Zombies Don't Need Bodyguards: A YA Short Story Read online

Zombies Don’t Need Bodyguards:

  A YA Short Story

  By Rusty Fischer, author of Zombies Don’t Cry

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  Zombies Don’t Need Bodyguards

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2013 by Rusty Fischer

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © tankist276 - Fotolia.com

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a FREE short story edited by the author himself. If you see any glaring mistakes, I apologize and hope you don’t take it out on my poor characters, who had nothing to do with their author’s bad grammar!

  Happy reading… and happy holidays!

  Enjoy!

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  Zombies Don’t Need Bodyguards:

  A YA Short Story

  Booger Johnson’s fist flies into my face, making my already black eye even blacker. Is that even possible? Can it be, what, double black? Or maybe it will be purple now? Or blue? Or black and blue and purple, all mixed in together in a masterpiece of pain?

  I fall back against the monkey bars, head pounding against the rusty steel, bleeding from the fat lip Booger’s buddy Jimbo gave me when out of the blue Skeeter Morrison trips me with her size 10 hi-tops.

  I fall, face first, into the playground sand, blood and boogers and tears mixing together as I try not to chip (another) tooth. I sneak a peek at my digital watch and see one minute and twenty-nine seconds left on the timer.

  Dude, does he have to be so literal?

  I’ll be a limbless, unrecognizable, bloody pulp by the time he creeps out of his hiding place, and what good will all my weeks of training do me then?

  I stumble to one knee, my pinky bent at a really, unnaturally, grossly disgusting angle as I rest my hand on the knee of my torn jeans. I’m out of breath, but I don’t know why. All I’m doing is getting knocked around by Booger and his pals. I mean, it’s not exactly like it takes a lot of effort.

  “Stay down,” urges Skeeter, swiping a lock of her straight, greasy blond hair out of her eyes.

  She’s got a major Peppermint Patty vibe going on, and not in a feel good, Christmas special, Hallmark moment kind of way. Her faded, greasy concert T-shirt is for a band called “Death Slayer” and shows snakes crawling out of a skull. I’m pretty familiar with it, since she’s worn it the last four times she’s beaten me up.

  She’s right, though. I should stay down. Every time they wail on me, she says the same thing: “Stay down.” Not because she doesn’t want to hurt me anymore, but because she’s tired of hurting me.

  I use one of the rusty bars to haul myself up and Booger slams into me from behind, knocking the wind out of me as I tumble into the swing sets. I lay, face down, bent over at the waist, bobbing back and forth on the nearest swing, my fingers scraping the sand as I see stars.

  I’d throw up, but I haven’t eaten all day because Jimbo stole my macaroni and cheese at lunch. Okay, sure, I did get a few gulps in when he dumped it back on my head, but most of it fell on the table and forget you if you think I’m eating off a cafeteria table.

  Skeeter yanks me off the swing and I slump to the ground, head pounding, chest heaving, dry mouthed. I look at my digital watch, cracked now, but still gong: 42 seconds left.

  42 seconds and I’ll never get beaten up again. I grab the long pole that keeps the swing set up and haul myself to my feet. Skeeter looks at me, chewing on a grody yellow weed that matches her grimy skin and crooked teeth.

  Jimbo and Booger exchange a “can you believe this kid?” look while examining their bruised knuckles. Skeeter abandons the weed and hocks a loogie the size of most house pets, which lands at my feet.

  I lean against the swing set, killing time in between ragged breaths.

  “Why do you keep looking at that watch?” Skeeter asks, coming closer, the familiar smell of nicotine and cat hair wafting off of her.

  I shrug. No reason not to tell her now. “I’m waiting for the cavalry.”

  She snorts. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know what the word means, otherwise she’d ask “what cavalry,” right? Instead she reaches for my hand, and yanks off the watch.

  “Don’t!” I growl, so loud, so fierce, even Booger and Jimbo shuffle over to see what’s gotten into me.

  Skeeter looks up at them, all 115-pounds of her. She looks at me and I grumble, “My Dad gave me that, before the first infection.”

