Mistakes I Made During the Zombie Apocalypse (11 page)

Ian couldn’t believe his eyes. “Wow, man. You are set.”

“There’s more,” Thomas said as he opened a door on the far end of the kitchen. It led to a garage that was just as stuffed full of food. Metal shelves held all manner of nonperishables. It was a mini mart in the middle of the neighborhood.

“Fuck.” Grant shook his head as he stepped into the garage.

Ian eyed the thin, metal garage door, its face marred by several dents. There wasn’t much separating them from the dead. “They don’t bother you?” he asked Thomas.

“I’m quiet. They don’t know I’m here. Those dents are from my dad’s Buick.”

“Do you think maybe we could grab a couple things?” Grant asked, but he was already reading labels and setting cans he wanted to one side of the garage.

Thomas shrugged. “Yeah, take whatever you want. Or,” his voice quieted, “you could stay.”

Staying with Thomas wasn’t an option for either of the boys. Ian wanted to be nowhere near the remains of his home and Grant could handle no more than twenty minutes of Thomas at any given time.

“Thanks,” Ian said. “Really, thanks a lot, but we need to keep moving.”

Grant gave a half-assed salute. “See you around, Thomas.”

Loaded down with as much food as they could carry, Grant and Ian struck out again. As they made their way down the street, Ian glanced back several times. He could see Thomas in his bedroom window, busy sketching a new piece.

“I can’t imagine what would be interesting about us walking away,” Ian said.

• • •

He had so much food. Someone has to say it.

“Say what?”

Don’t make me say it.

“Grant’s dead now, it doesn’t matter. It can’t be undone”

We are looking to the past. If you had stayed with T.W…

“Grant would still be alive.”

Yes. And T.W. is still alive.

“We don’t know that!”

You’re the one who likes to write others stories how you see fit. I say he’s still alive.

“No! He’s dead too! Everyone is dead!” Ian bursts from the closet, but he cannot escape himself and he is forced to return when he smells the rotting bodies of Grant and Lena. He longs for the safety and security of his own home, but he cannot go back.

Because it is no more.

“And it is no more because…”

…I DIDN’T GUARD MY SANCTUARY

After countless days on the road and after Keller drove them from a house in which they were sleeping, Ian’s shoes, like his patience, had worn thin. They had successfully rid their systems of the need to explore and experience the plague. The novelty had worn off and the true struggle was beginning to show through the shiny veneer they had originally seen.

Ian stared at Grant, who appeared to have aged from the stress of everything they’d been through so far. Dark bags hung beneath his eyes. “Maybe we should go home, to my house, and stay there for awhile,” he suggested lightly, unsure if Grant was really feeling as tired as he looked.

“Yeah, let’s,” Grant replied. He turned around and headed north toward Ian’s.

It wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to see smoke drifting above the buildings and treetops. It was, after all, the apocalypse. Cars burned, buildings burned,
people
burned. Grant and Ian smelled like a campfire just from walking around in it.

But this cloud of smoke was different.

• • •

“It was thick, dark black.”

Go on, Ian. I know it’s hard.

“And it was coming from my street.”

How did it make you feel?

“Warm. Too warm. Angry. Lost.”

• • •

Grant and Ian could feel the heat three houses down. Flames burst from every window; no room was left untouched. As the roof collapsed, so too did Ian. He sat on the sidewalk across the street and watched his old life disappear completely. He became only a boy with a backpack and the dirty clothes that clung to his body. Interestingly, no dead were around.

He closed his eyes and remembered what it was like to walk through the front door, the way the deadbolt felt as he rotated it into the locked position. In his memory, he visited each room and tried desperately to recall every item housed within. But it was impossible to recollect each spice container his mother barely had time to use, each book his learned father had read and added to the home office library, and every action figure Ian had stored in boxes in his closet.

He began to cry.

Grant kept watch while his best friend mourned the loss of everything he called home.

• • •

He sought revenge for what you did, before burning down your house.

