The Zombie Zovels (Book 1): Zombie Suburbia

by Lake, D. K

  “Since when?”

  “Since there's a child in the back. They may be okay with smoking around their own child, but I'm not.”

  “Sorry, I forgot she was in the back.” he said, leaning out the window, but not before he had exhaled smoke all over me.

  “What is that smell? Smells like... like, is that weed?” I asked.

  “Err.. no.” Lane said, taking another drag, trying to be inconspicuous.

  “You're smoking pot? Are you kidding me!” I said, smacking his arm.

  “You need to relax, Thom offered, and I haven't done anything like this since... well, since before. Relax, Alex!”

  “Stop telling me to relax. I can't relax. Are you all insane? Stop that, the winds blowing it all over me. Get out!” I ordered.

  Lane climbed back out, which was more like me pushing him out, then I rolled up the window, but could still smell it inside the van, and unrolled it again. Lane leaned against the van watching me, I gave him the finger, he stuck his tongue out at me, and I went back to picking a hole in my jeans, waiting for Thom and Crystal to come back.

  Lane climbed back in, pushing me across the seat, as though I weighed nothing. I slid back and grabbed the wheel. Lane looked at me amused, before trying to pry my fingers from the wheel. “No, I'm driving,” I said.

  “No, I'm driving. I always drive.” Lane said.

  I heard the back of the van slam.

  “Not when you're high.” I grabbed the wheel again.

  Lane did the same and we started squabbling like kids.

  This is what happens when you spend every day with someone. You end up squabbling like kids at some point.

  The side door opened and Thom gave us a questioning look.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “I'm driving.” I said.

  “No, you're not.” Lane laughed and pushed me along the seat again.

  “Should I sit in the back?” Thom asked.

  “No, there's plenty of room up front,” Lane said, placing his hand on my thigh and sliding me across the seat again, turning it into a game, he was enjoying aggravating me.

  Thom slid into the seat, ignoring our little disagreement, and I suddenly found myself shoulder to shoulder with Thom. I quickly scooted back over to Lane.

  “I'm driving.” he whispered in my ear, starting the van, trying to wind me up some more. “What was that sign up there?” I asked Thom.

  “It was advertising new homes, down the road somewhere.”

  I nodded my head at the sign, and Lane pulled off and accelerated before rolling to a stop at the side of the road, idling in front of the sign so I could get a better look.

  “Do you think they finished building them?” Thom asked.

  I jumped at the unfamiliar voice. It was weird hearing another voice other than Lane's. “I don't know, but we're headed that way anyway, and we can't go back so...” I looked out the windshield.

  “Let's go!” Thom said, drumming a beat on the dash.

  Lane looked at me, I nodded and he pulled back onto the road. I could hear Crystal in the back making funny noises and talking to Ozma.

  I stayed as far away from Thom without it being too noticeable. He needed a wash, badly! I ended up squashed up beside Lane, our shoulders touching. I think he was enjoying the close contact with me as his hand kept drifting to my inner thigh.

  “Stop it.” I laughed and smacked his hand away. “Eyes on the road.” I said firmly, pushing his face away from mine.

  I leaned across and peered around Lane, looking out the window as the town grew smaller and disappeared behind the trees.

  The images from the town were still haunting me. I lifted my knees up and hugged my legs. “Alleycat,” Lane whispered. I felt his fingers in my hair, toying with the ends of it. “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded and leaned into him, and he put his arm around me.

  Chapter 16

  Fifteen minutes down the road, another large sign came into view advertising the new houses. Lane took the turning off and drove slowly around the long winding road. There was a sectioned off area that was still in the building process, with diggers and portable toilets. There were new roads leading off to nothing as the work had never been finished. We followed the road that had been finished and it led us around in a full circle. I counted ten homes that looked completely finished. Most of them had For Sale or Sold on a signpost in the front yard.

  “Which one?” Lane asked.

