A Small World

by R. S. Merritt

  Chapter 12: The Random Mansion

  Mike drove slowly up the winding driveway to the large house they’d seen from the road. The closer they got the larger the house appeared. By the time they’d parked it loomed over them. They exited the truck as quietly as possible. Each of them recognizing in their own way how odd it was that less than a few miles down the road people were living in complete squalor while here the house they stood in front of could’ve been straight out of ‘Gone with the Wind’.

  “Hopefully, rich people keep more gasoline in the garage.” Mike deadpanned as they all stood around staring at the huge house. Mike went around to the back of the truck and pulled out the hatchet. He handed a fire poker to Kyler and another one to Seth.

  “There’s a car here.” Seth said. “Maybe we don’t need to go inside. We could just siphon some gas.”

  It made sense. If they could siphon gas into the truck, then they could just keep on driving. If they left immediately, they’d lose the opportunity to ransack a house that more than likely had some decent gear in it. The car meant more than just an easy way to get gas though. It also meant there was more of a possibility that someone was home. There was a large attached garage they hadn’t even peeked in yet so for all they knew the house could be full of people. Or, the house could be full of Zombies. Based on their luck and the fact no one in the house had tried to shoot them yet, it’d be Zombies.

  Kyler went around to the back of the truck and pulled out the hose. Then he stood there staring at Mike. When Mike didn’t say anything Kyler finally asked him how they were supposed to use the hose to siphon gas.

  “You’re the eagle scout.” Mike said.

  “You specifically told me to get a hose to siphon gas.” Kyler said.

  “It can’t be that hard to figure out. Let’s cut the hose down to about six feet then we feed one end into the car with gas and suck on the hose until gas comes out then we shove that end into the truck. Or, at least that’s the way I think it worked on a movie I saw.”

  They fumbled around with cutting the hose then figured out they needed to open the other cars gas tank from inside the car. The other car was locked. It was also alarmed. When Mike tried to open the door the car alarm began going off. A few seconds later they heard those inhuman screeches coming out of the woods surrounding the house. Using his poker Mike busted through the window of the car and got the door open. He slid in the driver’s seat, popped the hood and yelled for Kyler to try and get the cables off the battery. Kyler stared at the battery terminals. Without a wrench he had no way of getting the cables off. Trying to hack at them with his knife just earned him an arm numbing shock.

  Mike jumped out and ran around to the gas cap. He’d finally found the gas cap release. He fed the hose into the gas tank and told Seth to hold that. Running past Kyler, who was busy jumping up and down and holding his arm, Mike got back into the truck. He drove it around to the side of the car and jumped back out to take a big gulp of gasoline fumes through the hose. It worked. Gas started flowing. He started to shove the hose in the truck and realized the hose wasn’t quite long enough. He tried to pull it out further and the gas stopped coming out.

  The screeches were getting danger close. Completely freaked out, Mike shut down the truck and yelled for Seth and Kyler to grab their crap and get in the house. He figured they could hide out in the house until the Zombies gave up and went away. The car battery would eventually die. The alarm was still signaling the entire countryside that some dumb, uninfected humans were here for the killing if any Zombie wanted some. Mike ran and tried to open the front door to the house. It was locked, so he slammed the hatchet through the window next to the door. He started to put his hand through the hole he’d made to try and get the door open when a Zombie shot it’s arm out of the hole and tried to grab him. He jumped back with a curse and swung the hatchet at the bloody arm that was flopping around trying to grab him.

  Kyler saw this was going nowhere and yelled for them both to follow him as he ran for the side of the house opposite from where it sounded like most of the screeching was coming from. As they ran past a big picture window in the front of the house three Zombies inside slammed up against the window screaming and trying to get at them. The Zombies broke the glass and started coming through the windows as they sprinted for the side of the house. Mike looked back over his shoulder and saw two Zombies coming for them from across the lawn. He saw others coming down the road towards them. The ones in the house would be after them soon as well. He got ready to fall back and fight, so the kids could escape. Also, he hated running.

