Dawn of the Jed (25 page)

As Luke sank deeper and deeper into the Tech Club and the lies, he said he knew he would jeopardize his plans if he was seen with me. Who hangs around a kid who’s in the middle of creating an undead cockroach army?

“So you had a plan,” I said.

“Of course I had a plan. What’s the sense in all of this without a plan?”

“So when did you come up with a plan?”

“About the time of the cockroach army.”

I shot him a look over my jumbo.

“I was still dealing with stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” I asked.

“Don’t take this wrong, but seeing you and Anna together all the time, like you were joined at the hip or something.”

“Did you think maybe that was because you’d resigned as the president of the Zombie Friends League?”

“Maybe.”

“And I am pretty sure we were separated long enough for you to squeeze in.”

“Not the picture I had—”

“And Anna was the one told me to keep giving you a shot, so let that sink in until your Luke sense tingles.”

He sucked on his Smoothie Keg and wouldn’t look at me. Because he knew I was right.

“Anyway,” Luke said, doing what Luke often did when he was wrong—skip over that part and just keep going, hoping no one noticed. I knew the only way to stop the NZN madness was making its members look like fools. Which is just what we’re going to do at the Science Fair.”

And ten minutes later, Luke and I were OK again. Maybe not best friends, but it was a good start.

But there were still some details to work out as far as Luke’s big Science Fair plan, and for that we needed Anna’s help.

We were about to teach a lesson about messin’ with a zombie and his friends.

As Luke and Anna squared off against one another, meeting for the first time after I suggested we work together on a science fair project, the term “Escalating arms race” came to mind.

But those were my arms, and I wanted them back.

“If you break them, it’s not like you bought them!” I yelled, trying to get between them. “It just means I’ll be in casts for months.”

I really had no idea if I’d need casts or not. As many times as my limbs had been yanked, twisted, and otherwise removed, they tended to bend rather than break. But as Luke took another swing at Anna, who ducked as my right arm slammed into the wall inches above her head, it looked like the streak was about to end.

“Luke, I’ve always considered you my right-hand man, but this isn’t what I meant,” I said, reaching for him until I realized I had nothing to reach with.

“That the best you’ve got?” Anna said, poised to take a two-handed backswing with my left arm. “I’m armed and dangerous so you better step back.”

Not only had I lost half my limbs, but I’d launched a bout of very bad puns.

This was what I got for trying to step between the two when their heated science fair argument got out of hand.

Who fights about a science fair? It wasn’t like they were fighting over something important, like who goes first on the rare Pizza Day in the cafetorium. Anyone behind Luke had to spend ten minutes picking the anchovies from the only slice left. But this was the Science Fair, a nerd-a-palooza second only to the Dr. Who Film Fest each summer (and I would need to figure out an excuse soon when Dad bought tickets for the family, keeping alive his streak of going alone for six straight years).

A few days earlier, when I told Anna how Luke and I had a meeting of the minds after a long conversation at the Burger Bucket, she seemed happy to hear it. As she and I talked, I had a meeting with my own mind, something that made me feel a lot better going forward. “It was a Tread thing,” I explained to Anna. “Luke got a little freaked out, what with me raising the dead and all.”

“I get that,” Anna said. “And I hope you do. I just wish he’d been honest with you from the start. The drama we could have avoided.”

“The drama makes it so much more interesting,” I said. “Besides, Luke didn’t want me to know he was a spy for me. For some reason, he thinks I can’t keep a secret.”

“You mean the way your skin flushes and gets splotchy when you’re lying or withholding something? It was probably best Luke didn’t tell you because it would be over when you turned fifty shades of gray.”

The more I talked about Luke and his actions, the more it seemed to make sense in a weird Luke-ian way. Mostly he was just awkward, living five seconds behind the rest of us. When I blew my lips into a birthday cake so long ago—the first sign fingers should point at me when singing “Which is of these is not like the others”—most kids reacted predictably. They screamed or threw up. Luke was more concerned with the cake, carefully eating around the vomit and my lips.

He never had to get used to my undeadness because it never seemed to bother him. He was fine with detached limbs and peeling flesh. Once he nearly convinced me to get a tattoo to see if it would be like an Etch-A-Sketch, disappearing when you shook me (we were stupid ten-year-old kids mostly looking for an excuse to get a tattoo).

But the making of Tread threw him because for the first time, I did something truly unpredictable, upsetting the delicate balance between dead and undead. Sure, I could take my arm off and beat Luke over the head with it, but bringing a dead dog back to life was a violation of friend-zombie trust.

Of course Luke would have issues with that. Why hadn’t I seen it before?

I should have been more grateful he was still with me, even as a spy.

Which I said out loud as it really hit me.

“He was spying for me. That’s pretty cool.”

“I’m not sure any of my friends would spy for me,” Anna said. “Then again, I’m not sure I would need anyone to spy for me. I consider that a good thing.”

“Luke and I have been friends for years.” I needed to hear myself defend Luke. “I’ve always trusted him. Did I tell you the birthday party we went to a couple years ago and there was a really bad magician there? When his assistant didn’t show up, Luke convinced the guy I knew the secret behind the getting-sawed-in-half trick. The guy ran screaming when he found out he’d actually sawed me in half. That was priceless.”

