How It All Goes Down
- At Bubba's shop, Nick does some online research on zombies. As one does.
- But Nick's interrupted when a babe in a halter top named Tabitha comes in looking for Bubba to sharpen her steel stakes. Not a metaphor. She's like a stainless steel Buffy.
- Tabitha drops off the stakes and leaves.
- Someone else enters the shop, but it's not a customer. It's Madaug, also looking for Bubba.
- Nick informs Madaug that Bubba is sleeping.
- Madaug says it's really important that he speak with Bubba when he gets up, and he leaves.
- One more person enters this shop. Actually three. And they're definitely not customers.
- It's three members of the school football team, and they're sniffing the air like drug dogs.
- They're looking for a "nerd boy" (5.84). Sheldon Cooper isn't there, so the football players attack Nick.
- Nick grabs an ax to defend himself. He swings it around a bit like a dizzy lumberjack before Bubba shows up and scares the football players off with a shotgun. He attempts to shoot one in the head, but Nick pushes the barrel out of the way.
- Nick hates his classmates, but he doesn't want their brains splattered all over the wall, and not just because Bubba would probably make him clean it up.
- Bubba doesn't understand why these living people are acting like zombies.
- Most bokors—people who summon zombies—use corpses. Well, we appear to be dealing with something else.
- Bubba wonders who "Zombie Zero" (5.125) is—that is, the first one to change.
- Bubba's business partner, Mark, returns to the shop right before the cops arrive, checking out a report of a shotgun going off.
- Mark tends to Nick's wounds while Bubba talks to the police officer.
- As if talking about zombies wasn't enough, Mark is worried about werewolves, too.
- Nick remembers that Madaug was looking for Bubba, and they wonder if he might have something to do with the zombie outbreak.