Why I Quit Zombie School

  Franny squinted at me. “So?” she replied.

  5

  I was beginning to feel a little confused. Franny’s answers to my questions didn’t exactly make sense. But now she was staring at me as if I was the one who was being weird.

  Wayne and Angelo strode back to us. Wayne waved Franny away. “We’ll take over the tour,” he said.

  Franny nodded and gave me a thumbs-up. “Catch you later,” she said. “Good luck.” She disappeared around the corner.

  Wayne put a big hand on my shoulder. It felt like he was pushing down on me with a baseball glove. “Show you the gym,” he boomed.

  We rolled through the hall. Kids actually slunk out of the way. Wayne and Angelo pushed through everyone like tanks.

  We climbed a tall set of concrete stairs. The Dining Hall stood at the top. I saw a lot of kids in there having an early lunch.

  “It’s open all day,” Wayne said. “You have your breakfast there. And lunch. And dinner. Unless you go out.”

  “Go out?” I asked. “You mean you’re allowed out?”

  “No, it’s not allowed,” Wayne replied. “But you can go out.”

  They both stared at me with their blank eyes.

  Was Wayne making a joke? I didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

  Angelo scratched one side of his face. His skin was nearly as pale as his white-blond hair. “You like to prowl?” he asked.

  I thought hard. “Prowl?”

  “Yeah.” Both guys nodded.

  “Uh … sometimes,” I said. My head was spinning. I didn’t know what they were talking about.

  “Well …” A grin spread over Wayne’s face. “Then you have to go out, right?”

  “Right,” I muttered.

  I suddenly heard a terrible groan from the Dining Hall. Choking sounds. Someone heaving and groaning.

  Was some kid in trouble?

  Wayne and Angelo didn’t seem bothered by it. They didn’t even turn to the door.

  “The gym is up here,” Angelo said. He gave me a gentle push. “It’s a good gym. Everything is pretty new. And Coach Meadows still has the juice.”

  Did I hear right?

  “Still has the what?” I asked.

  Wayne pushed in the gym door with a big fist, and I followed them in.

  I heard shouts and the thump of a ball on the hardwood floor. In the middle of the gym, younger kids were playing a volleyball game.

  I stepped beside Wayne and Angelo and watched them play. The boy who was serving swung his hand up slowly and popped the ball over the net. The players on the other team lurched awkwardly toward the ball. Hands slapped wildly at it. Too late. The ball hit the floor.

  Wow, I thought. Everyone is so slow. If they all move in slow motion like that, I’m going to be a SUPERSTAR here!

  “Coach Meadows isn’t here,” Wayne said. “He only teaches the older kids.”

  “He’ll be at our practice after classes,” Angelo said. “We’ll put in a good word for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I glanced back at the volleyball game. These kids were really lame. They needed to get moving, to get their energy up. It looked like they were all sleepwalking.

  “We have soccer practice in the afternoon and usually at night after dinner,” Wayne said. He leaned over me. “You don’t have night problems, do you?”

  I swallowed. “Night problems?”

  He shrugged his big shoulders. “Sometimes I get moon fever,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  Moon fever?

  “Like when the moon goes dark,” he said, still whispering. “Not when there’s a full moon. A full moon, I’m there. I’m really there. Know what I’m saying?”

  I nodded. “For sure.”

  Angelo snickered. “My brother is totally weird.”

  Wayne shook his head. “Angelo gets the fever, too. He just won’t admit it.”

  The volleyball came bouncing across the floor toward us. I picked it up and tossed it back to the players. “I have to go find my family,” I said. “Is there more to the tour?”

  Wayne pointed to a red door. “That’s the locker room,” he said. Then he motioned to the green door farther ahead. “And down that hall is the Reviver Room.”

  Again, I wasn’t sure I heard right. “Reviver Room?” I stared at the narrow green door.

  He nodded. “You know. In case you need it.”

