap. She flinched.

  “I wouldn’t laugh at zombies, Madison,” Rice said. “Try reading the Wikipedia entry and see if you ever sleep again.”

  One more thump and the wood gave way completely. The zombie’s gunky onion-yellow hand shot through the door, one inch from Madison’s face, reaching for something, anything, to claw.

  Madison screeched, pushing herself out of the zombie’s reach. Zack stood next to her, holding his weapon with both hands.

  “All right, Rice, I got a hammer,” he said. “Is that gonna do the trick?”

  “Absolutely,” Rice assured him. “When the zombie busts through, you’re gonna cave that sucker’s skull right in!”

  Zack stood still, hammer raised over his head, waiting. The zombie’s other arm came crashing through, followed by its gruesome head. Zack nearly brought down the hammer, when he saw that this zombie was none other than his sister.

  Zoe’s dark, stringy hair was matted with sweat. Blue veins pulsated up through the drooping skin on her face. Her pupils were constricted to thin, black slivers of evil. She hissed and growled, scratching at the air.

  “Oh my God!” Madison exclaimed. “Zoe looks really bad as a zombie!”

  Zoe managed to squeeze her upper half through the hole in the door, but her legs remained out in the hallway, walking in place as though she were on a zombie treadmill.

  Madison pulled out her camera phone and pointed it at the gargling, zombified beast that her best friend had become. She laughed and clicked, chuckling a little harder with every photo.

  “Hey, what’s happening?” Rice said. “You kill it or what?”

  “It’s Zoe!” Zack told him.

  “Dude.” Rice sounded excited now. “This is what you’ve been waiting for your entire life!”

  “I can’t actually kill my sister, Rice!” Zack shouted.

  “Fine. But if you’re not going to kill her, you have to knock her out. Whack her on the head with something hard, right between the eyes if you can,” Rice explained. “That won’t kill her, though. Eventually she’s going to wake up and try to get you again.”