App of the Living Dead Read online

  “Think about who sends out the emergency autocall,” Willa said. “The principal, right? And we know for sure he has the flu, since he nearly barfed mid-intercom message yesterday.”

  Huh. Could Mr. James be too sick to even send a phone message? This wasn’t like any other flu I’d ever seen.

  My eyes scanned the parking lot. I recognized Robbie ahead, moving away from the school, but he seemed to be walking strangely. He was the quarterback of the middle school football team, and Charlie was his backup. I wondered if something had happened to him.

  “Did Robbie get injured?” I motioned with my chin and everyone turned to look.

  Charlie shrugged. “Not that I know of. But he does look . . . off.”

  “Hey, Robbie!” I called.

  He turned around slowly and shuffled toward us, dragging his feet more than walking. His head lilted to the side at an uncomfortable angle, like he didn’t have the muscle control to hold it up. The flu must have really wiped him out. I wondered why he hadn’t stayed home to rest.

  He got closer but still didn’t say anything.

  Willa stepped up to him. “Did you barf up your brain or something?”

  Robbie lifted his head. I could have sworn he had dark brown eyes, but right now they were a strange light gray color. A prickly feeling crawled over my skin.

  Willa snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Hello? What is with you?”

  “Willa,” I began, my voice wary. “I think—”

  Robbie’s mouth opened, and he flashed his teeth.

  “What the heck?” Willa screeched, backing away.

  Then he charged.

  The four of us ran toward the school, with Robbie lumbering closely behind. I mentally willed myself not to trip and fall like one of those people in horror movies, as if telling myself not to trip would actually make me not trip. Marcus pulled open the front door and we piled inside, closing it quickly behind us. I exhaled loudly. We all made it.

  But Robbie was still advancing.

  “We need to lock the doors!” I yelled.

  Charlie examined the entrance. “I can’t. We need a key to lock it.”

  Robbie was almost here. Only a few steps away.

  “We can use a broom from the janitor’s closet,” Willa said. “Pull it through the handles and it will keep the door closed.”

  “There’s no time!” Marcus cried. “He’s here! Everyone help me keep the door closed.”

  We all grasped the large silver handles and pulled. I hoped that whatever had happened to Robbie hadn’t given him superstrength. He was right outside the door now, close enough that I could see his weirdly gray eyes through the window. But he didn’t try the handle. He threw his body against the door, which didn’t budge. Then he slowly paced back and forth with his head at that strange angle, staring at the ground.

  “I don’t think he knows how to open the door,” Charlie said after a few moments.

  We cautiously let go of the handles and stepped back. I let out a relieved breath, but it wasn’t like our problem was solved. Robbie was still right outside the door, waiting for us.

  “What was that?” My voice shook even though I was trying my best to stay calm.

  “That was our quarterback,” Willa said, matter-of-factly.

  “You know what I mean.” I shoved my trembling hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Is Robbie a—a . . .”

  “Zombie?” Marcus said.

  I closed my eyes. “I don’t even want to hear that word.”

  “I’m going to get a broom from the janitor’s closet,” Willa said. “Then we can be sure this door will stay closed.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Marcus offered.

  Charlie and I stood in the hallway alone. He looked at me warily. “It’s happening again, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s worse this time.”

  “The worst,” I agreed.

  The broom handle trick worked perfectly. Robbie seemed content to pace back and forth by the door, waiting to eat our brains—or at least, I assumed that’s what he wanted to do. So maybe we could safely find another way out.

  “We could go out the back entrance,” Charlie suggested. “And then cut through the woods. That way we avoid the parking lot—and Robbie—entirely.”

  “Sounds like a good plan,” I said, and Marcus nodded in agreement.

  Willa chewed on her thumbnail. “But what if Robbie’s not the only one? What if there are more of . . . them inside here with us?”

  Charlie scratched his head. “We’ll just have to be careful.”

