TWO

May 15, 2009 14 minutes earlier -
After Sweepers claimed our house as safe and left in their black military jeeps, I am the first one to the phone hanging on the kitchen wall, dialing a number I’d memorized long ago. Each ring makes my heart skip a beat, my mind playing a scene in which Sweepers mark the door of my best friends house, carrying away three black bags.
On the fourth ring the phone is picked up and my nerves settled back into their normal feel. A sigh of relief escaping my lips as Caroline’s voice choruses a bored hello on the other end of the line
“Oh goody you’re alive,” at least, as alive as you can get now.
“Ha, I see you haven’t been Zombified yet either Ms.Bobby.” Being a girl with a boys name never gets old.
“And I don’t plan on it,” I pause. “Sweepers go through your house yet?”
“Yeah, all clear here. Except for the people across the street, Mr.Nelson, remember him? Apparently his son arrived yesterday from Oregon. Didn’t know he was infected ‘till he bit Nelson.” Sometimes, in rare cases, an unlucky person will simply contract the disease without ever coming in contact with a Zombies saliva or being bitten. Such as the apparent case of Mr.Nelson’s son. “Thankfully Sweepers came before they both found their way outta the house. It was total chaos Bobby, I could hear the gunshots and everything.”
I wince inwardly, Mr.Nelson had been cool, and despite never knowing his son, I wouldn’t want anyone to endure that. Being undead isn’t something you’d wish on an enemy. I suppose now they are really dead instead of being locked inside their rotting corpses which, to me, sounds a little bit better.
As thoughts rattle my head, Caroline continues to talk.
“Man do I feel sorry for the Sweepers; I would hate having that job.” Honestly, how would you like to have the walking dead try to tear you piece by piece every day?
“No kidding,” I breath into the phone.
“Hey, they been to your place yet?” She questions in her now constantly hyper tone.
“Yeah, just left.” I laugh. “I think my dad did a pretty good job at convincing them we aren’t Zeds.” Zed is another term we use for Zombies. It was Clay who actually came up with the phrase as a joke, not knowing how well it would stick. “You heard from Clay or Patrick yet? And what about Josh?” Josh is Carolines long term boyfriend. The two are practically inseparable; falling over each other in love when Caroline’s mother lets them close. Don’t get me wrong, Josh is perfectly fine, it’s her mother that’s the crazy one.
“Haven’t heard from Pat or Clay but Josh is good. Sweepers went through his place yesterday. He said they were being complete jerks but nobodies turned Zed in that part of town.” Figures, the north side, where Josh lives, contains all the independant people, non-socializers, and there’s no real way of infection spreading if people don’t interact.
Caroline’s words about the other boys worry me. They too have been friends for longer than I can remember and I hate imagining either of them dead. Or, well, undead.
“That’s good then, but I have to say, Josh would make one hot zomb-” A loud shot stabs my ears at that moment, cutting off my voice mid sentence; the suddenness of it causing me to jump, dropping the phone onto the linoleum floor. Two more rounds of the deafening sound fills the air and I drop my entire body to the ground, scrambling for the phone.

Reviews

[Leumas Relwood]

It seems very professionally written; like something I actually want to read more of!