“You guys sure you want to leave?” Leo was hoping to persuade them to stay.
“Yeah we should go,” replied RJ as he stood up.
“I’ll walk you guys back then,” Leo submitted.
The boys put on their jackets then stepped out into the chilly night air. Leo slammed the door shut behind him. It was late and the only people active around the village were the security patrols. Torches burned brightly along the wall. Leo avoided looking directly at them so his eyes could adjust. He had to jog to catch up to his friends.
“Hey,” he said. “Wait up.”
None of them replied or even slowed their pace.
“Guys really?” Leo inquired. “What’s the deal?”
Again none of them answered.
“Did I say something wrong?” he continued to question them.
RJ broke the silence.
“Did you love your dad?” he asked.
“What’s that suppose to mean?” Leo was offended. “Of course I did.”
“Then how can you be so insensitive about it?” asked Cameron. “Your brother misses him. And you treat him like he’s a big baby for it.”
“One of us has to be strong for mom,” he countered.
“There’s a difference between strong and being a dick,” explained RJ. “Ya know Leo, you shouldn’t be so mean to your brother.”
“Says you,” argued Leo. “You guys aren’t around him all the time. He’s so annoying.”
Dead leaves blew across their path and gravel crunched under their feet.
“Look man,” explained Nick. “I know how annoying little brothers can be—”
“What are you taking about?” interrupted Cameron. “We don’t have any brothers.”
Nick flashed a smile.
“Screw you! Two minutes hardly makes you older,” he stated.
Cameron punched his twin brother in the arm hard.
“Ow!” Nick said as he rubbed his arm.
RJ shook his head in disapproval. He was noticeably upset.
“Really,” his voice cracked. “Just don’t forget to appreciate the fact you still have your brother.”
“What’s there to appreciate?” objected Leo. “All he does is—”
“Shut your fucking mouth and listen!” RJ demanded.
He stopped walking and commanded all of Leo’s attention.
“Your dad died. Now it’s just your mom and you guys. You need to be the man. That means sucking it up. Mikey looks up to you now!” he pointed back at the RV. “One day—any day—Zs could break down that wall and he could be gone!”
For a moment Leo imagined the dead busting down the wall and raiding the camp. Somehow he’d been able to turn that fear off. He’d seen so many people die.
“You okay?” Nick asked RJ.
RJ nodded.
“I only say this because it’s possible. When this all started it wasn’t just me and my dad,” he continued. “I had a little brother. His name was Sam.”
“You never told us that,” said Cameron.
“It’s tough to talk about,” he confessed. “He…he was the same age as you,” RJ told Leo.
“We never really got along. We were just too different. Not like that’s any kind of excuse. The point is…” he paused, searching for the right words. “I never took the time to show my brother that I cared. I regret never telling him. I didn’t know what was coming. Then he…he was gone.”
Tears ran down his cheeks. Cameron patted him on the back.
“It’s okay man,” he soothed RJ.
RJ took a moment to collect himself.
“Right,” Nick said awkwardly. “That concludes counseling for tonight.”
Cameron punched his brother in the arm again.
“Ouch!” he exclaimed. “Damn that hurts.”
The group continued to walk toward the Hooverville.
“So how was that trash run?” Cameron asked Leo.
Leo was lost in thought about what RJ had just told him.
“Leo?” Cameron got is attention.
“Wha-what?” he shook his head and returned to the present.
“Trash run?” repeated Cameron. “How was it?”
“Oh,” Leo said vacantly. “Yeah. It was okay.”
“Heard you guys had half a Z stuck under your bus,” added Nick who was still nursing his arm.
“Was it all gross and stuff?” inquired Cameron.
Leo laughed, ”Well one guy did throw up.”
The twin boys chuckled. RJ having recomposed himself joined the conversation.
“Which half?” he asked.
“Bottom,” answered Leo. “Just the legs was all.”
“That’s not that bad,” stated Nick. “People were screaming and what not. I thought it may have been the top half.”
