The Last Kids on Earth

“BLUFF!” Evie shouts. “That’s a bluff !” She leans towards Ghazt and whispers, “He’s bluffing. Classic bluff. Kid’s got bluff all over his face.”

I scowl at Evie. She smiles in the most annoying way.

Ghazt’s tail slithers up and tickles his lip in thought. “Hmm. Bluff. Bluffing. Bluffin. Muffin.” Ghazt’s stomach grumbles, then he says, “Evie, do we have any more of those little mini muffins I like? The blueberry ones?”

Evie clenches her jaw. Bites back a sigh. “No, sir.”

I steal a quick glance to the side. Dirk’s got his hands to his head, mashing the headphones hard against his skull.

No question – we need to make our move now.

Evie and Ghazt don’t seem to be on the same page. Maybe we can use that against them.

June picks up what I’m mentally throwing down – because she tilts her head and says, “Hey, Ghazt, if you’re this big, bad, zombie-controlling general, how come Evie does all the talking while you just sit there on a big cheese throne?”

In response, Ghazt slurps cheese from a hollowed-out bowling ball.

Ghazt doesn’t like that. He snarls, then his tail snaps through the air. I hear a hollow thunderclap sound – the sound of Ghazt exercising his control over the zombies . . .

Sure enough, the zombies begin to circle around us.

Evie approaches. “Jack,” she says. “You are unarmed. Bad move. I’m surprised you would show up without your precious blade . . .”

I smile. “Y’know, Evie . . .”

I whip the blade around, pointing it at Evie and Ghazt. Evie frowns. “You hid your Little League sword in your trousers?”

“You bet I did,” I say proudly.

“That’s weird, kid.”

“I’ll tell you what’s weird – you, ya weirdo, calling me weird! You’re the weird one doing the weird worshipping! Now I hereby DEMAND you guys open a portal and LEAVE. Outta this dimension, post-haste! Whatever post-haste means . . .”

Ghazt’s tail snaps again – and the zombies inch even closer. June coughs into her hand, then says, very loudly, “WELL, JACK – IT APPEARS YOUR PLAN HAS FAILED.”

“OK, geez, June – aggressive,” I murmur.

June, again, louder: “I SAID, JACK, IT APPEARS YOUR PLAN HAS FAILED.”

“Look, June,” I whisper, “I know this is a big life-and-death moment – but you don’t gotta be mean about it! It’s not like –”

And that’s when I hear a sound like cannon fire erupting. The building shakes. The zombies stagger. Evie grabs Ghazt to steady herself.

I look up, just in time to see the ceiling practically evaporate as something like a meteor comes smashing through . . .

chapter five

“June!” Quint happily exclaims. “You had backup waiting?!”

June grins. “Sure did.”

I frown. “Was your backup plan code word ‘JACK, IT APPEARS YOUR PLAN HAS FAILED?’ ”

June shrugs. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“That is so messed up. But also I’m good with it ’cause it means I was not bluffing. YOU HEAR THAT, EVIE? I wasn’t bluffing!”

Evie just glares and leaps back. A thin layer of water is trickling up through the floor. Biggun’s meteor-like landing weakened the ground.

Ghazt descends from his disgusting throne. Bits of hardened cheese and melted chocolate stick to his fur. He snarls, “Seize them!” and his tail WHIP-CRACKS in the air. Instantly, the blue-robed zombies close in!

“Dudes,” I say. “I’m going for the tail! You keep the zombies busy!”

“Happily!” Skaelka says.

Biggun just grunts and begins hurling zombies right and left. June and Quint are back-to-back, battling the Cabal of the Cosmic.

Crack!

Ghazt’s tail smacks me, and I’m hurled across the room. I land against a half-inflated pile of bowling lane bumpers.

Ghazt strides towards me, wading through his battling zombie horde. He darts forward and slashes his fat claw in my direction.

“Yikes!”

I dodge the attack by ungracefully flopping to the floor. His gnarled nails slice open big blue bumpers. There’s a loud hiss, then an angry snarl as Ghazt claws his way through shredded rubber.

I jab the Slicer, and Ghazt inches back. His whiskers twitch. His nose wrinkles. And a smile crosses his hideous face . . .

“You know, Jack, during the horribly botched transference that brought me to your dimension, I adopted some of the rat’s qualities. Including smell; and I smell the fear on you now, boy.”

