But that was crazy. He’d wasted a few hours pelting freaks with more crap from around the house, and they still had no idea where it was all coming from. They might have looked like people, but they weren’t all there when it came to smarts.
Unless they saw another person. Well, then they were on the ball, headed toward any normal non-freak with a honed-in focus that was really unnerving.
He blinked up at the metal springs, his vision slowly coming back in the darkness. Four nights under this damn bed. Jesus Christ. He didn’t have it in him do it for a fifth. Wincing, he edged toward the left side, then crawled to the en-suite bathroom. On his way out after, his head rolled back and he let out an audible groan: it wasn’t even 6 am yet. All this hiding around and having nightmares had totally fucked with his sleep schedule.
Ahh, hammer—his one true companion. He tucked the wooden grip into his belt loop, then spared a peek behind the curtains. Dawn. A dreamy purple-blue painted the sky, the streetlights giving off a warm yellow glow. Oh, and look at the freaks. He squinted, careful not to ruffle the fabric too much. There were definitely more now than there was when he last checked.
Great. Awesome.
Rolling his eyes, he gently set the curtain back in place before making his way downstairs. No chance in hell he was opening anything to let the impending sunlight in. Nope. The weather had been swell for the last four days, but Collin hadn’t felt a single ray: all the windows stayed blocked off and the doors stayed bolted until the lazy-ass cops got their act together and cleared out the neighborhood.
He paused on the bottom step, suddenly realizing that there was a chance the family might come back sometime soon.
Nah. Any sane person would take one look at this street and bolt in the opposite direction. If the family of 11 Maplewood Drive knew what was good for them, they’d stay exactly where they were until this shitstorm blew over.
Although his growling stomach would have preferred he make his way to the kitchen first, he veered off to the flat-screen in the living room. Two days ago, he’d finally figured out how to get the damn thing working. Remote in hand, he turned the screen on and went through the usual routine of getting to the satellite option.
His eyes narrowed. While many of the channels worked, all the local news broadcasts were out of commission. Met with the multi-colored bars and high-pitched ringing, Collin flipped to another station. Someone needed to be making some announcements here. A whole neighborhood was fucked and no one commented on it?
Something wasn’t right.
He could settle for early morning cartoons though. Collin lingered for a moment, smiling at the slapstick gags, their volume low, then shuffled into the kitchen. No lights. He knew this house well enough to navigate it in the dark now.
The light from the fridge was bright enough to help him find whatever he couldn’t anyway. Unfortunately, no amount of bright light could change the sight before him: totally empty shelves. He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. Even the molding hunk of cheese had been used in last night’s dinner. All the pudding cups were gone, along with the few frozen meals in the freezer.
All he had left was a single measly can of chickpeas. Great. Who the fuck eats chickpeas?
Grumbling, he plopped down in front of the early morning cartoon, a spoon and a bowl of warmed chickpeas in hand, and stared. No matter how many mouthfuls of the tasteless junk he ate, his stomach wouldn’t stop howling. It gurgled through commercials and scheduled programming alike. The constant, stabbing pain of hunger was still there, even after he’d finished the can, and he knew that if he didn’t get something else in him, he’d starve.
What were the statistics again? A human could survive something like three days without water, but three weeks without food?
Like he was going to test that theory.
As the familiar cartoons turned into shows that were beyond ridiculous—kids these days were missing out on good TV from back in his day—Collin took stock of his acquired weaponry. He had the garage tools and the kitchen knives, and he wasn’t scared to use them on a freak.
Well, okay, he was fucking terrified, but he’d like to think, deep down, that when the time came, he’d stab any attacker right in the face if he needed to. And these cannibal freaks probably needed a good stabbing.
He could do this. He could break in to a few of the neighboring houses and raid their fridges. On any given normal day, Collin crept around without people noticing him—and these were normal, fully-functioning people. He was pretty sure he’d be able to get around without halfwits noticing him.
