Gravediggers Read Free

space set up for practice.
    â€œYou ready, Ian?” asks PJ as I face off with now-zombified Kendra, who’s swiftly typing something into her smartphone.
    â€œI would be,” I say, “if someone got off the stupid internet.”
    â€œSorry, sorry,” she mumbles, pocketing her phone. “Redditors. You know how it is.” As she turns back to me, she lets that same sort of mindless dead look go over her face, and my heart goes fast again. This is my training session—for Kendra, we jumped out at her nonstop to get her acting quickly, and for PJ we screamed horrible scary stuff at him while showing him pictures of spiders and dead bodies (what a gross Google search). Now, it’s my turn: confronting the dead.
    After our last fight with the zombies, I had a real problem at first when it came to facing off with them—just kept freezing up with something like the heebie-jeebies on steroids. O’Dea said we’ve got to be “familiar with the enemy,” to be able to stare at them head-on and not mistake them for or treat them like people, even if they’re someone we know. The way she said that last part made us think she’d been in that situation.
    â€œAll right, Ian, let’s do this slow motion,” says PJ, using his camera to switch from his werewolf footage to a new file. “Kendra’s going to come at you, and you’re going to try and fend her off and take her out, but do it slowly so you can see and remember your instinct. Got it?”
    â€œSure thing,” I tell him, trying to keep from breathing too fast.
    â€œGood,” says PJ. “Kendra, ready to roll?”
    â€œAffirmative.”
    â€œGreat.” PJ raises his camera and, after a little moment, the red light comes on. “Aaand . . . action!”
    Just like that, Kendra comes lurching at me, moaning deep down in her throat, and I have to admit, her zombie impression is pretty spot-on. She drags one leg like it’s been broken midway through the shin and manages to twist her fingers in just the same way that the walking corpses we’ve fought have done. For a moment, staring at my friend, or this creature that’s supposed to have been my friend, it’s like I’m stuck again, frozen inside of my own body—
    Then, those weird bent fingers lightly touch my arm, and everything comes back to reality, and my hand comes out in a flying chop, swinging down at half speed and stopping just in the middle of Kendra’s neck.
    â€œWait, stop,” she says, dropping the zombie act in an instant and leaving me stunned, blinking and sputtering, like she just pulled a magic trick. “You can’t just go for the throat. That won’t stop them, remember?”
    â€œI just figured it might break their neck,” I try to say. “Especially if I have a machete. Doesn’t cutting off their head work?”
    â€œTechnically, yes. But!” says Kendra, raising a gray-painted finger in my face. “It’s all about the spine, Ian. Remember what O’Dea said? Unless you fully rupture the spinal column, they can still attack. Here’s what I’ve been choreographing mentally. . . .”
    She takes one of my hands and puts it under her chin, the butt of my palm resting just at her throat, and then she, whoa, hold on, she takes my other hand, wait, and pulls me right up close to her, wow, and wraps it around her back, by her waist.
    What is she. I don’t even.
    â€œPush with this hand under the chin,” she says, “to keep the mouth away from you. Then, reach around in back and sink your fingers”—she puts her hand on mine, makes a claw, and presses it into her backbone—“in around the spine. Then yank hard, splitting the spine open. That should at the very least drop them and slow them down so you can finish them off. Got it?”
    â€œAguh,” I say, like a huge doofus.
    Thankfully, my