'Yeah, all the houses have them. We never use ours, that is what insurance is for.'
'Well either way, we won't find out from the pool. You guys want to go now?' asked Paige.
'Better now than when it is dark.' said Dora.
They got out again and dried off as best they could in the hot, humid air.
'You guys changing or do we do this in our swim suits?' asked Dora.
'I'll put a shirt on.' answered Mike.
'Me too and I'll pull those jogging pants on.' said Paige.
'Not me, I think I look more defenseless in my suit. Who would shoot me if I were caught breaking in.'
'You think your neighbor is home?'
'No, he never seems to be around during the day. But today? I don't know.'
They headed to the front door and Paige stopped Dora, 'Wear shoes at least!'
'This is God's shoe dear,' she said, pointing at her feet, 'Besides all I have is flip-flops or slip ons, no traction and we are going across the fucking street, not down to the mall.'
'God! You really are crazy! You're going into a robbery practically naked!'
'I am a braver woman than you, yes. Burglary though, I hope. Robbery is when they are there and we take stuff from them personally.'
'Whatever. Let's go.'
Mike had the paint ball gun with him, it was loaded and ready to shoot. He looked out the front doors cautiously, the street was empty. There was not movement anywhere, barely a breeze in the air to make the trees sway. Nodding he gestured them out and they shut the door behind them. Dora was the last one and she tested the door after they shut it, while the other two were not looking. It was locked. She had left the keys inside. A look of momentary concern passed over her face, she bit her lip and followed the others.
The crossed the street to her neighbor's place without any problem, no zombies came out to get them and they didn't see any of the living dead anywhere. Looking at the double doors of her neighbor it started to sink in that they were actually going to burglarize the place. Dora was getting ready to tell Mike to stop, not to do anything, when he tried the door, it was unlocked and swung open easily.
'What the hell? Doesn't anybody lock the doors here?' Mike said.
Quietly Dora responded, 'Oh, I do.'
They moved inside the house, leaving the door open behind them. The air conditioning was going full blast, the cool air raised goose pimples on Dora's body and even the others shivered in the cold. Nothing seemed out of place from the doorway. Dora closed the door behind them and locked it. 'Just in case.' she told the other two, 'We don't want anyone sneaking up on us, right?'
The first sign of any trouble was in the living room. The glass coffee table was overturned and shattered. One of its mahogany legs was broken off and lay on the floor amidst the glass. Dora pointed it out and asked Paige to grab it for her. Paige muttered something about God's shoes that Dora didn't quite catch, but did fetch the table leg. It made a hefty, if short club and Dora felt immensely better about having something to protect herself with.
'If I were a gun, where would I be? The master bedroom? The basement? Well if he is a hunter I would say the basement. I hope he doesn't have a gun safe.'
There was a blood trail through the kitchen that led to the basement stairs. Mike cautiously opened it, while Paige selected the longest kitchen knife out of the rack by the sink. She took up last place in the group now, with Dora and her club moving into the second position. The blood trail continued down the stairs, visible even on the rugged brownish carpeting. Mike paused and cocked his head to one side, listening. He looked at them and said quietly, 'I don't hear anything.'
'Betcha wish you'd worn shoes now, huh?' said Paige, watching Dora tip-toe around the blood splatter.
'Shh!' Dora answered.
They proceeded downstairs and came into a long rectangular room that seemed to make up half of the basement. The other half was hidden behind a wall that had two doors in it, the one closest to where they were was open, the blood splatters led through it. This side of the basement was lit by track halogen track lighting, casting the far side in shadowy darkness. The far door was barely visible, but shut. On the opposite wall from the two doors, there was a third door, it was open as well and Dora could see a sink from the angle she was standing at. Lost in the darkness on the far side was a pool table. This side of the room seemed to be devoted to a large television and several well used couches and chairs that did not match.
Mike quietly moved to the open door. He glanced in, then ducked back, then popped in again and stood there.
'It's okay.' he said, although it sounded like he was talking to himself more than the women. Turning he looked at them, 'Well your neighbor has some guns. It doesn't look like they did him any good.' Mike swung the door fully open. There were two bodies on the floor of what looked to be a large laundry room. Dora recognized one of the body's as her neighbor, he was laying with his head away from them, feet apart and towards the door. The other body was no one Dora recognized. It was disgusting, the head of this corpse had been bashed in. Mike's face, still turned towards them was a mix of horror and relief.
Dora's eyes widened in fear as she saw her neighbor's body slowly start to rise up off of the ground behind Mike.
Chapter 11
'Mike! He's moving!' Dora screamed, causing both Mike in front and Paige behind her to jump. Mike quickly backpedaled into Dora, knocking her on her butt. Paige reacted faster and moved out of the way. She did not run up the stairs, but towards the pool table in the shadows. The body of her neighbor continued to move on the cement floor, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and Dora saw a full moon as the old brown robe he was wearing rode up to his hips.
Mike was trying to avoid stepping on Dora, while turning around, while backing up and he ended up tangled in Dora's legs, which tumbled him to the ground beside her. The thin carpet did little to cushion his fall and he let out a yell, followed by 'Fuck!'
He did managed to hold onto the paint ball gun and once on the ground he rolled over onto his back and brought the gun to bear on the zombie, which was now on its feet. Dora shoved herself backwards to the right side of the doorway, pulling her bikini bottoms almost off as they rubbed against the carpet. Almost without a thought Dora stopped to pull them up while Mike fired at the zombie.
The thunk-thunk-thunk of the paint balls was amazingly loud in the confined space of the basement. Dora had heard the gun fired before, in her backyard, it hadn't seemed so loud then. The paint had little effect on the zombie and the thing didn't flinch away as Mike had been hoping. He stopped firing and, like Dora he pushed himself away from the doorway and the zombie.
The zombie shuffled out of the doorway and launched itself at Mike, who thrust the paint gun at it. The gun barrel hit the thing in the chest and kept its mouth away from Mike's body. Not deterred, the zombie rolled its body off to one side, grabbing Mike's face with one hand and allowing itself to drop next to Mike on the floor. Dora took this all in and somehow found herself on her feet. The table leg was lying next to the door and within easy reach, she scooped to pick it up and took a step towards the zombie, which was now between her and Mike. Hefting the club up she brought it down on the zombie's back.
Dora pulled her punch. She hated that she did that, she knew from watching the news that her neighbor was gone, that this thing would not stop, would kill all of them unless they stopped it. Yet when it came right down to it, he was a human, or looked like one, and Dora was having a hard time thinking of him as anything else.
'Dora!' Mike screamed, as the zombie brought its mouth to his arm, 'Dora!'
It clicked then, this was not a game. Sure they had stopped swimming, cut up a huge amount of meat to make jerky, and were watching the news, but the news was not her neighborhood, the tv didn't capture what was going on right here, right now.