After taking a quick piss and washing his face, Collin formulated a plan. Go out into the garage, take the side door that led outside, get into the neighbor’s yard, break in, eat, move on. He’d eat half of what he found, then carry the rest back. Move silently. Don’t cough or sneeze or burp. Don’t be seen.
Piece of cake, right?
***
Wrong. Not a piece of cake. Breaking into a house with nobody in it was a piece of cake. Breaking into houses that potentially housed terrified occupants and cannibal freaks alike was not a fucking piece of cake.
The only bit of luck he had was that the house next door was empty. While the occupants of 11 Maplewood Drive left their windows unlocked like morons, the family in 13 Maplewood Drive abandoned their house entirely, presumably when the freaks hit. It was easy to push open doors, crack a window, and get in—nothing was locked. Their car was gone too, he’d noted as he scuttled across the lawn, crouched low, and slipped in the front door.
Unfortunately, navigating a new house while scared out of one’s mind wasn’t an easy task. Every creak, every whisper, every scratch sent him nerves into overdrive, and he ended up embedding his hammer in the wall when he thought he heard something behind him.
“F-Fuck,” he muttered, yanking at the handle to drag it out of the drywall. He had to be going crazy. There was nothing there. Nothing in the entryway except for a little table with flowers and family photos hanging on the wall. Shaking his head, he pressed further into the house, creeping along like some secret agent in a spy flick.
He found the kitchen shortly after the hammer incident, and let out a long sigh at the sight of the place. Not only had the family abandoned their home, but they’d cleared out all their food too. In retrospect, that was probably the smart thing to do. If the freaks were here, maybe they were everywhere. Maybe grocery stores were fucked too. May as well take whatever you can get.
Tapping his hammer in the palm of his hand, he did a quick sweep of all the cupboards anyway. There was a packet of Caesar salad dressing in powder form—just add water for instant flavor! Biting his cheek, he stuffed it in his backpack with a frown. At least his food might have a little taste to it, if he ever found something of substance to munch on.
13 Maplewood was a bust, and he managed to get to another house over by creeping behind the hedges. The groans of the freaks were louder once he was outside, more unnerving, and he had to hide in a hedge when one wandered by him. The freak had stopped briefly; its nostrils flared and jaw slack, before staggering off in the direction he’d come from.
15 Maplewood’s front door was locked, but he’d been able to crawl under the garage door, all the while praying for no rats. Collin navigated through the door space with his arms outstretched, taking cautious, quiet steps until he found the door into the house. Unlocked, thankfully.
Look at that—he was lucky after all.
This house was less chaotic than its neighbor; it seemed like no one was in a rush to get out of it. Car was gone too, but that could have meant the family was out for the day, or at work.
And the kitchen was fucking loaded. His mouth watered as he perused the full cupboards and picked through the stocked fridge. Fruits. Vegetables. Steaks. Bread. He could have holed up here, rather than carrying everything back to 11 Maplewood. He could fortify the house. Block some windows. Lock the doors.
Totally plausible.
He nodded
, happy with his plan, and then went for the bread loaf—stopping abruptly when he heard one of those awful, gut-wrenching groans right behind him. The sound sent a chill down his spine, his skin prickling, and for a split-second, he was too scared to turn around.
But then the shuffling started—the limping of heavy feet across the tile floor.
Be a fucking man, Collin.
He drew in a slow, deep breath, then turned on the spot. It was worse than he’d expected: a face covered in bright red blood, the freak—a man in another life—gawked at him with hollow eyes. Hands groping toward him, Collin noted that it looked like someone had torn its fingernails off—or it’d done it personally, scratching at something.
He scrambled back as the freak’s outstretched fingers went for him, and that seemed to anger the thing. It—he was convinced freaks weren’t people at this point… how could they be?—lunged forward, mouth falling open even further, and red-tinted drool spilled over his lips.