  I’ve always heard that twins are strange. That they live in their own world. Wayne and Angelo were definitely proving it.

  I’ve read some good horror stories about twins. One twin is always good, and one is evil.

  But Wayne and Angelo both seemed like nice guys. I guessed that being identical like that just made them strange. All that talk about moon fever and a Reviver Room had to be some kind of private joke that the two of them only shared.

  “We’ll take you back to your family,” Wayne said. We headed back to the gym doors. The volleyball game continued in slow motion behind us.

  We made our way down the hall, which was crowded with kids coming from lunch. A few of them called out to the twins.

  As we came to the stairway, I saw a book on the floor that someone must have dropped. I guess Wayne didn’t see it. Because he stepped on it — and it slid out from under him.

  Wayne let out a cry, and his arms shot straight up into the air. He toppled into the stairway, struggling to catch his balance.

  And fell hard, headfirst.

  His head made a craaack as it hit the concrete step. On the next step, I heard a sick splaaat.

  Wayne groaned. Then he plunged down the whole stairway, his head thudding on every step.

  6

  I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  A strange silence fell all around me.

  I peered down the stairs. Wayne lay crumpled at the bottom. Like a wadded-up ball of paper. He didn’t move.

  Angelo stood beside me, gazing down at his twin. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move.

  I expected him to fly down the stairs to help Wayne. But he just stood there staring blankly. He didn’t look upset. He didn’t even look surprised.

  My heart thudded in my chest. Come on, Wayne — get up! Come on, move! Move your arms, your legs! I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

  A group of kids gathered at the bottom of the stairs. Everyone stared down at Wayne in silence. No one screamed or cried out or dropped beside him.

  No one did anything.

  And suddenly, almost without realizing it, I began screaming: “HELP him! Somebody — get help! HELP him!”

  Angelo squinted at me. Like he was trying to figure out why I was screaming.

  His face was still totally calm. And he made no move to hurry down to his brother.

  Finally, I saw two teachers appear downstairs. They pushed through the silent crowd of kids. They unfolded a canvas stretcher and placed it on the floor next to Wayne.

  “Is he okay? Is he ALIVE?” I screamed.

  For some reason, a few kids laughed.

  What was funny about it?

  The teachers didn’t examine Wayne or anything. They rolled him onto the stretcher. His body was limp. His arms dangled over the sides.

  The teachers strained to lift the stretcher. Wayne is a big dude. Finally, they raised him off the floor and carried him away.

  My heart was still pounding. And I heard the sick splaaat Wayne’s head made against the concrete steps again and again. I couldn’t force that horrible sound from my mind.

  I jumped when Angelo put a big hand on my shoulder. He finally spoke: “Hey, Matt, it’s a good thing you came to Romero. We’ll need you to replace Wayne on the soccer team.”

  Huh?

  My mouth dropped open.

  “Angelo,” I said in a shaky voice, “Wayne is your brother. Aren’t you worried about him?”

  Angelo shrugged. “You know how it is.”

  7

  I caught up with my parents and Jamie in my
room. The room was just big enough for a narrow bed, a dresser, and a tiny desk.

  “The bathroom is down the hall,” Mom said. “Can you handle it?”

  Do I have a choice?

  Jamie sat on the bed, texting someone on her phone. Dad gazed out the tiny square window, down to the playing fields below. Mom was stuffing my T-shirts into a dresser drawer.

  “Listen to me!” I cried breathlessly from the doorway. “Something is totally weird!”

  Jamie looked up from her phone. “Your face?”

  “Don’t make jokes,” I said. “Something horrible just happened.”

  That got their attention.

  I told them about Wayne. “His head hit the steps hard, and he fell all the way down. He just lay there at the bottom, all crunched up. He didn’t move.”

  “How awful —” Dad started.

  I raised a hand. “No. Wait. I’m not finished.”

