He wasn’t ready for that. Not right now.
Instead, he circled through the house quickly and confirmed that all the doors and windows were locked. He peeked out at the driveway and verified his father’s truck was indeed gone. He discreetly shut every open shade and curtain he could before he retreated to his room.
Once there he took stock of his various cuts and wounds. He stripped his clothes off and took a shower, experiencing tart stings as the various abrasions were slapped by the cold water the issued from the showerhead in a weak stream. When he got out he took time to put some ointment on every scratch he could find. The ones he judged more serious received bandages. Once he felt he had patched himself up as well as he was able, he returned to his room and got dressed in clean clothes. His stomach rumbled painfully, demanding attention. As he stepped out of his room, he looked toward the bedroom across the hall. The one his mother had been sleeping in after his father fell ill. The door was open, and after a brief hesitation, he stepped inside. He saw the rumpled bed, and her old clothes in the laundry basket. The room smelled of her, and he found he had to fight back tears once again.
Mom... Mom...
Despite his grief, his stomach rumbled again. He left the room and headed for the kitchen. It was obvious that his dad had ransacked it before departing, which while disappointing did make a certain amount of sense. He found some semi-stale bread and peanut butter, and there was a couple of cans of Pepsi left in the refrigerator, though they were mostly warm. He opened the freezer and found some ice cream—it was mostly liquid, but still cold. He made himself a sandwich, drank some soda, and finished off with the liquid ice cream. For a boy, it wasn’t a terrible repast. As he ate, Matthew listened for any sounds and remained alert. Periodically he crept up from the table and searched the surroundings for any signs of life… or death.
When he was finally done eating, he felt overwhelmingly exhausted once again. He dragged himself back to his room and got into his bed. Despite all the hardship and loss, it was a joyful, comforting feeling to be between his own sheets again, to view the collection of posters and prized objects throughout the room. He pushed the uncomfortable thoughts of his parents out of his mind and, within minutes, he was fast asleep.
It was sometime after noon when Matthew was shocked awake by a horrific sound. He bolted upright in bed, tamping down on a scream that threatened to bubble up his throat. His eyes swept the room once again as he readied himself for the worst. Yet all was silent.
He considered this for a moment. After a time, he wasn’t sure if he hadn’t just dreamt the sound—a deep, resonant groan—that had awakened him. He held his breath and continued to listen. The California sunlight was heating up the house and his had grown warm and a bit stuffy. When he heard nothing other than his own breathing and the vague creaks of his bed as he gently shifted about on it, he decided that he had just been dreaming. Which was reasonable, he thought, given all he had been through over the past couple of days. With a sigh, he slowly lowered himself back onto the bed.
“Aaarrrggh!”
In a flash, Matthew was out of bed and pulling on his clothes. The sound was coming from outside, just outside in the street, or perhaps even in the yard itself. He didn’t want to look until he was ready. He pulled on his sneakers and tied the laces as quickly as he could. He reached to the side of his desk and pulled out the twenty-nine-inch alloy bat he’d used when he still played Little League; the yellow-and-black Easton slugger felt good in his hand. Finally he inched his way over to the window and, taking great pains to move as surreptitiously as possible, he parted the curtains slightly and peered through the tiny gap he had made.
Across the street, on the roof of her house, was his neighbor and classmate Ally Lane. She cowered on a short precipice that extended over the garage, apparently having climbed out of her bedroom window.
Below her several zombies milled about, clawing up at her in their greedy thirst.
Matthew wondered why she had gone out there, but the answer quickly came from her bedroom window. Not one, but several of the horrific monsters were fighting their way out of the window onto the roof. The girl inched away a bit more, but there was now nowhere to go but down. The prospect wasn’t a good one. Once again the horrendous howl came out of one of the creatures standing on the ground—what was once a tall, slim man with terribly long arms that almost seemed able to reach up and snatch the girl. It screamed like a banshee, shaking its head with its effort, mauling at the empty air.
