Why I Quit Zombie School (3 page)

“How’s it going?” Franny said. She took a step into the room.

I froze, openmouthed, my eyes deep in black sockets, bright blood trickling down my ripped-up face.

Franny glanced around the room. “Awesome posters,” she said. “Did you see the one about the half boy, half spider?”

“Uh … sure,” I said.

Jamie would have screamed her head off. What was up with Franny? She acted like my face was totally normal.

Why didn’t she ask me about it?

“Are you learning your way around this place?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Not really.” The makeup was starting to itch.

She picked up my Wolfman statue. “Want to take a walk? I could show you all the classrooms and places you need to know.”

“Yeah. Great,” I said.

Why is she being so nice to me? Did the principal tell her to help the new kid out?

“Let me just wash this off,” I said, pointing to my face.

She squinted at me. “You mean it’s
makeup
?”

“Ha-ha. Very funny,” I said. I grabbed a towel and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

A few minutes later, we climbed the stairs down from the dorm rooms and began to make our way through the twisting halls.

“I guess Wayne and Angelo didn’t give you a very good tour,” Franny said.

“It was okay,” I said. “But then Wayne took that terrible fall.”

I shuddered. Once again, I pictured him rolling down the stairs, his head hitting every step. Once again, I heard that horrible
splaaat
sound.

“Did you hear anything about how he’s doing?” I asked.

Franny bit her bottom lip. “Not good,” she said softly. “They took him to the Reviver Room. But it didn’t take.”

I stared at her. “Excuse me? It didn’t
take
?”

“Yeah. You know,” she replied.

“No. Not really,” I said. “I’m the new kid, remember? Tell me what goes on in the Reviver Room.”

She studied me for a moment. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Did she think I was out of it because I didn’t know what a Reviver Room is?

“You go in that room if you are getting low or if you are damaged,” she said finally. “And the Reviver turns on the power.”

We turned a corner. Franny waved to a group of girls. Two of them were up on ladders. They were hanging a red-and-black GO VULTURES banner over the hallway.

We stepped under the banner and made our way toward the back doors of the school.

I could see the gray sky through the windows. The evening sun was dropping behind the hill.

“When he turns on the power,” Franny said, “the voltage is so high, the whole room shakes and buzzes.”

“The v-voltage?” I stammered.

“The high voltage shock usually brings most kids back,” she said. “It totally revives them.”

I stared hard at her. “Really?”

She slapped me on the shoulder. “Whatever it takes — right?”

We pushed open the doors and walked outside. A short staircase led down to the grass. I could see the green playing fields. Beyond the fields I saw a sloping hill.

Two boys were tossing a softball back and forth beside the baseball diamond. The ball made a nice
thud
as it hit their gloves. They weren’t very good. They kept dropping the ball and having to go after it.

I didn’t see anyone else outside. The sun was nearly down. The air had grown colder.

Franny and I walked toward the soccer field. The breeze blew her dark hair back, and she leaned into the wind as we walked slowly.

“So they took Wayne to the Reviver Room?” I asked. I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“He didn’t come around,” Franny said. She kept her eyes straight ahead.

“He’s gone.” She said it in a flat voice. She didn’t sound upset or anything.

“Poor Angelo,” I muttered. “He must be so sad.”

We stepped onto the soccer field. The grass was as smooth as a golf course’s.

Two huge crows cawed loudly as they flew over our heads.

I jumped, startled.

“You’ll get used to the crows,” Franny said. “They think they own the place.”

I pointed to the tall black fence behind the soccer field. It rose up high over our heads and stretched the width of the hill.

“That fence —” I started.

“No one wants to go back there,” Franny said. “Too depressing. Too sad.”

“Huh? Sad?” I said.
What did she mean?

Franny turned to me. “You don’t want to go back there — do you, Matt?”

“No. Of course not,” I said.

Little did I know that I would be
back there
before long.

And I wouldn’t like it one bit!

The kids at Romero weren’t very friendly. I mean, I found it hard to just start talking to anyone.

I’m a little bit shy. So it isn’t easy for me to step into a group of strangers and start a conversation.

The kids I met in class and in the Dining Hall weren’t
unfriendly
. They just didn’t try very hard to talk to me. No one ever asked me where I was from or what my old school was like.

