Adventures of a Middle School Zombie

by Scott Craven

  Another look at the clock: 03. Time for one play. “Mr. Stanzer!” I called, running toward him. “Let me get in for just—”

  “Time out, time out,” he yelled, forming a letter T with his hands. Whistles blew as our team came over to the sideline. Mr. Stanzer and Javon were drawing up a play when I interrupted.

  “Mr. Stanzer, I’m OK, I can run another play, let me show you.”

  He looked at me quizzically. “Jed, I’m sorry, but I thought I was clear. You may have a concussion—in fact, you probably do. The game’s over for you.”

  “But Mr. Stanzer,” I said. “I’m brain-dead, remember? Flatline. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Concussion? I could only dream of getting a concussion.”

  Javon pointed at me. “Mr. Stanzer, he’s right, and we really need him right now.”

  “Jed, are you sure?” Mr. Stanzer asked.

  I didn’t have to say a thing. He saw the answer in my eyes.

  Javon drew up a quick play, just like the one I had run so many weeks ago at lunch. As I lined up next to Luke, I blocked out everything. The crowd, the snap count, the taunts from the other side. I needed instinct to take over.

  As soon as the ball was snapped, I stepped right, looked down. Luke made a perfect toss, and I tucked it into a death grip with my right arm, duct-taped hand and all. I ran to the right, hoping to cut across the corner of the end zone. The blocking was good, and it looked like I had just enough room … and there was Robbie. Of course. He knew exactly where I was headed and remembered that one move of mine that had made him look foolish. It was clear he was not going to let that happen again. My body reacted anyway, instinctively. I felt it almost coming apart, impossibly vacating space. My spine spread, my knees released, my hips flared. I must have looked inhuman.

  Robbie reacted as well. His head was up; he shifted to his left to compensate for my body’s unnatural shape. He hit me in the chest, his hands digging for the ball. No, past the ball. His left hand on my forearm, his right on my upper bicep. And he pulled. No, wrenched my arm, and I could feel my shoulder giving way. There was a snap, another one, and as the ground rose to meet me, I swear I could see my arm flying as if set free, and I wondered if I would ever see it again. And on top of me a heavy weight, Robbie, laughing, then whispering in my ear.

  “Game over, Zom-boy. You’re dead meat. But you’re used to that.”

  Next thing I knew, I was on my back as the world was coming back into focus. I noticed Javon over me, and Luke and—

  Ben? Joe?

  “I had a dream that I’m not in Kansas anymore,” I said, trying to shake away the brain fuzz. “Luke, you were in it, and Javon. But Ben, Joe? Maybe I’m still dreaming.”

  A hand came toward me. I followed the fingers to the arm to—yeah—it was Ben. Definitely Ben. I saw something in his face. Something I had never thought I’d see as he reached out to me.

  Respect. I clasped his hand with the only one I had left, and he lifted me to my feet.

  “Jed, great game,” he said. “You really showed something out there.”

  “Yeah, dude, that was incredible,” Joe said. “Who knew a dead guy had that much in him. You give zombies a pretty good name.”

  “Thanks,” I said, since I had really no idea what else to say. So I said it again. “Thanks.”

  “What the hell do you guys think you’re doing?” Things were still a bit fuzzy, but the way that voice drilled into my brain, I knew it was Robbie.

  “Why you shaking the Zom-boy’s hand?” he said. “Unless you’re trying to rip off his other arm, I suggest you get back over here and join our little celebration.”

  I looked beyond Robbie to the rest of the eighth-grade team, standing along the sideline, talking to one another. A few were smiling, but I wouldn’t call it a celebration.

  That’s when it hit me. We’d come so close to winning. So close it was like victory, at least to the eighth graders. That was something to take away, right? Yet it seemed so hollow. We had come just a few yards short of the perfect holiday break, one where we could remember and talk about the game of the century, when the sevvies finally stood up for themselves and did something no one else had done before. We could party like there was no next semester.

