“Dodgeball…,” Zack said, slapping the hard leather.
“Dude, you know I hate dodgeball.”
“Don’t worry, Johnston.” Zoe picked up a ball, too. “You won’t get picked last…you’re already on the team.” She spun the basketball on one finger.
“Head shots only, guys!” Ozzie commanded, picking an And 1 rubber basketball off the rack. He launched the rock at Mr. Milovich, clobbering him in the forehead. The zombified guidance counselor dropped to the lobby floor.
“Nice shot, Oz!” Rice said, giving props, and picked up a basketball of his own. The four of them rifled ball after ball with remarkable aim, blasting the zombies in their putrid noggins.
Suddenly the evil drama teacher, Ms. Merriweather, pounced up the steps, snatching for Zack’s feet. She wore a frilly blouse, covered in dreck and slime, and weird jeans pulled up too high above her waist.
Zack grabbed another ball and gunned it at the drama zombie’s pale, withered face, blasting its temple. SPLAMMO! The zombie teacher dropped in a vile heap.
“Did we win yet?” Rice asked, panting to catch his breath. He punted the basketball like a goalkeeper, too tired to throw anymore. The ball ricocheted off the ceiling and nailed Mrs. Ledger, the fifth-grade homeroom teacher, on the top of its dome. Rice pointed at the zombie. “You’re out!”
Suddenly, another drove of zombies shambled into the lobby from a side hall, like a video game blitz. They dribbled slimy snot strings, and knots of clotted pus dripped from their every quadrant.
“We’re not winning, man!” Zack yelled.
Rice threw another lucky shot that bashed Vice Principal Liebner in the head. “Really?” He pumped his fist. “’Cuz it feels like I’m winning…”
Suddenly, a zombie hand tugged at Zack’s shoulder from the side. He wheeled around. It was Mrs. Amorosi, the head librarian, groaning and slobbering at the top of the platform. Zack ripped his arm away, and the zombie stumbled back, but then lunged for him once more. A basketball whizzed by Zack’s ear and caught the off-balance bookworm square in the face. WHAM! The she-zombie wobbled and fell backward down the stairs.
“There are too many of them!” Ozzie shouted over the ruckus.
Zack’s belly filled with panic as more and more zombies rambled into the congested hallway of the school.
“No more dodgeball.” Zoe pouted, pointing to the empty racks.
The gym doors rattled behind them. Grotesque hands and arms shot through the frosted glass windows, reaching around blindly just above their heads.
“We gotta get outta here!” Rice cried, ducking under the canopy of zombie appendages.
Zack bounded off the steps, skidding in a slick puddle of something gross. Zoe, Ozzie, and Rice raced down the stairs, ducking and dodging through a windmill of rotted arms and legs.
All of a sudden, Senora Gonzalez shoved her way past two of her zombified colleagues, groping wildly for Rice once again. She hurled herself forward, tackling him into the glass trophy case.
“¡Arrozzzzzzz!” she bleated.
“¡No me gusta! ¡Por favor!” Rice shouted.
The zombie’s teeth made a dull clank as it gnawed at his face mask.
The crazed Spanish teacher would have bitten his face off if Rice had not been wearing his helmet. Zack grabbed a soccer trophy and clubbed the zombie in the side of the head.
“You okay, man?” He pulled Rice up out of the shattered trophy case.
“Think so,” Rice said, brushing himself off as he shot Senora Gonzalez a scornful look.
“She’s really got it in for you today, huh?”
“Blaarrgh!” The Milovich zombie pulled itself off the floor and lashed out at the boys once again, but Zack hopped back and socked it with a swift swing of his bat.
“You didn’t see my parents, did you?” Rice asked.
“Not yet, buddy. Not yet.”
“Come on, guys!” Zoe shouted, waving her arm next to Ozzie in a nearby doorway.
They sprinted through the middle school–turned–zombie madhouse until they came to a vacant corridor.
Or so they thought.
CHAPTER 10
A rowdy pack of undead adults raged at the end of the hall. The zombies thrashed at the walls, tearing the posted bulletins and student artwork to the floor. They flailed their disjointed limbs against the lockers. Whap! Bang! Clang!