  We crept down the hall, elbow to elbow. The school didn’t look particularly sinister. It was daytime, for one thing, and all the lights were on. But walking by one empty classroom after another gave me the creeps.

  A shuffling sound stopped us in our tracks. We neared the end of the hall, with only one room left—Ms. Happel’s English classroom. We all glanced around, searching one another’s faces for what to do. The sound continued and the lights went off in the classroom. A shadow cast its darkness across the doorway.

  And Ms. Happel came out.

  A totally human Ms. Happel.

  She gasped, hand on her heart, as she saw us. Admittedly, we probably looked kind of creepy, standing completely still all in a row like that.

  “Students! What are you doing?” She had her coat thrown over one arm, like she was on her way out, and she wore one of her many cat sweaters. Yes, many. This one had a cat’s face with sequins for eyes.

  “We’re heading out the back way,” I said. “Another student is by the front door, acting strangely.”

  She nodded somberly. “We have to move quickly. I’ve been watching out the window. There are several people acting . . . strangely. This flu seems to have a unique effect on them.”

  That was one way to put it.

  She closed her classroom door. “Let’s get out of here. Follow me.”

  I had to admit, I felt a little better knowing an adult was now in charge. I’d tried calling my parents on their cell phones several times already but neither one had answered. I didn’t want to think about what that could mean. At least now Ms. Happel would take care of us.

  We turned the corner, following our teacher closely, until she stopped short.

  Farther down the hall stood Mr. Durr, my science teacher. He was standing still, sort of staring at a locker.

  “Mr. Durr?” Ms. Happel called. “We’re heading out. Would you like to come with us?”

  His head twisted toward the sound of her voice, and he started walking. It was the same shuffle-drag-shuffle that Robbie had done outside.

  “Oh, no,” Charlie said.

  The science teacher tilted his head to the side and a long string of drool leaked from his open mouth.

  “He’s one of them!” Marcus yelled.

  Before we could get away, Mr. Durr had reached Ms. Happel and grabbed her arm. She gasped and tried to pull it back, but he clamped down on it with his teeth.

  The floor seemed to move underneath me. One of my teachers had just bit another. I couldn’t believe this was happening. My brain was screaming things like, Run, dummy! but my feet seemed glued to the floor.

  Marcus, however, sprang into action. Letting out a roar, he slipped his backpack off his shoulder and swung it like a two-ton weapon at Mr. Durr’s head. To be fair, that thing was full of books and a laptop, so it was pretty heavy. And Mr. Durr went down—hard.

  “Come on, Ms. Happel,” Willa said, pulling at her unbitten arm. “Let’s go!”

  But the teacher stayed put, swaying in her spot.

  “She must be in shock,” I said.

  “Ms. Happel!” Charlie yelled. “We don’t know how long he’ll be down for. He’s going to get back up. We have to go!”

  She blinked heavily, as if awakening from a deep slumber, and slowly turned her head to face us. Her dark eyes lightened until they were a pale, shimmering gray.

  I stumbled backward,
my hands reaching out to grab on to my friends.

  “Is she—is she?” Marcus stammered.

  As if in response, our sweet English teacher growled and snapped at the air.

  “Run!” Charlie yelled.

  We dashed into the nearest open classroom, slamming the door closed behind us. Ms. Happel pressed her forehead against the small glass window, but didn’t try the knob. Mr. Durr soon joined her. He had a small lump on his forehead from Marcus’s bag.

  “We’re safe,” I said. “They can’t open doors.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t stay in here forever,” Charlie said through ragged breaths.

  “It’s the game,” Marcus said, pacing back and forth. “Zombie Town. It turned people into actual zombies.”

  Willa slammed her hand on a desk, startling me. “So who did it?” she yelled. “Who broke our pact and played the game? Who set off this disaster?”

  Marcus quickly shook his head.

  “I didn’t,” Charlie and I said simultaneously, stumbling over each other’s words.

  “Someone did this!” Willa screeched. “We made a promise to never play a Veratrum game again, but one of us did.”