  I looked at each of the houses, the one nearest to us was the only one with drapes hanging up in the windows.

  “That one looks lived in, the others look empty.” I said.

  Lane pulled up in the driveway and we both leaned forward and looked out the windshield. “It looks quiet.” Lane said.

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Thom asked.

  I picked up the golf club that I kept in the front of the van.

  “See any zombies?” Crystal asked.

  “Not yet.” I replied.

  Lane picked up his baseball bat and quietly inched the door open.

  “They probably already heard the van.” I said, shooing Thom out.

  I walked around to the back of the van, looking at the other houses for any sign of zombie movement.

  Thom opened the doors. Crystal picked up Ozma and was about to climb out.

  “Maybe you should stay in there with Ozma, we'll check it out first and if it's safe we'll come back and get you.”

  Crystal didn't look pleased about my suggestion.

  “Just to be on the safe side, we don't know what's inside yet.” I said.

  Thom nodded his head to reassure her and Lane closed the doors. I followed Lane and Thom along the path, trying not to laugh at how silly Thom looked with the skillet raised above his head, ready for a zombie ambush... that or he was about to make breakfast. I giggled.

  The pair of them looked at me, and I cleared my throat.

  Lane turned back to the half-open front door. He straightened up and backed himself against the door-frame trying to see down the hallway. He looked like a meerkat, the way his body had straightened up and his head turned from side to side. I giggled again, and Lane looked back at me and shushed me.

  I bit my lip, but it only made it worse, and I snorted a laugh instead.

  “Did you give her some?” Thom asked quietly.

  “No, but she breathed it in, it was pretty strong stuff, I think it's gone straight to her head.” “Are we going in or not?” I asked.

  “Shh... Alex,” Lane hissed.

  “Sorry!” I pouted.

  “Be quiet or I'll make you stay in the van as well.” Lane said.

  I rolled my eyes and followed Thom through the door.

  Inside looked messy, a broken vase laid on the floor in the hallway with artificial flowers scattered everywhere. Dirty footprints covered the floor. Thom walked into the living room, I stuck my head around the door, books had been knocked off shelves, and magazines covered the floor from where they'd fallen off the coffee table.

  The place looked like zombie damage, not human damage.

  “Zombies.” Lane whispered to me, and I nodded and followed him through to the kitchen, which looked the same, items littered the floor with more dirty footprints zigzagging all over. Thom appeared from the other side of the kitchen walking through the dining room to meet us. I started opening cupboards, but they were all empty, not like a few items left behind, these were completely bare.

  Lane opened the fridge, it was empty and looked brand new, he frowned, closing the door again. Thom opened a drawer which was also empty.

  “Something's not right here.” Lane said.

  “That's because it's a show house, no one ever lived here.” I said.

  Which meant we weren't going to find any food here.

  “What about the other homes?” Thom asked.

  “This was the only one with drapes in the windows, I don't think anyone actually got to move into the street.
”

  Lane leaned against the sink, looking at me. I looked around, thinking it over, and Thom walked back into the dining room.

  “There's no food here.” I said.

  “But it's a place to stay for the night. Otherwise, we all have to squeeze into the van.” I ran my fingers through my hair, going over our options.

  “We're about twenty minutes from that town, if we stay we need to make sure the house is secure, and hope not too many of those zombies wander this way during the night.” I held onto the sink and reached up onto my tiptoes trying to see out the window.

  “Huh,”

  “What is it?” Lane asked, spinning around to look out the window, which was easy for him. Floating in the murky pool was three dead zombies.

  “You know what we should do,” Lane said.

  “What?”

  “We should find a boat and sail off. Zombies can't swim, we'd be safe in the sea.” Lane said, turning the faucet on, the pipes gurgled and water trickled out, and after a few seconds, it flowed into a steady stream.

  “And what would we eat every day?” I asked, watching Lane wash his hands off in the sink, using the new handwash that had been placed by the sink for decoration.

  “Fish?” he said.

