Free Zombie Elementary by Howard Whitehouse Page B

of what looked like what happens if you let an old farmhouse and barn fall down. There was a big sign out front:
    CHAINSAW CHUCKYS
CHAINSAWS FOR SAIL, FIXED, RENTED
    “You’ve been here before?” I asked Jermaine.
    “I came out with my dad once,” he replied. “Trust me on this, okay?”
    Jermaine led the way onto the porch. It was pretty rickety. I’d seen it before. It’s the same porch in the TV commercial. He pulled on a string and a bell rang. He grinned at me.
    “Kin ah hep yew?” asked a voice. It was an old lady voice, croaky. The screen door opened, and a tiny woman stood in front of us. She smelled of mothballs and Marlboro cigarettes. I knew they were Marlboros ’cause she had a new pack in her wrinkly hands.
    I’d seen her singing on Channel 148.
    Jermaine gave her his most polite smile. “Good morning, ma’am. We’d like to see Mr. Chucky, if we could.”
    “Is it about a chainsaw?” she asked.
    Obviously, we didn’t have a chainsaw with us. Ten-year-olds don’t have chainsaws. I said that earlier, right?
    “In a way it is,” said Jermaine.
    She led us around the house, past a beat-up truck with a lot of rust on the side, to a big timber shed. “Hey! Chucky!!!” she yelled. “Got customers!”
    A man’s voice came back. “Send ’em in!”
    Jermaine grinned at me again. We walked into Chainsaw Chucky’s workshop.
    It was full of chainsaws. Big ones, little ones, gas-operated saws and ones that run off an electrical cord. Chainsaw parts hanging everywhere. From the ceiling. On a table. On a bench. On the floor.
    On the walls, Chucky had movie posters.
Evil Dead. Zombieland. Army of Darkness
. They all showed people fighting zombies. With chainsaws. The people, I mean, not the zombies.
    ZOMBIE TIP
    A lot of people think that chainsaws are ideal weapons for fighting zombies. It’s more accurate to say that people who like fighting zombies are the same people who like operating chainsaws. But we’ll get to that later.
    Jermaine jogged my arm. I turned around. Chucky was in the room with us. He was real tall and lanky, but he had big arm muscles. Tattoos as well. Big beard. Lots of hair.
    “What kin ah dew for yew young fellas? Is it about chainsaws?”
    He grinned. Not many teeth.
    “Mostly it’s about zombies,” said Jermaine.

30
    Chainsaw Chucky gave us both a look I hadn’t seen from an adult. Not when we mentioned zombies, anyway. (Not that we ever do.)
    It was a real serious look.
    “Ah’ll ask Granny to bring us some lemonade, and yew kin tell me all about it.”
    Between Jermaine and me, we told him the whole story. Granny stayed to listen too.
    “Huh,” she muttered. “Ah knew it. It’s a sign of the End Times. It’s like the Book of Revelation said.”
    That’s in the bible. Right at the end. Pastor Linda doesn’t preach from it. It’s where all the bizarre stuff is, Mom says. Chucky ran his fingers through his beard, like he was trying to scratch his chin but couldn’t find it.
    “Right,” he said. “We got two problems. One, we gotta deal with the source of the infestingation. Yewfind out where it started and what started it. Then yew finish it.”
    He smashed one fist into his other hand and went on.
    “Second, we got to deal with all the zombies runnin’ around bitin’ folks and makin’ more zombies.”
    “Or just eating their brains,” I said.
    “Yeah, that too,” agreed Chucky. “Cain’t say which is worse, really.”
    He squinted for a minute. I guessed that showed he was thinkin’. Sorry,
thinking
.
    “Yew got no idea when this zombie outbreakin’ started, then? It was jes that one kid at school?”
    “Yeah, just Alex Bates.”
    “Anythin’ strange going on? Visitors to the school? Flu shots? Eye exams? Foreign exchange students? Science experiments?”
    Chucky had a big long list of stuff that might turn us into zombies. He’d seen all the movies.
    “Nuh-uh. Not that I recall.”
    I thought back to the day I’d met Alex coming down