The Zombie Chasers #4 (5 page)

Z
ack stared down blankly at the iPad. “What the heck are we gonna do now?” he said, handing the tablet back to Madison. “We're right back at square one.”

Ozzie scratched his head. “I wonder where the airport is around here?”

“What's it matter?” Zack said. “You think we're just going to round up some vegans and jet off to Montana? Where are we supposed to find real human specimens right now? Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the population got unzombified by the popcorn. We're the lucky ones.”

“Yeah, real lucky.” Madison rolled her eyes.

“My point is that we can't just go running into the return of the living dead without a plan. We're in New York City and we've got zilch! No weapons, no antidote.” Zack turned to Zoe. “Because earlier today somebody had to trick Madison into eating a pepperoni!”

“Don't you dare, you little worm,” Zoe snapped. “I will not be your scapegoat!”

“Oh, you're some kind of goat, all right!” Zack shouted.

“Come on.” Ozzie grabbed Zoe's hand and put it back down. “We have to stick together if we're going to get out of this mess.”

“Well, I'm not going anywhere until I get a new Band-Aid,” Madison said, pinching her pricked finger. “There's no way I'm getting infected with slime and turning into one of those zombie freaks.”

A long silence followed, punctuated by zombie Rice's banging on the inside of the closet door. The gears in Zack's head turned, his thoughts whirling frantically to come up with a solution.
Bingo
.

“That's it!” he shouted with a sudden flash of hope. “The Band-Aid!”

“Yes,” Madison said. “I need one.”

“No,” said Zack. “I'm talking about the Band-Aid you had on before you ate the pizza!”

Madison gasped, realizing what he meant. “It has my vegan blood on it! Zack, you're a genius!”

“We gotta go back to Central Park, you guys,” Zack said. “Come on, help me zombie-proof Rice!”

Zack and Zoe dragged zombie Rice out of the closet and hog-tied him with Twinkles's pink Bedazzled collar and leash. Ozzie found some duct tape in the storage closet and used it to tape the King Kong mask securely over Rice's head.

Rice wriggled his zombified tongue through the little hole in the mouth of the gorilla mask, searching around like a nose sniffing at the air. “Not quite as good as a helmet,” Ozzie said. “But it'll have to do.”

Lastly, Ozzie duct-taped Rice's hands behind his back. The girls pulled him by the leash into the elevator and Zack and Ozzie followed. As the elevator descended, Rice snapped his teeth and snarled his lips in time with the Muzak playing on the overhead speakers.

A few seconds into the ride, Zack pinched his nostrils shut. “Yo, who did that?”

“Don't look at me!” Ozzie said. “I didn't do it!”

“Ha,” Zoe said. “Whoever denied it supplied it.”

“Whoever smelt it dealt it.” Ozzie pointed at Zack.

“You're both wrong,” said Zack. “Whoever said the rhyme committed the crime.”

“Will you guys shut up?” Madison said. “It's Rice. He's already starting to stink!”

“Yuck!” They all plugged their noses, glaring at zombie Rice as the elevator reached the first floor of the Empire State Building.

Three . . . two . . . one.

The doors of the elevator opened and they stared out across the ground floor.

The lobby teemed with rezombified freaks. The claustrophobic mass was a mix of their classmates, building employees, tourists, and New Yorkers. Dozens of subhuman beings dribbled ooze and drooled slime as they lumbered aimlessly across the smooth marble floor.

Zack hit the door-close button and held the elevator. “Whoa!” He turned to the others. “There are a lot of zombies out there!”

“Okay, guys and girls, it's go time,” Ozzie said, unclipping his nunchakus from his belt buckle. He gripped both handles and flexed the chain. “We gotta get Rice across the lobby, through those revolving doors, and out into the street. Ready?”

“Set . . . ,” said Zack, pressing the elevator button.

Ding!

The doors flung open and the zombies turned and glared as the gang charged out of the elevator.

“Here we go!” Ozzie lunged forward and unleashed a furious nunchaku attack at the zombified doorman standing in his way. The doorman's graying face mashed over to the side as if it were made of wet clay, and the great goon dropped like a rag doll.

Ozzie caught the unconscious zombie midfall and heaved him into the oncoming zombie foot slog.

Nom-nom! Glurp!

Next to him, Zoe kickboxed her way through a slew of flesh-guzzling tourists, taking out two teenage zombie siblings wearing
I ♥ NY
T-shirts with a flurry of punch-kick combos. As Zoe and Ozzie cleared a path through the kill-crazy melee, Zack yanked the leash, guiding Rice forward, while Madison kept him on a beeline for the exit.

