Halfway back - Bruno, Steve and Fiona's adventure against zombies that may not be zombies and the secret behind them

by Marios Amontaristos

  “You killed him...” was what Bruno managed to say. Not very original, but it was a start.

  “What did you expect? Wait for him to attack?”

  “But... are you absolutely sure?”

  “I saw them. Don't forget that we are near the cemetery. Shit just got real.” Steve's lines were accompanied by his eyes squinting and his expression that resembled Bruce Willis' in Die Hard posters.

  Bruno got annoyed. “Argh! You have to stop trying to deliver bad-ass one-liners! We don't know what's happening and you think that we are in a game! And, besides, you can't translate the words as they are from English to French, because 'laissez lui seul' means 'let him lonely'!”

  “Are you sure? I mean, what could I have said in this case?”

  “I don't know. 'Laissez lui libre' maybe?”

  “What? 'Let his book'?” Steve asked innocently, causing another little explosion by Bruno.

  “Do you know the language a little bit? 'Libre', not 'livre'! And let's stop this stupidity now. We have to see what we're gonna do. Our neighborhood is now very dangerous. We have to think how we will act.”

  “Let's go to sleep and we will think about it in the morning,” said Steve, who still didn't seem to realize what was going on, even if the two slowly moving shadows he saw walking on the street earlier, seemed to have scared him.

  Bruno took his time, crossed his arms on his chest and he started looking at him. Steve looked calm. He was still holding his rifle and seemed to wonder why his roommate was silent. Finally, Bruno spoke. “You just killed a man. How can you even think about sleeping?”

  Steve answered without thinking. “I'm tired. When I'm tired, I think mostly about sleeping.” Fair enough.

  “All right then, let's go home. Anyway, those guys seem too stupid to be able to break in,” Bruno answered.

  “There you go. Now you're talking.”

  They took the bag with the guns, Bruno closed the door leaving the dead bodies inside, and they returned to their apartment. And indeed, they managed to sleep until 8:00 AM. And they would sleep even more if it was up to them.

  CHAPTER THREE

  What happened exactly?

  Bruno was flying over a city that he didn't exactly recognize, but he was sure it was Rio de Janeiro. He felt free and strong and in control of everything that mattered to him as he was enjoying the view. At some moment he looked forward and he realized that he was flying towards a very tall building, whose top was hidden in the clouds, giving the impression that the building was several kilometers high. Unable to go high, he started falling. He felt like he had lost control of his powers and he was on a free fall towards the ground. Various arms appeared out of the windows of the buildings, trying to catch him, but they were all failed. He decided to try once more to fly, he looked up and he saw Mr Simonnot smiling and waving at him. Bruno turned his eyes towards the ground once more and he saw it approaching very fast. And then he opened his eyes.

  Bruno scanned around him with his hands with his eyes wide open as soon as the dream ended. It was then that he realized that last night they had forgotten something very important. He went straight to Steve and shook him pretty violently.

  “Mmm... Whoa, whoa, what's the problem, man? Are you on drugs or something?” Steve asked after having been forced to transport from the world of dreams to reality instantly, for the second time in the last six hours.

  “Dude, I just remembered. We didn't finish off the other zombies! We were very busy with Mr Simonnot and we forgot about them!” Bruno said terrified.

  “Dude? When did you start using this word?”

  “Do you want me to repeat what I just said?”

  “No, it's OK.” Steve got up.

  “Where are you going?” Bruno asked.

  “I need to go pee.”

  “You didn't hear what I said? We could be in danger!” Steve didn't answer. Instead, he went to the bathroom and closed the door, leaving Bruno, who had followed him, outside. “Don't take your time in there! We must go back to Mr Simonnot's.”

  The sound of Steve's urinating was covered by a loud yawn while Bruno was walking nervously. After an endless minute, Steve got out. “We dress and we go?” he asked.

  “Dress?” Bruno had trouble keeping up with Steve's strange thoughts.

