The Boy Who Cried Zombie: A Zombie ACRES Story

The sounds of the gunshots were more deafening than the screams and groans of the undead. The spray of the blood as his bullets find their target, ripping through blackened, rotting flesh, was beautiful. His footsteps in the gory mess on the ground was sickening, but also satisfying. Sam was surrounded and he was low ammo. He was not sure what he was going to do... then the beeping...

Burritos are done.

Sam paused his game and runs to the kitchen to grab his food. The kitchen was a disaster and he knew he would never hear the end of it if his fiancee came home and saw this mess. There was a discussion about it earlier, as Sam likes to remember it. That was a couple hours ago, before Heather even left for her Girl's Night.

With that discussion fresh in his mind, and a strong urge to not have another one, Sam hurriedly ate his burritos and found the next save point in his game. At a loss for where to start, he walked his plate back into the kitchen, knocking over a pile of pizza boxes on his way.

Ah, Zombie Fest. Sam gets a fond look in his eyes and just drifts away on memories of hanging out with his friends, eating pizza and watching the end of the world, due to zombie apocalypse of course, over and over again. We must have watched ten movies that night. He absently rubs his hands on his head, as if he were trying to run his fingers through his short, unkempt dark hair. He chuckles, but then remembers the one thing worse than a zombie apocalypse. Better get this over with so we don't upset her highness.

By looking at Heather's innocent face; with her brown eyes that melt like chocolate, and a smile to light the darkest abyss, one would never guess the emotional demon that seems to lurk somewhere in that beautiful, hourglass body of hers. Even with her emotional baggage, Sam still loves her more than life itself.

Sam gathers up the pizza boxes and the rest of the garbage around the apartment, and heads outside to throw it all in the dumpster. Wearing his normal, lazy attire of jeans and a novelty t-shirt (today was an old Boondock Saints shirt), he really did not feel like going through the hassle of finding socks and shoes and putting them on, so he decides to just run outside barefoot.

As he was outside attempting to shove his garbage into an already overflowing dumpster, something catches Sam's attention at the end of the alley. He noticed some guy slowly walking, or maybe shambling would be more accurate of a term, along the alleyway. The term shambling popped into Sam's head because of the way the man's right leg was limp and slightly dragging behind him.

Is that what I think it is?!

Alarmed, Sam threw the last of the pizza boxes on the ground and bolted for the apartment. I knew we should have gotten a second floor apartment in case the worst happens! He runs straight to their computer, and logs into his most trusted zombie outbreak site to check for any recent activity.

Since they have just moved to this area, Sam keeps it bookmarked to always be prepared. Just like The Guide tells us to. It confirms that there has been zombie activity in the area recently, but it looks to be localized and contained.

Being a good citizen, and a little too scared to run out attacking zombies just yet, Sam calls the Zombie Emergency Hotline, which is apparently too busy with this localized and contained outbreak to show up in less than an hour.

Zombies move slow, but they don't move that slow. And this place is like a buffet, all these apartments crammed on this first floor.

A new thought popped into Sam's head now. If this really is a dangerous outbreak, and they really did pick a zombie deathtrap as housing, then maybe they are really in trouble. He grabs his phone and frantically texts Heather:

'Zombi comin. 4 real this time. R U ok? B ready. On my way.'

No reply. After a few minutes he re-sends the text. Still no reply.

Typical. She's probably still pissed at me, no doubt.

Sam runs outside, still barefoot, and sees Dirty Leg Dragger (Sam loves his nicknames) still shambling up the alleyway. This is it! Sam has been waiting for an outbreak of his own for so long. This whole zombie mess started when he was pretty young, and growing up with zombies in the news has made Sam somewhat of a fanatic, to say the least.

Knowing his escape plan to the letter, Sam runs in the house and digs around for the socks and shoes, figuring now is not the time to be lazy. He runs down the hall and starts grabbing his tools from different parts of his room. He runs to his little lock box in his sock drawer and pops it open.

