Tabitha's Zombies: Part 1 Read online

  ONE

  “The safest place is here,

  To fight away the fear,

  The fear that lurks so near;

  So let us have good cheer.”

  I can’t remember the last time I said that. A nursery rhyme, no more; but it’s comforting—a gem from the past, when I’d sit, legs crossed, with a bunch of my friends and play pattycake or rock-paper-scissors. It fights the jitters and allows me to think clearly. But clear thought has its disadvantages, like being more aware of my surroundings.

  The floor, for instance. Something about a school’s floor just isn’t right. Maybe it’s that plasticky feel of the linoleum as my nails dig into the surface, reminding me of a desiccated cheesecake. Maybe it’s what I’m brushing against right now, a collection of eraser shavings, chewed-up bubblegum, and hair (in all its glorious variety; from the long strands of our resident blonde bimbos, to the stubble of meathead jocks).

  One mustn’t forget the smell too. The smell of armpits and sweaty feet, of cheap perfume and that spicy body wash boys buy because it’s supposed to help them get girls. This barf-inducing bouquet falls to the ground and hovers like fog, so strong I can barely breathe.

  And breathe I must. No passing out now. Not when my escape is so close. The only thing keeping me sane is the hope that maybe I’m in a nightmare, and all I need to do is pinch myself and the world will go back to normal. Several hundred pinches later, all I’ve got is red marks. I tried every spot of me for good measure. No dice. I AM HERE, and here is Stanton Middle School—after the outbreak.

  I say “outbreak” like this is some kind of sickness. In any event, that’s how it’s portrayed in the movies. The victims, one by one, are bitten and become those things who walk around aimlessly with a hilarious lurch, drool coming from their mouths, grunting incoherently. Not unlike your average idiot, but this idiot has a taste for brains.

  Yeah, I’m talking about zombies. Cue the horror music.

  Or don’t if you think I’m lying. I’ve got Ms. Collins’ entrails on my clothes to prove it. A shame too; she was the most popular substitute in the district; so well-liked, in fact, students just called her by her first name, Susy.

  Unfortunately, Susy had the bright idea that I’d look better without skin. When she came at me, her lips were peeled back in an odd way, exposing her teeth, red and black and green from eating who-knows-what? before I found her.

  Actually . . . I know what. Tiffany Clarence, a nice shy girl from sixth grade. She was draped over the sink like a discarded coat. One could imagine Susy sucking out her bones à la tapioca through a straw.

  Okay, okay, I apologize for the visual. But it’s important that someone knows what happened. These kids, these people—yes, the boring teachers too—they deserve to be remembered. Even if I have to kill them to survive.

  I should start from the beginning.

  It was around fourth period. Adam Lanyurd was popping Tic Tacs like crazy, making awful crunching sounds. This while Mr. Heist droned on about invariables. “Since P is greater than Q, then Q is . . .” Blah, blah, blah. Neither here nor there. A grand mystery of abstract thinking that serves nobody in midst of life’s banalities. I had to leave, to save myself from the sleep-inducing meandering of Heist’s voice. However, I couldn’t claim I was late for a meeting, or the Queen of England had me on line two. Among the whole of Stanton’s student body, the old excuses were way overused, and “I’m gonna wet my pants!” was the most worn. Yet, every now and then, I could make myself believable.

  I stood up and leaned forward, scrunching my body into a wedge, bouncing from one foot to another. “Mr. Heist,” I called out in anguish. “Could I please go to the restroom?” He looked at me queerly, his massive spectacles drooping down the slope of his nose. “You know the rules, Tabitha. The facilities are for between classes.”

  He went back to scratching weak chalk onto the board.

  “But . . . but . . . Mr. HEEEISST! ”

  Cathy Upton groaned, “Oh, please, Tabby. You’re so full of it.”

  I snuck an obscenity with my hand, and she rolled her eyes. Heist sighed and turned to face me. “Please, no more disruptions, ladies. And, Tabitha, if you really can’t hold it, you should have thought about that before.”

  Upping the ante, I did the pee-pee dance a little faster.

