by TW Brown
A new idea came, and Ethan dashed through the house. He threw open the back door and skidded to a stop. He’d found the rest of the children. They stood scattered around the yard. Again, they didn’t advance, but they were there, and that was enough.
He staggered back through the kitchen and pulled his phone from his pocket. Hitting his sister’s number, he listened as the recording came on stating that “all circuits were busy.”
He was stuck.
Walking into the living room, he plopped down on one of the couches and nursed the bottle until he dozed off. He dreamt of his nephews leading the mob of undead children from the front and back yard as they hunted him. Just as Ian was about to bite into his arm, he woke with a start.
He swatted at himself at first, still unsure if it had been real or a dream. When he regained his composure; he looked around and realized that the first traces of sunlight were coming through the windows.
It took him a few minutes to comprehend that morning was dawning and there had been no sign of his sister or her husband. Getting to his feet, he wiped at his eyes as he crept to the window. Looking outside, he felt the chill of reality twist at his gut.
The children were still outside. He pulled the blinds and backed away. This was impossible. And where was his sister and her useless husband?
Ethan paced the room several minutes until it dawned on him that he had heard nothing from the boys since the previous night. He’d seen enough on the television to get an idea as to what most likely happened. Ian had been bitten. That meant he maybe had three days before he turned, but there were some reports of it happening within minutes.
Eventually, he crept up the stairs. He reached the door and pressed his ear to hear. Silence. A familiar stench tickled at his nose, but he had to be sure it wasn’t just the lingering stench of the zombies from last night.
“Ian?” he called in a voice that was barely louder than a whisper.
At first, there was nothing, then something moved. It was like the kid was dragging his feet across the floor. A second later, the slap of a hand against the door sounded.
Ethan jumped back. The slap was followed by another…and another…and another. That sound followed him as he backed away and then ran down the stairs.
***
The next days were a blur of drunken misery as Ethan made his way through every bottle his sister had stashed. Then the power went out.
He’d never realized how remote the location of his sister’s house was until then. The first night was shrouded in a darkness that had him huddling in a corner a shivering mess.
As the days and nights passed, Ethan alternated between angry, hysterical, and delirious. The booze amplified each of those emotions to unmanageable levels, and forgetting to eat half the time only made it worse.
At some point, he began to notice that the slapping on the door had continued. At first, he convinced himself that it was his imagination. At last, he made his way up the stairs to check. Sure enough, that slapping was real…as real as the zombie children that continued to stand outside.
One afternoon, as Ethan stared out into the front yard, peeking through a break in the curtains, something caught his eye. A cat.
He pulled one of the chairs around so he could continue to watch. If he was going to be stuck here until somebody came to rescue him, then at least he could enjoy some entertainment. That cat was walking right up to those kids. Sooner or later, they would notice and probably pounce on the stupid thing.
When it came up beside one of the children, a little boy in a baseball jersey, and sat down, Ethan actually rubbed his hands together in anticipation. But nothing happened. The kid looked down and then returned its undead gaze to the front door.
At one point, the cat leaned over and tugged a piece of loose flesh from the little boy’s leg. Still the undead child did nothing.
And the days continued to pass.
When he was down to the last of the food consisting of dry cereal that tasted like cardboard, Ethan realized that he might very well die. Nobody was coming. There would be no rescue.
Through it all, as the days passed, the children remained. Even worse, more cats began to gather. They were feeding on the children! Not in great amounts, just a nibble here and there.
And the pounding.
It chased him through his nightmares every night and taunted him through his haze as he now made his way through his sister’s pride and joy…her wine cabinet. Ethan hated wine, but he hated being sober even more.
Twice more, he’d gone to the door. Both times, the children had not advanced, but they remained; even worse, there were several cats sprawled on the patio. One of them hissed at his sudden intrusion and he went to kick at it, but the animal easily dodged him. That had the unfortunate result of causing the children to advance.
Ethan had slammed the door.
One morning, he woke to what he was certain was another human being calling out. He rushed to the window to see an old man making his way up the driveway.
The kids were nowhere in sight!
Ethan ran for the front door and threw it open. His relief was short-lived as he watched the small shadows detaching from the many bushes that decorated the yard. The old man saw him as well as the threat at almost the same time.
