The Saga Of Tom Stinson (Book 1): Summer School Zombocalypse by Eric Johnson Page B

downtown.”
     

CHAPTER TWENTY
HARDWARE STORE
    “ You’re driving too slow,” Anidea snapped at Tom. “Go faster!”
    “ Does it make you feel impatient and uneasy?” Tom didn't take his eyes off the road. “Zombies are slow, remember?”
    She poked him in the ribs with one finger as she tried to get something on the radio with her other. “You sounded so cool when you said, This one, get in , and NOW you’re driving like an old lady.”
    “ Shh,” Tom said. He didn’t want to talk to her; he knew if he did she wouldn’t shut up.
    Anidea crossed her arms and stared at Tom. “Well? Aren’t you going to say anything.”
    He took a quick glance at her and let up on the accelerator pedal. The twins and Jerrell chattered in the back.
    “ You hid in your dog house?” Winston asked.
    “ Yeah,” Jerrell replied, “three days. None of those things came in my backyard. I was lucky. I think I have fleas now though.”
    “ Didn’t you have summer school?”
    Jerrell shrugged. “Tom knows, we skipped to go to the river. We saw the plane fly crazy, and we went to see. When we got back to school everyone was fighting. It was insane. The police started shooting people. I ran home and hid.”
    “ You had it easy,” Emmett said. “We were in the school.”
    Winston barked and laughed, “You smell like dog.”
    “ The weird thing is,” Jerrell said, “at night there were green lights in the sky zipping around. There were jets shooting at them too, but they disappeared in a green flash. Poof! Nothing. Crazy huh?”
    “ What are you talking about? Don’t be stupid,” Emmett said. “We didn’t see or hear any of that.”
    “ I dunno, I’m just telling you what I saw,” Jerrell said.
    Anidea turned the radio’s volume all the way up. “Shut up and listen.”
    “ What, to static?” Jerrel asked. “Turn that down, Frizz.”
    Winston reached out and flicked one of her curls with his finger. “You need to learn to be nice.”
    Anidea’s hand flew up and swatted Winston’s hand as she turned and yelled, “Don’t, or so help me, I’ll feed you to the zombies.”
    The twins giggled and stared at the back of her head. Jerrell could see her face in the reflection of the rear view mirror. “Don’t be a spaz, Frizzball.”
    The twins covered their mouths and laughed deeply.
    Tom sped the car up.
    Anidea fumed and pounded her fist on the dashboard. “Stop laughing. How can you laugh? There has to be something on the radio, don’t you care? Don’t you wonder why there’s nothing on?”
    The twins and Jerrell quieted, and they listened to the crackle of static on the radio. “Try AM,” Emmett said.
    “ You’re so stupid. Only old people listen to AM.” Her eyes darted from the radio to Tom. She hoped that he would say something. “I’m an observer locked in a cage of monkeys.”
    Finally, Tom glanced over at her and gave an, it’s going to be alright look.
    “ Well?” she asked, but he only smiled back at her, and that made her more infuriated. “You must feel safe in the car. Does moving somehow make you feel safe? The idea of just speeding away from one danger into another isn’t comforting.”
    Jerrel, Emmett, and Winston howled with laughter in the back; they stuck out their lower lips and mocked her with hand puppets.
    “ They’re blowing off steam,” Tom smirked.
    “ And somehow you seem happy,” Anidea turned off the radio and stared out of the window. “How can you be happy? You’re not funny, or strong, or romantic. You’re just that dumb boy from down the block.”
    “ It’s an adventure, isn’t it?”
    On the sidewalk were pieces of people’s lives, everything imaginable and unimaginable. What would she have cared, even if she had time? “Where does your dad work?” she asked.
    “ The hardware store.”
    “ You speak finally. Tom Stinson, I need you to tell me what we are doing.”
    Tom wound the car through the leftovers of people’s struggles. “I don’t need to