I watched mom as she pulled out of the driveway and began to drive off. The zombie that was on the road limped towards her, and she drove carefully around it. I wondered how long it would be before she took to ramming them, if ever. It followed her into the distance. I walked around the house, checking and locking all the doors and windows. I closed all the blinds, and turned off the radio and the lights. I didn't want my house to be a beacon for the undead. Now that my mom was out of the way, I decided that it was necessary to begin fortifying the house and to discreetly arm myself. I knew there was no way that she was going to let me carry a gun, but I'd be damned if any of those things were going to get into my house. I'd just have to hide it.
I walked down the stairs into the basement where my friends were. I found them sitting on the couch and staring at me, Alex with a crowbar and Xiran with a sledgehammer. They had gotten impatient and raided the workroom. "I guess you guys couldn't find the keys to the rifle case?" In the workroom was a large metal safe containing rifles, shotguns and ammunition. "Yeah," Xiran replied. "We got a bit nervous waiting" Alex, who was looking to be calming down said "When I heard you coming down the stairs I thought you were a zombie and I was like… freaking out." He paused for a bit. "What'd your mom say?"
"I don't think she believed me, but the zombie on the road freaked her out enough to go get Sam. Alright, um… what do you say we start boarding up the windows?" Alex laughed nervously. "Okay… I guess we could start doing that."
I walked into the workroom and after a few minutes produced some large squares of wood, a hammer, nails, screws and an electric screwdriver. I handed the tools to Alex and Xiran, and helped them carry the wood up the stairs. We walked into the family room, where the large bay windows were. "You guys start working on these windows, I'm gonna go upstairs and get some firepower." Xiran seemed to like this. "Awesome. What are you getting?"
"Just a pistol. So I can hide it from my mom."
"Sweet."
I walked up to my parents' room and went into the walk-in closet, where the pistol safe was. In it contained a Browning 9mm and a .38 revolver. My dad always kept two rounds in the magazine of the 9mil, just in case. I heard the two of them screwing and banging at the window downstairs, and looked for the keys to the safe. I knew they were in there somewhere… After a few minutes looking and being unable to find it, I started hearing a banging that wasn't from a hammer. And then glass break. Alex shrieked up the stairs: "Holy fuck Justin they're trying to get in!"
"Shit! I'm looking for the key!" I searched frantically, pushing clothes aside and throwing them to the floor, when I finally pulled my self up to look at the top shelf, and there it was. I pulled it down and opened the case, seeing several boxes of ammunition, the two pistols and a (thank god) partially filled magazine. I hastily slammed it into the grip of the gun and pulled back the slide, chambering a round. I ran down the stairs to see Alex and Xiran desperately holding a large piece of wood with several nails sticking out of it against the window, as a force on the other side tried equally as desperately to push them back. They were fighting a losing battle. "Just let go and run! I've got it!"
Alex immediately turned and sprinted into the basement, with Xiran following directly behind. The board was thrown down, and on the other side of the broken glass I saw that there were two of them. Two zombies, two bullets. I couldn't screw this up. The one in front jammed its hand through, and attempted to climb in. They had both forgotten about my friends and had their attention focused on me. I looked at them through the sights of the gun with shaking hands. I had shot it several times before, and knew how inaccurate it was. "Gotta keep a cool head, Justin. Kill the bastards."
One of them finally managed to get in, tripping and falling on its face. I aimed, prayed, and a shot much louder than I had remembered rang through the house. Brains on the carpet. It was at this point that my friends decided to come to my aid. They slammed open the basement door and began to run out with their previous weapons. This was relieving, but not at all helpful. "Get the hell away! I've got it! Do you want to get shot!" Thankfully, they backed off. I rested my pistol on the banister, aimed and shot it before it got through the window. The gunshot made my friends wince. The zombie's head whipped backwards as fluids flew out of it and it staggered backwards and collapsed into the shrubs.
We had to act fast. All the noise I had just made was bound to attract more of them. "Okay… um, Xiran, could you get rid of that thing?"
"What? Why can't you? That's disgusting."
I looked at my pistol, with its slide locked back. "I gotta reload this thing".
"Well where the hell am I supposed to put it?"
"I dunno…. Just…. Put it in the backyard. Alex, go into the kitchen, flip over the table and bring it in here. Then go to the basement and get the circular saw, alright? There's no way those boards of wood are big enough."
When everyone was working together unhindered by zombie attacks, barricading ourselves in the house wasn't too hard. The circular saw shot sawdust onto the bloody carpet, creating a red mulch as we sawed off the legs of the table. We used the longest screws we could find to attach the table to the wall, and pushed the piano against it for good measure. "Awesome", Alex said. "Now I can play piano and hold off the zombies at the same time." I had ditched the 9mm (which I loaded up and left on top of the safe anyways) in favor of the revolver because of its better accuracy and ease of reloading. My pants pockets jingled with bullets.