  And I could have been remembered as something other than Dead Jed, a middle-school zombie.

  “Ben, Joe, now, here,” Robbie said, motioning to them with his index finger.

  “Again, nice game,” Joe and Ben said at the same time. They offered their left hands again, which I shook. They trudged back to Robbie, who greeted them with slaps upside their heads.

  “Good thing we kicked their asses or I’d be a little bit pissed off right now,” Robbie said. “But since we won—”

  Robbie looked at me. “—AGAIN—” and turned back to Ben and Joe. “—I’ll let it go. Because it feels that good to win. Not just because we put the sevvies back where they belong, but we were also able to show them what a mistake it was to have a zombie play on their team. Because once a loser—” He looked back one more time. “—ALWAYS a loser.”

  Luke put his arm around me.

  “Ignore that jerk,” he said. “We were close, man. So close.”

  “Yeah, but we still lost,” I said. “We’re still sevvies.”

  The words burned in my mouth. The rest of the school year, we’d still be sevvies. Robbie was right. Once a loser, always a loser.

  “What are they talking about?” Luke said, looking over his shoulder. For the first time I noticed the three refs huddling. Both coaches were waiting nearby.

  Odd. The game was over, so what could they be talking about?

  “Let’s check it out,” Luke said, and so we joined Mr. Stanzer. Other players joined too, including some eighth graders, Robbie among them.

  That’s when I noticed my arm on the ground. Knew it had to be around here somewhere. Robbie saw it at the same time I did.

  “You really need to keep better track of your, you know, things,” Robbie sneered, making sure I understood why he emphasized the last word. “You wouldn’t want to lose anything you may need later.”

  I forced myself not to react. This was humiliating enough. I reached for my arm.

  “Jed, hang on a second,” Mr. Stanzer said. “Just leave it there a little bit longer, until a decision is made.”

  “Decision?”

  That’s when Mr. Stanzer brought us up to date.

  As I lay semiconscious on the ground, and the eighth graders high-fived one another after winning, Mr. Stanzer had noticed something a little unusual. He’d walked to the end zone and motioned to the refs. The three men in zebra stripes approached.

  “Gentlemen, can I get a ruling on this?” he asked.

  He pointed to my arm, bent at the elbow and resting where it had been thrown.

  The ball was still tucked in it, firmly between the fingers curled around its tip and the crux of the elbow.

  And the ball straddled the line of the end zone.

  “If you notice, gentlemen,” he said to the refs, “the ball is in the end zone. Everyone agree?”

  The refs nodded. Hard to argue with the evidence.

  “And you’d agree that the ball crossed the plane of the end zone before it or the arm hit, right?” Mr. Stanzer went on. “After all, you all saw it land right here.”

  True that. When someone’s arm is ripped from his body and tossed into the air, eyes have a tendency to follow it. Something about the rarity of flying limbs, like a meteor streaking across the sky. It’s just too amazing to take your eyes off for a second.

  “So, that’s clearly a touchdown,” Mr. Stanzer said.

  The head umpire scratched his head. “I’m not so sure. Uh, the, you know, argument could be made … is that boy OK? I mean, are we really arguing a touchdown when a youngster has lost a limb?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll put it back on in a minute, plenty of duct tape and staples for that,” Mr. Stanzer said. “But first I’d like a ruling.”<
br />
  The head ref, now very pale (as Mr. Stanzer told me this story later, the ref looked even more zombie than I did), shook his head. “I’m going to need to huddle with the other refs, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  And that was where we were now.

  “So this,” I said, motioning to my arm, “could be a touchdown.”

  “That’s what I’m arguing,” Mr. Stanzer said.

  “But if it is … ” I trailed off.

  “We win, thirty-three to thirty-one.”

  Holy crap.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Stanzer said.

  “Oh, sorry, didn’t know I said that out loud.”

