Neighborhood Watch (4 page)

There we stood, guardians of the neighborhood. Armed with AEGs, infrared goggles and waterproof GORE-TEX raincoats. We had the gear and we had a plan—or so we thought.

In reality, we had little.

A minute later, as we sat inside Sam's BMW in his garage, I withdrew the schematic and began plotting. “Here's Mr. Clark's residence,” I said, circling the home on the map. “This is the epicenter. This is where it began.” I wasn't sure of that statement either, but I
did
know one thing—it's where I first saw it. “And here's our cul-de-sac at Landbourne, Miss. Lenner's house, about 3.7 miles away, straight shot.” I drew an asterisk.

“Wait, Miss Lenner's?” Sam said.

“Yea our neighbor...” I imagined that fit, small woman trying desperately to fight off the creatures.

Sam hesitated. “Do you think she's one of them now?”

“I dunno, I didn't see.”

“She used to call my mom all the time,” said Sam, “she would call in the middle of the day a lot.”

“She called everybody's mom,” said my brother. “She was nuts man, ever since her kid disappeared.”

“She had a kid?”

“She had a kid dude,” my brother said, as if that answered it. “Real smart like goober here, but  like
really
smart—I think he had like a private tutor.” 

I tried to remember any son. I had always known Miss Lenner as the overly friendly, fitness-obsessed woman with the shaky, squeaky voice. I could never even tell her age. Was she married? Did she have a  boyfriend?

“Who is her son?” I asked.

“He disappeared a couple years ago,” my brother said offhandedly.

“No, that was the football guy from Montgomery High,” Sam said. “The one I told you about.”

My brother shook his head. “I'm tellin you dude, her kid disappeared. Nobody heard about it, it was real hush-hush. She doesn't even talk about it.”

Sam was shaking his head slowly. “Mr. Clark is a rapist...”

“He's
not
a rapist!” I shouted. My brother and Sam acknowledged me for the first time, their eyes widened. For the first time, they were listening.

“And here's where you guys said you saw the other one.” I noted the map slightly northeast of Landbourne, totally disregarding my outburst. “And here's where the cop car crashed and I started biking to get to you guys.” I stared at the map. “It's about a radius of 3.7 miles, in the span of roughly 2 hours.”

Sam frowned. “This doesn't tell us anything, they could still be anywhere.”

I shook my head. I didn't know why, but something told me that they wouldn't stray far from the leader. If the 'super' zombie moved, so too would the others. Granted, I had never heard of a psychic connection between zombies, and I wasn't even sure if they could communicate to begin with...

But then again, these weren't 'normal' zombies. Who knew what they were truly capable of? After all, who was to say all zombies were created equal? If one virus or chemical agent differed from another, the infection could manifest in different ways as well.

I looked out the windows of the garage. The sky was still gray and the rain was coming down like crazy, but not as crazy as before. You could make out the Sam's driveway 15-20 feet ahead of you, not as a driveway but as a wide path of floodwater.  You couldn't see the gravel or sidewalk in some parts, and where the potholes were, the water was deceptively deep. There must have been over half a foot—my bike would not longer suffice.

I knew that the water would slow them down too, but they wouldn't stop. Judging by what I had seen earlier, the super zombie was barely affected. Still, if the other ones were mere walkers, they would take forever to follow their leader.
If
they were following a leader...

“We could always go to the source,” I suggested. It was possible that returning to Mr. Clark's house would give us the chance to stop whatever chemical agent had been released. It was
possible
, but I certainly had my doubts. Even if we went there, what would we do? None of us were experts in chemicals, and even if we didn't encounter zombies, what if we made it worse?

What if we infected ourselves like idiots?

“We should stick to the plan, goober,” my brother said. “Hunt them down, one by one.”

“But how?” I shot. We still had yet to formulate an actual plan. “Sam said it himself, these guns aren't going to be effective.” We didn't even have enough goggles—only two for Mitch and Sam.

Sam nodded. “I know, that's why I've got this.” He reached into the backseat and extracted the goodie. Like all of his goodies, it came contained. Once uncovered, he displayed the giant knife for all to see.
It was a thick, carbon
steel blade, with a sturdy handle.

