Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde

by Devan Sagliani

  “We don't really know,” Tom admitted. “He left us here right after Z-Day.”

  “Haven't seen him since,” Joel worriedly shrugged.

  “Thank you for saving our lives,” Benji said with shiny eyes that fought back tears of gratitude.

  “Yeah,” I added lamely, feeling like a moron. “Thanks.”

  “You're welcome,” Tom said with an easy smile.

  “We were just working on a plan to leave when we saw you hauling ass this way,” Joel said. “I think we should give the kitchen another once over for supplies before heading out. Tom thinks it's too risky.”

  “Tom's right,” I said. “It's not safe to stay here with the horde on the loose. It's just a matter of minutes until they eat their way through the school and start looking for fresh victims.”

  “So you've got a better plan?” Joel gave me a menacing look.

  Everyone got real quiet and looked at me. I felt my throat going dry but pushed through it.

  “If we take the 1 south past the housing we'll literally walk right into town. I'm hoping we can grab an abandoned car along the way, maybe gas up in town, then head south to Hueneme. My brother is stationed there. He'll know what to do.”

  No one said a word. I felt my skin crawl as they stared at me. I didn't know if they thought it was the most brilliant plan ever or the dumbest.

  “You're old enough to make your own decisions,” I stumbled on, trying to come off more casual than I really felt, “but we are heading south. You’re welcome to come with us.”

  “What makes you think it's any better down south?” Joel asked, fire still burning in his eyes. “How do you know we'll be safe there?”

  “I don't,” I shrugged. “All I know is we can't stay here anymore.”

  Joel and Tom stared at each other a long time, as if they were communicating by telepathy. Tom nodded and Joel shook his head. Benji watched on, fascinated. They turned back to us at the same time.

  “Okay,” they said in unison.

  “Okay what?” I asked.

  “We'll go with you,” Joel said. “On one condition.”

  “What's that?”

  “You let us do the shooting,” Tom said gleefully.

  “Fine by me,” I said. “I've got a condition of my own.”

  “Oh yeah?” Joel said. “What's that?”

  “The minute we find a place that's stocked up and safe, you two shower and change into clean clothes,” I said, pointing at them with the end of my katana. “You look like something out of one of his more screwed up comic books.”

  “I think they look kinda cool,” Benji said. Tom smiled at him and messed his hair up.

  “I knew you were gonna say that,” I replied, walking past them and through the field that led out to the blacktop.

  Chapter Three

  “Who would TiVo the Jersey Shore?” Benji had settled into the couch and was flipping through channels as if he didn't have a care in the world. He had his dirty, crud-crusted Nike's up on the table. Not one station was broadcasting, not even the armed service network emergency warning that used to go out on every channel, so he had switched over to recorded programs. He was scrolling through Nitro Circus, Wipeout, American Ninja, and Jackass.

  “Someone who liked the show, I guess,” I shot back, trying to hide my annoyance. The truth was, I just didn't feel safe and I wanted to get moving as soon as we could. I peeked out the front window at the empty suburban street. There was no sign of the zombie horde. It was quiet—too quiet. The sun would be going down in just over an hour. I wanted to be sure we were on the road by then. Out there in the dark, the only thing worse than getting surrounded on foot by walking corpses would be getting trapped in a house with no escape.

  I wish Moto was here, I thought. He would know exactly what to do. He always knows.

  On our way down the street we walked through a typical cluster of track homes. It was starting to get late and I didn't think it was safe to stop, but Joel reminded me of my taunt for the twins to get cleaned up and I eventually relented.

  Tom picked the house he liked best and then we made a full sweep of it, coming up empty. The fridge was stocked to maximum capacity. The electricity was still on. The AC hummed. Everything was about as perfect as you could ask for until we reached the upstairs bedrooms. The master bedroom was fine. Nothing under the bed. Nothing in the closets. Then we swung open the second bedroom door. With stuffed animals, nursery toys, a child's bed, and a crib in the corner it was obviously the kid's room. No big surprise there. What we hadn't expected was all the blood. The whole room was covered in dried streaks of blood from floor to ceiling. It looked like something out of a Halloween horror house, like someone had taken buckets of blood and just flung them in every direction, painting everything.