Just then, his beady eyes dart to the side – and his tail snaps. His powers seize a nearby zombie, and it’s suddenly zipping across the room.

But not towards me.

Towards Quint.

The zombie’s feet skim the ground and its outstretched arms thrash. Its broken jaw snaps menacingly. “Murrrr!”

“Quint!” I call out, but it’s too late for any warning cries. The zombie is nearly upon my best buddy.

A horrifying bolt of cold fear explodes inside my brain: the image of Quint being bitten, being zombified.

I don’t think.

I simply act.

I swing the Louisville Slicer towards the zombie, leaving a dark streak of energy in the air. And then –

I feel the Slicer catch – like the blade and the zombie are connected by some strange magnetism.

And all around, it’s like someone hit the PAUSE button on this battle. Everyone’s looking at me. My arms are unsteady and there’s a zombie, frozen, braced to pounce . . .

I feel Ghazt’s power tugging at the zombie, trying to push it towards Quint.

“No . . . you . . . DON’T!” I cry out, forcing the Slicer downward.

The hovering zombie is thrust down, too. Its knees buckle and it crumples to the floor in a drooling, groaning heap.

From the corner of my eye, I spot Skaelka sneaking up behind Ghazt. I need to keep him busy for one more moment.

Ghazt’s icy rat eyes peer at me. Then the Slicer.

“Impressive,” he laughs. “But it will not be enough to defeat me.”

I shrug. “That’s cool. I don’t have to defeat you. I just have to distract you.”

Ghazt grunts, “Uh?”

And Skaelka swings . . .

Skaelka’s razor-sharp blade slices through Ghazt’s tail! The creature SHRIEKS. His eyes go wide and his face contorts into a “oh no now my tail is just a nub” face.

Instantly, every zombie STOPS. Their arms fall to their sides, stiff, like they’re awaiting orders. They moan quietly. Drool falls.

Suddenly, water sloshes at our feet – it’s old, grimy, and smells like someone forgot to flush. I realize Skaelka’s axe must have split the floor, too.

Ghazt wobbles back and forth. Without his tail, he’s off balance. He lurches to the side, then crashes heavily to the floor.

It cracks open even further.

I see a crisscrossing maze of pipes beneath the floor – and one massive sewer pipe, as wide as a train. The wood begins to crumble completely – like jigsaw puzzle pieces, falling away.

Ghazt’s paws slap, his gnarled nails scrape the floor – but that only makes it worse. Water rushes up around him.

He lashes out, grabbing Evie.

Her eyes lock on to mine. She’s stuck – and she knows it. She’s scared. But more than that – I can tell she looks mad. She forces a never-admit-defeat smile. And then they are pulled under . . .

And like that – Evie and Ghazt are swept up in the rushing sewer water . . . gone.

“Whoa,” I say. “Did we just beat the bad dudes? Already?”

“We beat these bad dudes – yeah,” June says. “The threat is over – at least for a while.”

I grin. “Rad. Mission Operation: COMPLETE.”

Quint approaches the severed tail. “Most important, we’ve removed Ghazt’s ability to control zombies.”

I glance around. Quint’s right. The zombies don’t move. They just stare at the tail. Eyes dull.

All of a sudden, Bardle comes sweeping into the room, stepping over the rubble.

chapter six

Bardle doesn’t seem to be enjoying this. He’s not fist-bumping. He’s not feeling the awesome.

“Bardle?” I ask. “Why aren’t you feeling the awesome?”

“Yeah,” June says. “We crushed that!”

“Exactly!” I say as I give Bardle a big ol’ slap on the back. Which, I discover, is a bad idea, just awful, ’cause in a flash . . .

“Nope!” I say. “Totally not what I desire. In this dimension, a slap on the back just means, like, ‘Hey, cool, good times, buddy – friendly back slaps!’”

Bardle’s confused. “You slap for friendliness?”

“I mean – we don’t say ‘slap for friendliness’ because that sounds deranged. It’s just a – um –”

I’m trying to figure out how to explain when I realize – hoo boy – my hand stings.

It stings way worse than it should after a regular ol’ friendly back slap. It feels like I jammed my hand into a flaming bonfire or grabbed a handful of red-hot coals.

“Argh,”I moan, shaking my hand back and forth. Thankfully, Rover bounds over and showers my palm with cold slobber. The pain subsides some. “Thanks pal, needed that.”