“Jesus,” my brother said. “Where the heck do you get these things?”

“I dunno,” Sam said sheepishly, “my mom just orders me stuff...”

“Your mom?”

Sam wielded the weapon, turning its enormous blade this way and that.

“That's a gnarly knife, dude,” my brother said.

“It's called a
parang
,” Sam corrected. “14 inch blade.”

But I wasn't impressed. I watched my brother's friend twirl his dangerous toy before I asked the obvious question:

“What are we going to do with that?”

Sam nodded expectantly. “Well one of us will use it, of course.”

“Yea, good luck,” my brother snorted.

Sam shrugged. “We just gotta stun him first with air-soft guns, then we're good.”

“This is retarded. I say we  keep the infrared, head on over to where those cop cars are”--my brother nodded to me—“and grab their pistols.” He leaned back into the passenger seat. “We need
real
guns, not fake ones. Let's just go get their pi—

“I'll do it.”

The two of them turned to me. “We'll
all
do it, little brother,” Mitch said. “Here, let's just get th—

“No,I'll do it.” I said again. “Not about the pistols.” I motioned to the knife. “I'll use it.”

I didn't know what was coming over me. Minutes ago I would have sworn off ever getting so close to one of those things. Now, here I was saying that I'd willingly attack one at close-range. That I would actually trust Mitch and Sam to stun one while I, what, tried to saw off its head with a collectible blade?

“If you think you can do it, then you sh—

“No!” my brother said. “I'm not having goober risk his neck if he doesn't have to. We have to stick together, that's what we have to do.”

Sam swallowed but wouldn't contest.

“So we're going then? We're goin?” My brother looked from me to Sam to me. “Let's go, we'll take my car.”

“No,” said Sam. “Yours won't work.”

“It's bigger,” Mitch said. “We ain't drivin your beemer around, that's for sure.”

“No,” Sam agreed. “We're taking
that.
”

He pointed to the oversized GMC Denali parked next to us in the garage. It was a tank of a vehicle, with big chrome wheels and a shining grill.

“Your dad's car?” Mitch asked.

“Yea,” said Sam, “Perfect for floodwater. I know where he keeps his keys.” He hopped out of his Camry and slammed the door. “It's totally detailed too, bullet-proof. Like half a ton of composite steel.”

I thought briefly of the way the cop car had been wrecked, presumably by the super zombie. I still couldn't remember. 

“Samwise, you're a lifesaver,” my brother said. He threw an arm around his friend. “I'm glad I'm facing the zombie apocalypse with you, buddy.”

“I'll be right back,” Sam said, and he hurried into his house.

My brother and I stood there, silent against the howl of wind. The rain just wouldn't stop. It didn't really make any sense, the way this epic storm just happened to occur on the same day as all this. How the festival just
happened
to be on the same day as everything else. It was the perfect recipe, the whole thing perfectly
planned
... by someone or some
thing
.

I didn't feel safe. I had seen only glimpses, but I knew what that creature was capable of. I knew that it could destroy
us and leave us in bits, literally bits. I knew that it may or may not have a mind. But something about it seemed to scream that it did. Hadn't it turned off the lights in Miss. Lenner's house? What if it was smart, really smart?

“What if it's super smart too?”

“What?”

“What if it's developed an intellectual ability? You know?”

“No I don't know,” my brother grumbled, coming closer. His voice grew quiet, and for the first time in a long time his eyes settled upon  me as an equal. “What are you thinking, little brother?”

“I think it's really smart. I don't even know if it's a zombie. I mean, they all look like zombies, except for this one. It isn't completely falling apart, it has eyes and tons of teeth, it has quickness and strength, and I'm pretty sure it knows how to operate a light-switch.”

My brother's eyes narrowed. “Wh
aa
t?”

“It's intelligent,” I said. “It knows what it's doing.”

“So how do we fight it?”

“I dunno,” I admitted. “We need to find a way though. Pistols might not even come close.” I shivered with the memory. “It had super hard looking muscles, almost like shells. What if they can, you know—deflect bullets?”

My brother was rubbing his hair. “Jesus, goober, you're just letting your  imagination run everywhere right now, aren't y—

“I'm serious,” I said. “The only thing we can do to kill it
for sure
is to blow it up.”

