All Together Now: A Zombie Story (6 page)

"That was different. They were attacking me. I haven't killed any I didn't have to and you know it."

Michelle strode toward me, the zombie chorus rising. "What about me?"

"What about you?"

"Will you kill me if I become one of them?"

I turned away.

"Promise me, Ricky. You have to promise."

"Keep away from Chuck," I said.

We haven't spoken since.

20

HOW ABOUT A BASEBALL CHAPTER? Raise your hand if you think it's a good idea.

My hand's raised and Michelle's asleep, so I guess it's unanimous.

Two years ago, when I was in the eighth grade, I led the Harrington Badgers to victory against the Lebanon Tigers. It was the greatest moment of my life.

I'd add
so far
, but the way things are going, I'm thinking that's likely to stay the greatest moment of my life.

The Lebanon Tigers were our biggest rival. They beat us at state my seventh-grade year and we wanted revenge.

It was the second-to-last game of the season and we were already out of running for state, but that wasn't the point.

It was a grudge match.

The ninth inning we were down seven to five, but we had a guy on third and a guy on first.

I was up to bat against David Walsh, the best pitcher the Tigers had. He'd taken a break for the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings, but the Tigers were leaving nothing to chance in the ninth.

The first pitch flew by just under the bat and I tasted enough of it to knock the ball to the ground.

I breathed deep and counted back from ten.

No one in the stands. No coach. No players on the field.

No one in the whole world but David Walsh and me.

The ball closed in on the space above home.

I swung.

I felt the connection in my hands, my arms, the very center of my being.

By the crack of the bat, I knew it was a home-run before the ball soared past the outfielders into the backyard of one of the houses lining the field.

The people in the stands exploded to their feet.

I dropped my bat and jogged the bases, soaking up this one moment in time,
my
moment.

The team rushed the field. They didn't lift me up like the end of a movie, but they high-fived me, and Ronnie Cawley gave me a big bear hug (technically lifting me a few inches).

I looked to the stands for Mom and Dad. They were together, standing and cheering, in agreement for the first time in months.

Not far from them was Maggie Evans. She was smiling at me in a way I knew meant if I'd gone to her she might've let me get to first base. She had eyes as green and lush as a rainforest.

I saw one of them sucked from its socket and eaten in the back of the chemistry lab not too long ago. The creamy pale skin of her face with just the perfect scattering of freckles was torn away by the teeth of Mary Beth Kerr, her best friend.

Not much point talking about baseball, I guess. I'll never play again.

I'll probably never leave this roof.

21

THE FIRST TIME I HEARD of any strange goings-on, I was staying in Gerald Kirkman's mansion. That was Sunday morning.

By Monday evening, the world had mostly ended.

My mother and Gerald Kirkman were planning to marry in two months. Her divorce from Dad had just been finalized last summer.

Since she left, Chuck and I had only seen her a few times a month. She had an apartment across from the courthouse and though I know Gerald Kirkman slept there some nights, he never slept there when we did.

Last weekend was the first time Chuck and I had stayed with our mother since she moved out of that apartment and into Gerald Kirkman's palace. We went there straight from school Friday night.

My mother gave us a tour of all three floors, proudly showing us each room as though
she'd
decorated it and not the late Mrs. Kirkman.

Michelle's mom died three years ago. Cancer.

If you do the math and remember what I told you about my mother buying me a video game to shut me up six years ago, you'll know both Gerald Kirkman and my mother are liars and cheats.

You might be tempted to think Kirkman was worse because his spouse was dying while he was with my mother, but you'd only think that because you haven't had to live with my dad this last year. Before my mother left, I only saw him drunk on holidays.

Even though she'd been living at casa de Kirkman for barely a month, my mother had already prepared bedrooms for both Chuck and me. In mine was a 55-inch TV and video games. Chuck's room had Sesame Street wallpaper and a stuffed Big Bird taller than him.

I think my mother was hoping we'd want to leave Dad to live with Gerald Kirkman, but Chuck and I are made of stronger stuff than her.

