All Together Now: A Zombie Story (10 page)

A man crawled out behind her, snarling, and I understood the woman was already dead. She just didn't know it yet.

I sped up and we ran the rest of the way to Funucation.

I had to dodge lawn ornaments—lollipops and tootsie rolls to match the giant candy canes. I reached Funucation's front door.

It was standing wide open.

The first thing I saw was Chuck, still alive. He was standing with two other kids his age, a girl in pink and a boy in a Superman shirt. All three shook, their mouths open in tiny O's.

In front of Chuck was Dad, dressed as always in jeans and a green work shirt with the bright pink Kirkman's logo over the left pocket. He was pointing a gun at Chuck's teacher.

There were six children, the biggest of them no older than four, crawling toward Dad. All their eyes were bright white.

37

"PLEASE STOP," DAD SAID, WAVING the gun as though he hoped Chuck's teacher would remember what it was.

Her hair was red in places and blood coated her chin and nose. I could actually see bits of flesh in her teeth.

She'd forgotten the students left in her care weren't food. She wasn't going to remember anything as complex as the fact that guns kill.

Ben came in the front door of Funucation just behind me. Michelle stayed outside.

"Don't make me do this," Dad said, aiming, but still not pulling the trigger. I wanted to take the gun from him and shoot her myself.

"Close your eyes, Chuck," Dad said.

My little brother was breathing so hard I thought he might be hyperventilating, but he nodded and closed his eyes.

His teacher snarled and dove toward Chuck. I was sure he was dead. When she instead bit into the forehead of the six-year-old girl beside him I was actually happy.

"I'm sorry," Dad said, and pulled the trigger, not that it did the girl much good.

The bullet passed through the woman's back into the little girl, who stopped screaming.

Ben raised his bat and brought it down on a kid no older than four.

"Don't kill them!" Dad cried, but by then Ben was braining his second toddler.

"Get over here kids," Dad said.

Chuck moved at once, but the boy in the Superman shirt beside him yelled out, "Help!"

In the time it took Ben to bash the skull of one child, the boy's teacher had thrown aside the girl she'd been eating in favor of living meat and grabbed his ankles.

Dad fired and the bullet passed through her neck, spurting blood, but the woman pulled the boy's legs out from under him without so much as pausing.

The boy in the Superman shirt yelled again and Dad fired again, this time into the woman's ribs, but she bit into the boy's stomach anyway.

Ben ran over and swung his bat, striking her across the head.

She slowed, but kept ripping the skin from the boy's chest, digging in with both hands through the torn red 'S' to get to his heart.

Ben hit her again and she stopped moving.

The boy, however, stayed looking at us for a while before he closed his eyes. There was no comprehension in those eyes, only fear and hurt and betrayal.

A child reached for me and I kicked her back. Dad kicked another and Ben stomped one.

"Don't kill them. They can be cured." Dad turned to Chuck. "Let's go, son."

Chuck shook his head. He was still breathing hard, but he shouted one word, "Evan!" and took off running down the far hall.

"Chuck!" Dad screamed. "Stop!"

The little girl and the boy Chuck's teacher had killed were both sitting up. We ran around them, following Chuck.

38

I STEPPED ON SOMETHING THAT made a crunching sound. There were Legos scattered across the hall.

Chuck ran straight to his kindergarten class, which was the last door at the end of the hall. I should've done the same, but I didn't.

I stopped to look into the nursery.

A little girl lay in the center of the room, whimpering. Her head was bent at an unnatural angle. I couldn't see how she was still alive, but she was crying—not snarls and moans, but human crying.

Something important was obviously broken, as she wasn't moving her arms or legs beyond a twitch. If she could've got up, she would've.

There were two babies dressed in shirts and diapers on her chest, protruding like growths, their faces buried in the bloody meat of her arm. I doubt they had teeth, but they were licking at her blood and feasting on her in some way.

Their moans were quiet and content.

They looked up at me, their eyes bright white, seemed to decide they weren't big enough to bring me down, and went back to the meal they had.

