Read Online My Zombie Hamster by Havelock McCreely - Free Book Online

reminded her that the whole thing was a pointless sham anyway, but she still told me to be careful.
    I was the last pickup, so I had to sit at the front of the bus, right behind the driver. Aren, Charlie, and Calvin all sat a couple of rows behind me.
    The driver smelled of garlic. He
always
smelled of garlic. I think he keeps it in his pocket or something. The word around school is that he’s afraid of vampires. (I hesitate to put this in the journal, but here it is: there have been a few news reports lately about sightings of vampires and werewolves.)
    Seriously.
    Not here, but farther north, and over in Europe, which is, like, pretty far away. Aren also told me his family had heard rumors of these weird vampires in North Africa. His parents seemed to think they were real, but come on. What are the chances of us having zombies
and
vampires
and
werewolves existing in the real world?
    The bus soon arrived at the town gates. We filed out to find Dallas already waiting for us, along with three men and two women, all of them dressed in camouflage gear. They were driving those open-top jeeps you always see in movies, the kind that usually have machine guns attached to the back. (And this despite the freezing weather. Looking cool is hard work.)
    These didn’t have machine guns, although Calvin swore he saw one hidden in the back undersome tarp. But Calvin sees a lot of things. Hears a lot of things as well. So we never know when to believe him. We’ve all just decided it’s best to disbelieve everything. It’s easier that way.
    Dallas was standing by the wall. He typed a combination into an electronic keypad, and the huge gates shuddered and started opening outward, drifts of snow falling to the ground.
    “Right!” he shouted. “You kids awake?”
    There were a few mumbles.
    “I
said
, are you kids awake!?” he shouted.
    “Yes!”
    “I’m not,” muttered Charlie. “I think this could be considered cruel and unusual punishment in most states.”
    “Good,” said Dallas. “Now, what we’re going to do is extremely dangerous. You understand? Extremely dangerous. The only thing stopping you kids from being the main course on a deadbeat buffet is me and my team. Say hello, team.”
    The team didn’t say hello. They did chew gum at us, though. I wished I had some gum.
    “I need you all to listen to me very carefully. You are to stay close to us at all times. Don’t ever stray away from the group. You’ll all be given oneof these.” He held up some kind of portable siren. “If you get lost, you climb a tree and you turn this on. You can all climb trees, can’t you? You’re kids. That’s what kids do.”
    Everyone turned to stare at Calvin. He wasn’t exactly the best of athletes. None of us were, actually, except for Brad Johnson. And he wasn’t even here. But I was sure Calvin would manage to climb a tree if he was being chased by a horde of zombies.
    He looked quite worried, so I patted him on the shoulder.
    “Don’t worry, Calvin. Just stick with us.”
    He nodded, but he was starting to get that panicky look that usually sets him off doing something stupid. I leaned in close.
    “Remember, none of this is actually real,” I whispered. “It’s a trick. Remember I told you?”
    His face collapsed into grateful relief. By now all of us kids knew this was a setup. That we were never going to be in any real danger. But Dallas and his crew had gone to a lot of effort, so we all agreed to go along with it. It would be cruel not to.
    Even so, it was slightly creepy to walk between those gates and out into the snow-covered field.The Zee-Zees were switched off at night, and there weren’t any zombies around, so it’s not as if we were in any danger. But still, leaving those walls behind, the walls that had protected us our entire lives—I admit to feeling a tiny flutter of fear. (Just a tiny flutter.)
    ‘Course, it was worse when we got to the woods. Mom had explained that there was some serious fencing