“Haven’t we seen this spot before?” Miguel asked as we stumbled into a trampled clearing.
“I can’t tell,” Joe said, waving at a cloud of flies that had started swarming us. “This is like tracking a drunk cow.”
“Let’s try this way,” I suggested, choosing a broken path through the corn that I didn’t think we’d followed already. “He’s got to be out here somewhere.”
“You sure this is for real?” Joe asked.
“Of course it’s real,” Miguel said. Then he grinned at me. “Lead on, zombie bait.”
“Quit saying that,” I said.
Miguel’s smile widened. “Don’t worry, zombie snack, I got your back.”
And that was enough to get Joe going. He started trying to make up limericks about zombies and snacks.
“Rabi went into the corn,
Playing bait on zombie morn.
When it attacked,
Rabi’s brain was a snack,
And he wished he’d never been born.”
“Real cute, Joe.”
“I was trying to use Rabindranath, but that takes up way too many syllables.” He launched into another one:
“There once was a zombie named Splatter,
Who ate Rabi’s brains on a platter.…”
I gave Joe a dirty look. “Just remember the plan. I’m only on point so you can get a clear whack at him while he goes after me. You better hit the heck out of him.”
“Swing? Fling? Whack? Smack?”
“Don’t worry, buddy,” Miguel said. “We’ll lay your zombie flat.”
Joe’s eyes lit up. “That’s a good one.”
Miguel laughed and we kept going, while Joe worked on his poetry. You had to hand it to him, even with all the heat, Joe didn’t tire out. Just kept rhyming. Flat. Splat. Flood. Blood. Brains. Plantains. Guts. Nuts. He wasn’t good, but he was relentless.
Flies buzzed around us. The corn rustled. I couldn’t see more than a foot ahead. “What’s that smell?” I asked finally, holding up my hand and interrupting Joe.
Miguel sniffed. “Smells like cow sewage. From the feedlots.”
“That’s nasty,” Joe said.
“How come it’s so strong?” I wondered.
We kept hacking through the corn, and then suddenly the stalks parted and we had our answer. We were standing on the edge of a giant pool of cow manure.
A lagoon.
A sea.
An ocean of poop.
On the far side, way off in the distance, there were a bunch of fenced corrals, stuffed to the brim with hundreds and hundreds of cows, all mooing and bumping into one another and waiting to get pushed into the Milrow Meats beef-processing facility, which was even farther beyond.
In all of our twistings and turnings, I hadn’t realized that we’d ended up walking so close to Milrow.
Flies swarmed everywhere, thick clouds of them. The air stank.
“Yech. Now what?” Miguel asked.
“You think Cocoran fell into the poop?” Joe asked, as we all tried to keep from gagging.
“Who knows what a zombie does?” I said. “You’re supposed to be the expert.”
“He’d drown,” Miguel said.
“Does a zombie even breathe?” I asked.
A second later, we had our answer.
“Oh. My. God.” Joe’s eyes bugged out of his head.
All our eyes bugged out of our heads.
On the far side of the lagoon, something was crawling out of the manure lake.
It was a person, completely covered in liquid cow goo.
It stood up.
“Is that Mr. Cocoran?” Joe asked.
I elbowed him in the ribs. “I told you he was a zombie! No real live person would swim in that!”
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
Except it wasn’t, because right after that, the zombie flopped over the feedlot fence and attacked the cows, and that was even more disgusting than just being a zombie covered head to toe with cow manure.
The cows backed away from the zombie, but it kept going after them, herding them as they ran back and forth, trying to escape.
The zombie wasn’t very good at chasing, because it was slow, but it didn’t stop, either. Finally the zombie caught a cow by the leg and bit in. The cow went bonkers, mooing and galloping around and dragging the zombie with it. The zombie bounced up and down, and manure spattered everywhere as the cow shook it, but the zombie didn’t let go. It got a better hold on the cow, climbed onto its back, and started tearing in.
“Am I really seeing this?” Joe asked.
“Well, I am,” Miguel answered.
