Zombie Town Read Free

feet scraping across the dusty wood floor. Then I heard a soft wheezing sound. In and out. In and out.
    I grabbed Karen’s arm. The shuffling noise came again. “Did you hear that?” I asked.
    “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.
    A zombie stared at us from across the stage.
    A zombie, with green skin and a haunted, hungry look in his eyes.
    No, not his eyes. His eye ! One eye was missing. And as the living corpse turned, I could see that half his face was missing, too. As if someone had ripped off the skin on his right side.
    “Karen!” I gasped. “It’s—it’s—a zombie from the movie!”
    “His mouth! Look at his mouth!” she cried.
    “Huh?”
    “See what’s stuck in his teeth?”
    I forced myself to stare into the zombie’s mouth. Something silver glittered between two rotting teeth.
    A buckle.
    I had seen that buckle before. In the movie. On the backpack the kid had dropped right before the zombies attacked.
    That buckle—was that all that was left of the kid?
    Did the zombie eat the rest of him?
    But that was a movie! I told myself. It wasn’t real! It couldn’t be!
    My knees started to shake again. Chill after chill ran down my back.
    The zombie’s one eye slipped out of its socket and rested on its cheekbone.
    The ugly creature let out a loud moan. Karen and I jumped back, screaming.
    The zombie lifted his head. The eye locked on us. Then the creature raised half-rotted arms and took a lurching step. “Unnnh…unnnnnh!”
    “Karen…Karen…” I whispered. “It’s coming after us!”

Karen froze beside me.
    I wanted to run. But my legs wouldn’t cooperate.
    The sour smell surrounded us.
    The silver buckle glittered in the zombie’s crooked teeth.
    I yanked on Karen’s arm. “Come on!” I shouted. “Remember what you said? They have to keep eating people to stay alive. You see any other people around here besides us?”
    “I can’t believe this,” Karen murmured. “It’s unreal.”
    The zombie took another shuffling step and moaned again. A low, hungry moan.
    “Is that real enough for you?” I demanded.
    Karen grabbed my hand. Together, we finally got moving. We raced around in front of the screen.
    I glanced back over my shoulder. The zombie was still behind the screen, but I could hear it moaning and shuffling along.
    “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?”
    “I don’t know!” I said as we leaped off the stage. “But it’s out. And it’s after us.”
    The zombie moaned again. “At least they don’t move fast,” Karen told me. “We can beat it out of here easy!”
    “Out of here?” I suddenly remembered something. “The doors are locked!”
    Karen stared at me. For the first time, she looked really terrified. “I…I forgot about that!”
    I turned at the sound of another moan. The movie screen rippled and shook. Then, as I gaped in horror, a long slit appeared down the middle. The zombie ripped it wide open!
    As his face peered out, searching the darkness for us, Karen and I both shrieked.
    “We can’t just stand here!” I shouted. “We have to try the door again. Come on!” We started to race up the aisle.
    And stopped, screaming in