The Saga Of Tom Stinson (Book 1): Summer School Zombocalypse (13 page)

Tom peered up and down a spiral ramp that wrapped around a thick cylinder in what he thought to be the center of the ship. Hallways radiated out from the chamber like spokes on a wheel, he couldn’t see where they ended. They followed the spiral downwards. At the bottom, the chamber was different than the others, with four equally spaced doors.

Next to each door, tall consoles with gauges and dials displayed various readouts. They approached one; it was covered in the alien markings.

Tom saw Emmett’s eyes open wide. “I know what you’re thinking, Emmett, just don’t do it. I’m keeping my eyes on you.”

Picking the nearest door, Tom pulled the lever on the wall as he had for the others, it slid open quietly. A fine blue mist rolled out across the floor, and they stepped back smartly to avoid it.

“
More mist,” Anidea gulped air.

“
Ladies first,” Tom inhaled deeply. “This is blue. Orange is bad.”

She shook her head. "Uh uh. It’s no time to be polite.”

They stepped through the door onto a walkway. Rows and rows of the pouches hung on poles for as far as he could see in the dim light. This was where the pouches were being taken. He found himself moving closer, compelled to see more closely.

Gasping, he watched what was once was a humans head pulse and split open. Little balls, like strawberries rose up and out of the skull to hang from its shoulders.

He gagged and turned away, but curiosity got the better of him, compelling him take a second look. His eyes darted to the other pouches. Many of the zombies had sprouted large multicolored fruit the size of oranges and grapefruits from their heads, which hung from the pouches like strawberries.

The sound of scissors snipping came from above. A machine like a tiny spider-crab wound its way down the pole and hung by two legs just over the bag. Anidea jumped back. “I hate spiders.”

The spider-crab skewered the strange fruit with one appendage and clipped it free with its other. It moved swiftly back up the pole and placed the fruit on a ceiling conveyor belt.

“
Automated,” Emmett said. Now that they understood what they were seeing, the rows of sacks were teeming with the spider-crabs.

“
Tom, their arms are moving. They’re still alive,” Anidea gasped.

His skin crawled, as if the crabs were all over him. He hadn’t seen their arms, he had been captivated by their sprouting heads and the harvesting by the spider-crab machines. His eyes widened, and his head pulled back. “We are their food. They came here to change us, plant us, and when we sprout these fruits,” he paused, swallowing hard to keep the contents of his stomach down, “they eat .”

Winston balled his fists.

Emmett uttered one word, “Pickles.”

Anidea turned and headed for the door, “Run. We have to run.”

“
We’re lost in a spaceship, where?”

Tom trembled as he realized that finding his dad wasn’t the only important thing. They had to stop the aliens. They had to save the world.

The steady drone of machinery wound down and stopped. They froze. The spider-crabs skittered away and the lights went out. “They are coming for us,” Anidea cried.

Suddenly, the floor began to vibrate and shake, and they were pulled to the ground. First to their knees and then down into fetal positions. They were pinned to the floor. The pressure made it difficult to speak, and they fought to breathe. Winston cried out in a strained voice. “What’s happening?”

In the pitch black, they had no concept of time, but after what felt like an eternity, the pressure stopped and the lights came back on. They rose up and floated in the air. They tried to grab hold of anything they could to steady themselves, but with nothing to exert force on they were unable to move.

“
There’s no gravity,” Emmett said.

The strange fruit floated with them. Anidea swung her arms to bat them away from her. She managed to hit one, but the force she exerted hitting it was enough to spin her head over heels. “Stop me,” she called.

A booming metal on metal sound echoed, like a door being slammed shut in an empty warehouse, and gravity returned. They fell to the floor with a thud, and the strange fruits landed all around them.

“
Ow, my head,” Winston groaned.

Anidea stood up. Spider-crabs emerged from slots in the ceiling. She danced around trying to dodge them as they scurried past her, picking up the loose fruits that had fallen from the conveyor belt. “What happened?” she demanded.

“
We took off,” Emmett said. “My ears popped.”

“
Took off?” said Anidea.

“
Into space. This is a spaceship, right?” Emmett stated, “I feel lighter.”

“
Space? I don’t believe it, we can’t possibly be in space,” Anidea shook her head firmly.

“
What do we do now?” Winston asked. “There’s no way we can get off the spaceship if it’s in space.”

Tom stood up, putting his hands on his hips. “This changes nothing, we stick to the plan.”

Anidea pulled a pack of gum from her pocket. “If we're in space? What plan do we have? Anyone want gum? That's what you do on flights to help your ears.”