“Fuck off, man,” Collin spat, wishing he’d sounded braver than he did. He shoved at the freak, not wanting to get too close, but it was like shoving at a sack of potatoes. The freak staggered to the side slightly, then bore down on him. The hollow look in his eye had changed to something else—something darker. Hungry.
And, without contemplating his next action, Collin swung the hammer down hard, nailing the freak right in the forehead. He almost retched when it broke skin, sticking in the freak’s head like it had the drywall in the previous house. Horrified, he let go of the handle and shoved at the body once more. This time, the freak fell, and it couldn’t get up, no matter how hard it tried. Collin left it rolling around on the kitchen floor, the tiles quickly staining with blood—the freak’s or somebody else’s, he couldn’t he sure.
He staggered out of the kitchen and into the hall, then yelped when another freak—a former woman—lunged at him from the living room. The pearls offset the bloody complexion of the freak’s skin. This one didn’t have the hollow look at all—this one was quite obviously hungry. Hungry for him. Just like the one who’d watched him sleep.
Cursing, he threw all caution to the wind, not caring about creeping around like some super secret spy in a movie anymore, and booked it for the front door. The second freak followed in its homemaker’s uniform, and as he shot a look over his shoulder, his hands frantically unlocking the various locks, he noticed the freak from the kitchen was finally up. It lumbered into the hall behind the other—maybe husband and wife—with the hammer still embedded in its forehead. A new, fresh trail of dark blood rippled down its face, blotting out its eye and staining its clothes.
With trembling hands, he managed to finally get passed the dozens of locks on the front door, then threw it open and scrambled onto the porch—right into the waiting arms of six new freaks. Bloody, smelly, and just downright disgusting, their groans grew louder at the sight of him. Collin staggered back, ducking and dodging, weaving and bobbing, to avoid all those outstretched, grabby hands.
He needed that hammer back—there was no way the screwdriver in his backpack would be as effective as the hammer, and the knives were probably limited in their effectiveness. If video games had taught him anything, it was that blunt, solid objects were the best when fighting off a horde of zombies.
Collin collapsed against the wall when the thought crossed his mind. Zombies. Was he in the midst of a fucking zombie apocalypse?! That kind of shit only happened in the movies or on TV!
No, they were freaks. Freaks with some fucked up wiring. Cannibalistic freaks at that. He ducked out of a freak’s way, then shoved at it as hard as he could. It staggered into the one behind, and the pair fell down the front steps, emitting nothing but that awful groaning on the way down. Once they hit the stone walkway, they seemed down for the count—for now.
He went for the hammer as soon as the freak stumbled out of the doorway, grasping the handle and tugging. Unfortunately, it was really stuck in there: tugging only managed to pull the freak closer to him. The freak chomped its teeth together this time, the loud clacking making his heart pound, and Collin quickly figured he could find another hammer back in 11 Maplewood’s garage. Hopefully. There was a whole set of tools in there. Maybe he could find some power tools too…
He stumbled out of the way as the freaks closed in on him, ducking low and throwing himself down the front steps through a pair of parted legs. The landing hurt, the base of his hands taking the brunt of it, and when he straightened up, he saw some skin had torn away. Nothing fatal. He could ignore the stinging—nothing worse than a skinned knee.
The whole ordeal had managed to catch the attention of the neighborhood. As he struggled to his feet, Collin found he was faced with not six or seven, but dozens of freaks. They lumbered toward him, some faster than others, with their arms outstretched. Hungry. Bloody, broken, fucked. There was no telling what the people they’d been before had gone through to end up like this, but Collin wasn’t going to stick around to find out.
He’d never been much of a runner. He was a great biker, sure, and could weave through rush hour traffic on two wheels like an absolute pro. His bike, however, was in 11 Maplewood’s backyard, and he had to rely on his legs to get him there.
The freaks weren’t the only hungry ones. Powering through the lightheadedness and the pain in his gut, he raced across manicured lawns, weaving around freaks, shoving passed those that got in his way. He went immediately for the high wooden gate to the backyard, fumbling with the lock—it must have clicked back into place when it swung shut before. Once inside, he bypassed his bike and hopped into the kitchen window he’d purposefully left unlocked. The groans echoed after him, and he heard the clamor of bodies being thrown up against the fence.
