“Was that why you were a bit off last night?”
“What? No! Oh you perv,” I chuckled, thankful that she was dropping it, for now anyway. I wiped the embarrassment off of my face, “I’ll need you at the door, ready just in case something does happen.”
She nodded her head in agreement.
“I’ve laid out a bunch of other baseball bats and weapons that we can possibly use in the mudroom. There’s a wrench, but it’s kind of really heavy, so I’d leave that. There’s a copper pipe which is nice and solid, but is short on reach.” My mind was racing, trying to think of something that Chelsea could use to defend herself if needed.
“You know I did play softball at one point, right?” she said.
I nodded, “Yes, but the baseball bat doesn’t kill very easily. You need to put a lot of force behind it and you are not guaranteed a solid hit. The contaminated move in strange ways and a miss is more possible than you might think. I mean, you have to time your swings with the proper power. If your first shot misses then you probably will be off balance and then that will leave an opening for the contaminated to-”
“The bat will be fine,” she said with a hint of finality in her voice, cutting me off.
“Okay then,” I said as I stood up, grabbing my crimson Rawlings baseball bat leaning against the door. “Let’s do this.”
I opened the thick wooden door at the front of the house and peered outside. It was a beautiful day out. The sun was up, warm and not too bright to see well. A few clouds littered the sky, but they were high above with no threat of rain. There was a cool breeze counter acting the sun above, but keeping the temperature at a decent, if not slightly chilly sixty degrees.
I looked up and down the street. It was entirely void of life, but almost looked as if everyone was merely sleeping. Cars were parked in driveways and a sprinkler system was even running. Lights that had never been turned off still shone but were overwhelmed by the sun’s own. It was as if something took away all of the people living on the street but left everything exactly how it was. Actually that is pretty much what happened, barring two.
Once the street had been confirmed safe by my standards, I stepped onto the porch and down the front stairs onto the lawn. Suddenly an idea occurred to me. I went up to my car and opened the driver side door. In the door pocket, an air horn lay, still usable. It was something that I confiscated from my friend Joe a while ago when he decided to misuse it while I was driving. Joseph thought it would be funny to let the air horn wail while I was doing sixty-five down the highway, making me flinch every time the horn was squeezed in the concealed area of the car. Needless to say he never got it back.
I ran the still good can of condensed air up the porch and handed it to a very confused Chelsea standing in the doorway. “Take this,” I said.
“Okay, got that. But why?” She asked. “Are you going to forget where you live and this is to flag you down with?” she added, she always added.
I pointed to the kitchen, “On the back of the kitchen door, the pockets, there is some tape. If something happens and you see me getting chased by a swarm of contaminated, use the tape to create a sound bomb!” I said, extremely excited at my idea. “Just go from the bottom up with the tape. Once it’s screeching your ears out, just throw it somewhere that I won’t be, or at me if you’re really mad.”
She gave me a peck on the cheek, “I hope we won’t need this.”
“I know, and I hope that you’re not mad,” and with that I was off, back down the porch and onto the street. Well I was not fully on the street, as that would have been stupid. I stayed on the sidewalk and remained low. My steps were light and my biggest advantage was being in running shoes, though hopefully I would not need to run. Being held up in a house for the past few weeks most likely had affected my endurance whilst running, and I did not want to test that with a pack of raging cannibals at my heels.
I made my way to the end of the street without incident, though I almost tripped on a storm drain once. There was a large tree at the corner of the street with red leaves not yet fallen from the autumn’s chill on an open lawn. I ran up to it and concealed myself behind the tree. I poked my head out, first to the left, nothing, then to the right, nothing. I looked back to the left out of force of habit. I swear that I saw a tumbleweed fly by, but my mind could have been playing tricks on me.
I crossed the street after looking both ways, force of habit, for cars. Walking across the street in the middle of the day was so awkward with the ear splitting silence coming from all directions. It was almost as if I was taking a midnight walk around town with the silence but void of the running televisions and occasional cars driving past, illuminating the way. Once on the other side,