  They turned the corner around the garage and spotted a small side door. It was the door used to take the garbage out of the garage. There was a large trash canister that a truly revolting smell was coming out of right by the door. Mike yelled to try opening the door as Kyler was reaching for the knob. Mike turned around to wait for the Zombies to get there. He stood with the hatchet raised high. His gasping for air sounding like a fat guy trying to ride a bicycle up a really steep hill. He wished there was enough time to grab a quick smoke. He wondered if he’d even be able to sink the hatchet into a Zombie’s head. He’d killed Zombies by shooting them already, but the hatchet was a lot more personal.

  He was spared from having to test his hatchet fighting prowess by Kyler yelling out that the door was open. Mike turned and lunged for the door. As soon as he was inside Kyler slammed the door shut and locked it. With the door shut the pervasive sound of the car alarm was muted enough that they could all think again.

  “Well that didn’t work out very well.” Kyler stated the obvious. Then he looked over at Seth who was leaning against a freezer and trying to hide his terrified sobs. He looked over at Mike who was about five seconds from a heart attack judging by the sound of his breathing. Seeing as how he seemed to be the only one able to do so. Kyler took it upon himself to wander around the garage and see what kind of a mess they’d gotten themselves into.

  It was a nice garage. One wall had the requisite peg board configuration over a long workbench. The peg board was covered with an assortment of farm tools as well as the regular hand tools one would expect. There was a small board for keys right by the garage door that led into the house. It had a set of keys on it that Kyler really hoped went to the ivory white Range Rover parked in the center of the garage. He also hoped the Range Rover had gas in it. He was tired of spending all their time driving around trying to find gas. He grabbed the keys and pressed the unlock button. The lights on the Range Rover flashed and there was a clicking noise indicating the doors had unlocked. He walked over and opened up the SUV to take a look inside.

  He half expected a Zombie to jump out at him but all he got was the smell of high-quality leather that’d been sitting in a garage for a few weeks. He turned around to look back at Mike. Mike was still doubled over trying to regain his breath.

  “Dude. You ran like sixty feet max.” Kyler whispered as he walked over to make sure the big guy wasn’t going to just keel over.

  Mike sputtered back something that sounded like it was probably an insult. Randy decided to give Mike a few minutes to either catch his breath or die. The guy seriously needed to spend some time on a treadmill. Kyler walked over to Seth and asked him what was up. Seth rubbed his eye and stood up.

  “Just freaked out is all. You think any Zombies can get in here?” Seth asked.

  “I don’t plan on us waiting around to find out. Assuming that Range over there has gas in it I say we loot the garage and get the hell out of here. We do it fast enough we’ll be out of here before too many Zombies show up.”

  “Is Mike going to be ok?” Seth asked. Mike had now completely collapsed on the floor, but his breathing seemed slightly more under control.

  “I don’t think his exercise program prepared him adequately for a Zombie Apocalypse. He probably doesn’t run this fast unless he’s trying to chase down an ice cream truck.” The lame joke worked. Seth let out a quick braying laugh before clamping
his hands over this own mouth. They both worked hard to contain their laughter when they looked over and saw that Mike had sat up and was extending both his middle fingers at them.

  “Sorry guys. I skipped my last few Zumba classes before this all went down. Anything good in this dump?” Mike asked as he got up and started looking around. He was still breathing pretty hard, but the threat of a heart attack seemed to have passed. They could see pretty well by the light from the frosted glass windows at the top of the garage door. No Zombies were beating on any of the doors yet. Probably due to the enormously noisy car alarm being a great distraction. Once that car alarm died, they’d have to be extremely quiet to avoid attracting any attention.

  “Not really. The best thing is this Range Rover right here. That and the machetes they had hanging up on the peg board. I already put those into the back seat. Be careful not to sit on them when you get in. I found some jugs of warm water, so I put them in the back too. We need to get out of here before the car alarm stops covering for us.”

