A Good Night for Shooting Zombies

by Jaco Jacobs

The chain whirred rhythmically as I pedalled. The only other sound was a dog barking somewhere in the distance. I pulled my beanie tighter over my ears.

  I tried desperately not to think about what I was doing. I stopped at a gate and took one of the papers from my backpack. As I slipped it into the letter box a dog started to bark inside.

  ‘Shush!’ I whispered and pedalled off as fast as possible.

  By the time I’d slipped a paper into the letter box at the fourth house, my hands were numb. As I continued down the road, a car’s bright headlights appeared in the darkness. I jumped off the bike and stood frozen against a hedge of shrubs along the side of the road. Breathlessly, I watched the car come closer. Only when I saw the red tail lights disappear did I dare breathe again.

  I put my hand in my backpack and felt the wad of papers. I’d had fifty photocopies made. There were still a lot to hand out. My fingers hit upon the cold metal of the iron saw.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Breaking In

  I think that when you’re used to breaking into people’s houses you never expect someone to break into yours. Bruce and his gang might have changed the shed’s padlock to keep Chris, Vusi and me out, but fortunately they replaced it with a cheap one.

  The iron saw made a horrible screeching sound in the silence of the night. I wished I could see how far I had sawn through the shackle of the padlock, but I was too scared to switch on the torch.

  It was after two when I’d finally dropped all the papers in the letter boxes but I had no idea what time it was now.

  The cold was difficult to ignore. By that time it felt as if there was a thin layer of ice on the outside of my jacket. I once read that the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth was -89.2°C, in Antarctica. I made a mental note to ask Vusi whether he thought zombies could survive in such cold. Maybe they’d freeze, and then Antarctica would be the only safe place to hide from zombies.

  I tried to imagine a whole mob of bloodthirsty zombies stalking me and I sawed even faster. Finally, there was a soft click as the saw’s blade broke through the shackle.

  I opened the padlock and blew on my hands to warm them before pushing the door open with a deafening clank.

  The inside of the shed was almost pitch dark, except for two blocks of moonlight falling through the high windows. I closed the door behind me before daring to take the torch from my backpack, and then switched it on. The storeroom looked creepy in the faint light of the torch. Vusi would’ve been very excited if he could’ve seen this – at night the shed looked even more perfect for a horror movie. I could easily imagine what it would look like if zombies crawled out of the old Beetle, or from behind the stacked boxes, or maybe one of them could jump from that pile of wooden crates…

  Cold shivers ran down my spine when I heard a sudden noise behind me. I swung around just in time to see a large rat scampering away.

  Relieved, I exhaled and started searching with the torch. I knew I had better stop thinking about zombies and simply focus on what I’d come to do. Where would Bruce have hidden the video camera? Maybe close to the music centre?

  The first box I opened contained a DVD player and two mobile phones, all still in their original packaging. I couldn’t believe that Vusi and Chris and I had been so dumb. We should have realized from the start what was going on. Surely Chris must have known that this wasn’t her brother and her uncle’s stuff? I wondered when Bruce and his gang were planning to sell these things. And who would buy such a lot of stolen goods?

  I rummaged through one box after the other, but found no trace of Vusi’s video camera. What if it wasn’t even in the shed? Maybe Bruce had decided to keep it for himself.

  As I opened a new box, I heard something outside. I froze while staring at the contents of the box.

  The rumbling became louder, and then there was the sound of a car engine. A moment later, I heard voices.

  With trembling fingers I flicked off the torch.

  Car lights appeared under the door. Then the engine was switched off.

  In a panic I glanced around in the dark. Where was the best hiding place? Maybe the cupboard? But perhaps they were bringing more stolen stuff to stash in there. Under the Beetle? What if they’d come to steal the car and they drove right over me on their way out?

  Then I saw the pile of wooden crates.

  Quick as a flash, I grabbed my backpack, dumped the torch inside and zipped it up. I gritted my teeth. With overeager, fumbling fingers, I rummaged through the box before closing it. The crates were stacked to form an almost perfect staircase to the top. The highest crates were nearly right against the roof of the shed. I slung the backpack over my shoulder and started scrambling to the top.