Bardle grabs my wrist. Rover saliva splashes the ground as Bardle turns my hand over, examining it. He blinks quickly. “I suspect that using your blade to manipulate the undead causes it to become hot,” he says. “So hot that wielding it becomes near impossible.”

June stops walking. She cocks her head. Looks me up and down. Then she brings up the ninety-pound Dozer in the room. “Yeah . . .” she says slowly. “We should probably talk about the craziness that went down back there.”

Quint’s eyes are wide. “Jack,” he says. “You controlled a zombie . . .”

I kind of hoped no one would mention it, honestly. I feel a little numb. There’s this feeling like yay, that was rad, but also kind of like yah, this is scary?

“I, uh . . . I guess I did,” I say with a weird little shrug.

Quint, Dirk, and June surround me. Like I’m a specimen at a laboratory. Like I’m some new Jack. Some different Jack.

Then, all together, they explode –

“Wait, wait, hold up,” I stammer. “I feel like there’s a bunch of undeserved credit here. I didn’t do anything! The Slicer did! And the Slicer just happens to be mine! I mean, it’s just a Little League bat!”

Warmth creeps up my neck, across my cheeks.

“Aww, he’s blushing!” Quint says.

June sees that I’m a big bit uncomfortable. Our eyes catch, then June winks at me. Super quickly, she says, “Yeah, but Jack will probably be lousy at the whole ‘Slicer powers’ thing anyway!”

Which is, like, a jab at me. But also a way of removing everyone’s feeling that wow, that was big. The teasing – it makes it all feel normal again. And I appreciate the crud out of June for it.

“Look,” I say. “I – uh – I felt the Slicer burn like that once before. With Ghazt, at the movie theatre. But I didn’t know it could do that . . .”

My friends nod. Bardle’s fingers trace his beard. It’s quiet, and then –

Zombie moans. Loud.

“OK, enough raving about Jack’s strange zombie-controlling ability. We must discuss them,” Quint says, pointing behind us.

June sighs. “We cut off Ghazt’s tail so that he couldn’t control zombies any more. But the zombies weren’t supposed to follow us!”

Quint’s hand shoots up like Hermione Granger in Potions class. “I will study the tail! I will uncover its secrets.”

Bardle looks at Quint – like he’s sizing him up. “Find a weakness in the tail,” Bardle advises. “It may provide insight into weaknesses of other Cosmic Terrors.”

Quint nods. “Wow. Using science to discover the vulnerabilities of interdimensional terrors . . . I will not let you down!”

“But what do we do with these undead bozos?” I wonder aloud.

Skaelka pokes her head in with a scary solution to that problem . . .

Bardle tugs at his rucksack as he thinks. “I suggest, strongly, that you keep them,” he says. “Who knows what is to come . . . ?”

I shrug. “Fair enough. But where are we going to put four hundred zombies?”

“When my hamster died,” Quint says, “my parents told me she went to live on a hamster farm.”

“Your parents sound most deceptive!” Skaelka says happily. “A fine quality in a parental figure!”

June chuckles – she knows what Quint was getting at. “We can ask her,” she says. “But she’s not gonna be happy. . . .”

chapter seven

“She’s not on the can . . .” June says, sighing and pushing through us. “Warg, it’s June! We’re here to give you – um – a really overdue thank-you.”

Oh crud! I realize we never thanked Warg for the whole “saving our buddy from turning into a zombie” thing.

I mean, if your weird aunt sends you a bad book for Christmas – you have to write a literal, physical thank-you note! Warg gave us one of her EYEBALLS to save Dirk – yeah . . . that definitely deserves some gratitude . . .

After a long moment, the door opens. It’s not Warg – it’s one of Warg’s eyeballs, using its body to nudge open the door.

“You first,” I whisper.

“No way,” June says.

“I will go either second or third,” Quint says. “Not first, not last.”

“Aww, geez,” Dirk groans, and he finally just shoves us all inside.

We’re not greeted with a warm welcome.

I flash a grin. “Ahh, you’re just saying that, Wargy. We’re buds! And we owed you a major league thanks for saving Dirk!”

Warg glares. With every eyeball.

“Sooooo, we got you a thank-you gift!” I say.

“What is this gift?” Warg asks, brooding.