Tom’s face soured when he saw the gum, and Emmett and Winston frowned.

“
Come on, doesn't anyone want gum? Somehow I managed not to pee, puke, or get zombie slime on any of this.”

“
I still have a plan,” Tom said, and put his hand in Anidea’s face. “It’s too hot in here. We have to get back into the chamber where it’s cooler.”

“
Wait,” cried Emmett as Tom turned and took a step toward the door. Tom’s body rose up, and he hit his head on the bottom of the conveyor belt before coming back down. “Were in space and gravity is different.”

Winston and Anidea exclaimed in surprise.

“
That almost looked like the video of the astronauts walking on the moon,” Emmett continued, “but the gravity isn’t as light. My guess is that it is around three quarters of earth normal gravity. The diminished gravity makes us 25% stronger.”

“
How would you know that?” Anidea asked.

“
Duh, seriously,” Emmett replied, rolling his eyes at her.

“
He went to space science camp last summer,” Winston spoke up, “I did little league.”

“
Space camp?” Tom gaped, “If you’re smart enough for space camp what were you doing in summer school?”

Sullenly Emmett replied, “I missed school. So I signed up and went.”

“
You’re one messed up kid,” Tom said, and bounded out the door.

To Emmett it was exhilarating to move effortlessly. “Maybe the lizardmen need lighter gravity,” he said. “and that was why we didn’t see them moving around the halls when we were on Earth. Earth gravity is too strong for them. I bet the door crew had to do short shifts and then go and lie down to recover. We can use that to our advantage. We’ll have to be really careful now because the lizardmen are going to be out now that we have taken off.”

At the bottom of the ramp, Tom checked up the spiral for any signs of the lizardmen. “We have to blow up this ship, we can’t just let them eat the people they took. We have to help them.”

“
Maybe they have an antidote, something that would change the people back,” said Anidea.

“
You just don’t unmake a sandwich and put everything back in the fridge, Anidea. Do you?” Tom asked. “You eat it. I don’t think they have an antidote.”

“
So, then let’s go find the self-destruct button then, okay?” Anidea retorted.

“
That would blow us up too,” Emmett said. “Bad idea.”

“
What if we find their weapons and use them,” Winston said, smiling at his idea.

“
They could have a moon base,” Emmett said. “That’s only 238,900 miles from Earth. We could hide until we get there and take one of their ships to escape.”

“
Then we would get to blow up their moon base,” Winston said excitedly.

“
Why would there be a moon base? They are aliens and there is no other life in our solar system, NASA would tell us if there was,” Tom stated.

“
Would they have an even bigger self-destruct button there?” asked Anidea. “Right in the middle of the place with big blinking lights that says ‘PUSH ME?”

“
Were you born a pain in the butt, Anidea?” Tom asked. “Can’t you stop being sarcastic?”

“
So where do we go next?” asked Winston. “Up again, or should we try another one of these doors?”

“
This one. It’s a fifth door,” Emmett said, pointing to a door on the tube that supported the ramp, “It has buttons on it.”

“
After you, Emmett,” Tom motioned to him like a crossing guard guiding a child across the street.

Doors slid open and they stepped into a small chamber. The walls were smooth and it was brightly lit. Next to the door were six buttons, four vertical and two side by side.

“
It looks like an elevator,” Winston said as he touched the walls.

“
What clue gave that away, rocket scientist?” Anidea said. “It says Otis on the panel.”

“
Anidea, stop,” Tom wished she’d puke again, at least she tended to be quieter afterwards. “Will you just shut up for once? My guess is that there are 4 floors on this ship. Let’s hope up is up and down is down. Do it, Emmett!”

“
Didn’t you hear me?” Anidea asked.

Tom and Winston held their guns at the ready. “Not now, the doors are going to open.”

“
You’re not paying attention,” Anidea said. “Otis! It’s literally written on the wall. In English too. I guess its unimportant since we are in space.”

Emmett’s finger found its mark and he pushed the bottom button. “Going down.”

Less than a second later the door opened, and their ears were blasted by the deafening roar of screeching metal grinding on metal. They were forced to cover their ears and shrink back into the elevator. The high pitched squeals sounded like a beginners violin lesson gone wrong. Tom fought to stand up straight. “Close the door.”

The twins and Anidea were pinned by the sound. Tom couldn’t take his hands away from his ears and had to push the door close button with his elbow. The doors closed and the sound stopped. Tension uncoiled from their bodies as they stood there trying to catch their breath.