Inside at last, he slammed the window closed and locked it, then hastily covered it with the blinds. Maybe they’d get confused when they couldn’t find him. The best he could do was hope that they’d wander around the outside of the house for a bit, lose interest, then find someone else to eat.
Attack. Rip apart. Mutilate. Whatever the fuck these freaks did to get their kicks.
Panting, he crumbled to the familiar kitchen flooring as soon as he had both feet on it. In movies and TV, none of the heroes trembled. They faced their fears—sometimes unsuccessfully—and then moved on to the next task. But here he was, shaking like a leaf, unable to get up even when he tried.
He cried out when something pounded against the windows. Fists and nails collided with the sturdy panes, and he could hear them groaning around the porch.
Fortify the place. Reinforce all the doors and windows, and wait it out. Stick to the original plan. Collin ran his sweaty hands through his hair, drawing in uneven gasps. But he couldn’t just wait it out. He couldn’t sit in this house with no food. It wasn’t a fortress. There was only so much he could do to barricade himself in. He wasn’t a pro at anything besides breaking-and-entering, and at this point, he figured a lot of people were going to switch to his specialty.
No matter how well he barricaded himself inside this house, it wouldn’t matter. Collin had chosen 11 Maplewood Drive as his first job of the neighborhood because it was an easy gig: lots of windows to break. If these freaks were determined enough, and it seemed like they were, then they could probably get inside eventually. It just took one of them to pick up a rock and use that instead of a fist, and then it would all be over.
Besides, he couldn’t stay here without any food. Still shaking, he slowly pushed himself to his knees, then his feet, and did a quick scan of the kitchen. Just as empty as before. No magical food faeries stopped by while he was out to replenish the fridge. That last house would have been ideal, had those freaks not already taken up residence inside. He needed to bail. He needed to get the fuck out of suburbia once and for all. The city was probably a better option for him anyway. Sure, it was more densely populated, but he knew where to go, where to hide. He could fortify his apartment with its two windows and bash-proof door—that was where he needed to go, no
t two doors down the road.
But how to get away without alerting the freaks…
He stalked into the living room and pushed the curtains in front of the bay windows aside, flinching when he came face-to-face with a freak. He couldn’t tell if it was the same freak from a few nights ago, but it was gnawing on the window again. If it was, she—it—wasn’t easting: those were some gaunt cheeks.
Swallowing heavily, he searched the room, but quickly realized he had everything he needed. After a quick jaunt into the garage—wherein he heard freaks banging on the other door, groaning—he added a few more tools to his backpack. This time, he wasn’t going to sneak around—if his plan worked, he’d be able to get out of this place without attracting the attention of the whole neighborhood.
Although, in order to make the plan work, he would need to get their collective attention.
His eyes wandered to the giant flat-screen mounted on the wall, and he sprang into action. Turning it on, Collin cranked the volume, and the banging on the windows intensified. Good. They heard it.
Okay. Time to make the run to freedom.
Going against all his better judgment, Collin unlocked the front door and propped it open just enough for the freaks to find a way in. He then turned the TV’s volume up to its max capability before racing to the kitchen, almost tripping over his own feet.
The freaks in the backyard were wandering back to the gate, hopefully attracted to the sound, which allowed him to slip out the same window he initially used to break in, and with no hungry eyes on him—for now—he scaled the drainpipe on the side of the house and clambered up to the roof.
Surprise coursed through him: who would have thought a drainpipe could actually hold him? From the high vantage point, he was able to watch the freaks wander toward the house, drawn in by the noise from the TV below. They came in droves, groaning and shuffling and bumping into one another. Good. Come on, you freaks. Come be a TV zombie instead.
Z Walkers: The Complete Collection Page 3
