I lowered my baseball bat. “He means Bart Lewis,” I said. “Not your pet cow.”
Otis led us over to where the moaning was coming from. He had Bart chained to a bike rack. Bart caught sight of us and reached out, straining to get hold of—
“BRAAAaaaaiinnnnsssss…”
“Man,” Miguel said. “That’s sad.”
Otis nodded. “The really sad thing is that I think he’s actually smarter this way.”
“What happened?”
“You were right,” Otis said. “He just turned on me. One second he was yelling about how he was going to kill that cow and how he was going to kill you guys and how he was going to kick some serious butt—next thing you know, he’s stumbling around trying to bite anything that moves. If I hadn’t been watching for it, he would’ve got me.”
“How’d you tie him up?”
Otis flexed his muscles. “I’m bigger. And he’s real clumsy now.” He sighed. “But I don’t know what to do with him. I don’t want to take him back to his folks, ’cause I don’t think they’d understand that it was an accident, and I don’t want to get yelled at. And I really don’t want anyone else to get bit, ’cause that don’t seem right.” He shrugged. “So I figured I’d bring him down here and maybe the cops could help me sort it out.”
“They’re gone,” Joe said.
“Figured that out myself. I never really thought about it, but I guess police don’t work nights unless they’re city cops.”
Bart the Zombie moaned.
Behind us, Bart the Zombie Cow answered.
It was creepy. Like they were talking to each other. Planning something. “He tied up good?” Miguel asked.
“Yeah.”
“Leave him,” Miguel said. “The cops will find him tomorrow.”
“What if they get bit?”
We all looked at each other. “I got a Magic Marker in the truck,” I said.
With Otis’s help, we pinned Bart down and I used a Sharpie to write on his forehead.
ZOMBIE! BEWARE BITING!
If they couldn’t read the warning, then there wasn’t much else we could do. We all stood back.
“Good enough?”
“Yeah. That does the job.”
As we were all separating, Otis said, “You coming to the baseball game tomorrow?”
We all looked at each other. We’d totally forgotten about the game.
“It’s not canceled?” I asked.
“Nah. I got a call on the phone tree. It’s still on. Sammy’s dad is volunteering to coach.”
“Sammy’s dad, huh?” We all exchanged glances. “Sammy and his dad…”
Otis caught my tone, but he misunderstood what I was thinking. “He won’t mess with you at the game.”
Miguel said, “That kid’s meaner than a snake. No telling what he’ll do. Him or his dad.”
“Yeah, well, I owe you,” Otis said. “Nothing’s happening to you at the game. As long as we’re playing baseball, we’re a team, and as long as we’re a team, I’ll keep Sammy on a leash. There won’t be any trouble from him. Promise.”
“Thanks, Otis,” I said.
“No worries.” He nodded at Bart. “Keep your eye out for zombies.”
“You, too.”
He disappeared into the darkness. A big old slugger, heading home. It was kind of cool to think of us all being on the same team. I wished I felt like that more. And then I wondered if it just took something bigger, like zombies, to make things clear. Otis was all right. Maybe he always had been.
“So, Sammy’s dad is going to be at the game tomorrow,” Miguel said.
“What a pain.”
I mostly didn’t want to have to deal with Sammy or his dad. And I definitely didn’t care about the distraction of a baseball game when more important things were going on.
Joe mirrored my thoughts. “Is there even any point in going?”
“Hold on,” Miguel said. “You know how Sammy’s dad is always on TV, talking about how Milrow’s a good neighbor, and provides jobs, and feeds people and all that stuff?”
“Yeah, so?”
“I was just thinking it might be kind of cool if we could stick it to the guy who got my family deported, you know? You know, really jam him up somehow, seeing as we know where he’s going to be tomorrow, and what he’s going to be doing…”
Behind us, Bart the Zombie Cow mooed again, low and hungry.