  “Wow, Mr. Heist, you’re right. I should have thought about how slick your floor’ll get once I unleash my bladder. Not to mention that ammonia smell. Oh, the humanity!”

  “Yuck!” Cathy shuddered. Adam had difficulty swallowing the last crushed-up cud of candy in his mouth. The remainder of the class giggled delightfully, and Heist was forced to acknowledge he was losing control of the room.

  “Fine,” he said exhaustedly. “But be quick about it.”

  After one last gesture to Cathy, I was soon skipping down the hall to the “facilities,” where I had no intention of staying the full extent of my furlough. This was a simple appearance to grab my alibi. I was sure someone would be there; someone was always there, talking, caking her face with makeup, smoking—or munching on the mutilated body of a student.

  Boy, do I hate it when that last one happens.

  There I was, and there was Susy, who looked as lovely as ever. That new mascara really brought out the color of her eyes. Oh, wait, that was something else. My mistake. Very hard to tell makeup from gore.

  I stood there, dumbfounded. Her hair was stringy and lifeless. Quite a thing if you’d ever met her. She was famous for her bouncy chestnut locks. But now this strange mop hung from her scalp. It’s weird that struck me the most, not the blood or mucus or spackle of brain matter on her dress. The hair.

  She quickly realized I was in the room and gave me a fierce stare. I continued to stand as she came for me. One step, two steps, three steps, stumble. Her walk was uncoordinated; she had to use the landscape to stay upright.

  Almost arm’s length away, it eventually dawned on me she meant to do harm, so I dodged her by swiftly stepping to the right, for the toilet stalls. There were five arranged against the wall, and I jumped into one.

  For a time, it was a near-perfect fortress against Susy’s assault. Minutes went by as she pounded the door, making ridiculous sounds. I tried talking to her, asking her to stop, saying I probably tasted like the underside of a slug. She finally got smart and crawled through the opening under the door. Once her head cleared my side, she looked up and made the most grotesque smile. A crusting of yellow puss decorated the corners of her mouth. The last straw was the “ehhhh” she gurgled. By then, I was standing on top of the toilet seat. I took my right leg—my strongest—and stamped down on her with such power that I heard vertebrae dislodge. This dazed her for a second. She even slid back a little before twisting her face upward again to show her anger. It was the sort of look you might see a lioness give a gazelle who bested her. I felt like prey, and I was desperate to be anything but.

  A weapon was what I needed. Here would have been an awesome moment for my skateboard, solid wood with a metal edge that could slice deep into the side of a watermelon. (I won five bucks proving that.) Alas, the only things available were rolls of TP, along with my own possessions: a hall pass, loose change, and a plastic watch. There was also my own set of keys to the house. Hardly an arsenal.

  When you’re down to those miserable choices, you might consider retreat. Perhaps climbing over one stall into another, and on and on till you’re far away, and, if possible, near an escape hatch? No good. I entered the stall closest to the exit. And the restroom’s windows were the same as in any school; opaque, solid as steel, and locked like they’re protecting the Holy Grail. Susy blocked the only way out.

  I had to make a stand. My mind dr
ifted to the only thing with rigidity and strength: my keys. The chain itself was unwieldy. I nearly dropped it on the ground. But I was able to pick out the longest, most formidable hunk of metal; one that belonged to the backyard shed, the shrine of weekend chores. It was golden brown and wickedly jagged in the way you’d want a knife to be. Except, obviously, it wasn’t a knife. It was a blunt act of desperation. And, in the depth of my desperation, Susy’s scream of pain seemed like sweet music as I lodged the cruddy thing into her eye socket. If nothing else came of it, I was sure someone would show up to investigate the noise.

  Blood gushed more than I expected. Its coppery smell traveled up my nostrils so quickly I thought I’d stuck a penny into one of them. No surprise to me, Susy abandoned her crawl and stood upright to accentuate the violence of her pain. Through the door crack, I could see her wailing like a banshee, her mouth turned up to the ceiling, arms and hands twisting this way and that. She made one heck of a cyclops.

  I managed to keep the key chain in my hands when she pulled back. Little worse for wear, it stuck to my hand as the rapidly drying blood turned into glue.