  “Yeah. Aren't we gonna go outside and see what's happening?” Steve asked calmly. Nothing showed that only 3 minutes ago he was fast asleep.

  “Sure. We have internet, a TV and a balcony, but instead of using them, we will just walk out, maybe with some weapons in hand, so that the police can arrest us easier.”

  “Hmmm... I guess you're right. I got a bit too excited. OK, let's take a look on the news then.” Steve thought 'do they use sarcasm in Brazil?' but he decided not to say it.

  Bruno was very worried and Steve's calmness and not very well hidden excitement for the upcoming bloodbath, didn't help at all. Steve sat comfortably on the couch and turned on the TV. Bruno was still outside the bathroom. “Hey, you're coming or what?” Steve asked.

  “I don't know... I'm afraid that we'll see something very bad on the news.”

  Indeed. A very important singer or actress or model or reality show contestant or something, broke up with her actor or reality show contestant or model or singer or something boyfriend and there was a whole news story dedicated to the sad circumstance. Steve was pretending to be devastated with exaggerated gestures of grief.

  “Who are those people?” Bruno asked.

  “I... um... Well, they sing some song, I think. It's very sad for their romance to end like this!” Steve couldn't bother less, but he was fascinated by the way the news was presenting the end of the celebrity relationship with details and the statements of people who know the couple and have an opinion about it and this opinion will give those people a few seconds of TV exposure. A whole chain of idiocy.

  Bruno sighed heavily, almost ready to abandon all hope. “Any news about the other kind of zombies?”

  “Oh, you're right. No, nothing. Check here, nobody has said a word. It's like nothing happened.” Steve zapped through a dozen channels. Indeed, there was nothing.

  Bruno sat on the couch, leaning on the other end of it. Some seconds of awkward silence. “So...? Did we just kill five normal people?”, he said in a low voice.

  “But... they were trying to eat us and Mr Simonnot!” Steve replied, finally showing some signs that he could be worried deep inside.

  “You mean the person whose brains you blew and whose weapons we still have here with our fingerprints all over them?” Bruno noted.

  “Hey! You were with me! I didn't blow his brains all by myself!” Steve exclaimed, still worried but this time mostly for his ass.

  “And what about the other four? What's the deal with them?” Bruno asked, but he actually wondered aloud.

  They leaned back, trying to think of answers and also trying to realize what they had done. “Is there any madhouse around here?” Steve asked after about two minutes of silence.

  “I have no idea. Why?” Bruno got interested.

  “Well, maybe they escaped from there,” Steve answered. “So, we killed four psychiatric patients and one crazy guy. Ha!” Steve looked proud of his punchline, but Bruno actually started thinking.

  “Look, we left no witnesses. We can say that we were defending ourselves. The patients, who escaped the clinic, attacked us, they wanted to kill us, and we couldn't do otherwise! That's it! Here's our alibi!” Bruno said merrily.

  “It's not an alibi. It's just an excuse. You don't deny having killed them,” Steve said, not sharing Bruno's joy.

  “Alibi, excuse, fuck me!” Bruno shouted surprising Steve, since he's not used to say bad words. “The thing is that we have something to work for us when we go to the court!”

  “OK, man. Relax,” Steve said calmly.

  “How can I relax?! And how can you be so relaxed?” “Well,” Steve replied, “what happened is in the past. Panicking won't help us fin
d out what we can do. Only if we are relaxed we'll be able to think of a solution. So, relax and let's see what we can do. OK?”

  It made sense. Bruno's thoughts started to clear a bit. Indeed, panicking wouldn't help them do anything, except for making things worse, maybe. A few more minutes of silence followed before Bruno proposing in a bold, steady voice: “We should go in the apartment and check them. Maybe we will get more information about them. And then, we must call the police to come and take them.”

  Steve got up without saying a word. They went to Mr Simonnot's place to see what they could find out. The door was open. They froze. “Did you close the door when we left?” Steve asked.

