Dawn of the Jed

Scott Craven

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.

Copyright © 2014 by Scott Craven

DAWN OF THE JED by Scott Craven

All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Published by Month9Books

Cover illustrated by Zach Schoenbaum

Cover and typography designed by Victoria Faye

Cover Copyright © 2014 Month9Books

For Jim Hayes, teacher and mentor, who knew I had it in me.

One day.

Scott Craven

“Make a wish,” Robbie said as he stood over me, holding one of my ankles in each hand.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“De-
NIED
,” he ruled, spreading my ankles farther apart than any reasonable person would think possible. Good thing I was made up of undead tissue, or ligaments would be snapping by now. But my very pliable zombie body was keeping it together.

For now.

“Robbie, please.” Cold slimy Ooze formed on my back, greasing the wrestling mat. This was one of those times I wished I could sweat like a typical breather, but no, physical exertion (and the threat of being split in two) made me ooze.

“Check out the zombie slime trail,” Robbie noted as Ooze spread. “Clean-up on aisle you.”

He stepped forward, placing his left foot uncomfortably close to my groin. This allowed him to spread my legs even farther. There was a tug at my hips.

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t an approved wrestling move,” I said, my vision blurring. “Or legal.”

“You’re probably right,” Robbie said. “Not that I care. I call it ‘The Wishbone.’ You want to know why?”

As if I needed to be a graduate of ZIT (Zombie Institute of Technology) to figure it out.

“Because you intend to split me like a wishbone.” I winced.

“Dead on, Zom-boy. You are about to defy physics and be in two places at once.”

The eighth graders gathered around the mat began to cheer. A few taunts made their way above the noise.

“He’s not so stiff after all!”

“Time to pin the fail on the zombie!”

“Rip him a new one!”

Some taunts were cleverer than others.

There were no signs of any seventh graders. Strange, because ten minutes ago, we all were doing gymnastics on the other side of the cafetorium.

“Doing gymnastics” gave the wrong impression, since Pine Hollow had only two pieces of gymnastic equipment.

The first was our balance beam, which was a couple of railroad ties placed end-to-end. Only the bravest walked the balance beam in bare feet due to high risk of splinters. And since we all lacked bravery, shoes were the rule. If we had a motto, it would be “Doing just enough to get by—stop looking at us!”

The balance beam was professional grade compared to our vault—Tommy. He was happy to double as gym equipment in exchange for doing no actual physical activity during Physical Education. At the proper time, Tommy took his place at the far end of the cafetorium and bent at the waist, allowing a line of seventh graders to somersault over him.

As a kid, Tommy was a nine on a ten scale. Friendly and easygoing. As a vault, he was a two. He flinched too much.

Earlier in the period, before Robbie had me on my back and about to rest in pieces, I was about to make my vault over Tommy. I ruled out anything that required athletic prowess. I was not going to plant my hands on Tommy’s back, do a flip, and stick the landing. Too bad, because I really wanted to thrust my arms into the air like those Olympians posing for cereal boxes.

Instead, I was going to stop, twist, and slowly roll over Tommy’s back. If my feet left the floor, it would only be a coincidence. Doing just enough to get by.

My visions of a pathetic yet passing tumble faded. All that went away when Mr. Benatar appeared in his white T-shirt tucked into his too-small red shorts. He always dressed as if there were no mirrors in his world.

“Sorry to interrupt sissy sports time,” he announced, “but I need a warm body for my eighth-grade wrestling class, even if it is just a sevvie.”

“You mean like the sevvies who kicked your butt in the annual seventh vs. eighth grade football game?”

“Who said that! Step forward now!”

Out from behind the line of kids waiting for the balance beam stepped Mr. Stanzer, PE coach to the seventh grade. Last semester he was Ballshack Bob, attendant to lunchtime sports equipment. Now all the sevvies were calling him Coach, a huge promotion even if his paycheck didn’t agree.

“Ah, Mr. Stanzer, still gloating I see,” Mr. Benatar said. “Or should I call you Bad-Call Bob, as I hear some of the eighth graders now refer to you?”

“You can call me anything you want as long as the winner of this year’s game is inscribed on the football trophy,” Mr. Stanzer said, reaching behind him. “Ah, and I see it is.”

The sevvies cheered when Mr. Stanzer hoisted the trophy over his head. We all knew what the last line on its pedestal said, where scores of past games were engraved—Seventh Grade thirty-three, Eighth Grade thirty-one. The annual end-of-the-semester contest had made winter break much sweeter.

“Seriously, you carry that around all the time?” Mr. Benatar said.

“No, just when we want to remember who rules. Hmm, I guess it is all the time.”

We cheered again; Mr. Benatar’s face turned the color of his shorts.

“If your running back didn’t happen to have detachable arms, the game would have ended the way it should have, with eighth graders on top,” Mr. Benatar said. “The refs blew it and you know it.”

Mr. Stanzer put the trophy on the ground and stepped up to Mr. Benatar. Did no-fighting rules apply to teachers? We were all hoping they did not.

“Jed didn’t rip his own arm off and toss it across the goal line, though that would have been a pretty cool play,” Mr. Stanzer said, glancing at me and slipping a sly smile. He looked back at Mr. Benatar. “Your guy did that. He made the mistake of not removing the ball first. The ball crossed the goal line in Jed’s possession. In football, we call that a touchdown.”

“Look, I didn’t come over here to rehash history—”

“Too bad, because it’s a lot of fun.”

More cheering.

“As I said, I need a sevvie to fill out wrestling. We’re odd today.”

“And that’s different from any other day how?”

Mr. Benatar simmered. I secretly begged Mr. Stanzer to push that button one more time, to launch the overbearing, egotistical, fashion-clueless PE teacher into a nuclear meltdown.

“We … are … odd … numbered,” he said slowly, trying to put his temper genie back in the bottle. “We need a sevvie so everyone has a partner.”

Mr. Benatar jerked his head toward the other half of the cafetorium, where eighth graders kneeled around the school’s only mat, watching matches in progress.

“So as I said, if you would be so kind as to let me borrow a warm body.” Mr. Benatar looked at me. “Or a cold body would do just as well. Rivers, with me.”

I took a step back, shaking my head. “I still have to do balance beam.”

Mr. Benatar looked at the railroad ties and gave me this look of disgust, as if he just figured out what he was wearing. “You realize only girls compete in balance beam, right? So I guess it does make sense for seventh grade boys. You go ahead with balance beam, ladies, I have to get back to the land that testosterone has not forgotten.”

“Fine, I’ll go,” I said. What little honor sevvies had earned with the football game now was at stake. Stepping boldly over the balance beam, I made my way toward the other side of the cafetorium.