Falling From the Sky Read Online Free PDF Page B

through his saved games until he comes to Zombie Sanctuary 3 .
    “Same here,” he says. He rattles the candy against his teeth before pulling it from his mouth. “Taylor couldn’t see the point in video games because they didn’t ‘change anything about real life’…like Abercrombie actually did.”
    Taylor. How conveniently unisex! I can’t think of another line to throw out to him. I don’t think he would take the bait anyway. I decide to play dumb and go in for the kill.
    “So, this uh, Taylor, did she, um–”
    The piercing screams and hollow growls from Micah’s TV swallow my attempt at another question.
    “Damn!” he shouts. He shoves the rock candy stick back into his mouth, reaches for a remote, and the little green lines hurry across the screen like they’re running backward.
    “I must’ve hit the volume somewhere along the way,” he says, his teeth still holding the candy in his mouth.
    The logo of Zombie Sanctuary 3 oozes down his screen like brain juice. Micah grabs my controller, tabs over to the new player option, and types in my name. The opening scene of level one fades into view, and Micah hands me my controller. So much for Taylor.
    “Ready to be a zombie?” he asks.
    I breathe in and glide my fingers around the controller. It feels so foreign.
    “As ready as I’m going to be,” I answer.
     
    Two hours and four levels later, I realize I’m the world’s worst zombie. After being slayed by a human for the tenth time, I stopped counting. Micah didn’t. I think I topped out at twenty-eight, if he counted correctly. Micah wasn’t any help at all in level three while I searched through a cabinet full of organs looking for a brain. My strength level fell to zero every time, and we had to start the level over. It never takes me that long when I play a human level.
    “Maybe I’m the one who needs to go to zombie camp,” I say.
    Micah laughs and nods in agreement. “You suck at being a zombie.”
    I lie back on his bed and stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. They’re arranged like shooting stars sprouting out of his light bulb.
    “I might get better,” I say.
    He leans back next to me. “It’s a good thing we started playing early because it’s going to take all summer to finish at this rate.”
    “I said I might get better,” I re-emphasize.
    He props up on one elbow. “Yeah, you might. But I seriously doubt it, human.”
    I doubt it too. I don’t know if it’s playing Zombie Sanctuary 3 again that has me failing as a gamer or if my zombie skills are just that awful. I force myself to sit up even though I could just lie here all night staring at his artificial stars.
    I grab Micah’s cell phone off the bed.
    “You took a picture of the movie poster, didn’t you?” I ask him.
    He nods and looks sort of embarrassed. “Why?”
    “I’m going to send it to my phone,” I tell him. I scroll through his phone until I find the graphics folder, but it prompts me to enter a pin code. “What’s your code?”
    “Zero, three, zero, six,” he says.
    I type in 0306. The scroll bar on the side of the screen shrinks when I open the folder of pictures. He has a ton saved, mostly of Abby and Jade and completely random things like street signs and railroad tracks.
    “March sixth?” I ask, taking a wild guess at what 0306 may represent.
    Micah nods. “My birthday.”
    I replace the wallpaper on my own phone with the movie poster for Brain Surgery . I notice the time while admiring how the image fits almost perfectly on the screen.
    “You’ve gotta get me back to camp,” I tell him.
    Being in a real bedroom actually makes me miss my own. I dread those rock hard camp beds even more now. And the white ceiling tiles. It looks more like a rehab clinic than a sports camp.
    I look back at Micah. He hasn’t moved. His black hair blends into his black sheets, and his cheek bones look even more predominant when he’s lying back. I stand up and stretch a hand out to pull