  There should be flies swarming all over this room, I thought, like in the Exorcist. If a single window had been cracked, there would have been. My guess was that they kept the place air tight so they didn't waste money on air conditioning. The air smelled like dull rust. I was surprised it didn't smell like the zombies did, like death and decay.

  We turned over every inch of the room but didn't find any trace of body parts. No bones. No bloody weapons. No fingerprints or bloody smudges. Nothing that would tell us what nightmarish, unthinkable thing had happened in that place. There weren't any signs of struggle or clean up going into or coming out of the room either. How it all happened remained a mystery to us. Nobody said a word. We backed out of the room and shut the door, lost in our own thoughts.

  Joel and Tom raided the guy's closet for clean clothes and stayed upstairs to shower. Benji and I set up shop downstairs, tearing into the soda and snacks to fuel up on carbs before our big walk south. We were supposed to keep watch and let them know if any zombies showed up so we could bolt over the back wall and down the street. They had already been showering over a half an hour. I knew they had at least a gallon of blood each poured over them but it was starting to get ridiculous how long they were taking. This was the zombie apocalypse, not a damn fashion show. Who were they trying to impress?

  If they don't hurry up I might just grab Benji and go, I thought. I didn't have anything against the Parker twins. Like I said, waiting there like that was making my skin crawl.

  “Yeah but MTV plays the show over and over on a loop,” Benji protested, bringing me back to the present. “If you ever missed an episode all you have to do is just wait for it to start over.” He dug into the bag of Frito's he'd salvaged from the kitchen, washing them down with an ice cold Mountain Dew. In the background, Snooki fell off a bar stool and flashed her crotch to the camera. I took a swig of Coke from the two liter I'd grabbed. We'd bagged up a bunch of non-perishables to take with us, just in case. I can't tell you how happy I was that the previous tenant left two huge bags of high quality beef jerky. Light, easy to carry, tasty, and chock full of protein. The only downside was it made you thirsty as hell, but we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.

  “Lucky for you that they liked it,” I said sarcastically.

  “How can you not like Jersey Shore?” Benji turned to me genuinely surprised. “It's the most entertaining show I've ever seen. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.”

  I smirked to myself at his seriousness. Wonder if he knows the meaning of the cliché he just used, I thought. Everything seemed like the biggest deal on earth when you were twelve. Everything was new and exciting. A lot more of the buzz than I'd like to admit wears off each year. I was only sixteen and I had already learned that. Maybe that's why people are so jaded, I thought. There's nothing new when you get older, just more of the same old crap being repackaged and shoveled down your throat with a shiny new bow on top.

  “I don't have anything against the show,” I said, feeling bad for disturbing what was probably the only relaxing moment he'd had in the last twenty-four hours. “I guess it's just not my thing.”

  “You're not into reality shows?”

  “I've seen my
fair share,” I said. “Dancing contests and sing-off's and dating shows. I guess I just prefer to spend my time reading or surfing the web over watching television.”

  “What about Breaking Bad and Dexter?” Benji asked.

  “Yeah, I've seen those.”

  “Sons of Anarchy?”

  “I was gonna get around to it.” I answered reluctantly.

  “Oh man, you missed out! Too bad they didn't TiVo that,” Benji said, slipping back into a false sense of security. “We'd have to camp out here until you'd seen them all. If Netflix was still working you'd have to drag me out of here kicking and screaming.”

  “We'll have to look into that at some point,” I said. “You know, when things slow down.”

  I flashed a weak smile. Benji gave me a look that suggested I'd given him a satisfying answer and he turned back to the television. He switched shows to some guy doing a back flip on a motorcycle over a monster truck. It's amazing how much comfort we all used to take in moving pictures. I'm not gonna lie. I loved television when I was younger, just like everyone else. Moto used to call it the “slave box” and make fun of my obsession for Saturday morning cartoons.

