by TJ Weeks
“Oh God mother. Get off of it, I am not going anywhere right now.” Ty rolled his eyes.
Lisa half smiled at the thought that she would not have her little boy at some point, when a bang sounded at the door like a gunshot ringing into the air. Lisa jumped at the loudness almost dropping her plate.
“What the hell was that?” Lisa whispered.
Ty handed his plate to his mom and went to pull the gun back out of its case and stood for a moment expecting someone to bust through the door. The only sound that was heard was a scratching sound coming from the door.
“I mean did someone just throw a dog at our door and now it wants us to let it in?” Lisa questioned the sound.
“I don’t know Ma, stay here.” Ty instructed.
As usual, Lisa didn’t listen and grabbed the loaded twenty two rifle that she kept in the corner, and followed behind her son. He approached the door and tried to peer through the peep hole, but something was covering it.
“Get the fuck out of here asshole! Ty shouted at the door.
The scratching intensified and got louder and another bang sounded over and over as though someone was hitting the door and then suddenly stopped.
Ty flung the door open and held the gun at eye level. No one was there, but blood was smeared across the door, which explained the peephole.
“Ty watch out!” Lisa shouted.
He backed away as a man crawled through the door way and reached for him. Ty shot one shot in the top of the man’s head. The man fell to the floor in a heap with his arms still reaching forward. His hands looked as though someone had skinned them with a knife and had dirt and blood caked under his fingernails. Ty was unable to see his face with his forehead implanted onto the floor. Ty reached down and turned the dead man over and jumped back quickly.
The face was a dark brown and wrinkles covered the man that made him look like he had come out of the Michael Jackson Thriller video. His t-shirt had been torn down the front and laid open to bare his concaved chest.
“What the fuck is that?” Ty questioned.
“Uhhh, a fucked up looking mother fucker, who apparently needs another drink after his bad night.” Lisa laughed.
“Mom, call the damn cops.” Ty instructed.
Lisa picked up her phone keeping an eye on the man and dialed nine one one.
“Dispatch, what is your emergency?” The woman asked.
“My son just shot a man that tried to crawl into our house, he is laying in my living room floor and he looks as though he has been beaten or something, can we get someone out here?” Lisa asked her.
“Yes ma’am, we have had a more than usual amount of calls today, what is your address and we will get someone over.” The dispatcher calmly stated.
Lisa provided their address and hung up. “They will be here when they can. She said they have had a lot of calls today.”
“Guess we are stuck with some dead guy in our living room until the stupid ass cops get here.” Ty backed away from the corpse.
The door still stood wide open and both Lisa and Ty held their guns for a ‘just in case’ purpose of someone else deciding they needed to be in their house.
Ty peered out of the door and walked over to it hoping the cops would be pulling up any second. He saw a man in the neighbor’s yard bent over and quickly pulled his head back inside. He furrowed his brow and stuck his head back out to scan the area again. The man was in the middle of the yard next door with his back to him, he was on his knees almost as if he were praying. Ty could see his arms moving but was unable to see what exactly he was doing.
“Come look at this shit.” Ty turned to his mom.
Lisa walked over and stood behind her son and looked in the direction he had been staring. She saw the man and tilted her head a bit.
“What is he doing? Is he…eating?” She questioned.
“Mom, what the hell is he gonna be eating in the front yard of the neighbor’s house?” He laughed.
The man sat up straight and lifted a knee to steady one foot on the ground and stumbled to try and catch the other. He stumbled forward and began to limp as he walked away from them. A bloodied mess laid on the ground where he was and was spread out. Bits and pieces of blood covered the place where he had risen from. Ty made his way quickly out of the door and towards the man that was slowly getting away.
He lifted the pistol, “Hey!” He shouted.