The cow kept banging around, but the zombie hung on like a tick. It started chewing into the cow’s head. Deeper and deeper. Finally the cow just fell over, and the zombie started to chow down.
Miguel and Joe and I watched the zombie snarf cow brain.
Miguel whistled. “That could have been you, Rabi.”
That’s when Mr. Cocoran burst out of the corn.
CHAPTER 16
“Braaaaaiiiiiiiiiins!”
“Aaaaahhhhggh! Run away!”
Of course, we immediately forgot my whole zombie-fighting plan and bolted in three completely different directions.
Unfortunately, Mr. Cocoran decided I was the one to chase. I don’t know if it was because he remembered me from our last run-in on the highway, or if he had something against me from telling him how to run his baseball team, but he ignored Miguel and Joe and zeroed right in on me.
I plowed through the corn, shoving stalks aside. I couldn’t run nearly fast enough because the corn was so dense. I thrashed and smashed and kicked and hacked my way through, gasping for air, and Cocoran came right behind. I started getting a stitch in my side. I felt dizzy from the heat and all the clothes I was wearing.
Cocoran groaned hungrily. He was getting closer.
There was no way I was going to make it back to the highway at this rate. I needed help.
“Where are you guys?” I shouted.
I thought I heard someone shouting off in the distance, but I couldn’t slow down to listen. The corn whipped my face and slashed my skin.
“I’m over here!” I shouted. “Help me, will you!”
Behind me, Mr. Cocoran moaned. “Braaiinnss!”
I wasn’t going to make it to the road. I was just too slow, fighting through the corn. It was time to change strategies. When I hit a slightly trampled spot in the corn, I turned and brought up my Louisville Slugger. I’d just have to fight him.
Mr. Cocoran came right at me.
Set your stance.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Cocoran’s head was coming in high. Way out of the strike zone. It would have been a ball for sure if we’d been in a game. His head was all mashed up, and one of his eyes was looking off in a whopper-jawed direction. It made me remember something from American History—George Washington or someone saying you were supposed to wait till you saw the whites of their eyes before attacking.
Mr. Cocoran’s eyes were almost all white. Creepy, milky white.
He came in fast.
“BrraaAAAAIIIIINNNNSSsssss!”
Keep your eye on the ball and—
I swung as hard as I could.
Bam!
Total connection. Mr. Cocoran’s head snapped sidewise. It was probably the best baseball hit I’d ever had. Got him right with the fat part of the bat. I felt a rush of triumph as he piled past me.
But then Cocoran turned and started in on me again.
My skin crawled. I’d hit him a good one and knocked him off course, but here he was, coming right back. I hadn’t slowed him down at all.
“BRAii—”
I hit him again. Bounced the bat off his skull and ducked under his flailing arms to get behind him. He didn’t seem to mind, though. Just came back at me again. Zombies were tough!
I heard Miguel and Joe calling for me.
“I’m over
here!” I shouted. “Where are you?”
“Rabi?”
“Hurry up!”
Mr. Cocoran attacked again. It was just like in real life—Mr. Cocoran wasn’t supersmart, but he sure was stubborn. My dad always said that having a mule-headed personality only got you so far, but I was starting to think it was going to be enough for Mr. Cocoran to get a seat at the all-you-can-eat Rabi brain buffet.
My arms were getting tired, and I was gasping for air. Running and swinging and dodging zombies took a lot more energy than just playing baseball.
“BRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSSSS!”
I swung again, but this time, Mr. Cocoran got his hands up. Bone crunched, and one of his arms snapped. The other hand grabbed my bat. In a blink, he tore it from my grasp.
Uh-oh.
Mr. Cocoran smiled—or whatever was left of Mr. Cocoran, anyway. His tongue stuck out, gray and wormy, and you could tell he was looking forward to chewing me to pieces. I took a step back.
Just then, Joe and Miguel came thrashing through the corn. Two big guys, coming fast and furious.
Wham!
Miguel laid his bat into the back of the zombie’s head.
