, it pointed at us, opened its big mouth, and let out the most god-awful sound imaginable.
The chase was on. They ran at us with vigor, howling.
“We can shoot them,” Brittany suggested.
“We don’t have enough ammo for that. They would get us while we changed clips.” Jones made his decision. He hollered, “Run!”
We turned around and ran as fast as we could. I was carrying a heavy backpack, a duffel, a rifle in one hand and had just shoved a bloody baton in the duffel of the other. It was a marathon run and at first I had no idea where we were going, but then it looked familiar. We were going back to the safety of our two-story house.
We went through a back alley and then between two houses. Jones stopped and took a knee. He opened his pack and lit a Molotov cocktail’s wick. He threw it at a house to his left and then another at the house on his right. Flames roared. We kept moving and when I looked back, a zombie was going into one of the burning houses. It lit up like a torch. It turned and stumbled into several others and lit them. The rest halted and howled as we continued to safety.
As we neared the house, zombies were in the doorway, I had left the door open, not thinking we would come back. Jones was in the lead and he stopped, dropped to a knee and took out one of two zombies in view. He aimed and got the other. They ran for the door and stopped at the threshold.
I was bringing up the rear and had put considerable distance between myself and the zombies. I made it to the door and we entered together. Like we thought, zombies invaded our home.
I counted six, all tall and human looking. I looked into the eyes of one of them and barely saw red, he was new and strong. He might have been one of the runners we saw earlier. If he was, he would hold a grudge. The zombie I saw came at me. I shot him.
Before I could aim at another, several gunshots went off and they all lay dead at our feet.
“Lock the door.” Jones ordered.
Brittany locked it and like before, Jones and Charley pushed the couch in front of the door. “We have to check the rest of the house.”
Jones glared at me when I said it, perhaps he was about to give that order. “You two go that way and we will take this way.”
Brittany and I went toward the kitchen and left the rest of the house to them. I didn’t care who searched what as long as we searched. We didn’t find anything and went upstairs to search. From my new belt, I had a penlight flashlight. I used it on the hall, it had no light. I shined it ahead of us. Brittany and I were a team and searched two of the upstairs bedrooms.
We heard a commotion and raced to another. Passing our large bedroom, we saw no one and continued to the last small bedroom. A zombie lay on the floor of the small room, Charley and Jones were smashing its head in with their batons.
“What happened?”
“It snuck up on us,” said Jones.
Charley added, “It was in the closet. We went to the window to check on the zombies and it came at us.”
“Yeah,” said Jones. “It knocked him down and he came at me.”
“Where are your guns?” Brittany said.
“We left them in our room.” Jones’ face turned red. “We thought if we found one we could clobber it and keep the noise down.”
“I guess it showed you, huh?”
“Watch it, Baker.”
I stood at attention and saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
Chapter 17
I looked out into the darkness of the night. We failed again and wound back at our original starting point. Zombies are massing outside. It is good that our house sets away from others, because several houses are now on fire from the bombs they threw.
Brittany and I waited for the boys to return from their mission to remove the dead zombie from our presence. They would open the window and climb on the roof with the zombie and carefully tie him to the chimney to hold him in place. It was a hard job and I’m glad I took no part in it. Brittany and I had kitchen duty and prepared our evening dinner.
The zombie screams no longer bothered us or I should say more precisely no longer shook us with fear. They were more of an early warning system to let us know danger was coming and if we didn’t spring into action, we would die.
We listened to their noise from the kitchen table while waiting on the boys to join us. The mood was somber and there wasn’t much that needed saying. I enjoyed the silence, after a while, Brittany didn’t.
“Zee?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“I mean about Thompson.”
“Why are you guys so fixated on Thompson? He was a jerk and I feel fine about it.”
“Jones told me that he spied on us while we washed in the river. Maybe he did it every time.”
“So?”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I’m fine. Thompson was a jerk, he is dead, good riddance.”
The look she gave me let me know she wasn’t going to drop it and didn’t like my answers. What was there to say that hadn’t been said? His watching us should creep me out, especially her, I mean she was practically naked. At least I kept my top on. For some reason, I can’t get worked up about it.
I keep coming back to it’s the end of the world and everything has changed. It is ridicules to have the same hang-ups I had as when the world was normal. Everything
Joe - Dalton Weber, Sullivan 01