Friday night we ordered pizzas and watched movies, and Gerald Kirkman was all grins and perfect white teeth. He had his own personal theater with a projector, an old-fashioned popcorn wagon, leather recliners, and 3D glasses.

Halfway through the movie, I left for "my room."

Saturday, I slept late and stayed upstairs all afternoon playing video games. Sunday, my mother made me go swimming with "the rest of the family."

Chuck doesn't hate Gerald Kirkman half as much as he should, but Chuck's in kindergarten. The two of them were batting a beach ball in Kirkman's enormous indoor pool. I joined them to keep an eye on Chuck.

That was when Michelle came in. She was wearing a white bikini that stood out against her dark skin in just the right way to make me wish we weren't about to be legal siblings. Then she opened her mouth and I remembered why I never liked her.

"Boys," she said, "please don't pee in my pool."

I wouldn't have, but after that I made it my mission to stay in "her pool" until I had to go.

Kirkman put up a net and we played volleyball, the two pasty and poor Genero boys against the rich Kirkmans with skin like polished mahogany. My mother stood at the pool's edge and cheered for each team like she could have it both ways.

If I had to choose between that house with the steaks we ate and the popcorn wagon, or this roof with crackers and jerky—I'd choose the house. I'm not crazy or stupid, but I
would
have to think about it.

I only picked at my steak, which is why I woke up hungry a little after 4:30 on Monday morning. On my way to the kitchen, I passed Kirkman's home office.

The light was on and he was yelling.

"How does this happen? How did we not catch this?"

I didn't know what he was talking about, but anything that upset Gerald Kirkman was interesting to me.

I peeked into the office and watched him pace in front of his desk, dressed only in boxers and black socks (who wears black socks to bed?), talking to someone on the other end of his earpiece.

"You
think
, or you know? It was supposed to make drinkers more docile and focused. That sounds like the exact opposite behavior!

"How sure are you it's the Chrome Lightning? Okay, how sure is the Center for Disease Control?"

This I understood. Chrome Lightning was Kirkman's new brand of sports soda, which is sort of funny when you think about it. How many athletes do you know who actually down soda all day?

Soda's for people who watch sports and get fat rooting for their favorite team.

Dad put in a lot of hours at the plant getting ready for Chrome Lightning's launch last month. They had a big banner for it in the school cafeteria, and every time I tried to watch a video I had to sit through an ad of women running up a mountain and men bicycling through a hail-storm, all while cooling off with a bottle of Chrome Lightning.

When I think of all the ads for soda I've seen in my short life, I wonder how I ever thought to drink anything else.

"Why hasn't this come up before now? Why didn't it come up in testing?" Kirkman yelled. "Prolonged exposure? How prolonged?

"What do you mean they have to die first? So does the Chrome Lightning kill them or do they die in some other... Well who in this wide earth does know!?"

Kirkman kicked a metal trash can. It skittered across his office and bounced off the wall.

"No I don't want to issue a recall! You just said the CDC isn't sure."

Even if Kirkman had issued a recall instead of waiting for the government to mandate one, it was probably too late even then.

22

I HAVEN'T HAD A DROP of Kirkman Soda for a year.

My first week without soda was hard. I had nasty headaches and I got tired and weak during the day.

After the first week, I didn't miss soda. I drank water and lemonade and tea (had to get my caffeine somewhere). I was more awake during the day and I felt better in pretty much every way.

If there's anything good to come from my mother leaving Dad, it's that I've never tasted a single drop of Chrome Lightning and didn't have to worry about "prolonged exposure."

Gerald Kirkman left the house shortly after his early phone call and nobody knew when he'd be back. My mother drove us to school Monday morning. We dropped Chuck off at Funucation Kindergarten and Daycare first.

"Did you have a good time, sweetie?" my mother asked in that perky voice she reserves for condescending to Chuck.

It made my stomach tighten like a wrung sponge. She didn't bite him, but she was trying to turn him.