Bam!
Joe slammed the zombie’s hand that held my bat. The zombie went down. He tried to get up again, but this time, I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Get his knees!” I shouted. “You can’t kill him by hitting his head! I already tried! Get his knees so he can’t chase us!”
Wham!
Bam!
Slam!
Whack!
Crack!
Crunch!
Zombie legs shattered. Arms got obliterated.
The monster snapped his battered teeth at us. Without working arms or legs, all he could do was lie there, staring up at us with creepy, milky zombie eyes, tongue licking the air.
“Braaaaaiiiiiinnnnsss,” the thing whispered.
He didn’t seem to notice that his arms and legs weren’t working anymore. He sniffed the air.
“Braaaiiiins.”
He started trying to inchworm his way toward us.
“Yo, dude,” Joe said. “That ain’t right.”
“Now do you believe us?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. That’s a zombie, all right. One hundred percent USDA pure homegrown American zombie, for sure.”
Mr. Cocoran’s zombie teeth kept snapping. We realized that we all had blood on us.
“Um. Joe?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“Do you know if we can get zombified by zombie blood?”
Joe thought about it. “I don’t know. All the comic books say you got to get bitten.”
“Yeah, but this is a real zombie. We aren’t in a comic book.”
Joe puzzled on that some more. “Beats me. I know doctors and nurses don’t like getting blood on them in the hospital.”
The spatters were all over us. My skin crawled. Mr. Cocoran moaned again.
“Brains brains brainssss.”
He sounded like a loop in a techno mix.
“We got to get washed up,” I said.
“What do we do about Mr. Cocoran?” Miguel asked.
Joe frowned. “My grandma and grandpa, they sometimes put a farm dog down when it gets too old. Same for cows and horses.”
“So… what? We just got to keep beating on him until he stops moving?”
We all looked down at the zombie monster.
“I’m not doing it,” Miguel said.
I couldn’t help agreeing, and Joe looked sick at the thought, too. Even if he was a zombie, no one wanted to do the job. It was one thing to snap a zombie’s arms and legs and make sure it couldn’t bite you, but it was another thing to keep pounding on it until it was dead.
Mr. Cocoran bared his teeth at us again.
“Let’s just leave him,” I said, finally.
“Are you serious?”
“It’s not like he’s going anywhere,” I said. “We’ll go find the police and bring them back. They can figure out what to do with him.”
“We going to tell them that we hit Mr. Cocoran until we broke his arms and legs, too?” Miguel asked. “And his head? You know that’ll get me deported, for sure.”
Joe looked surprised. “Who the heck’s going to deport you?”
In all the excitement, we’d forgotten to tell Joe everything else that was going on.
“Miguel’s uncle and aunt just got picked up by ICE,” I explained.
“When did that happen?”
“Today.”
“Why’d ICE pick up your aunt and uncle?”
I was about to answer that we didn’t know, but my eyes were drawn to Mr. Cocoran. He was still wearing his torn-up Milrow Meats uniform. He smiled and stuck out his gray zombie tongue at us.
“Brains,” he hissed. “Brainsssss.”
Milrow Meats… Zombies… Miguel’s uncle talking about bad things he’d seen…
Puzzle pieces started to click into place. “Maybe they saw something they weren’t supposed to,” I said.
“Maybe they were making trouble,” Miguel added, nodding.
“Like your dad,” I said. “Like when he complained about Milrow speeding up the line and said that it wasn’t safe for workers.”
It was making sense, all of a sudden. Sammy Riggoni hadn’t been the guy who’d gotten Miguel’s aunt and uncle taken away; it had been Sammy’s dad. The big cheese at Milrow, who had stood in front of the TV cameras and said that the weird smells were totally normal. But what if a bunch of his workers knew different? And what if they were thinking about talking? The answer would be simple. Just get them deported, so there wouldn’t be anyone to complain. And Sammy had just found out about it. That’s why he’d been gloating.
“I bet ICE took a bunch of people today,” I said. “Not just your aunt and uncle.”
