The Zombie Zovels (Book 1): Zombie Suburbia

by Lake, D. K

  “I think he was just being friendly.”

  “He didn't blow you a kiss.”

  “Yes because he knows I'd probably give him the finger.”

  “You're so grumpy today. Are you getting your period?”

  I gave her a sidelong glance. “You wanted to see outside, you're outside, now stop bugging me and go annoy someone else.”

  “Fine.” Stacey skipped ahead (she actually skipped) and stopped next to Jasper. Lane looked back at me to see what I was doing, he fell back a few steps and waited for me.

  “Aren't you hot?” he asked.

  Lane had opted for jeans and a loose vest, exposing his muscular arms.

  In the last four months, the only thing different about my body was I'd put weight on, with all the extra food and lack of exercise. Maybe I should start using the gym.

  “I'd rather be hot than risk getting scratched by a dirty fingernail.”

  Lane lit up a cigarette and we walked beside each other following the other two. I could hear Stacey giggling again. All she ever did was giggle and ogle boys. I found it pathetic, but she had been trapped inside for over a year with the exception of the yard. It wasn't that bad inside the prison, and it wasn't as boring as Stacey made it out to be, we kept ourselves entertained, playing games, reading books, one of the girls was teaching us Yoga, we played ball games, and even had a social night where everyone gathered together once a week for music and games.

  Lane and I didn't talk and walked side by side in silence, then he picked up my hand. My feet slowed down as I looked at our entwined fingers, and when I didn't protest he pulled me closer to him.

  “I miss you,” he said, making sure the two in front didn't hear.

  Not that it made a difference, Stacey turned around and saw Lane holding my hand and grinned before whispering something to Jasper.

  “You see me every day, Lane.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Do I?”

  “We never spend any time together, the only time I catch you on your own is gone midnight.” “So you just climb into my bed because?”

  “Because I miss you.”

  I sighed. “Meghan not keeping you entertained enough?”

  “You know I don't want Meghan.”

  I laughed. “Have you told her that?”

  “What happened between us?”

  “Everything! I look after Ozma, I help Tammy out in the playroom, Jasper won't leave you alone, and Stacey follows me around like an annoying wasp.” I said.

  Stacey turned around and pulled a silly face at me. “Things are different.” I added. “Not the way I feel about you.” Lane said, rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand. “You know they can hear you, actual people with ears that can hear you.”

  “I don't care.”

  “Maybe next time Meghan throws her arms around you, you can tell her how you feel about me. She tells everyone I'm obsessed with you and the only reason you're nice to me is because you don't want to hurt my feelings.”

  “What?” Lane laughed.

  “Yeah, she does, she even told me that.” Jasper butted in.

  “See,” I said.

  “She's not my type... not anymore.” Lane said.

  Grrr! Boys were so confusing. They want you one day, then the next they ignore you. It was a long hot walk into town and I was already halfway through my water bottle. I wasn't too worried, I knew I would be back by tonight and if I got really thirsty I could just steal Lane's bottle. The town came into view and Stacey started getting excited again.

  “What is with you?” Jasper asked, eyeing her up and down.

  “I'm excited! I can't wait to start digging through other people's closets. I really want some new underwear, the ones I'm wearing now, are like, jumbo sized granny panties.”

  Jasper burst out laughing.

  “It's true they are. I want something a little smaller, maybe a bit stringier, like yours.” she said, playfully smiling at me.

  “Stacey, I don't think the boys really want to hear about your underwear... or mine.” “Oh no, do go on. What were you saying about Alex's stringy underwear?” Jasper asked. “Okay, can we stop talking about my girl's underwear.” Lane said, letting go of my hand, pulling his bag around, and pulling out the map.

  “Hey, man, where did you want to search today?” he asked Jasper.

  They both stood examining the map together, turning it around every few seconds. “Do you know how to use that thing?” I asked.

  Lane looked up and smirked at me. Jasper pointed to the map.

