“Just takes one personal trainer with a bite and then—” Chris held out his arms and did his best zombie impression. Which John had to admit was pretty good.
“Nuh-uh.” He refused to accept it. “Iron Man lives.”
“All right.” Chris lobbed a red ball at his friend, choosing not to think about the sticky substance on his hand. For the first time in history, he hoped it was blood. “What about Ryan Gosling?”
“Alive, dead, the guy’s still cool,” John answered.
“The Rock?”
“Probably got bit trying to save people,” John said, sucking the air in through his teeth. “He’s just that kind of a guy.”
Chris considered this for a second before accepting his answer.
“Taylor Swift?”
“Jesus, Chris!” John leaped to his feet, showering the other boy with balls. “Why would you even say that? Tay-Tay is fine!”
“Yeah, all right,” Chris said, staggering to his feet. “I was just—”
“She’s fine!” John shouted. “Tay-Tay is fine, Meredith and Olivia the cats are fine, and oh my God, you’re a sick man, Christopher! Sick in the head!”
Chris watched as his buddy marched off, his face falling as he went.
“You don’t think they’re hurting cats, do you?” he asked in a little voice.
* * *
In the ladies’ bathroom, Anna dialed her dad’s mobile number again. Steph perched on the edge of the sink, flipping the pages of her notebook back and forth while they waited for the answering service to kick in. This was the seventeenth time she’d tried; Steph was keeping count. She had a solo bet that they’d make it to twenty before Anna gave up.
“One more time,” Anna said, hanging up and pressing redial. Just as the call started to ring out, there was a splash in the farthest stall. Both of them jumped and silently screamed. Anna pressed the phone against her chest as they went to investigate, together. Slowly, so slowly, Steph pushed the door open with her foot as Anna held her breath. There was someone inside. Pausing for just a second, Steph reached down and found Anna’s hand. They’d been in the bowling alley for hours. Steph and Anna had been in the restroom for ages. Anyone who was still hiding in there was hiding for a reason, unless … unless it was—
“Mrs. Hinzmann,” Anna said, breathing out heavily. “It’s the cleaning lady. She must have fallen asleep.”
“Oh, okay,” Steph said, laughing awkwardly. “Time to wake up, Mrs. Hinzmann, it’s the end of the world.”
And then her eyes snapped open. Red, gray, and completely vacant. It was already too late for Mrs. Hinzmann.
“Run!” Anna screamed, but Zombie Hinzmann burst out of the stall, grabbing at the pair of them. Anna and Steph each grabbed an arm, trying to force her back into the stall, keeping as much distance as possible from her gnashing teeth. But undead Mrs. Hinzmann was a lot stronger than the senior citizen they’d left mopping the floors the night before.
“She’s got some guns on her for a cleaning lady,” Steph choked as Hinzmann grabbed both of them by the throat. All three of them crashed into a freshly plastered wall, leaving a giant crack right down the middle, not to mention the imprint of Anna’s and Steph’s skulls. Anna opened her eyes to see Mrs. Hinzmann rising slowly to her feet and zeroing in on Steph. She rolled over and knocked a dazed Steph out of the way before shoving Mrs. Hinzmann forward into the hand drier. It whirred to life, blowing Hinzmann’s hair into a frizzy halo, and her loose skin rippled up in waves. As Anna tried to catch her breath, Mrs. Hinzmann charged, but this time, Steph was ready. She hooked the cleaner around the waist and hurled her back into the stall. She landed face-first in the toilet bowl.
“Gah!” Steph exploded, slamming the toilet seat down onto Mrs. Hinzmann’s head over and over and over as blood sprayed up, saturating her white shirt and gray sweater with streaks of brains and gore. Anna watched as Steph continued to pound the seat onto Mrs. Hinzmann’s head until there was nothing left to pound.
And then it was over.
