Zombie Elementary Read Free Page A

asked him.
    “Different theories,” Jermaine went on. “A virus. Or radiation. Bad fish sticks in the back of the freezer. Lots of ideas floating around. There’s a whole field of study.”
    ZOMBIE TIP
    There are many views on the origins of zombies in the scientific community, and a thriving exchange of expert opinion is common. However, for the ordinary citizen, it is less important to understand how zombies originated than it is to know where they are right now and how to hide from them.
    “How do you know this?” I said.
    “Science magazines,” he told me. Jermaine’s dad’s a dentist and Jermaine’s been reading everything on the waiting room table since he was, like, five. He’s a genius.
    “Plus movies,” he said. “You know,
Night of the Living Dead
—that’s real old, like, before my dad was even a little kid.
28 Days Later. Resident Evil
, parts one to five.
World War Z
. Also
The Walking Dead
on TV. You need to do some research.”
    “How am I gonna do that?”
    “I’ll be over later with some documentation,” he answered.
    About that time, Honor peeked around the door into my room. She’s pretty good about not messing with my stuff, and I guess we get on better than most kids I know. But she’s only seven—no, she turned eight awhile back—and mostly we don’t talk too much except, you know, “Did you spit in my Pepsi?” and “What’s that sticky stuff?” Normal brother and sister conversation.
    “Hey, Larry,” she said. “You did really good today on the bus. I never saw anyone act like Alex did. I’m glad you kicked him out the back door.”
    “I didn’t really kick him out, but I was gonna. I think.”
    “What was wrong with him? He was acting crazy. Bad crazy, not goofy crazy.”
    “He’s been turned into a zombie,” I told her.
    “Oh,” said Honor. “That’s bad.”

KYLE:
She was pretty calm about it?
LARRY:
She’s pretty grown up for her age. Like, she knows Miss Flowers who teaches piano and Mr. Morse the shop teacher don’t need to spend so much time sorting out the sheet music after school. She explained it to me. So I guess zombies are no big deal to her.
KYLE:
But zombies are a HUUUGE deal!
LARRY:
Huh. Right. Yeah, I guess they are.

7
    So Jermaine showed up to stay overnight carrying a pile of DVDs. “This is research material,” he said. “You need to memorize this stuff.”
    He said this like Coach Chicka (who coaches our Little League team, the Tigers) talks about memorizing baseball plays. I had to concentrate real hard.
    “That’s it,” said Jermaine. “I can tell when you’re trying to learn stuff, ’cause your eyebrows meet in the middle and you chew on your lip.”
    Huh.
    Anyhow, he slipped a disc into the player in my room.
    The movie was real old, black and white. I guessed it must be about a hundred years old. It was called
Night of the Living Dead
. I settled down to watch it.
    ZOMBIE TIP
    George A. Romero’s 1968 cult favorite Night of the Living Dead is considered a classic of the horror movie genre. Not as well known, however, is the fact that the movie is an educational film for those who need to know what to expect when the zombie hordes come to your neighborhood. Get a copy and watch it every week.
    There’s this girl who goes with her brother to the cemetery, and he’s teasing her, and then a zombie gets him, which I guess serves him right for being kind of a dope. She takes off in his car, the zombies chase her and she gets kind of upset about the whole thing. I could understand that part. Anyway, she shows up at an old house where a guy acts all superhero and takes down a bunch of zombies. Then he wants to board the place up to keep the zombies out, which makes sense, you know? I mean, zombies don’t care if they get cut up by broken glass when they come through the windows. And then there are some other people hiding in the basement, and they don’t want to come out. One guy’s being real mean about the whole thing, and