A rowdy pack of undead adults raged at the end of the hall. The zombies thrashed at the walls, tearing the posted bulletins and student artwork to the floor. They flailed their disjointed limbs against the lockers. Whap! Bang! Clang!
Zack, Rice, and Zoe tugged on all the doors, looking for an escape, but the classrooms were locked. All except for one. It was Mr. Budington’s first-period science class. Zack shooed everyone inside and shut the door quietly, locking the knob. Everybody caught their breath.
“That was close,” Zoe huffed.
“It’s not over yet.” Ozzie put his ear to the door. “They’re coming.”
“Okay…okay, we need a plan.” Zack scratched his head. “Rice, what’s the plan?”
“I don’t know. Ozzie, what do we do?” Rice asked.
“Well,” Ozzie thought out loud. “My sensei taught me all sorts of combat strategies….”
Welcome back to The Life and Times of Oswald Briggs, Zack thought.
Ozzie continued. “Have you ever heard of the ‘Lure and Destroy’ maneuver?”
“No, but it sounds awesome,” Rice replied.
“Basically, it means we have to set a trap or cause some kind of diversion and then escape when the enemy’s distracted.”
“Wouldn’t that just be called ‘Lure and Escape’?” Zack asked.
Ozzie just stared at him.
“What are we supposed to distract the zombies with?” Zoe asked.
Rice marched across the science lab. A glass display jar glimmered on the sunlit windowsill. It was Mr. Budington’s human brain specimen. Rice picked up the jar and carried it over to the teacher’s desk. The brain was a squiggly mound of pruned tissue, floating in the nasty yellow water.
“Rice, what are you doing with that?” Zoe demanded.
“Don’t you know what this is?” Rice asked solemnly.
“That creepy Meredith Jenkins girl told me it’s Mr. B.’s actual brain.” Zoe cringed. “Ewww.”
“That brain’s not even real,” Zack scoffed.
“Oh, it’s real all right.” Rice unscrewed the lid and reached into the jar. “I’ve always wanted to touch it.” He pulled out the brain bare-handed and plopped it on the desktop. “The smartest brain the world has ever known.” Rice poked at it with a stray no. 2 pencil. “Albert Einstein.”
“Shut it, Rice!” Zoe pinched her nose as the thick formaldehyde fumes filled the classroom.
“Rice, seriously.” Zack groaned. “Put that thing away.”
“Zack, seriously, no,” he retorted.
“Why not?”
Rice smiled, the hunk of brain-meat resting on his upturned palm. “Because this is the bait.”
BAM! BAM! The whole wall shook, and they all whipped around.
Zack ran over to the door and peered out the little cross-hatched window. It was Mr. Budington.
And he wanted his brain back.
On the other side of the door, the zombie teacher banged violently, attracting more zombies with every thump.
Rice grabbed a piece of chalk and quickly scrawled PROFFESER RICE on the blackboard. Spelling had never been his strong suit. He paced self-importantly at the head of the class, hands clasped behind his back, like a brooding college professor. “Please.” He gestured to Zack, Zoe, and Ozzie to have a seat in the front row.
“Let me ask you one question: What do zombies love more than anything?” Professor Rice paused for a response, stroking an imaginary beard.
“Snorting?” Zack said from the front row.
“Moaning?” Ozzie guessed from the desk next to him.
“I liked the ripping-people’s-faces-off part,” Zoe said. “I mean, when I was a zombie.”
“Brains, you guys!” Rice said, disappointed. “Now let me ask you another question. Why do you think the zombies always appear out of nowhere, even when we’re being quiet?”
“Because they’re everywhere?” Zoe said.
“That’s true, Ms. Clarke, but no…. It’s probably because the zombies have extrasensory receptors to home in on our brains.”
“You mean, like, the virus uses the dead brains to hunt for other brains?” Zack asked.
“Precisely what I was thinking, Mr. Clarke.” Rice nodded. “Gold star for you.”
“So what’s your brilliant plan, then?” Zoe asked brattily. “There’s, like, fifty thousand of those yuck-mongrels out there, and all you have is one puny brain.”
Mr. Budington thumped angrily outside in the hallway. “Braaaaiins!” he bellowed.
“That’s why we need something to cut it with,” Rice explained, ignoring the angry, undead teacher.
“This’ll work….” Ozzie whipped out his survival knife from a green plastic sheath fastened to his utility belt.
Rice took the knife, grinning. He touched the sharp blade to the meaty brain squiggles. Everyone groaned as Rice cut the brain into cross sections as if he were slicing a loaf of bread. The steel squished and squeaked through the rubbery specimen.
“I can’t watch this.” Zoe clutched her stomach and turned away.
Mr. Budington howled and groaned, banging on the door.
Twinkles licked a slice of brain. Zack and Zoe recoiled with disgust.
“Looks like he’s still got a little zombie left in him.” Ozzie chuckled as Rice finished carving the brain slabs.
“Now, for step two,” Rice said. “Gimme a hand, Oz.”
Rice and Ozzie pushed the teacher’s desk against the wall, and Ozzie boosted Rice up so he could reach the top of the little window over the door.
“Suppertime!” Rice called down from his perch, opening the window. As he dangled the brain slices over Mr. Budington’s head, the pounding on the door stopped. Rice then threw the cross sections Frisbee-style down the hallway. “Fetch!” The little brain patties smacked and slid across the linoleum floor. Dinner was served.
Zoe opened the door and watched as the zombies flocked to the cannibal’s meatloaf at the other end of the hall. Zack could hear the squish and slurp of chewed brain.
Om nom nom. Nom. Nom. Nom. Nom.
Undetected by the feasting ghouls, Zack, Zoe, Rice, Ozzie, and Twinkles slipped out and finally made a break for the principal’s office.
