Zombie Elementary (15 page)

Chucky was mad at them. “Come here where ah can chop yew into pieces!” he yelled.

I looked at Jermaine. He looked back at me.

“We never told him—” he said.

Jermaine was right. We had told Chucky all about the outbreak and the cheerleaders and the playground, but we forgot the part about meeting Mr. O’Hara and how zombies hate the noise of a chainsaw. Also the part about how we were supposed to just knock the zeds on the head so they could be cured later, maybe, we all hoped.

But Chucky wanted to slice and dice the zombies into a million little bits of slimy, green gunk and crunchy bones and—

I thought I was gonna throw up right there, in the mall parking lot.

No, I wasn’t. I was gonna hit these three zombies
who were swarming around me first. Then I was gonna stop Chucky before he really took the chainsaw to a zombie.

And then maybe I’d throw up.

I can’t really say what happened next.

First off, Chucky was wielding his chainsaw like this was the best day of his life. He was laughing. He was hollering. He swore he was gonna spray zombie parts all across the parking lot. If he caught any, there’d be a lot of unhappy shoppers coming back to their cars. But he wasn’t having any luck, since they kept running away. Well, not running. You know.

Second, Francine still had a crowd of zeds surrounding the hatchback, and she was cutting down the numbers pretty darn good. Thwack!

And then there was me.

I had a baseball bat, a weak stomach and a patch of tarmac with white parking spaces painted over it. Not good.

So I jumped onto a parked car—it was a sedan, so shoot me. It was not like I had time to choose a better one, what with the three zombies coming right at me all “
NYAARRRGGG!
” and “
BRAIIIINNNSSS
!!” The one in front was a lady in a church hat, you know, pink and flouncy, which went with her mostly green face. She grabbed at me as I leaped up, moaning something like “Not so faaaaassstttt yung mannnnnnn!!”

Okay, I might have been imagining that part.

I half turned and caught her with the bat. Oof! She swung her purse at me as she fell over. Then I was up on the hood, taking up my batter’s stance, and swung as a guy in a gray suit with blood all down the front pounced at me. He had big white teeth and wanted to use ’em on me. I connected real hard, and his head went flying across the lot.

I didn’t feel bad about him. I wasn’t going to fetch his head and match it with his body.

The church lady was up and shaking her fist at me. Suddenly her whole arm came loose and just slid out of her sleeve and plopped on the pavement. Dang! While I was watching her, the third zombie came up and—oh—grabbed my bat. Guess I got distracted.

I tried to yank it back. The zed was strong. He was wearing a tank top with the name of some gym on it. I guess he was a member. Used to be a member.

I was in trouble now.

I did something I’d never normally do. I dropped the bat and took off.

The zombie didn’t follow right away—maybe he was trying to figure out how come I wasn’t on the other end of the bat anymore—but Church Lady Zombie did. She was waaay faster than I expected. Only had one arm to grab at me now, though, which was good, I guess.

I was scared. I was running. I couldn’t feel my legs.

Suddenly a truck pulled out and came straight at me. I dove to my left, cussing like my dad does when Mom’s out and the Orioles are losing on TV. Big Baltimore fan, my dad. But that’s not the point. I slammed into the side of a parked car.

Church Lady Zombie didn’t get out of the way. The truck went right over her and kept going. I could see her legs poking out from underneath. No, it was just one leg. The rest of her was being dragged under the truck. That couldn’t be good for her.

The truck stopped. The driver wound down the window. It was Jermaine. The truck was Chucky’s. I didn’t make the connection, what with—

“Get in!” he yelled. I ran and jumped into the bed of the truck. He gunned the motor again and drove right into a mass of zombies, just mowing them down. Arms and legs were flying all around. I stayed as low as I could get. The truck ran over some speed bumps. (Maybe they weren’t speed bumps.) Then it slowed, like it couldn’t get traction. The pavement was slippery. The engine whined. The truck lurched to a stop. I heard Jermaine clashing through the gears, looking for reverse. I guess it’s not like the go-karts at the county fair. We jerked backward and stopped again.

I heard a noise like a “
BUZZZZZZZ,
” and then it cut out. Something big landed beside me. Two things. Landing on their feet.

I figured I was dead.

I was undead, or I would be in a minute.
Please
, I thought,
let them just eat my brains. I don’t wanna be a zombie. Better to just be a zombie’s lunch
.