  I told them about how Angelo didn’t move. “His own twin brother,” I said. “He didn’t shout or scream or call for help or anything. He just stood there. Like it was no big deal. None of the kids acted upset. None of them.”

  “Matt, you must be exaggerating,” Mom said.

  “No, I’m not!” I insisted. My head felt like it was bursting. I wanted to pace back and forth. But there was no room.

  “I’m telling the truth,” I said. “No one even bent down to see if Wayne was okay. It seemed to take hours for the teachers to arrive. And they just loaded him onto a stretcher and carried him away.”

  “It said on the website that they have nurses on duty here twenty-four hours a day,” Dad said.

  “That’s not the point!” I screamed. “The kid didn’t move. His head was cracked. I heard it. And no one checked him out. And all the kids … they … they weren’t even upset.”

  Jamie gazed up from her phone again. “They were in shock,” she said. “I studied it in Psych class.”

  “Huh?” I stared at her. “Jamie, listen to me. His own twin brother didn’t even flinch. He —”

  “He was in shock, Matt,” Jamie said. “The kids were in shock. That’s what happens sometimes when people see something shocking, something totally horrible. It’s like their brain freezes. It doesn’t compute.”

  “Jamie is probably right,” Dad said. “They won’t react till later. Then it will hit them. The brain is funny. Sometimes it protects itself from —”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said, shaking my head. “No way. If you were there, you would agree with me. It wasn’t normal. It was totally weird.”

  Jamie snickered. “There you go again, Matt. You’re in this school for ten minutes, and what do you do? You have to turn it into a horror movie.”

  Dad turned his gaze out the window. “Hey, look. A soccer game,” he said. “Are you going to try out for the team?”

  He was changing the subject. I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere with them. I decided to shut up.

  After lots of hugs and promises to call every day, they left. I watched them walk down the long hall, then disappear down the stairwell.

  Silence. I dropped onto my narrow bed, my brain whirring.

  My first time living away from home. My first day in a new school with all new kids and teachers.

  Did I feel lonely? Not exactly. Instantly homesick? Not really. Afraid? No, not at all.

  I couldn’t describe how I felt. I just knew I was kind of emotional. I didn’t feel like crying. But I knew I’d start crying if I let myself go.

  I decided that setting up my room might cheer me up.

  I’d brought a carton of my horror collection stuff. I knew I wouldn’t have much room. So I just brought my favorite things.

  I had one bookshelf above the desk where I could put things. I pulled out my scale models of my favorite classic horror movie monsters. I had Frankenstein and Dracula, of course. Perfect replicas of the original movie characters. And I had a nice-looking Godzilla and a Wolfman with real animal fur on his face and back.

  My cousin works at the SyFy Channel. He sent me posters of their crazy monster movie characters. He sent awesome posters of Sharktopus, and Mansquito, and Frankenfish. I had just enough wall space to hang all three.

  Fixing up the room made me feel a little more at home. But I still felt kind of weird.

  I took out my monster-makeup kit and stood in front of the mirror over my dresser. I always liked to scare Jamie by making up my face, turning myself into a hideous ghoul or monster.

  I started to dab black makeup around my eyes. Then I made my face pale white. I marked in deep ruts in my skin to make it look like my flesh was coming apart.

  I don’t know why I started turning myself into a ghoul. I knew Jamie wasn’t around to scare. It was just something to do, I guess. Something to remind me of home.

  Or maybe I could stagger down the hall and scare a few kids. It might be a way to meet some new friends.

  I colored my lips black. And I painted a stream of bright red blood trickling down my chin.

  Not bad. I looked like a creature who had just come back from the dead.

  I was admiring myself in the mirror when I saw someone reflected in the glass. In the mirror, I saw her appear in the doorway to my room.

  Franny. The girl I’d met when I first arrived at school.

  She was staring at my back. She couldn’t see my face.

  I’ll give her a little scare, I decided.

  I spun around quickly, my eyes wide, my mouth hanging open.