  “You've got all the freedom in the world,” he would taunt. “No school, all your chores done, and instead of running wild and exploring the whole neighborhood, you're sitting in your footed jammies eating sugary cereal with your eyes glued to the screen while it kills the few brain cells you still have.”

  I used to think he was so weird, but I soon chalked it up to him being raised in a foreign country. I didn't know why he was giving me such a hard time. Japanese kids loved television even more than we did. Eventually he got under my skin and I bit the hook, letting him lure me in and feed me his philosophy. Less than a month later, he started my martial arts and weapons training. Given the circumstances, it turned out he did me the biggest favor of my life. If he hadn't taught me all that stuff back then, I wouldn't have made it through my first zombie night. Loads of people didn't. They saw the monsters coming but their brains couldn't process what they were witnessing. They'd been taken care of their whole lives, protected from things like this by other people. I heard that tons of them just stood there blankly staring while the zombies knocked them over and ripped off their pound of flesh with their dull gray teeth.

  Don't think about it, I told myself. Stay focused on your goal. If you start thinking about it all now it will overwhelm you and weaken your will to survive. Your survival depends on your staying sharp. What did Moto teach you? Moto told me to stay put. There was more. Think! What did he say about being out in the open? Keep moving until you know you’re safe. Never let your guard down until you are absolutely sure you’re out of harm’s way. This isn’t a mistake you get to make twice.

  I turned back and scoured the street for signs of life, coming up empty again.

  “I think it's time we get moving,” I nervously said. A voice behind me made me jump.

  “Not thinking of leaving without us, are you?” I turned to see Tom's smiling face. He looked like a different person. He had on khaki's and a navy blue polo shirt. Joel was behind him, not smiling, wearing practically the same thing in a darker shade of green. In fact, the only way to tell them apart was by their radical personality differences.

  “Wouldn't dream of it,” I said.

  “Good,” retorted Joel, pushing past Tom and looking out the window. “I got an idea.”

  “I'm all ears.”

  Benji shut off the television and walked over to us carrying the bag of kitchen loot we'd snatched while the twins were cleaning up.

  “One of these houses has a car in the garage,” Joel said. “I know it. I say we make a sweep and find which one it is then load the thing up and head out.”

  “You know how to hot wire a car by any chance?” I asked.

  “People left everything when they deserted this area,” Joel shot back. “They didn't have time to turn off their sprinklers or shut off appliances they wouldn't be using. That's why we have this beautiful air conditioning right? So it stands to reason that if they left all their valuables, they also left a set of car keys.”

  “I hate to argue with you . . .,” I started.

  “Then don't,” Joel interrupted, casting me an impatient look. I ignored him and continued on.

  “. . . but I think the reason we're not seeing cars on the street isn't because the people who own them left 'em in the garage. It's because they used them to flee.”

  Joel shook his head in disbelief. Tom looked down at the carpet. Benji awkwardly looked between Joel and me to see if we were going to escalate this argument into a full scale fight.

  “The sun is setting soon and with a zombie horde just north of here, I'm not sure wasting more time is a good idea,” I said as softly as I could.

  “Fifteen minutes of searching could save us a long and dangerous night walk,” Joel said. “Think about that.”

  Everyone turned and stared at me. It felt weird to have so much pressure on me all of a sudden. That was the last thing I had wanted.

  “Okay then,” I said, giving in and letting him have his way. There was no reason to keep having a power struggle. At the end of the day we wanted the same thing—to be safe and far, far away from that horde. “You lead the way.”

  Joel nodded. A hint of a smile creased his face as he charged out the front door leaving it wide open for us. Benji was last out and he shut it, mostly out of habit I think. We went door-to-door like super aggressive Jehovah's Witnesses, yanking open garages only to find them empty. If we couldn't get the garage open, we went through the house. If the house was locked, we broke a window. Just as I had expected, there wasn't a car to be found. Joel's earlier swagger seemed seriously diminished by our inability to lay hands on a functioning vehicle. At one point we were all excited to find an old Mustang, only to have our hopes dashed when it didn't have an engine. With one house left at the end of the block, the odds were looking pretty slim on locating transportation.