At the girl's foot was a teddy bear as big as she was, and behind it a rocking chair beside a crib. A small, dead hand curled over the top of the crib, not strong enough to pull whatever was attached to those tiny digits into a standing position.

"Dad," I said, but he was nearly caught up to Chuck, and Ben was right behind him.

I thought of asking him to shoot this poor girl in the head. I considered finishing her off myself, but I remembered what Dad said about a cure, so in the end I left her there alive.

That's a memory that's cost me sleep. I'm sure the girl became a zombie eventually, but who knows how long she laid there alive, waiting.

I felt something on my shoe, and when I looked down I saw it was the mouth of a baby. Its little hands clawed at my jeans, struggling to pull itself up to where it could bite something other than shoe.

I kicked and it skittered across the room, snarling in a high pitch that sounded almost like a cry.

My legs went weak. I fell to my knees. I jammed the flesh between my thumb and my index finger in my mouth and bit down so hard I left teeth prints on my hand. My entire body shook.

Against the far wall, the dead baby flipped itself right side up and crawled back toward the girl in the center.

I took several deep breaths and stood.

I closed the nursery door and ran to the room at the end of the hall.

39

"WHERE ARE YOU HURT?" DAD asked Evan, who was hiding under the teacher's desk at the front of the kindergarten classroom and weeping.

Ben stood beside Dad, and aside from Chuck and Evan, there was no one else in the room, living or dead, just tiny tables for little people covered in coloring sheets and crayons.

At the top of a trashcan in the corner was a discarded bottle of Chrome Lightning.

Evan had come to play at our house a couple times, but stayed the night only once because he'd wet Chuck's bed. In the morning, Dad had to wash both boys and their sheets. I'd laughed all day over that one, but neither Chuck nor Dad found it funny.

Chuck was under the desk with Evan, an arm wrapped around his friend. As I got closer I could see two things:

Chuck had spots of blood on his T-shirt, but was otherwise unharmed.

Evan wore blood stains all down the front of his shirt and a large chunk of his right arm was missing just below the shoulder.

"Did someone bite you?" Dad asked.

Evan sobbed and put a hand to his shoulder. "Teacher."

My father's face fell. "We've got to go," he said. "Come on, Chuck."

Chuck stood. "Can Evan come?"

"Not today," Dad said. "Evan's parents are coming for him. If he comes with us, they won't know where he is."

"I want to come with you!" Evan cried, crawling out from under the desk.

"We can't leave him, Mr. Gernero," Ben said.

My father frowned. I know he considered it. My father was a good man.

He gave Evan a wary look, then took two steps away and motioned for Ben and me to come closer. We huddled together like teammates discussing a play, Evan sobbing behind us.

My father clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Thank God you're all right, son. You too, Ben."

"I'm not all right," I said. "The high school is burning down."

The way my father looked at me, I knew this was news to him, but he didn't seem that surprised. "Something happened at Kirkman's. I ain't sure what, exactly, but there's something in the Chrome Lightning, some kind of poison. It's called solanin, or solanieum, or some such thing.

"It's like a virus. If people drink enough of it, they die, but they don't stay dead. If people drink any and die from something else, they come back.

"The CDC has been at the plant all morning collecting samples. They're working on a cure."

Dad looked us up and down. "Did either of you get bit by anyone?"

Ben and I shook our heads.

My father breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Their bites are poison. They infect you and eventually kill you, if the dead person doesn't kill you first. However you die, if you're bit or you drink the Chrome Lightning, you come back. Understand?"

We nodded as though we did.

"Then you understand that boy can't come with us," Dad whispered, then glanced back at Evan to make sure he hadn't heard.

I thought of the way Jessica Fenton had collapsed and stopped breathing outside the school, then sat up again, her eyes all white, and tried to bite me.

I thought of Evan doing the same thing in the cab of Dad's truck squished in with Dad, Ben, Michelle, Chuck, and me.

"I understand."

