Trailer Park Zombies

He just grunted at me. “We’ll talk about that later, Johnson.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, sir. I won’t give up our protection.”

Fannie Mae broke in then, trying to break the tension. “Mr. Thompson? What happened after Donny and the others were killed? That was the last thing we saw.”

He didn’t answer her for a few seconds, eyeballing me. I didn’t take my eyes off him as I stood there in an offensive stance. After everything we’d gone through to get that gun I’d be damned before I let anyone take it from me.

He finally looked away from me dismissively. I could tell this wasn’t over yet. “The zombies attacked a handful of other people who were outside. I don’t know how many. About 20 of us barricaded ourselves in the House and then when things died down we decided to go see if there were any other survivors that we could bring back. Plus we wanted to go get us some weapons.” He lifted his shirt, showing us the gun he had in the waistband of his pants.

Mr. Jennings waved the shotgun he held in his hand at me, to show me his gun, too. At least they weren’t complete morons.

“Did you find any other survivors?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. We split up into pairs and went knocking on doors. Last time I took a group back there were about 50 or 60 people in the House. Your trailer was the last one on our watch, so we don’t need to check anymore. We can just go back to safety now.”

Barrett asked, “Are the police coming? Has anyone called them?”

Thompson shook his head. “No one can get reception on their cell phones. You know that service out here is spotty, anyway. And none of the regular phones have worked since the power went out.”

“Has anyone tried to go for help?” I asked.

Thompson barked a bitter laugh. “Yep. I’m sure you heard the road’s blocked?” He waited for our nods. “A few men went out in their car a couple hours ago to where the blockage is and were going to hoof it into town from there. We haven’t heard anything more from them. Hopefully they made it.”

Barrett looked nervously around us. “Do you mind if we keep walking? I feel like a sitting duck out here.”

We started walking again. After a couple minutes I asked, “Have you seen any of the zombies out here when you were bringing people to the House?”

Thompson didn’t answer but Jennings did. “No, we haven’t seen anything and we haven’t been attacked. None of the others we’ve seen at the House have seen anything either. It’s like they’re just waiting. I’ve seen a couple shadows that seemed to be moving, but every time I shone the light on it there was nothing there.”

“I’m sure you’re just seeing things, Jennings. Man up,” Thompson said.

He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world as we walked down the middle of the road. Idiot didn’t have his gun at the ready. We walked in silence for a couple more minutes and then Barrett closed the gap between us and whispered softly into my ear, “I have a bad feeling about this, cahuna.”

I nodded at him. I did, too. It felt like there were a million eyes watching from all around us. A million mouths opening and closing in hunger for our flesh.

You ever see those movies where the group of heroes is walking in the middle of the night and you, the viewer, can see all the monsters watching them from all sides just out of range of the lights and their vision? You can see the monsters closing in silently, closing the gap slowly as they hunted the heroes. You’re yelling and screaming at the screen for them to turn around and see the monsters and run like hell to get out of there but of course the heroes continue blithely on because they can’t hear you.

Why the hell weren’t you yelling loudly that day?

A zombie appeared out of nowhere in front of Thompson where he was leading the five of us. He really should have had his gun out. I have no idea where the zombie was before, but it was just suddenly there in front of Thompson, hands reaching for him. Thompson screamed like a little girl and fumbled for the gun in his pants. I didn’t know who the zombie had been, but I recognized him in passing as one of our random neighbors. His hands closed on Thompson’s throat and his mouth clamped tightly on the top of his skull.

The teeth weren’t sharp enough to get through the skull with one bite, but the zombie was working it like a dog with a bone.

Jennings had started screaming the second the zombie appeared and he ran from the back of the pack to aim his shotgun at the zombie holding Thompson. His face was pale and his eyes were so wide that all I could see were the whites of his eyes. I yelled at him to stop but he didn’t hear me. All he had eyes for was that zombie. He pulled the trigger on his shotgun.

The recoil from the blast shot him back at least a foot and the barrel was pointed at the sky. My ears were ringing from the sound of the shot, but I could still hear Fannie Mae’s screams behind me. Her scream could pierce through anything.

Jennings had missed the zombie completely.

Thompson’s head was nothing but a bloody stump. To give Jennings credit he’d blown the head right off.

The zombie stood there for a moment chewing the air. It hadn’t quite registered the change in its food yet. Jennings was screaming at the bloody heap of Thompson as it slid to the ground, neck stump pumping arterial blood into the air and all over the zombie. The zombie was covered in gray brain matter and bits of white skull. I don’t think it had even been nicked by the shotgun blast. Jennings had his shotgun pointed at the ground and I don’t think he even registered that the zombie was still there. He was off in la-la land.

I raised my shotgun and pointed it at the zombie. I guess my movement finally made it register my presence. It stepped over the completely dead body of Thompson. Thankfully I didn’t think he’d be rising again. I aimed the shotgun as best I could and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Ah, shit.