“Blow what up?”

We turned to Sam as he emerged from the house with the GMC keys dangling from his finger.

“Sam,” my brother began, “we have some work to do.”

***

We roved the rainy roads like soldiers in an armored boat. The GPS in the car kept stalling no doubt because of the storm, but with a slap here and a light punch there, Sam was getting it to work. I sat in the backseat, waiting for this game to begin. 

“You sure this is where the cop car rolled?” Mitch asked.

“Yea.” I peered out into the ever-gray sky. When would this fucking rain stop?  The GPS kept saying we were right on top of it, but we weren't. Where was the damn car?

“Over there,” Sam said. The cop car was still turned over as I remembered, with its side torn open.

“You're telling me one zombie did that?” my brother asked.

I nodded, though I couldn't remember for sure. “The super one.”

The 'super one' could have been around here anywhere. It could just jump out of the darkness like a wolf in the woods. One moment you were sitting there, all hunky-dory, the next moment you were already dead. As much as I wanted to forget, I kept having flashes of its first attack on Landbourne. The cop never stood a chance. He didn't even have a chance to react.

“There's one for ya,” Mitch said. “That's just like the one we saw.”

We pulled along the cop car, as close as we could get in the big Denali. The zombie from before had washed halfway up on the sidewalk.
The skeletal face, tattered clothing and blackish flesh of the creature were what I recalled.
The cop, however, was nowhere to be found.

“The gun should be around here, right?”

I shook my head. There was no way we would find it, it had probably washed away. The only chance was that there was another pistol in the car—which was unlikely.

Reading my mind, my brother asked the question: “You think he's got another in the car?”

“Why would he have another in the car?” Sam asked.

“You don't think there is?” my brother said.

“We're not gonna find weapons anywhere, man,” Sam said. “What we got is what we have.”

“It was worth a shot,” Mitch said, deflated.

Sam sighed as he shifted the gear back into drive. “So where we going?”

It was at a time like this that I realized we would never have a plan. The foolish hero in me said that we had to hunt down every last one, but the realist said “no.” The realist said that I should stay in Sam's house with Mitch and Sam, up on a hill behind steel gates, in a home that was designed to be impenetrable. But even Sam had found that idea stupid. If he lived there and knew the house wouldn't hold, what were we to do?

How much longer could we keep driving? The infrared goggles wouldn't work well looking through the windows of the Denali, meaning that we had to get out there, in the slosh. And if we were out there in the slosh, we were vulnerable. There was no telling how long the rain would go, soon the car might not handle it. There was no point in driving too far and getting stuck. Where would we go, the police station?

Again, something told me that we had to return to the source. Back to the “epicenter” at Mr. Clark's.

“Well we need to do
something
,” Mitch complained. “We can't just sit here and wait...”

“Maybe we can,” Sam surmised.

“No Samwise, we need to take it to
them
.”

I peered out the window. The speckle of yellow and orange must have been the interior lights of homes. From my vantage, they seemed to float in a sea of gray, like mirages or phantoms. As if the whole world were suddenly somebody's eerie, water-filled nightmare.

A loud
thwack
yanked me from my thoughts.

“Holy shit!” Sam veered the vehicle to the left as the mutilated body flew off the hood. I looked, catching a glimpse of the zombie. It was back on its feet seconds later, trembling with its bony arms to his hands. Its crippled fingers were curved like hooks, its hollow eye sockets burning in a skull of craters and goo.

“Floor it!” Mitch yelled.

I was surprised by the sudden power of the GMC, despite the heavy flooding. We surged forward, and as the zombie lunged straight for the windshield, Sam and Mitch shared a mutual cry. A moment after, the creature bounced with a sickening thud and fell forward. Sam, foot glued to the accelerator, offered a primal yell. “Fuck
yooou
, brainstem!”

The giant SUV thumped over the recovering zombie, and then back. And then forward. And then back. And then I was peering out, watching the crushed carcass sink into the sludge behind us, back into the endless gray.

“Jesus... Christ,” my brother breathed. “Was that the super?”

I shook my head. “Not at all.” These guys clearly had no idea what we were up against.

“We got our first kill though,” Sam said.

