Zombie Field Day (4 page)

“Hold this with your left hand,” Chad continued. He handed Shelly the metal top of a trash can. “It’s your shield.”

“So this is it,” she said, holding the lid out in front of her. “Got the slug, Leo?”

He patted his right jacket pocket. He wanted to say, “All zipped in,” but his mouth could only make a dry, sticky sound. Today’s dread felt like a monkey throwing rocks inside his stomach.

“You look absurd,” Roger said, as the three zombie catchers turned to leave. “I mean that in the very best sense, of course.” Roger smiled slightly. “Good-bye and good luck, my dear brave friends.”

“It looks just like in the movies,” Shelly whispered as Rotfield Middle School came into view. Zombies were everywhere. They drifted over the baseball field. They dragged themselves under the basketball hoops and around the playground. One zombie kept walking into the bottom of the slide over and over again.

“Okay, time for step one,” Shelly whispered.

Chad put his arms out in front of him and made his eyes go blank. “Aaaaaaaaah,” he moaned. Then, “How’s that?”

“Perfect. Can you keep that up all the way to the swimming pool?” Shelly asked.

“Whatever happens,
don’t run,
” Leo reminded him, “and be as quiet as possible. As long as they believe we’re zombies, they won’t attack us.” Then Leo slumped his shoulders and started dragging his left leg sideways across the ground.

“Nice touch, Leo,” Shelly whispered.

Maybe it was easier to pass as a zombie with a pretend monkey banging inside your gut.

“Good luck.” Shelly squeezed Leo’s hand. “Now on to step two,” she said. With a wave, she took off for the construction site across the street.

Slowly, slowly, Chad and Leo made their way into the zombie swarm. They passed Josiah Sullivan, then Molly Fisher, then Maddie Lee. There was Mrs. Chandler, chewing on home plate. “Guess class is cancelled,” Chad whispered.

Leo and Chad were across the baseball diamond now. Past the dugout, an eighth grader in baggy pants appeared suddenly in front of Leo. She leaned in and sniffed Leo’s neck like it was a steak on the grill. Leo jumped back just as her jaws snapped where his throat had been.

PPPPfffffft.
A spray of tomato juice covered her face, and she started spinning slowly in circles.

“Thanks, Chad,” Leo mouthed.

Chad! Leo made a frantic circle with his finger to tell Chad to look behind him. Jeremy Berry was raking his fingernails across the back of Chad’s leather jacket.

“AAAAAahhhhh!” Mouth open, Jeremy leaned in for a bite.

Whhhhaaaack!
Without turning around, Chad swung his sock weapon up and back with a quick flick of the wrist. It bounced off the back of Jeremy’s head. Jeremy stumbled just long enough for Chad to turn around.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHA!”

This time Jeremy lunged at Chad full force. But Chad pushed him off with his trash can lid. Jeremy fell on his back like an overturned bug, and Leo quickly sprayed him with tomato juice. Jeremy’s body went limp as he smacked his own face with one hand.

“They’re catching on to us,” Leo whispered, panic rising in his throat. He turned to see a dozen or so zombies slowly coming at them.

“Come on,” Chad said. He pulled Leo inside the P.E. equipment shed and closed the door. “We’ll lie low here, and they’ll forget about us in a minute.”

That was one good thing about zombies. They weren’t very smart. And really not that strong either. A few zombies were no problem, but the whole school? Leo peeked out the window of the shed. Moaning, drooling, oozing zombies everywhere. And, wait a minute—

“Chad!” Leo called his friend over. “Look over there, on the swings!”

There, spinning a few feet off the ground, was the unmistakable mushroom head of Principal V. He was lying facedown over a swing, slowly twirling and untwirling the swing’s chains.

That clinched it. Leo and Chad were the only humans at school today.
Good
, Leo thought, with a small wave of relief. For their plan to work, they needed to be the only living flesh around.

All clear for step three,” Leo said. He and Chad were standing on the cement edge of the outdoor swimming pool. They had made it out of the P.E. shed and past the basketball hoops without any battles. In the distance, Leo could see Shelly in position. “On your mark, get set—”

“YOOO-HOOOOOOO,” Chad yelled. “Here, zombies-zombies-zombies! Come on, you undead freaks! Fresh meat, oh yeah.” He squeezed a roll of belly fat between his hands. “HHHHHAAAA-HAAAAA!”

“Yeah, you heard him, zombies,” Leo shouted. “Fresh meat!” He jumped up and down and waved his arms.