"I hoped I never had to use you."

He knew this was a lie, but he thought it sounded cool to say. He pulls the small, snub-nosed revolver out of the lock box. This was an impulse buy at the pawn shop a few months back. The clerk had told him this would be all the firepower he would need, since Sam knew nothing about guns. After grabbing a hunting knife and his black Skid-Lid helmet, complete with flames on the side, he runs out the door. He throws on the helmet, shoves the revolver in his pants, and hops onto his baby blue moped.

I have to save Heather... my future!

Even with his ride sounding like a hover vehicle straight out of The Jetson's , Sam felt brave. He knew this was his day... He WILL be a hero today.

When he pulls into Tasha's driveway to pick Heather up, he slowly walks around, looking the houses up and down. Tasha's neighbors do not appreciate this as much as Sam had hoped, and he moves along back to Tasha's after a few too many yells of "Creep" and "Pervert."

Tasha opens the door and rolls her eyes. "Heather, it's your..." she looks Sam up and down with distaste, "worse half." She steps aside to let him in.

He finds Heather and pulls her aside. He proceeds to tell her about Dirty Leg Dragger and the reported zombie activity. Sam is talking so fast it is almost hard for even his own fiancee to make out what he is saying.

"Honey, I need you to slow down. I can't understand you."

After explaining things at a slower pace, even if only a little slower, Heather finally started to understand what he was going on about.

"So you came rushing over here, gun in your pants mind you, busting into our Girl's Night to cry zombie... Again? What the hell is your problem?"

"Yeah! What the hell is your problem?!"

They both look back at the bathroom door, which they thought was closed. There was Tasha, her arms folded, long blond hair lying over them. "I don't appreciate you barging in like this, with some bullshit story about zombies!"

"You know they're real. They're on the damn news for Christ's sake!"

"I never said they weren't real, we just don't have them around here. That's why I moved here."

"That's how outbreaks happen... you don't know there's a weekend scientist trying to re-animate the dead down the road... Until he makes one mistake and all hell breaks loose for a few days."

Heather had enough of their childish bickering. "Fine. Let's go, Sam."

Tasha looks from heather to Sam, and then back to Heather. "Why?"

"I love Sam. If he is this adamant that this could be an outbreak, I believe him." This was said more for Sam's good than it being the actual truth. Really, she just figured better safe than sorry.

"And so you two are just going to escape on his bad-ass bike out there?" Tasha points back at Sam's baby blue moped with her thumb. "I don't think you guys are gonna get very far in this major outbreak." She starts laughing.

"Then we borrow your car."

Tasha stops laughing and looks at Heather. "Over my dead body."

"If I'm right, I am sure that can be arranged."

She shoots Sam a dirty look and looks back at Heather. "Seriously, that car goes nowhere without me. It may be a piece of shit, but it's my piece of shit."

"I don't care who comes. We need to go. This dicking around here is wasting too much time. Where are your keys?"

"They're in my purse. I'll grab them."

"Heather, get your stuff together and grab my bag off my bike. Tasha, I'm gonna grab a few supplies from around here."

"No you're not."

"Whatever. We die, it's on you."

"That is a chance I am willing to take."

"Well I'm not." He grabs the keys out of her hand as she walks back into the front hallway. "If I'm not grabbing supplies, I'm driving." He runs out the door before she has a chance to argue.

"He is a good driver, Tasha. Calm down." The look in Tasha's eyes told Heather her feeble attempt to calm hadn't done much good.

They all pile into Tasha's Ford Escort, with her grudgingly taking the backseat. Sam starts the car and pulls out of the driveway, heading towards I-5. Once they hit the interstate, he takes the north on-ramp, hoping to head for Canada. He heard on one of his zombie theory sites that there was a defense camp set up just on the other side of the border. He kept this information to himself, knowing the girls would just call his zombie sites conspiracy sites .