14
ANNA STARED IN horror at the carnage in the bathroom. The white walls were streaked with blood, as was Steph’s face. The newly plastered wall had a crack running from top to bottom, and Mrs. Hinzmann’s lifeless legs were stretched out on the floor as the stall door flipped slowly back and forth. It would take hours to clean this place up, and they’d just decapitated the cleaner. She bit her lip and considered the irony. Steph sat opposite, arms still outstretched as if she couldn’t bend them, a look of sheer terror on her face.
But there was no time to recover. The bachelor party from the night before came crashing through the crack in the wall, still wearing their reindeer antlers, still obnoxiously loud, only this time, they were zombies. It was, Anna decided, marginally worse.
* * *
“Your turn,” John said to Chris as his ball rolled sadly into the gutter, bypassing each and every pin. His seventh gutter ball in a row.
“I’m calling for a strike this time,” Chris said, picking out his favorite ball—a shiny silver one—and lining himself up to make the shot. Just as he let go of the ball, Anna and Steph came tearing out of the restroom, screaming at the top of their lungs.
“They’re inside!” Anna shouted. She stopped short, right in front of the lane as Chris’s ball sailed heroically down the polished wood, charging on in a straight line. She felt every muscle in her body seize up as it collided with the pins for a strike.
“Oh God, no,” Anna moaned as the UV lights lit up the entire bowling alley and the celebratory music started up at a deafening volume. She already had a Pavlovian response that made her want to punch herself in the ears every time she heard that dubstep beat kick in, and now she had to listen to this nonsense and fight zombies to the death? What a way to end a Wednesday.
The bachelor party swarmed out of the bathroom, dead eyes opening wide at the sight of fresh meat. One tried to grab at Steph, but she was too fast. This was not her first zombie rodeo. She kicked him hard and he fell backward into the front desk, fumbling at the sound system. For a moment, Anna thought even the undead were offended by the music, but no, he actually turned it up.
“They truly are evil,” she whispered.
Before anyone could get even an inch closer, Anna grabbed a broom and walloped the groom-to-be in the head, knocking him clean off his feet. Slowly, she backed up toward the front door.
On the lanes, Chris was dealing with his own worst nightmare.
“Hey, it’s Steve, isn’t it?” he said, waving as a giant, muscle-bound zombie approached. “I recognize you from the garage, you fixed my gran’s car after I accidentally filled it up with diesel.”
But if Steve recognized Chris, he didn’t show it. The only thing he recognized was food. The firm ground under Chris’s feet gave way to the slippery polished surface of the bowling lane and he felt his feet sliding around beneath him.
“Oh no,” he muttered, struggling to stay upright as Zombie Steve continued his newly unstable pursuit.
“Uh, what do I do?” John shouted as Alf, the manager of the garage, clambered over the ball dispenser toward him, festooned with tinsel and guts.
“It’s like the movies,” Chris shouted back, still embroiled in his own nightmare. “Destroy the brains!”
John reached into the ball dispenser and grabbed two bowling balls, one in each hand, and just as the zombie reared up at him with its mouth wide open, he swung them together, crunching Alf’s skull between them.
“I did it!” John shouted over the thudding music. “I actually did it!”
Then he looked down at the mess of blood and brains and immediately vomited all over the ball dispenser.
* * *
Anna swung her broom handle back and forth as the attacks kept coming. She realized decapitation wasn’t enough—like with the snowman. You had to smash their heads in. This zombie was the one who booked the party, she recalled as she swiped at his head, this was the best man.
�
�You won’t get the best of me,” she promised, hitting him again. But he brushed off her swings like they were nothing. This one was stronger than the others. Back by the ball dispenser, John wiped his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve. He looked across the room and saw Anna in danger.
“Behind this!” he shouted, pointing to a table that sat between the two of them. Anna swerved around the Best Zombie and dashed to John’s side, flipping the table onto its side to create a kind of bunker. But the zombie didn’t stop. He charged right into them, pushing the table and the two best friends along the floor toward the ball pit.
“We’ve got to jump,” John commanded. “On three.”