  “Truce?” I bellowed.

  The word came without consideration. A taunt, maybe, but one steeped in terror. Susy didn’t appreciate it too much. She rushed the door with the full weight of her body, and staggered back a few steps, then tried again, and again, and again. She didn’t know her own size. The old Susy was acutely aware of her petite figure—proud of it. The new Susy harbored the impression she was a sumo wrestler. She fell to the ground on the fifth or sixth try, wobbling her head in disorientation.

  I convinced myself this was an opportunity, so I opened the door and sprinted for the exit. Drat! Susy wasn’t as off-kilter as I’d hoped. Her hand cupped my ankle and tripped me up, and I slid to the ground and absorbed the trail of her seeping eye socket. The warmth of the blood reached me through the thin protection of my T-shirt (incidentally, my favorite; a Bangles concert souvenir my Mom picked up in her wild years). No time to fret. I had to get up and push through the door, dragging the albatross if necessary, but far enough to get someone’s attention.

  I was astounded how strong she was. She tugged, and I came back a few inches, close to her mouth, open and ready for a nibble.

  “Heck no, girlfriend!” I yelled as I took my free leg and kicked her in the forehead. As before, I could hear the unsettling click of a displaced bone. Then the full reality of her unliving state hit me. This was when the word “zombie” first zoomed through my mind. Nobody could take a blow like that, let alone twice. The eye was one thing, but developing a question-mark-shaped spine should have presented Susy problems.

  This is doomsday stuff, I thought. Everything will fall apart. The world is over!

  Unless . . . Susy was the first one, the only one. Then I was bound and determined that she be the last one. My mission was no longer to run away, but to do my duty to mankind, no matter how lame most people are anyway. Lameness was a small price to pay in order to have roller derby, and video games, and Ben and Jerry’s.

  I quickly sat up after Susy let go of my ankle. My kick made her more docile this time. She brought her hand to her face and rubbed the track mark left by my shoe. Her jaw hung low and swerved from right to left, exposing the insides of her mouth. Right away I could tell not all the blood was Tiffany’s. Large cankers littered Susy’s gums and tongue. In pulses, they spewed a putrid combo of green and black. A distinct odor, not as nasty as you might think, reached my nose, having notes of stale bread and wet dog.

  “Sweetie, you’ve got some serious issues going on in that gab of yours.”

  The low guttural growl rolling from her throat made the drool come out faster. I readied myself in case she pounced. My eyes were scanning for something dangerous, something violent enough to once and for all end this poor woman’s hunger. I saw Tiffany on the far side of the room. Close by was her backpack, a deep purple with the top zipper partially opened. I noticed a few binders, and protruding from one of those was a bronze-colored ruler. Only a sliver waved at me, but I immediately saw the potential.

  The problem—the recurring theme of this episode—was that Susy blocked me. The way forward was too narrow for comfort. Add to that, she’d gotten up on her knees and splayed her arms, doing the football linebacker bit. It would’ve been an amusing sight if there weren’t that evil look on her face, daring me to make a move.

  “You sure got the right idea,” I said, “but do you have these?”

  The keys jingled in my hand, a little Tinkerbell by my side to ward off the helplessness. Susy hissed at the noise. Her face twitched, and she brought a hand to her terrible wound.

  “That’s right. Best not lunge or you’ll be reading Pride and Prejudice in braille.”

  Susy had apparently developed a stubborn streak, and nothing I said was going to make a difference. She went back to stretching both arms wide. Then the rush.

  The shed key was between my fingers, and I pulled my right hand backwards and calculated the aim. Just as Susy’s head and mouth were dropping for my neck, the key thrust out and angled into her good eye. My body had to pivot away as this happened so I could avoid the full force of her charge. We both staggered and fell, me on my side, Susy squarely on her back. The keys stayed with her, doing their jingle-jangle, sticking out from the center of her oozing orb. I grew a new appreciation for the common whisper, since now my ears were in aching proximity to her scream.

  She remained on her back, and I crawled with the panic of a cockroach caught in light. The backpack came within reach, and I dug in greedily. As I’d hoped, the ruler was thick and sturdy, and the corners held a sharp point that could easily break skin.

