11
The Zombie Pledge
IWINCE, NOT ONLY at his dagger-sharp voice but at being called a zombie by a true zombie. “Madison Emily Swift, sir.”
Behind each Elder stands a Sentinel, erect as a two-by-four and ever wary, like we’re at some fancy restaurant and each Elder has his very own personal butler. The Sentinel behind the Elder who asked my name types the answer into a laptop no bigger than most cell phones. The Elders may look last century, but at least their technology is cutting-edge.
“How long?” asks the Elder in the middle, who must be the ringleader.
“I turned last night, sir. I didn’t, well, I didn’t know about any of …this …until my zombie friends explained everything to me. We got here as soon as we could.”
“Ignorance is no excuse,” the Elder on the end says, wheezing.
“I know that now, sir.”
He nods, satisfied. So does the Elder in the middle of the table, licking his lips with a dry, dead tongue.
Though every muscle of my head and neck wants me to look away, I look straight ahead and smile back.
With a voice as dry as crackling paper, the main Elder asks, “How much did your friends tell you, Madison Emily Swift?”
“Just, well, that there are rules, laws I must abide by. And those rules and laws are in this book.” I hold up my own personal copy of The Guide to the Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies, 24th Edition.
He croaks, “Laws are all we have, Madison Emily Swift.”
His fellow Elders murmur, a few of them nodding so severely I think some heads are going to roll, literally.
“Laws, Ms. Swift, are all that separate us from the Zerkers.”
I raise my hand, and the main Elder smiles. Or, I think it’s a smile; either that or his jaw shifted. (I hope he’ll be all right.) “What are …Zerkers?” I ask.
There’s a slight change in the room; the Sentinels behind each Elder stiffen, the Elders themselves seem to puff up slightly and, finally, the main Elder says, “The Zerkers are the worst of the zombies, Ms. Swift. That’s why we don’t even call them zombies. Zombies can talk, reason, drive, think, communicate, read that book you’re holding, and …care. Zerkers care about only one thing: brains. About feeding their insatiable need for electricity. Read The Guide, Ms. Swift; read The Guide and you will know all you need to know about the Zerkers and how it is every zombie’s duty to wipe them out, one by one.”
I nod, clutching The Guide for good measure.
The Council nods, too, and one of them, the one with the powder gray wig says, “Stand, now, and repeat after us.”
I stand, tempted to put my hand over my heart, but I scan the gym and there is no flag in sight. Instead I kind of hug The Guide to the Proper Care and Feeding of Zombies, 24th Edition like a Bible to my heart as the main Elder says, “I, Madison Emily Swift …”
Slowly the others join him until the voices, old and creaky and wheezy as they are, sound like one, and I repeat them after each pause.
“I, Madison Emily Swift …”
“Do hereby solemnly swear …”
“To uphold the zombie laws and regulations as published in The Guide …”
“To the best of my ability …”
Then comes the final line: “Under penalty of death.”
“Under …penalty …of death?”
The Council of Elders stands, with a little (okay, a lot of) help from the Sentinels behind them. With veiny hands that look more like Halloween party props, they manage a bony, mostly silent golf clap as I bow.
The four Sentinels who brought me in lead me gently back outside. I turn back around before we exit through the double gym doors. The Elders are still staring at me, smiling with their skeletal jaws, some of them still clapping until, at last, their Sentinels guide them slowly, very slowly, away from the table.