  “Well, it’s OK—this really is a holy-crap moment.”

  Apparently Robbie just figured out what was going on because he started to scream, “No way!” over and over.

  “I had him down!” Robbie said. “I buried that zombie. Tore his frickin’ arm off. This game is over. You hear me, sevvies? Over! You guys are done!”

  The refs had broken up, and the head umpire came over to Mr. Stanzer. He took off his cap and shook his head.

  “Obviously this has never come up before,” he said. “I can safely say no one in football has ever lost a limb in the game, let alone have that limb come into play.

  “But the rules do say that if the ball crosses while in the possession of the player before the player is ruled down, it’s a touchdown,” he said, “although in this case, possession is a little tricky.”

  “What is going on?” Principal Buckley, a little late to the party as usual, joined the group surrounding the arm. “What the heck? Can someone please pick this up before everyone sees it?”

  “But we have a bit of a quandary,” Mr. Stanzer said. “As you can see, the ball has crossed the goal line. And it is still in possession of the running back. That is a touchdown. The winning touchdown.”

  “What?” Principal Buckley said. “This is ridiculous. Pick up the dang arm so we can award—again—the trophy to the eighth graders. Now.”

  The umpire interjected. “All well and good, but I’m inclined to agree with the coach here,” he said. “Possession does seem to belong—”

  “No, absolute and utter nonsense,” Principal Buckley said. “That is an arm, not a person. There is clearly no possession here.” After that it was Mr. Stanzer’s turn to interject.

  “Well, Principal Buckley, I remember a day in the boys’ room when Jed was found guilty of smoking. And if I recall correctly, you said, ‘Your arm, your hand—your cigarette.’ And that possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

  The umpire: “Is that right, Mr. Buckley?”

  “Yes, well, something like that.”

  “Then the decision seems clear,” the umpire said, raising his arms over his head. “Touchdown, seventh graders.”

  He looked at me.

  “Son, you may pick up the winning score. And good game.”

  “Did you hear that, dude, we won. We WON!” Luke screamed, high-fiving Javon. The whole team came rushing at us, screaming, index fingers raised in celebration.

  All of a sudden I was flying above the crowd, lifted on the shoulders of Luke and Javon. There were all my friends, Dustin and Ray and Arden and Josh and Chris, and there were Mr. Stanzer and even Nurse Rankin applauding.

  We marched to the fifty-yard line, still yelling as the eighth graders headed toward the locker room.

  “Hey, put me down, quick,” I said, and I hit the ground running. I raced among the eighth graders until …

  “Robbie.”

  He turned, saw me, and kept walking. I joined him.

  “So, look, just wanted to say no hard feelings for the arm thing, seeing as how that was the difference in the game.”

  He froze, turned, stared at me.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said. “You won a game. On a fluke. That’s all. It means nothing.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I do know this—next semester in the trophy case, the football award is going to show Seventh Graders 33, Eighth Graders 31. And the next sevvie shoved into that trophy case is going to know the score. And I’m going to feel good about that for a long time.”

  “Especially when I shove you in it,” Robbie said, shaking his head and walking away.

  “Have a nice winter break,” I called after him. “I know I will.”

  On the way back to the field, I had to rub my eyes because I thought I saw an illusion.

  But it was Anna.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said. “Nice touchdown.”

  “Thanks. I owe it all to an abundance of dead tissue.”

  “Yeah, death has its advantages.”

  “Anna, I know about the video. What you did. Thanks. It’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. So how are you feeling?”

  “A little disarmed. But OK otherwise.”

  Sometimes you can go on and on about a person. How what they do affects you in good and bad ways, and all the reasons you like to be with them and almost as many reasons you shouldn’t.

  As I looked at Anna, I only thought one thing. I wanted to hold her hand. For a long time. Maybe even forever.

  “So, you want to go to a movie?”

  “You bet. Zombie Apocalypse?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a romantic action comedy. Something zombie-free.”