  And waited for her scream of surprise.

  8

  “How’s it going?” Franny said. She took a step into the room.

  I froze, openmouthed, my eyes deep in black sockets, bright blood trickling down my ripped-up face.

  Franny glanced around the room. “Awesome posters,” she said. “Did you see the one about the half boy, half spider?”

  “Uh … sure,” I said.

  Jamie would have screamed her head off. What was up with Franny? She acted like my face was totally normal.

  Why didn’t she ask me about it?

  “Are you learning your way around this place?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Not really.” The makeup was starting to itch.

  She picked up my Wolfman statue. “Want to take a walk? I could show you all the classrooms and places you need to know.”

  “Yeah. Great,” I said.

  Why is she being so nice to me? Did the principal tell her to help the new kid out?

  “Let me just wash this off,” I said, pointing to my face.

  She squinted at me. “You mean it’s makeup?”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny,” I said. I grabbed a towel and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

  A few minutes later, we climbed the stairs down from the dorm rooms and began to make our way through the twisting halls.

  “I guess Wayne and Angelo didn’t give you a very good tour,” Franny said.

  “It was okay,” I said. “But then Wayne took that terrible fall.”

  I shuddered. Once again, I pictured him rolling down the stairs, his head hitting every step. Once again, I heard that horrible splaaat sound.

  “Did you hear anything about how he’s doing?” I asked.

  Franny bit her bottom lip. “Not good,” she said softly. “They took him to the Reviver Room. But it didn’t take.”

  I stared at her. “Excuse me? It didn’t take?”

  “Yeah. You know,” she replied.

  “No. Not really,” I said. “I’m the new kid, remember? Tell me what goes on in the Reviver Room.”

  She studied me for a moment. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Did she think I was out of it because I didn’t know what a Reviver Room is?

  “You go in that room if you are getting low or if you are damaged,” she said finally. “And the Reviver turns on the power.”

  We turned a corner. Franny waved to a group of girls. Two of them were up on ladders. They were hanging a red-and-black GO VULTURES b
anner over the hallway.

  We stepped under the banner and made our way toward the back doors of the school.

  I could see the gray sky through the windows. The evening sun was dropping behind the hill.

  “When he turns on the power,” Franny said, “the voltage is so high, the whole room shakes and buzzes.”

  “The v-voltage?” I stammered.

  “The high voltage shock usually brings most kids back,” she said. “It totally revives them.”

  I stared hard at her. “Really?”

  She slapped me on the shoulder. “Whatever it takes — right?”

  We pushed open the doors and walked outside. A short staircase led down to the grass. I could see the green playing fields. Beyond the fields I saw a sloping hill.

  Two boys were tossing a softball back and forth beside the baseball diamond. The ball made a nice thud as it hit their gloves. They weren’t very good. They kept dropping the ball and having to go after it.

  I didn’t see anyone else outside. The sun was nearly down. The air had grown colder.

  Franny and I walked toward the soccer field. The breeze blew her dark hair back, and she leaned into the wind as we walked slowly.

  “So they took Wayne to the Reviver Room?” I asked. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  “He didn’t come around,” Franny said. She kept her eyes straight ahead.

  “He’s gone.” She said it in a flat voice. She didn’t sound upset or anything.

  “Poor Angelo,” I muttered. “He must be so sad.”

  We stepped onto the soccer field. The grass was as smooth as a golf course’s.

  Two huge crows cawed loudly as they flew over our heads.

  I jumped, startled.

  “You’ll get used to the crows,” Franny said. “They think they own the place.”

  I pointed to the tall black fence behind the soccer field. It rose up high over our heads and stretched the width of the hill.

  “That fence —” I started.

  “No one wants to go back there,” Franny said. “Too depressing. Too sad.”

  “Huh? Sad?” I said. What did she mean?

  Franny turned to me. “You don’t want to go back there — do you, Matt?”