Zombieboy

Chapter 13

“Dad? Dad!”, Katie said, her voice a little scared sounding to Kyle.

Chuck opened his eyes, “What sweetie?”

“Dad, don't leave me here alone with...”, Katie pointed across the table at Kyle

Chuck looked at Kyle and then at her. Shrugging he said, “We gotta trust him, at least for now, he got us down, he didn't need to. He is talking and acting like the Kyle we used to know, for the most part. I think he might be okay. I am bushed though.”, turning to Kyle he asked, “You ever spend the night on top of a furnace with flesh eating zombies trying to climb up and eat your? No? Yeah it is pretty tiring. I didn't get much in the way of sleep at all. Katie slept okay, she had our swim bag and there were like four towels in there, bless Missy's heart.”

"Okay I will try to finish this up then. We got out, but just barely, we had to run for our lives, those things were faster than they looked. Some of them were faster than others, like you Kyle. By the time we got to the bike path that runs behind the ice rink we had a few chasing us. This is where I screwed up big time, we got behind the ice rink and I saw zombies on the bridge, and some at the other corner around the building, in other words we were cut off. We could've taken a hard left and ran along the east side of the building. We SHOULD HAVE taken a right and just went through the creek, you know? The shamblers couldn't have followed us there very easily because of all the rocks, there isn't much water in the creek right now, never is during the summer. Instead I saw the furnace and made a quick decision to climb up it to get away. It was a close thing, Katie made it fine, but by the time I was scrambling up they were pawing at my feet. I think I was close to being bit. We get up there and there is no way to keep going, I thought, well maybe we could get to the roof and the get inside of the building."

"One of the zombies had that sparkle of intelligence in his eyes, he was going to get us. I had nothing to use as a weapon. He was smart too, he didn't come up himself, he boosted a different gal up instead. I managed to push her off with me feet and the guy tried again, almost succeeding, again I pushed the thing down. So the smart one looks around a bit and comes back with some of the old concrete from where they shored up the creek this spring. Remember when we watched 'em dump that old broken up concrete right behind the ice rink?"

Kyle nodded 'Yes.' and Chuck continued.

"Well this thing comes back with a few good sized chunks and he throws them at us, me really. Nails me right in the nads with his second throw and it HURT! I fell over and thought I was gonna puke, I haven't been hit like that since I took a baseball there in high school. I was trying to shake it off and get up when I see this guy's ugly face appear up on the side of the furnace, the guy started climbing as soon as he saw he had me disabled. He belted me a good one on the side of my head, then pulled himself up onto the top of the furnace. Katie was screaming..."

"Was not! I was trying to knock him off the top, like you did to those others!", injected Katie.

Holding up one hand in a placating manner Chuck went on, "Okay, but you were screaming while you did it. Just when I thought I was gonna be batting for the other team a couple of shots rang out. I thought we were saved and I guess we were. Just saved for later. The was this punk kid with a long coat, a black duster and he had shot the guy trying to get me."

Chuck put his head on hs hands again, Kyle thought maybe that he was done, then his voice started again in a cold flat way Kyle had never heard before. “The kid had a revolver, one of those nasty looking 'Dirty Harry' type guns. Reliable, old-school, it worked great. I looked at him and I somehow knew he wasn't on our side. He looked up at us and told us to sit tight, by this time we could hear the screaming back at the pool. He said, he had to go save those people and he would be back in a few minutes. Well, it is isn't like we could go anywhere was it? Most of the mob were still sitting there beneath us, we got to watch them pick at the guy the kid had shot, it was only half hearted, some of them did eat...parts of the guy. A bit after the kid had left we heard more gunshots, the screaming died away soon after that. Probably about a half hour passed and he came back holding a plastic sack, he got up close and we watched him come, then he yelled up 'catch' and threw the bad to me, inside it were three bottles of iced tea, three of water and an assortment of candy and other food from the pool concession stand. The kid said to scream out if we got into trouble, maybe he would hear and come help us out again, otherwise he would see us tomorrow.”

“I realized then that he was keeping us as a kind of larder, I mean if another smart one came by we might be dead, if not, well I bet he still had the people in the pool area. I was so mad, and there was nothing I could do about it. We spent all yesterday stuck up there, the zombies on the ground didn't lose interest or wander away, well at least not all of them did, at one time I think there were maybe a dozen down there, overnight I think they kind of lost sight of us or something or went looking for easier prey. It doesn't matter too much does it? Sometime in the late afternoon, before it rained, we heard some screaming at the pool again, then nothing. This morning the kid came back, he gave us more food, I tried to ask him to get us down, or what the hell he thought he was doing. We both knew though, and he just laughed and went away. Then we saw you. You looked better and for a second I thought you were not, not one of them. Then I noticed that the other zombies were ignoring you, so that confirmed it.”

“And now you know what happened to us, even if we don't know very well what happened to you. I need to know something Kyle.”

“Yeah?”, Kyle asked.

“Are you going to turn on us?”

“N-no, I don't think so, I mean, well sometimes things are...well not really clear, you know, like I can't think good and then it is like I am doing things that I maybe don't want to do.”, Kyle tried to put on a hopeful face. In his mind he was worried that Chuck would make him leave, and then, well, where would he go?

Chuck sighed, “Look, I am too tired and you might have changed a lot, but you are still a kid, you still act like a kid and you still think like a kid. I am beat, I am sure Katie could use a nap too. What I am going to do is go back to my bedroom, shut and lock the door, throw a dresser in front of it and get six hours of sleep. What I want you to do is wander the rest of the house and if anybody, anything, tries to get in, you need to pound on my door and wake us up. Can you do that?”

“Uh, I can do that, I can wake you up

“These episodes you talk about, not thinking so good, those, do they happen very often?”

“No, n-not very often.”

“Will you have one in the next six or eight hours do you think?”

“No.”, Kyle said firmly.

“Okay, good enough then. Keep your head about you and keep watch over us, you are our first line of defense.”, Chuck sat his pistol on the table, “This is the second line of defense.”

Chuck stood up unsteadily, as he and Katie walked the hallway back to his bedroom he stopped and looked back at Kyle, “And Kyle?”

Kyle looked up at Chuck.

“Thanks for helping us out Kyle. We'll figure this out, once I get a little sleep, we'll get this figured out.”

Kyle listened from where he was sitting as Chuck and Katie moved furniture around, he heard them whispering clearly in Chuck's room, he didn't like what they were saying. He put his head down on his arms on the kitchen table and started to softly cry.

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