Zom-B (5 page)

I spend most of the break with Meths, Kray, Trev, Ballydefeck, Suze, La Lips, Copper, Dunglop and Elephant. The usual gang, except for Linzer and Pox, who are off somewhere else.

There’s a new zombie clip circulating on the Internet. Copper shows it to us on his phone. It’s footage of an undead soldier. If the clip is genuine, it looks like he was one of the team sent in to eliminate the Pallaskenry mob. He must have been infected, got away, tangled with some humans later.

In the clip, several men are pounding the zombie with shovels and axes. One of them strikes his left arm a few times and it tears loose. Another of the men picks it up and starts whacking the zombie over the head with it, cheered on by his team.

I laugh the first time I watch the clip. Most of the others do too. It’s comical, a guy being slapped around with his own severed arm.

Then, as Copper replays it a couple of times, I start focusing on the finer details. The terror in the men’s eyes. The rage and hunger in the soldier’s. The flecks of dried blood around his mouth, a sign
that he must have fed prior to his run-in with the vigilantes. The long bits of bone sticking out of his fingers. His fangs.

The clip stops with the guys hitting the zombie, leaving us to guess how it ends. I imagine one of the group chopping off the soldier’s head with an ax, the men pulping it beneath their feet, not stopping until every last scrap of brain has been mulched. That’s how they kill zombies in films, by destroying their brains. Does that work in real life too? I assume so but I’m not sure.

There’s silence when Copper turns off his phone. We’re all troubled by what we’ve seen. We can’t even make a joke about it. Not yet. It feels too real at the moment. We need time to absorb and then dismiss it.

Elephant starts rabbiting on about soccer in order to break the solemn spell. He’s a real fanatic, goes to matches all the time. I watch the highlights on TV most weeks, so that I can discuss the goals with the others, but soccer bores me.

Elephant finishes moaning about the weekend’s match and pauses for breath.

“Enough already,” I snap. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“Who rattled your cage?” Elephant scowls.

“You did,” I tell him. “And if you don’t shut it, I’ll cut you down to size.”

Lots of catcalls, everyone relieved to have something else to think about, welcoming the distraction. Elephant didn’t get his nickname because he’s tall or fat, but because of what his mates saw the first time he undressed for a shower after gym.

“Leave my trunk alone,” Elephant smirks, crossing his hands protectively in front of himself.

“Are you all right?” Trev asks me. “You’re like a tiger today.”

“Knackered,” I growl. “Didn’t get much sleep.”

“Worried about zombies?” Suze asks sympathetically.

“Don’t be daft,” I tell her. “I’m dreading the exams.”

Everyone laughs, forgetting about the clip, putting it behind us, slipping back into our normal routines as if we’d never been disturbed.

“You won’t get into Oxford if you don’t get straight A’s,” Dunglop says.

“I prefer Cambridge anyway,” I sniff.

“God, imagine if you
did
get in,” Meths says, and we stare at him. “I mean on a sports scholarship or something.”

“You ever see me playing any sports?” I jeer.

“No, but maybe there’s some other…” Meths pulls a face and tries to remember what he wanted to say. I fail classes because I don’t give a damn. Meths, bless him, really
is
thick.

The bell rings and I slap Meths’s back. “Come on. I don’t think either of us has to worry about Cambridge or Oxford. I’ll be amazed if we make it out of this place.”

“Yeah, but…” Meths shrugs and smiles, letting go of whatever crazy thought it was that he had. Thoughts never stick long with Meths. If zombies ever do attack, he has nothing to worry about. With that tiny brain, he’s the last one they’ll target!

EIGHT

Biology. One of the few classes where I pay attention. Not because I’m fascinated by the digestive system of the worm (give me strength!) but because I like the teacher, Mr. Burke.

Burke impressed me the first day he walked into class and said, “I know most of you couldn’t give a toss about biology, but if you don’t give me any grief, I’ll do my best to make it interesting for you.”

Burke’s the best of our teachers, maybe the only really good one that we have. I don’t know what he’s doing in this dump. He should be at a good school like the one Vinyl moved to. He’s wasted here, stuck with mugs like Meths and Kray and… yeah, I can admit it… me.