“Yeah, he tried to kill us first.”

• • •

Keller made his move one night when they were sleeping in the dining room of another empty house. At around two in the morning, Ian awoke to a sound.

• • •

What did you hear?

“A crying baby.”

• • •

The house was much colder than it was an hour earlier. Ian shook Grant, who kept his eyes closed, but turned over in his sleeping bag.

“Hmm?” he grumbled.

“Do you hear that?” Ian whispered.

“No, go back to sleep.” Grant turned to face the other way once more.

The crying continued and Ian began to worry they’d missed a starving child during their earlier sweep of the house; or that others had entered while they were sleeping. Either scenario meant danger.

He crawled from his sleeping bag and walked carefully down the hall, searching the first floor for the source of the noise. In a corner bedroom, he found it.

The window was open when it hadn’t been before. Frozen air flooded in. The room was empty, but propped in the windowsill was a baby monitor, turned up to full volume. He had only a moment to realize what was happening before a bright blaze in the distance caught his eyes.

• • •

I shudder to remember the sight.

“Me too.”

• • •

Flaming zombies. Zombies covered in fire and walking straight for the house in which they hid, like Molotov cocktails with half a brain.

Ian dove for the monitor and ripped its batteries out, but it was too late. The dead made steady progress across the back lawn, the fire licking their decomposing flesh.

“Grant!” Ian yelled at the top of his lungs, no longer concerned about making noise. “Pack up!”

The first of the zombies hit the side of the house, transferring the fire to the dry wooden frame. A second immolated cadaver came careening through the open window. A wave of heat rushed toward Ian, inspiring him to move.

He ran into Grant, who wore his own pack and carried Ian’s gear in his arms, in the hall.

“Holy shit, the house is on fire!” he said, gazing into the flame-engulfed bedroom.

Ian threw his pack on and they made their way to the fireless side of the house. They found the front door open and a crying child, the same one, called through another baby monitor set just beyond the threshold. Grant kicked it like a football and it landed on the sidewalk, shattering into several pieces. Another group of burning stiffs stumbled in their direction.

On the rooftop of the house across the street, cradling a carefully wrapped baby doll with the other baby monitor strapped to its crying face. Keller grinned.

• • •

It was a very clever idea.

“Keller is full of them, isn’t he?”

• • •

They ran for blocks, their packs bouncing on their backs, until they lost the zombie Molotovs. A gentle wind carried the scent of burnt flesh and wood.

“He’s gone too far,” Grant said as they stopped to catch their breath. “He could have killed us.”

“I think that’s the point.”

• • •

“Surviving was more work than we expected.”

And Keller made it harder.

“Much, much harder.”

Why did he set your life on fire?

“Simply because…”

…I PISSED OFF THE WRONG GUY

Every school has a version of him: the spoiled, rich asshole who acts like he rules the world; a bully who is popular and untouchable. Of all the other kids to survive the first weeks of the apocalypse, Ian and Grant wondered most why Keller Kenton had to be one of them. He was the kind of guy who would kill his parents for the inheritance. Lucky for him, the zombies had done that dirty work and left him alone to do as he pleased.

Ian was finally beginning to feel like himself again after a major breakdown. He and Grant were starting their day at Ian’s house and preparing for another foray into the surrounding neighborhood when an engine roared in the distance. Not many people were stupid enough to make such a racket. They went to a window and watched the street. A moment later a huge black hummer sped by. An untrained or desperate eye might think the vehicle belonged to the military or a special operations group, there to rescue survivors and whisk them away to a safe haven, but the boys knew otherwise.

“Looks like Keller is doing all right,” Grant said, recognizing the most expensive vehicle ever to park in the student lot of the high school.

“He’s going to build a crowd with that engine noise.” Ian watched the end of the street where Keller’s Hummer had emerged and sure enough, the dead followed.

Keller sped up the street every day for a week, bringing more and more of the undead with him each time.

• • •

He always was the leader of the pack.

