Never Slow Dance with a Zombie - By E. Van Lowe Page 0,21

in a really bad mood. I should be spending my evening thinking up themes for the homecoming celebration, not how to help my classmates out of their little zombie problem. Didn't I have my own problems? Like should the new cheerleader outfits be royal blue or teal?

Just then a brilliant idea hit me. It was as if a light bulb had actually clicked on above my head. I would go to the carnival with Sybil not to look for answers, but to keep her from finding any. If we didn't find anything, I was guaranteed our classmates would remain zombies forever--or at least until the end of the semester.

"Sybil, you're right. We should go to the carnival and look for clues that might help us change our classmates back to normal," I said with fake sincerity.

"Thank you, Margot. I knew you'd come around," she replied.

The dark thing inside me smiled.

The carnival was set up on a vacant lot at the edge of the industrial part of town. There were several rides: a Ferris wheel, Tilt-a-Whirl, and the Hammer, along with an assortment of gaming booths where people tried their hand at tossing rings over pegs, knocking over milk bottles, and bursting balloons with water pistols.

We arrived at the carnival site just after 8 p.m. to discover the carnival was gone. No tents, no rides, no booths, nothing.

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The area that just last night had been lit up by hundreds of multicolored lights and teeming with excited teenagers roaming the midway was now a desolate wasteland.

"It's gone," Sybil said as we surveyed the empty lot.

"I can see that."

"But how? Nobody said last night was the last night."

"But apparently it was." With the crisis averted my mind began to shift. "You know, I've been thinking about the new cheerleader outfits," I said. "Belly shirts are so passe."

"Not now, Margot. We have to find out what happened out here last night."

Sybil's niceness was starting to get on my nerves. I thought of all the causes she had taken up since I'd known her: Save the Bay, Save the Seals, Save the Whales. Now it was... Save the Zombies.

"How?" I barked. "The carnival is gone. There's nothing to see, no one to talk to. We should thank our lucky stars there aren't any zombies hanging around." Fumes from the icky vials of fish oil we'd hung around our necks wafted up my nose. It did nothing to brighten my mood.

"We need to search the area," Sybil said, rummaging in her purse.

"It's dark out. We can hardly see our hands in front of our faces."

"I have my lucky flashlight."

"Oh. Right."

I'd given her a set of exercise DVDs for her birthday. The tiny key chain penlight was a premium that came with the gift.

"It's perfect!" she had said when she opened the gift and saw the penlight. Turns out she'd dropped an earring under her bed getting ready for the party. We went right to her bed-

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room and used the penlight to find it. When we did her face lit up: "Oh, Margot, you always know the perfect thing to get me."

I secretly cursed that penlight: Who needs a flashlight to exercise? Stupid premium.

She pulled the tiny penlight from her purse and began searching the dirty, filthy, smelly lot, digging through soil and refuse. Then an even more putrid stench hit me. "Ew! Something smells like stinky tennis shoes covered with cheese and then left out in the rain."

I knew that particular stink very well thanks to my cheesy little brother.

"What are we looking for, anyway?" I grumbled, pinching my nose to shut out the repugnant odor.

"I don't know. Something... relevant."

"Let's see. Ooh, there's a corn dog stick. Is that relevant? Or maybe that mysterious soft drink cup is just what we need to save our classmates." Sarcasm flowed from my lips. "Or how about that rock? Yes, that's it! The magic zombie rock. Sybil, I do believe we found just what--"

Crunch!

Both our heads whipped around as we stared in the direction of the sound. Blackness greeted our eyes.

"What was that?" Sybil whispered.

"Zombies," I whispered back.

My heart was pounding. Every ounce of me wanted to run, but I stood by as Sybil aimed the tiny beam in the direction of the sound. Nothing. Whatever we had heard--crunch, crunch--was moving. The tiny beam of the light now slid shakily across the lot in the direction of the moving sound.

"It's time to go," I said, my voice quaking. I yanked on her sleeve.

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And then the flashlight's beam discovered the