Dad doesn’t share my high opinion of
Mr. Burke and has tried a few times to have him drummed out, or at least confined to teaching kids of his own race. Which is odd, because the lightly colored Burke is of a mixed background. I would have thought that meant he could claim membership to either side, but Dad doesn’t see it that way. He moans about Burke all the time and I nod like the obedient little puppy that I am and simper, “Yes, Dad. No, Dad. Three bags full, Dad.” It sickens me but what can I do? If I told him Burke’s a cool teacher, he’d hammer me. Easier to say nothing and keep my head down.

Burke is trying hard to make the dissection of a worm seem like an earth-shattering event but it’s hard to keep us interested in crap like this. After a while Trev puts up a hand. “Sir?”

“Go on,” Burke sighs, looking up from the worm with an expression that seems to suggest he finds this particular lesson as boring as the rest of us.

“Can we dissect a zombie next, sir?”

Laughter.

“If you bring me one, I’ll certainly help you cut it up,” Burke says drily, then pushes the worm aside. I grin at Trev and give him a cheesy thumbs-up. It’s great when we sidetrack Burke. He doesn’t let it happen often–he insists on covering the course inside out–but every now and then he’ll relent.

“Who believes that zombies are real?” Burke asks.

A few hands go up, but not many. It’s not that we don’t believe, just that we don’t want to be seen to be enthusiastic in class.

“Come on,” Burke snaps. “A real show of hands or it’s back to the worm.”

We groan, then hands start creeping up. Soon most of them are in the air.

Burke does a slow count, then says softly, “Why?”

We gape at him.

“Why?” he says again. “Because they’re on TV? Because you’ve seen photos and video clips?”

“Yeah,” someone says.

“But they can do anything with digital equipment these days, can’t they?” he smirks.

“Don’t you believe, sir?” I ask. I was one of the few to keep their hand down.

“Actually, I do,” he says. “But let’s explore alternatives.” He turns to the whiteboard, grabs a pen and writes
Media hoax? Publicity for a film or TV show?
then looks over his shoulder at us. “Any other ideas?”

“It’s a conspiracy,” Stagger Lee snorts.

“The government?” Burke asks.

“Yeah.”

“The Irish? Ours? America’s?”

Stagger Lee shrugs. “The whole bloody lot.”

“What for?” Burke asks. “Why go to all that trouble?”

Silence for a moment, then Linzer–one of the smartest in our year–puts up her hand and says, “Experiment gone wrong.”

“Good,” Burke beams and adds it to the whiteboard. “What sort of experiment?”

“Chemical weapons,” Linzer says. “Maybe they were testing something and it accidentally got into the water or air. Or they released it on purpose.”

“Which is more likely?” Burke asks, nodding at Elephant.

“Dunno,” Elephant says.

“B?”

“A test,” I say confidently.

“Why?” he presses.

“Pallaskenry’s in the middle of nowhere. They wouldn’t have any labs around there. It’s all bog land.”

“Excellent, B.”

I find myself grinning goofily. Nobody has a dig at me to bring me down to size either, like they would if this was any other class.

“More ideas,” Burke says, pointing to Suze.

“God, I don’t know.” She blushes, then coughs. “My dad thinks it’s terrorists.”

Burke blinks. “Come again?”

“He thinks the army went in looking for terrorists. Got carried away and killed civilians by mistake. Then cooked up this zombie story to give them an excuse to kill the witnesses.”

“Far-fetched,” Burke hums, “but let’s run with it.” He adds the theory to the board and asks for more suggestions.

Someone thinks the zombies are robots gone wild. Another says
maybe it’s aliens, that the rabid crazies were taken over by bodiless beings from another planet. Kray comes up with a twist on the experiment angle, only he figures people are being controlled by satellite signals.

“They’re gonna use it on the Arabs,” he says. “No more sending our troops in to sort out their messes. Drive the buggers mad and leave them to it. They’ll wipe themselves out, and good riddance to them.”

The Muslim kids don’t like that. Angry mutterings. Burke shushes them.

“That’s not one of the more far-fetched ideas,” he says. “Certain politicians would do just about anything to cling to power and disable our enemies. Kray was insulting–grow up and stop acting like a thug–but he might have a point.”

“I don’t think it’s terrifying,” I snort, evil-eyeing the Muslims. “In fact I hope Kray’s right, that we
are
going after them. They’d do it to us if they could.”

