Читать книгу Last Kids on Earth and the Midnight Blade - Max Brallier - Страница 11

chapter two

As soon as we’re through the door, we start searching for cover. Quint silently points to a row of shelves filled with bowling shoes. Getting there is a claustrophobic nightmare – kinda feels like Best Buy on Black Friday. We’re forcefully pushing ourselves through the zombie horde, trying to reach our safe place.

But we’re lucky – the zombies leave us alone. The horde is morphing from a huge mushed-up mash to one organized line.

They are drawn by something we don’t see or hear – and they’re shuffling away from the entrance and towards the old arcade and snack bar room. When the last zombie has turned the corner, I realize that this whole place is emptier than I expected – by a lot. And most important – no sign of Evie or Ghazt.

Ghazt was scared of the Slicer last time, so all I gotta do is show it to him again – and he’ll vamoose! But first we gotta find him.

“Guys, it’s quiet,” I say. “Too quiet.”

Dirk shoots me a confused look. I see sweat pouring off his face in fat droplets.

Dirk frowns, getting sweatier, then quickly says, “Oh OK me neither just wanted to make sure.”

“Guys!” Quint says in a whisper. He’s using an old selfie stick with a mirror to peek around the corner. “The zombies all went into the arcade. But there are ZOMBIE GUARDS at the doors!”

I scooch over and glance in the mirror. I see four zombies, standing watch, wearing hooded robes . . .

Those robes – I realize they’re just like the ones we saw in Evie’s book. She’s drafting these zombies into her Cabal of the Cosmic!

OLD-TiMey MeMBeRs OF THe CABAL OF THe CosMic! WAY BACk iN THe DAY.

The Cabal of the Cosmic was a group of crazy- pants people from the olden days who were obsessed with bad dudes like Ŗeżżőcħ the Ancient, Destructor of Worlds. Evie found their old book, full of information and instructions. (It’s OK, though – we stole the book from her and now we have our own guide to Ŗeżżőcħ’s world of cosmic horror.)

“Guys,” I whisper, nodding towards the arcade snackbar, “I think that’s Ghazt’s real home base.”

“A villainous lair inside a villainous lair?” June asks. “How many villainous lairs does one interdimensional rat monster need?”

Quint responds, “The answer, it seems, is two.”

“If we’re gonna sneak in and crash their evil party,” I say, “we need to blend in like undercover super spies.”

I lock eyes with June – and she gets it, right away. We gotta take out these guards, triple-ninja- style, and steal their uniforms.

June nudges Quint. He pulls a wiffle ball box from his action-geek bag. But inside is no ordinary wiffle ball. Inside is the –

“I’ll roll,” Quint says.

“And I’ll take ’em out,” June adds.

With that, it’s meatball away. Quint bowls it towards the arcade. It rolls past the blue-cloaked zombie guards . . .

They look around, sniffing, then a moment later –

The guards stagger after the ball, hunched over, bony fingers grabbing and scraping. One finally collapses on to the ball, like it’s trying to recover a fumble in the end zone. All four of them begin gnawing at the thing – sucking on the wiffle meatball.

Bingo. A very gross bingo.

June smiles. “I got this next part . . .” she says, and lifts her torn zombie sleeve to reveal the Gift. I got it for her this past Christmas, and it’s a total monster knockout device. Also good for temporary zombie takedowns . . .

She cranks a wheel on the side, and then –

WHAFK! WHAFK! WHAFK!

Four blasts.

Four blue-robed zombies hit the floor.

We shove the zombies into a storage closet and slip into their robes. We look pretty legit!

I eye the entrance to the arcade. With the guards gone, all we have to do is slip inside.

But I hesitate.

Because it’s finally happening. We’ve searched long and hard for this foul, formidable creature that wants to rule over our broken planet. It’s now or never.

I steel myself. “In we go,” I whisper. “And remember: best zombie impressions ever. It’s game time.”

Hearts pounding, we push the doors open – going for total 007-level inconspicuousness, we shuffle inside.

And – well – we find the zombies, that’s for sure. Hundreds of them . . .

I’m trying to do a zombie version of “fly casual” – my face twisted to look undead, while simultaneously trying to give off a whole “Hey-how-you-doing-nice-party-come-hereoften- we-totally-belong-here-and-if-you’recurious-yep-we’re-definitely-zombies-no-reasonto- look-closely” vibe.

But it’s hard to be casual – because what we see inside here is so bananas insane . . .