The man turned just as Ty approached the mound of remains on the ground. Black fur was spread in the grass and mixed in with the guts and head of a cat. Ty backed up from the cat and jerked his head up to look at the man. He had the remaining guts hanging from his mouth and some swinging from his hand dragging the ground and was now walking toward him. His skin was a dark brown color and he showed his bloody, fur filled teeth to him. His gums receded back and allowed his teeth to have more places for the fur to stick to. His hands were wrinkled from the dried and fresh blood mixed with it and he dragged both his feet making a path in the grass back to him. Ty tripped over the small bushes that separated their property from the neighbors, he shot up to his feet as he watched the man shuffle closer to him and stumbled backwards again on his butt. A shot rang out and the man fell face down across the mangled cat that he had been eating.
Ty peered back to the sound of the shot and saw his mom standing in their front yard with his .22 rifle shouldered and still aiming through the scope.
“GET INSIDE!” Ty hollered to her.
“You get your ass inside!” Lisa hollered back dropping the gun.
The two hurried in the house, moved the dead man out of the doorway and slammed the door. Lisa locked it and stood against it like someone was going to try and get in.
“What the hell was that?” Ty asked his mom.
“Well, son. It appears it may have been a zombie.” Lisa said with no tone to her voice.
“Fucking zombie’s eat people, not cats mother!” Ty shouted out.
“They eat anything Ty.” Lisa stared forward and slid down the door to sit next to the dead man on her floor.
“Mom, what are we going to do?” Ty wanted plans.
Lisa sat for a moment and ran the situation through her mind. She thought of places that would be safer than her home.
“The school!” She shot up from the floor.
Ty backed up slowly as she ran to the back of the house. He waited and she ran back past him to the gun cabinet and opened it with the keys she had gotten from her room. She purposely stuck the wad of keys in her pocket and began unloading every gun they had and all of the ammo to the floor.
“Start loading them all!” She hollered at him.
Ty did as he was told and sat them to the side as he got them loaded. She ran to the kitchen and began loading food into a trash bag and ran it over to the door. She took a case of water and placed it next to the food and then quickly grabbed some of hers and Ty’s clothes and put them in a back pack and threw it onto her back.
“Alright! Stand guard with a gun and I am going to throw this shit in the truck. I will take as much as I can on the first run and then we will both go on the second.” She instructed.
“Mom, let me go. I can run faster.” Ty stated.
“Ty, I have read the books on how these things work. I need you to stand guard. You are a better shot, shoot them in the head if they come close.” Lisa picked up an armful of the guns.
Ty opened the door and let his mother out and watched her run the few feet to the driveway, she opened the door and threw the guns behind the seat and ran back to him. Ty waved the gun back and forth looking for anything moving besides his mom. No zombies were in sight as she made her small trip. She barreled back into the house.
“I didn’t see any of them.” Ty informed her.
“Maybe we have caught this at the beginning and there isn’t any right now but that one. But there will be. Grab everything and let’s go!” She spat at him.
The two gathered the rest of what was left and bounded out of the
front door and to the truck. Lisa ran around to the driver’s side and threw the food into Ty, she took off the back pack and threw it into the backseat and hopped up into the truck. Just as the door slammed shut, a woman slammed up against her window. Lisa jumped and backed her head away from the window peering into the empty eyes of the old woman that lived across the street. Her skin was already a dark grey and blood covered her mouth showed she had already had her first meal.
“She has been turned for a while. We have to get out of here.” Lisa dug the keys out of her pocket.
The truck started and Ty grabbed a gun from the back seat.
“No, we are okay in here.” She stated as he tried to point the gun at the old woman. “If you shoot out my window, they will be able to get in. Think Ty!” Lisa pushed the barrel from in front of her face.
Ty lowered the gun to point at the floorboard and sat back in his seat while watching another crawl across his mother’s St’ Augustine grass towards them.
“Yeah, we need to go!” Ty’s face turned white.
Lisa backed up and hit the woman that stood against her truck with her side mirror. Her head flipped over the mirror and her body dropped to the ground. Ty gagged and leaned over to putting his head between his knees.
