I really needed to find out what was going on. So I called Jermaine.
As I mentioned, he’s my best friend. He’d been out of school for two days with a nosebleed. Nobody fakes a nosebleed like Jermaine. But it’s always just two days, tops, because otherwise his mom would insist on taking him to the doctor, and Jermaine doesn’t want to risk that. He’s the smartest person I know.
“Larry! What the heck happened today? All the kids are talking about the bus!”
I remembered that, even though Jermaine had been out of school, the Torres brothers live two doors away from him, and Luke would have gone right over to tell Jermaine about Alex Bates. So I told Jermaine the whole story.
It’s the same story I’ve already told, so I’m not gonna say the whole thing over, if that’s okay with you. Anyhow, Jermaine was pretty much floored by the whole thing. Then he said something that shows how smart he really is: “Sounds like Alex got turned into a zombie.”
“A what?” I replied.
“A zombie,” he said. “You know, an undead creature with no will of his own except to kill the living and suck out their brains for sustenance.”
He says stuff like that. Like I told you, he’s real clever.
“How does that happen?” I asked him.
“Different theories,” Jermaine went on. “A virus. Or radiation. Bad fish sticks in the back of the freezer. Lots of ideas floating around. There’s a whole field of study.”
ZOMBIE TIP
There are many views on the origins of zombies in the scientific community, and a thriving exchange of expert opinion is common. However, for the ordinary citizen, it is less important to understand how zombies originated than it is to know where they are right now and how to hide from them.
“How do you know this?” I said.
“Science magazines,” he told me. Jermaine’s dad’s a dentist and Jermaine’s been reading everything on the waiting room table since he was, like, five. He’s a genius.
“Plus movies,” he said. “You know, Night of the Living Dead—that’s real old, like, before my dad was even a little kid. 28 Days Later. Resident Evil, parts one to five. World War Z. Also The Walking Dead on TV. You need to do some research.”
“How am I gonna do that?”
“I’ll be over later with some documentation,” he answered.
About that time, Honor peeked around the door into my room. She’s pretty good about not messing with my stuff, and I guess we get on better than most kids I know. But she’s only seven—no, she turned eight awhile back—and mostly we don’t talk too much except, you know, “Did you spit in my Pepsi?” and “What’s that sticky stuff?” Normal brother and sister conversation.
“Hey, Larry,” she said. “You did really good today on the bus. I never saw anyone act like Alex did. I’m glad you kicked him out the back door.”
“I didn’t really kick him out, but I was gonna. I think.”
“What was wrong with him? He was acting crazy. Bad crazy, not goofy crazy.”
“He’s been turned into a zombie,” I told her.
“Oh,” said Honor. “That’s bad.”
| KYLE: | She was pretty calm about it? |
| LARRY: | She’s pretty grown up for her age. Like, she knows Miss Flowers who teaches piano and Mr. Morse the shop teacher don’t need to spend so much time sorting out the sheet music after school. She explained it to me. So I guess zombies are no big deal to her. |
| KYLE: | But zombies are a HUUUGE deal! |
| LARRY: | Huh. Right. Yeah, I guess they are. |