  Booger laughs. “All my old man ever gave me was a fat lip.”

  “Give it back, Skeeter.” I taste the sting of blood every time I talk, my stomach growing nauseous as I stand there, lumped and battered, digesting my own bodily fluids.

  “Come and get it, Cyrus.”

  She holds it up, tauntingly. I picture my Dad, smiling, pulling the box out from under his butcher’s apron, handing it over with surprisingly clean hands. It was a graduation present, from junior high. I’d made the honors list three years in a row, got a certificate and everything.

  He couldn’t close the shop to attend the ceremony, and he gave me the watch two weeks after school let out for the summer, but he gave me the watch.

  My Dad. Just before the first outbreak, when the zombies smelled fresh meat and gorged on everything in Dad’s butcher shop, including Dad.

  I’ve worn it every day since.

  And now this Peppermint Patty looking witch is going to stand there, weed flecks on her lips, and keep it from me?

  I scan the tree line, looking for Brody. That’s what I call him, anyway. Or, more specifically, the only name he responded to after, I dunno, I tried 290 or so? Everything from Zed to Zander, and all the other “Z” names, then everything from Brad to Tom to Matt to Sven, nothing. But suddenly, Brody, and he perks up?

  But Brody’s not there.

  Peppermint Patty, sorry, Skeeter inches forward, smiling her crooked smile, making her pug nose and all its freckles bunch up like wrinkles in a greasy brown paper bag.

  “Go on, Cyrus, take it. I dare ya!”

  I clench my fists, even though it hurts my bent left pinky to do so. “Look out, Skeeter,” hisses Booger from the sidelines, his tank top ripped from where I grabbed onto it to stop from falling to the ground after he belted me in the ear. (Newsflash: it didn’t work.)

  “Yeah,” urges Jimbo, rattling the chains on the swing set like a monkey in the zoo, “he’s getting all riled up, balling his fists and everything, like a real little man.”

  My ears burn whenever they call that. Little man. So, I’m short. So, I’ve always been short. So what? Is it my fault they’re genetically altered primates who were already the size of NFL linebackers by sixth grade and have only gotten bigger since?

  I stand up a little taller and grit my teeth, spitting out each word through blood bubbles that form on my fat, broken lip. “Give. It. Back. Skeeter.”

  “Come. And. Get—” Just then the alarm sounds, “beep, beep, beep, beep,” making Skeeter flinch for, I think, the first time ever.

  Suddenly the bushes behind the carousel rustle and Brody stands, tall and lanky in his favorite Gamma Man T-shirt and those stupid thrift shop pajama pants he likes so much.

  “What took you so long?” I wheeze, finally wiping the blood off my lip with the back of my arm.

  He shoots me a flash of indignation. Or maybe it’s rage. Or boredom. Or sadness. Or gladness. He basically has three expressions, and they mostly all look alike, so it could be any or all of the above. Or he cou
ld just have zombie gas, which he gets when I bring him not-so-fresh brains from the butcher shop.

  The hoodie hides most of his face, casting his gray pallor and yellow teeth in shadow. The sleeves are long, too, so they can’t really see his thin, skeletal fingers or the gnarly, broken nails at the end of his fingertips. Of course, he can’t hide the shuffling but, then again, most of the playground is sand and it’s pretty hard to walk straight even if you are still alive.

  “Who do we have here?” grins Booger, flexing his muscles as he tenses at the newcomer.

  Naturally, Jimbo has to chime in. “Yeah, pal, there’s nothing to see here. Move along and you won’t get hurt.”

  “I don’t plan on it,” grunts Brody, dead vocal chords blunt and hoarse, sounding like the world’s best undead Clint Eastwood impersonator.

  Skeeter looks up at Brody, then down at the watch in her hands. I can see the wheels in her head spinning, but by the time she’s put two and two together he’s standing right in front of her. Looming over her, is more like it. Being cramped in that messy cooler, I’ve forgotten how tall he is.

  She looks up,