Miguel went on, “I was thinking it might be cool if Mr. Riggoni, senior executive of Milrow Meat Solutions, met our friend Bart the Zombie Cow on live TV.”
CHAPTER 34
You could practically see the headlines:
ZOMBIE COW AND MILROW EXECUTIVE FACE OFF!
MILROW EMBARRASSED BY MAN-EATING COW HEAD!
It was too good to pass up, so we headed right back to my house to make a plan.
It took some phone calls and some Googling around to figure out what we needed to do and who we needed to call. We had to practice a script—and not crack up while we were doing it—and then we had to wait for morning work hours to start before we could make the call.
Amazingly, Joe was the only one who could make it all the way through our script. He deepened his voice and just went at it. It was impressive to see how good he was at faking being a grown-up.
“I did this once when I needed to call an 800 number to order off the TV,” Joe explained. “I had to sound like my mom. Total pain to make my voice go like that.”
And then the phone was ringing, and his voice went down a notch and he became someone else.
“Yes, this Sam Drexel, over at Milrow media relations. I’m just calling to let you know that our Delbe facility’s senior executive, Mr. David Riggoni, will be stepping in to coach our local Little League team this afternoon, and he’d love to have a chance to talk about how wonderful our local youth are, and how Milrow has been supporting youth in… in…”
“Initiatives,” I whispered urgently.
Joe waved me off, irritated. “Initiatives! We’d really like to encourage others in the community to come out and support sports and the positive impact it has on youth. These kids have been swinging hard all season, and we’d love to see them recognized, so Mr. Riggoni will be presenting them with a special surprise that we think will be newsworthy—and is better seen on television, rather than in print. It’ll be a fantastic news opportunity for your station, and we’re letting you know, exclusively.”
Joe had gone off script. I slapped his knee, but he kept going, grinning now. “Well, I’ll just say, the kids will never forget this particular surprise. Of course, I’m not at liberty to speak about it until the unveiling, but it won’t be a waste of your time to cover the event. A real scoop. I’ve worked here for a long time, and I have to say, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I guarantee good viewing. In fact, I’d stake my job on it.”
I smacked Joe’s knee again, but he just kept going, buttering up whoever was on the other end.
“That’s right. At the Delbe Middle School baseball diamond. One PM. We’ll look forward to seeing you there.”
The person on the other end said something. Joe covered the mouthpiece. “He wants to know if we’ve got a press pack?”
We both shrugged.
Joe said, “At the game. We’ll have a bunch of them.” He hung up fast.
“You went off the script!” I said.
“I was making it better.”
“Do you think they’ll come?” Miguel asked. “Did you convince them?”
“Who knows? They kind of sounded bored. Like they’d heard all that stuff before. I don’t think they really like ‘media relations’ guys very much. We should have given me a different title or something.”
“Well, it’s too late now. Anyway, we’ve got to get to the game.”
Miguel and I put on our baseball gear, and then we realized we still needed to haul Bart the Zombie Cow, without getting bit.
“I can drive,” Miguel suggested.
&nb
sp; “Are we seriously going to drive the truck to the game?” I asked. “That’s just asking for trouble.”
“We got to hit my house first,” Joe said. “I need to get the rest of my gear.”
“Joe’s house, and then the game, too? We’re pushing our luck.”
“It’s better than hauling that cow head by hand,” Miguel said. “You don’t seriously want to sling Bart in a sack and bike him around, right?”
He was right: I didn’t.
So we drove. Miguel stayed on the backstreets so we wouldn’t run into the cops, but it felt different, riskier, to be driving around in broad daylight. We were going to get busted for sure. Even though Miguel was getting better at driving, there was no way we could keep testing our luck.
But we made it. We parked at the far side of the middle school’s lot so fewer people would notice us getting out, and then we walked down to the dugout.
The other team was there already, hitting balls. I caught sight of Otis, and then Sammy.
“Seriously?” Miguel said, as Sammy came storming toward us.
“Nice shiners, dumbwads,” Sammy said. “Back for more?”