Ally looked terrified as tears poured down her face. While the monstrosities surrounding the house moaned and growled, her eyes were glued on the vicious monsters that attempted to work their way out of the window. The first monster made its way out the window and onto the roof. When it stood up to move toward her, it lost its balance on the pitched roof and immediately fell to the ground. It literally went head over heels and landed with an audible crack upon the walkway below. Matthew let out a brief laugh at the sight, but it died a moment later when the grotesquerie slowly got up off the ground. Its shoulder and arm were grossly dislocated, injuries that would have left a strong man writhing in agony. Yet the ghoul simply arose and staggered toward the front door. Once there, it pounded on it with its one good arm.
The next creature out of the window seemed to possess a greater sense of balance. It left the window and seemed ready and able to crawl its way over to where poor Ally was cowering. It moved slowly along the roofline, pushing the girl to heightened terror as it approached. When the ghoul was within two yards of her it raised its arms to attack... quickly lost its balance, as well. It fell off the side of the roof and crashed into the crowd of zombies below.
If there was any humor in the event, Ally certainly saw none of it. She wept as the zombies kept climbing out onto the roof, one after the other. Matthew didn’t know what to do. He and Ally weren’t close friends, but he’d known her for some time. Standing behind a curtain and watching her meet her fate didn’t sit well with him.
Don’t be such a pussy, he told himself.
He turned and left his room. As he reached the front door, at the last minute realized it would be safer to exit through the back; there was no sense in letting the creatures know where he lived. When he got out and hurried toward the front, he found his brief burst of courage beginning to waver. The sight of the zombies at ground level was an ugly one. The teeming group—at least eight of them, with more falling off the roof every other minute—looked bigger and loomed larger as he watched from across the street.
But the screams of the girl motivated him to move. His father wouldn’t stand there and do nothing, but that was the question: what exactly could Matthew do?
“Hey!” he yelled. “Hey!”
The zombies clustered on the ground below Ally swung toward him with almost perfect synchronicity. Matthew watched the small swarm of bloodthirsty creatures start for him without delay.
“Ally, hang on!” he yelled. The girl didn’t seem to hear him, so Matthew yelled once again. Ally’s head jerked toward the sound of his voice.
“Matthew! Help me!” she shrieked when she saw him.
“I will! Hold tight!”
Moments later Matthew was jogging up the street, working his mind to devise a plan to get the monsters away. He hustled up to the turn in the road, which just put Ally’s house out of sight. There he waited. It was an odd moment of almost frustrated humor, because he had to wait for the creatures to catch up.
But they did, just a moment later. Five, then six, then more of them came stumbling after him, blind to distractions and brutally focused on feeding. Matthew hoped he had gotten most of them away from the house.
He continued moving up the block for a bit, then made a direct and obvious turn into the long driveway of a house he knew. When he reached the structure itself, he covertly raced in a wide circle through the backyard and returned to the street after crossing over to the driveway next door. He hid himself behind some bushes and watched the evi
l parade of monsters follow his path toward the backyard. When the last had entered, he softly padded his way back to Ally’s, staying by the side of the road and continuing to check over his shoulder that they hadn’t caught on.
He found he had confirmed what he’d already suspected—These things are just not that smart!
He returned to find Ally still balancing precariously on the roof, while yet another zombie scraped and scratched its way along the sloping asphalt tiles, fighting to get at her.
“Ally,” Matthew called up softly as he drew near.
“Matthew! Help me!”
“Shhh! Lower your voice!” Matthew said in a whisper-shout. “You’ve got jump down.”
“No, I can’t!”
“It’s okay. It’s not that far. Just crawl down here to the edge, as close as you can. It’s okay.”