But it wasn’t zombies at all. It was two live people.

“Hey, Larry!” yelled Chucky. “Long time, no see!” He was laughing.

“Hey, Larry!” shouted Francine. “You guys arrived just in time! I was getting worried!”

Jermaine found his gear and put pedal to the metal again, and the truck leaped forward. I looked up. Behind us, the zombies were chasing the truck. I guessed there were maybe ten or twenty of them left. They didn’t give up. I recognized Alex Bates and the ambulance driver, Mr. Phalen, among them. Plus the coach of the Pirates and a couple of kids in team uniform. And Luke and Jonathan Torres from my school, with their dad carrying shopping bags.

The truck fishtailed as it went faster. I guess Jermaine wasn’t thinking about getting a ticket for speeding, or not having a license, or being ten years old.

About a mile down the road, he pulled over.

“Good driving, kid!” shouted Chainsaw Chucky. “Yew done good!”

“When did yew learn to drive a truck?”
asked Chucky.

“About five minutes ago,” Jermaine answered.

“Yew done good!” yelled Chucky again, and punched Jermaine on the shoulder. Jermaine winced.

Chucky jumped out, ran around the outside of the truck, and got in on the driver’s side. Jermaine, Francine, and me were all squashed in on the bench seat.

“I lost my bat,” I told Jermaine.

He grinned at me. “Could’ve been a lot worse.”

Yeah, it could. But still, it was my bat.

“You could use mine,” said Jermaine. “I don’t think Little League is gonna be a priority for me anytime soon.”

What with probably being banned for attacking zombies on the ball field, he was probably right. I
appreciated the offer. Even if Jermaine is four inches shorter than me and his bat’s way too small.

I wondered if Dad would let me use his old Louisville Slugger. It’s a great bat, made from hickory. I think I already said that. Dad said I gotta bat 300 to use his bat, which is, like, impossible.

It was in Dad’s closet. I’d found it when I was looking for my Christmas presents a couple of years ago.

I was thinking about this stuff ’cause Chainsaw Chucky’s driving made me real nervous and I had to keep my mind on something other than “I escaped the zombies but hit a streetlamp on the way home.”

“Let’s git some of Granny’s lemonade!” said Chucky. He swung the wheel and we pulled into his driveway. I didn’t notice where we’d gotten to. Lemonade is good after a morning slugging zombies.

“Whoa!” yelled Jermaine as we pulled up.

Francine gripped her lacrosse stick real tight.

What was up?

Then I heard the sound of gunfire. Lots of gunfire. Shotgun blasts.

Chucky opened the truck door. “Yew kids stay here. Lock yourselves in.”

He grabbed a chainsaw and fired it up. Then he ran inside the house.

Francine pulled up the, uh, the peg thing, you know, and opened the door.

“Hey!” I said. “Chucky said to—”

Except I was talking to an empty cab, because Jermaine had already gone out the driver’s side door.

So I jumped out too and ran into the house. I felt naked without my bat.

You know how I said that
Chucky’s place was kind of a mess?

It was a real mess now. Totally destroyed. Lots of holes blasted in the walls and furniture. The furniture was mostly blown to pieces. Granny’s shotgun, I guess.

Even Francine went pale.

We could hear Chucky’s chainsaw as he ran through the house yelling for his granny.

“No zombies,” said Jermaine. “Not live ones, anyhow.”

“How can you tell?” asked Francine.

“The sound of the chainsaw hasn’t changed,” answered Jermaine. “So it’s not cutting into anything.”

Like I said, Jermaine’s real smart. He knows how the whine of a chainsaw gets higher when it’s biting.

I heard a shotgun blast. Then another. It was outside. I guess Chucky heard it too, ’cause he came running down the stairs two at a time and hauled butt across the room to the back window. The glass was all broken out like someone had climbed out of it. Or, someone had climbed in. Except there was nobody here, and no blood or body parts. Which was good, right?

“Hey, Granny! Ah’m comin’ to git yew!” he yelled.

I got to the window a moment after. Across the yard there was an old-time outhouse with a half-moon shape cut out of the door. A shotgun barrel was sticking out through the half moon.

BANG!
!!!!

I ducked. Everyone ducked.

The outhouse door opened. Granny stepped out. She was carrying the pump shotgun and the box of shells Chucky didn’t want to take earlier. I guess that worked out, then.