Anna nodded, her heart in her mouth.
“Three!”
Anna jumped.
“Two?”
John stared at her, still being shoved along with the table.
Only inches away from the edge of the ball pit, he dove out from behind the table. Unable to stop himself, the zombie and the table flew into the pit, disappearing under a sea of multicolored balls.
“I said after three!” John said, staring at her with disbelief.
“You said on three!” Anna corrected, rubbing her new bruises. “You need to think more carefully about your choice of words.”
“‘Think more carefully about your words,’” John mimicked. “I nearly got eaten by a bloody zombie!”
“And if we don’t move there’ll be no nearly about it,” Anna replied, pushing herself up to her feet as the zombie rose from the balls, gurgling in anger.
John grabbed a broom of his own as Anna recovered her weapon from the floor, and the two of them beat the Best Zombie down to his knees.
“Do it!” Anna shouted, bashing him in the head as John hovered over him with his broom handle.
“But it’s gross!” John replied, waiting for the right moment until he realized there was no right moment and it was now or never, and jammed the broom handle right through the zombie’s head.
Anna dropped her stick and took a step back as a pool of blood spilled out around their feet.
“Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed, grabbing John for a celebratory hug. “That was gross.”
* * *
Over at the snack counter, Steph still had problems. Brad, the zombie groom-to-be, had her backed into a corner. She felt around the counter for a weapon, a knife, a rolling pin, anything sharp or heavy, but no, all she could find was a burger spatula.
“Fuck off!” she yelped, thwipping him in the face with the kitchen utensil. But it did not put him off his mission. Running out of time, Steph took a deep breath, holding the spatula up in front of herself as he loomed above her with his jaw wrenched open, unnaturally wide, his teeth already rotten and covered in shredded flesh. Then Zombie Brad did what no one did without permission. His outstretched hands landed directly on Steph’s boobs and clenched. And just when it didn’t seem possible for her to hit a new level of rage, she did.
“I said, FUCK OFF!”
She turned the spatula around and shoved the handle up through his chin into his mouth, pushing until she felt the roof of his mouth give, and it disappeared up into his brain. She let go before he could try to bite, and the zombie slumped forward and Steph leaped over the counter to help the others.
* * *
Chris was struggling. Even though he knew what to do, how to finish them off, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. But Zombie Steve was crawling along behind him, grabbing at his ankles, and Chris was out of space to run. He grabbed one of the bowling pins, taking its weight in his palm. It was heavier than he’d expected. Turning quickly, he clocked Steve in the side of the face, knocking the zombie onto his back before raising the pin high over his head, ready to do the deed. But there was something in Steve’s eyes that made him pause.
“Can—can you understand me?” he asked, his arms wavering under the weight of the bowling pin.
Steve grunted and Chris could have sworn he saw him nod. There was only one way to know for sure if there was any humanity left in him. Chris would give the zombie the ultimate test.
“Who’s your favorite Bond?” he asked, lowering the pin. “Most people say Connery, but for me it’s—ahhh!”
Zombie Steve failed the test. He grabbed at Chris’s collar and dragged himself up to his feet, opening his mouth as he smelled the sweet scent of fresh flesh at Chris’s throat. Chris closed his eyes and whimpered when suddenly, he felt the zombie let go. Without wasting a single second, he ran, only stopping to look over his shoulder when he was sure he was out of reach. A perfectly played bowling ball took out Steve’s legs, hitting the back of the lane and signaling a strike. The metal arm that swept the fallen pins away came down with an almighty bang, slicing off the zombie’s head and sending an epic fountain of blood arcing up, high into the air. Chris looked back to the top of the lane to see Steph, still holding her bowling pose.
“Strike!” she called, busting out a celebratory dance. Until Zombie Steve’s disembodied head rolled out of the ball dispenser.
“Ew.” Steph frowned, stepping slowly away as the head continued to chomp and groan. “That’s disgusting.”
* * *
For a moment, there was silence.
