All Together Now: A Zombie Story (11 page)

"Dinner" done, I lay on my back and stared at the moon. The sky was only just getting dark, but already I could see stars and...

"A plane!"

Michelle and I stood to watch it pass.

I doubted it could see us. It was barely more than a collection of lights in the sky. It flew out of sight and that was that.

"Maybe they're going to get help, and then they're coming back?" I said.

Michelle grunted.

"Anything's possible," I said, moving back to the center of the roof. Michelle was once again lying on the roof, the plane already forgotten.

I sat down beside her. "You ever think about Jessica Fenton?"

"Who?"

"The girl you hit with a baseball bat. She was in our class."

"Oh." Michelle considered. "No. I don't think about her any more than I think about the people at New Life."

I shuddered. I suppose if I write long enough, I'll eventually tell you about the good folks we encountered at New Life Christian Church.

"What good can it do to think about that stuff?"

I shrugged. "No good, I guess."

"I'm tired," Michelle said, even though she'd been sleeping on and off all day.

She lay on her side, using her arm as a pillow.

I sat up for a while, but I didn't want to write anymore and there was nothing to do aside from crawling to the roof's edge to peek at the dead.

Eventually I laid down beside Michelle and put my arm around her where she'd placed it before. She wasn't asleep, but she didn't stop me. We lay that way until we were both sleeping.

When I woke this morning, I found I'd been sleeping alone because Michelle was sitting beside my pack reading this journal.

43

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!" I shouted.

"I'm almost finished!" Michelle cried, like maybe that made it okay. She flung this journal from her and it landed beside my pack as though she thought its being there made it look less read.

I stood. My neck popped and my back cracked. "You didn't take off my clothes while I slept, did you?"

"What?"

"Well, while you're going through all my stuff..."

"Please don't be mad, Ricky. I couldn't help myself."

My muscles were tense, ready to fight, but I wasn't going to get into a round of fisticuffs with a girl, especially Michelle. You just know she'd be a dirty fighter.

I relaxed and if there'd been anywhere to walk off to, I would've. Instead, I folded my arms across my chest and took deep breaths.

"It's good," Michelle said.

I didn't say anything.

"Did you really pee in my pool?"

I laughed. "You read that whole thing and that's what you remember? I peed in your pool?"

"So you did, then."

"Oh yeah," I said. "I filled your pool with gallons of pee until the water turned yellow, until it was more piss than water!"

"I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to be a jerk."

"I'm being a jerk? I tell you what, Michelle, don't talk to me. Anything personal you have to say, you just write it all down and ask me not to read it."

Michelle smirked. "You also wrote I was hot."

"Arghhh!" I wrapped my hands around the back of my head and half groaned, half screamed.

The chorus of moans below turned to snarls.

After that, neither of us said anything for a while.

I sat down and took a can of tuna from my pack. I didn't offer Michelle any.

"You really hate my dad, huh?" She kept her voice low as though she were trying not to wake a baby.

I scoffed. "The whole world hates your dad. What's left of it, anyway."

"Yeah, but you hated him before."

I considered lying, but there wasn't any point. "Yeah."

"You must hate me too."

Leave it to a chick to make you feel guilty when you have every right to be mad.

"You're all right," I said. "Or at least you were before you read my journal."

"It's good, Ricky. Really. You should keep writing it."

"It's a waste of time, writing all day," I said. "I ought to be figuring out how to get us down from here."

"We're not leaving this place," Michelle said without inflection, as though she were merely stating a fact: plants use carbon dioxide to make oxygen, earthworms have five hearts, we're going to die on this roof or directly below it.

"But you're right. One day someone might find this journal." She scooted it toward me. "Keep going."

I finished half my can of tuna, handed the rest to Michelle, then I took my journal back. Why stop writing now?

Also, Michelle, if you're reading this, you're still kind of hot. But man, do you need a shower.

