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chunks.
    Everyone just stared.
    â€œIs it supposed to look like that?” I asked, just to fill the silence.
    â€œNo,” my dad said, very quietly. I could tell he was trying very hard not to lose it. “No. It must have been eating bad chemicals from the Hudson. It’s . . . we can’t eat this.”
    My mom still had her eyes closed. Her face screwed up like she’d just been shot or something. Dad put down the lobster and wiped his hands on a towel.
    â€œIt’s okay,” he said. “It’s—­nothing. We got our hopes up, and you know what that always leads to. But it’s all right. We have other things to eat, and—­”
    â€œIt’s not okay,” my mom said. Her eyes were still closed.
    â€œHoney—­”
    â€œIt’s . . . not . . . okay,” she said. She opened her eyes and looked down at the mess on the counter. The stink was making my eyes water, and she was a lot closer to it. But she grabbed the two pieces of the lobster in her hands.
    â€œJust throw it out,” my dad tried to say, but she was shaking her head wildly. Tears were gushing from her eyes.
    â€œIt’s not fucking okay! It’s not okay it’s not okay it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s not it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s . . .”
    Spit flecked the sides of her mouth, and her hands squeezed the lobster until the black-­veined meat slid out of the shell.
    â€œIt it it,” she said, her mouth twisting around the words. It looked like she was trying to say something else, but the words wouldn’t come. She stared at my dad, and he looked like he was going to panic.
    â€œI,” she said, one last time. It was the last word she ever said.
    She slammed the lobster shell down on the counter, shattering it into pieces. She punched and smacked the shell fragments until bits of red shell flew everywhere. The spit around her mouth had turned to foam.
    Her eyes were staring at nothing, staring right through us. As we all watched in utter horror, a vein popped inside her left eye and the white slowly filled with blood until her eye was as red as the lobster shell in her hands. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, which suddenly looked very sharp.
    â€œDad,” I said. “Dad!”
    But he pushed past me and raced for the door. He shoved Brian out of the way and didn’t even look back as he ran into the hall. Brian couldn’t seem to move.
    My mom lifted the diseased lobster to her mouth and started cramming it inside, shell and all. She looked hungry enough to eat anything, anything she could grab.
    Everybody in the world knew what that meant. Even those of us who’d never seen a zombie before.

 
    CHAPTER 5
    I could hear myself talking, but it felt like it was somebody else. I don’t know where I was, just, I wasn’t there. Not in my own body. It was too unreal, too impossible.
    â€œMom. Just sit down. Sit down and it’ll be okay,” I guess I said.
    I could see Ike edging around the kitchen, always keeping the counter between himself and my mom. I couldn’t see Brian. I didn’t know what he was doing.
    I saw Ike very carefully reaching for a kitchen knife.
    Behind me, where I couldn’t see him, I was certain that Brian was raising his shotgun, ready to shoot my mom.
    My brain was certain that was the correct thing to do. There was no question about it, nothing to debate. There was a zombie in the kitchen. When you saw zombies, you had to shoot them. Or stab them, though we’d been told since birth that was an inferior option and one to be chosen only in emergencies.
    Ike picked the knife up off the counter. Light from the window glinted on the blade, and I was certain everyone for miles could see it.
    â€œMom, you have to calm down,” my mouth said. I don’t remember thinking those words, just hearing them. I