  “We haven't been down these streets here, we hit those two last week.”

  “So we need to go right when we get into town?” Lane asked.

  “Yep, then we cut through here, and past this building here, whatever it is.”

  “I think that's a church.” Lane said.

  I nodded my head in the direction of the town, and Stacey and I walked ahead letting the boys decide on the destination.

  “Do you think they'll be any zombies?” Stacey asked.

  “I don't know, we've been really lucky each time we've come here. I think the zombies have all moved on, or the people all evacuated before the disease hit the town. Why? You're not getting cold feet are you?”

  “No.”

  “Look, I'll let you into a little secret, a survival tip.”

  Stacey turned her attention to me.

  “All right, so if you see a zombie what you gotta do is, you hold your arms up and waddle.” “Waddle?”

  “Yeah, waddle, like a penguin, it really confuses them, they'll think you're just another zombie.” “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. You should try it now, so you can perfect your zombie waddle for if we bump into any along this road.”

  “Okay,” she said, lifting her arms, pointing the golf club down the road, and widening her steps. She kind of looked like a toddler with a full diaper.

  I was laughing so hard on the inside. I was so mean sometimes.

  Jasper jogged up beside her and imitated her movements.

  Lane smiled at me questioningly. I shook my head trying not to laugh.

  “Stacey was just practicing her zombie walk, you know, for when we run into a zombie.” “I think you need to add some sound effects, like this...” Jasper made a load of different sounds that ranged from gagging to gurgling, and Stacey joined in.

  Lane and I burst out laughing.

  Stacey looked at us both then back at Jasper who was grinning.

  “You guys are pulling my leg aren't you?” she said, dropping her arms and standing up straight. All three of us continued laughing and she walked off in a huff.

  “You guys are all jerks!” she called over her shoulder.

  Jasper hurried to catch up to her and waved his arms in front of her and gently smacked her in the face with his floppy zombie hands.

  “Knock it off, Jasper.” Stacey snapped.

  “I was just messing with ya,” Jasper said, putting his arm around her shoulders, and she soon forgot all about it.

  We all settled down a bit as we approached the town, even though we hadn't run into many zombies before, I still didn't want to risk being too noisy and attracting attention.

  Lane and Jasper led the way, detouring, trying to cut time off the journey, but, instead, we just got lost. I took over the job of map reading and redirected us back onto the right path. It was a quaint little town, each house had character, and I think the whole town had a thing for flowers, they sprouted up everywhere, amongst the untamed gardens. We finally located the street the boys wanted to search. We made our way through four houses. I picked up two bars of soap, face wash, clean socks, cleaning spray because Helen had asked me to bring her some back, three children books for the playroom, another deck of cards, and a couple of new CDs for the games room. I think everyone was sick of listening to the same music. I didn't know how many more times I could listen to One Direction without snapping the disk. I couldn't carry too much,
but I thought maybe another time we could all walk further into town and get a shopping cart to fill with goodies. I always felt sort of bad when I walked around the different houses, helping myself to whatever I wanted. The only thing that made me feel better was realistically I knew the owners were either dead or a zombie by now, and neither one of those needed clean underwear or moisturizer. We weren't searching for food so much, we had plenty back at the prison. We searched for things we liked and other things that made our lives that little bit better, like deodorant, and I usually took back any nail polish I could find for Stacey. Today so far, Stacey had found herself numerous lipsticks (I have no idea why she wanted them), a handful of colorful scarves that she wanted to hang up inside our cell, a new pillowcase, a mug with a cat on, and numerous clothing items... and counting.

  I sat on the bed as she rolled another top up and pushed it down into the bottom of her bag trying to utilize the space.

  “So far, that's seven tops, a pair of jeans, three pairs of shorts, one dress, and two sets of pajamas.” I said, looking under the bed, surprised to find a box full of sex toys which I quickly slid back under before Stacey caught sight of them. I could just imagine what Jasper would do with them if he laid eyes on them, he and Lane would be dueling around the bedroom.