  “I thought that I did,” Bruno replied with his eyes almost popping out with surprise.

  “I was carrying all those weapons, I couldn't close the door,” Steve said. “Do you think that somebody may have come after we left?” he continued.

  “Who? Mr Simonnot lives alone.”

  “Lived,” Steve corrected Bruno, as if it was important at that moment.

  “Yes, right. What do you suggest we do now?” Bruno asked, trying to remain calm.

  “Well, probably you left the door open. It's normal. Our minds weren't very clear last night, after all.” Bruno felt a bit better. They pushed the door and entered the apartment. They weren't prepared for what they saw, though.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  So, are we in danger or what?

  The blood stains were there. The furniture that was broken or moved during last night's conflict, was still in the place it was left. Everything was there, except for the bodies. All five of them were missing. After having spent about three minutes motionless and with their mouths half open, they decided to start speaking. Steve went first: “OK, so, did someone come and take them? Like an ambulance or something?”

  “But we didn't hear anything. Wouldn't they wake us up?” Bruno argued.

  “I doubt it,” Steve said laughing.

  “Then who?”

  “Well, maybe they weren't dead after all.”

  “Steve! Did you see Mr Simonnot's head?! I can't take it off of my mind! I even saw it in my sleep, he was walking with his head having a huge hole and he was trying to speak but he could only do some blowing sounds, like when you have a piece of paper in front of your lips! And then he was fine and he was waving at me and smiling and I was falling... What the fuck was I seeing, anyway?” Bruno remembered the last dream, along with another dream that he had seen earlier than that and he realized that his sleep was as adventurous as the night they had passed.

  “OK, but what about the others? Maybe they woke up, they ate him and they left,” Steve suggested as a theory to help their brains explain what they was happening.

  Bruno took a look at the spots where the zombies and their neighbor had fallen. “His clothes are not here. Do you think that they ate the clothes too?”

  “Did they have to eat him right here?”

  “No, they had to take him to a restaurant and have him cooked, because raw meat is not healthy! Come on, where else could they eat him?” Bruno shouted.

  “Don't shout. Did you see any blood on the corridor?” Steve asked. It's true. The corridor was clean. Of blood, that is. “Do you think that they were so clever as to think about finding a way to prevent Mr Simonnot from dripping his brains on the floor?” Steve got a bit smug because he supported efficiently his theory.

  “OK, I get your point. No need to think that you are a chief detective. So,” Bruno continued, “what do we do now?” “Nothing. There's no dead body here, nobody killed anyone, we're good to go and sleep some more.”

  “Wait, today is Thursday, right?” Bruno asked.

  “Right.”

  “Well, in this case, maybe we should go to the university.” Steve didn't like the idea. But he agreed anyway after Bruno explained that “It will give us a good alibi to not be at home if police comes.”

  “Not an alibi. An excuse to be at Anatomy class,” Steve said while poking him with his elbow. “You think I don't know how you're checking that chick? What's her name, again?”

  “Fiona.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Just pretend that you don't know

  Fiona Viszked came from Hungary and she was actually interested in Biology and she was happy to be at Sorbonne 4 (Marie Curie). She had already read a few books before entering the university and she kept getting informed in as many ways as possible. A not very good student in high school, as she used to focus only on the parts she was interested in, she couldn't wait to finish and leave her town in order to move to Paris. Her French was fluent and she had no problem adjusting. She was not the girl that would cause traffic collisions just by walking on the sidewalk, but mostly because she wasn't trying. She didn't use make-up, her shoes were always flat, she didn't quite like very sexy clothes, she couldn't care less about fashion (“I can think for myself, thank you!” she was saying) and, even if she had no trouble socializing, she wasn't much of a party animal. She was pretty cute, though. She couldn't hide this. And she didn't care to try either.