“Who wants a bite of delicious Chad sushi?” Chad yelled. “Today’s special? Butt roll!” he roared, wiggling his backside.

Chad slammed a couple of trash can lids together like cymbals and started marching around the pool. Leo stomped loudly behind him.

The plan was working. Zombies were coming toward them from every direction. They streamed out of the school doors and from the baseball field, the playground, and the basketball court.

“Oh yeah, come to papa,” Chad said.

The zombies made a wide circle around the pool. As Chad banged and Leo stomped, the circle became crowded. The hungry zombies moaned louder and rocked harder. They closed in on Chad and Leo.

“Step four!” Leo yelled.

“Whoooooo-hooooo!” Chad shouted.

The two friends jumped into the pool with a giant splash. Quickly, Leo released the bright green slug from the sandwich bag inside his pocket. He turned the bag inside out and swished it under the water to get out all the slime. A light green circle rippled out around the slug. Leo and Chad gently waved their arms to spread the slime across the surface of the water.

For a second the zombies just stood on the edge of the pool. Then,
Splash! Plop! Splash!
Ker-plunk! One by one, the zombies fell into the pool. They came from all sides, pushing each other in like dominoes.

Leo squeezed his eyes shut. This was it, the moment of truth. When he opened his eyes again, the first thing Leo saw was Chad’s grinning face. And behind that, the confused faces of his fellow Rotfield Middle School students.

“What’s going on?”

“How did I get here?”

“I’m freeeeeezing.”

“Hey, no splashing!”

Then came Shelly, right on time for step five. She rumbled toward them in a bright yellow bulldozer. She was carefully rolling a group of zombies along the ground with the front shovel. She stopped and turned off the engine at the pool’s edge.

“Got all the stragglers,” she called out. “But what do you want to do with
him?”
She pointed at Principal V. He was trying to crawl out from under her pile of dazed zombies.

Hmmm. Which was better? An evil genius principal or a deadly zombie principal? Deadly zombie, no doubt. But Principal V still had important information they needed. Plus, saving his life was probably the right thing to do.

“Throw him in,” Leo called out.

“Okay, boss,” Shelly said. And with the pull of a lever, she dumped the final five zombies into the giant pool of antidote.

Like most evil geniuses, Principal V turned out to be a chicken. Especially when you knew what his weak spot was. All they had to do was hold a baseball bat over a glass unicorn. Sure enough, Principal V told them where the Z. coli was right away. The next day, Principal V’s office was completely cleared out, down to unicorn 8,762.

Most kids had only fuzzy memories of being zombies. All they really remembered was the whole school splashing together in the pool. (Though Jeremy Berry developed an “inexplicable” fear of unicorns.) Two months later, the yearbook would show a picture of five hundred kids playing Marco Polo in the green water. “Best field day ever!” the caption read.

Leo and Shelly’s parents had come in first place at the ballroom dance contest. They’d celebrated all night and slept in half the next day.

“Everything go okay at school today?” Mrs. Wiley asked Shelly and Leo that evening at dinner.

“Oh yes,” Shelly said, shooting Leo a look.

“Definitely,” Leo added. He liked the new feeling of sharing a secret with his big sister, Shelly Wiley, ZombieZapper #2.

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TO PATRICIA, FOR A GREAT IDEA AND FOR THINKING I COULD DO IT -- NH

Copyright © 2014 by Speeding Star, an imprint of Enslow Publishers, Inc.

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No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Higgins, Nadia.
Zombie field day / Nadia Higgins.
p. cm. — (Zombie Zappers ; bk. 2)
Summary: “Join the Zombie Zappers back at school for the next round of zombie mayhem. When Rotfield Middle School students start turning into zombies, Leo and his friends are the only ones who might be able to save them. Can they discover the cause of this outbreak before it’s too late?”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-62285-005-1
[1. Zombies—Fiction. 2. Middle schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H5349558Zof 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012028662

Future Editions:
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62285-006-8
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-62285-008-2
Single-User PDF ISBN: 978-1-62285-009-9
Multi-User PDF ISBN: 978-1-62285-144-7

This is the EPUB version 1.0.

Cover Illustration:
Daryll Collins

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Zombie Camp
Zombie Zappers Book 1

Get to know Zombie Zappers Leo, Chad, and the rest of the gang as they try to solve the mystery of the Smellerd zombies at summer camp. What nightmarish surprise will they find waiting for them at Lake Moan?

ISBN: 978-1-62285-003-7