“We’ll have that argument another day,” Burke barks, stopping a war before it can erupt. “Let’s stick to zombies. Any other proposals?”

There are a few more, then Burke stands back to study what he’s written. “It’s a horrible world, isn’t it?” he mutters and I’m not sure he knows that he’s spoken out loud.

He turns to us. “I’m not saying I believe any of these exotic, unfounded theories. But these are questions we should be asking.
Life’s complicated. Answers rarely come wrapped up nice and simple. There are plenty of people out there ready to tell us what we should and shouldn’t believe. We always need to be skeptical, to look for the sting in the tale.”

Burke looks around slowly and it seems like he’s staring at each and every one of us in turn. “Trust no one. Always question what you’re told. Don’t believe the lies that people feed you, even if they’re your teachers or parents. At the end of the day you have to work out for yourself what’s right or wrong.”

He glances back at the board and sighs. “But bear in mind. There are lots of black-hearted, mean-spirited bastards in the world.” There are some gasps when he swears but most of us take no notice. “It’s important that we hold them to account. But always remember that
you
might be the most black-hearted and mean-spirited of the lot, so hold yourself the most accountable of all.”

As we try to make sense of that, Burke chuckles, shakes his head and wipes the board clean. “Enough preaching,” he says brightly, then adds, to a chorus of groans, “Back to the worm…”

NINE

The last class ends and we churn out, shouting, laughing, cursing. Normally I can’t escape the building quick enough, but today I head deeper into it. There’s a five-a-side soccer tournament in the gym. I’m not playing, and I’m not really bothered about watching, but it’ll be more fun than hanging out on the streets.

Kray, Elephant, Trev, Linzer and I wind our way through the labyrinth of corridors. Our school’s massive. It holds over a thousand students, and it used to be even bigger. It wasn’t always the cesspit it is now. Once upon a time they sank money into this place, kept adding on new rooms. It’s not very wide but it’s deep. Takes several minutes, with all the twists and turns, to get from one end to the other.

No outdoor spaces apart from a few small courtyards. The gym’s a huge room at the rear of the building, solid walls all around, a few narrow skylight windows high overhead, lots of artificial light. The phys-ed staff keep it in good shape. You can play soccer, basketball, hockey, badminton. They have foosball and pool tables stacked at the sides—they bring them out at lunch for those who are so easily amused.

We hit the gym and spread out. There’s already a crowd and the first game has kicked off. The teams are from the year above ours, so we give them loads of abuse, trying to distract them. One player shoots us the finger and we cheer.

“Bloody idiots,” I laugh. “Running round like maniacs.”

“It’s the beautiful game,” Elephant argues. He loves soccer but hasn’t played in ages, still recovering from breaking his foot a few months back.

“Beautiful waste of time,” I tease him, but he’s too engrossed in the game to pay me much attention.

I get bored quickly and look around for something else to do. There’s a small group to our left, cheering on the players, a mix of kids from different years. I don’t know most of them, but one catches my eye—Tyler Bayor.

My dad had a bust-up with Tyler’s old man a while back. Tyler’s dad had accused me of stealing from his son. It was true–I took money from him a few times, like I took the bar of chocolate from the girl today, because Tyler’s soft and the cash was there for the taking–but I denied it until I was blue in the face.

My dad was furious that a black guy had dared point the finger at me. Marched round to their home, dragged Tyler’s dad outside, fought with him in the street. Others separated them before it got nasty. We retreated with our heads held high, and Tyler’s dad didn’t push the charges any further.

I stopped stealing from Tyler, even though my dad told me he didn’t care what I did to
that walking fart of a kid
. I didn’t stop because I’d been challenged. I stopped because I knew my dad thought that I was targeting Tyler because of his race. I wasn’t. I picked on Tyler because he was weak and I could get away with it. But I felt uneasy, seeing myself through my dad’s eyes, like I was the same as him.

I never told any of the others about what happened, which is why Vinyl didn’t realize it was personal when I was having a go at Tyler in the park. I’m not sure why I kept it secret. I guess I was ashamed, not of stealing, but of my dad turning it into a racial thing.

Even though I don’t steal from Tyler anymore, I don’t like him. The sight of him reminds me of that night, my dad squaring up to Tyler’s old man, me feeling proud and mortified at the same time, all of it brought on by Tyler not keeping his mouth shut and putting up with the theft as any good victim should.