Zombieboy

The car light, inside was still on, 'cause the door was open. Kyle's mom had left her door open all night once and run the battery way down so the car wouldn't go anymore. Kyle remembered his dad yelling words about it over the phone and then coming home early to plug the battery into the wall. Kyle needed the keys too, what if his house was locked? He stepped around the wet, broken glass and pulled himself halfway into the car to reach the keys. They wouldn't come out, he pulled and pulled and could not get them out. Hopping into the seat to see what was wrong, Kyle tried to turn the keys and the car tried to start. That was the wrong way, he tried twisting it the other way, all the way off, and still the keys were stuck. He leaned his head over the steering column and looked at it closely, seeing a small knob and the word "LOCK" he tried to push and pull and eventually slide the knob up. Holding the knob up he was able to get the keys out of the ignition.

Keys safety in hand Kyle quickly ran back to the safety of the lawns and shrubs. Sliding in the morning dew he slid underneath his neighbor's bushes and peered back out. The leaves above him and the dirt and dried twigs beneath him were a stark contrast, not entirely uncomfortable. Outside his hiding place it just felt like he had parents watching him. Someone he could not see who was about to come out and yell at him for stealing his mom's keys. Slowly he looked around his block, trying to spot whatever he had caught out of the corner of his eye when the policeman went by. Still nothing moved, there was no noise either, no dogs barking, it was scary quiet. This was the kind of quiet that always led to something bad in the scary movies Kyle had seen before, right before the good guy gets jumped, then BAM! Something lands on their back or an ax splits their head open. Kyle's dad loved scary movies, over the years Kyle had seen a few and caught snippets of even more, he knew how the real world worked. Still he could not deny his desire to get home, he had to get there and sitting and waiting in sight of his objective was not something any nine year old could do for long. First he started fidgeting, then he started unconsciously creeping forward on his bare legs and hands until he was at the edge of the bush.

Just as he was about to leap out and run for the corner of the garage, he spotted something. A zombie. This one did not glow at all. Slow and moving like an old guy, this zombie was standing around near the end of his block. The man was dressed kind of like an old train engineer, like the guy from Dora the Explorer, had the had and everything. His white hair poofed out on the sides and back of his head and he had a beer belly that pushed out the front of his denim overalls. Kyle had overalls, ones with shorts for pants, for weeks at a time during the summer they were all he wore, if it were not for the fact that he spent as much time swimming as he did at playing other games Kyle would have had a very uneven tan. This zombie acted different. The engineer was moving slow, but Kyle saw that he was looking around a lot too, more than the zombies down by the ice rink. The old guy went to the first house on the block about six houses up the street from Kyle's house. The old guy tried the door. He turned the knob and looked around, then went back to trying to force it in, making more noise. Then he did a peculiar thing, he stepped back and looked all around the front door of the house, he lifted up the welcome mat, he moved some ornamental rocks around , picking a few up and looking underneath them and then finally ran his hand over the top of the outside door frame. The engineer was rewarded with something Kyle didn't see, but it must have been a key! One second the guy could not get the door open, the next he was unlocking it and turning the handle! The safety chain was engaged but the zombie made short, swift work of that with his bulk and his shoulder. Watching the zombie duck inside the corner house, Kyle knew he had a moment to run to his garage, slipping out from under the bushes he scrambled between two low privacy trees and made it to the corner of his garage. The feeling of eyes on him was strong again and Kyle knew he had missed something. There! Looking back up the block he spotted a kid on the right hand side, across the street from where the old man had gone into the house. It was Jeremy Wilcox!

Kyle's first encounter with Jeremy Wilcox had been when he was in first grade and Jeremy had been in 3rd, Jeremy had taken Kyle's milk money. It had been the third week of school and unknown to Kyle Jeremy had watched as he paid for his milk with a white envelope the first Monday. On the third Monday Jeremy had been walking behind Kyle and as had run up to him and pushed him down once they got into the school yard. Unzipping Kyle's backpack Jeremy had triumphantly lifted the white envelope out his bad and threatened to 'Smash your head in' if Kyle told anyone. That day he could not tell his teachers why he came to school crying. It was a long week without chocolate milk and the next week Kyle went out of his way to walk the three blocks to school in a different manner. Waiting at the school yard entrance was Jeremy, Kyle tried to keep going past to get to a different entrance to the school yard, but Jeremy ran out and again, pushed him down and stole his money. This time Jeremy said Kyle had better not try to duck out on paying him again or he would break his nose. Kyle's mom always paid for his lunches by sending a check to the school each month, she felt it was a good responsibility for Kyle to bring the cash to pay for his milk during the morning recess himself. At two dollars and fifty cents a week, it was not a lot of money, so she was not concerned if Kyle lost it a time or two.

Kyle came to dread Mondays, he pretended to be sick the next Monday, only to accosted Tuesday by the neighborhood bully. Obviously Kyle's mom was not going to keep him home from school every day of the week, so Kyle came up with a new plan, he asked his mom to walk him to school. Kyle's mom was thrilled, she had walked him to school every day when he was in kindergarten, but Kyle had thrown a fit when it came to first grade, he said he was too old to have his mom walking him to school. Obviously he had been wrong about that. That Monday Kyle made it to school with no problems, walking past the steely frown of Jeremy into the building. Later during the lunch recess Jeremy had cornered Kyle and punched him in the stomach three times, telling him if he did not bring the money he would do it every lunch recess until he paid him the two fifty that he owed. Kyle cried and the recess teacher tried to comfort him, thinking he had taken a bad tumble off of the 'Fort' in the school yard. That night Kyle took ten quarters out of his piggy bank, the next day, after getting to school, he gave the money to Jeremy. His chocolate milk tasted like dirt in his mouth the rest of the week.

