Zombie Town

Chapter 16

"Wait, so you had a slave?" Greg asked, fully interested in my stories from the past. 

I rolled my eyes. "No! For the last time, I did not have a slave! It was absolutely barbaric; what they did to those poor people, it was utterly unjustified. I had a house maid, not a slave. Her name was Judith."

Martha was reading the journal on the floor. I was telling Greg old stories and playing truth or dare on my bed while he sat in a chair and propped his leg up on a pillow. 

"Same thing." He shoved a handful of chips in his mouth. 

"No it was not. She got paid for what she did, and we treated her with respect. My family and I never judged others."

"Except for zombies."

I paused. "Yes, except for zombies."

"So how come your family believed in it, but you didn't?" 

"I don't know. I guess I was never comfortable with the idea of doing so."

"Okay, you're turn. Truth or dare?"

I sighed. "Truth."

He thought for a while and smirked. "I've got the perfect question. What size bra do you wear?"

I threw a pillow at him. "That's disgusting!"

He laughed hard. "What? You didn't wear bras back then?"

"They were called corsets and trust me, you haven't experienced pain until you've been in one of those things."

"Are you going to answer the question?" I could see the hope in his eyes. 

"No!"

"Fine, that means I get to ask you again. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

He groaned. "Enough with the truths already! Do dare."

"Not after you dared me to lick the floor. My turn!  Let's ask you embarassing questions," I said.

"He's got plenty of those," Martha mumbled from the floor. 

I grinned."Truth or dare?"

"Dare. At least I'm fun."

"Too bad you're crippled, you can't do anything funny."

"Truth then."

"Who was your first time with?" I was almost positive that I got Greg stuck there. Instead of answering the question, he said,"We're out of chips."

I shot him a dirty look, grabbed the bowl, and went downstairs to poor another bowl of cheetos. When I returned, Greg was eyeing my underwear drawer. 

"You're a pig," I said, placing the bowl in his lap. "Answer. Now."

He flexed. "I don't know if I can remember." He checked to see my reaction, but I kept a poker face. "It was with Abbey Galligan. End of freshman year at a party."

"That's so young," I noted. He seemed embarrassed. 

"I was fifteen. It's not that young."

"Um, yeah. That's pretty young."

"How about you?" he retorted. 

"Sixteen."

"That's just a year older. No big deal." 

I sighed. "Enough of the sex talk. New game. Would you rather?" I suggested. 

He shrugged. "Sure."

"Would you rather eat a stick of butter or snort a tablespoon of salt?"

Greg thought. "Butter. I actually did that once when I was little."

"You're crazy."

"Would you rather wake up in bed with a gorilla or a girl?"

I gave him a look of disgust. "Gorilla."

He raised his eyebrows? "Really?"

"Don't get too excited, Greg. Would you rather wake up with size D breast implants that you can't remove or have your balls gone?"

He was silent and I knew that I had finally got him. 

"I'm waiting," I said, making it sound like two syllables. 

Greg was about to say something, but then Martha ran out of the room and down the stairs.

We exchanged glances and followed her. I had to wait for slow-poke to hurry up, but we followed her in the kitchen. 

"Martha, what are you doing?" I asked, Greg following behind me. She was squatting in front of the oven, peaking inside its window. A look of excitement spread across her face. 

"Hello?" Greg asked. She snapped out of her trance and stood up to face us. 

"Have you ever heard of invisible ink?" she asked. She didn't give us time to answer and continued her explanation for running out of the room like a crazy person.

"Anyone can make it. All you need pretty much is tap water and baking soda. You can write whatever you want and it will stay invisible until it is exposed to heat." She pointed to the oven. 

"When I was looking at the end of the journal I noticed that the other blank pages felt kind of weird. Sticky almost. Then I remembered learning about invisible ink in chemistry last semester; we did a lab on it. I think this could be it."

We anxiously waited until Martha signaled that it was ready to take it out. 

"Coleman! You might want to get in here," I called. He came through the door. 

"What?"

Martha held up the journal for him to see and he suddenly knew. 

We flipped to the page after the last entry. It was just as Martha had suspected; there was ink written on the page. 

I will follow through on my promise. After many years of studying, I have come to a conclusion on how the  monster's race can be destroyed. There are seldom chances to do so. It must be on the night of a lunar eclipse. The sun, moon, and Earth must be lined together; this is when all the undead have a chance to have life blown back into them. This will prohibit any more to created and will wipe out the species entirely. Collect some American Hellborne herb and sprinkle some around yourself. This will protect you from any harm. 

Pay attention now. This is a fact that many are unaware of. Holdenburg was where the first group of zombies were created. They are considered the original zombies. Since Holdenburg was the first established coven, the ground is sacred. The air is pure. It is zombie town. A piece of flesh from an original and human sacrifice at the time of the eclipse will destroy all zombies. There is a minor flaw that I haven't quite figured out yet. Some humans die when this happens, and I have more research to go. 

                                                                               -Owen Patel

The first thing that came to my mind was: holy crap. Let me repeat: ho-ly crap. I not just a zombie, but an original zombie! My flesh was a key to destroying all of my kind, and possible more. I was surprised there wasn't a date on this entry. It was the only one exposed from our experiment and Owen Patel seemed much more organized than this. Someone could have possible forged this entry, but how did they know so much information? 

"How did he know that Holdenburg was the first to become a coven? He was dead," Officer Coleman said. 

"Someone forged this," I assumed. 

"I think we have a bigger problem guys," Greg called. He looked at the calendar. "We only have two days until the next eclipse. It only happens every once in while and it's unfortunately in two days."

We all looked at each other. "Justine, Mr. Coleman, if this stalker wants something from you all, it's your flesh. You need to leave town," Martha announced. 

Even though I now had an excuse to leave, I didn't want to. I was just beginning to call this place home.