  I knew I hadn’t played. And I knew Charlie hadn’t played. Marcus seemed too busy lately creating that new game in the computer lab. And Willa had clearly kept her promise.

  “I don’t think any of us played,” I said.

  “That’s it,” Charlie said, slowly raising his eyes from the floor.

  I turned to look at him. “What?”

  “We haven’t really stopped to think about why we’re not zombies,” he said. “What do we have in common?”

  It dawned on me instantly. “We didn’t play.”

  Charlie nodded. “Everyone I know who got sick had played the game. Jason. Robbie. Even Mr. Durr talked about the game in class.”

  “You’re right,” Willa said. “Chloe was addicted, and she was the first to puke in ballet class.”

  “Both my parents played and they got sick last night,” Marcus said. “They were locked in their room this morning. I assumed they were sleeping. Does this mean that they’re zombies?”

  I swallowed hard. That would mean my parents were zombies, too. “I think so,” I said sadly. Then I pushed the thought to the back of my mind.

  “But it’s not just the people who played the game we should be worried about,” Charlie said. “The people who didn’t play aren’t safe either because they can become a zombie if they’re bitten. Mr. Durr just turned Ms. Happel!”

  “No one is safe,” I croaked.

  Marcus started pacing again. “We have to get out of here.”

  “What can we use as weapons?” Willa asked.

  Charlie tapped on his chin. “Do they have real knives in the cafeteria or only the plastic ones they give us?”

  “They must have real knives for chopping and meal prep,” Marcus said.

  “You guys!” I cried. “We are not going to stab anyone!”

  “Then how are we going to get out of here?” Willa asked.

  “We have to defend ourselves,” Charlie said.

  Marcus moved closer to me. “Mr. Durr bit Ms. Happel and turned her into a zombie. You saw it.”

  “There has to be another way.” I shook my head. “I know you’re focused on the whole zombie thing, but deep down, they’re still our teachers. And Robbie is still Robbie.” I took a deep breath. “If we came across my parents in the parking lot, would you hurt them, too?”

  They all stared at one another and then at the floor. I didn’t want to know the answer.

  “I’m calling 911,” Willa said.

  We waited as she made the call. Scowling, she hung up and tried again. And again.

  “What’s going on?” Charlie asked.

  “Busy signal,” she said gravely. “Every time.”

  Thoughts swirled in my head. We’d figured out that zombies couldn’t open doors. But then how did my parents get out of the house? I thought about the messily written message on the whiteboard and the answer came to me. One of them transformed first. The other wrote the warning to me and lured the zombie out of the house before turning, too. All to keep me safe. And it had worked.

  My head snapped up. “I have an idea.”

  Willa, Charlie, and Marcus circled around me.

  “We know they can’t open doors, right? So we use that to our advantage.” I pointed at the side door. It didn’t lead to the hallway where our teachers stood waiting to devour us. It led to the classroom next door.

  I continued, “Almost all the classrooms have connecting doors to the classroom beside it. We go from room to room, avoiding the hall. And when we’ve gone as far as we can, we run for it.”

  My friends all looked at me, picturing it in their heads.

  “It’s as good a plan as any,” Charlie said.

  Marcus nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Willa grabbed a ruler from the teacher’s desk. Charlie raised his eyebrows at her, but she only clutched it more tightly.

  “Hey, it’s better than no weapon at all.”

  Marcus inched open the door that led into the next classroom. He poked his head in, then audibly exhaled. “It’s empty.”

  We all piled into the room—from the algebraic equation on the board, a math room—and closed the door. This was a good plan, I told myself. Use the inter-classroom doors to avoid the hallway. And when we got as far as we could, we’d make a run for it to the nearest exit.

  The only thing that could ruin this plan was if a zombie was actually in one of the classrooms. Which I was sure we were all thinking about, since the others looked as nervous as a bunch of gazelles in lion territory.

  Charlie looked at the numbers on the board. “Why did the bacteria fail the math test?”

  “What?” Marcus asked.