So instead, he used the time they had in the car wisely, spouting off zombie facts and survival tips the whole way. Sam is so engrossed in helping to educate the girls that he does not notice the occasional eye rolls, coming mostly from Tasha. A few miles out of town, Tasha has finally had enough and demands to know where they are going.

Sam looks down and notices the gas light on. "Not too much further if we don't get some gas... So who's paying?"

The next exit brings the Ford Escort to a small, isolated gas station. It is almost pitch black, with the only light coming from the two, almost dead, lamps by the gas pumps. Sam gets out and begins to pump. After he is finished, he takes munchie requests, and Heather's debit card, and heads into the gas station.

After grabbing everything on his shopping list he heads up to the young guy behind the counter to pay everything.

"You don't look like a 'Heather' to me, sir ."

"Seriously, dude? We're gonna do this now? I'm in a hurry, just run the card so I can get outta here."

"What? Did somebody die?" The clerk laughs.

"They will soon, so hurry up."

The clerk just looks at Sam and runs the card. Before he even has a chance to hand the card back, a scream pierces the still night air. They both jump and look outside. Heather is struggling with someone near the back of the car. Sam knows this is no normal someone and runs out the doors, leaving the food and card behind.

Once outside, he pulls out his revolver and fires a shot at the zombie. The shot misses and hits the gas pump, almost ricocheting into Heather. Not like the video games, is it, Sam? He steadies himself and tries again, this time hitting the zombie in the shoulder.

Heather breaks free and runs behind Sam, unsure of who is more dangerous at this point. Sam takes aim and fires another shot, finally hitting the creature in side of the face. The creature falls to the ground.

With everything going on, he didn't even notice that Heather was still screaming behind him. He finally turns around and notices another zombie. This one was busy ripping Tasha's throat out, which is why Sam didn't even notice it at first. He ran around to the other side of the car and noticed Tasha's eyes were rolled to the back of her head.

The sight of the zombie tearing Tasha's jugular out and her looking so... dead, was too much for Sam's stomach to handle. He bends over and throws up, the sloshing sound attracting the zombie's attention to a new meal.

When Sam looks up he sees the zombie closing in on him. Quickly he straightens up and fires his revolver, hitting his target squarely in the left eye. He runs back to Heather, hugging her and making sure she is ok. She nods, saying she is, though talking is hard from the adrenaline she has pumping through her.

"You... were... right."

"I'll gloat about it later. Right now we have to get out of here." He looks around, making sure there are no other zombies around them. With the coast being clear, he grabs the zombie out of the backseat. As he goes to throw it in the parking lot, he notices this is a fresh zombie. The skin is still tight, with very little decomposition. He runs back to first zombie and notices the same thing.

Fresh zombies. Odd. Amateur scientists can't afford fresh corpses like these.

"Mmmmm!"

Sam snaps out of his thoughts and remembers a very important rule he had forgotten about. He runs back to the driver's side of the car and gives Tasha two quick, close range, shots to the head and throws her body on the ground. Unfortunately, in his haste, he did not plan on the mess that would be left in the backseat as a result of his double-tap .

He grabs Heather, who is still dazed, but a little more in control now, and starts digging in the trunk for some blankets. Once they find a couple, they throw them over the bits of Tasha that are still in the backseat, and start driving back towards I-5.

Just a little ways down the road, Sam notices a delivery truck along the side of the road, crashed into a tree. He slows down to get a closer look and notices it is a refrigerated cargo truck with its back doors wide open.

Sam can hear the engine running and debates stopping to see if they can help. Then he notices the driver, mutilated and hanging out of the cab of the truck, and decides against it. He pushes his foot harder down onto the gas pedal, looking at the wreckage in the rear view mirror.

Is that the Roslun Global logo?!




Read the other Zombie A.C.R.E.S. stories at ZombieACRES.com

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Always and Forever: A Zombie A.C.R.E.S. Story