Disappearance at Devil's Rock Read Online Free Page A

be all sticky. Bugs will be all over me now.”
    Tommy: “Just like Alyssa, right?” A smile flickered, aimed at his sneakers. It was so Tommy, typically unsure of himself, like he was testing out the put-down.
    Josh said, doing his best Tommy-speak impersonation, “Whoa, chirps, bruh!”
    Luis: “He wishes.” He checked his phone. “Only one bar out here.”
    Josh: “No porn for you then.”
    Tommy: “Fap, fap, fap.”
    Luis: “I can still Snapchat your mom.” He mimed taking a picture of his crotch.
    Josh: “She wouldn’t see anything.”
    Tommy downed his bottle and put the empty back in Josh’s pack. He said, “This is it. This is the perfect spot, boys.” He dragged out the z sound at the end of boys . “I’m claiming it. Could totally survive the zombie apocalypse right here.”
    Luis: “Too late. Josh was already attacked by the zombie tree.”
    Josh gargled and fell back against the dead tree.
    Tommy: “Okay. Zombie contingency plans. Let’s hear ’em.”
    Tommy and his zombies. Tommy freely admitted that he was a total scaredy-cat, refusing to watch zombie/horror movies and television shows or read the comics or play the gruesome video games. Still, all he wanted to talk about lately was zombies: how they could really happen and then how to survive the coming zombie apocalypse. He’d even made Josh and Luis read some blog articles and watch a video about some weird fungus in the South American jungle that takes over an ant’s brain and how it could potentially spread to humans.In the spring, during a depressing discussion of environmental issues and overpopulation of humans and the challenge of feeding everyone on earth, their science teacher, Mrs. Ryan, had said that bugs would likely become our largest food source. Tommy—who usually didn’t speak much in school, stayed hidden under his bangs—had stammered through a question: what would happen to someone if they ate a zombie ant infected with the brain fungus? He’d slunk deep into his chair after, embarrassed at the room full of giggles. Mrs. Ryan had said that while she didn’t know much about that particular fungus, she was sure eating the ant wasn’t a vector for the fungal infection, at least not in humans. Later that night, while online with Josh and doing battle with the sillier subspecies of Minecraft zombies (the zombie pigmen), he’d said Mrs. Ryan didn’t really know and he was still convinced that human zombies could happen via the ant brain fungus.
    Luis: “Keep it simple. Fortify my house. Move all supplies up to the second floor and knock out the staircase. Then use a ladder and pull it up behind me when I was up on the second floor. Boom, zombie proof.”
    Tommy: “I like it, but what about emergency escape routes? And if you have to bolt, carrying supplies down a ladder would suck.”
    Luis: “Could chuck stuff out the window and jump down after them.”
    Tommy: “You’re such a hardo.” A hardo was someone who tried too hard to act tough or smart or cool. “No way, you jump and hurt your ankle and you might as well be a bucket of chum.”
    Luis: “Chum this.”
    Tommy: “I’d use Split Rock.”
    Luis: “You can’t live on this rock.”
    Tommy: “No, but it could be, like, an extra holdout, or a—a safety station. Build a shelter or even set up a little tent here or something so you can come here in case your house or whatever gets overrun, or you need to hide from the noninfected for a few days.”
    Josh: “I’d be at the mall.”
    Luis: “Nah. No good. First place zombies go is the mall. Good for supplies, but you have to get in and get out, quick. See Dawn of the Dead .” Luis, unlike Tommy and Josh, had watched every horror movie they’d ever heard of with his older sisters. “Tommy, you