Zack, Rice, and Zoe tugged on all the doors, looking for an escape, but the classrooms were locked. All except for one. It was Mr. Budington’s first-period science class. Zack shooed everyone inside and shut the door quietly, locking the knob. Everybody caught their breath.
“That was close,” Zoe huffed.
“It’s not over yet.” Ozzie put his ear to the door. “They’re coming.”
“Okay…okay, we need a plan.” Zack scratched his head. “Rice, what’s the plan?”
“I don’t know. Ozzie, what do we do?” Rice asked.
“Well,” Ozzie thought out loud. “My sensei taught me all sorts of combat strategies….”
Welcome back to The Life and Times of Oswald Briggs, Zack thought.
Ozzie continued. “Have you ever heard of the ‘Lure and Destroy’ maneuver?”
“No, but it sounds awesome,” Rice replied.
“Basically, it means we have to set a trap or cause some kind of diversion and then escape when the enemy’s distracted.”
“Wouldn’t that just be called ‘Lure and Escape’?” Zack asked.
Ozzie just stared at him.
“What are we supposed to distract the zombies with?” Zoe asked.
Rice marched across the science lab. A glass display jar glimmered on the sunlit windowsill. It was Mr. Budington’s human brain specimen. Rice picked up the jar and carried it over to the teacher’s desk. The brain was a squiggly mound of pruned tissue, floating in the nasty yellow water.
“Rice, what are you doing with that?” Zoe demanded.
“Don’t you know what this is?” Rice asked solemnly.
“That creepy Meredith Jenkins girl told me it’s Mr. B.’s actual brain.” Zoe cringed. “Ewww.”
“That brain’s not even real,” Zack scoffed.
“Oh, it’s real all right.” Rice unscrewed the lid and reached into the jar. “I’ve always wanted to touch it.” He pulled out the brain bare-handed and plopped it on the desktop. “The smartest brain the world has ever known.” Rice poked at it with a stray no. 2 pencil. “Albert Einstein.”
“Shut it, Rice!” Zoe pinched her nose as the thick formaldehyde fumes filled the classroom.
“Rice, seriously.” Zack groaned. “Put that thing away.”
“Zack, seriously, no,” he retorted.
“Why not?”
Rice smiled, the hunk of brain-meat resting on his upturned palm. “Because this is the bait.”
BAM! BAM! The whole wall shook, and they all whipped around.
Zack ran over to the door and peered out the little cross-hatched window. It was Mr. Budington.
And he wanted his brain back.
On the other side of the door, the zombie teacher banged violently, attracting more zombies with every thump.
Rice grabbed a piece of chalk and quickly scrawled PROFFESER RICE on the blackboard. Spelling had never been his strong suit. He paced self-importantly at the head of the class, hands clasped behind his back, like a brooding college professor. “Please.” He gestured to Zack, Zoe, and Ozzie to have a seat in the front row.
“Let me ask you one question: What do zombies love more than anything?” Professor Rice paused for a response, stroking an imaginary beard.
“Snorting?” Zack said from the front row.
“Moaning?” Ozzie guessed from the desk next to him.
“I liked the ripping-people’s-faces-off part,” Zoe said. “I mean, when I was a zombie.”
“Brains, you guys!” Rice said, disappointed. “Now let me ask you another question. Why do you think the zombies always appear out of nowhere, even when we’re being quiet
?”
“Because they’re everywhere?” Zoe said.
“That’s true, Ms. Clarke, but no…. It’s probably because the zombies have extrasensory receptors to home in on our brains.”
“You mean, like, the virus uses the dead brains to hunt for other brains?” Zack asked.
“Precisely what I was thinking, Mr. Clarke.” Rice nodded. “Gold star for you.”
“So what’s your brilliant plan, then?” Zoe asked brattily. “There’s, like, fifty thousand of those yuck-mongrels out there, and all you have is one puny brain.”
Mr. Budington thumped angrily outside in the hallway. “Braaaaiins!” he bellowed.
“That’s why we need something to cut it with,” Rice explained, ignoring the angry, undead teacher.
“This’ll work….” Ozzie whipped out his survival knife from a green plastic sheath fastened to his utility belt.
Rice took the knife, grinning. He touched the sharp blade to the meaty brain squiggles. Everyone groaned as Rice cut the brain into cross sections as if he were slicing a loaf of bread. The steel squished and squeaked through the rubbery specimen.
