Zombies Don't Carve: A YA Christmas Story Read online

chick mode, emerging from the back room in snug black yoga pants, a baggy black hoodie, short gray socks and thick black sneakers.

  Around my waist is a tool belt snatched from shop class, featuring a wide array of personal-sized hammers, screwdrivers and the occasional gleaming chisel; all the better to behead you with, my zombie dear!

  Mom gasps at the getup while Dad merely shakes his head.

  “This is no time for games, dear,” he says, tossing another box of shotgun cartridges down the cellar stairs. “Now get in here with the rest of the family.”

  “Dad,” I say, making sure all my weapons are in place. “You guys go down; I’m going to stay up here and help Echo fight off the zombies.”

  “You most certainly are NOT,” Dad says, large nostrils flaring, forming little creases beneath the red skin of his enraged face. “Echo can do what he likes. They’re his kind, after all. But you? You belong with us.”

  Echo frowns from the doorway and says, “He’s right, April, go on. I’ll be fine.”

  I snort, and inch past Mom to stand between my zombie boyfriend and my uptight Dad.

  While Dad fumes and Echo stands there stubbornly, Mom looks at my get-up and says, “Where did you get all that, dear?”

  Zack’s the first to say what’s on everybody’s mind: “She’s obviously in the Resistance, Mom. I mean, look at the way she’s all ready and crap! I mean, sorry – ready and stuff. There are a couple kids at my school who have the same thing; they wear all black, bring their own weapons and whenever an outbreak pops up, they’re on it like flies on, well, you know…”

  While Mom and Dad look at each other in stunned silence, Zack says to me, “I’m going to join as soon as I’m old enough!”

  I glare at him, but secretly smile.

  Dad finally composes himself enough to say, “Son, the last thing I’ll have you do is join the ranks with these… these… rotting bags of flesh and bones and—”

  Just then we hear groaning through the open front door; my mind flashes back to the last battle Echo and I had over Thanksgiving.

  That same sound, those same shuffling feet, the same groaning and creaking of bones, sometimes broken, shuffling against old clothes as people flee in the street and we, the kids from the local Resistance, march forward, hammers swinging.

  Echo ignores us, cracking his neck, getting his game face on.

  I watch his serene face break into a growl; watch the boy I love turn into the zombie I sometimes, but not often, fear.

  I creep forward, Mom’s fingers clutching weakly at my arms.

  “Dear, are you… sure?”

  I turn and smile.

  “Mom, I know you don’t believe me but, I’m really, really good at this. You’ll all be safer with me out here, trust me.”

  I hang a thumb over my shoulder at the half-naked god standing in the doorway growling and say, “Really, I learned from the best.”

  She turns, grabs the electric carving knife from the still dirty dinner table and says, “Then I’m staying up here, too.”

  “Trudy!” barks Dad, still clinging to the doorframe.

  “Roger, the zombies almost got through those ancient basement windows over Thanksgiving and you said you were going to reinforce them before Christmas and you never did get around to it. I’m sorry, dear, but I just can’t go through that again.”

  Zack creeps up beside her, clutching a carving fork between his grubby 12-year-old hands and looking more than ready to defend his dear old Mom.

  “Suit yourself,” Dad grumbles, slamming the door.

  I look at Mom and give her “wtf?” eyes, but she pooh-poohs me with a dismissive, “He’ll get over it. Five minutes from now he’ll be standing next to us, complaining about the empty ornament boxes I forgot to put away down there.”

  Suddenly the room feels empty as we listen to the clicking and sliding of no less than six locks and one giant 2 x 4 sliding into place behind the solid safe room door.

  Those ominous sounds are quickly followed by Dad’s size-13 loafers trouncing down the stairs.

  I can’t believe he’s doing this; deserting his family just because I dared bring a zombie home for Christmas dinner.

  Has he learned nothing from my first 17 years on this planet?

  Have my extracurricular activities, my straight-A’s, my good girl image, my adoring smile whenever he walks in the room taught him nothing about the choices I’ve made?

  Apparently not.

  When I turn back from the locked and bolted door, I see Zack standing protectively next to Echo.

  He smiles as the boy sniffs him.

