Zombie Elementary (5 page)

I play for the Tigers.
We are in the minors, which is ages nine and ten. After next year I’ll be going to the majors, which is eleven and up. But that’s not the point. Sorry.

The Tigers are sponsored by Cheesehead Ed’s Pizza (Home of Authentic Wisconsin-style Pizza, it says here on the napkin I’m looking at). We go to Ed’s after every game and eat pizza, and the moms and dads drink beer. It’s a pretty good deal, though I gotta say Bart Allen’s getting pretty darn fat and doesn’t run as fast as he did last year when we were the Pixies, sponsored by the Age of Aquarius New Age Spa and Holistic Healing Center.

Being called the Pixies pretty much sucked, especially as the sponsor, Moonbeam, insisted on us doing Buddhist chanting during warm-ups. But Moonbeam
moved to Nepal or New Jersey or somewhere, and Cheesehead Ed let us call ourselves something cool. We chose the Tigers. I know he really wanted to call us the Pepperonis. That would have sucked too.

Anyhow, we practice Tuesdays and Thursdays in the season, and play on Saturdays. Jermaine plays second base. I’m third baseman.

My dad said I could have his old Louisville Slugger when I start batting 300. It’s made from hickory. It used to belong to a neighbor’s kid when Dad was growing up. The kid got a trial with the Orioles but blew it and gave up playing, so he gave the bat to my dad. They said Cal Ripken, Jr. touched it during practice once, when he was a rookie. Pretty cool, huh?

At that point I was batting a 285, so I knew I was gonna have to wait a while. My old bat was okay, but I was getting too tall for it. I’d just had a growth spurt.

So, anyhow, we were at the field. The Pirates all live in Cedar Heights, which is on the other side of town. Nick Walker’s mom usually brought a bunch of Pirates in her Plymouth Voyager van, and she was late. So, while the rest of the Pirates waited for the whole team to show, Jermaine and I were warming up with the other guys, throwing the οl’ horsehide
around, practicing our swings. Then the coach called us to go through our game plan. Again. It’s like he thought if we had the plan drummed into our skulls over and over, it would be perfect.

But we all knew it wouldn’t be perfect—Rob Adams wouldn’t have taken his Ritalin, and Hunter Jordan’s shoe would come off ’cause he had to wear his brother’s old shoes and they wouldn’t fit him for another year.

Coach Chicka is kind of an a—kind of a jerk, sometimes. He has this thing about General Patton from World War II. That’s what my dad says, anyway. Always going on about defeating the enemy and something about making them die for their country. I don’t normally say this about something serious like baseball, but really it is
only a game
. Coach doesn’t get that. And his son Joey’s pretty terrible, but he always pitches first. A lot of the kids on the team don’t like that. Not even Joey.

So, Coach was going on about the batting order for the fifth time, Jermaine was pulling faces and I was trying hard not to bust out laughing. Then this red minivan turned into the parking lot at about
sixty miles an hour, screeched to a halt and the missing Pirates bailed out.

Only they didn’t run over like you’d expect. They were all—what’s the word I used before?

Shambling.

Yeah, that’s it.

I was watching the minivan
, and I spotted this one kid leap out of the back hatch and run like heck across the parking lot toward the highway. This other kid was after him, but he was chasing with a jerky kind of step, so he couldn’t catch up. I squinted so I could see better. Yeah, it was Alex. He picked up something. It looked like a helmet. Maybe the other kid dropped it.

Nick Walker’s mom was last out of the van, and she was yelling at the kids. I couldn’t hear her, but she was waving, so I guess it was more of a “Have a good game and don’t get hurt!” kind of yelling, not a “Hey! How come you kids are staggering forward with your arms out?” kind.

Grown-ups!

I guess I was expecting the kids to walk toward the crowd and start, you know, grabbing and biting.
But they didn’t. They trooped toward the dugout like they were a baseball team.

“They retain a residual sense of normalcy,” said Jermaine.

I stared at him.

“Like in
Dawn of the Dead
. In that movie the zombies all went to the shopping mall because they were conditioned to go there. It was, like, the normal thing to do. The Pirates came to play baseball, so that’s what they are going to do.”

“Well, yeah,” I said, trying to figure this out. “I guess they had their uniforms on ready for the game. So what happened?”

“Obviously Nick’s mom picked up Alex, and he got in the van and just started biting everyone. You saw the kid who ran? That was Jeff Wasileski from our school. I bet he was right at the back and managed to roll over the seat into the cargo area with the bats and gloves and stuff.”

Right, I thought. I remembered what Alex was like on the school bus. Maybe he had a hard time getting back into the cargo area to bite that last boy. Jermaine was thinking the same thing.

“Jeff Wasileski’s pretty smart, so maybe he used his mitt and his catcher’s mask to keep from getting bitten.”

I thought about this for a moment. But then it was time to play baseball.

We were up to bat first. I’m fourth in the batting order, so I got to watch for a while. Jermaine’s number five.

Will Naylor batted first. He’s pretty good. He can really hit a ball when it comes at him fast and high.
But the Pirates’ pitcher—that’s Nick Walker, the kid with the mom and the minivan—seemed like he couldn’t get any power behind the ball. He’d pitched against us before, and he was usually okay. That day, not so much. First pitch barely reached the plate. It just rolled the last few inches. Will shook his head. Second pitch was even worse ’cause it was nowhere near the strike zone. I mean
nowhere at all
near.

Nick was getting this weird, messed-up action in his arm. Third ball went up, like he was trying to hit a bird or something, but it dropped toward Will, who stepped back and swung. The ball took off toward left field, and Will made it to first base. He looked around, saw the Pirates hadn’t got the ball back, and stole second.

I’m pretty sure he could have gone all the way round, but Will didn’t know that half the Pirates’ outfield was infected with the zombie-bite. They weren’t fully into grabbing and biting yet, though.

“It seems like it takes a while,” said Jermaine. “Like the little girl in
Night of the Living Dead
.”

I thought back. There was a sick kid in the movie who turned into a zombie and started eating her dad. He’d been pretty much a jerk through the whole
thing, I have to admit, so I didn’t feel bad for him. But Jermaine was right. Earlier in the movie she was just sorta ill.

Our second batter was up. John Walters could hit ’em hard. But Nick’s pitching was getting super-crazy now, and John walked. Same thing happened with the next Tiger at bat, Gary Peavyhouse. Gary just laughed as Nick’s pitches came at him like he was a kindergarten kid playing T-ball.

Some of our guys were jeering at Nick. Some of the Pirates were booing their own pitcher. I’d have felt bad for him except for three things:

First off, you never feel bad for the other team. Not while the game’s on, anyway.

Second, the whole zombie thing. Hard to feel sorry for a zombie who can’t pitch.

Third, I was up to bat. I was gonna hit a home run.