Joe was focused on something different, though. “So you don’t have any family anymore?” he asked Miguel.
“Yeah,” Miguel said. “That’s about the size of it.”
“You need someplace to live—” Joe broke off. “I mean, my dad’s a pain in the neck, but I got a top bunk in my room. I can clean it off. You can totally live with us.”
“Nah.”
“Seriously, man. I can move all my comics. Put them in the shed or something. I need to get them out anyway. There’s room. I can make room.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” Miguel said. “I think they put kids like me in foster homes.”
“Forget that!” Joe said. “You didn’t ask to be an orphan! You’re staying with us.”
“He’s staying with me for a little while,” I said.
“Yeah,” Miguel said. “We’re going to tell Social Services that I’m his cousin Manoj.”
Joe laughed at that. “You’d better start learning how to dance like they do in those Bollywood movies that Rabi’s got, or they’ll never believe it.”
“We’ve got a couple of weeks until Rabi’s mom comes back. I’ll figure something out.”
Joe snorted. “Get ready to bust a move, Manoj.”
Just then, Mr. Cocoran snapped his teeth. He’d been inching over to us. If he’d had any arms left, he’d have snagged Joe for sure.
We all skipped back, shouting and lifting up our baseball bats, ready to beat him down if he got back up. But of course he didn’t; he just lay there like a big floppy fish, smiling with his nasty, hungry mouth and groaning.
“Braaaaiiiiiinssssssssssssss.”
“Let’s go get the police,” I said. “We can leave Miguel out of it. But we’d better tell some grown-ups before this gets out of hand. We’re in way over our heads.”
* * *
“Fighting zombies in real life is totally different than in Left 4 Dead,” Joe said.
We were headed back toward the highway, feeling kind of triumphant about winning a fight with a zombie.
“How’s it different?” Miguel asked.
“In the game, you got to worry about t
he zombies swarming, and they’re superfast. You got to keep blasting away, to get them all. It’s like a zombie mob—”
I stopped short and Joe and Miguel slammed into my back.
“What the—”
“Would you keep walking?” Miguel said.
“There’s another zombie,” I said.
In the excitement of being chased by Mr. Cocoran, we’d completely forgotten it.
Joe groaned. “The poop zombie.”
“Yeah. The one that was chewing on the cow.”
“You think it made the cow into a zombie?” Joe asked.
“Can cows get zombied?” Miguel asked.
“I think they’re too dumb to be zombies,” Joe said. Then he shrugged. “On the other hand, up until twenty minutes ago, I didn’t think people could get zombied, either.”
“There was another zombie,” I said. “Mr. Cocoran wasn’t the only one. That means other people could be catching it.”
“How do you think Mr. Cocoran got it?” Miguel asked.
“He had on his Milrow uniform,” Joe said. “I bet he caught it working there.”
Miguel punched him in the shoulder. “My aunt and uncle worked there, too. And they aren’t zombies.”
“Not the last time you saw them.”
Miguel gave him a dirty look. “I think someone at ICE would have noticed if they showed up to check immigration papers and ended up fighting zombies. If Mr. Cocoran got turned into a zombie at Milrow, then he had to be doing something different than my family. They worked on the production line.”
“You guys,” I broke in, “it doesn’t matter where it started! What matters is that we’ve seen two zombies in the space of twenty minutes. Think about it.”
Joe and Miguel exchanged glances. “Whoa,” Joe said.
“Dios mío,” Miguel said. “There could be more.”
“A lot more,” I said.
“There could be millions! Total zombie apocalypse!” Joe said, and then he looked thoughtful. “That would be pretty cool, actually. I mean, if they didn’t all want to chew our brains out.”
Trust Joe to find the bright side of the zombie apocalypse.
“I doubt it will be millions,” I said. “We only got about two thousand people in the whole town.”
The cornfields opened ahead of us. “Two thousand might not be millions,” Miguel said, as we picked up our bikes, “but if we’re not careful, we could still be up to our armpits in zombies.”