Ned Vizzini - Clash of the Worlds

Brendan spun around, yelped, and then quickly scampered over to Cordelia and Eleanor.

Fat Jagger dived back into the water, shaking his four passengers together like dice in a cup. Once the colossus was smoothly swimming through the bay and his mouth was settled, the Storm King climbed slowly to his feet again with a loud groan.

The Walkers scrambled away from him; towards Fat Jagger’s right molars. Their mobile phone flashlights cast an eerie glow on to Denver Kristoff’s rotting face.

“Denver?” Cordelia ventured. “I know we’re not exactly best friends or anything … but we really need your help.”

The Storm King had never looked worse. His normally putrid face was even more hideous than usual. If it weren’t for a few greenish flaps of rancid flesh clinging to his head, he would have basically just been a skull with hair.

The Storm King finally opened his mouth to reply.

“Graaanghhhhh!” the Storm King moaned. “Brrrraaaaoooohhhhrrrr!”

“Um, what?” Cordelia said.

“Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that I accidentally started the zombie apocalypse?” Brendan said.

“What are you talking about?” Cordelia asked.

“The spell did bring Kristoff back from the dead,” Brendan explained. “But it also turned his corpse into a zombie, along with the rest of the cemetery’s inhabitants. I must have used the wrong inflections or something …”

“Are you kidding me? Now what are we going to do?” Cordelia asked, panicking. “He was our only way out of this!”

“Let’s start by making sure no one else gets bitten,” Brendan said, standing up.

He’d watched enough zombie movies to know that they moved pretty slowly – plus, he’d already been bitten so he wasn’t nearly as afraid to attack a zombie unarmed as he normally would have been.

Brendan charged at zombie Denver and slammed his shoulder into the old dead guy’s chest. He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen – he considered for a moment that the decrepit old man might simply explode from the force. But zombie Denver didn’t explode. Instead, the old man went flying backwards into a row of Fat Jagger’s molars, a low moan escaping his green lips as he slammed into the teeth with enough force to cause Cordelia and Eleanor to look away.

Brendan tensed, waiting for the old man to get back up again. But he didn’t. Zombie Denver just stayed there, slumped against a pair of huge Fat Jagger teeth. Brendan took a few steps closer and then realised that the old man’s arm was firmly wedged between the teeth. He was stuck.

“Well, I think we won’t have to worry about him any more,” Brendan said, turning back towards his sisters with a satisfied grin.

“Nice check,” Cordelia admitted, her voice wavering. “But why did you say ‘ no one else ’ gets bitten?”

Brendan answered by showing them his infected and pulsating bite wound.

“I’m going to become zombie,” he said sombrely. “There’s nothing we can do to stop it. Pretty soon, I’ll be trying to eat your giant brain, Deal.”

Instead of laughing at his joke, Cordelia choked out a sob.

Eleanor, meanwhile, seemed not to have heard Brendan at all. She just sat there staring at Denver Kristoff lazily struggling to free his trapped arm. He was more of a skeleton now than the rotting monstrosity he had been when he was still alive.

“I’ve got it!” Eleanor said suddenly. “I know how to fix this!”

“How?” Brendan asked. “It’s too late to chop off my arm to slow the infection …”

“No, and that’s disgusting, Bren!” Eleanor said. “I’m talking about the bigger problem.”

“Geez, Nell,” Brendan said. “Can’t you at least pretend to be upset like Cordelia? Or say you’ll miss me?”

“We have to get Fat Jagger back home!” Eleanor said, her words rushing out in a panic. “We have to somehow fix all of this! If not, more and more creatures and bad guys from the book world are going to come into our world and eventually destroy everything!”

“So what’s your big plan then?” Cordelia asked her little sister with more edge in her voice than she’d intended.

“I’ll explain later, there’s no time right now,” Eleanor said. “Fat Jagger!”

They felt him grunt in reply as he swam.

“Can you get to the surface and open your mouth?” Eleanor shouted.

Their ears popped as Fat Jagger ascended. They heard splashing as his head broke the surface of the water. His jaw hinged open slightly. A dolphin caught in Fat Jagger’s hair dropped into the water and swam off to safety. Eleanor looked out of the giant’s mouth and saw the pink haze of the sunrise on the ocean’s horizon. They were currently headed west, out of the bay towards the open Pacific.

“Turn left slowly!” Eleanor screamed over the sound of an approaching police helicopter.

Fat Jagger spun slowly. As soon as Eleanor saw what she was looking for, she shouted for him to stop.

“Go back down and swim straight ahead!” Eleanor screamed over the roar of the nearby helicopter. “When you get to shore, climb the cliff and look for our house.”

“You remember what it looks like?” Brendan yelled. “You’ve held our house before, Jagguuhhhhhhnn …”

Brendan looked confused as he opened his mouth to speak again.

“Urhhhh,” Brendan grunted, trying desperately to get the words out of his mouth. “Urgggghh?”

“You OK, Bren?” Eleanor asked.

Brendan lifted himself up slowly and Eleanor gasped. She wasn’t sure if it was the giant’s saliva, the seawater, or something else entirely, but Brendan’s face was now a pale shade of green.

“Cordelia?” Eleanor shouted frantically. “I think Brendan just turned into a zombie!”

Cordelia instantly knew Eleanor was right; the pale twelve-year-old groaning in the centre of Fat Jagger’s mouth wasn’t their brother any more.

Brendan turned towards Eleanor and snarled, his jaw hanging open and his dead eyes unblinking. He limped forward, drool seeping out from between his teeth. His now-leathery greyish-green skin was filled with saggy wrinkles and festering welts, as if Brendan had aged a hundred years in a matter of seconds.

“It can’t be,” Cordelia pleaded desperately. “We were so close to the house. We were almost there!”

Eleanor ran into Cordelia’s arms as they watched Brendan slouch down against the wall of Jagger’s cheek. His skin seemed to tighten across his skull; he was looking more monstrous by the second. His head lolled to the side as a guttural groan escaped from his grey lips. Seeing their normally jovial brother just sitting there, looking so empty, gutted them both – it was almost worse than seeing him die. Their brother’s eyes, which once gleamed with mischievous humour, now lolled vacantly from side to side, a shade of grey that was even more neutral than inexistence.

“Is there a cure for zombie-ism?” Cordelia asked frantically. “Holy water? Penicillin? Aspirin?”

Eleanor, having watched one too many scary movies with her older brother, shook her head dejectedly.

“The only way to stop a zombie is by destroying its brain,” she said, fighting tears.

“I’m going to go and try to talk to him,” Cordelia said, unhooking Eleanor’s arms from around her. “Maybe if we can get him to remember us, he can turn back? Maybe it’s not too late?”

Brendan, still slumped against a pair of Fat Jagger’s massive teeth, looked up as Cordelia approached.