Trailer Park Zombies

like all my muscles were tightening up and screaming at me. I really did need some rest. But before that…

“Fannie Mae,” I whispered.

“Yes, Dukey?” She put her face next to mine.

I felt my mostly empty pockets. I’d used nearly every shell I’d had on me. “Fill me back up with shells. Every pocket. As many as you can stuff in there.”

She nodded and broke them out of the bag. I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of her stuffing my pockets, something nibbling at the back of my head. It seemed like I’d seen something or knew something that was important but I was way too tired to try and remember it.

So I slept.

Noise was the first thing I remembered. It was definitely what woke me up. The huddled masses were talking real loud and making a ruckus. I sat up from where I’d been laying and as I did something fell off my throat. I picked it up and saw it was a wet rag. Fannie Mae must have put it on my throat to help with the swelling.

She was standing about five feet away and staring at the group of people making the noise. It was about 20 of them so maybe a third of the refugees were up and about. The rest were still huddling in their corners with the blankets over their heads. I could make a joke about ostriches and sticking their heads in the ground, but I won’t. Or I guess I just did. I was a little pissy for having been woken up. It felt like I’d only been asleep for ten minutes. My clothes were still wet from the rain.

Fannie Mae turned back to me. She looked worried. When she saw I was awake she smiled and came back for me. She sat down next to me and squeezed my hand.

“What’s going on?” I rasped.

“They found out about the rescue mission and the shootout. They want to know if the men who went outside know who was killed. They’re pretty upset. A lot of them don’t think we’re actually dealing with zombies.”

I sat up straighter. “So they think we were just killing people willy-nilly?”

She sighed. “I don’t really know what they think. Some are complaining that we don’t know what’s going on, that it could be some kind of disease or infection and that they can be cured. They think you just murdered all their friends and family.”

I struggled to my feet. Fannie Mae helped me but she looked concerned. “What are you doing, Dukey?”

I just shook my head at her. “Help me over there.”

As we walked over to where the crowd was gathered around Washington, pushing our way through them, I felt my strength returning to me. It was just bone-weariness more than anything else. All I wanted to do was rest. I looked at the clock. Yeah, I hadn’t been asleep more than thirty minutes. Awesome.

We finished our way to Washington and he glanced at me, a look of consternation crossing his face. He was in the middle of saying a bunch of platitudes and trying to talk the crowd down. Screw that. They should have let me sleep.

I put my hand on his arm and felt the minute shivers in his body. He shook me off and sighed, “Yeah, Duke? What is it? Kinda busy here.”

I ignored him, too. There was a chair nearby so I dragged it over and stood on it, putting me above the rest of the crowd. I tried to speak over them but my throat was still too raspy for me to really get the volume I needed.

Suddenly I heard, “Everybody! Shut the fuck up!”

I looked down at Fannie Mae and grinned. She grinned back. She did have a set of lungs on her.

The crowd quieted down almost immediately. They stared at me expectantly. There were equal measures of hostility, outrage, concern and worry on their faces. They all looked like they could have used about 12 hours of sleep. I knew I could.

I nodded at them. “How you all doing? I’m Duke Johnson in case any of you don’t know. I turned 16 yesterday. Can I hear a happy birthday?”

You could have heard a cricket chirp. Some people just can’t appreciate humor.

“All right, then. Guess not. Let me tell you what I know. Earlier today most of us saw Donny Marsters get attacked and eaten by a person holding a partially eaten foot. Donny died. I saw it from my windows not thirty feet away. Then you know what happened? He got up.”

I heard someone murmur something in the crowd. I couldn’t tell who, but I swiveled my head in that general direction. I began to feel stirrings of my own anger. “How do I know? ‘Cause I saw it. There’s no mistaking when someone’s dead from having been eaten. You can just kinda tell. This isn’t a movie where there’s gonna be a happy ending. The dead are rising, folks. If you get bitten or killed by these things then you will get back up. And when you get up you will be hungry for flesh. Those things out there are zombies and they’re eating people. If you doubt that then why are you here?”

No one would meet my gaze. I don’t know why their doubt made me so angry, but it did. I could feel my rage as an almost palpable thing. “Not an hour or so ago me, Wash, Felix, Rodriguez and Stubby all went out to save some kid that was trapped by the zombies in a car. Stubby didn’t make it back. Do you know what happened to him? Do you?” I was shouting. “He got attacked. A zombie shoved her arm down his throat and pulled all of his insides to the outside. I saw his lung in her hand. I saw her eat his tongue. And then do you know what happened after that? He got back up and came for us. Do you really think that’s something that could happen under normal conditions?”

I could feel my eyes blazing as I look down at the crowd. My throat was on fire yet somehow I’d found my voice.

“Couldn’t it be some kind of disease?” Some small voice queried from the crowd.

“Sure,” I said sarcastically. “It is a disease. It infects dead tissue and makes it living again. But don’t be mistaken. They’re not alive anymore. There’s no cure for death, people. The only cure for death is what’s outside these walls. And it wants to eat all of you.”