  “Sure, if something has to be zombie-free.”

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Ryan and Hannah, thanks for being my child-friendly sounding board, the first indication that Jed may have an afterlife in the book world. Cara, Monty, Emily and Connie, I appreciate that you were in my corner to encourage me every step of the way. Thanks to Gina, my agent, who took the first chance. Thanks, Courtney, for your brilliant editing, making this a much better story. Grateful appreciation to Barbara (B-Van) for her sharp eyes and for tracking her laugh-out-loud moments – 35. Finally, a thank-you to my teenage son Bryson, who promised me he’d read the book if and when it was published. It kept me going, just for that moment I could give him the finished product and say, “Here you go. That'll be $8.99. Now read it. Aloud.”

  Scott Craven

  Proud graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, father of 18-year-old son Bryson, and features writer for The Arizona Republic. Scott was once a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune.” He lost. That’s probably irrelevant, but he likes to share it. DEAD JED: ADVENTURES OF A MIDDLE SCHOOL ZOMBIE is his first novel.

  Zombie Death Farts and Other Unique Qualities of the Dead

  There’s no fart like a Zombie Death Fart (ZDF)! And if you’d ever smelled one, you would know it’s true. Zombie Death Farts are reason number 6 on Scott Craven’s list of Top Ten Reasons Why Zombie’s Rule. Think you know all about Zombies? Scott Craven begs to differ. No, literally, he begs to differ. Scott has put together some awesome Zombie games, quizzes, facts, and questions to keep your brain (pun intended) active and alive. Want to read more from Scott? Visit www.deadjed.com.

  You Don’t Know Dead!

  Think you know Zombies? Take the below quiz and find out. Stuck? Find the answers at www.deadjed.com! Each question is either True or False. Good luck. Use your brains!

  Favorite food? Pizza with mushrooms, olives and brains.

  Zombies have two speeds: Shuffling, and “Oh crap, I better hurry if I don't want to miss the bus.”

  Threatening to tear a zombie limb from limb scares the living heck out of him.

  While doctors have yet to determine what keeps them alive, zombies have an amazingly high midochlorian count.

  A Zombie's annual medical exam can last nearly two hours.

  A Zombie's nose often travels more than 10 feet when he’s caught unexpected by an explosive sneeze.

  A Zombie sleepover would include a game of “pin the toe on the foot.”

  If everyone were a Zombie, that would pretty muc
h solve the health-care crisis.

  Zombies need at least 9 hours of sleep every night.

  Zombies make great game show guests.

  Preview exciting middle grade titles forthcoming from Tantrum at Month9Books, our new middle grade imprint!

  Visit www. Month9books.com

  Preview DEAD JED: DAWN OF THE JED by Scott Craven, Book 2 in this exciting series coming December 2014 from Month9Books. The below is an uncorrected sample chapter.

  Chapter One

  "Make a wish," Robbie said as he stood over me, holding one of my ankles in each hand.

  "I wish you wouldn't do that," I said.

  "De-NIED,” he ruled, spreading my ankles farther apart than any reasonable person would think possible. Good thing I was made up of undead tissue, or I would have heard ligaments snapping by now. But my very pliable zombie body was keeping it together.

  For now.

  "Robbie, please." The cold slime of Ooze ran down my back, greasing the wrestling mat. This was one of those times I wished I sweated like a typical breather, but no, physical exertion (and the threat of being split in two) made me ooze.

  “Check out the zombie slime trail," Robbie noted as Ooze spread. "Clean-up on aisle you."

  He stepped forward, placing his left foot uncomfortably close to my groin. This allowed him to spread my legs even farther, and there was a tug at my hips.

  "I'm pretty sure this isn't an approved wrestling move,” I said, my vision blurring. “Or legal."

  "You’re probably right," Robbie said. "Not that I care. I call it 'The Wishbone.' You want to know why?"