  “Not to be rude, dude,” Zack says, rudely, “but you smell like six bags of onions covered in eight bags of dog doo that have been left in a dumpster for two years!”

  “Zachary!” shouts Mom, but just then Echo crouches low and, over his bare white shoulder, we see three zombies pacing the front lawn.

  They look hungry, and ragged, and Zack quickly jumps behind the door; suddenly not so brave.

  (And who can blame him? Even with all my training, those brain suckers still freak me out!)

  I grab him, and literally toss him back toward Mom so I can stand between the two.

  Zack gives Mom a “when did she get so strong?” look, but is too scared to follow it through all the way to the end.

  Mom regards me more closely, too busy to ask too many questions; yet, anyway.

  Echo steps forward onto the stoop, keeping a steady foot on the slippery ice.

  The zombies stop on the lawn and snort, sniffing the air like rabid dogs in heat.

  They take a tentative step forward, frozen grass crunching beneath their feet, and I tense with my hammer at the ready, but they eventually shuffle past, leaving everyone inside breathing a sigh of relief.

  But that’s not enough for Echo; he looks at me, smiles at Zack, nods at Mom and – before I can stop him – slams the front door.

  There is such force behind his power that the whole front wall of the house shakes.

  I run to it, desperate to join him, but he crushes the doorknob outside in his super strong hands and I can’t budge it no matter how hard I’ve been training these last few weeks.

  I watch through the picture window next to the door as he trudges through the snow, down to the street now, lurking low and using the dark of our yard to follow the zombies.

  “He’s quite the gentleman, dear,” Mom sighs, nibbling on a cold piece of turkey to steady her nerves. “Not like some men I could—”

  Just then I hear barking from the back room; Jimbo!

  We’d forgotten all about him!

  Zack turns, running to protect the dog he’d raised from a pup, but too soon I hear a telltale yelp, then a squeak, then… silence.

  Then… chewing.

  Lots and lots of chewing.

  Oh no; not Jimbo.

  I run toward the door, hammer in hand, and kick it wide open.

  Jimbo lies on the floor, twisted, bloody, coat marred with bright red blood, our next door neighbor feasting on his hind leg.

  “Get up, Mr. Witherspoon!” I shout, as Mom and Zack crowd the doorway behind me.

  I go to slam the door, to keep them out, but Zack stops it with his foot.

  He wants to see.

  In a weird, way, he needs to see.

  I hear grunting, and Mr. Witherspoon – the mousy guy who runs the reference desk at the public library – looks up from the dog’s hind leg and growls at me.

  I lurch, and he stands, sniffing the air and then… backing away.

  I follow him, through the room, out the sliding door he’s smashed, and into the back yard.

  He backs away the whole while, sniffling, sniveling, clutching Jimbo’s hind leg like a drumstick in his bloody, broken hands.

  I stop at the sight of several more zombies in the backyard, bloody and ragged things with bloodstained snow on their feet, expecting a mad dash for the broken slider; they, too, wrinkle their noses and keep saunt
ering on.

  Nothing to see here, folks.

  I turn, and Mom shakes her head.

  “So it’s true,” says Zack, avoiding the sight of his mangled dog by focusing in on his big sister’s secret. “You can catch it from saliva!”

  “Catch what?” I sneer, but only because he’s right.

  When he doesn’t answer, when Mom’s eyes won’t stop begging the question, I shut the back room door behind me and follow them back into the living room.

  “Okay, okay,” I confess. “I was going to tell you.”

  “When?” gasps Mom, reaching for the wine.

  “Tonight, at dinner.”

  “Sweet!” says Zack. “My sister’s a zombie!”

  “Not quite,” I say, rubbing his head. “Half-zombie.”

  “But you look so normal, dear—”

  A door crashes behind us, making us all crouch as if a shot’s rung out over our heads, and I’m hoping it’s the front door and Echo’s changed his mind, but instead it’s the cellar door.

  The safe room door.

  A door no human could crash through; ever.

  “Dad!” I shout, leaping to action as bloody hands finish turning the cellar door into splinters – and my Dad into the living dead.

  Dad makes it halfway into the living room, grabbing onto the Christmas