“I can’t watch this.” Zoe clutched her stomach and turned away.
Mr. Budington howled and groaned, banging on the door.
Twinkles licked a slice of brain. Zack and Zoe recoiled with disgust.
“Looks like he’s still got a little zombie left in him.” Ozzie chuckled as Rice finished carving the brain slabs.
“Now, for step two,” Rice said. “Gimme a hand, Oz.”
Rice and Ozzie pushed the teacher’s desk against the wall, and Ozzie boosted Rice up so he could reach the top of the little window over the door.
“Suppertime!” Rice called down from his perch, opening the window. As he dangled the brain slices over Mr. Budington’s head, the pounding on the door stopped. Rice then threw the cross sections Frisbee-style down the hallway. “Fetch!” The little brain patties smacked and slid across the linoleum floor. Dinner was served.
Zoe opened the door and watched as the zombies flocked to the cannibal’s meatloaf at the other end of the hall. Zack could hear the squish and slurp of chewed brain.
Om nom nom. Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom.
Undetected by the feasting ghouls, Zack, Zoe, Rice, Ozzie, and Twinkles slipped out and finally made a break for the principal’s office.
CHAPTER 11
Standing outside the office, Zack knocked lightly on the locked door. They waited in the uncertain silence. “Mom, are you in there?” he called out in a raspy whisper.
“Zack?” A muffled voice responded through the wood. The door opened an inch. Mrs. Clarke peeked one eye out through the crack and sighed. “Oh, thank goodness.” She swung the door completely open, hustling them inside the principal’s office.
Zack hugged his mother tightly around her waist. She clutched his head to her chest.
“Hi, Mrs. Clarke.” Rice waved sheepishly.
“Hello, Johnston,” she replied. Like mother, like daughter.
“Have you guys seen my parents around?”
“Sorry, honey. It got so crazy, we don’t know if anyone escaped.”
Rice bit his fingernail, starting to look worried.
“Where’s Dad?” Zack asked.
“I’m up!” Mr. Clarke groaned, peering over the desktop. Zack’s dad rose from the floor slowly, limping, with a big gash on his knee. Zack hugged his father.
“Hello, Rice,” Mr. Clarke grumbled. “Who’s this guy?”
Ozzie looked up from polishing the fermented brain residue off his survival knife. “Oswald Briggs, sir,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
Zoe snagged a seat in Principal Lynch’s whirly-chair and put her feet on the desk, with her hands behind her helmet. “Hey, Dad,” she said. “Your leg isn’t looking so great.”
“Zoe?” Mrs. Clarke asked with surprise. “Is that you?”
“Hello, Mother.”
“I didn’t even know that was you under there,” she said. “Take off the helmet.”
“Sorry,” Zoe said. “It’s for your own protection.”
“Don’t be silly. Take it off.”
“You asked for it.” Zoe removed the headgear.
Mrs. Clarke shrieked at the sight of her daughter’s sore-freckled face. Zoe started to cry. “It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay…,” Mrs. Clarke comforted her. She clutched Zoe tightly and stroked her stringy hair. “Your father and I know a wonderful plastic surgeon.”
“Hey, honey—we can worry about our daughter’s face some other time.” Mr. Clarke turned the principal’s computer around on the desk for everyone to see. The Web browser was open to YouTube with HOSTAGE MAKEOVER paused on the screen. Zack’s face was being smeared by three different lipsticks at once. “You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady.”
“It’s true,” Mrs. Clarke said, holding Zoe’s shoulders. “Getting called into the principal’s office during parent-teacher night does not a happy parental unit make.”
Rice nudged Zack. “Why’s your mom talking like Yoda?”
“Whatever,” Zoe said, nibbling at her nails, her face a bored mask of whateverness.
Zack’s parents glowered at their firstborn child. Rice looked at something interesting on the ceiling and whistled a nervous tune. Ozzie glanced out the window, scanning the schoolyard for zombie threats. Zack waited for justice to be served.
“I think we need to call a family meeting,” Mrs. Clarke suggested.
“Right now?” Zack and Zoe whined at the same time.
“Look…” Ozzie stepped in. “Mr. Clarke, Mrs. Clarke, you two seem like swell parents and all, but as I’m sure you know, this place is crawling with zombies who want to eat us, and we should really get moving while we have the chance.”