Just then a hot-pink backpack came out of nowhere and slammed Zack directly in the chest. “Ugh!” Zack lost his grip on Rice's leash as he stumbled back with the wind knocked out of him. He slipped on a wet splotch of mucus and landed on his tailbone with a hard thud. Zack winced in pain, clutching his back.

The pink-backpacked zombie spun around, snarling fiercely. It was Mandy Pitman, his classmate and one of the Fearsome Foursome. Her claws were shiny bright crimson daggers from her red nail polish. She pounced at Zack, who went flat on his back and lifted his knees. He caught the zombie mean girl with the soles of his feet and leg-pressed her against the wall with a double kick. The undead brat hit the wall and slid to the floor in a motionless lump of twisted, rotting flesh.

“Sorry!” Zack shouted.

“Rargh!”

Zack turned his head and flinched as a second member of the foursome staggered through the undead mayhem. The queen bee herself, Gabby Kahn, lurched over Zack. “Glargh!” He brought his leg back again and delivered a sharp kick to her kneecap, which bent back the wrong way. She dropped to the floor and crawled forward, dragging her dead leg behind her, leaving a trail of slime in her wake.

“Madison!” Zack yelled as zombie Rice came back into view. “Watch out!”

“Rargh!”
Zombie Rice reeled around and barreled into Madison, who stumbled and fell with a splat in a pool of slimy zombie ooze.

“Ugh!” Madison screeched, watching zombie Rice wander into the undead mix. “These shoes are brand-new!” As she scrambled to her feet, a fiendish trio of seventh-grade math geeks began to converge around her.

She tucked Twinkles in the crook of her arm, then flung her handbag at the three zombie dweebs and raced across the lobby through the horde of mutant hellhounds.

“Zack, Madison, come on!” Ozzie yelled, knocking a zombie businessman on his rear end with a hard punch to the gut. “Hurry up!” Ozzie and Zoe bobbed and weaved like dueling prizefighters, fending off three more corporate zombies in suits and ties. The undead businessmen flailed their arms wildly, wielding their briefcases clasped firmly in their arthritic fists.

“We're not leaving Rice!” yelled Zack as he scrambled to his feet.

“We'll come back for him!” Zoe yelled from across the lobby.

“No way!” Zack shouted, and dashed back into the swarm of knuckle-dragging cranium eaters. Zack ran low to the ground, trying to stay under the zombies' brain-sensing infrared. He set his sights on Rice's leash dragging on the floor and darted forward, snatching it up. Zack yanked the leash as hard as he could and caught zombie Rice off guard. Rice's gorilla head snapped back and his feet kicked into the air as he slammed to the floor with a
thunk
. Zack pulled the leash, lugging zombie Rice behind him across the slime-slick marble floor.

As Zack neared the revolving door, their zombified chaperone Ms. Merriweather staggered in front of him.
“Bleckch-argh!”
she gurgled, and grabbed for him. Zack stepped right and spun left. The zombie music teacher went for the fake, bear-hugging the air and missing Zack completely.

Zack held the leash tight as Rice glided along the floor, swinging right at the back of Ms. Merriweather's knees like a tripwire.

Their zombified chaperone flipped into the air, head over heels, and hit the floor, landing with a loud crunch in a twisted heap of dislocated joints.

Zack quickly crammed himself in the glass compartment with zombie Rice and pushed them through the revolving door.

The rest of the zombie crowd plowed up the lobby behind Ms. Merriweather, snarling and retching, gargling their own saliva.

Zoe and Madison were waiting outside on the sidewalk as Zack pulled Rice through the rotating exit. Just then Ozzie came out of nowhere, wheeling a bicycle.

“Heads up!” he yelled, and jammed the bike into the revolving door before the zombies inside the building could turn it into an undead scary-go-round.

“Thanks, Oz!” Zack said, patting him on the shoulder.

“No prob,” Ozzie said. “That bike should hold them off.”

“Okay,” Zoe said. “But what about them?”

They all turned toward the street and gazed into the frantic bedlam of rezombified Manhattan. The rancid funk of accelerated decay brewed thickly in the air, making Zack gag.

“Come on,” Zoe said, pointing down the sidewalk. “This way!”

They took off racing into the plague-ridden metropolis as if there was no tomorrow.