  Stacey walked back out the closet, only wearing her bra and panties and stood in front of the full length mirror.

  I was so bored. I think I would have preferred killing a zombie over watching Stacey change into countless tops and dresses. The last few houses hadn't been what she was looking for, but this closet was apparently full of everything she wanted. The boys had found a Xbox downstairs and were picking out games and raiding the liquor cabinet.

  Loud footsteps clomped up the stairs and both the boys came crashing through the door. “Zombies! Zombies, everywhere.” Jasper said panicking, quickly closing the door. “We're completely surrounded. There were so many I couldn't count them all.” Lane said, roughly grabbing me and pulling me away from the door.

  Stacey let out a whimper and dropped the dress she was holding, and backed herself into the dresser.

  “What? I just checked out the bathroom window, the street was empty.” I said.

  “Newbies,” Jasper said. Stacey had gone as white as a sheet.“It's okay, I'll protect you.” Jasper soothed her and pulled her into an embrace.

  I raised an eyebrow and looked at Lane.

  “Newbies? They usually make a lot of noise. I don't hear anything.”

  Lane smirked, and I looked back at Jasper, he had his hand on Stacey's butt.

  “Stacey, there are no zombies.” I said.

  She lifted her head up and looked over Jasper's arm, then she looked up at Jasper. “Ugh, you little weirdo. I can't believe I just let you grope my ass.”

  “But if zombies were invading it would have been okay?” I asked, laughing.

  She grabbed a robe off the back of the door and quickly covered herself.

  “Are you two done?” Lane asked.

  I wanted to say yes, but I looked at Stacey who was shaking her head slightly.

  “No, we're apparently not done.”

  Jasper groaned.

  “Look, it's fine, you two go on to the next house and we'll meet you there, and if you're not there we'll just keep moving along the houses until we find you. This might take some time.” I said, checking my watch. 3.05pm, we had to be leaving in an hour.

  Jasper nodded and swung his ax, chipping a piece of the dresser.

  “Whoops.”

  “Be careful.” I said.

  “Something tells me the owner won't mind.” Jasper said, walking out.

  Lane was about to leave but glanced back at me once more. He smiled at me and nodded. It was his be careful smile and nod.

  After another forty minutes, Stacey was finally ready to go. Her bag was bulging. “I hope that doesn't slow you down if we get chased.” I said, jogging down the stairs. Outside the weather had changed, dark clouds drifted overhead covering the sun and a chilly gust of wind whipped the leaves up, swirling them into the air.

  “Where do you think they'll be?” she asked.

  “I have no idea, I didn't expect you to take so long. For all I know they're already in the next street.” I let out a sigh. “I really wish we had cell phones.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We are going to walk from house to house, and you can wait on the sidewalk while I ring the doorbell and pray a zombie doesn't answer the door.”

  “Some of the doors are open. They're probably in one of those.” she said, looking down the street. “Not necessarily, if a door is locked they usually go around back and smash a window in, trust me I know what those two get up to. So they could be anywhere.”

  I started walking down the street, I left four houses then knocked on the fifth door along. No answer. Then I knocked on the sixth, seventh, and so on. In the end, I doubled back, thinking I'd missed them and they hadn't heard me. It was 4.10pm and we needed to be leaving. I was starting to worry. What if something had happened to them?

  Another ten minutes ticked by. Stacey was already fed up of walking and I'd left her down the street sitting on the curb. She had her golf club with her and I only hoped if something came running at her she'd know how to use it. Maybe I should have given her lessons on how to defend herself. Another ten minutes, I was deciding whether we should start walking back, maybe the boys had found something interesting and lost track of the time... or maybe they'd been eaten. I quickly shook those thoughts from my head.