“Na,” replied Leo.
RJ nudged Nick into changing direction.
“Wall?” he asked.
“Yeah,” confirmed RJ.
Leo hadn’t heard them but noticed the course change.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
RJ looked back at him. “It’s an underdeveloped part of the wall. It’s made up of used tires and pallets of fertilizer. We sit on top of one of the pallets and watch the street,” he explained.
“Why haven’t they built it up like the other sections of the wall?” Leo inquired.
“My dad said the plan is to extend the wall,” said RJ. “Build it around the town and start moving people out of the tents. We’re waiting until winter because…you know.”
RJ nodded.
“The guys who patrol here don’t mind us hanging out here either,” added Nick.
The group increased their speed until they arrived at the section RJ had described. Massive tractor tires, lying on their sides and stacked ten-feet tall, flanked pallets of manure. They were packed tightly together to prevent the dead from getting in. Each pallet was about five feet tall. The two toward the outside were stacked on top of one another and the third was braced against them on the inside to provide support. Together, all three formed a set of crude steps to the top of the wall. RJ climbed up the first pallet.
“Come on,” he coaxed them.
Each of them took their turn to climb up. The three of them peered over the wall. Leo’s inferior height made it more difficult for him to see, but he managed. Dark houses lined a deserted street. A few cars long abandoned by their owners lined the road. The scene was void of infected.
“Where are the Zs?” asked Leo.
Nick looked back and forth across the wall.
“They tend to stick near the two gates. More goin on there,” he explained.
The main gate was further down the wall toward the grain silos.
“What about the houses,” Leo pointed across the street.
The bare trees cast shadows across them that looked like skeleton hands.
“Dad said most of them have been cleared,” said RJ. “but there are still a few that they couldn’t. People didn’t know that the bites would turn you into one of those things. Some of them locked themselves in their houses only to be attacked by their own families. There are houses filled with Zs out there.”
Leo looked at each house wondering if one of them could be like what RJ was talking about.
“Dare ya to go check one out,” joked Cameron as he elbowed his brother.
“Okay,” Nick said as he started to climb the next pallet.
“Yeah right,” Leo called his bluff.
“We should all go,” replied Nick with a grin. “I mean, the ones that are out are at the gates and the others are all trapped anyway right?”
The other three looked at each other. None of them wanted to look like a coward in front of the others. After a moment of thinking, RJ came to an answer.
“Yeah.”
RJ climbed onto the pallet with Nick. The two of them peered over the wall and at the ground.
“What do you think?” Nick asked.
“Each pa
llet is what? Four? Five feet?” RJ answered in an unsure tone.
“It’d be an easy jump,” stated Nick.
RJ nodded in agreement. “Getting back up could be difficult, but we can all manage it.”
He lay down on his stomach and slowly lowered his legs over the wall. Nick held RJ’s arms to steady him. He dropped to the ground with a thud.
“You okay?” asked Nick.
“Yeah,” he replied as he looked around. “Further than it looks is all.”
RJ helped Nick down, they both then helped Leo and finally Cameron. The group resurveyed the area from their new position. The wall looked higher on this side.
“Well,” said Cameron. “Which house?”
RJ attempted to remember which houses his dad said would need to be cleared out. On the opposite side of the street four houses waited to be explored.
“I can’t remember if it was the first and third or the second and fourth,” confessed RJ.
“From which side?” inquired Cameron.
RJ laughed. “I don’t remember that either.”
“Dude what the hell?” Nick chuckled.
“I think…” RJ paused. that one.” he pointed to the furthest to the left.
“Is that one safe, or is that one off limits?” Leo asked.
“It’s good. Let’s go,” he answered confidently.
The four of them scurried like mice across the street and up to the house. Tall grass and weeds hid the sidewalk. Ivy snaked its way up the side of the brick domicile. The glass of the front door was broken, but the pieces that still clung to the frame were stained by the weather. Everything was silent until RJ turned the knob. It squeaked with each tiny movement. The door slowly swung inward. Their long shadows stretched across a leaf covered wood floor.