As Matthew spoke, the closest creature to the girl grunted loudly as it suddenly found itself slowly sliding down the roof. With the god-awful, spine-stabbing squeak of nails on a chalkboard, it dug its fingers frantically into the roof tiles to try and find a grip. Grim reddish-black streaks were made across the gray tiles as the thing’s fingers were literally rubbed off like bloody chalk marks. And when the tips were worn down to the bone, the scraping sound notched up in pitch. It still couldn’t stop itself. With a slow inevitability it slid down and off the roof, landing in a tired hedge with no fanfare.
“Now, Ally. Hurry,” Matthew urged, drawing the attention of the fallen zombie.
“I can’t,” the girl whimpered, shaking her head and bubbling over with tears.
Matthew realized he was going to have to run this zombie out up the block again, and also that in the process he might start attracting the others back to the house. Instead, he bolted directly to the front door, pausing only long enough to lay the alloy bat up against the side of the zombie’s head, knocking it back into the hedge. He sprinted up the stoop and grabbed the doorknob. To his surprise, it was unlocked, so he threw the door open. The stench inside was palpable, but Matthew was alone in the entry foyer. He closed the door behind him as the zombie outside crawled toward it. The stairs ascended on the right and Matthew raced up to the second floor without hesitation.
He went to the left, toward the side of the house on which Ally was stranded. He started up the hall, but stopped at the first bedroom on the right. To his surprise—and confusion, for this couldn’t be the room nearest Ally—he saw several creatures assembled.
He stood at the door and took in the picture of five monsters hunkered over a half-devoured corpse, feasting away with snorts. The room was half sprayed with blood on the walls, the bed, and the rug, while the dark gray grotesqueries that dined on the carcass had all been painted over their faces and hands and arms by the juice of their kill.
The body was unrecognizable, for the flesh of the face was eaten away. Judging by the tattered clothes, however, Matthew figured it was an adult woman—Ally’s mother.
Matthew stood there stunned to the floor, overcome by not just the gory vision but the horrendous stench of decay, spilled bowels, and fresh blood. The ghastly sounds of the snorting beasts gulping and chomping without reserve was revolting.
Unbidden, images of his own mother flashed before his mind’s eye. Her end had been the same.
Get moving, he prodded himself.
Matthew raced on toward the bedroom at the corner of the hall. The door was open and he saw, right away, a file of seven or eight figures focused on getting out the window to try and retrieve their bounty. Before he could decide whether to storm the room in some way or flee, three of the zombies saw him and turned. His mind was made up for him. He turned tail and ran.
He raced back to the top of the stairs and paused. Again, he saw a chance to draw them away. He yelled out and waited for the first to lumber into the hallway. As soon as it locked its cloudy eyes on him, Matthew zipped down the stairs.
The sight of a surprisingly short zombie at the foot of the steps froze him. In life it had been a boy of around his own age. Now he was an emaciated monster with a distorted mouth that had broken teeth jutting out at funny angles, and an ear that was half ripped off and hanging like torn paper. Its flesh was an oily gray in color that seemed to stink to high heaven from where Matthew stood.
From right behind this thing came another zombie, stumbling in through the now-open front door. Matthew realized then that he should have locked it after entering the house. Through the doorway, he saw other zombies arriving, gathering on the stoop, all trying to force their way inside at once.
The others behind him were just arriving at the top of the steps.
Matthew, standing roughly halfway between the two groups in the middle of the staircase, decided to make a leap over the banister. It was still about eight feet to the floor, but it seemed his only choice. He tossed the baseball bat over the side, and it clanged to the floor and rolled against the wall. He balanced himself up on the smooth hardwood railing. The distance down still struck him as pretty far, but it had to be done.
He eased his feet over in the fleeting seconds he had, then leapt out. He landed on his feet on the hard tile floor, staggering and stumbling back, then fell hard against a small wooden table. It shattered as he crashed against it. The zombies moved closer as Matthew sured up his footing. He couldn’t get to the bat—it was too close to the zombies that shambled toward him.
