It was going to be a lot harder for dad to get in than I imagined. As I followed my mom upstairs, I could hear the pounding grow louder. Our barricades were being challenged. The piano droned with a hollow and slightly instrumental noise at every time the table on the other side of it was struck. That combined with a constant moaning created a tremendous noise. It was being hit almost constantly; I was amazed that I didn't hear it before. She led me upstairs, and looked out the window. I joined her.
In front of our house were well over fifty of them, the ones at the front pounding on the barricade on the other side of the shattered windows, the doors, and even the brick walls. They weren't the brightest of things. All those behind the first layer were either standing there in a tight clump or attempting to push their way to the front. Looking at the house of our neighbors to the right, I could see the same situation. You'd think that a horde of zombies outside your house would be a bad thing, but really it isn't. It usually means you're alive.
The house on the left however, was vacant, with the front door open. I wondered where they were, hoping for the best. Maybe they vacated at the first signs of them. Then I stopped wondering. I was able to see one of them in the crowd, looking into space with only half a face. I checked for anyone else I knew. There was one boy, probably grade 11 who I didn't know the name of but had seen before. Apart from that, it was just a crowd of strange, bloodied faces. I could hear moaning from where I was, I wasn't sure if it was coming through the window or from downstairs.
"What's dad gonna do?" My mom just stared. "Couldn't he come through the back yard?"
"I checked", she replied. "The house on the other side's surrounded too."
I thought for a bit. "Well, mom, I know exactly how he can get in, but you're not going to like it."
Zombies are both more horrible than you could ever imagine, and not as bad as you'd think. They are constant and unwavering, predictably gruesome. You cannot reason with them, you cannot think of them as human, you are fighting a large, collectively thinking an unthinking monster. The fact that they are so existent, there and untiring could easily drive a person mad from the strain of survival.
On the other side of the coin however, this inhumanness and predictability can be what makes survival easier. Surviving a zombie invasion is more easily compared to living through a harsh winter than a war. Rather than thinking of them as people, or even animals, they are things to be conquered and overcome. As a result, it's easy to feel no guilt from killing as many as strategically necessary.
At the center of the top floor were three large windows, and there was another on the left side in the computer room. These were directly above a large shingled ledge that went across the front of the house, as well as the garage roof.. The garage separated the entrance to the house (on the right side) and the entrance to the back yard. Thankfully, the zombies were nowhere near smart enough to think that maybe if there were people in that house, there would be ways in other than the front. That gate to the backyard really was quite flimsy. My mom had called dad on his cell phone a while ago. I had to get her to tell him of the plan, because anything this extreme would never be accepted coming out of me.
We got the call from my dad telling us he was just around the block in his car. I checked my rifle one last time. Safety off, cocked, fully loaded. I opened the window and the cold air rushed in. "Oy! Zombies!" I could see several zombies look up startled, and attempt to climb up brick wall to get me, frenzied in their hunger. I held the gun out the window and fired once into the crowd. Any of them that hadn't noticed me before did now. "Dad! Come on, now! They're distracted! Hey! Look at me! I look tasty don't I! That's right keep climbing up you'll get it eventually!" I saw my dad turn the fence, half crouched over and sprinting towards the backyard. "That's it, you've got it! Look at me, and not at my dad who is clearly over there!" He shot me a dirty look, and quietly closed the fence gate.
On the road and coming after my dad was another zombie. Along with distracting them, part of my job was to eliminate any followers. "Hey! Where do you think you're going!" I raised my rifle, lined up the crosshairs of the scope and fired. It collapsed as brain matter splattered on the ground. "Boom! Head shot!" Disturbingly enough, I was really enjoying this. I used the scope to check down the road for any that could have noticed him.
There was one in the distance coming in my general direction. I couldn't take any risks; we couldn't afford to have anything pounding on the glass doors in the back until it was suitably barricaded. I rested the gun on the windowsill and aimed a few meters in front of his head, holding my breath. "Wait, 1, 2, 3, Squeeze." I fired as it walked into reticule. Satisfied with the results, I decided to wrap it up. "Thank you you've been a great audience! We're here until you fuckers die!" I unloaded the rest of my magazine into the crowd and shut the window.
My friends seemed to think the way that I handled that was hilarious, but judging by my dad's expression as he looked at me while walking up the stairs, he didn't. He was all business. He walked up to me. "Hey Justin." He took my pistol. "I want to talk to you for a bit. He led me into the living room and we sat down on the couch. "Justin, you shouldn't have shot that much. You've got to think. That probably attracted anything in the area."
"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."
"Okay... I want you to tell me everything that's happened."
So I did.
"Have your friends talked to their families yet?" I had completely forgotten about that, and unless they decided not to mention it, they had too. "No, they haven't."
"I think they should at least call home."
"But there's no way they're going to be able to get there."
"Yes, but I'm sure they're worried about them."
"So... what should we do now? Are we going to try to get out of here?"
"No. It'd be too dangerous to try to get into the car. We're going to stay here until the police or the army fix it."
"I haven't seen any sirens."
"They can't just ignore us. This must be spreading. They'll do something soon. But we'll have to prepare for if they don't."
"That barricade we made's not going to last. We'll have to make a secondary line of defense by... blocking off that room or something."
"No, we couldn't do that in a way that would hold... There is another way."
"Yeah?"
"Well, they can't climb, right? The barely seem smart enough to walk."
"Yeah."
"Well, I think we should move all the essentials upstairs, and destroy the staircase. We'll leave a ladder next to it and pull it up if we need to."
"That's a good idea. But wouldn't it take a long time?"
The staircase was semi-circular and ran from the main floor to the top. It made out of wood, carpet, and drywall. "No, not really. We can get the drywall off with sledgehammers and work on the frame with a power saw. Between us and your friends it should only take half an hour."
The results from calling home in both cases had been nearly the same: The parents wanted them home as soon as possible, but wanted to wait until it was safe. With that (as well as reloading my .22) out of the way, we began working on the stairs. The first step was to beat the drywall with sledgehammers, creating large holes. The remainder was removed with the sledgehammers and crowbars. My mom and my sister went around the house, filling up as many water containers, baths and sinks as possible, as well as moving all necessary supplies upstairs. Because there was no way to move the stove, a small electric fryer and kettle would have to be used. Perishable food would have to be kept in the fridge (which had been pushed against a table blocking the glass doors), and moved upstairs if at all possible.
Once the drywall had been removed, destroying the wooden framework brought the stairs down. A ladder was propped up against it, and everyone felt a lot safer.