The Zombie Chasers (2 page)

Z
ack should have been a better hostage.

He stared at his reflection in the bedroom window. Zoe had kept her promise. The girls had made him look quite silly indeed, and now Zack was a prisoner in his own home.

Madison had smeared his mouth with bright red-orange lipstick, while Samantha had caked his eyelids with silvery blue powder. Ryan sopped his hair from behind with gobs of mega-hold super-gel, styling seven spikes around his head like the Statue of Liberty. He looked like a deranged circus clown.
Zoe has to pay for this,
he thought. But before he could get any sort of
revenge, Zack had to escape his locked bedroom and wash this horror show off his face.

And after all he’d been through today, he wanted that cake now more than ever.

Zack kneeled in front of the window and stared out over the neighborhood. Without his laptop or his cell phone—both of which Zoe had confiscated before locking him inside—it was the only way he could think of to pass the time. He found some comfort in watching without being seen, observing things from a distance.

There was a word for this feeling, but he couldn’t come up with it. He just gazed down onto the deserted Friday night street, waiting for something to happen, desperately hoping for anyone, anything upon which to spy. But Locust Lane was dead still. Nobody around.

Zack wandered across the room to
check on his much-neglected ant farm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually fed them—weeks ago, maybe months. Most of the ants had starved, and the ones still struggling to survive fought vigorously over the shiny black carcasses, ripping off legs from thoraxes. Zack thought about feeding them now, but he couldn’t even remember where he’d put their pellets. Probably in the back of the closet, he figured, along with everything else.

And then it struck him.

He threw open the closet door and crawled past piles of comic books and shoe boxes packed full of old
DragonBall Z
cards, way too embarrassing to play with, but way too good to throw out. A tiny dog bark sounded through the back wall of the closet. It was Twinkles, Madison’s new puppy. Twinkles had had an accident on the carpet, and Zoe had banished the little dog to her bedroom. Just like Zack was to his.

Zack reached deep into the
closet, his hand landing on the case of Poland Spring water that his over-prepared mom had stashed back there for reasons unknown. Stuffed between the water and a yellow Wiffle ball bat was a rolled-up rope ladder: the key element in his dad’s emergency fire-escape strategy. If being held prisoner and left to starve wasn’t an emergency, then Zack didn’t know what was. So he pried out a few waters from the pack and snagged the rope ladder, crawling backward into the bedroom.

Zack dumped a bottle of water over his head and scrubbed the makeup off with the slightly ripe-smelling towel balled up on the floor. Sitting on the bed now, he noticed the cordless phone sticking out from beneath his rumpled Transformers bedspread.

He grabbed the phone from under the covers and dialed. Three long rings and his best friend answered.

“Rice residence. Rice speaking.”

“Yo, dude, it’s me,” Zack said.

“What’s the word, nerd?”

“How’s the plague?” Zack shuddered, thinking about
the pink crispy scabs caked in dried amber pus all over Rice’s body. He’d been out of school all week with chicken pox.

“Itchy, man,” Rice replied. “Real itchy.”

“Well, at least Zoe didn’t tie you up and give you a makeover.”

“Dude, I saw it on YouTube! You’re, like, famous. Your voice sounds kind of whiny on video, though….”

“I know you’re not supposed to hate your own family,” Zack said, staring out the window. “But I have a hard time believing we have the same blood pumping through our veins.”

“Yeah, man, Zoe’s ruthless,” Rice agreed. “Hey, which friends does she have over?”

“Madison Miller, Samantha Donovan, Ryan York,” Zack rattled off the hit list.

“Duuuude,” Rice groaned into the phone. “You have no idea how lucky you are. I want your life for just one slumber party.”

“Rice, they’d eat you alive,” Zack said.

“I bet they’re playing Twister right now, huh?” Rice
sighed. “I’d give up chocolate to see those girls playing Twister.”

“Dude! That’s my sister!”

“Chill, Zack, I was just messin’ around. I didn’t mean Zoe, man. Madison’s pretty cute, though. Not that your sis isn’t cute, I mean, dude, come on…you know.”

“I’m hanging up now!” Zack placed the phone on the desktop, opened the window, and hooked the top of the ladder to the windowsill. As he threw the bundle of tangled rope over the ledge, he heard footsteps on the sidewalk below. The figure came into view: just Old Man Stratton out for his nightly stroll. He seemed slower than usual, walking with a miserable limp. The old codger grumbled angrily to himself and disappeared into the shadows between two streetlamps.

Zack began his slow, shaky descent down the ladder, and the phone blared. He reached back through the window, clinging to the ladder with his free hand.

“Rice?” Zack answered. “I can’t really talk right now.”

“Dude, are you watching this?”

“No, actually, I’m climbing out my window.”