  They all agreed that was the way to go. Seth brought up the first issue with their plan. No electricity meant the garage door wouldn’t go up automatically. They’d have to push the door up manually before they’d be able to drive away. Push it up manually with who knew how many Zombies standing on the other side of it. The Range Rover had some sort of ski rack on the top of it, so they couldn’t even cheat and get the door most of the way open. It was going to have to go all the way up and stay there long enough for them to back the SUV out.

  They ignored the problem for a few minutes as they walked around the garage trying to gather anything else that might be useful. Going in the house through the garage door was ruled out since they knew there were Zombies rambling around inside. There was a little fridge sitting on the workbench which held some moldy cheese and a few bottled waters. It also held a six-pack of beer which Mike reached out for like a starving man grabbing a pack of Twinkies. He looked slightly embarrassed when he saw Seth and Kyler both staring at him, but he made no move to put it back down. He peeled two of the beers off and set them on the workbench then carefully set the remaining four down in the backseat of the Rover.

  “A’right. Now that I have a little liquid courage here’s what we do. I’m going to slam this beer, then the other one, then I’m going to go push the garage door up, so you can drive out. When you drive out, I’m going to either jump in the back seat or climb up on the ski rack depending on how many Zombies are trying to eat me. You two get in and when I finish the second beer start the car. Cool?”

  “You’re doing something that requires coordination and timing for you to stay alive. Do you really think slamming a beer is the best way to signal us?” Kyler asked

  “Yes. Now hurry it up. Get in the car and let’s get this over with.” Mike was already fumbling around trying to find the release latch for the garage. The shadow of a hand flickered across one of the windows leading into the garage. The sighting of the hand followed by a loud bang as something struck the garage door. It was time to go. It looked like the Zombies were getting bored with the car alarm and starting to try to find what had caused the car alarm to go off in the first place.

  Kyler got in the front seat. He told Seth to get in the back seat. He needed Seth there to be able to fling the back door open for Mike if it looked like he was going to try to get in the Rover that way. The back had a little ladder on it leading up to the ski rack, so Mike would also have the option of jumping on that and hanging on for his life. Hanging on to the back of a poorly driven SUV going in reverse through a bunch of homicidal Zombies seemed like a pretty horrible option. Kyler guessed that Mike knew this plan wasn’t an ideal life choice. Hence why he needed a couple of beers to help him get motivated.

  Kyler and Seth watched Mike continue to fumble around in the garage. He finally located the red rope on top of the Rover that would release the latch and let the garage door be pushed up manually. Mike was standing on the step that went under the driver’s side front and rear doors when he slammed his beer, showed the empty to Kyler and waited for him to start the engine. Kyler started the engine. The Rover rumbling to life with the purr of a nicely maintained, expensive vehicle. Kyler hadn’t realized a car engine could sound expensive until that moment.

  Mike yanked on the rope and the latch released. The garage door popped up about six inches and Mike jumped down to go lift it the rest of the way up. Before his feet even hit the ground a pair of hands appeared under the garage door and flung it upwards. Zombies surged in through the opening door. Mike jumped back from the Zombies and yelled for Kyler to start backing up. Mike hopped back up on the Rovers side step with his hatchet cocked back by his ear ready to swing. Kyler began backing up, but the Zombie hadn’t put the garage door up all the way before rushing in to attack Mike and now it was falling back down again. Mike saw the problem and jumped off the step to take care of it.

  Mike stepped forward swinging the hatchet with a loud yell at the middle-aged male Zombie stumbling towards him with outstretched arms. The hatchet blade buried itself in the things sore covered forehead making blood splatter in a wild arc. He let go of the hatchet as the man sagged to the ground. Mike was looking towards the garage door when he disappeared from sight. A Zombie crawling under the Rover had grabbed his legs and pulled him down.