40

"DO YOU WANT SOMETHING TO eat?" I asked Evan, reaching for a box of fruit snacks on a shelf.

"No."

"I do, Ricky," Chuck said.

The snacks were wrapped individually, so I handed one to each boy. "We have to go now, Evan."

"I want to come with you!"

"No, you have to stay here," I said. "Can you be brave? Can you show me your brave face?"

Tears slid down Evan's cheeks. "Don't leave me here by myself."

And then I was crying. I turned to Dad. "I can't."

Dad picked Chuck up and headed for the door. "Let's go."

Ben and I followed Dad and Evan followed us. "Take me with you!"

"No, Evan!" Dad yelled harsh enough to make Evan stop in his tracks and whimper. "You stay here. Your parents are coming."

"But Daddy's in Arizona! Don't leave me!"

Dad marched into the hall and Evan watched us go, sucking his thumb.

We went back to the front of Funucation and when I glanced back, Evan was gone. Probably hiding under the desk again.

Ben had stopped following us and stood at the door to a room across the hall from the nursery. "I think there's some kids in here," he said.

It was the last coherent thing I ever heard him say.

41

I'D WONDERED WHERE ALL THE rest of the kids were. A part of me hoped maybe their parents had come to get them or maybe they'd already been bused away. Maybe some of them were.

But most of them were locked in that classroom and when Ben opened its door, they streamed out like water from a bottle with a burst bottom.

The dead children knocked Ben over and were on him before either of us knew what happened, their tiny hands ripping into him.

I'm not going to write this part.

Just know that if I could've got close enough to Ben to save him, I would have.

I'm done writing for today.

42

LAST NIGHT EVERYTHING BETWEEN MICHELLE and me was fine, or at least good enough. Now I'm not so sure.

I'd finished writing when Michelle said, "I'm hungry."

"Me, too." I rummaged in my pack and retrieved a can of tuna. "Would the lady care for half?"

She nodded. "Would the gentleman prefer crackers or trail mix for a side dish?"

"Crackers, naturally. Only the finest foods for the patrons of Cafe de Roof. For dessert, may I suggest a selection from our cookie list?"

Michelle bit a finger. "I shouldn't. My diet. But it couldn't hurt just to look at the cookies."

I laughed, and Michelle did too, and for a moment I could pretend we were someplace else. Then my eyes fell on Ernie, still lying on the opposite side of the hatch.

Michelle pulled her hand from her pack, empty. "Do you have any cookies left?"

I checked my bag and shook my head. "Maybe we better do candy bars instead?"

"Sure." Her expression grew solemn. "We're going to run out of food. We've already eaten almost half."

"Maybe," I said. "But we're not out of food tonight."

"Have you figured out how we're going to get down?"

I rolled my eyes. "Sure. We'll just climb down the ladder here," I opened the hatch, "and ask all these nice dead folks to clear a path."

I did a double take. There were no zombies crowded in Ernie's office. I could hear plenty in the market, but they'd stopped crowding around the ladder.

"Look at this."

Michelle leaned over. "Where'd they go?"

I thought about it. Although I'd left the hatch propped on Ernie's loafer, I hadn't fully opened it for at least a day. I hadn't had any reason to.

"I don't know. Probably outside where they can see us occasionally."

"Close the hatch before they come back."

I did.

We ate our tuna and crackers in silence and passed a bottle of water back and forth. When the main course was done, I broke a Snickers in half and gave the bigger portion to Michelle.

Afterward, my stomach grumbled, but I didn't dare give it anymore food. We'd been far too easy-going with our rations already.

In the two days we've been on this roof, I haven't seen the zombies leave. There's still food in Ernie's mart, but they haven't touched it.

They'd eat us if we fell off the roof and landed where they could reach us. I know they would.

But I don't think they'd do it because they're hungry.

They don't want food.

They want us.

I think they hate us for being alive.

If they have to eat us, they will. If they have to stay where they are until we starve to death, that will be fine with them, too.

Whatever it takes to make us dead like them.