44

WE DROVE AWAY FROM FUNUCATION, leaving Evan and what was left of Ben behind. Dad drove and I rode shotgun, Michelle sitting between us with Chuck on her lap.

None of us spoke.

When Dad's truck turned onto Meridian Street, we saw three houses on the left were on fire.

The first house was crumbling, sending up sparks with each chunk that fell.

The middle house was blazing, flames billowing out of every window and licking up its sides.

The third house had just caught and only the upper left corner was burning.

But I knew if left unchecked the third house would incinerate as surely as the first and the fire would spread to a fourth house, a fifth, and on and on.

It might be the fire that burned all of Harrington, consuming it like a horde of dead.

On the right side of Meridian, a woman in a pink housedress wielded a snow shovel against four dead men. She stepped backward into the outstretched arms of a fifth zombie, who brought her down.

They fell on her like hyenas crowding a fresh kill.

We drove toward the town square where I could already see the dome of the Harrington courthouse above smaller buildings.

Ahead of us, two cars were idling in either lane so we couldn't get around. The drivers in each vehicle were looking straight ahead to the town square.

"Hang on," Dad said and drove onto the sidewalk. We went around the cars and saw what the drivers were staring at.

There was a fire engine crashed into the glass front of Le Entre, Harrington's most expensive restaurant. The fire department was catty-corner from that side of the square, so the engine had only traveled half a block before wrecking.

Its emergency lights were whirring and its siren was blaring. Its back end hung out into the street, blocking traffic.

On the opposite intersection, two empty police cruisers were parked, their emergency lights spinning.

"We're going to go slow," Dad said and drove forward.

When we entered the square, we saw the courthouse was enveloped in pandemonium. People, many of them in suits, ran in every direction across the lawn and in the streets.

It was easy to tell the zombies from the living by how slowly they ran.

"Watch out!" Michelle yelled.

Before Dad could turn to look, a silver minivan rammed into the back of our truck, throwing Michelle, Chuck, and me against the passenger door.

I heard a heavy crack I knew was my skull striking the window glass and the world blinked out.

45

A RINGING IN MY EARS that wasn't coming from any siren or alarm blocked out all sound.

There was a crack in the passenger side window. Below it a spot of red I knew was my blood.

I put a hand to my head. My fingers came away wet and sticky.

Beneath the crack in the window I saw a man on the courthouse lawn wearing a blue T-shirt and rubber pants held up by suspenders.

Firefighter gear.

He swung his arms back, his legs in a wide stance.

I didn't realize he had an axe until he lodged it in the chest of a woman in a black business suit.

The woman took two steps back, the axe wedged in her chest, then staggered forward, her arms reaching for him.

The firefighter was dumbstruck. He looked perplexed even as the woman bit into his neck and tore out his throat.

Hands clapped in front of my face.

I turned to see Dad leaning across the driver's seat. He was talking to me. I couldn't hear him over the ringing, but I saw his lips widen on the word "okay."

"I'm fine," I said and opened the truck door.

My mouth hung and I couldn't seem to close it. But I knew we had to get out of the truck.

I stepped onto the street and nearly fell over.

The world swam and waves of nausea washed over me. I grabbed the truck to keep myself standing and took deep breaths until the urge to vomit passed.

An invisible weight in my head shifted left and I leaned way over. I held the truck until the weight shifted back to center and I could stand up straight.

"Ricky!"

Dad again. He stood on the other side of the truck with Chuck and Michelle.

I waved to them. The weight in my head shifted. I slapped my hand back to the truck to stay upright.

"What happened to our truck?" I said. Its rear wheel was shredded and the left side was crunched and dented like an empty Kirkman's can.

"Oh yeah. The accident."

"Ricky!" Dad took off running around the side of the truck.

The driver's side door of the silver minivan that hit us flung open and a very fat man in a too-tight dress shirt and puce tie wobbled out. His forehead shone with a sheen of sweat and his breathing came in ragged gasps.

"Ricky!" Dad came running toward me, his gun stretched in front of him.