  Calling out, “Oh, Susy, doll,” I turned and asked in a trolling lilt: “Where are you?”

  She was still scrambling on the floor, unable to see, using her arms for navigation. I felt security. All I had to do was wait till she gave me a chance.

  It didn’t take long. She grew more agitated. Grumbling like a bear, jerking her head back and forth, knocking it hard against one of the sinks. More blood, this time from a gash on her scalp. The scream again. Gut-wrenching and pathetic. I tiptoed over. Her head rocked back while she extended her arms for purchase. It rocked back further and further, to the heavens. By this point, she’d managed to remove the key from her eye. Both sockets were ripe for the picking.

  Eenie meenie miney . . . MO!

  All the way. Smooth as a bowling lane. When the ruler hit the back of her skull, Susy’s body quivered. Air escaped her mouth in a burp. That stale-bread smell got stronger. But soon, nothing.

  I retracted the ruler and saw the black.

  Black? That can’t be right.

  The pieces of brain were the consistency of ground beef, which seemed normal, even to my uneducated arse. But this was not the healthy color one sees in biology books. They always showed the brain as pink and red, or slightly grey. The black made me think of spoiled food, of rotting.

  Not to gross you out more or anything, but it was all over me too. When I stabbed down into Susy’s gourd, some of the contents scattered in the air without me realizing it. My focus on her demise had been all-consuming. It wasn’t anymore. Breakfast refused to stay put after that. Lucky for me, I was in a restroom, despite it having turned into a museum of the macabre.

  To be sure, I looked disgusting. Though, that didn’t bother me much. I felt like a hero. Who else could have claimed they killed a zombie? It wasn’t to be believed.

  And . . . and . . . and . . .

  The silence reasserted itself and my rational mind took over.

  How the frick am I going to explain this?!

  [Uh, yeah, see that girl over there? She completely obliterated little innocent Tiffany Clarence, and then came after me. TO EAT ME! She’s a zombie, don’t you see? Really, can’t you see that? Listen to her . . . oh, um . . . but she was very aggressive, and she attacked me with her teeth, and . . . well, look at her HAIR, and her black, b
lack brain! Now, doesn’t that seem weird to you, Principle Jessup, Officer Somebody, Judge Fire and Brimstone???]

  Not to worry. I wouldn’t still be crawling for my life if things were that simple. Nothing’s that simple. Or, at the very least, simplicity has taken a vacation—evermore.

  TWO

  The situation became more terrifying by the second. I remained alone. Why hasn’t anyone come? Susy and I sure as heck made enough noise to wake Beethoven from a deep slumber. Nope. No domineering adults, and no gawking kids, who’d relish the chance to witness a catfight. No anybody who had to relieve herself, regardless of the ruckus. After all, who cares when Nature’s calling?

  The mystery was unnerving. And then came the uncomfortable thought that maybe I was wrong about Susy having been the only one. The whole school could have been infected. I could already be infected! That one really got me going. It reminded me to check for you-know-what everywhere possible. The slightest nick would’ve been suspect.

  Trouble was, I had blood and other stuff on me. The search took more than a few minutes. My arms and hands and legs, my neck and face. Everything looked fine, but, for all I knew, that didn’t matter; zombieism could’ve been an airborne phenomenon.

  Soon I had to acknowledge another problem, whether or not to open the door to the hallway. Indeed, it was thrilling, and I’ve wanted things to be like this for a long time. Public school’s dull, you know, and it’s no place for an aspiring artist. (Assuming pavement drawings are art. Mom hesitates to concur, particularly since my greatest creations tend to be . . . ahem! . . . manga characters.) But it doesn’t matter, because this place is a silly waste of time for most people. If you had asked me before, I would’ve supported a major shakeup; a coup, if you will. Would have voted for it without question.

  Initially, it seemed, the only downside to the new excitement was the possibility of death—mine and mine alone. But I found myself thinking of the old Susy. She had a pleasant laugh. Ditto Tiffany, who would, during lunch hour, retreat to a distant table to read sappy paperbacks, smiling sweetly when she got to the funny parts.