I hung out a little with Angelo. I waited for him to say something about Wayne. You know. How sad he felt or how much he missed his twin.

But he never mentioned Wayne. So I didn’t, either.

We talked a lot about the soccer team and how I was going to try out for it in a few days.

And I met up with Franny a few more times. She seemed to have a lot of friends, girls mostly.

When I walked by, they’d all stop talking till I’d passed.

I wondered why they did that. But I didn’t ask her.

I had a funny feeling about Franny. I always had the feeling that she was studying me. Sometimes I’d catch her eyeing me intently.

Did she think there was something
strange
about me?

One afternoon, I asked her again how long she’d been at Romero.

She tilted her head, thinking about it. “Hard to say,” she replied finally.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Huh? You don’t know how long you’ve gone to this school?”

“Well, time gets messed up in your head,” she said. “You know how it is.”

I didn’t know what she meant. She was always saying these mysterious things. I decided maybe
Franny
was the strange one.

A few days after I arrived, I was walking to class with Angelo. We stepped into the big round space in the middle of the school. It’s called Center Court. It’s a huge open space with a high dome ceiling. Above my head, a balcony stretched all around.

A large group of kids had gathered in the middle of the court. They were all gazing up at a line of kids along the balcony above.

“What’s going on?” I asked Angelo. “What are they looking at?”

He didn’t answer. He just pointed to the balcony.

I looked up in time to see a short, red-haired boy in dark jeans and a black T-shirt climb onto the balcony railing.

My breath caught in my throat.

What did he plan to do? Why wasn’t anyone screaming or yelling for him to get down?

Behind him on the balcony, kids watched in silence. No one tried to grab him and pull him off the railing.

I froze in horror as the boy raised his hands in front of him, like he was on a diving board at a swimming pool.

He leaped off the railing, leaped high in the air — and crashed to the floor with a sick
thud
.

I opened my mouth to scream. But the air came out in a hoarse whisper.

I felt my knees give way. I grabbed Angelo’s shoulder to keep from dropping to the floor.

The red-haired boy lay flat on his stomach, crushed to the floor, arms and legs spread out wide. He didn’t move.

But no one screamed. No one rushed to help him. No one made a sound or even
moved
.

And then to my shock, kids started to cheer. I turned to Angelo and saw him clapping his hands and whistling. He pointed to the balcony again.

Another kid hoisted himself onto the narrow balcony railing. He was a big, chubby guy with short brown hair and a round red face.

“N-nooo.” A low moan escaped my throat.

The kid wobbled up there for a moment. His hands flailed above his head. And then he took a flying leap.

He crashed hard to the floor with a sick
splissssh
. He bounced once. Twice. Then he didn’t move.

And before I could take a breath, a girl jumped off the balcony, landed on her stomach, and collapsed in a heap beside the chubby guy.

Kids went wild, cheering and whistling and stomping their feet.

“Angelo —” I grabbed his arm and shook him. “Tell me. What’s happening? This is
horrible
! Why are they cheering?”

He turned to me with a smile on his face. “One-Way Bungee Jumping,” he said.

“But — but —” I sputtered.

“Hey,” he said. He started to pull me to the balcony stairs. “Want to try it? Come on, Matt. Try it!”

A few minutes later, I called my sister on her cell. I knew she probably wouldn’t believe me. But I had to tell her what happened.

“They jumped off the balcony,” I said. “One by one. It was
horrible
, Jamie. They crashed to the floor. And everyone cheered. Everyone thought it was great.”

Jamie laughed. I heard her shout to Mom: “It’s Matt. He’s still making up horror stories.”

“No. Listen to me!” I cried. “I’m totally serious, Jamie. I swear. Everyone cheered when they jumped. My friend Angelo called it One-Way Bungee Jumping.”

Jamie laughed even harder. “That’s a riot, Matt.”

“No. It was
sickening
,” I insisted. “And then Angelo tried to get me to do it. Do you believe it? Luckily, the bell rang. Everyone had to get to class. And here’s the weirdest part …”

“Your
brain
is the weirdest part,” Jamie said into the phone.

“Just listen,” I said. “Please. I-I’m really upset about this.”

“Okay, Matt, what’s the weirdest part?”