A
n infinite herd of rezombified brain gobblers shifted through the New York City streets. Vapors of hot stench squiggled off the massive heaps of uncollected restaurant garbage piled along the curb. Fresh produce spilled from the cardboard boxes littered around the fallen fruit stands. Dangerous arrays of lemons and limes rolled out across the sidewalk as the rot-ripened hordes trampled through every nook and cranny of the city looking for human flesh and brains.

Ozzie and Zoe flanked Madison and Zack as they maneuvered Rice down the sidewalk.

“Hey, guys, look over there!” shouted Madison, who was pointing at an empty beat-up shopping cart sitting in front of a street vendor's demolished table. The sidewalk was scattered with hats, purses, umbrellas, and shiny iPhone cases.

As they approached the table, Zack ran over and rolled the cart back to where Rice stood wobbling on his leash.

“Ozzie,” Zack called over the crescendo of undead moans. “Help me lift him up!”

Zack and Ozzie lifted Rice up by his underarms, which now were sopping wet from zombie Rice's overheated sweat glands.

“Ew!” Ozzie said with a sour look on his face.

The boys dropped their friend in disgust and Rice landed bottom-first in the cart. With his hands duct-taped behind his back, there was no way zombie Rice was getting out.

“Okay, guys, let's gear up!” said Zack, taking an armful of umbrellas from the bin next to the table. He held on to one and stuffed the other two in the shopping cart with Rice. Zoe and Madison picked a stack of hardcover books out of a grimy brown milk crate and loaded the books into two faux-leather handbags from the pile of merchandise. Ozzie twirled his nunchakus, getting ready for the battle, and the girls gave their weighted handbags a couple of practice swings.

The cheap leather swooshed heavily through the air.

Holding his umbrella, Zack spotted a twenty-something zombie girl wearing hot-pink jeans and a black tank top stumbling toward them, licking her chops in a mindless daze of brain lust. Zack thrust out the curved handle of the umbrella and hooked the ghoulish cannibal around the ankle. He yanked back hard, pulling the zombie's feet right out from under her. “I think this is gonna work,” Zack said, looking at the others, now armed for the zombie street brawl.

They were ready to roll, and so without a second to lose, they pushed forward into the zombie groundswell. Zack crouched low and gripped his umbrella, sneaking stealthily through the vehicular maze of crashed and abandoned cars, careful not to look the mad cannibal zombies directly in the eye.

They moved down the street undetected for the moment, but before they knew it, an undead, heavyset Gypsy woman caught sight of them as she stumbled out of her tiny shop marked
PALM & TAROT READING
. The zombie fortune-teller gazed into Zack's brainless future, hobbling toward him with her arms outstretched. Her ankles were bird-thin, and her calves were thick as ham hocks. As she lumbered toward them, her ankle snapped under her own weight and she fell, smashing her kneecap on the pavement like a dropped crystal ball. Zack juked around the crippled Gypsy and sped up along with the rest of the group.

Up ahead, Fifth Avenue was completely gridlocked with crashed automobiles. The sidewalks teemed with countless hundreds of plug-ugly brain munchers roaming ravenously through the streets.

“Down here, guys!” Ozzie shouted, signaling them away from the bottleneck on Fifth Avenue.

They headed west on Thirty-fourth Street, where the zombie foot traffic was slightly less dense. Zack trailed Zoe, who was pushing Rice in the shopping cart. Madison held Twinkles under one arm and swung her weighted handbag at a rezombified construction worker stumbling off the curb. The heavy bag landed squarely on the side of the zombie's blister-pocked face and the brute toppled over.

“Nice shot!” Zack shouted, sprinting past her.

As they came to the end of the block, Zoe halted the shopping cart and stopped in the middle of the street. Zack ran into the intersection and spun around three hundred and sixty degrees, taking in the nightmarish scene. A vast array of rezombified mongrels jammed up Sixth Avenue, and let out a collective feral yowl from the depths of their esophagi, spraying oodles of rank mucus into the air like science-fair volcanoes.

“Zoe, look out!” Madison yelled.

“Duck!” cried Zack as a large cobweb of spittle sailed through the air.

Ozzie dived and tackled Zoe out of the way as the venomous gobbet of zombie saliva flew by their heads and splattered on the ground with an acidic hiss.

“Over here!” They all followed Ozzie's lead, running toward the northwest corner, where a huge building bore an enormous red sign with a big white star and white font claiming
THE LARGEST STORE IN THE WORLD
.

The undead New Yorkers were closing in from all directions. They had to get off the streets immediately.

Zack pushed Rice in the cart behind Ozzie, Madison, and his sister as they ran onto the sidewalk. He charged up the grooved cement ramp, accidentally crashing the front of the cart into a tipped-over garbage can.

