The Zombie Chasers (3 page)

“Don’t do that, man! There’s zombies, like, all over the place….

Hold on, hold on. They’re saying how to kill them.”

“Sorry, Rice,” Zack said. “Gotta go.” He hung up the phone and placed it flat on the windowsill. He had no time for his friend’s stupid jokes.

Halfway to the ground, Zack heard something coming from the bushes below: a violent rustling, followed by a loud animal squeal. He held his breath. Silence.

There was another noise, similar, but not as loud as the first, as two jackrabbits tore out from the bush
and darted across the lawn. He exhaled. Just a couple of dumb bunnies.

Zack’s feet hit the mulch around the front hedges. He left the rope ladder dangling and hurried around the house, each step putting him closer to his last piece of birthday cake.

The patio door off the kitchen slid open, and Zack let out a deep sigh of relief. He closed the sliding glass panel and flipped the latch to lock it in place. When he turned around, facing into the kitchen, his mouth dropped open in shock.

I
n the Clarke family kitchen, Madison Miller was sitting in
Zack’s
spot, at
Zack’s
table, her eyes closed, savoring the first bite of
Zack’s
last piece of cake.

“Yuuuummm,” she exhaled in an elongated whisper.

“What are you doing?” Zack broke the silence. “That’s my triple-fudge, double-cream chocolate Oreo cake!”

“Don’t you mean triple-fudge, double-
soy
-cream chocolate Oreo cake?” Madison chewed the gooey morsel slowly, taunting him from across the room.

“You know that cake’s not vegan, Madison,” he informed her, reveling in this wonderful twist.

Madison and Zoe had formed a vegetarian pact last summer, which had then blossomed into a strict vegan diet. Poor Zack had been subjected to a freezer full of Rice Dream ice cream ever since.

“Right now, you’re eating baby chickens and buttery cow’s milk!” he continued with a mischievous smirk.

“Eeeeeewwww!” Madison let out a glass-shattering demon screech and spewed the half-chewed chocolate all over the kitchen wall. She raced over to the sink and turned on the water.

“Rinse it out real good,” he teased.

But instead of putting her mouth to the faucet,
Madison picked up what was left of Zack’s delicious cake, lifted it above her head, and slammed it down the drain. She hit the
ON
switch to the garbage disposal. The motor under the sink roared, and the cake spun violently into a watery chocolate sludge.

Madison turned to him. “Zoe said your mom
only
bakes ‘animal-friendly’ cakes now!” She quoted with her fingers and lowered her voice. “I’m gonna kill her.”

“Well, normally she does, Madison,” Zack explained. “But you see, that was
my
birthday cake….” He made his way to the center of the kitchen now, rubbing his palms together slyly as he went on. “And on
my
birthday, we don’t eat vegan. We eat regular.”

Madison’s brow furrowed with rage. “Oh, I’m sorry, was that
your
cake, Zack? Your
stupid, disgusting
cake?”

She leaned over the sink and sputtered out the remaining flecks of chocolate from the roof of her mouth. Then, reaching into her purse, she pulled out a new kiwi-strawberry VitalVeganPowerPunch and chugged back half the bottle.

“I guess it’s not your fault you can’t read, but it was
clearly labeled with
my
name. See?” he said holding up the plastic-wrapped note.

Madison sat down again and sipped her drink. “How’d you get out anyway, loser? And where’s all your makeup? I put a lot of effort into your new look.”

“I found a rope ladder. I washed my face. And I hate your guts,” Zack answered.

Madison’s ringtone burst into a Gym Class Heroes hook: “
Take a look at my girlfriend, girlfriend
….” She took a look at herself in the cell phone, pressed
TALK
, and shouted into the receiver, “Greg, I told you not to call me until you’re finished acting like an infant! There’s no such thing as zombies.” She hung up.

Zack froze. “Zombies?”

“What’s the matter, Zack? Are you afraid of the boogeyman?” she taunted him, a spooky tremble in her voice.

“Who was it?” Zack demanded.

“Greg Bansal-Jones,” Madison replied. “If you must know.”

Oh, that Greg,
Zack thought. He hated that Greg.

Suddenly, a tremendous crash shook the whole inside of the house, and they both spun toward the kitchen doorway.

“What the heck was that?” Madison shouted.

A scalp-tingling triple scream rang out from the living room. But the wild Zomanthyan shriek was cut short, replaced by an uncertain silence.

“Zoe!” Madison called.

Slow footsteps boomed across the first floor. They grew louder, shuffling closer. “Do you think it’s a zombie?” Zack wondered out loud, realizing just how stupid the question sounded.

“Okay, dill weed, new rule,” Madison ordered. “The next person who says the word
zombie
gets smacked upside the head, get it?”

There was another loud crash, and they could hear a faint tortured moan that rose in volume with the footsteps.

“Where’s Zoe?” Zack asked, his voice quivering.