  “Hand me a machete!” Kyler screamed back at Seth. Seth was completely frozen with fear. Seeing as how Seth wasn’t moving to help Kyler reached into the backseat and found one of the machetes himself. Once he had the machete in hand, he threw open his door and jumped out.

  In the dim light he heard Mike cussing. The Zombie who’d grabbed Mike from under the Rover was lying on the floor with Mike. Mike was alternately strangling it and slamming its head into the concrete floor. It was a little girl Zombie. More light was starting to pour in again allowing Kyler to see better. Looking up he saw it was because another Zombie was pushing the garage door up to get inside. The little girl Zombie was snapping her teeth and screaming at Mike as he struggled to knock her out. He was making faces and cussing harder as he absorbed blows from her flailing feet and hands.

  The little girl had a red bow in her matted, long, blonde hair. Kyler noted that right before he swung the machete down into her forehead. He narrowly missed clipping off one of Mike’s fingers as the machete cleaved into the little girl’s soft skull. Mike jumped back to his feet. His wide eyes staring at the machete in the little girl’s head just in time for the next Zombie to tackle him from behind and knock him back down. Kyler snapped out of his daze and grabbed a hammer off the work bench. He swung it hard and felt the skull of this new Zombie attacker cave in. It gave with a sickening crunch that reminded him of the time he’d kicked an old jack o lantern on their porch and his foot had gotten stuck in the rotten core of the decaying pumpkin.

  A loud screech from behind him made him spin around. An old woman was trying to smash her way in on the passenger side of the Rover to get at Seth. Seth was just staring at her with a lost look on his face. The garage door was all the way open now. Looking out of it he saw a few more figures running their way. The car alarm was still blasting away outside. The sound much louder now that the garage door was standing wide open. Kyler stuck his hand out to help Mike up. He was kneeling on the ground trying to wipe Zombie gunk off of himself.

  “Let’s go!” Kyler yelled into his face. Mike snapped back to reality and jumped to his feet. They rushed over to the Rover. Ignoring the screaming hag on the other side of the Rover they slid in on the driver’s side. Kyler jumped back in the driver’s side. Mike went ahead and got in with Seth on the passenger side. He had to push Seth over to the other side of the car by the howling old woman scratching at the passenger window. Seth whimpered and resisted getting any closer to the screaming, insane, witch like figure of the hag hurling herself over and over into the passenger window with her mouth wide open. She was gnashing her teeth and screaming with the frustration of wanting to rip apart their flesh.
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  They got their doors shut as a few more Zombies trotted into the garage and began bashing on their windows. Seth was hyperventilating. He’d crawled down in the seat with his hands over his eyes. Mike was screaming at Kyler to drive. Kyler was trying to put the Rover in reverse, but the gear shift wouldn’t move. He finally tried pushing his foot down on the brake which let him engage the correct gears. He focused on the backup camera video display on the console as he tapped the gas to get them rolling backwards out of the garage. He wanted to slam his foot down on the accelerator since there was a man with a huge bushy beard with dried blood all over it and an eyeball hanging from one socket banging on his window.

  He kept his nerve though. He reversed them smoothly out of the garage. Once they were out and he had the room he swung the Rover around. He put the Luxury SUV into drive and headed for the driveway to get them out of there. Him and Mike both taking a longing glance over at the F-150 that held all the supplies they’d collected. With the number of Zombies in the yard now there was no way they were getting out to collect anything. Driving slowly around Zombies so as not to mess up the Rover Kyler drove until he saw an opening to speed up. As soon as he saw the opening, he took it. They left the Zombies behind as they wound the rest of the way up the driveway and back onto the main road.

  Once back on the main road he started driving them back the way they’d been going originally. From the back seat he heard the sound of a beer can being popped open over the deep sobs of Seth. He glanced down at the fuel gauge and was relieved to see that at least they had plenty of gas. Plus, a pretty sweet ride. It’d be an even sweeter ride if they could find somewhere to hose all the Zombie snot and slobber off the windows.