“Don’t you throw up in my fucking truck!” Lisa directed.
Ty sat up and leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Yeah, just sit there.” She stated to her son.
Lisa pulled forward down the small residential street and eased her way to the intersection. She stopped at the stop sign and then wondered why she was stopping. She lifted her foot off of the brake and then back on as a man stepped in front of the truck and placed his dirtied hands on her hood. He chomped his jaws and looked right at her. He then reached his hands out while he opened and closed his fists. Still moving his feet, he slowly slid across the hood and stumbled as he reached the side of the truck. Once out of the way, Lisa hit the gas and watched the man spin off of her truck. She turned left down two other streets and to the four lane highway.
She came upon what looked like a traffic jam but was just the highway littered with cars that she was unable to drive through. She backed up and drove onto the grassy shoulder of the and drove on.
“Where are you going?” Ty asked as he hung on to the ‘oh shit’ handle at the top of the door.
“The school; if anything we can at least clear out a classroom of these fucks and block the doors and windows. Maybe make our way to the cafeteria at some point. Should go to the damn bar, but there isn’t anything but those damn peanuts there.” Lisa wished.
Limping, bloody, dirty and old looking people, if that is what you can call them, began emerging from where the cars sat on the highway into her path on the shoulder. She dodged them at first and then had no choice but to hit them. The brush guard on her truck made hard contact with them and threw them up onto her hood. Ty covered his face as they rolled onto the windshield. Lisa slowed the truck and let the one that had stuck to the brush guard fall off. She ran over the zombie and kept going at a slow rolling pace.
Ty began to see them wandering through the woods off to the side, some of them were trapped in the vines from the trees, some had been stabbed by big branches and laid on them still alive reaching for the sound of the vehicle that was passing by them. Others were walking or limping slowly through the trees.
“They are everywhere.” Ty stared off into the wooded side of the road.
“That is how the apocalypse works.” Lisa told her scared son.
“You’re not scared?” Ty asked.
“I am destined. I will be scared later.” Lisa admitted.
They continued on, striking zombies and pushing them out of the way. The school was still quite a few miles away and a ding sounded from her dashboard.
“What the fuck is that?” Ty asked.
“Gas.” Lisa stated.
“You’ve got to be kidding?” Ty grunted.
They were finally able to drive up onto the highway.
“I still have about thirty miles until I am completely out of gas, if I remember right, there is a gas station up ahead.” She told him
They soon took a small access road on the right. A gas station came into their view. Once in the parking lot, both glanced in all directions with no sign of zombies. Lisa rolled the almost empty truck to the gas pump and once in place, the truck died before she could reach down and turn off the ignition.
“I guess at least we made it. Now to hope we can get some gas.” She stated still looking all around them.
“I thought you had thirty miles to go and why the school?” Ty asked while he helped look for the zombies.
“I always said that if anything crazy like this happened, I would go to a school. I thought about going to work and locking up the joint, but there are too many entryways. I thought about the jail, but convicts are there and who wants to deal with zombies and convicts. So the school was the safest place to go, but the nearest one is more than twenty miles away these days. They tore down all the schools you went to that were close. Anyways, let’s get some gas and get back on the road to it.” She was ready to go.
Lisa handed Ty a knife she pulled from under the seat in front of him and pulled another one from under hers. Lisa pulled the handle to open her door as did Ty. Both stepped out, pushed their doors with ease and softly clicked them shut. Ty started walking towards the store before Lisa whispered out for him to stop.
Ty turned as a zombie approached from the side of his mom. Ty ran towards the zombie and stabbed the man in the top of the head and pushed him to the ground. He dropped to his knees, angry with the man for trying to get to his mother and stabbed him multiple times in the head and face making him unrecognizable. He moved from his head once there was nothing left to stab and continued stabbing the man in the body. He bludgeoned the man to no extreme. Lisa hurried to her knelt down son and grabbed his arm on his way down to stab the man again.