“
What was that?” Tom shook his head as if the ringing in his ears would stop.

Emmett rubbed his ears and yelled. “A very loud noise.”

“
We should try another floor,” Winston said. “My ears are hurting a lot. I don’t want to go back in there.”

Anidea pulled a wad of gum from her mouth. “Here put this in your ears.”

“
That’s your gum. No way,” Winston said disgusted.

“
You ate worms when you were four.” Emmett made fun of him. “It’s not the grossest thing you have ever done.”

“
Do it. It will help drown out the noise,” Anidea said, and reached into her pocket to hand out sticks of gum. “Does this make it better?”

They chewed and put the gum into their ears.

“
You ready?” Tom said as he pushed the door open button. It worked, the noise was muffled enough not to be painful, but they still couldn’t hear each other over it.

“
What is that?” Winston mouthed, his eyes filled with amazement.

They stood on a platform in a large chamber looking down on a giant gyroscope. The rings spun around a glowing ball and green electrical arcs rose and fell across its surface. Metal pistons with large plates attached to their ends pulsed in and out from all points of the sphere in rhythm, pushing the electric arcs back into a smooth form around the gyroscope. They could feel the electricity crawling across their skin. The hair on their heads stuck out in static halos.

A walkway jutted out from the platform, crossing the chamber through the electrical field. It led to another platform and door.

The arcs held their gaze. “I don’t think we can cross that,” Tom said with his hands.

Emmett patted Tom on his shoulder and directed his eyes to the left where a rectangular booth stood. Upon entering they found consoles and screens lined the walls. They were covered with charts, graphs and readouts that meant absolutely nothing to any of them. Winston shut the door and the sound was deadened by the room’s insulation. They sighed in relief at the silence.

“
Not even a lizardman could stay sane with that noise,” Anidea said.

“
This must be the control room,” Emmett smiled as he inspected the equipment. “Let’s see what the controls do.”

“
Wait, what are these?” Winston pointed out. “Chalk marks. Since when do lizardmen use chalk?

“
Hey, this says Tandy,” Anidea read off a panel. “How old is this?”

“
Interesting,” Emmett said. “Two circles, one larger than the other, with an arrow in between pointing at them both.”

“
Aren’t you going to look?” She tried to pull Tom around, but shook her off. “Fine, why do I even try?”

“
It has to be a message, from my dad, but what does it mean?” Tom said. “But the important part is that my dad was in this room. He made it this far into the ship.”

“
If your dad was here, why didn’t he try to stop the ship or destroy the engine?” Emmett asked.

“
Why didn’t he leave a better message? I don’t get it,” Winston added.

“
Obviously it’s the earth and the moon,” Emmett said, “and this box is a base, just like I thought. We can take the ship, Tom. We can take the ship and we should. Kill the aliens, turn the ship around, and go home.”

“
Anidea, what do you think?” Tom asked.

“
You’re asking me? Actually asking my opinion?” Anidea was astonished. “It’s clearly madness, but he might have a good idea. Did you see this over here?”

Emmett interrupted. “We have to stop it before it gets to the moon, if it’s going to the moon. My guess is that it’ll take 3 days to get there, but we can’t be certain that we are really in space, we have only assumed that.”

“
Maybe we can use this screen. Press these buttons and see.”

Tom agreed and started to press buttons and turn knobs. The picture on the screen changed from read out graphics to a blur of red, blue and green and then an image of the gyroscope appeared.

Pushing Tom out of the way, Emmett turned a knob and said, “This is a monitoring station for the engine.” The screen changed to a view of the engine from a different angle.

Tom pushed back and continued randomly pushing buttons and turning more knobs. Frustrated, he said, “This thing has to give us a view of the ship. We have to be able to see where we are.” He growled and hit the control console; the screen changed. “See, it shows you other places in the ship,” he said in a proud “told you so” voice. It was the room above them with the doors to the planting room.

Then the view switched, showing a receding blue ball. Terrified Anidea gasped, “That’s the Earth.” She felt her legs weaken. “I’m going to faint.”

“
Wow,” Emmett said in reverence, “it’s so small. This proves that we did take off. This is better than any space science camp will ever be.”

Tom stared at the screen. If there was any doubt that their mission was more complicated than he ever could have imagined, it was gone. He took a deep breath. “How are we going to get back to Earth?”

They watched in silence as the Earth slowly shrank away, then the view shifted away from the earth. The screen showed two lizardmen entering the elevator.

“
Uh oh,” Winston gasped.