  “They could be contaminated, remember?” I said.

  “What, even in the middle of the ocean?”

  “Do you even know how to fish?” I asked, smiling at him.

  There was a bump on the stairs which pulled us back from our conversation.

  Lane wiped his wet hands down his hoodie and edged his way around the center counter, and I did the same at the other end, poking my head into the living room to make sure no zombies were on their way around to us. I met up with Lane at the kitchen archway and we crept down the hallway. We both heard the lumping, this time, it was coming down the stairs... it was Thom. He swung around the banister railing, stopping in front of us.

  “All clear upstairs.” he said.

  Lane exhaled loudly and I lowered my golf club.

  “What's wrong?” Thom asked.

  “We thought you were a zombie.” Lane said, wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. “Next time you decide to go wandering off let us know beforehand.” I said.

  “Sorry,” Thom said, scratching his hands.

  His hands looked sore and were bleeding in places from where he'd scratched it too much. “What's happening then?” Thom asked.

  “Alley,” Lane turned to me.

  I checked the time on my watch 4.50pm. It was nearly dinnertime, and by dinner, I meant one tin of soup and a packet of crackers that we now had to divide between four people, and a jar of peanut butter.

  “Let's just snoop around outside for a bit, peek through a few windows and check over the back, and if everything looks non-zombies then we'll stay for the night.”

  “Cool, I'll just go let Crystal know.” Thom walked back outside.

  “Non-zombies? Lane said, smiling at me.

  “You know what I mean.” I playfully smacked him with my golf club and walked back outside. Crystal stayed in the van while Lane, Thom, and I ducked behind shrubs and looked through windows and crept down pathways. We met back at the van. Aside from the dead zombies face down in the swimming pool, it appeared safe.

  We carried our bags inside, and Thom and Lane got busy barricading the windows on the ground floor and securing the doors. I felt relativity safe inside after that. I was still a little nervous about how close we were to the town.

  When the light started to fade we took the decorative candles from the upstairs bathroom and placed them around the living room, making sure the windows were covered, so the zombies couldn't see the light.

  We each had a small bowl of cold soup, using the display bowls from the overhead glass cabinet in the kitchen. Then I shared the crackers out and we all smoothed peanut butter on top (good job no one was allergic). Lane sat cross-legged with a spoon helping himself to the peanut butter afterward, and Crystal shared some canned corn with Ozma. She offered us some, but Lane hated vegetables and I didn't want to take food away from a child so I politely refused. The only other food source Crystal had in her bag was three granola bars, a bag of sugar, two medium water bottles, a juice box, and a canned tin of beans. Lane and I had accumulated more which we stored in the van. I was still restrictive about how much we ate, never knowing if it was the last food we would find for a while. Stored inside the van was a crate of bottled water, a variety of alcohol bottles, dry pasta, different cookie packets, nine canned tins of tomato soup, a mixture of chips, sweets and chocolate which we usually found in gas stations, three more tins of canned corn, seven unopened boxes of cereal, numerous gum packets and Nicorette gum for Lane to munch on when he felt like murdering me.

  “What's really going on between you two? I don't believe you're just friends.” Crystal said, passing Ozma to Thom. Ozma had been trying non-stop to escape from the room, in the end, we had to build a mini-barricade at the door leading into the hallway and the kitchen, but she was a climber and one of us was chasing her back every few minutes.

  I glanced over at Lane, who wasn't about to reply, so I looked back at Crystal.

  “We went to school together, he was a real jerk.”

  Thom laughed.

  “And Alex was an unsociable bitch.” Lane said.

  His lips twitched with a smile, I knew he didn't really mean it.

  “So you've both been together since the start of it? I thought you found each other?” Thom said. “Um, no, I was on my own for a while, Lane was in a safe house, and we somehow met up in Oregon, which is kinda weird since I walked from Washington.”

  “Whoa!” Crystal said. “Looks like destiny wanted you two to find each other.”

