“I’m okay with that right now,” I said.
The cabdriver glanced at something behind me. I glanced over there too. Somebody was on the other side of the street a few blocks away, running toward us. He was wearing a white dress. Or a hospital gown.
“You’re not even worth it,” the driver said. “I want my fare before the end of the night.”
“You’ll get it.”
“Give me some collateral. Give me your driver’s license so I know how to get in touch with you.”
I nodded, quickly took out my wallet, and handed him my license. It had the worst picture ever taken of any human being in the entire history of mankind, but for once, I didn’t care about the shame of showing it to somebody.
The driver shoved the license into his pocket. “I need more,” he said. “Give me that doll that you’re so obsessed with so I know you’ll pay me.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”
He slammed me against the side of the cab again.
Adam let out a battle cry and ran at the driver. I’ve gotta be honest with you, Adam is not somebody who intimidates me, but it was one hell of a battle cry, and I was glad he wasn’t running at me.
The driver.. .he didn’t actually punch him. He sort of did this move where he grabbed Adam’s arm and swung him around, almost like a square dance. Adam kept running for another ten feet or so and then tumbled to the ground. The intimidation inspired by his battle cry disappeared.
Kelley ran at him.
The driver yanked the doll out of my hand. “Stop!” he shouted at her.
Kelley stopped.
“I am not going to hit a girl, but I will poke this doll’s eye out! I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but I do know that you don’t want this doll’s eye to get poked out!”
The man was still running toward us. It was definitely a hospital gown. He was about two blocks away.
The driver shoved me to the ground and got back in his cab. He started the engine while Kelley helped me back up.
“Tyler?” said Adam.
I threw open the back door to the cab, but it sped off. I chased after it for a couple of steps, landed on my foot wrong, and fell back onto the pavement.
“Tyler!” Adam’s voice was filled with terror.
“What?”
“Look!” he shouted, pointing at the man running toward us.
I looked over there. It was Mr. Click.
CHAPTER 15
During the day’s events, there had been several different moments where the proper reaction was to freak out. We freaked out way more at this than we had the others.
Mr. Click was wearing a hospital gown. His head was tilted to the side at kind of a weird angle. His mouth was wide open, though he wasn’t making any noise.
If you’re good at catching continuity errors, my guess is that right now you’re thinking, “Wait a minute. Mr. Click was missing his left leg, so how can he run?” That’s exactly what I was thinking too, although you’re probably being calmly inquisitive while I was thinking, His leg! His leg! His leg’s back on! His leg’s back on!
Actually, though I don’t remember it word for word, I’m pretty sure the thoughts running through my head were:
Aaah! Zombie Click!
His leg! His leg!
I’m gonna die!
Zombie Click!
His leg’s back on! His leg’s back on!
Aaah!
The cabdriver stole my—Zombie Click!!—doll and—Zombie Click!!!—what if he—Zombie Click!!!—damages it—Zombie Click!!!
His left leg was back on, but it was all purple.
Clearly, what we had here was a situation where Mr. Click had returned from the dead to seek vengeance against those who had killed him. I couldn’t blame him—I mean, I would’ve done the same. I only wished that he could’ve timed his undead revenge for when we were still in the cab and could have driven away really fast.
Mr. Click stretched out his arms and opened his mouth even wider, though he remained silent.
He didn’t go for me. He went for Adam.
He pounced on top of him, clamping his hands around Adam’s neck as if to strangle him. The cab turned the corner and disappeared from sight, but that problem was much less important than the risk of Adam’s brains being eaten, so I grabbed the back of Mr. Click’s gown and tried to pull him away.
The gown tore.
This was officially the worst day ever.
Adam let out a high-pitched shriek that did not shatter every piece of glass in a six-block radius but sounded like it should have. Kelley and I each grabbed one of Mr. Click’s arms and tried to pull him away. The arm I was holding twisted and made a grotesque snap sound at the shoulder.
Adam frantically scooted away, now screaming as silently as Mr. Click. My ex-history teacher’s arm popped out of my grasp and flopped around at his side while Kelley desperately tried to hold on.
I grabbed the same arm, and we both yanked back. There was another hideous snap, and Mr. Click fell onto the ground, mouth opening and closing like he was trying to bite.
Kelley, Adam, and I packed a lot of screaming into the next few seconds.
“Don’t let him eat me!” Adam wailed.
A car pulled onto the street but suddenly sped up, clearly not wanting to get involved.
Mr. Click sat up and then pounced at Adam again. His arms weren’t working right, but he kept jerking his shoulders, as if trying to swing his arms around Adam’s neck.
I wrapped my arms around Mr. Click’s waist and dragged him backward, just a few inches. I couldn’t believe how strong he was. When imagining fighting a zombie (and I’m embarrassed to say that I had many times), I always thought I’d be able to overpower them without much difficulty.
“Mr. Click, can you hear me?” asked Kelley. “Can you understand what I’m saying?” I understood what she was trying to do, though because Mr. Click had very little humanity when he was alive, I doubted she’d be able to unlock it when he was dead.
Mr. Click continued to struggle to get at Adam.
“Run!” I shouted at Adam. He seemed to think that was a fine idea and sprinted off.
Mr. Click pulled away from me again, but I jumped on his back, keeping him on the ground. Was he trying to kill Adam or give him one last pop quiz?
“Kick him in the head!” I told Kelley.
She hesitated. She was, after all, a straight-A student who never entertained fantasies about kicking her teachers in the head.
“Do it!”
“What if he can be fixed?”
“What?”
“What if he can be fixed, but kicking him in the head messes him up beyond the fixing point?”
“He can’t be fixed! Kick him!”
Kelley kicked him in the head. It was a spectacular kick, a goal-scoring kick, and I think it left a dent. But it didn’t lower his energy level.
Mr. Click pulled free of me yet again, got to his feet, and took off running after Adam. Though Adam had had a solid head start, he was a pretty lousy runner, so I shouted, “Hurry!” after him.
I started to chase after Mr. Click, but you can guess how well that went, and I stopped after a few steps. Mr. Click raced after Adam, rapidly closing the distance between them until only about ten feet remained.. .and then his leg popped off again.
It wasn’t nearly as gory this time, which is not to say that it was dry. Some red goo stretched from the stump to his leg as he toppled forward, and then he continued to crawl. Although with only one leg and two messed-up arms, he couldn’t move very well.