“TY STOP! Get inside now!’ She quietly demanded.
Ty looked at his mother then at the group that was headed their way. He caught his feet and hurried with his mom into the store. He pulled the glass doors closed just as a small approaching woman slammed into it and pushed it. Lisa held the door steady and Ty locked it allowing the woman to only bang on the door with her tiny hands. The woman had a flowered dress on and her hair was long and appeared to once have been flowing and beautiful, but was now stringy and dirty. Her face was concaved and only her sunk in green eyes showed any kind of life that my still live inside of her.
Ty stood face to face with the woman before Lisa pulled him back.
“Help me make sure there are none inside, then you can stand and stare at your new love.” Lisa joked.
“Funny Mom.” He turned to follow.
They made sure all of the aisles were clear and then walked towards the bathrooms. Lisa pushed the door open and let Ty in, he turned from side to side and made sure there were not any out in the open. Lisa came in behind him and pushed open the first stall door as she held her breath waiting for something to shoot. It was clear with no zombies inside. She pushed the second door open with her foot to a woman that sat on the toilet with her pants down. She had a large bite mark on her thigh and looked up when the door swung towards her. Lisa held up her gun and aimed at the woman.
“Wait!” The woman screamed.
Lisa dropped her gun and peered at the woman trying to figure out if she had been bitten why she was still living and had not turned.
“You have been bit, yes?” Lisa asked.
“Yes, but I am okay.” She told Lisa.
“Mom?” Ty said in question form.
“No, you are not okay, you’ve got life fucked up.” Lisa raised her gun and shot her in the head.
“Mom, she was alive!” Ty shouted.
“She was turning, her skin had already begun to fade and turn, she was drooling and all. She was a goner anyway. I would rather get rid of her now than have her fuck with us
while trying to get our shit together here.” Lisa admitted.
“You are kind of a bad ass when it comes to this. Where the hell did this come from?” Ty asked.
Lisa half smiled at her son as she walked towards the next bathroom. She felt bad for killing the woman, but was not taking the chance of one of these bastards getting her or her son. She was going to kill any and all that was a zombie or possibly become a zombie.
Ty opened the door this time. Lisa readied her gun to shoot and went in and turned a three sixty to scan the bathroom. The only stall was already open and nothing was in it but a toilet full of crap.
“Huh, no one in here, but it figures a man would leave a toilet full of shit.” Lisa turned and walked out.
Down the hall was a closed door marked ‘Employees Only’.
“We aren’t employees, and it is already secured off, so let’s leave that one. Let’s find something to drink.” Lisa turned Ty.
They both walked back out to the store portion and back to the coolers. Ty opened the door to grab a Coke and Lisa made her way to the beer. She pulled out a six pack and popped a top, not bothering to break the plastic ring and downed the whole can.
“Hell yeah, let’s kill some zombies!” She let out a laugh.
“Really.” Ty muttered.
“Not really, just wanted a beer, and they are still pretty cool. I am going to need a few of these bad boys.” She stammered.
Lisa grabbed three thirty packs, two in each hand and one under her arm and set them by the glass doors. She went back and grabbed three more thirty packs and stumbled back to the door with them in her arms and stacked them on the others.
“Well, my drinking habit should be good for a bit.” Lisa joked.
“What the hell is wrong with you woman. We are in the middle of the apocalypse, and you are joking about shit. There is something seriously wrong with you.” Ty told her.
Lisa laughed as she grabbed a handful of cigarette packs from behind the counter and stashed them in all of her pockets. She grabbed a handful of lighters and then started down the aisles to find food.
Ty had already found bags to put things in and began stuffing the bags with chips and sweets and the typical convenient store foods. Lisa did the same until she came to the small packs of medicine. She grabbed another bag and began swiping all of the meds off of their hangers into the bag.