  Outside someone was swearing loudly, probably having discovered the broken padlock. The door was pushed open roughly. A torch beam cut through the dark.

  ‘Stay where you are or I’ll blow your head off!’

  It felt as if my tummy was contracting into a fist. It was Bruce’s voice.

  ‘There’s no one here, Bruce,’ said the darkhaired guy.

  To my relief I realized they hadn’t seen me. I tried to flatten myself even more on top of the crates.

  Below me I could hear Bruce’s footsteps on the cement floor.

  ‘Doesn’t look like anything’s gone,’ Bruce said after a while. ‘If I get my hands on whoever tried to break in here, he’s mincemeat.’

  ‘You think it means someone knows about this place?’ The dark-haired man sounded worried. ‘We’d better get our merchandise out of here.’

  Bruce swore under his breath.

  Without warning, I got a very strange feeling. It was as if the earth was starting to give way underneath me. I breathed in sharply and grabbed hold of the edge of a crate to try and keep my balance, but it was too late. The tower of crates tottered, as if in slow motion, and then started tumbling to the ground.

  ‘What the hell?!’ I heard Bruce exclaim.

  There was a loud bang when I landed on the floor together with a number of crates. A sharp pain shot through my arm. Crates rained down around me for what felt like for ever. When they finally stopped, I cautiously opened my eyes.

  A blinding light was shining into my face. It was so bright that I couldn’t see Bruce and his gang’s faces at all. But I could see the pistol one of them was holding in his hand.

  I don’t know if it was due to the pain or maybe the shock of having a firearm pointing right into my face, but my head was spinning dangerously. I felt everything around me go dark.

  Then a sharp, wailing sound cut through my dizziness. It sounded like…

  ‘Cops!’ one of the guys called out in a panic.

  Then I understood what was going on: I was dreaming. It was all just a stupid dream. I closed my eyes with a sigh and slept on.

  Long Numbers That Can Be Divided by Eleven, a Sore Shoulder and Two Policemen

  When I opened my eyes, a light was still shining into my face.

  ‘Relax. Don’t sit up,’ said a voice. ‘Tell me, what day of the week is it?’

  ‘Erm…’ I swallowed. My throat was bone dry.

  ‘How many fingers do you see?’

  ‘One,’ I said in a hoarse voice. I could actually see five fingers, but I assumed the woman meant for me to say how many fingers she was holding up in the air.

  ‘What’s four plus seven?’

  ‘Eleven,’ I said. ‘If you want to find out if a very long number can be divided by eleven, you add up every second digit in the number. Then add up the remaining digits. If the difference between the two answers is zero, or if it’s a multiple of eleven… the original number is also… a multiple of eleven.’ I coughed. ‘May I have some water, please?’

  The woman in the white jacket smiled and gave me the glass of water that was standing on the bedside table. She held the straw to my mouth so that I could drink. ‘He didn’t come off too badly, except for the shoulder. He’s still a little confused from the sedative, b
ut he can go home.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor,’ said a familiar voice.

  I tried to sit up, but it felt as if a giant pair of pliers had my shoulder in a tight grip.

  ‘Take it easy, Clucky. Your shoulder’s badly sprained,’ Uncle Hendrik said and put his hand on my arm.

  I looked down. My arm was in a sling.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, perplexed. Then I remembered the crates starting to fall, the furious voice calling out, the screaming sirens… ‘Bruce and those two other guys… Did they…?’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Uncle Hendrik patiently. ‘The police are waiting outside – they want to ask you some questions. We can talk on the way home. Your mum is frantic with worry.’

  When the two policemen walked in, Uncle Hendrik stepped away and sat down on a chair in the corner.

  They asked a lot of questions and I told them exactly what had happened. I told them about Vusi’s movie. About Chris, who’d said that she had the perfect place for shooting it. About Bruce and his gang threatening us and taking Vusi’s camera. About how I’d decided to go and take it back. The whole time I was speaking, I tried to figure out whether the things I was saying would land Vusi, Chris and me in trouble. But my head felt too fuzzy to think properly.