“You gonna go inside?” asked Nick.
“You go!” hissed RJ.
After some hesitation RJ stepped across the threshold. The house was dark. RJ could make out shapes, but he couldn’t accurately identify anything. He reached deep into his pocket and produced a lighter. RJ often used it to smoke the cigarettes he’d stolen from his father. But since the outbreak his father had gone cold turkey.
He rolled his thumb across the striker until a little flame danced from its top. The objects were revealed by the light. In the corner a chair and coat rack were knocked over. Against the wall opposite the stairs was a stand. Unused candles sat on its dusty surface. He handed each of his friends a candle stick. Each of them waited for him to light it for them.
“What now?” asked Cameron.
“We explore,” answered Nick sounding fiendish.
The boys stayed in a group as they walked away from the open door and into a living room. The couch and chair had been flipped and piled against a window. Glass covered the floor. From here Leo noticed that the ivy had consume the interior as well. Its vines spread out like a spider’s web from the broken window.
“Creepy,” Nick teased.
“Shut up!” his brother shot back.
They crossed the living room and entered the kitchen. Like in the room before the furniture was stacked against the back door and windows. A large brown spot was smeared across the floor. Clumps of long dried meat and flesh were speckled amongst the stain.
“Oh my God,” whispered Leo.
“Someone died here,” said Nick.
“Seriously,” objected Cameron. “Shut up!”
Nick laughed.
“Cool it guys,” RJ hissed.
The cabinets were open and bare. Dinnerware cluttered the counter.
“That means the house is safe right? I’m mean it’s obviously been looted and therefor safe,” asked Cameron.
“Yeah,” replied RJ.
Nick opened the refrigerator. The smell that wafted out was horrible.
“Oh geez,” he said slamming the door.
They covered their noses to protect themselves from the odor. That’s when Leo noticed the placement of the fridge.
“Why is that in front of a door?” he asked.
Nick looked behind it and realized that Leo was right. It was blocking a frame.
“That is wei—” he began.
Screams and moans of the undead interrupted him. They were pounding on the door behind it.
“Christ!” Nick stumbled away from the sounds.
“There are Zs in there!” exclaimed Leo as he too backed away.
RJ armed himself with a frying pan and stood ready. Nick began to laugh. The others looked at him as if he’d gone mad. He continued to laugh. One by one each of them began to laugh as well.
“Your faces!” chuckled Nick.
“Ours? You were actually white for a second there!” RJ snorted.
They laughed louder, but fear returned to their expressions when they heard another scream.
“That’s Mikey!” exclaimed Leo before running back through the living room.
The flame flickered violently as he ran to his little brother’s aid. Mikey was just inside the front door. He was attempting to kick free of an undead’s death-grip.
“Leo help!” he screamed.
Leo grabbed his brother and attempted to free him. The rest of the group began beating the creature. RJ, still armed with the frying pan, bludgeoned its head. As the gurgles it made subsided it also went limp. Shadows danced as the boys then steadied their candles.
“Is he okay?” asked Nick.
Leo hesitated a moment then boxed over his little brother for bites. After conducting a quick, but thorough search he answered.
“Yeah.”
Leo transitioned from concern to anger.
“I told you to go to bed!” he exclaimed.
“I wanted to play with you guys!” argued Mikey.
“We’re not—” Leo began to scream.
“That doesn’t matter!” shouted RJ. “He’s fine. That’s what is important.”
Leo submitted, but gave Mikey an angry glance.
“Holy crap!” Cameron said. “This is only half a zombie!”
He moved his candle closer to investigate. It was half an infected. A trail of innards and intestines stretched from the bottom of his bloodied torso. Its head was now just a massive pulp of bone and brain. Completely unidentifiable. On the floor next to it Leo could see the still brilliant green eye staring up at him.
“We should go,” said Nick.