Otis came up behind him. “Leave them alone,” he said. “They’re all right.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Sammy spat on the ground right in front of my feet.
As much as I would’ve loved to taunt Sammy, I didn’t take the bait. I just pulled Joe and Miguel away before any of us did anything stupid. Starting a fight when grown-ups weren’t around was one thing. Brawling in front of every family in town, along with the enemy team, was something else.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. Let’s go warm up.”
We went out and started throwing balls. Just easy catches, back and forth, limbering up. Miguel picked up a bat and started swinging it.
More parents and kids started arriving. Sammy’s dad was walking around, looking kind of smug. Miguel studied him real hard.
I realized Miguel was standing less than thirty feet from the guy who’d gotten Miguel’s entire family deported. The guy who got rid of Milrow workers who knew too much. I could see the gears whizzing in Miguel’s head. Not a good sign. I went over and grabbed his shoulder.
“You’re practically staring laser holes through Riggoni,” I said.
“I can’t help it. I hate that guy.”
“Well, that’s why we’re doing this, right?”
“If the cameras show up.”
“They’ll show.” I hoped. “Stay chill. The last thing we need is Riggoni calling ICE on you.”
We got ourselves warmed up and the other team came out on the field. Joe tapped my shoulder. “Check it out.”
Up on the hill, a TV crew had appeared. I nudged Miguel. “Score.”
Miguel started smiling. We just had to get through the game, then get Mr. Riggoni in front of the cameras. Steer that sucker right in front of those cameras he liked so much. And then Joe would bring Bart the Zombie Cow in for his star turn on broadcast TV. The head of Milrow Meats, with the head of its product.
I had to hand it to Miguel—it was genius.
But first we had to get through our game, and switching coaches wasn’t going to do much for us. Mr. Cocoran might have been a terrible coach, but Sammy’s dad was worse. He wanted Miguel first in the lineup, when he should have been cleanup. He had no idea what our signs were, so he started making up his own, and started trying to get us to memorize them, right then.
You could tell it was going to be a mess.
Finally, I just couldn’t take it. I was sick of watching idiots act like they knew stuff, when they didn’t. I was tired of watching everything go wrong and not doing anything about it. I raised my hand. Mr. Riggoni saw my hand waving, and at first he tried to ignore it, but I kept it up, and finally he gave up on talking about how three fingers on the shoulder was going to mean a sacrifice bunt.
“What do you want?”
“We might do better if we just changed our batting order.”
“Say again?”
“Changing our signs isn’t going to do a whole lot. But if we change our batting order, we can do better,” I said. “It’s got to do with batting statistics. Miguel almost always gets at least a double, so if you get some other guys out who hit singles, then he gets two, maybe three people in, every time he comes up. He could have crazy RBIs, but we don’t have him in the right place. And with Otis, he’s a power hitter, so—”
“Sit down,” Mr. Riggoni said.
“But—”
Sammy’s dad looked at me like I was a bug. “I know you think you’re some kind of math genius or something, Jones, but show some respect when you talk to me.”
“I am showing respect,” I said. “I’m just saying—”
“Sit down!”
I sat.
“You’re such a dumbwad,” Sammy said. “Don’t tell my dad what to do.”
But I thought some of the other guys on the team had been listening. Otis met my eye, and then just sort of shook his head, like he was saying, Don’t sweat it.
The more I saw of Otis, the more I liked him. He was mean and tough, but he shot straight. If you were straight with him, he was straight with you. That simple. You could work with a guy like Otis.
Sammy, though? Or his dad?
They were just grudges and ego. There was no point talking to them. They weren’t going to listen, anyway. I leaned back on the bench, watching as Mr. Riggoni set up an even worse batting order than Mr. Cocoran’s. At least I’d tried.