  ‘You can thank your lucky stars that we arrived in time, laddie!’ said the stocky policeman when he finally closed his notebook. ‘Things could’ve turned out very differently.’

  ‘We’ve been looking for those three guys for a long time,’ said his colleague, who had a thin moustache. He turned to Uncle Hendrik. ‘He’ll have to come into the station later today to make an official statement. But that’s all for now.’

  After the police had gone, Uncle Hendrik helped me get up off the bed. The hospital was as quiet as a graveyard, except for our footsteps squish-squashing on the grey tiled floor. I looked at my watch. No wonder it was so quiet – it was twenty past four in the morning.

  Uncle Hendrik’s old pickup was waiting for us in the deserted parking lot. He unlocked the passenger door and put my backpack on the seat before helping me to get in.

  ‘How did the police know they had to go there?’ I asked as we drove out of the hospital gates.

  ‘Long story,’ said Uncle Hendrik.

  I kept quiet and waited for him to tell me.

  ‘Your mum got up in the night and found this on the kitchen floor…’ He took a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and gave it to me.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw what it was. How on earth did that end up on the kitchen floor? Did it fall out of my backpack? I could have kicked myself.

  ‘Your mum went to your bedroom and saw that you were gone. We looked for you everywhere. Eventually she called Vusi’s parents. Vusi spilled the beans about the shed where you guys had been playing in the afternoons, and about Bruce and his mates taking his video camera. Then your mum called the police.’

  Uncle Hendrik didn’t say another word for the rest of the trip home, as if he wanted to take a break after his long explanation.

  When we approached our house, I saw that all the lights were on. I sighed. Obviously I was in major trouble.

  ‘What else is in your backpack?’ Uncle Hendrik asked when we stopped next to the house.

  I smiled as I remembered. That was the one good thing that had happened tonight…

  Puffy Eyes and a Conversation on a Veranda

  That Monday and Tuesday I didn’t go to school.

  Mum refused to let me set foot outside the house, except on Sunday afternoon when Uncle Hendrik took me to the police station to make a statement.

  Cindy also stayed at home. She locked herself inside her room, and when she finally joined us for breakfast on Tuesday morning after Mum threatened to break down her door, her eyes were still puffy from crying.

  Uncle Hendrik said that Bruce and his gang didn’t get bail – the police had told him that. They wanted to arrest the rest of the syndicate before they’d consider releasing Bruce on bail.

  I didn’t know what to say to Cindy. It didn’t sound right to say that I was sorry. After all, her boyfriend had threatened to kill me – not once but twice.

  It was only late that Tuesday afternoon that I got a chance to sneak out of the house. My backpack kept banging against my back while I rode to Vusi’s house. It was a bit tricky keeping my bike on the road with my arm still in the sling.

  When I rang the doorbell, it almost felt like the first time. After Cheetah had bitten and killed Kathleen.

  Vusi’s mum opened the door. ‘Clucky,’ she said.

  I swallowed nervously. From the way she said my name, I immediately knew she had a lot of things to say to me. Not very friendly things. Things like: ‘Why did you make a movie on the sly with my son, even though you knew he was sick?’ Or: ‘Get lost, and never set foot here again!’

  But I beat her to it.

  ‘Ma’am, I just want to say that I’m very, very sorry about what happened.’

  When she opened her mouth to say something, I beat her to it again.

  ‘But, actually, I’m not really sorry. Vusi desperately wanted to make a movie. And I just wanted to help him. Chris and I. And nothing that happened was Chris’s fault because she actually didn’t know that Vusi was sick. And…’ Suddenly I dried up. I unzipped my backpack. ‘And I just wanted to return Vusi’s video camera.’

  I hadn’t told the police that I’d found the camera. Just before I scrambled up the crates to flee from Bruce and his gang, I saw it inside the last box and quickly grabbed it. I wasn’t sure whether removing something from a crime scene was completely legal, but I guessed it couldn’t be completely illegal – after all, it was Vusi’s camera.