  I smiled and felt Lane watching me from the corner of my eye. I didn't believe in destiny. I believed Lane and me meeting up like that was the biggest coincidence of my life. I wasn't going to lie to myself and pretend that us meeting didn't change my life, because it did, and I knew having Lane by my side would change my future. Every day I was surrounded by zombies and death, the only future I saw was one with Lane in it. There was nothing else to look forward to. No cure had been created as far as I knew, and I didn't think things were going to change anytime soon. He was my future. The question was: For how long?

  “I think Ozma needs changing,” Thom said, looking at Crystal.

  “I suppose you want me to sort that out?” Crystal said.

  “If you could, please, then we can try and get her to sleep for an early night, and we can test out that bed upstairs.” Thom replied, making Crystal giggle like a schoolgirl.

  Gross! I hardly knew these people, did they really have to say things like that in front of us. I looked at Lane, I didn't think he'd even heard them, he was flicking his lighter on and off. I watched Crystal as she changed Ozma, which was actually just some cloth with a waterproof diaper cover over the top.

  “You don't have any diapers.” I said.

  “No, we come across diapers occasionally, but they're too bulky to carry. Thom, can you keep an eye on Ozma while Alex and I wash these out?”

  “Sure thing, babe.”

  “Lane, did you bring that detergent in from the van? Lane...?” I snapped my fingers trying to get his attention.

  “Huh?”

  “The detergent, did you bring it in?”

  “Yes, it's in the kitchen.” he said, rubbing his eyes, he looked tired.

  I helped Crystal in the kitchen, washing cloths and rags in the kitchen sink.

  “If you've got anything you need washing, get it washed tonight and hang it up to dry.” I said. She nodded, squeezing out a cloth.

  “Do you think you'll have kids?” she asked.

  “What?” I said, my eyes darting back to the living room, where I could just about see Lane's leg stretched out on the floor.

  Crystal handed me another cloth to roll in a towel. We'd found brand new towels in the upstairs bathroom and the e
n suite, gorgeous soft fluffy towels laid out for display (that I would be taking with me tomorrow). I rolled the damp diaper cloth in the towel, trying to get some of the moisture out of it.

  Crystal was still looking at me for an answer.

  “I-I don't think so.”

  Crystal wrinkled her brow.

  “I find it hard keeping myself alive and fed, let alone another human... well, apart from...” I tilted my head to the living room.

  “What if he wants kids?”

  I laughed. “It's not really up to him.” I said, wishing she would drop the subject. “You two would have really cute babies.”

  “Ozma is pretty gorgeous.” I said.

  “Yeah she is.” Crystal said, and then she got sidetracked and started talking about breastfeeding and her sore nipples.

  How did this happen? Yesterday it had been me and Lane, things had been fine, and now I was listening to a girl talking about having babies and how much she wanted a little brother or sister for Ozma. This girl was insane, I just wanted to bash her over the head with the skillet she carried in her bag and tell her how impractical all this was.

  We joined the boys back in the front room and Crystal changed Ozma into a little onesie and settled her down for her night feed. I could see how uncomfortable Lane was, he kept looking at me, I think he wanted us to leave the room.

  “I think I'm going to head up to bed, you guys are taking the bedroom closest to the bathroom, right?”

  “Yep.” Crystal replied.

  Lane was already on his feet, pulling me up.

  “We'll be up in a little while.” Crystal said.

  “Okay, remember to blow out the candles before you come up.”

  I followed Lane to the door. “Oh and you should barricade your bedroom door, we're going to do the same.”

  Thom nodded and waved goodnight to us. Lane was already halfway up the stairs. I quickly filled two of the display mugs full of detergent and followed him up to the master bedroom which also had an en suite bathroom.

  Lane waited for me in the bedroom, as soon as I was inside he dragged a dresser across the floor to barricade the door. I went into the bathroom, stripped down and got to work washing our dirty clothes in the bathtub.