Instead, he headed into the kitchen—a large fancy affair with a big island counter at the center and miles of space all around. Among the many accoutrements of the grand room were a series of shiny copper pots and pans that hung above the counter area. Instinctively Matthew grabbed a midsize frying pan with a comfortable rubber grip. He weighed it in his hand like a baseball bat just as the small boy zombie came staggering into the room after him.
Matthew let him get close. Then, with all the force and fury he could muster, he swung the pan out like a hammer. He had meant to hit the thing with the open circular bottom, but with his thrust the pan turned and met the creature’s head with the exact edge. To his amazement, his swing cut right through the head of the boy monster with such ferocity, it literally sliced it right in half. The momentum of Matthew’s swing almost wrenched his arms out of their sockets, for the slice was quick and clean. The impact made a soft, disgusting splash of foul smelling brackish goo spurt into the air, which stunk to high heaven. As Matthew steadied himself on his feet and adjusted his strained arms with another grip on the pan, he watched the boy zombie—its head half gone—staggering mechanically for a long moment before rolling over madly against a desk and bringing a pile of papers and junk to the floor with it in a loud and messy spectacle.
The next zombie followed—a tall former man with intense, angry eyes and large pale lips. It came across the kitchen with no regard for what it might be walking into. Matthew was feeling extremely confident after clocking the younger creature. He firmed up his grip and readied to swing.
He saw the monster’s arm rise up in a block even before he’d committed to his swing, but it just seemed so unlikely that any of these abominations would have the sense to maneuver in any kind of practical self-defensive way. But the pan hit its arm with a shock that immediately robbed him of his confidence. It felt like he’d hit a tree trunk, and for a moment his hands stung from the effort. Undeterred by the strike, the zombie reached out with its hand. Matthew backed away, and moved back toward one of the counters. There was a knife rack there. In a smooth motion he grabbed what looked to be the largest handle sticking out of the wooden block and drew it like a small sword.
It wasn’t a knife, but a thin knife sharpener. Matthew didn’t think much about it. The zombie’s advance was driving him into a corner, so he made a running jab with the weapon straight for the zombie’s head.
The creature didn’t try and evade the attack, merely opened its arms, as if to give him a huge. Matthew released a small cry and jabbed at it. The steel sharpener jammed straight into its face just above the nose and s
moothly slid up through the center of its brain and skull until Matthew found his fist, which was tight around the handle, pressing right up against its forehead.
The zombie made a confused noise for an instant, then seemed to freeze up like a machine that had suddenly been turned off. With no fanfare, it collapsed to the floor like a busted robot. But it was only one down with several more to go, and he wasn’t that confident he’d be able to recreate the success repeatedly. Now that he had a bit of breathing room, he darted to the kitchen door and let himself out into the backyard. He made sure the door was closed behind him, then raced around to the front of the house.
Ally wasn’t there. Nor were the zombies.
When he got there he was freaked out to see Ally was missing. The creatures, too, all seemed to have disappeared. Had they all filed inside the house? It was a definite possibility, judging from the ruckus he heard indoors. Already, they were battering at the rear door, and he heard glass shatter.
He studied the scene, looking for signs of life or death. “Ally?” he called softly. “Ally?”
The monster that suddenly appeared from the side of the garage was not just moving at him, it was actually running. For a moment Matthew thought it was the same boy zombie he’d slain inside, for it was his own height, and this added to his shock and fear.
“Matthew!” it whimpered, running almost headlong into him before stopping, practically upon his toes. It was, of course, Ally.
CHAPTER 11
WALLACE AND DARIEN
High above the land in Southern California, daylight seems to almost last forever. Both Darien and Wallace sat on the balcony of their hotel room, detoxing from the intense stress of the last twelve hours. The rooms behind them were dark, and even though they had flashlights, they did not use them. Visible light might bring the hordes, and while they were relatively safe high above the city streets for the moment, that could quickly change. They didn’t speak, just sat in the cooling air and surveilled the land beneath them.
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