The foursome took in the horror all around them, the bodies scattered around the bowling alley. Steph’s legs turned to jelly at the sight of the zombie massacre. She reached across the desk and turned off the music and UV lights. Somehow it looked even worse.
She slumped backward and attempted to comb some of the dried blood out of her hair, completely unaware of the zombie groom behind her, spatula still sticking out of his mouth. And then she saw him, huge and frenzied and coming straight for her. She opened her mouth to scream but there was nothing left in her. He had her cornered and she was helpless.
And then, THUNK.
His head snapped over to one side and he collapsed, disappearing behind the counter. Steph choked back a sob as Chris appeared, holding a bloodied bowling pin in his hand. He dropped it with a heavy thump, his easy smile completely gone from his face.
“This isn’t fun anymore,” he said.
Anna surveyed the scene, every inch of her body in agony. It didn’t happen very often, but this time she had to agree with Chris. This definitely wasn’t fun, or funny, anymore.
15
BY THE TIME night fell in Little Haven, things at the school had gone from bad to worse. Tony couldn’t understand it, the army base was only two miles out of town. What was taking them so long? It was hours since they’d last heard anyone drive by with an announcement, and each was the same as the last: Stay where you are, help is on its way. But help was taking its sweet time.
The building shuddered with the sound of another explosion as the fluorescent lights of the cafeteria flickered in and out. Tony gripped the handle of his toolbox and thought about Anna. Never in his life had he felt so helpless.
“I don’t know how much longer I can sit here, doing nothing,” Julie said, sitting down next to him. He’d never noticed that she bit her fingernails before today; now they were practically gnawed down to nothing.
“I know, Jules,” he said with what he hoped was a comforting pat on the back as another burst of gunfire echoed through the night. It was getting closer. “I wish I knew where they were.”
“It’s got to the point where I can’t decide what would be better,” Julie said with a weak smile. “Do you think there’s any chance they got to the army base?”
“I think there’s every chance,” he said. “My Anna and your John? Unstoppable team, those two. I’ll bet they got wind of what was happening last night and hightailed it out of here to get help. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d done a runner, would it?”
“Remember when they ran away to join the circus?” Julie managed to laugh at the memory. “I’ll never forget the look on John’s face when we went to pick him up.”
“Bloody clever of that clown to put them on horse shit shoveling duty.” Tony n
odded. “Anna cried all the way home. Ruined her new boots.”
“Wherever they are, I hope they’re together,” Julie said, sucking the air in through her teeth. “He won’t admit it but I think John’s a bit sweet on Anna these days.”
“He doesn’t have to admit it.” Tony put an arm around Julie and she rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s written all over his face. Anna’s too wrapped up in this traveling nonsense to notice.”
“Anna’s a clever girl, she’ll work it all out,” she said, pulling a blanket up over their legs. “You’ve done a good job, Tony. Liz would be so proud of both of you.”
Tony couldn’t help but sniff at the sound of his wife’s name.
“Aye,” he replied. “I hope so. And I do hope they’re together. John’ll look after Anna, I know it.”
“More like the other way around,” Julie said, shaking her head but still smiling. “They’re both going to be all right.”
“They’re both going to be all right,” Tony repeated. “And we’ll see them again soon.”
* * *
While everyone else huddled up in groups, sharing memories or trying to sleep, Lisa stayed by Bea’s side, clutching her hand as she groaned quietly with her eyes closed.
“I’ll be back in a minute.” She whispered her promise into Chris’s gran’s ear before taking a deep breath and making her move.
“Mr. Savage?”
She stood in front of the assistant principal, who continued counting bottles of water without looking up. “I need help.”
“So does everyone else, I’m sorry I have to be the one to tell you,” he replied, ticking something off on his clipboard. “Typical millennial.”
“Steph says we’re Gen Z,” she replied, immediately regretting the words when Savage looked up sharply. “I don’t need help for me, it’s for Bea. Is there anything we can give her?”
Anna and the Apocalypse Page 9
