Fifth-Grade Zombies by R. L. Stine

Author:R. L. Stine [Stine, R.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Later that day, an hour before dinner, Skipper took me for a ride on the back of his electric bike. We rode down the gravel driveway, away from the farm, and onto the county road.

There were no cars in sight. Skipper gunned it, and it felt like we were zooming at one hundred miles an hour.

The strangest thing about the bike? It was completely silent.

The cool air whipped my cheeks as the lateafternoon sun lowered behind the trees. Leaves had started to turn yellow and brown. It didn’t feel like summer anymore.

Back home, Skipper picked up a softball in the yard, and we started to toss it back and forth along the edge of the cornfield. “I thought I might get serious about playing baseball,” he told me. “But I messed up my knee in sixth grade.”

“That’s bad news,” I said.

He scrunched up his face. “Can you imagine? I was twelve and my whole career was over.” He threw the ball high, over my head. “Oh. Sorry.”

I chased it across the grass and tossed it back to him.

“Do you play any sports?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said. “Well … I take tennis lessons. That’s about it.”

We threw the ball in silence for a while. Then he asked, “Are you tense about starting school on Monday?”

I shrugged. “A little.”

“It will be different from back in New York,” he said, then snickered. “You will probably be shocked at how small the school is.”

I nodded. “Everything is different here.” I caught the ball low and held on to it.

“Can I ask you something?”

“For sure,” he said. He walked closer. “What’s up?”

I told him the story Shameka and Mila told me about the fifth-grade class from Michigan going into the cornfield. I thought they had made it up, but I just wanted to make sure. “They said those kids were never seen again.” I locked my eyes on Skipper’s. “Is that story true?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. No way,” he said. He ran a hand through his long hair. “I don’t believe it,” he murmured. “Mila tells me to stop scaring you. Then she goes ahead and tells you that crazy story.”

I opened my mouth to reply. But I stopped when I heard a sound. From the cornfield.

Howls. Long and low. Rising and falling.

Human-sounding howls ringing out from deep in the field.

My mouth dropped open.

A gust of wind seemed to carry the howls and swirl them all around me.

I covered my ears and turned to Skipper.

He was watching me. “Farm cats,” he said. “Feral cats. They live in the wild. In the cornfield. They howl like that all the time.”

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