Thursday, November 10, 2011

Children of the Grave (a short story)

            Lucas watched the zombie from the roof of his neighbors’ home, occasionally lifting his glasses to rub the mostly healed gash between his eyes.  The zombie wandered across the backyard, tripping over its own feet but never quite falling. 
            “He still there?” Julie asked, climbing on to the roof, a bottle of Coca Cola in each hand.  Lucas nodded to his big sister, taking one of the Cokes. Their parents didn’t used to let them have soda, but their parents weren’t around anymore.  Most of the parents weren’t.  “Does he look a bit like old man Simmons to you?”
            Lucas took a closer look at the zombie, who had taken to scratching at his own shadow on the fence.  “It’s hard to tell.” Lucas answered.  The zombie got bored of his shadow, and began to walk towards the hole in the fence he had crawled through half an hour before.  Lucas took out a laser pointer and deployed a red dot to the fence.  The zombie lunged at the dot, rattling the fence in the process. 
            “They’re pretty dumb, aren’t they?”  Julie said.  She remembered when they first started showing up.  The grown-ups all got scared.  Then they got guns and started shooting at the zombies and anyone they thought was a zombie. She remembered watching from her bedroom window.  Watching the grown-ups shooting all over the street.  Now it was mostly the kids that were left. 
            Lucas started luring the zombie away from the fence and across the lawn.  Lucas will be fine, Julie thought.  Lucas has a knack for getting rid of the zombies, and he doesn’t need a gun.  The zombie followed the shiny red dot as it left the grass and disappeared into the water of the swimming pool, only to reappear a moment later on a raft floating in the middle of the deep end.  Fixated on its one, all-important goal, the zombie plunged into the water, only to discover that it couldn’t swim.  It thrashed for a few moments before sinking to the concrete below.
            “That was a good one,” Julie said, helping Lucas lower the rope ladder from the roof into the backyard.  They descended, and stepped onto the dry grass.  Stuck in a bush near the edge of the lawn was the blue plastic Frisbee they had been tossing before the zombie interrupted.  Julie grabbed the Frisbee while Lucas went over to take a look in the pool. 
            That was probably my second best, he thought, remembering the time he put a paper bag over one of their heads and it fell down a set of stairs at the park.  After the grown-ups went away, most of the zombies did, too.  A lot of times, they would just fall over and break their heads, or sometimes they’d even kill each other.
            “Don’t forget we’re going to Mikey’s house tonight,” Julie said, tossing Luke the Frisbee, “He got his TV working, and he’s got Toy Story.”

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