“Zombies as parlor tricks are always funny.”

“And then Luke missed cake because he was helping me reattach my legs. Missing cake is a huge sacrifice for Luke. That’s love, man.”

“That’s also having freakish eating habits. Like I said, it would have been a lot simpler if he’d clued you in.”

“Not saying Luke is perfect by a long shot. But remember, he grew up with a zombie and thought he’d seen it all. And he’s seen some really weird stuff. But I’d never made another zombie. We both knew it was impossible. Until Tread.”

I stared into Anna’s eyes, to see if there was just a sliver of understanding in there. She knew me well, but I was still a novelty to her. She thought Tread was cool, because he was nothing more than another zombie parlor trick, and certainly nothing to fear.

But it was no simple trick to Luke.

“I can see where he’d freak,” Anna said. “But Jed, I never questioned his friendship. Just the way he handled things. But this puts it in perspective. He needed time. I get that now.”

“Good, because I was hoping you’d come over this weekend so we can plan for the Science Fair and get back at those NZN jerks.”

“For sure,” she said. “Just give me the time and place.”

That’s what brought us here, to the Rivers family garage or, as I liked to call it, the Secret Headquarters of NZN Resistance. And before I was beaten with my own limbs, it started off very well.

Until it was clear that while I’d done my best to patch everything up, there were still some lingering resentment amid my two best friends. I thought it might be jealousy over who was getting a bigger piece of Jed—figuratively, since I can actually go to pieces.

But no, it turned out to be a geek thing.

“So the idea,” Luke said as we got down to business, “is to make the Tech Club and its anti-zombie booth look so ridiculous, people won’t pay any attention anymore. It’ll go back to being just another club whose members have a hard time relating with others. Like the Twi-hard Club and their teams Eddie and Jake. No offense, Anna.”

Anna shook her head. “None taken, especially since that club hasn’t existed for more than two years. Besides, it was way more interesting than your Superhero Debate Squad.”

“Excuse me? You still think Superman would beat Batman in a fight? Let’s take a few minutes so I can rip a hole in that theory the size of Planet Krypton.”

“Thank you for proving my point.”

That’s when I stepped between them, putting my arms out to get some distance.

Bad move.

Anna wrapped her fingers around my wrist and jerked down in misdirected anger, separating my arm at the shoulder. She held it up in shock, and it looked like she was about to apologize when I felt my left one pop off.

“If you’re going to arm yourself, so am I,” Luke said, brandishing my limb like a club.

“I don’t want to fight,” Anna said. “I just want to know why you’re such a traitor.”

“What? I’m no Benedict Alfred.”

“Arnold.”

“What?”

“You’re no Benedict Arnold.”

“Then why are we fighting?”

“Luke, you are hopeless. I have no idea why Jed even spends one minute—”

Luke suddenly took a swing. I know because I smelled my own armpit under my nose as he missed Anna and hit me in the face with my arm.

Anna elbowed me in the stomach. With my own elbow.

Maybe
, I thought,
I could disarm them with my charm
.

“Let’s give the zombie kid a hand for trying to get you two together,” I said. “In fact, let’s give him two hands. Back.”

Luke took a step to my right and tried to hit Anna with a left uppercut. Anna twisted out of the way as she brought my right down in a chop, hitting Luke’s shoulder with a sickening thud.

At least it sickened me, because I was sure that blow did far more damage to my shoulder than Luke’s.

It turned out to be a lucky shot. The two flailed away as if members of The I Hate to Fight Club, missing each other by a few feet each time. They traded more words than blows.

Anna – “You fight like my grandma.”

Luke – “She must be really good then.”

Anna – “She is if you’re talking about her cooking.”

Luke – “Really? What does she make?”

Anna – “Tons of cookies, but she does a cherry pie that is killer.”

Luke – “Has she made any lately?”

Anna – “We’ve still got stuff frozen from her last visit.”

Luke – “You think I can stop by for some samples?”

They were as terrible with their words as they were with their aim. I had enough and put my head down, launching myself at Luke’s stomach and landing with his resounding, “Oooff!” He fell against a shelf, knocking over a few decades-old paint cans.

“Jed, what the f—”

“Luke, man, that hurt like a son of—”

“Boys, really?” Anna interrupted.

At least that broke the spell.

“Are we done yet?” I asked, rolling away from Luke. I tried to sit up but without arms, but I squirmed like a turtle on its back. “Little help, please. Anything to end this humiliation would be nice.”

“Jed, I’m sorry,” Anna said as she put my arm on a shelf. “Where’s the duct tape? We’ll get these back on you in no time.”

“Dude, yeah, sorry,” Luke chimed in as he pushed off the floor with both arms.

Showoff
, I thought.

Luke retrieved the duct tape and staples, knowing where I kept the essentials to zombie life. About a half hour later, I was re-armed, and we still had a lot of work ahead of us.

“Can we get on with this now, because I could really use some help against the NZN,” I said.

“Yeah, sure,” Anna said. She leaned against the workbench, her arms crossed. Her body language made it clear she agreed to a truce and nothing more.

So we got down to work.

There they were. The rats. I knew them as soon as I saw them. And I wasn’t talking about the furry things in the cage.

They stood under the banner for the Tech Club, but I knew what they really were. The rats of the NZN Network.