  I started pacing and walking around in circles. Something wasn't right. I was about to start entering houses when I heard laughing. I spun around and saw a side gate swing open. Lane and Jasper appeared, Jasper had his arm over Lane's shoulders as Lane helped him down the driveway. I raced across the street. Jasper was hopping on one leg and at first, I thought he'd been attacked, but there was no blood.

  Stacey had seen us and was walking over.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Funny story, I um, fell off...” Jasper said.

  “Off what?” I demanded.

  “Trampoline.” Lane replied.

  “So, while we've been stood around wondering where you two are, you've been off in someone's backyard jumping up and down on a trampoline?”

  They both looked guilty.

  “It's not broken, but it's buggered, I can't walk on it properly.”

  “Maybe you sprained it?” Stacey said, stopping next to me.

  I looked at the pair of them.

  “You're both idiots.” I said annoyed.

  “Damn!” Jasper said.

  Lane grinned at me, then turned to Jasper and held out his hand.

  “What?” I said.

  “I bet Jasper you'd call us idiots when we told you, he bet you'd call us morons. So I win the bet, two smokes, pay up.”

  Jasper grunted and handed Lane the cigarettes.

  “Really?” I said, throwing my arms up in the air.

  I started walking, then realized there was one problem stopping us from getting back to the prison on time. Jasper.

  “He's not going to make it back before sundown. It's now 4.50pm, we were meant to be leaving at four and that was when we could all walk at a steady pace. Jasper can't even put pressure on his foot.” I said, watching him trying to stand on it and falling sideways into Lane.

  I ran my hands down my face going over our options in my head.

  “What if we find something to push him back in?” Stacey said.

  “Like a wheelbarrow?” Jasper said.

  “Yeah, that would be great, where have you seen one?” I asked.

  “I haven't. I was just making a suggestion.” Jasper replied.

  “Well, that's not helpful.”

  “Should we search gardens?” Lane suggested.

  I looked around and checked my watch again.

  “We haven't got time to check the whole street.”

  “So what
are we going to do?” Stacey asked, fidgeting on the spot nervously.

  Lane looked at me, he was thinking the same thing I was.

  “If we don't find a wheelbarrow before 5.20pm then we're going to have to give up on the idea of going back tonight. It's cutting it too close, we'd be safer hiding in a house for the night.” Stacey's eyes widened and frantically scanned the windows of the houses across the street. “We can't stay here all night.” she squeaked.

  “We might have to.” I replied.

  “What! No. They can stay, we can start walking back now.”

  “Wow, you're such a caring person, Stacey.” I said.

  “Alex, this is insane we can't stay here, it's not safe.”

  “Look, you wanted to come so badly and this is the situation. If you don't like it, you don't have to stay, I'm not stopping you from going back.”

  She looked at me as if I was crazy.

  “I'm not leaving them. So either start looking for a wheelbarrow, or start walking, your choice.” She walked off and up the first driveway in front of us. I wasn't sure whether it was the best thing to let her go wandering off on her own, but we needed to split up to get this done as quickly as possible. Lane left Jasper on the curb and ducked around a house opposite.

  After I had searched another eleven backyards I gave up and walked back. Didn't anyone own a wheelbarrow in this town? Well, it was too late now.

  “What now?” Stacey asked in a timid voice.

  All three of them turned to me.

  “We find a house, one without any broken windows, one with a wide porch or another low roof we can climb onto from upstairs if we have to escape. We all looked up and down the street. “I think I remember one of the houses back there, it was really clean, no broken glass, and they had extended the kitchen so we could climb out of a bedroom window if needs be.” Lane said. “That sounds good. Which one?” I asked.

  “Um, I think it had an orange pot outside, the whole place had a villa theme going on inside, all oranges.”

  “There's an orange garage door down there.” Stacey pointed.

  “Yeah, I think that's it.” Lane said, helping Jasper off the curb.

  I carried Jasper's ax and Stacey carried Lane's bat for him and we all made our way to the house with the orange garage.