He took off at a run, but Ethan slammed the door shut and locked it. He was down to some sort of nasty cereal that tasted awful…but it was his and there wasn’t enough to share. When the screams started, he tried to drown it out by plugging his ears, but that did no good.
To make matters worse, it now sounded like both boys were pounding on the door upstairs. Long after the screaming stopped, the pounding continued. No matter where he wandered inside the huge home, he could hear…feel the pounding.
The was no hope. Fate had dealt Ethan its final cruel hand, but if was to die here…he would finish off those two brats once and for all. As he downed the final bottle of wine, the fog of inebriation fell much faster. Things clouded, and that was when the voice in the back of his head came to the front in full volume.
KILL THEM.
Grabbing a cleaver from the kitchen, Ethan went up the stairs. He wasn’t providing them mercy as much as he was getting in the last lick.
***
Ethan looked into the mirror. He had to get close to see in the gloom, but they were there. The tracers that announced his infection.
He heard a soft meow followed by a series of deep purrs. Looking out into the master bedroom, he could see Trent lying basically helpless on the bed. His head sat an awkward angle from where his neck had been broken. Already, the cats were feeding. All the zombie could do was turn its head one way or the other.
Downstairs, the dismembered Ian was still chained to the wall. That hadn’t been nearly as fulfilling, but when the little bastard had bitten him, the plan of killing them outright had changed. Now, the brat would spend eternity sitting in a pool of his own guts. His arms and legs set right where he could see them.
Could zombies see? Ethan didn’t know.
He’d opened that front door long enough to wave one of the hacked off arms at the cats gathered on the porch. He’d lured a bunch in before slamming the door shut and locking it again.
After he’s lured Trent upstairs and snapped his scrawny neck, he’d tossed the body in his parent’s bed. He’d noticed a couple of the cats following them, and once the boy was tossed aside, they made slow approaches on the body. Eventually, they realized that the buffet was open…and helpless. Ethan laughed as he watched the cats feed.
***
Staggering out to the balcony, Ethan couldn’t peel his tongue from the roof of his mouth. He knew he didn’t have long. He was ready to end it. Only, his hands lacked the coordination to hold a blade, so slashing his wrists was out.
A flicker of thought stayed long enough for him to act on it. He would throw himself over the balcony headfirst to the paved walkway below. Surely that would end him.
He could see the raili
ng, it was only a few steps away. He staggered forward one step and then everything went dark. He felt something slam into his body, but it hadn’t been enough.
His vision cleared long enough for him to see that he’d merely stumbled and fallen. He was still on the balcony. His head tilted, allowing him to look back into the bedroom. He couldn’t see that far, but he knew that Trent was still on that bed, and the cats were feasting.
A smile turned the corners of Ethan’s mouth up as the last breath escaped him. His body shuddered a few times and was still.
The first twitch came from the fingers on his left hand. A cat watched, considering this potential food source. When it sat up. The cat hissed and backed away.
The creature rose to its feet and began to pursue the cat in slow, unsteady steps. Its pursuit led it to one of the nightstands where it became tangled in the collection of cords belonging to the lamp as well as the adjustable bed.
Eventually, the zombie found itself in a corner. With nothing to attract its attention, it eventually stilled.
Standing. Waiting.
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TW Brown is the author of the Zomblog series, his horror comedy romp, That Ghoul Ava, and, of course, the DEAD series and the New DEAD series. Safely tucked away in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, he moves away from his desk only at the urging of his Border Collie, Aoife, (Pronounced Eye-fa) his Frisbee catching Border Collie Tyrion, or one of his Newfoundlands, Freyja or her younger sister Loki.
He plays a little guitar on the side...just for fun...and makes up any excuse to either go trail hiking or strolling along his favorite place...Cannon Beach. His hobbies include training his Newfoundlands to be show dogs working on their championships, water rescue working on their WD titles and draft carts working on their DD titles. And we should never forget to add his two African Greys named Lisa and Paul. He answers all his emails sent to [email protected] and tries to thank everybody personally when they take the time to leave a review of one of his works.
He can be found at www.authortwbrown.com. The best way to find everything he has out is to start at his Author Page. You can follow him on twitter @authortwbrown and on Facebook under Author TW Brown, and also under May December Publications.
Table of Contents
Other Titles by TW Brown
Zomblog
DEAD: Suffer the Children (Book 3 of the New DEAD Series)
A moment with the author…
To My Amazing Readers
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Zombie