Zomburbia (31 page)

“Too soon,” he said.

“When?” I prodded.

He turned toward me. “I'm not sure. But I'll know when it's the time. If it ever is.”

“And you expect me to be satisfied with that answer,” I said, teasing him.

“You don't have a choice,” he said, serious as a heart attack. This wasn't a side I'd seen of him before. I knew he was sort of distant, but I wasn't really prepared for defensive. He seemed almost like a real boy at this point.

The sun was behind us, but it must have started to set because we were in shadow by then and the air was getting cooler. I rubbed my arms when goose bumps sprang up on them.

“Maybe we should head back to the car,” I said. “I've had enough of this scenic beauty for a while.”

“Okay,” said Phil. He stood and turned back the way we'd come, and then he froze. “Oh,” he said.

I didn't need to ask.

A zombie stood right on the path that led back to the car. Of course. She wasn't all chewed up and bloody, but her gray skin and the black slime that oozed out of her mouth were good indicators of what we were dealing with. I took a second to admire her Smiths T-shirt. It was the M
EAT
I
S
M
URDER
one. How's that for irony? She looked like she was our age, maybe a little younger, and used to be pretty. I guessed that maybe West Salem High was missing a cheerleader.

We stood there for a minute, all three of us. She made no attempt to come at us, and we weren't exactly ready to rush her. I started to look around because the last few times I'd had run-ins with some shufflers, they'd been traveling in packs. But if there were others with her, they weren't coming out to play.

“Courtney,” Phil shout-whispered at me.

“What?” I said.

“Don't you have a gun in your pants?”

No, I'm just happy to see you,
I thought and grinned despite the situation. I was so scared I felt a little giddy. But he was right, I did have a pistol. I slowly snaked my right hand across my belly and under my shirt. Finding the pistol, I wrapped my hand around it, careful to keep my finger off the trigger so I didn't shoot myself in the gut when drawing it out. Just as slowly, I moved my left hand up and grabbed my shirt. I took a deep breath, let it out, then simultaneously lifted the shirt and drew the pistol.

Which stuck in my waistband!

I was so confused, I almost shot myself. Looking down to see what was going on, I heard the zombie snarl. The gun's sight had snagged on something, but I couldn't tell what.

“Courtney!” Phil shouted.

I looked up to see the dead girl charging me. Yanking the gun free, I felt a searing pain on my belly. Then she hit me like a freaking undead linebacker. We both went over and she landed on top of me. I let go of the gun to grab her arms and keep her off me.

The bitch was inches from my face, snapping her jaws and drooling black goo all over me. I was trying to keep the ooze from getting in my mouth and my arms were already shaking with the effort to keep her up.

“Philip,” I screamed, “grab the gun!”

I didn't hear him respond. Where the hell was he? I knew I couldn't last much longer. A whimper escaped my throat and I cursed myself for that. There was no way I wanted to go out crying in front of a goddamned zombie.

Just then something flew across my body and knocked the dead girl off of me. Phil had tackled her and was now wrestling on the ground with her. He'd ended up on top, but I could tell that he couldn't let her go or try to get away without the risk of getting bitten. At least she wasn't leaking zombie tranny fluid all over him.

Despite just wanting to curl up into a ball, I got up on my hands and knees and started searching for the gun. Rocks and other junk dug into my knees and the palms of my hands as I probed under bushes and scanned the area. I didn't see the damned pistol anywhere.

“Courtney!”

Phil was now lying flat on his back, the dead girl contorting every way she could to try to get her teeth into him. His eyes bulged, his face and neck were a scary shade of red. I knew he wouldn't last much longer. Screw the gun.

I found the biggest rock I was able to palm. It felt good in my hand—jagged and heavy. I scrambled over to where Phil tangled with the zombie, stopped, and raised the rock high in the air. Phil's eyes turned toward me and something like relief washed over his expression. If this were a movie, this would be the point where I said something ironic, but I couldn't think of anything.

“Do it!” Phil screamed.

The dead chick turned to look at me and hissed through blackened teeth.

I brought the rock down with all my strength right on her nose. I felt more than heard the sickening crunch of her nose caving into her face, then more black ooze squirted from the wound. She screamed and let go of Phil to clutch at it. She fell over backward as Phil bucked her off him.

I immediately collapsed onto her chest and, with my free hand, pushed her arms out of the way. She looked up at me with one ruined eye and I almost hesitated because of what I saw there. Almost. Instead, I brought the rock down on her face and felt/heard another crack. Then I did it again, and again. I lost track, but soon the crack was replaced with a sucking, squelching sound.

I felt fingers close around my wrist as I raised the rock again. Phil stood over me, his blank expression taking me in, then looking toward the zombie's busted gourd.

“Okay, Courtney,” he said. “She's done.”

“I should have let you bring the bat,” I said. The last few words came out strangled because I started to cry. I was only marginally less embarrassed to cry in front of Phil than I had been about squirting a few in front of the shuffler.

Phil pulled me off of her and helped me walk back to the rocks. We sat there for a few minutes while I got myself together and the last of the sunlight disappeared.

“We need to get out of here,” Phil said. “Just in case there are more.”

“My gun.”

“You can buy a new one,” he said. “C'mon.”

We made our slow way back to the car. My knees were killing me, and something happened to my hip that I was just starting to feel. Also, I had a deep gouge across my stomach where the pistol's site scratched me. After a lot of tripping and sliding, we made it up the steep embankment and over to the car.

I sank into the seat and tried to ignore the pain. Phil flipped on the dome light and we examined each other for gouges and bites. None that we could see. There wasn't much we could have done at that point if there were any. We'd be zombies before we could get to a hospital.

We sat back down and Phil started the car. Elvis Costello, Phil's favorite, came pouring out of the speakers. As Elvis sang about the terrible state of the radio, I sat there thinking about how earlier I'd been fantasizing about Phil's hands on me. Well, he'd just pawed me all over, and I couldn't think of anything less sexy.

“Thanks,” he said, “for saving me. I wasn't going to last much longer.”

“You bet,” I said. “Do me a favor in return?”

“Anything,” he said.

“Never bring me to this place again.”

“Done,” he said.

He put the car in reverse and turned around.

We didn't talk. What can I say? Killing undead teenagers always make me feel somber. I thought about what I saw in the dead girl's eye right before I hit her with the rock. Usually the word used to describe a zombie is “lifeless,” right? But she'd shown some spark, some hint of recognition that threw me for a second. I couldn't tell you what that meant, or why it was there, but something about it made me shiver.

“You cold?” Phil asked. “Want me to turn on the heat?”

“No,” I lied. “I'm fine.”

And we drove off toward whatever the new school year had to offer.