Zombie Town Read Online Free Page B

lips were fat and swollen. A chunk of her hair lay in her lap. I could see some of her skull through the wide bald spot in her head.
    Zach stared blankly at me. His mouth hung open. His teeth were gone. His nose dripped dark yellow pus. A patch of skin had fallen from his cheek, and a jagged bone poked through.
    Zipper’s fur had fallen off. His skin was as green as everyone else’s.
    Zombies. All zombies.
    I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. It can’t be true! I told myself. They’re wearing make-up. They sprayed themselves green. It has to be a joke. A really sick joke.
    “Hey, you guys, this isn’t funny,” I choked out.
    No one answered.
    Then Dad slowly lifted his hand and scratched his ear.
    “Ohhh!” I uttered a cry as the ear fell off!
    Dad moaned. He picked up the ear from his lap in green, bony fingers and stared at it blankly for a second. Then he tossed the ear to Zipper, who wolfed it down hungrily.
    My heart drummed in my chest. My mouth went dry and my legs trembled.
    This is no joke! I realized. There are such things as zombies! Somehow, Zombie Town has become real!
    And I was living in it!
    That’s why the bus and the cars had been going so fast. They were trying to escape.
    That’s why the Kwikee-Mart was empty. The owner abandoned it. He didn’t even take time to grab all his money.
    That explained the empty houses with their doors flung open. The deserted cars. The abandoned dirt bike and leaf blower.
    Everyone had run. Run for their lives. Because the zombies were taking over the town!
    But not everyone made it out, I realized. Some of them must have been eaten.
    And some of them became zombies.
    Like my family.
    Zipper suddenly snarled, snapping me out of my terrifying thoughts.
    I stared down at him. Blue-green mold already covered the dog’s teeth, but they still appeared sharp. And those sharp teeth were clamped around a bone.
    A long, thick bone, with chunks of flesh still dangling from it.
    My stomach flipped over. Was that a human bone?
    Snarling hungrily, Zipper held the bone down with one paw He ripped off a fat chunk of flesh and sucked it into his mouth.
    My stomach lurched.
    Zipper growled.
    Mom and Dad and Zach turned their heads and stared at me, as if seeing me for the first time.
    Slowly, the three of them rose from the couch. Zipper lumbered to his feet.
    Mom raised a bony hand toward me. Reaching for me. Her swollen lips rippled. “Unnnnh!” she moaned.
    “Unnh! Unnnnh!” Dad and Zach began moaning, too.
    Zipper growled.
    Then all four of them began staggering toward me, moaning with hunger.

“No!” I screamed. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was true—my own family was coming after me!
    They were zombies now. Hungry, flesh-eating zombies.
    And they wanted to eat me !
    “Nooo!” I screamed again. Then I forced myself to move. I spun away from them and tore down the hall to the front door.
    I flew outside and skidded on the wet front porch. I somersaulted down the steps and hit the sidewalk with a thud, flat on my back.
    “Unnnh!” I heard a zombie moaning close by. Too close.
    Zombies can’t move that fast, I thought. It couldn’t be Mom and Dad, not yet anyway.
    I leaped to my feet and glanced around.
    Mr. Bradley stood in his yard next door, gazing at me across the hedge. His sagging skin was a dull green. His sunken eyes glowed with hunger.
    “They’re all zombies!” I screamed. I sprinted down the sidewalk.
    As I raced into the street, I saw a crowd of zombies lurching toward me. The one in front had an empty eye socket oozing with yellow slime.
    I blinked. I recognized them. The zombies from the movie!
    “Karen!” I screamed. I raced across the street toward her house. “The zombies are taking over the town. We have to get out!”
    I leaped onto her porch and burst through the front door. “Karen!” I shouted. “Karen!”
    Karen stepped out from one of the rooms. She stood at the end of the hall, gazing at me.
    “Unnh!” she groaned