Mitch laughed nervously. “Pretty easy, huh?”

I wanted to feel good about it, but there was no guarantee we had killed anything. For all we knew, the zombie was resurfacing right now.

“Let's go back to the start,” I said then.

“You wanna go back home, goober? No way.”

I searched my brother's eyes. He was doing a bad job of hiding his fear. “We have to go back,” I said. “Not home, to Mr. Clark's.”

For a second I thought about actually going home, back to the cul-de-sac, back to where I had first seen the super. The only thing I could use from our house—the only thing I was
supposed
to use—was sitting in a drawer in my bedroom: my inhaler.

I had been to several doctors and none of them seemed to agree. One guy had even said that I didn't have asthma. Most had said that it was 'allergy-induced' asthma while another had told me confidently that it was 'exercise-induced.' How I could have exercise-induced asthma and bike like I did was beyond me. Sometimes I believed that it wouldn't exist if I didn't believe in it. Sometimes, I swore it was all in my mind.

“What is that?” came Sam's voice.

We all looked out into the wet gray. There were several figures huddled in the middle of the road. They seemed to be bent over, observing something. Sam and Mitch shared a look as Sam brought the Denali to a crawl. The big vehicle lurched as it came to a complete stop.

“What do you think they're doing?” Sam whispered.

“I don't know,” my brother said. “Do you think they're human?”

I couldn't tell and neither could Sam or Mitch. Only the dark huddled forms could be discerned. The downward facing position of the figures had not changed since we pulled up. This meant that either they were ignoring us, they didn't notice us through the rain and wind, or they were too busy focusing on something else...

Suddenly I grabbed Sam's knife out of the container. Without thinking, I motioned to Sam and Mitch. For the first time in a while, nobody said a word. I fastened the hood of my rainproof raincoat over my face. Sam and Mitch fastened their infrared goggles and then cradled their AEGs. Sharing a mutual breath, we hopped from the protective vehicle and into the slosh.

“It's showtime,” said one of them.

I slowly followed, Mitch leading the way and then Sam. We moved in a diagonal formation, and I fought against the rain, trying desperately to see what was happening ahead. Sam and Mitch continued to guard, looking left, right, ahead and behind. All I could do was trust...

And then I could see. There were three of them, like us. But they were not like us. They were gnarled and bony with that black fluid oozing from their pores. They were  bent over, quivering on all fours, like ravenous dogs clamoring for the same meal.

I watched, in disgust, as they sunk their rotting teeth into whatever it was. It looked slimy and moist and gushing with every chattering bite. The zombies continued to groan and grumble in that deathly way, so focused that they didn't even notice us.

Mitch nodded to Sam as the two of them pointed their AEG's at the targets. Taking a breath, I brandished the knife and waited for their move. But Mitch would not fire. One of the zombies, one with longer strands of hair, with a ripped shirt that I thought I recognized, suddenly looked up. And then I knew who it was. That tight, small face was still recognizable, despite its mutilation.

“Miss. Lenner...”

The other ones looked over as well. Immediately they came to their feet. We couldn't wait, they would be too fast.

“Mitch!” Sam said.

Mitch fired. The automatic electric guns ripped off in quick succession sending the zombies jumping and dancing with the flurry. As Mitch and Sam discharged, the deathly creatures came closer. My brother and his friend backed up.

“Bill, get back!”

The blade tightened in my hand. Could I do this—would I make it?

“We can't hold 'em!”

I was running back toward the Denali, and to my side Sam and Mitch as well. We hopped in, throwing the doors to a close as Sam slammed his foot on the accelerator. Then we were careening into the three moving zombies. They flopped like fish out of water, squishing against the windshields and windows, splatting against that bullet-proof exterior with surprising power.

“Fuck you, fuckers!” Sam yelled.

Again, he repeated the same tactic. The heavy GMC rocked and rolled atop the feverish creatures, cracking limb and bone, splaying them—hopefully—to a fine paste.

But there was no way of telling. Were they underneath, were they off to the side, were they lurking low, somewhere in the slop? I could imagine the zombies shooting their hands up through the bottom of the vehicle, those flesh-less fingers clawing for my ankles.

“Run them over!” my brother shouted. “Crush those stupid little fuc—

***