Zombie Town

by R.L. Stine

“It’s probably the screen moving back and forth.” She tried to tug her arm free. “No, wait. There’s something else. Listen!” I whispered. Karen gave me an annoyed glance. She started to say something, but I held up my hand to silence her. In the silence, I heard the wheezing again. In and out. Getting louder. Louder. “Unnh…unnnnh!” My skin prickled. Karen’s eyes grew wide. “What is that?” she whispered. I shook my head. “Unnnnh!” The frightening sound came closer. We heard the shuffling again. Then a figure slowly emerged from the shadows near the door. The eerie red glow of the exit sign lit up his face. “Noooooooo!” Karen moaned. My teeth started to chatter. I couldn’t speak.

“No such things as zombies, huh?” I whispered to Karen. “I don’t get it!” Karen cried. “I just don’t get it. How could that thing actually get out of a movie?”

legs trembled. This is no joke! I realized. There are such things as zombies! Somehow, Zombie Town has become real! And I was living in it! That’s why the bus and the cars had been going so fast. They were trying to escape. That’s why the Kwikee-Mart was empty. The owner abandoned it. He didn’t even take time to grab all his money. That explained the empty houses with their doors flung open. The deserted cars. The abandoned dirt bike and leaf blower. Everyone had run. Run for their lives. Because the zombies were taking over the town! But not everyone made it out, I realized. Some of them must have been eaten. And some of them became zombies. Like my family. Zipper suddenly snarled, snapping me out of my terrifying thoughts. I stared down at him. Blue-green mold already covered the dog’s teeth, but they still appeared sharp. And those sharp teeth were clamped around a bone. A long, thick bone, with chunks of flesh still dangling from it. My stomach flipped over. Was that a human bone? Snarling hungrily, Zipper held the bone down with one paw. He ripped off a fat chunk of flesh and sucked it into his mouth. My stomach lurched. Zipper growled.

out!” I leaped onto her porch and burst through the front door. “Karen!” I shouted. “Karen!” Karen stepped out from one of the rooms. She stood at the end of the hall, gazing at me. “Unnh!” she groaned and licked her lips. Patches of green mold had already started growing on her face. Drool spilled out of her torn mouth. She moaned again. “Unnnnnh!” I raced back to the front door. Mr. Bradley lumbered onto the porch. Behind him came my family. Zipper staggered ahead of them, growling. The movie zombies lurched up the sidewalk. I spun around. Karen still stood at the end of the hall, blocking the back door. I heard a thump—and whirled around. Mr. Bradley’s arm had dropped off. He howled and kept staggering toward the door. Zipper lunged for the arm with an evil, vicious snarl. “Unnnnh!” Karen moaned. She took a heavy, plodding step toward me. Another. Another. The zombies shuffled across the porch, crowding around the front door. I dove into the hall and tumbled into the living room. I hopped to my feet and ran through the archway into the dining room. As I raced around the table, I grabbed bananas and apples from the fruit bowl and scattered them behind me. Maybe it will slow them down, I thought. Maybe they’ll slip and fall. They won’t eat the fruit, of course. They need flesh. My flesh.