It was raining cats and BurgerDogs.
Zoe and Ozzie hobbled down the marble steps. Zack and Rice raised their weapons and moved slowly, flanking the three-legged racers. Ozzie shouted, “Ow!” with every other step they took as they made their way down to the Reflecting Pool.
Everything looked black and gray in the thunderstorm’s dusk. Bloated bodies of puffy, waterlogged flesh floated facedown in the pelting rain. Sopping-wet zombies lurched out of the park’s forest. A narrow zombie gauntlet formed between the treacherous woodland and the stone ledge of the long rectangular pool.
They moved toward the Washington Monument as quickly as Zoe and Ozzie could hobble. The rain beat fast with the pace of Zack’s pulse as they stalked along through the zombie maelstrom.
“Zack, look out!” Rice called.
A sludge-drenched madman doddered out of the woods. Zack reeled around and swung his bat, clubbing the zombie with a mighty wallop. KERSPLAT! The ill-willed beast fell flat in the muck. Zack grunted.
Lightning lit the sky for a full two seconds. Up ahead, the pointed ivory monument cast a shadow across the green, like a dagger pointing toward their final destination. The most famous house in America was no more than a few football fields away.
“The White House…,” Rice said again with the awestruck tone in his voice.
The landscape darkened, and thunder popped like a fireworks finale.
Zack gazed through the binoculars. Hundreds and hundreds of undead citizens prowled across the White House Rose Garden. Muck-covered politicians shambled in the flashing darkness. Senators plodded through the sludge side by side with homeless bag ladies, and evil-eyed children tottered beside escaped zombie prisoners in orange jumpsuits.
The sewer grates off the curb were plugged with thick black gunk and debris, causing the roadway to flood. Insects and rats’ tails coated the surface of the water—a real witch’s brew of stink and filth. Hot dogs and eyeballs bobbed in the slow current of the contaminated moat they now had no choice but to cross.
“Can we do this?” Rice shouted over the rain’s loud splatter.
“We’re gonna have to, man!” Zack turned to Ozzie and his sister. “How are you guys doing?”
“He’s a really bad partner,” Zoe said. “But we’ll be okay.”
Zack hiked up his pant legs and gripped his bat firmly. Rice walked softly, carrying a big field hockey stick. Ozzie growled, wincing with every step Zoe took, as they waded across the street brimming with diseased slop.
A well-dressed gang of zombified politicos tottered in tattered sport coats across the South Lawn of the White House. A zombified congressman and a Senate page lurched toward them, waving their mutilated arms. Shredded Oxford sleeves dangled from their elbows, dribbling ooze.
Rice clobbered the lowly intern, and Zack belted the politician in his legislative noggin.
Zoe trudged along through the puddles of muck, dragging Ozzie, as her brother and his buddy thumped and swatted through the undead madness. They were almost there.
“Come on!” Zack and Rice shot up some marble steps and waited for Zoe to drag Ozzie and his dead leg up, too.
“She better be in there,” Zoe said, out of breath at the top. Ozzie pulled out his big knife and cut them loose. The three-legged race was over.
Zack lifted open a window and climbed over the sill, landing on the plush carpet of the interior. Rice tumbled through the window next, followed by Zoe. Ozzie limped inside, using the field hockey stick as a cane.
As they made their way up a staircase in the abandoned mansion, Zack paused midway, sniffing the air. “Do you smell that?”
Zoe breathed in deeply through her nose. “Uckh!” she coughed. “Rice, was that you?”
“Sorry,” said Rice. “I’m nervous.” He waved his hand behind his rump.
“Man.” Ozzie shook his head. “That’s awful.”
“Not him!” Zack groaned. “It smells like coffee up there.”
He led the way to the second floor, twitching his nostrils like a bloodhound, as they followed the scent of fresh-brewed coffee to the door outside the Oval Office.
They entered the President’s inner sanctum.
A Secret Service agent swung around to face Zack. He wore a black suit and sunglasses and carried a cardboard tray that held four cups of coffee. The man in black swept his coat away and reached for his hip like a Wild West gunslinger. His hand gripped the cold black metal of his firearm.
Panicked, Zack looked over his shoulder at Rice, Zoe, and Ozzie.
The sopping-wet trio looked bedraggled and frightening. Rice wheezed loudly. Ozzie wobbled, balancing on one foot, grimacing and snarling through the pain of his cracked leg bone. Streaks of makeup ran down Zoe’s face, making her look like the Joker from The Dark Knight.
“Wait! We’re not zombies!” Zack shouted.
“Coulda fooled me.” The Secret Service dude sighed, and he took his hand off his holster. “Your friends blend right in.”
“Where’s Madison Miller?” Zack stepped forward.
“How do you know about her?” asked the agent. “She’s classified information.”
Zack sucked in a deep breath and exhaled slowly through his nose. He told the tale of ginkgo biloba and BurgerDog and Madison’s immunity and Greg’s unzombification into NotGreg. Of the colonel and his parents. Of the cross-country flight and their brushes with death.
There was a long pause. The man in black took a sip of coffee and wiped his eyes. Was he crying? Then he stuck out his hand. “Special Agent Gustafson.”
“Zack Clarke, Zombie Chaser.” Zack shook Agent Gustafson’s hand.
Agent Gustafson walked over to a large portrait of George Washington hanging over the fireplace. “Come with me,” he said, flicking the gold-leaf frame on the bottom of the painting. It flapped open like the hidden controls on a television set.
Agent Gustafson punched a series of numbers on the keypad. The portrait shook, and the fireplace lifted, revealing a dim, oak-paneled hallway lit by fancy light fixtures that looked like lanterns. The hall was furnished with antique end tables and built-in bookshelves. A thin Persian carpet ran the length of the passageway, and the walls were hung with famous-looking paintings.
The group followed Agent Gustafson to the dead end of the secret hall, where he stopped in front of a bookcase. Then he picked a thick, leather-bound volume off the shelf, took off his shades, and looked into the empty slot where the book had been. A blue laser scanned his eyeball, and the bookcase disappeared as it lowered into the floor and revealed a clear booth made of thick plastic.
“Get in.” The man ushered them inside and pressed a button labeled Z on the elevator panel.
Zack watched through the glass walls as the transparent booth dropped rapidly down, down, down. Zack looked at the secret service agent. Could he be trusted? He seemed okay, but if Zack had learned anything at all in the past twenty-four hours, it was that nothing was ever really what it seemed.
“Where are we going?” Zack asked Agent Gustafson.
The man didn’t answer.
Bing!
Wherever it was, they had arrived.