The next weekend Kyle was mad, he knew he could not back out on having his mom walk him to school, not after he asked her not to, then asked to again. This meant that he could not give his milk money to Jeremy, his mom walked him inside and reminded him to pay the lunch lady the first time and Kyle thought she might do that again. So what was he going to do? He had taken down his bank and counted up his remaining money, it came to eight dollars. He set it out in piles of two fifty and counted the piles, there were three of them with some money left over. Kyle only had money to pay Jeremy three more times! Plus this money was his, not Jeremy's! He was saving it for a new Nintendo game too and did not want to pay it to Jeremy. While having a miserable weekend he tried to go in and talk to his dad about it. His dad was watching a movie, with cops and bad guys in it. One of the cops was in a bar fight with the bad guys and used a pool cue to knock another guy out. Kyle asked if that was a bad guy, his dad said 'Yes'.

“What did he do?”, Kyle asked.

“Oh he didn't do much, he is a burglar, but he knows the real bad guy who the cop is after.”, responded his dad distractedly.

“What's a burglar?”

“Someone who steals stuff from people, a bad guy. Don't steal things Kyle, okay?”, said his dad, still paying more attention to his movie than to his son.

“I won't, is that what happens to people who steal things?”, Kyle asked.

“Not always, but it should be, taking people's stuff is wrong, if people beat the heck out of burglars there would be a lot less of them around and everyone would be happier. Don't you have something else to do? Your mom doesn't like you watching this stuff.”

Kyle had left his dad and went out into the back yard and began looking through the wood pile. Monday morning he got up extra early and told his mom to stay in bed, he would walk alone today, ,she sleepily agreed, telling him she loved him and to watch the corner crossing. Before heading to school Kyle ducked around to the side of the house and picked up the stick he had picked out the previous day. Jeremy was waiting at the school yard gate again, he was accosting another little kid, and Kyle saw him take their money too. He tightened his hand on the piece of firewood he was carrying. As firewood goes it was not very hefty, just a stick that had been cut off the tree his dad had cut down last year. When Jeremy saw him coming he pushed the other kid into the school yard and sneered at Kyle, he started to say, “What? You gonna hit me?” Only he did not get to finish it, he got as far as “What you gonn...” before Kyle swung the stick around and hit him in the face. Jeremy fell over clutching his nose, which was bleeding. Kyle, thinking of the movie, smacked Jeremy a few extra times, only Jeremy just kept rolling around, he didn't stop moving and go to sleep like in the movie. At first Kyle thought maybe the movie was wrong, then he figured it was just because he was little and the cop had been an adult. He hit Jeremy harder. Still nothing, he was pulling the stick back over his head with both hands when it was jerked away from him from behind. Someone had stopped their car, got out and grabbed Kyle's stick when they saw him beating Jeremy with it. It was a very bad Monday for Kyle.

Both his parents were called in, even his dad, from work. His dad was very, very mad with Kyle, even though he was acting all nice and polite to the teachers. Jeremy's mom came in too. Jeremy had to go to the nurse, his mom talked about bringing him to the doctor and calling the police and getting a lawyer, she was yelling at Kyle's mom, and at his dad and they just stood and took it, when she stared yelling at Kyle, his dad started yelling back. The principal came in, followed by a policewoman. They all sat down in the counciling room while Kyle sat in the principals office and Jeremy sat on the nurses bench. The policewoman, Kyle's parents and the principals all came in to talk to Kyle, they asked him why he did it and Kyle told them the story of the burglar in the bar fight. Kyle's mom gave his dad an 'I told you so' glare, it was, however the principal who pointed out that the burglar in the movie had done something wrong and asked what Jeremy had done? Kyle sat quietly for a minute, then his dad told him to say what Jeremy had done. Kyle started to cry, his mom told him to tell too, and she held his hand. Sobbing Kyle told about the stolen milk money, the principal asked the lunch lady to come in and she confirmed that Kyle had only paid for milk for the first three weeks of the school year and for the last couple of weeks since Kyle's mom had been walking him to school. The policewoman and the principal went and spoke with Jeremy's mom, then with Jeremy. Meanwhile Kyle's dad was asking him why he didn't tell them about it? Why he took a log to school and beat some kids head open instead of telling his mom and dad or a teacher? They all seemed like good ideas now that Kyle thought about it and he could not say why he hadn't done any of them. He was suspended for three days, had to do school community service for two more weeks and talk with the school councilor every month until he went into second grade. The teachers went around and spoke to all the little kids and found out Jeremy had been taking money from at least eight of them. His mom agreed to pay it all back and Jeremy had to do school community service with Kyle and then once a week for the rest of the school year.

In an idea world the problem would have been resolved, maybe even, the two boys would have been friends. Not so in this case, Jeremy had to live with the fact that he was a known thief, had been caught and even talked to by the Police and to make matters worse had been beaten up by a boy 2 years younger than himself. He never forgave Kyle for it, he would threaten him when he could get him alone and went out of his way to make life miserable for him when he could. In second grade he had punched Kyle in the stomach and this time Jeremy had gotten suspended for three days, which made him even more angry with Kyle. On the other hand Kyle's reputation as a fighter was also secured. Other kids acted weird around him, like he was going to start beating on them or something, he lost a few friends over it and became more of an outcast among his peers. By the time third grade had come around he had finally made a few new friends and most people could hardly remember anything other than he had gotten into a fight in first grade.

And now Kyle was looking at Jeremy's dead face looking at him from at the end of the block.

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