by William Bebb
*****
It was four in the morning when the cell phone alarm began beeping in Billy's room from under his pillow.
He opened his eyes and saw Boris on his bed. The dog's head tilted as he listened to the electronic chirping of the phone.
The boy slid his hand under the pillow and quickly silenced the alarm. His mom had a cell phone just like Josey's and he knew how to set the alarm, take pictures, make videos, and of course make phone calls too.
He was a boy with a plan. He was going to make a phone call from the top of the valley before sunrise.
Billy felt bad about borrowing (some might say stealing) Josey's phone, but he would give it back after he got everyone rescued.
So if it was stealing, it's not really 'bad' stealing. It's probably more like borrowing something without permission, the boy reasoned.
Billy knew he'd make his grandpa proud of him by going out and getting help all by himself.
Besides the big guy must be crazy to say, “It wouldn't be fair to the monsters if he outran them.” Whoever heard of fairness in dealing with monsters? He wondered and shook his head in bewilderment.
He laid back on the bed with the cell phone on his chest, thinking about how his grandfather had dealt with the monsters from Germany in World War Two. Did the Americans say to themselves 'Gee-whiz the German Air force or Luftwaffe was almost completely wiped out in the last year of the war,’ and in a sense of fairness stop using their airplanes?
HECK NO! The whole idea of dealing fairly with monsters whether they're brain hungry zombies or brain washed Nazis doesn't make any kind of sense. It's no wonder that Josey guy drives a poop truck.
Sometimes Billy dreamed that he and his grandfather were together fighting the Nazis, side by side. And in the dreams they always kicked ass. He smiled bigger and remembered a dream where grandpa was using a riding crop and sitting on a saddle atop Adolph Hitler. He was like a cowboy on a bucking horse and whacking the crazy Nazi on his butt with the riding crop as the Fuhrer cried and begged for mercy.
The cell phone chirped and Billy woke up again. He quickly shut it off and realized he must have dozed off. He savagely pinched his arm hard and felt instantly more awake as he bit his lip to keep from whimpering at the brief bit of pain. “Falling asleep before the mission even begins,” he quietly berated himself. “If grandpa had done that in the war we'd all be eating sauerkraut for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Boris yawned and looked over at the boy who was talking to himself.
“It's true, Boris. There would only be sauerkraut to eat. I bet Nazis made everything out of sauerkraut: pizza, ice cream, hamburgers, and chicken nuggets. Heck, probably even dog food would be made out of sauerkraut.
Well, as bad as that sounds, try and imagine what zombie food will taste like if they win this war: Brain flavored tacos, potato chips, or blood flavored soda pop? Well... I say no way, Jose. This kid will fight and when I get the cops down here to deal with these fart knocker zombies I'm going to be a hero, just like my grandpa.”
Boris stared sleepily with his head resting on his front paws as he listened to the boy's whispered, yet apparently heartfelt speech. When the boy stopped talking, Boris yawned before rolling over and going back to sleep.
“Fine, go back to sleep. Don't worry about me, fuzzy butt, because I don't need your help anyway.” Billy slipped out of bed and put on his zombie fighting uniform- which consisted of blue jeans, a T- shirt with Optimus Prime (his favorite Transformer Autobot on the front), and his hiking boots.
While tying his boot laces, Billy remembered winning second place at the school wide athletics day that was just a week before summer vacation started. He knew none of the bad guys outside would ever be able to catch him unless they cheated like George Mason did during the race. Billy would never forget how George started running almost a full second before the coach shouted, “Go.” Of course, the fact that coach Mason was George's dad had nothing to do with the fink cheater not being disqualified. Yeah, right.
He slipped on his blue backpack which contained the borrowed cell phone, two water bottles, and three plastic baggies with cookies stuffed inside. He then pulled his rifle out of the closet and made sure it had a full load of pellets and checked that the safety was engaged.
Stepping back, he looked himself in the mirror.
The boy appeared tough and ready to become a hero, but still felt a little... not afraid, no not that, but maybe a little nervous as he slung the rifle over his shoulder and quietly opened his door to the hallway. The moon wasn't full, but it still cast plenty of light on the hallway carpet as it shined through the window.
Billy looked back at the sleeping dog sprawled across his bed and felt a horrible moment of indecision.
“Goodbye, Boris. I'll see you tomorrow,” he whispered and sneaked down the hallway toward the backdoor of the trailer.
He felt more nervous (not afraid mind you) with each step. Secretly, he'd hoped the dog would come along as a companion. Not as a bodyguard, he thought, trying to feel brave, just a buddy to keep company with on the trip.
A brief loud scream and several snarling grunts erupted from the front side of the trailer and he froze in his tracks. The snarling went on for a few more seconds then subsided into the nearly continuous grunting sounds he'd almost become used to. He felt like he needed to pee but held it in, fearing if he used the bathroom either grandpa or Josey might hear it and investigate.
