Chapter 3

chapter three It's dusk and the sun is setting, all orange like a Creamsicle. Rays of late-afternoon light shine through the tree house windows, and the little wind chime from HomeGoods I hung out front is dinging away. I'm huddled over the busted walkie, trying to repair it with my new tiny little screwdriver. Note! It's called a walkie. Not a walkie-talkie. I think my repair job is going pretty well.

The walkie communicates with only one person: Quint Baker. Quint Baker was—IS—my best friend! My only friend. When I first moved to Wakefield last winter, Quint was the only kid who'd talk to me. When you're a foster kid and you bounce all around the place, you become used to getting by without friends. But Quint and I were like some Legos—we just clicked. Quint gave me the walkie—one half of a pair— for my birthday. Best birthday present I ever got,

ever. Since my foster parents were no way giving me a cell phone, and Quint's nutso parents were convinced cell phones made your brain melt, the walkies were the only way Quint and I could talk outside of school. But now I'm afraid Quint is gone. The day everything happened, well... we split up. Now he's probably zombified or headed out west, along with everyone else in town. When everything first happened, I heard it was safer out west. But I haven't heard anything about that since, like, day four, so who knows. But still, there's the chance Quint is alive, somewhere, and this walkie could reach him. So I cannot quit! Seven finger burns later, I get the walkie working. I squeeze the button and it lets out a soft hiss that tells me it's transmitting.

Quint. It's Jack Finally got my walkie working. I have no idea if you're out there, But if you are, ah, well, let me know, buddy. Getting a little lonely over here. I wait a few minutes. No response. A few more minutes. Still no response. I head to bed. My bed is a pile of sweatshirts and socks and towels in the corner of the tree house. I plop down and curl up under my one blanket. It's plenty warm out still, but I just need to be under a blanket when I sleep. I mean, a blanket isn't going to do anything against a Winged Wretch or a Dozer, but still—it just feels safer... Soon I drift off to sleep. And I have nightmares. Nightmares that feel real. Nightmares about that morning, forty-two days

ago, when the monsters came and everything changed... 42 DAYS AGO It was a regular morning. Early June. After school, do you want to use sticks as lightsaber and sword-fight and film it so we can add special effects later and make our own movie. Yes, Quint yes I do School was almost over and everyone had that summer vacay fever feeling—like freedom was just around the corner. I only half had it, because summer vacation for me meant a whole lot more time at home with the Robinsons, which was a recipe for zero fun-having and heavy lawn-mowing duty. I remember, just before it happened, the bus pulling up in front of the school. I remember, too, that Quint was eating this

rotten-smelling egg salad sandwich. I can still smell it now—like the odor has been tattooed to my nostrils. And I remember Dirk Savage coming toward us. Filling the bus aisle. Thick and towering, casting a long shadow. Dirk Savage was the most formidable bully at Parker Middle School. I think he came out of the womb with facial hair. Legend has it he moved here from Detroit and his parents just left him—they split because he kept bullying them—and he took up in a shack by himself way out in the Wakefield woods. He only showed up at school to steal lunch money from other bullies. Dirk looked down at Quint and growled.