“Ummm…” Rice gestured at their only exit. “There goes our chance.”
Everyone turned toward the office door.
Mr. Clarke said a bad word, which was bleeped out by Mrs. Clarke’s scream.
Principal Lynch loomed in the doorframe, casting a huge zombie shadow across the floor. The big man wore the grin of a hungry predator that had just spotted its next meal. Zombie Lynch bellowed and yowled.
“Ahhh!” Zoe tipped back too far in the whirly chair, falling backward behind the desk.
The zombie’s face was wet and clammy like a piece of deli ham. A tree of blue veins throbbed in its forehead.
Ozzie whirled his field hockey stick and ran at the superintendent of ghouls. He bounded forward with a flying side kick.
The zombie principal swatted Ozzie to the floor with a single swipe of its gargantuan arm. Ozzie whacked his head against the edge of a file cabinet and slumped down, motionless.
I told him to wear a helmet, Zack thought.
Zombie Lynch limped forward, lumbering, a rope of gray, tangled snot swinging from its walrus-like mustache.
“Ready, Rice?” Zack looked at his buddy, and together, they charged.
Principal Lynch swung an arm again, backhanding the boys, which sent them both flying straight through the secretary’s cubicle.
Zack’s father hobbled forward, swaying like a wounded boxer. Apparently, the monster Lynch wanted to pick on someone its own size, or the next closest thing to it. The zombified principal lunged at Mr. Clarke, wrapping him up in its huge, bulky arms. The two grown men toppled to the floor.
Mr. Clarke fell flat on his back, underneath the massive zombie freak.
Then, just as the zombie principal was about to clamp its filthy maw onto Zack’s dad’s shoulder, a deafening screech pierced the air. Rice was pressing the little squeaker button on the megaphone, and the zombie brute whipped its head around in the direction of the high-pitched noise.
Ozzie shot up, wielding the field hockey stick. He took two quick steps and swung like a pro slugger, smashing the sleek wooden cudgel into the soft temple of the zombified principal. The stick cracked in half. The zombie’s spine went weak, and its head flopped to one side. A pus-li
ke glob of cranial brain mucus spewed forth from the principal’s puke-white ear as the headmaster ghoul dropped to the floor.
The contaminated blob landed directly on Mr. Clarke’s wounded knee.
“Oh, it stings!” Zack’s dad cried, clutching his thigh.
“Dad!” Zack shouted.
“Ewww…” Zoe squealed at the icky brain goo seeping into her father’s leg. “So grody.” She gave a little shudder.
“Do something!” Mrs. Clarke yelled, scurrying over to her husband. She knelt down next to Mr. Clarke and blotted the slime-filled gash with her shawl.
“Stop, Mom,” Zack said. “You’re just smearing it in.”
“Is that bad?” she asked.
“I don’t know—is that bad?” Zack asked Rice. “I mean, he wasn’t bitten. You said the only way to be turned into a zombie is to be bitten by a zombie, right?”
Mr. Clarke howled louder. “That hurts!”
“Yeah, but…” Rice cleared his throat. “That was before we knew about BurgerDog.”
“So what are you saying?” Zack asked. “My dad’s gonna turn into a zombie?”
“It’s gonna be okay, man.” Ozzie put a comforting hand on Zack’s shoulder.
Zack didn’t respond, remembering the zombie colonel and thinking about how much he wanted his dad to stay his dad.
Rice pointed to Mr. Clarke’s leg and made a dubious face. Blue swollen veins squiggled out from the infected flesh wound, spreading the zombie virus up the thigh and down the shin.
Ozzie squeezed past Zack and Rice. “How’re you doing, Mr. Clarke?”
“How does it look like I’m doing?”
Ozzie pulled out his survival knife. “Listen, sir. I know this isn’t ideal, but if we act now, we can amputate the leg about midthigh before it spreads up any higher.”
The shiny blade caught some light and sparkled in Ozzie’s hand.
“Zack?” Mr. Clarke said, his eyes bugging out. “You keep this little psychopath away from me and I’ll buy you anything you want.”
Ozzie crouched down and examined the viral infection, scraping at it gently with the side of the knife. “We gotta get rid of this leg pronto.”
Undead Ahead Page 5