  “You wanna do the honors?” I asked, trying hard not to gloat.

  “Naw,” Joel said in a defeated but much more congenial tone. “The kid can take this one.”

  Benji looked glad to get a chance to participate. The only thing we'd let him do on our search so far was climb through a window to unlock a sliding door. He ran up the driveway and began trying to pull the heavy door up. It didn't look like he was making much progress but then he gave it a hard shove, getting the door over his shoulder and forcing it up.

  “Guys! Hurry! Come quick!” Benji huffed out of breath, sounding like Sean Astin without his inhaler in the Goonies.

  We all turned and ran up expecting to find a brand new SUV or maybe a stash of weapons. Instead we found a tiny looking kid, Samuel Thorn, curled up asleep in a pile of candy wrappers. My only guess as to why he hadn't heard the door open was that he had passed out from exhaustion. Tom nudged him with his foot and the little guy sat up straight and screamed at the top of his lungs like a cornered raccoon. He pulled a dull steak knife from his waistband and waved it at us.

  “Stay away!” Sam threatened.

  “That supposed to ward off the undead?” Tom taunted him.

  “Who are you people and what do you want?”

  “It's me, Sam,” Benji said stepping forward and pushing the knife aside. “It's Benji. Remember me? We used to trade comics back on the base.”

  “What are you doing here?” I didn't want to sound rude but we didn't have all night to sit around while the kid figured it out.

  “I'm hiding from zombies,” he said.

  “Perfect,” Joel said. “That's exactly the answer we were looking for. Bravo.” Obviously he was as frustrated by this kid as I was.

  “But how did you get here?” Benji patiently asked.

  “I was in the school when they swarmed in,” Sam said. “I ran down the long hallway to the back.”

  “That's a dead end,” I shot back. “How did you get out?”

  “You k
now the large oak tree in the yard?” Sam said. “I climbed up to get away from the fighting. From there I managed to get on the roof and jump the back wall.”

  “Pretty resourceful little guy, aren't you?” Tom said.

  “I didn't know where to go but then I found these houses,” Sam said. “They’re just like my neighborhood back home in Sacramento. I didn't even know any of this was here. And I sure didn't realize how tired I was. I guess I just fell asleep.”

  “Looks like you did more than sleep,” Joel said, kicking the empty candy wrappers. “Think you got enough sugar in your system?”

  “Enough for what?” Sam looked confused as he turned back and forth from me to Joel.

  “A long night's walk,” I said, putting my hand on Joel's shoulder to console him.

  Chapter Four

  The sun set even faster than I expected. By the time we'd left Suburbia there were only faint traces of light left in the sky. Once we got down the road from the track homes the landscape changed pretty dramatically just within minutes. Unruly weeds and brittle-looking scrub bushes covered the sides of the highway. All we could see were small, grass covered hills and patches of dry looking trees in every direction. Within half an hour of walking it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We could have been in a foreign country for all we knew. If we hadn't stuck to the road I would have been truly freaked over getting lost or being attacked by a wild animal—or worse. We passed around the bag of goodies we'd grabbed at the house and soon the only sound was the crinkling of wrappers and the crunch of loose gravel between our shoes and the asphalt. I was glad to finally tear into that beef jerky. It was salty and sweet and spicy and surprisingly tender. I chewed it with great relish, enjoying every second of it. It lived up to every expectation I'd conjured up. It was filling, unlike the candy bars we'd grabbed which were mostly just sugar. I tucked away a Snickers bar for when I got tired later and needed the extra boost.

  We naturally fell into two groups without really thinking about it. Benji and I walked a little farther ahead of the pack while the twins kept pace with Samuel and tried to keep him moving along. I could tell Joel was frustrated but didn't want to leave his brother’s side, while Tom had just the right disposition to keep the little guy motivated.