The Undead Love Toys, Toys, Toys!

by Sam Alexander



  The Undead Love Toys, Toys, Toys!

  By

  Sam Alexander

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Sam Alexander

  The Undead Love Toys, Toys, Toys!

  Copyright © 2015 by Sam Alexander

  All Rights Reserved. This story may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author, except for brief quotations embodied in reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. All characters and storylines are the property of the author and your support and respect is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Cover by Sam Alexander

  Cover images used under license from Shutterstock

  © David Smart

  © Elisanth

  Dear Mrs. Miller,

  Please watch after Chloe. I am going up north to get something for her. I’ll be back soon. Thank you. You are awesome. I mean that. Really.

  Evan

  I love waking up early. I’m not being sarcastic, it’s the truth. I’m usually awake before anyone else in the compound, except for Mr. Kaiser, but he doesn’t count, since I’m pretty sure he doesn’t ever go to sleep. It’s nice in the early morning, not so packed. The compound is kind of crowded, so if you want some time by yourself, you best get up early.

  This morning I woke up at 4:53, without an alarm clock. I usually wake up sometime around five, so seven ‘til five was normal. It’s nice that I can wake up without an alarm, because I share a room with Mrs. Miller and my little sister, Chloe. Mrs. Miller won’t wake up for another half of an hour and Chloe won’t wake up until about seven or so. I’ve gotten really good at waking up, sliding out of my bunk and getting out of the room without making a sound and I’m happy to let them sleep a little longer.

  This time of year it’s still pretty dark and chilly. I have a really warm sleeping bag that I keep unzipped so that I can get out of it quickly if I need too. I also sleep in my clothes and keep my shoes and Super Hammer near my head. I put the shoes and Super Hammer on the edge of the mattress, pivot out, lower myself to the floor, grab my shoes and slide out of the room. I keep my book bag near the door, so I grab that on the way out.

  I swing the book bag onto my shoulders, but I don’t put the shoes on yet. The floors of the main building are linoleum and it squeaks if you walk on it with shoes. I don’t like being heard, it’s kind of a point of pride in my line of work. Not heard, not seen. I’m one of the scroungers for my compound and I’m pretty good at it. Scratch that – I’m the best. I get on my bicycle in the morning and ride all over the place, getting into houses, offices, factories, warehouses, whatever and I don’t come back until dark. I bring back food, medicine, clothes, weapons, ammo, books, movies, spare parts, whatever is on the shopping list. If I can’t bring it back, I mark it or hide it, come back for it later by myself or with some people who can do the heavy lifting.

  It’s funny, right now, I’d normally be in eighth grade, but I haven’t been in school for about a year. School was nice and I was an okay student, but to be honest, I don’t miss it. Stuck behind a desk, stuck listening to a lecture or looking something up on the computer, stuck just being another kid. But now I’m pretty valuable member of the community. The compound has other scroungers, but none are as productive as me. It makes me feel good that I help keep things running.

  I have bike I use for scrounging. There are a lot of bicycles here at the compound, but not everyone rides. A lot of the bikes are shared, but mine is one that is not shared because it is mine, got it? It’s a mountain bike, 18 speed, spray painted black, wire basket on the front, pannier bags on the back. Mr. Lopez keeps my bike in tip top shape for me. It rides nice and quiet. I like it. I even had a bracket mounted on the handle bars so I can keep Super Hammer in easy reach.

  So, Super Hammer is, well, my hammer, and yes, I’ve given it a name. There’s a lot of hammers in the world and calling my hammer “my hammer” or “that hammer” or “not that hammer, the other one” gets a little tedious. Plus, it really is a super hammer. What I did was take an axe handle and attach a regular claw hammer head. It’s pretty nice for what I use it for, which is killing zombies. It’s lightweight, has accuracy and range, I can pretty much swing it all day. It’s earned the name, getting me out of a lot of tight spots.

  Why not carry a gun? Guns are nice, sure. Lots of range, light weight, easy to carry. I’m a pretty good shot. I’ve shot a gun once or twice, not a ton. Two things about guns though: First, they are loud. If a zombie hears the sound of a gun, they’ll walk toward the sound, because walking towards sounds is what they do. So, if I shoot one zee, I may as well be ready to shoot twenty, because that’s how many I’ll need to hit before I can get away. Don’t think for a second that a silencer will help. For one thing, there’s no such thing as a silencer. Mr. Kaiser, our weapons nut, has built some nice sound suppressors, but even then, the gun still makes a loud “ker chunk!” sound and the bullets make a “crack!” because they’re going faster than the speed of sound. Suppressors are better than nothing, I guess, but a long way from “silent”.

  My second reason is that guns shoot bullets and bullets don’t grow on trees. Most bullets got shot up in the riots, so they’ve been real hard to find. We’re doing okay for guns and ammo now (a few months back, I came across a house that might as well have been an armory; guns, reloading equipment and supplies, the whole shebang. Mr. Kaiser cried for joy, real tears and everything. He denies it but I saw it.) but it’s not like they’re just lying around. Hardly anyone in the compound carries a gun, most of carry some kind of club and we keep the guns stored in the main building for when we really need them.

  I used to carry a crossbow, but it didn’t really work out. It turns out, crossbow bolts (please note: crossbows shoot bolts and bows shoot arrows) stink against zombies. Not that there isn’t a market for bows or crossbows. Against game animals and humans they’re great. Bolts cut through the major organs, bleed a person out, horrible way to die. Horrible. Mr. Hernandez makes some great crossbows out of car parts and he does excellent business. Against zombies though, bolts and arrows really don’t do the trick. You have to destroy the brain to stop a zombie. Hammers are good for that, so are baseball bats, sticks, metal pipes and soft point bullets. Arrows aren’t so great at it. I mean, it’s possible to hit the brain just right with an arrow, I’ve seen Jenny Hernandez take out some undead with her crossbow. But that was when she was just showing off, not when the chips were down. Even she carries a steel pipe with her.

  So, when I’m in a dangerous situation, I bring out Super Hammer.

  I hop on my bike and off I go. In my opinion, a bike is the absolute best way to travel in this “dead are walking the earth” world of ours. I don’t have to feed it, don’t have to fuel it, and it’s fast, quiet, and reliable. On a bike it is easy to outrun most of the walkers with minimal effort and I can outrun not so friendly living people if I put a little effort into it.

  There are some folks who never leave the compound, ever. I guess I can understand that, there’s safety in the compound, but never leaving would drive me crazy. I guess that’s why I’m suited for what I do. I like to move around, I like to explore, get into things, find treasure, be useful. I don’t mind taking some risk, as long as the reward is worth it. I’m not as useful around the compound. Sure, I can cook, clean, tend t
he garden, tend the animals, tend the little kids, fix stuff, stand watch, and don’t get me wrong, I’ve done all those things, but getting out, exploring, breaking into abandoned building and finding useful stuff is what I do best.

  The compound is on the south-central part of town, mostly residential, but it turns commercial and industrial further south. I know the south side of town like the back of my hand. Every nook, cranny, shortcut and escape route. Nearly everything we need is around this side of the city and I hardly ever leave it. It’s stupid to leave the south side.

  But see, it’s my sister Chloe’s sixth birthday and I don’t want to end up giving her a can of tuna, even though these days canned food is a pretty awesome gift. No, I was getting her a doll. A new doll, straight from the box. Where does one get a new doll from a box? An abandoned house? Lots of dolls there, sure, but none of them in a box. You’ll find dolls that are mostly new, not really played with much, but not brand new, shiny, in a box with a thousand different things you must unfasten,