“Oh you’re gonna love it! It’s a – um – massive HORDE OF ZOMBIES! All yours! They’re outside! Don’t know where you wanna put them, but we thought maybe the Christmas tree farm? And that way they can’t get out and bite us good folks and also you could maybe look after them? Again – this is a GIFT and you are SO, SO WELCOME.”

“Jack’s just rambling,” Dirk interrupts.

“Am not!” I exclaim. “This is a wonderful gesture I’m doing. It’s the gift that keeps on, uh, decaying!”

Dirk sighs. “Warg, I do wanna say thanks. They told me what you did. And I should, uh, return this.”

Dirk reaches into his bag and pulls out – oh no. The eyeball. It’s flattened and deflated – but it is most definitely the eyeball . . .

I whisper, “Dude, you’ve been carrying that around this whole time?!”

“So cool . . .” Quint says.

The eyeball is gnarly. A month in a backpack can gnarly-fy anything. But a deflated eyeball? Massive nasty.

Warg silently takes it from Dirk and sets it on the ground. Dozens of eyeballs roll off her body, surrounding and inspecting the flattened one.

Thankfully, Bardle appears in the doorway, interrupting this slow-dance-level-awkward moment.

“Quint, June, Dirk – please, bring the zombies inside the farm’s fence,” Bardle says. “Jack stays.”

Quint gives me a look, like I’ve been invited to do something special – and he hasn’t. But then he flashes me a happy thumbs-up, because he’s a bud like that.

Once everyone’s gone, Bardle wastes no time. “Jack, tell Warg what happened. With your blade . . .”

“Uh, well,” I say – and I realize I’m embarrassed and self-conscious. But I tell her everything.

When I’ve finished, all of Warg’s eyes slowly inflate and deflate at the same time. I think it’s the Warg version of, like, a deep sigh. Then she holds out her hand – palm open.

She wants the Slicer. I hesitate. I lost it once – and I won’t let it happen again. But Bardle’s neck gills flex and a rough-sounding grunt comes out.

I hand it over.

Warg runs her hand down the length of the Slicer. “Ghazt . . .” she says softly.

“Correct,” Bardle says. “The power within that blade – it appeared when Ghazt’s energy ripped into this dimension . . .”

Just then, Warg’s eyeballs return to her body. Dirk’s deflated eyeball is gone. Eaten – absorbed, I guess – by the other eyeballs. They look almost restored now that they’re back to their home base.

It’s weird.

Warg rocks forward and says, “I do not want to see this world destroyed, like our home.”

Bardle nods. “And that is why the power within this blade must become known.”

Warg and Bardle exchange a long look. So long, in fact, that I say –

Warg looks at both Bardle and me. “You may keep the zombies here,” she says reluctantly. Her mouth is a hard, stern line. “But – there is one condition.”

“I don’t have to watch you guys make out, do I?” Bardle shoots me a look that says, “Don’t embarrass me in front of the eyeball lady.”

“Wait, are you guys talking some training stuff?” I ask. “Am I about to get trained?”

Suddenly, the weirdness I felt about the zombies is gone because I am NUTSO PSYCHED that we’re talking about training! I give Bardle a probably creepy smile.

Bardle shoots me a “who, me?” look, but I bet he’s secretly fired up to be in on this, because whether he knows it or not, we’re about to do a hardcore training montage. And literally ALL I HAVE EVER WANTED IS A HARDCORE TRAINING MONTAGE!

“YES!” I exclaim. “This is gonna be . . .”

Just then, June calls from outside. “Jack! Get out here! IT’S A PHOTO OP!”

Bardle and Warg follow me outside. My friends are hoisting Ghazt’s tail on to the roof of an old hot cocoa stand.

“This is bigger than the biggest fish my ol’ man ever caught,” Dirk says, impressed.

I can see Dirk feels lousy. But he’s fighting through it. Like when you have a birthday party or something, but then you get the flu but you DON’T WANT to miss it, so you force yourself to try to enjoy it even though you wanna collapse and maybe cry. Dirk’s a trooper.

“Bardle, get in the pic!” June calls. “You too, Rover!”

We all gather close and smile our cheesiest smiles.

Just before Warg snaps the photo, I get this feeling. It’s kinda like that feeling at the end of summer vacation when you see one of those stupid back-to-school sale signs, and it brings the whole perfect summer to a screeching halt; it hits you: these good times end soon.

Things are good now, but they might not be again for a long time . . .

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