“The three kids … the ones who j-jumped,” I stammered. “When the bell rang, they all climbed to their feet and walked away. They were perfectly okay.”

Silence on the other end.

More silence.

“Jamie? Are you still there?”

“Let me get this straight,” Jamie said finally. “You call me with this crazy story, right? And you expect me to believe it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Because —”

“You really think I have a chimpanzee brain,” Jamie said.

“No. Listen,” I pleaded. “Please —”

“No.
You
listen,” she said. “I like your stories, Matt. Really. They’re very creative. But why can’t I just listen to them? Why do I have to believe them?”

My heart was pounding hard. I knew what I’d seen was incredible. But I had to share the story. I had to make
someone
believe me.

“This school is weird,” I said. “I think —”

“Gotta go,” Jamie said. “Andrew is calling. Bye.”

“Andrew? Who is Andrew?”

I heard a click. She was gone.

Should I call Mom or Dad?

No. Why give them a laugh? I knew they’d believe me just as much as Jamie did. And Dad would say I should be studying instead of making up horror stories.

My stomach was rumbling. I realized it was my lunch hour.

I didn’t have much of an appetite. I mean, how do you eat after watching three kids go
splat
on the floor?

Sure, they got up and walked away. But in a way, that was even
more
upsetting.

I walked to the Dining Hall. I told myself to try to push the whole thing from my mind.

The big room was noisy and crowded. Chairs scraped the floor. Kids laughed and talked at the long tables. Women in white uniforms served food behind a long, steaming counter.

It seemed like a normal lunchroom — at first. But I was here my first day. I knew it wasn’t like my old school.

For one thing, it was
too
noisy. I mean, the sounds weren’t normal.

Kids were grunting and slurping and burping and wheezing and making loud animal sounds.

I stopped and stared at a boy at the nearest table. What was he eating? It looked like he had a slab of red, raw meat in both hands. He shoved it hungrily into his mouth. The dark juice ran down his chin.

Across from him, a girl had a huge gray blob of something. She sucked it down noisily. Then she opened her mouth in a ferocious burp.

My eyes swept over the big, crowded room. The tables were almost all filled with kids eating big chunks of red meat and hunks of blobby gray things. Raw chicken?

A boy picked up a large brown egg — shell and all — and shoved it into his mouth. Then another. Then another.

Next to him, a girl pushed a whole tomato into her mouth. Juice spurted every where as she closed her mouth over it. She made a loud GULP sound as she swallowed. I could
see
the entire tomato slide down her throat!

My stomach churned again.

I dreaded coming to the Dining Hall. But I
had
to eat.

I stepped up to the food counter. I saw piles of red, raw meat. Raw chicken legs. A pot of lumpy gray soup.

What could I have?

I ended up with a bunch of grapes and a bag of tortilla chips. I couldn’t find anything to drink. The drink machine offered some kind of thick red juice that looked like clotted blood.

I found Angelo at a table near the back and sat down across from him. His tray was empty. He had finished his lunch.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked, scooting my chair in.

A kid at the end of the table let out a burp that shook the table. No one laughed or raised his head or acted as if it was strange.

“What’s up?” Angelo asked. He had red stains on his chin.

“Well …” I didn’t know how to ask about every thing. I didn’t want to sound stupid. But I felt so confused.

“Angelo, why is this place so weird?” I blurted out.

He gazed at me for a long time. Then he said, “You’re new. You’ll get used to it.”

“But —” I started to ask for a better answer.

But before I could speak, a tall, dark-haired boy at the next table jumped to his feet. His eyes bulged. His mouth opened wide. And he squeezed his throat with one hand.

“UNNNNNNNNNHH!”

A horrifying groan burst from his open mouth.

He wheezed. Then he let out another groan.

It took me a while to realize he was choking.

He twisted his body and grabbed at his throat.

“UNNNNNNNH.”

No one moved. The kids at his table sat watching him gag and choke.

And then, the kid heaved his head back. A gigantic hunk of meat flew out of his mouth.

He made a gurgling sound. It seemed to come from deep in his stomach.

And then he began to spew.

Disgusting brown muck splashed from his open mouth onto the table. Gallons of it. Gallons of thick brown vomit spewed up like an erupting volcano.

“Do something!” I cried. “Somebody —
do
something!”