Revenge of ZomBert

CHAPTER ONE
He remembered the last night he saw his brother.
   Had it been months? A year? Longer? Time was hard to measure in the Cold Place, far from the woods where he and Brother and Sister were born, where their mother had cared for them before she’d disappeared. Then the Rough Hands had come to the woods, and captured them, and brought them all here. And started their experiments.
   On that last night, he and Brother were both so weak, from whatever the Rough Hands had given them. But Brother was weaker. He moaned in the adjoining cage.
   “It’s all right,” he’d said to Brother. “I’m here.”
   “I’m so tired,” Brother replied, his voice barely a whisper.
   “I know. Stay with me,” he’d said. “Stay with me.”
   “You’re the strong one,” Brother had said. “Always have been. Sister knew it, too.”
   Sister. She’d been the smallest of their litter, and the loudest. She’d been in the cage on his other side, until she’d grown weak, too. And then she was quiet forever. The Rough Hands had come in the night and taken her away.
   “Stay with me,” he’d said again. And again. And again.
   But then the Rough Hands came and took Brother away, too.
   “You’re alive,” he said now.
   “You sound surprised,” Brother replied. His voice was low now, and growling. His body was big, his back muscular, his thick tail twitching aggressively. And his eyes were cold.
   “When the Rough Hands took you away, you never returned. Like Sister. I feared the worst.”
   “Sister was weak. I am strong,” Brother said. He narrowed his eyes. “Stronger than you.”
 
CHAPTER TWO
I don’t understand,” Greg said.
   Kari barely understood what was going on, either, but Greg was even further behind, as usual. Why did he always expect her to explain everything to him? He followed her off of the elevator to the lab, where she punched in the key code.
   “The Big Boss decided to introduce the Yummconium formula to the people of Lambert,” Kari said. “It was in the free food at the Harvest Festival.”
   “I didn’t realize the Yummconium formula was ready,” Greg said.
Kari didn’t, either. She didn’t want to admit that the Big Boss’s decision had been a surprise. But it seemed obvious now why the Big Boss had been so adamant that the food at the festival be free. They were supposed to be giving something “special” to Lambert that day. Kari had no idea how special. But she couldn’t admit this to Greg. He was supposed to be the clueless one.
   “If the Big Boss thought it was ready, it must be,” Kari said.
   “But, I mean . . . is it legal to give it to people without them knowing?” Greg asked. “That seems wrong.”
   “That’s for the Big Boss to worry about. We need to check on the research subjects,” Kari said. She strode into the lab and grabbed her YummPad.
   “I guess,” said Greg. “Though it seems like everyone in Lambert is a research subject now. Except for us, of course.”
   “Mroooooow,” said the cat in cage Y-91. It sat very still and regarded them both with wide yellow eyes.
   “We can’t let this one get away again,” said Kari, leaning in. “This cat is the only animal still living with the original formula. We thought it killed him, but it looks like that formula created all the effects we were hoping for: the heightened senses, the increased brain function, the regenerative powers, and the increased appetite.”
   “And this one?” Greg asked, pointing at the cat in cage Y-92.
   “We thought Y-92 hadn’t reacted well to the original formula, either, so we gave it the new formula, the one we’re now calling Yummconium,” Kari said, tapping through results on her YummPad. “It has all the effects of the original, with two additions: weakened inhibitions and violent tendencies. You don’t want to get in between this one and whatever it’s craving.”
   “So . . . that’s what everyone in Lambert was given?” Greg asked.
   At that moment, Y-92 growled and Kari and Greg jumped back. It bared its fangs and batted at the bars of its cage.
  What have we started? Kari thought.
 
CHAPTER THREE
It looks like just about everyone in town is here,” Danny said when we finally got to Super YummCo.
   I blinked, taking it all in. “And they’re consuming everything in sight.”
YummCo brings the fun-co!
The fun has just begun-co!
Be smart, not dumb-dumb-dumb-co!
And fill your day with YummCo!
   A speaker system on the roof of the Super YummCo Superstore building blared the YummCo jingle over and over and over again. We all covered our ears, but we could still hear it.
   “I wish I had earplugs,” Carl Weems said.
   “Are you gonna go in there and buy some?” asked Owen Brown.
   “Probably . . . not,” said Carl.
   The people of Lambert had turned into zombies. Their eyes were glassy and many of them were drooling. They were all pushing and shoving and scrambling over one another to get through the front doors of the store. Eventually, a few people tore the doors off altogether.
   “Whoa,” I said.
   “Zombies don’t usually have superstrength,” said Danny. He was a horror movie buff, so he was an expert.
   “Maybe they just want what’s inside that much,” said Nina.
   Several people fell in the stampede, but the others just stepped over them, or even on them. I couldn’t bear to watch, even though I knew I had to, as one of the few witnesses. My mother and father were somewhere in that horde, along with everyone else’s parents. When I returned to our house earlier that day after the Harvest Festival, my dad was gorging himself on ice cream and my mom was gorging her credit card on the YummCo website. It was like a nightmare; even now, thinking about it made me feel nauseous. Really nauseous, like I wanted to pass out or throw up, or both.
   “Why are they zombies and we’re not?” Owen asked.
   “It can’t be because we’re kids,” Nina said. “I see just about everyone from school in there.”
   She was right. Todd Kaplan and Chelsea DiSanto and Logan Sands had already come out of the store and were crouched over bags of candy and a case of YummPop in the parking lot. Their faces and hands were sticky as they tried to push each other out of the way of the sweets. Their parents were right behind them with grocery bags. Some were bulging with junk food, others with clothes and makeup, toys, books, and electronics.
   “Dad?” Carl said as Mr. Weems emerged from the store on a ride-on lawnmower loaded up with mulch and leaf bags. Mrs. Weems was right behind him, pushing a shopping cart spilling over with crafting supplies.
   I yawned.
   “Are you . . . bored?” asked Owen. I shook my head.
   “She seems tired,” said Danny, looking at me. “And pale.”
   “It’s been a long day,” I reminded him. “I thought Bert and I were just going to the Lambert Harvest Festival to compete in the Best Pet Contest, and hopefully win. I didn’t expect him to be kidnapped by the Yumm family and then find out we’re in the middle of a zombie outbreak.”
   I didn’t want to tell him that my body felt prickly all over, like when your arm falls asleep. What was happening to me?
   “Should we call the police? They’ll know what to do,” Owen suggested.
   “My phone’s not working,” Danny said, tapping at its screen. Earlier we’d discovered that video he’d recorded of the Yumms kidnapping Bert had been wiped from his YummPhone.
   “YummCo’s probably controlling that, too,” Owen said.
   “Besides, the police are already here. Like that matters,” said Carl, motioning to several officers with glassy eyes. They’d tipped over a YummCo Wiener food truck and were jamming hot dogs into their mouths.
   “So, what should we do?” Nina asked.
   I turned to her to answer, but her face seemed fuzzy, like I was looking through a camera out of
focus. I squinted.
   “Head back to my house,” I managed.
   And then everything went black.