Madison pushed past Zack and listened through the doorway. “Zoe?” She paused. “Ryan?…Samantha? You
guys okay?” Nobody answered. “Zoe? This isn’t funny. What’s going on?”

A third crash interrupted the long creepy silence, followed by the low, deep-throated groan, rumbling with each unearthly gasp. They stood silently as the staggering, uneven footsteps grew louder. Zack inched closer to Madison.

“Zack, what do we do? He’s coming this way!”

Suddenly, the phone blared.
Brrrrrrring!

Startled, Zack leaped on to Madison and clung to her soft zip-up cardigan.

“Eww, dude! Not so close!” She shoved him to the
floor. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the kitchen table.
Brrrrrrring!

“Quick, Madison! Hide!” Zack lifted up the tablecloth. Madison rolled her eyes and trotted after him. She grabbed her purse from the seat and crawled underneath the table. Zack crouched down, settling next to her in a nervous clump.

“Careful—I don’t want to get nerd all over me,” Madison whispered.

“Shut up, Madison.” Zack jabbed her in the ribs with his elbow. She elbowed him back three times as hard. He mouthed the word
ouch
and pressed his finger to his lips for her to shush.

Brrrrrrring!

The limping shuffle grew even closer, the guttural moaning now in surround sound. The growling prowler stomped into the kitchen and stopped. The phone went silent. The intruder took heavy breaths punctuated with an abbreviated snarl.

“He sounds gross,” Madison observed at full volume.

“What do we do?” Zack mouthed the words, hoping
she’d catch on. “What about Zoe?”

“I don’t know,” she said, a little worry in her voice.

The footsteps headed straight for the table. Madison and Zack both gulped air and held it in, exhaling silently through their nostrils. Petrified, Zack peeked under the bottom of the tablecloth, which hung only a few inches from the floor.

A pair of tattered, muck-stained sneakers and khaki pants frayed at the cuff appeared in front of his face. The legs wobbled. The sneaker soles squished and squirted as he shifted his stance, reeking like week-old cold cuts.

Madison pulled her shirt collar over her mouth.
Zack’s stomach churned, and he did the same. Something flapped, dropping on the linoleum with a soggy thud. Zack gasped. It was a paperback book covered in a thick dark sludge.

Old Man Stratton grunted and started wheezing in and out. He groaned and let out an awful wet cough that splatter-painted the kitchen floor with bloody red specks and gray-tinted globs of mucus. Zack shut his eyes.

Brrring! Brrring!
The phone started up again.

The old man grunted once more and limped in the direction of the telephone. He grabbed the handset and ripped the cord right out of the wall, thrashing wildly. He heaved the receiver across the room, and then, whirling around, he battered into the fridge and tore the freezer door clean off. Soy ice cream thunked to the kitchen floor. A gust of cold steam obscured the man from the neck up. He reeled around, half-hunched and wild-eyed, his face deformed with massive swollen knots of flesh.

The crazy old man staggered out of the kitchen and plodded into the hallway, his footsteps fading.

“I think he’s leaving,” Zack whispered, his heart pounding.

Madison grabbed Zack by the arm and dragged him out from under the table. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” Zack said. “We’ve got to get Zoe.”

“She’s probably hiding somewhere. Or they got away already. Now come on!”

She pointed to the sliding glass doors, and they raced across the kitchen. Zack fumbled with the lock.

“Come on, hurry up!” Madison urged, chugging the last of her VitalVegan.

Just as he was about to slide the door open, a pale gray fist pounded against the glass, cracking it into the shape of a spiderweb. Clutched in the hand was a limp, lifeless rabbit. Madison covered her mouth, heaving a little, her eyes bugging out.

A swift wind carried a dark cloud across the moon, and the bunny squasher’s silhouette came into full view. His bloody, mangled arm glistened bright red. His torn black Burton T-shirt revealed a massive chest
wound, ripe with rot, and his Etnies were destroyed. The zombie teen gripped a skateboard with his other decaying hand.

“It’s Danny! One of the Zimmers!” Zack exclaimed in a shocked whisper, gazing directly into his neighbor’s cold, vacant eyes. Pale, sagging skin drooped from the twin’s face. His jaw jutted out a bit, and his upper lip was raised, revealing his yellow incisors. Zack and Madison watched through the shattered glass as the Zimmer raised the dead bunny to his open mouth and bit into its middle, spouting blood up onto his wretched face.

“Zack, I don’t know what a Zimmer is,” Madison proclaimed, dumbstruck, eyes bulging, “but I think I know a zombie when I see one.”

Zack paused for a second, cocked back his hand, and smacked the side of Madison’s head. She glared
down at him; her eyes flashed fire. Zack just shrugged.

“It was your rule,” he said.

They turned around just in time to see the Zimmer twin, now a zombie twin, lifting his skateboard to smash through the door.

“Okay, no more games, Zack! Run!”

Madison and Zack whipped around and sprinted out of the kitchen and up the stairs, the crash of shattered glass echoing in their wake.