After we had boarded up the glass on the front door and the side windows, we did what I never thought I would voluntarily do: clean up. If my mom got angry when I left socks on the floor, she would definitely be pissed when she saw the current state of the house. Xiran's dragging the zombie into the backyard had resulted in a trail of blood on the floors and spatter on the walls. Bloody footprints were scattered over the tile. Regardless of how unpleasant it was to look at, I honestly thought it to be a safety hazard. If anything ever got in, I wouldn't want to do a face plant into a puddle of gore. Directly after finishing that job, we heard more banging on the barricade. Wondering if it was strong enough but unable to check from our current position, we went to the upstairs window to check on it.
We peered intently out the window, pressing our faces against its cold, wet surface. Strangely enough, it reminded me of watching the Santa Clause parade. There was indeed a zombie there, he must have heard the commotion from far off and went for the previous signs of commotion. At that moment, my mom drove up on the road in front of the house. Sam was in tears, and my mom definitely wasn't doing so well. The would-be intruder turned its attentions to her, limping towards the car. I pushed the window opened and yelled out to her. "Just keep going! Circle the block!" I made a hand motion and pointed for her to go. She listened, and it began following after her. I thought about shooting at it, but from that distance I doubted my ability to get the necessary head shot. It kept going in her general direction as she drove out of sight. Half a minute later, she screeched to a halt in the drive way and pulled Sam to the door with her. I could see several more trailing after her in the distance. I ran down the stairs to unlock the door for her.
She hurried in and closed and locked the door. She looked around. She looked at the barricade, the mess of sawdust and blood on the carpet, the remaining spatter on the walls, at my friends and their work tools/ weapons, at my gun and at me. "Put that away right now."
"Mom… no. I refuse. This gun is what saved our lives. There's one on the lawn and in the backyard, and they would have killed us if I hadn't shot them." Sam was still standing behind mom, staring at me in disbelief. She wasn't ready for this. My mom rested her face in her hand and kept it there for a second. "Only until your father gets home… I'll go call him."
While my mom was on the main floor tending to Sam and doing whatever it is that worried mothers do in a situation involving zombies, I made an inventory of our weaponry and ammunition.
-Browning Tube-fed Semi-Automatic .22 Rifle
-Remington Magazine-fed .22 Semi-Automatic .22 Rifle
-Bolt-action Tube-fed .22 Rifle
-2300 .22 bullets
-Browning Hi-Power 9mm Pistol
-1 Magazine
-400 9mm bullets
-Winchester .38 Revolver
-500 .38 bullets
-2 Semi-Automatic Shotguns
-30 slugs
-50 large animal shot shells
-2 Machetes, 1 Short and 1 long
-Stainless Steel Katana, and, just because it would be so fun to use,
-Gas-powered chainsaw
I decided that even though I was going to wait for my dad to get home before I even thought about giving my friends any guns, I should teach them how to use them. I got them to sit down on a couch in the basement and brought out two .22s, the Browning (which I gave to Alex) and the Remington (which I gave to Xiran). Alex protested. "Oh, come on why does he get the cooler one."
"Because that one's harder to reload and holds less."
Now I had upset Xiran. "What the fuck..."
"Whatever! It's what you have to use! Look, I'm using a bolt-action, so stop whining." I began showing them how to use the rifles, starting with Alex. "Alright... To load it you twist and pull this thing forward and drop the bullets in... It can hold eleven of them."
"How many can mine hold?" Xiran inquired.
"Ten. Now you pull this back after you've loaded to cock it... good. Alright, now try aiming at something and pull the trigger." Alex looked up at the small basement windows and aimed at one of the heads of the zombies that were lying down and looking at us. They seemed to lack the coordination to do any damage to the windows when they were lying down. "Take this you whores!" BLAM A spent casing flew out the side of the gun, the glass shattered, and a bleeding head lay by the window. The wind whistled as it flew through the window, bringing with it the moans of the undead.
"Oh snap."
This wasn't good. The broken window wasn't big enough for anything to climb through, but the hands reaching in and grabbing at air weren't helping. More importantly though, I had to hide the guns before my mom got downstairs. I grabbed them both and put them in the workroom, just as my mom ran down the stairs. Luckily, the casing had fallen conveniently under another couch, and out of her sight. "What was that noise? Is everyone okay?" She looked at the window with its greedy hands, and then at the pistol in the holster on my belt. "Justin, did you shoot that?"
"No! They just got through! Look, mom, we have to board it up."
"Be careful."
"Aren't you going to help?"
"I can't go near those thing, Justin. I'm feeling sick."
"Stay down here though."
"Alright."
We dragged a large table over to the window and stood on it. Xiran and I pushed a board against the wall while Alex screwed it in. We then did the same to the other window. "Did you talk to dad?"
"Yeah, he's on his way but traffic's bad. Oh, and I want to show you something"