No one disagreed as they prepared to exit the home, but there in the moonlight a closely packed group of undead blocked their path.
“Everyone upstairs!” ordered RJ.
Leo pushed his brother up the stairs with Cameron and Nick right behind him. RJ Began assaulting the first to come into the door. At the top of the stairs they searched for a door that wasn’t already splintered or broken.
“In here!” shouted Nick after finding the least damaged.
The boys tripped over one another as they scrambled into the bedroom.
“RJ!” he called down the stairs.
RJ was on the verge of being overwhelmed. He shoved an undead to the floor and bounded up the stairs. At the top he rounded the banister to the right and ran for the room. Before entering he quickly observed the dead begin their ascent. They crowded the entryway and formed a mob at the bottom of the stairs. He joined the others in the room and slammed the door behind him.
“What the Hell?” he yelled. “The door is broken! Why would you choose a room with a broken door, dumbass?”
“They’re all broken!” Nick shouted back.
RJ surveyed the room for a way out. They were in a dusty bedroom with a window that opened to the backyard. A small bookcase housed porcelain figurines of cats and dogs, and a short chest of drawers.
“Grab that!” he ordered as he pointed to the bookcase.
“That’s never going to hold!” objected Cameron.
“Just grab everything! They’re coming!” barked RJ.
Cats and dogs shattered as they hit the floor. RJ positioned himself so Leo and Nick could place i
t against the door. Cameron attempted to slide the chest of drawers over, but it was mounted to the wall.
“It’s part of the wall!” he yelled.
“Grab the bed then!” demanded RJ.
The door shook as the dead began their assault. Already the door began to crack and splinter. They were out of time. Leo observed everything in slow motion. RJ pressed himself against the door. Soon dead arms and hands began to reach through the gaps. Mikey stood next to the window crying. Nick and Cameron struggled to move the bed toward the door only to discover that it too was fixed to the wall. RJ was yelling at him. He pointed at Mikey and yelled again, but his voice was muted. Leo snapped out of it.
“The window! Go out the window!” he screamed.
Leo ran toward it and fought to open it. It wouldn’t move. Nick came over to help, but it still wouldn’t budge.
“It won’t open!” reported Nick.
“Move!” shouted Cameron.
The young man used his elbow to smash out the window. He kicked out the jagged edges then stuck his was out to scan the ground. Like the front yard, the backyard was overgrown with grass and weeds. There was no telling what might be hidden in the grass.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “Then Mikey. Then you,” he pointed to Leo.
Cameron worked himself out of the opening. He took a deep breath and gathered his courage before pushing himself off the ledge. He fell into the overgrowth and rolled to lessen the impact. His shoulder slammed into something hard.
“Shit!” he cursed.
“You okay?” called Leo.
Cameron rubbed his shoulder.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he answered. “There are flagstones or something down here. Be careful.”
“I’m scared,” confessed Mikey.
“You’ll do fine,” his brother encouraged him as he helped him onto the ledge.
“Be brave bud,” Cameron coached him. “I’ll catch you.”
“I…I don’t think I can,” stammered Mikey.
Leo knew his brother wouldn’t be able to gather himself in time, so he gently pushed him. The boy screamed on the way down, but was caught by Cameron.
“Shit!” RJ shouted.
The door cracked loudly and the whole grew wider. Nick ran over to help him.
“Go!” they both shouted at Leo.
Leo slid his legs out and attempted to dangle from the second story window. In the room above him, the door finally succumbed to the undead attack. An orchestra of moans and screams rose in a crescendo. Before Leo could drop down, RJ dove out and over him. He narrowly missed Cameron and Mikey as he hit the ground. Nick stepped on Leo’s hands as he vaulted himself out of the window. Leo slid down the side of the house, scraping his hands on the rough brinks. He fell straight to his back when he hit the ground. Nick landed feet first. A loud snap proceeded his screams of pain as he slammed into the ground.
Z Plan (Book 3): Homecoming Page 9