  Bruno had no idea about what he could do in order to make her look at him a bit. That day, Bruno and Steve arrived on time and sat near her but nothing happened, just like every day. They stayed in class struggling to understand the day's lesson, almost forgetting what had happened at their building. Bruno once again didn't convince himself to talk to Fiona. So, at the end they all went home and called it a day.

  Their building, though, was strangely silent tonight. No lights, no signs of life. It didn't feel as it does late in the night, when everyone goes to bed. The silence was cold and dead-like, as if everybody had left the building. But for Bruno and Steve, this made no difference. They had never noticed the building in order to find if something was wrong about it, but it felt like it because of the strange things that had happened. Anyway, they didn't even know their neighbors. Even at the times they met them in the entrance of the building or at the elevator, they just said “bonjour” without bothering much to take a look at them and learn their names or maybe their faces.

  When they arrived at the door of their apartment, they thought about looking once more at the door of Mr Simonnot's place. It was open. “Come on! You left it open again?? What's wrong with you?” Steve shouted.

  “Hey! I wasn't alone! And I think that I double-checked this time.” Bruno rubbed a bit his chin. “Open our door. I'm afraid that we're not alone.”

  “Let's take our weapons and go check,” Steve said while opening their door nervously. It looked like they were about to have another adventure. They went quickly to the living room and took one big gun each. Taking light steps, they went outside the neighbor's door and took cover by sticking their backs to the wall. They gave a silent signal of 1, 2, 3 and Steve kicked the door open. The bad-ass moment got ruined by Bruno's inefficiency in finding the light switch, which he found eventually, after groping the wall a few times. When there was light, all they could see was the place in the same way they had left it earlier that same day. “Let's go and check in the bedroom,” Steve whispered.

  “If there's someone in the bedroom, are you sure that you want to interrupt him?” Bruno asked while holding Steve's shoulder.

  “If there's someone in the bedroom, what do you think that he could be doing? There's still chunks of brain in the living room!” Steve whispered loudly. So, they went to the bathroom, with the weapons pointing in front of them. And they didn't find anyone. The whole place was empty. The bedroom, the living room, the kitchen. Nobody was there, living or dead. “All right, let's check all over and see what we can find.” Steve was talking in normal voice, not trying to whisper anymore.

  “But... Isn't this something the police should do?” Bruno whispered without noticing.

  “We didn't call the police and nobody else did. It looks like we are alone and even if we had died tonight, nobody would have noticed,” Steve said in all seriousness.

  “OK then. What are we lookin
g for?” Bruno asked.

  “I have no idea. Anything that looks strange...”

  “There are some brains...”

  “...aaand we haven't seen before,” Steve cut short Bruno's untimely attempt in smartassery.

  Steve's point was clear. They started looking all around for anything that could draw their attention and quickly they saw that the fridge was open. They approached and opened wide the door only to see various dairy products and vegetables and yoghurts and many meat wrappings. Only the wrappings and they were all over the fridge and the floor. Like someone came and ate specifically all the sausages, salami, raw steaks or mashed meat that could have been in there. And they left no trace of what they ate other than the wrappings in which their food was. “So?” Steve asked. “What is your conclusion?”

  “They came, they saw, they stuffed their faces?”

  “You watch too many American movies.”

  “Yippie ki-yay, mothafucka.”

  “I will pretend that you didn't say this. Do you think that our friends came, had a lunch and left?” Steve asked.

  “I don't know what to think. Was it them? Was it someone else? And why did they eat only the meat?” Bruno wondered.

  “At least they aren't exclusively after brains, if it was them who ate the meats. What do we do now?” Steve asked, hoping for the beginning of a fruitful brainstorming session, but not counting much on it.

  “If they came once, they will come again. And if they don't find any food, they will come to us. Should we bring them some food?” Bruno asked, quite scared.

  “Yeah, right! And spoil them like this? We're not their parents! If they want meat, they should go and find it elsewhere!” Steve was definite and strict. Something like the bad cop.