“What are you doing?” Justin screamed in panic.
“We’re going back before we get in any deeper over our heads,” Brendon shot back.
Tommy had finished getting the final few crumbs out of his Pop-Tart bag when he spoke up. “I know the way.”
Brendon and Justin turned to look at Tommy. There was not a hint on his features that he was speaking anything but the truth. Brendon sighed and got back on the road heading in the general direction of Paul’s house.
Travis was busy looking in Tommy’s knapsack for a wayward Pop-Tart. The quartet passed three cars on their way. All three were packed with people and provisions. All the people in those cars looked haunted, harried and in a rush. Not one of them so much as addressed the boys’ presence with even a nod.
“They sure seem in a hurry,” Travis said, putting into words what everyone was thinking. Well, maybe not Tommy. He had somehow pulled out another Pop-Tart from the bag Travis had previously checked. Travis added for Tommy’s ears only, “Do you have a secret panel in there or something?” Tommy just smiled, strawberry goo plastered to his teeth.
“Need any help with that?” Travis asked. Tommy broke off half. Travis couldn’t have been any happier than if he had won a shopping spree at Game Stop.
“You’re gonna need it,” Tommy said cryptically. Travis almost immediately lost all pleasure in the Pop-Tart.
Tommy led them unerringly to their destination. When they were about to make their final left turn onto Paul’s street, Tommy told them they “might want to park here.” Brendon didn’t question him at all as he pulled the car over and shut the engine off in the hopes of not attracting any undue attention.
“Prob’ly didn’t want to do that just yet,” Tommy said. When he didn’t clarify, nobody asked for any further information, not knowing exactly what they would be trying to clarify.
As Brendon opened the door, the telltale redolence of the dead blasted through the car like an Arctic breeze through a windbreaker. What little flavor Travis’ Pop-Tart had maintained had now embittered. The next few minutes were spent securing weaponry and stashing all extra ammo into as many free pockets as possible while still being able to move under the weight.
All fours boys slowly walked the twenty-five yards to the corner of Paul’s street. The smell was intensifying. What was more disturbing was the incessant sounds of the dead. There was no talking, only the loitering shuffle. There was no laughter, only the constant sound of bodies maneuvering for position. There was no human sound, so to speak, there were the plaintive sounds only the dead can make.
Brendon peeked his head around the last privacy fence that marked the delineation between safety and demise. The other three waited expectantly a few feet behind. Paul lived at the end of a cul-de-sac, no more than a hundred yards long. What Brendon saw almost made him turn tail and run. It looked as if the world’s most successful block party was raging. There had to have been at least three hundred lost souls wandering around; most looked as if they had a purpose. Some, however, looked lost and were somehow relieved to be among their own. Brendon, of course wouldn’t swear to that, it was just a feeling he had perceived. He pulled his head back before any of those errant demons had a chance to spot him.
“Uh, I’m not so sure about this, guys,” Brendon said in hushed tones. “There have to be at least a couple hundred zombies. Most of them are clustered around one house. So we might be able to sneak by but I wouldn’t want to bet our lives on it.” Which of course they would be.
Justin asked. “Are they focused on the last house on the right, by any chance?”
“How did you…?” Brendon knew the answer before he finished. “That’s Paul’s, right?”
“Of course,” Travis threw in sarcastically.
As if on cue the three boys looked to Tommy to see if he had any insight into their situation, but he merely smiled back. Their contemplation was interrupted by the sporadic firing of a small caliber pistol coming from the cul-de-sac. Travis ran up to the fence to hazard a look; Justin and Brendon followed. What they saw both lifted their spirits and simultaneously weighed heavy on their hearts. At the apex of the house was the distinctive outline of Paul’s wife Erin. It appeared that she had knocked out the attic vent and was taking some ill-aimed shots at some of her besiegers. The boys were happy she was alive but saddened at the thought of the impossibility of a rescue attempt.
“So obviously a frontal assault is out of the question.” Brendon stated the obvious.
Travis spoke up. “Let’s go through the backyards on this side of the street, and see if we can spot a way in from that vantage point.”
“It’s not really the way we want to go,” Justin said nervously.
“You know what I mean,” Travis answered.
“That’s going to put us about ten feet away from the nearest zombie,” Brendon said. “Will they be able to smell us from that distance?”
“My dad asked the same thing when we went to get Justin. I think they can. But if they are focused on something it takes a lot to get their attention away from the first thing,” Travis said optimistically.
“Let’s hope your dad’s right,” Brendon added.
The brothers nodded in unison. Tommy was busy pulling wayward gobs of Pop-Tart off his shirt and popping them into his mouth.
“All right, let’s fall back to the rear of these houses,” Brendon said, taking charge. He didn’t like the position at all.
The boys moved away from the zombie infestation to traverse behind the houses. Once they got to the house directly across from Paul’s, they quickly climbed over the six-foot privacy fence. Brendon had thought that they might have to leave Tommy behind because of the fence, but he was surprisingly agile and seemed to have the least amount of problem getting over.
“Must be all the sugar,” Brendon mumbled mirthfully to himself.
The boys moved to the front yard, still under concealment of the fence. The smell was unbearable. Even Tommy, who seemed immune to it, stopped eating.
“What’s Paul’s backyard like?” Brendon asked Travis.
“It’s heavily sloped down and away from the house, but it won’t do us any good,” Travis answered.
Brendon cautiously looked over the fence. From his vantage point he could tell that the fence that led to Paul’s backyard had been destroyed, most likely from the press of dead flesh against it. The fence hadn’t stood a chance. “Yeah, it’s as likely as not to have as many deaders in the back as in the front.”
Over the preternatural quiet that enshrouded the neighborhood it was easy to hear Erin shout to Paul that she had seen someone over at the Henderson’s house. Paul crowded Erin out of the small opening to take a look. Brendon had quickly jumped down before any zombies could see him, but apparently zombies suffered the same affliction that troubled dogs, they couldn’t follow a pointed finger. And that was exactly what Erin was doing.
“I don’t see anything,” Paul said.
“He was right over there by the fence, you must have scared him away,” Erin answered.
“Yeah I’m sure it had nothing to do with the meat bags below,” Paul responded sardonically.
Travis climbed up the fence when he realized the zombies weren’t turning to investigate Erin’s claims.
“See, there he is again!” Erin said excitedly. “Wait, that’s not the same person.”
“Travis?” Paul said softly, then a little louder “Travis, is that you? Wait don’t answer! Just nod.”