Chuck knew the answer she wanted and nodded. "Good time."

Michelle groaned. "Can we go already?"

My mother swept Chuck into her arms as he climbed out of her new Lexus. "You keep growing so much."

If she were around more, my mother wouldn't be so surprised each time she found her baby bigger than when she'd left him.

"Mommy," Chuck said, and I looked at them for the first time because Chuck only calls her "Mommy" when he wants something. "Next time, can Daddy come too?"

Ladies and gentlemen, my brother, Charles Walter Genero.

My mother's face dropped as though a maître d' had handed her a bill so big not even Gerald Kirkman could pay it.

I burst out laughing.

My mother's head snapped toward me.

She set Chuck down. "Go to class, honey," she said.

Chuck waved at me.

I didn't wave back.

Stupid. Idiot. Moron.

I saw the hurt look on Chuck's face before he turned and walked to where the teachers were greeting kids.

Wasn't his fault.

I should've waved. It was all he wanted. If I had any moment to do again, I'd—but I don't. Nobody does.

My mother drove us away from Funucation Kindergarten and Daycare in dead silence, so Michelle turned on the radio. Some song about how "you're all I got in this world, baby doll" ended and a DJ came on.

"Our number-one story this hour: Kirkman Soda has issued a sweeping recall of all flavors. Stores are removing Kirkman Soda from their shelves and authorities are advising consumers to return any Kirkman's products to their place of purchase."

My mother sat up straight. "My God."

Another DJ chimed in, "Have they given any reason for the recall?"

"None as of yet. Most suspect a contamination, although details of what contaminant consumers may have been exposed to remain sketchy at this—"

My mother turned the radio off. "Oh my God," she said again, and brought the car to a stop in front of Harrington High School. "I have to go the plant."

"I should call Daddy." Michelle took her phone from her jeans pocket.

"Get out and head to class," my mother said. "I've got to go."

We got out and her Lexus sped away, my mother waving without looking at us.

I didn't wave back. That one I don't regret.

23

HIGH SCHOOL IS SORT OF like life on an African plain. The hippos and crocodiles stay near the river, the giraffes and monkeys stay near the trees, and the antelope and zebras roam in herds.

As long as everybody stays in a group, nobody finds himself wandering alone, the shadow of a descending lion growing beneath him.

So it was that Monday morning in the main hallway of Harrington High School. The stoners roamed together, stinking of the pot they'd smoked in the car they arrived in, exploding out of it like baked clowns.

The skateboard kids had their section of the hall, talking about skateboarding because they weren't allowed to skate in the school parking lot. Many of the skateboard kids overlapped with the stoners.

Goths grouped together, probably discussing the work of Edgar Allen Poe or who had the cheapest deals on eyeliner or whatever it was they talked about.

In the cafeteria, a whole group of geeks gathered around one phone watching a movie trailer.

At a table beside them, a group of nerds flocked around a tablet watching a press conference about some new technological gizmo to replace the last technological gizmo they'd bought.

In every group at least one kid was drinking Chrome Lightning.

There was a 12-foot banner for it on the far wall depicting a cool guy with a sexy chick reaching for the bottle of Chrome Lightning he was holding behind his back. Both of them had looks on their faces like they were totally going to rip each other's clothes off immediately after they drank the soda.

In less than four hours, there would be only two groups. No jocks, no preps, no nerds, no geeks, no dweebs, no Goths, no stoners, no skateboard kids.

Only the dead and the soon-to-be-dead.

Michelle went off with the preps, of course. When your father owns the biggest business in town, you have to hang with the preps because no one else will have you.

I went off with my friends, but before I had a chance to talk with any of them—the last chance I was ever going to have—the warning bell rang and the groups dispersed to class.

Shortly after we stood and in unison pledged our allegiance to the flag and the republic for which it stands, Principal Stender came on over the intercom:

"Attention students: We are effecting an immediate ban on all soda products. Soda of any kind is no longer allowed in classrooms, the hallways, or even the cafeteria.