The game started up and it went just as bad as I expected. Sammy’s dad kept yelling at us when we missed a ball, and when we didn’t (or did) try to steal a base, or when we didn’t understand one of the new signals he’d made up. We struck out and we fouled out. We missed easy plays because Riggoni was shouting so much. It was embarrassing.
The innings came and went and the heat got worse. We all drank Gatorade and sweated and we lost and lost and lost.
I went out to bat, and once again, I was batting cleanup, with Alan and Sid on first and second. The chances of me singling were tiny, and the chances of my getting out were ridiculously high, so all that work of getting guys on base was going to be wasted. I just wasn’t a hitter.
So, what? Bunt? Swing for the fences anyway and pray that Ganesha would hook me up with some kind of crazy line drive? I’d always loved the numbers of baseball, but the batting? It was never really my thing.
I stood out there in the hot sun, with the whole crowd watching me. People in bleachers. People sitting on blankets on the grass with bright umbrellas stuck in the ground. They were all watching. Even Officer Baby Face Boone was there to watch another round of Rabi humiliation.
Just get through the game.
The pitcher knew he could cream me. But maybe I could fake him out somehow. Make him give me a nice fastball that I could smack. I brought up my bat.
“Strike one!”
The pitch was so fast that I barely saw it. I started to get ready again, trying to remember what Miguel had been teaching me about being a baseball-killing machine… but something caught my eye. I paused, staring up at the crowds.
A truck. Right at the top of the rise. One of those snack vendor trucks with a side that opens up, and a kitchen inside it. And on the top, in big letters, it read:
MILROW MEATS, ALL-NATURAL QUALITY.
There was a long line of people outside it.
As I watched, the cook passed a burger out to one of the many, many, many hungry people who were lined up for lunch.
I didn’t even see the next ball as it whizzed across the plate.
I was too busy watching people all over the hillside, as they chowed down on Milrow’s all-natural quality zombie cow.
CHAPTER 35
I was out, and didn’t care a bit.
Sammy passed me on the way to the plate. “Nice going, loser. You could at least swing at the ball, instead of staring off into space.”
A few d
ays ago, I would have been bothered. Now, I hardly even noticed.
I sat down on the bench, beside Joe and Miguel. “Um, guys?”
“Hmm?” Miguel was still glaring at Sammy’s dad. “What?”
“What do you see up there?”
Miguel didn’t turn. But Joe did. He did a double take.
“That can’t be good.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is disaster.”
Miguel finally focused on us. “What’s wrong?”
Joe was reaching under the bench and grabbing his bat. “I think we got ourselves a real-life, honest-to-God zombie apocalypse on our hands.”
Miguel stared up at the crowds and the meat truck. “You know, people say Mexico’s bad, but I really am starting to think my family were the lucky ones.”
“Where’s ICE when we need them, right?” Joe said. “I’d totally go for a deportation right about now.”
“How many bats we got?” Miguel asked.
“Not enough.” I leaned down the line. “Hey, Otis!”
He looked up.
“How long did it take Bart to turn into a zombie?”
“I don’t know. About half an hour. Why?”
“You bring an extra bat?”
“No.” He gave me a funny look. “Why?”
I jerked my thumb toward the stands. “You see the meat they’re serving up there? All that cow?” I pointed up at the vendor truck on the hillside. “There’s a good chance I’m going to need a good, hard slugger on my team. Real. Soon.”
Otis stared up at the meat truck. “What’s wrong with the meat…?” He trailed off. I could see his eyes widening as he started putting two and two together. Zombie cow. Zombie Bart. Zombie burgers. Zombie crowd.
He started nodding. “It looks like you’re going to need more than one slugger.”
“We could be wrong, you know,” Joe said. “We don’t know that the meat will really do anything…. We could be totally wrong.”
“We could be,” Miguel said. “But I don’t think we are.…”
It happened slowly at first. A lady on the hillside flopped over, clutching her throat. Then there was another burst of excitement—it looked like a couple of people were getting into some kind of wrestling fight. One guy grabbed another and dragged him down.