"Don't shoot," I said.

He fired and my head lulled backward. But it wasn't a bullet, it was that pesky weight in my head shifting again.

Someone grabbed my ankle and I fell all the way back, landing on my butt.

Beside me was the woman in the business suit, a lawyer most likely. The fireman's axe was still wedged in her chest.

She growled, deep and guttural, and grabbed my thigh, her cold fingers stabbing into the tender flesh.

Then blood spurted just above her right temple and she collapsed.

The ringing in my ears grew louder than ever.

Dad stood over us aiming the gun at her in case she started moving again.

She didn't.

"Hey!" I exclaimed. "She stayed dead!"

Dad reached a hand toward me and at first I didn't understand. "Come on, son. We've got to go."

"That's a good idea." I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet.

"Are you okay?"

I grabbed the truck. "Peachy."

Dad looked doubtful, but he let go of me and bent to the dead woman he'd re-killed. He had to wiggle the handle, but he managed to pull the axe out of her.

"My lucky bat," I said, and stumbled to the truck cab like a zombie.

The fat man in the puce tie came around the side of the wreck. "I am so sorry! Were you hurt?"

"I'm good," I said, reaching into the truck.

"Do you like pizza? I'm the manager of Tony Sty's Pizza Pies."

"Let's go," Dad said, taking my arm with one hand and carrying the bloody fire axe in the other.

"Let me give you my card." The fat man pulled his wallet from his back pocket. "And dinner is on me tonight."

Dad led me around the side of the truck to Chuck and Michelle.

"Should we exchange insurance information?" the fat man called after us. "Oh, there's a police officer."

The fat man waddled off like a cartoon pig in the direction of a man in a policeman's uniform.

"Excuse me, officer?"

When the cop turned, we saw his eyes were all white. He opened his mouth unnaturally wide and moaned.

46

I FINALLY THREW UP. DAD held my arms to keep me from falling face first into it.

"I think I hit my hea—" Meaty chunks of vomit cut me off.

"Get it together, son," Dad whispered in my ear, squeezing my arms. "I know you're hurt, but we've got no time for it. You hear me? Get your head straight or we are all going to die right here."

"Feel better, Ricky," Chuck pleaded.

I wiped my mouth and nodded, which hurt.

In front of us, the manager of Tony Sty's Pizza Pies was still talking:

"There's so many people on the square today, like an impromptu festival or something."

Blood stained his white dress shirt around the rim of his enormous gut, just beneath the tip of his puce tie. He was smiling too wide, his eyes were too big, and behind them I think his mind was broken.

That's the only way I can think to explain what happened next:

"Officer, I'm sorry to bother you. I can see you have your hands full. But I'm afraid I've hit this man." He waved a chubby hand at us.

The cop lumbered toward the manager, moaning.

"If you could file a report for us, I'm sure our insurance agencies can—what are you doing?"

The cop snarled the way the dead do when they get close.

"Stop that! Stop it. That's not right. You're a police officer! That's not riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhtttttttttt!"

After that, the fat manager squealed at ear-piercing frequency, like a tea kettle whistling.

Dad kept one hand on my arm and the other holding Chuck's hand as he marched us around the pair to the end of the block where the police cruisers were parked.

"What are you doing?" Michelle asked as Dad let go of Chuck's hand to open the driver's side door of the first cruiser.

"What's it look like?" Dad said. "Keys are in the ignition. Get in."

"We can't!" Michelle cried. I was already stumbling around the front of the cruiser to the passenger side. "It's against the law!"

Dad motioned behind us to where the police officer dove his head into the guts of the collapsed manager as though he were feeding at a trough. "The law's busy."

Dad opened the rear door and lifted Chuck onto the back bench. A metal grating divided the front seats from the back so it looked like my six-year-old brother had been arrested.

Three zombies on the courthouse lawn turned toward us as I slammed the passenger door shut. Dad climbed in as well.