Free Geeks vs. Zombies by Charlie Higson Page A

adults around, it was the best any of them could do.
    The disease had killed nearly everyone over the age of sixteen. They were the lucky ones. The unlucky ones lived on, like the three sickos on the truck, so ravaged by disease they were no longer really human at all. Their bodies were rotten with decay, their brains turned to mush. They were animals, motivated simply by killing and eating. The younger kids were scared of the truck. It was a forbidden place, the bogeyman’s truck, a box of dark secrets.
    â€œDo you think Paul will want to come to the World Book Day all-night reading vigil?” asked Wiki, sounding lame even to himself.
    James laughed again. “I doubt it,” he said, “but why don’t you ask him yourselves?”
    Wiki glanced at the truck. It was caked with dirt and bird droppings, but you could still see that it was blue and white and plastered with supermarket logos. It hadn’t moved for over a year. The tires were deflated. It sat there like a beached whale, or a dead dinosaur. Just another huge fossil like the ones inside the museum. The relic of a lost world.
    â€œIs Paul on the truck?” asked Jibber-Jabber.
    â€œYeah,” said James. “Why? You scared?”
    Jibber-Jabber shrugged.
    â€œCourse you’re scared.” James leered at him. “Scared the sickos are going to get you. Going to snap your scrawny bones and eat your guts for breakfast.” James did a horribly accurate impression of a sicko, lumbering toward the smaller kids, tongue lolling out, eyes wide and unfocused.
    â€œDon’t be an asshole, James,” said Jibber-Jabber.
    â€œHow about I chuck you in there and we have a little game of Geeks versus Zombies?” James laughed.
    â€œWell, technically speaking, they’re not zombies, are they?” said Wiki. “They haven’t exactly died and come back to life, have they?”
    â€œYes,” Jibber-Jabber agreed. “They’re not literally zombies, they’re just diseased.”
    â€œMaybe,” said James. “But from the way they behave you’d think they’d spent their whole lives studying old George Romero films. And now we’re all in one big movie together— Night of the Living Sickos .”
    â€œAnd while we’re on it,” said Jibber-Jabber, “we’re not geeks, either.”
    â€œYes, you are. You’re textbook geeks. All you lot who hang about in the library.”
    â€œWell, actually, technically speaking, we’re not,” said Wiki. “A geek was a performer at American freak shows and fairs who used to entertain people by biting the heads off chickens.”
    â€œOkay, smart-ass,” said James. “But you are geeks, though, aren’t you? You’re nerds, freaks, dorks, wimps, noobs, nerf-herders…I could go on. So, yeah, okay, technically you’re not geeks, not literal geeks, but to me you are and always will be… geeks .”
    â€œIt’s the same with you,” said Jibber-Jabber.
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    â€œWell, you’re not literally an asshole, but to me you are and always will be one.”
    â€œYeah, very clever.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œAll right. Come on, then!” James pushed the shutter up at the back of the truck and jumped on board, daring Wiki and JJ to follow. “Prove to me you’re not geeks.”
    Wiki hesitated a moment, then climbed up after him.
    â€œVisitors!” James shouted, and Paul emerged from behind the heavy black drapes that hung across the back of the truck, hiding its interior. He looked angry, and unhappy about being interrupted.
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œThey want to see the sickos,” said James in a singsong voice.
    â€œNo we don—” Jibber-Jabber cut himself off, not wanting to look like a wimp. Paul glared at him. He was tall and very thin, with long spindly arms and legs, very black hair, and a very white