Creeping to the back door, he heard Josey snoring in the living room and peeked out at the backyard of the trailer through a window. It looked all clear as far as he could see. After taking a deep breath, he unlocked the door and slowly opened it peeking quickly left and right.
He was looking for bad guys but didn't see any. Reaching around, he hit the lock button on the inside of the doorknob and looked down at the ground.
It was about a three foot drop from the trailer to the dirt below since there never had been a backdoor staircase. Billy lowered himself so he was sitting on the doorway's threshold and then slowly climbed down into the dusty backyard. He paused and listened hard and looked at the large desert expanse beyond.
He could see boulders, a few patches of grass, and a long drainage ditch that went north and south. The bleak sandy expanse that his grandpa sometimes called the New Mexican Sahara appeared devoid of both Screamers and Deadheads. Aside from a few occasional grunts coming from the front side of the trailer, everything was quiet and Billy turned to shut the backdoor.
A fanged mouth with what looked a million razor-sharp teeth was just inches behind him and a foul hot breath panted into the boy's terrified face.
Billy nearly screamed and did manage to wet his pants a little, before he sighed quietly and looked up at Boris in disgust. The panting dog was in the doorway looking down at the boy. “You suck. Don't sneak up on me,” he whispered, looked around again and continued. “Do you want to stay or go?”
The dog whined softly and looked toward the front room where Josey was loudly snoring on the couch.
“Shush, you're going to wake everyone up. Okay, if you're too much of a scaredy-cat, stay here. I'll be back by breakfast.” He started to close the door and Boris leaped down into the dirt and glanced up at the boy before busily turning its head in every direction while nervously whining.
“Shush, we need to be quiet,” he whispered, while closing the door and heard a quiet click when it latched shut.
The boy and dog were like ghosts in the night as they quietly crossed the backyard. The moon was low on the horizon and the stars were beginning to lose some of their brightness as a faint lightness on the horizon slowly grew. It was blessedly cool compared to being stuck in the trailer for the last few days. After a couple of minutes of moving slow and extra quiet, he stopped by a tall patch of prairie grass and whispered, “Keep watch for a second.”
The zipper sounded louder than roaring a machine gun, at least in his own ears, as the boy unzipped his pants. Looking all around,
he tried to take a leak but felt like something was close by- something horrible with big sharp nasty teeth that he knew wanted to eat his brain. Billy stood motionless, feeling the need to pee yet unable to do so, as he felt more and more scared. Then he heard running water, saw the prairie grass swaying slightly, and looked down to where Boris lifted a leg as if to demonstrate to correct way to urinate.
The boy almost laughed as he was finally able to 'let go the yellow flow' as grandpa sometimes called it. Covering his mouth with his free hand, he managed to avoid an all out laugh but still couldn't help giggling. The giggles dried up instantly when he heard a scream and running footsteps back toward the trailer then a gradual return to the regular grunting and snarling followed.
They had only been walking for another minute when a sound off to the right made Boris stop short then sniff and stare intently toward a halfway burned out trailer.
It had caught fire several years earlier when the storage shed next door exploded. After extinguishing the flames, the fire fighters and police determined the meth lab that had been operating inside hadn't been an entirely successful one.
Billy stopped and looked where Boris stared and unlatched the safety switch on his BB rifle. It was no ordinary gun. In fact, it was a very powerful one. His grandpa bought it for him on his last birthday. But his mother made him leave it at his trailer. The more a person pumped the rifle the more powerful the shot would be. Over the last few days, Billy repeatedly begged his grandpa to let him shoot at the zombies, but he wouldn't.
Before they left the trailer and began their expedition he pumped it up as much as it would go. He looked in the direction Boris was sniffing and staring intently before aiming the rifle in his trembling hands. Billy glanced back the hundreds of yards to his grandpa’s trailer then heard a sound near the burned out trailer. Something was moving in the clutter around the yard and he thought it might be coming their way. Coming out here was probably not a great idea after all, he realized while listening to the distant grunting of the undead and the much closer rustling of something in the wild prairie grass. He saw the tall grass moving only about twenty feet away and fired low, thinking it could be one of the crawling deadheads.
The rifle was nearly silent, but the cat's screaming yowl was deafening. The large cat jumped up about three feet into the air and after reaching the ground again took off running after being shot in its butt.
Billy watched the cat run south and looked down, red faced, at Boris who looked up with a grin only a dog that has witnessed something very funny could exhibit. “Oops,” he whispered. “Well, at least we know-”
Something much bigger than a cat rattled in the darkness nearby, and he could hear other sounds coming closer.
“It’s time to run,” he said quietly and sprinted away from the grunting sounds.
The boy ran between the mostly burned out trailer and an old oil barrel on its side, still heading north, (he hoped.)
There were more noises behind him in the darkness, but he and Boris were running hard and very fast with no desire to look back.