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” Ian droned. “It was time for payback. Keller made school hell for me.”

You didn’t take charge, though. Grant did. Again.

• • •

“We should make tomorrow his last trip,” Grant said with a plan in his eyes.

“We can’t kill him, Grant. He’s not a zombie,” Ian replied. It was an unspoken rule of theirs, that they didn’t end lives unnecessarily.

“He won’t die, but his tires will.” Grant hefted a bucket full of nails into the kitchen from the garage. “We can break some beer bottles too and spread it out on the pavement.”

Ian wasn’t big on confrontation and knew a bad idea when he saw one, but it was so hard to say no to Grant and Keller really did need his ass handed to him.

• • •

The next day as Ian and Grant ate lunch, they heard the bass of Keller’s music before they saw the SUV. He was right on time and the boys were ready for him. The street in front of Ian’s house was covered with everything sharp they could find. Keller punched the gas and tore through the mess without second thought, making it just a few feet before the tires deflated. Keller threw the Hummer into park and jumped out.

“What the hell have you done?” Keller bellowed. He circled the Hummer, examining the shredded tires as though there might be some way to fix them. There wasn’t. They were gone.

They watched from behind a large rhododendron bush in Ian’s yard, listening to Keller curse as he emptied the behemoth vehicle of supplies.

“You’ll pay for this, Ian!” he yelled and then took off running as the dead started to close in.

“Why am I going to pay?” Ian whined aloud. “It wasn’t my idea.”

“We shouldn’t have destroyed his ride directly in front of your house, I suppose.”

• • •

It wasn’t very smart of you.

“Well, that’s why it’s a mistake, isn’t it? Technically, it was Grant’s fault.”

You could have said no to the whole thing.

“That would be my mistake then, letting him go through with it.”

Ian falls into a fitful sleep. His mind is filled with visions of Keller Kenton. In these terrifying dreams, Keller follows him everywhere he goes, setting ablaze the things Ian loves.

• • •

He wakes the next morning covered in sweat and burning up from the wool coat. A moment passes before Ian is sure he isn’t nearly on fire once again.

You didn’t only stay in houses and stores.

“I just woke up. Give me a minute.”

Your time is limited.

“Ugh. No. We stayed in a hotel once too.”

Because of another mistake.

“Because…”

…I CHECKED OUT

Grant and Ian traveled down a curved section of Interstate 5 to get further into Northgate’s center while avoiding the zombie-infested streets of the neighborhoods. When a break in its tree-lined edges allowed, the freeway gave them a good view of the surrounding area. The permanently parked traffic offered plenty of places to hide in the form of abandoned vehicles.

It also made it extremely difficult to see all the zombies.

The Mini Cooper was the perfect height to hide the legless zombie that struggled behind it. The open door of a sedan beautifully concealed the zombie that lay across the back seat of the vehicle. There were no less than fifty biters that had ended up beneath other cars in the never-moving traffic. They lay in wait to grab ankles and chew through dirty socks. The correctional facilities van was like a jack-in-the-box or Pandora’s box waiting to be opened. Four prisoners were abandoned within and now their rotting wrists were finally pulling free of the restraints.

“Watch my back,” Grant said, “I’m gonna do a quick sweep through this stretch of cars. Keep your eyes on the shadows.”

Ian nodded and followed behind. He was doing a good job of checking until a woman appeared out of nowhere between Grant and him. She was undead and still dressed in her work clothes. When a former nurse is decaying in her scrubs, she looks like every other nurse in the same situation. But to Ian, she could only be his mother. One foot missed a shoe and the height of the remaining one gave her an awkward up-and-down lurch as she gained on Grant. The bobbing of her body was mesmerizing to Ian, setting him into a trancelike state as she drew closer to his friend.

She reached her arms out and grabbed hold of Grant’s hair in one hand and his left arm in the other. In Ian’s mind he could see his mother’s urine-stained pants, her stringy hair, and the hunger in her eyes. He wanted her to be happy, fed.