  “He tells science jokes when he gets nervous,” I whispered.

  “Oh,” Marcus said. “Um, okay. Why did the bacteria fail the math test?”

  Charlie answered, “They thought multiplication was the same as division.”

  No one laughed.

  “Get it?” he said. “Because bacteria cells divide and—”

  “Yeah, we get it,” Willa cut in. “It’s just not the best time right now, Charlie.”

  Frowning, Charlie put his ear against the door to the next classroom. “Sounds empty.”

  He outstretched one trembling hand toward the knob.

  Willa reached out and grabbed his other hand. Charlie’s eyes widened, and he looked down at her clasped fingers like they were some strange foreign object he’d never seen before. But he held on tightly.

  I’d been starting to suspect that Willa had a crush on Charlie. And I hadn’t yet decided how I felt about it. But now wasn’t the time to explore those feelings. Plus, Willa holding his hand seemed to be useful, because Charlie was suddenly more confident. His shoulders squared, and he flung open the door.

  The classroom was dark but quiet. Charlie and Willa crept inside. Marcus and I followed, running our hands along the wall looking for the light switch. I found it and flicked it on, just as something made a huge crash.

  My eyes adjusted to the light. It was a social studies room, as evidenced by the globe Charlie had knocked to the floor. And it seemed they had plans to watch a movie today. The shades were drawn and the projector was set up and ready to go. The door to the hallway was cracked open just an inch, but Marcus rushed to close it before any zombies could sneak in and join us.

  Charlie pulled up one of the shades and stared outside. “You guys, I think there’s only one classroom left. We’re almost at the end of the building.”

  Willa took an elastic out of her pocket and pulled her hair up into a tight bun. “The next room is my health class. If that room is empty, too, and we can be quiet,”—she cut her eyes to Charlie and the globe he’d crashed into, “then it will be clear sailing. There’s an exit in the hall right outside that classroom.”

  I took a deep breath.
“I’ll go first this time.” Both Marcus and Charlie had taken turns leading the way. It was only fair. Terrifying, but fair.

  I leaned my ear up against the door like they had done, but all I could hear was my own heart pounding loudly in my chest . . . and in my ears and my throat. I mean, was my heart traveling throughout my body? Did I suddenly have several hearts?

  No more procrastinating, I told myself. Just do it. The room would be empty, like the others. I’d gotten myself so worked up that my hand was sweaty and slick. It took me a couple of tries to turn the knob, then I let the door sway inward.

  Willa was right; it was the health room. There was an illustration of a uterus on the board, which I didn’t really need to see at that moment, and posters reminding us to eat our vegetables and to exercise. No lights were on, but the shades were up, giving the room a dim yellow glow. The coast seemed to be clear, so I inched inside. The only other place left to look was behind the door, so I poked my head around it . . . and screamed.

  I fell backward onto my butt in the middle of the room. The boys rushed in after me, with Willa close behind, holding her ruler over her shoulder like a baseball bat. But then they started laughing. Like, doubled-over, can’t catch your breath laughing. And I realized what I had done.

  I’d screamed at a fake skeleton.

  “That’s Fred,” Willa said between gasps of laughter. “He’s made of plastic.”

  And I could see that now. “Fred” was a fake skeleton used for health class instruction. He even had a metal pole and stand keeping him upright.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “You guys can stop laughing at me now.”

  “But,” Charlie choked out, “you should have seen your face. You fell down!”

  Marcus was backing toward the hall door, still laughing. “You screamed so loud! It was hilarious.”

  Every cell in my body froze. The door to the hall was open. Just a crack, but open. And we’d been so loud. We could have certainly attracted some zombie attention.

  I held a hand up. “Marcus! The door!”

  But as soon as the words left my mouth, Ms. Happel lumbered through it and chomped her teeth down on Marcus’s shoulder.

  He cried out in pain, his eyes widening in shock and then realization. He knew he was done for. He’d turn into a zombie any moment now. And he’d bite us next.