“Yarghkle!”
Rice gurgled behind his gorilla mask, wedged uncomfortably in the rattling cart.

Zack stopped on the corner and peered up at either side of the gigantic block. North, south, east, west, all ways looked identical, packed to the gills with a gazillion savage hellhounds.

Macy's was their only refuge.

Ozzie raced over and held open the double doors, waving them inside the store. Zack carted zombie Rice into the vestibule, and Madison and Zoe scurried in after him. Ozzie jumped inside last, and Zack pinned the shopping cart flush against the glass doors, keeping the zombies at bay outside.

The girls stood for a brief moment on the threshold of the vast department store. “Hold down the fort, Zack!” Zoe said, casing the joint. “We'll be back before you can say, ‘Where the heck did my way cooler older sister go?'”

“We don't have any time for shopping!” Zack yelled angrily over the undead panting and groans echoing loudly through the doors.

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Madison. “There's always time for a little shopping.”

“Zoe, come on,” said Zack. “Please, let's just stick together.”

“Zack,” she said. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“Yeah,” said Madison. “And besides, these heels are simply not cutting it.” She lifted up one of her feet and Zack crinkled his nose at the black zombie slime caked on the mangled heel of her shoe.

“Fine,” Zack said. “But you're leaving Twinkles with us. Remember last time?”

“Whatevs,” they said in unison. Madison handed Twinkles to Zack. “Come on, Mad. Let's go get some new kicks.” The girls joined hands and skipped off happily toward the shoe section of the department store.

“Don't worry about them,” Ozzie said. “Can you get me something to secure the door? Check if Rice has anything in his pack.”

Zack flipped zombie Rice over in the shopping cart while Ozzie leaned his weight into the handlebar, trying to keep out the herd of zombie chowhounds piled against the glass entrance.

Zack reached into Rice's pack and the first thing he pulled out was a plain bologna sandwich.
Yuck!
He tossed it away and reached back in.

The zombies began to squeeze their mangled hands in the gap between the glass doors.

“Hurry!” Ozzie said, pressing the shopping cart harder against the entrance.

Zack rooted his hand around all the way to the bottom of the bag and extracted a Kryptonite bicycle lock with a small key dangling from it.

“Perfect!” Zack said, latching the handles on the double doors together with the metal lock. Ozzie pulled the shopping cart away from the door, safe with the bike lock holding the zombie swarm at bay.

Twinkles trotted ahead of the boys into Macy's, prancing across the linoleum floor, his little puppy snout wiggling around, sniffing the air. Suddenly Twinkles stopped midstride and lifted one paw up like a hunting dog pointing to a kill. The Boggle pup barked once, aiming his paw at a clothing rack across the store.

Ozzie approached the row of garment racks cautiously and— “Blargh!” A zombie saleslady popped out, ripping down clothes hangers and thrashing designer blouses to the floor.

The undead saleswoman charged at Ozzie, but he danced back and sidestepped the zombie's attack. He grabbed her arm and twisted it with expert precision, then pivoted his body into her rib cage and flipped her over his back and onto the floor with a terrific thud.

“Ozzie!” Zack called. “Stay close, man! You can't afford to get bitten, remember?”

“Chill out, Zack,” Ozzie called back. “Me and Twinkles got this!”

Ozzie and Twinkles continued to hunt stray zombie shoppers and store workers throughout the racks of clothes and around the counters, securing the area.

Just then, Zack caught a whiff of Rice's rank zombie stench and pinched his nose. “Man, you stink,” he said, and carted his monkey-headed zombie friend over to the perfume counters.

“How about this one?” Zack asked. He opened one of the cologne bottles and sniffed the spray nozzle. Then he spritzed a puff of cologne on Rice's tongue. Zombie Rice spit it back in Zack's face, making a “yuck” sound.

“Ugh, man!” Zack said, whipping the zombie spittle off his face.

Zack took a whiff of another fragrance. “Actually, let's go with this one.” He clicked the spritzer repeatedly, dousing Rice with more cheap cologne than a seventh-grade date dance.

Zack inhaled deeply through his nose and choked a little.
Much better
, he thought. Then he glanced around, keenly aware that Ozzie and Twinkles were out of sight. Madison and Zoe were taking way too long, too.

All of a sudden, a blast of shattered glass sounded behind him. The door they had barricaded with Rice's bike lock was being destroyed by the mass of zombies kicking and bashing into the department store like a mad rush of Black Friday bargain hunters.

“Guys!” Zack shouted. “We gotta roll! Guys?”