  ‘And I also brought this,’ I said and thrust a piece of paper into her hand. It was the last flyer. I’d distributed all the others.

  When I’d said everything that I wanted to say, I turned around and walked to my bike, which was leaning against the gatepost. Riding off, I didn’t dare look around to see what Vusi’s mum was doing.

  I wished I had the courage to ride to Chris’s house as well.

  When I got home, the newspaper was lying on the table. On the front page was a headline that said: Gang of robbers caught thanks to schoolchildren.

  Zombies

  Before I knew it, it was Saturday afternoon. The moment I had been waiting for all week.

  When I arrived at the park, there was only one person there. Feeling disappointed, I got off my bike, taking care not to hurt my shoulder. Sitting on the small bench next to the rubbish bin was a slender figure wearing a floral dress and a Frankenstein mask.

  ‘Clucky,’ she said when I approached her.

  ‘Aunt Hantie?’ I asked, gobsmacked.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asked and turned her head so that I could admire the mask. ‘I found it among the children’s old toys. It’s hard to throw those things away, you know. Sentimental value.’

  ‘Erm… actually it’s supposed to be a zombie, Auntie.’

  She took the mask off, looking taken aback. ‘So what is this thing then?’

  ‘It’s Frankenstein’s monster, Auntie. But never mind – we can put make-up on you.’

  She put the mask down next to her and dug something out of her handbag. Screwing up her eyes, she unfolded a sheet of paper and studied it. I peeped over her shoulder, even though I knew the contents by heart.

  WANNA BE IN A MOVIE?

  This is your chance!

  We’re making a horror movie and we need ZOMBIES!

  Where: the park opposite the library

  When: Saturday 24 July

  Time: 17:00

  (Bring your own zombie mask if you have one!)

  Clucky, Vusi & Chris

  Nearly a week had passed since I rode around on my bike in the freezing dead of night, putting the flyers into people’s letter boxes. Maybe everyone had forgotten about it.

  Aunt Hantie unwrapped a piece of chewing gum. ‘I saw in the paper that
the three of you are heroes now. I can’t believe you finally nabbed that Bruce and his mates. I’ve known for a long time that that scoundrel was up to no good. He and that Lategan boy who landed up in jail – you know, Chris’s brother – were always loitering around, looking for trouble. I heard rumours that the Lategan boy was also involved in all this, even though he’s in jail.’

  I shook my head. ‘That isn’t true, Auntie. The police said Chris’s brother was innocent. He didn’t know that Bruce and his cronies were using the shed to store their stolen goods.’

  Aunt Hantie stared at me in silence while slowly chewing her gum. That hardly ever happened: Aunt Hantie not saying anything. ‘You like that girl, don’t you, Clucky?’ she said after a while.

  My face was hot. ‘She… she’s very angry at Vusi and me.’ I changed the subject. ‘I don’t think she’s ever going to speak to me again.’

  The past three days at school and on the bus, Chris hadn’t even looked my way, never mind spoken to me. She was terribly good at ignoring people when she was mad. I hadn’t heard from Vusi either after visiting their house on Tuesday.

  Aunt Hantie smiled. ‘She’s a feisty one. But don’t give up hope.’ She spat out the piece of gum and threw it in the rubbish bin. ‘You must remember, Clucky, people react differently when they’re hurt. Some get cocky and hope that will protect them against more hurt. Others go into hiding because they’re too scared of getting hurt again.’ She took a fresh piece of gum from her pocket but didn’t unwrap it. ‘You’re a good boy, Clucky. That’s the only reason why I decided to come when I found the flyer in my letter box. I don’t even like those spooky horror movies.’

  I looked again at the paper in her hand. ‘I don’t think anyone else is going to show up,’ I said in dismay. ‘And I don’t even think Vusi’s mum will allow him to come.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Aunt Hantie.

  I gave her a puzzled look. Then I saw what she was looking at. A car was approaching. Vusi’s dad’s Mercedes. His dad got out first, then Vusi and then his mum and Miranda. Vusi had his backpack and his camera with him.