KC says it began with a knock, but I think it began with the smell. Jesse had been dancing around us as we relentlessly watched TV; the only live sound in the house was her endless chattering. “When are we going to stop watching this? Why can’t we watch SpongeBob? Why can’t I go to school? Why can’t I go out and play? Why are we all sleeping downstairs? It’s not a sleepover if it’s your own family! When is Dad coming home?” No one wanted to answer those questions, so we pretty much ignored her or sent her on a scavenger hunt for something in exchange for a cookie.
Suddenly Jesse stopped, looked at me, and asked “Hou, did you just poof?” I didn’t get the chance to say no because Naked was straight up on her feet and barking at the back door. Everything moved quickly after that: Mom turned off the TV, pushed us behind the couch and was at the door in five silent steps, peering in the space between the shelves we had pushed against them. She recoiled from whatever it was that she saw and quickly and quietly joined us behind the sofa. “It’s Ron,” she whispered.
Ron? Ron, the dog walker? He was always trying to convince us to use his services, and we were always reminding him that one of the reasons we got a dog was so we’d have a reason to get out and exercise. Ron lived at least a fifteen-minute walk away. It was a bit risky for him to ignore government warnings and come over here unless he needed help, unless he needed shelter, unless…
Oh. That’s why Mom won’t let him in.
We heard a slap! on the glass that made us all jump at once. I was about to tell Jesse to shush out of habit, but she’d already picked up on our collective fear and was uncharacteristically quiet. Mom picked up my old baseball bat. A few more wet slaps on the glass were soon followed by the jiggling of the door handle. She gave a small start like she just remembered something and passed the baseball bat on to me, as if I knew what to do with it. She gripped her iPhone and started furiously texting. “Oh that’s right,” KC whispered. “There’s a hotline for encounters like these. Mom must be texting for help.”
It was bound to happen. The TV showed scores of the dead in DC shuffling about like a slow-moving flash mob. Tanks and air support were taking them out, headshots only, no bullets wasted. There were so many downed they were simply bulldozed off the streets. But out in the suburbs there weren’t many who were not already taken out by roving regiments of the National Guard or trigger-happy rednecks taking part in the hunt of their lives. The rest were behind doors, dead or alive. I guess it was only a matter of time before stragglers from the city mobs made their way to us. Either that or the Infected had worked out how to get out of their homes.
We could barely breathe as we listened to the thing formerly known as Ron the Dog Walker move to other windows and doors. Fortunately Dad had reverted to his army training and passed on what he knew to Mom and me over Skype. As a result, we had done a proper job in securing the house. Nothing was going to get through our barriers, but our makeshift barricades could only keep out physical threats, not fear. As Ron the Zombie tried to get in, I felt I had dropped into the first few scenes of a horror movie—the kind that didn’t have a happy ending. I don’t know why I felt that way, it’s not like we fit the demographic. There’s no jock, cheerleader, or brainy boy in this scenario and only two of us are teenagers, but our first encounter with the dead was terrifying all the same.
It was even scarier to realize it wouldn’t be the last.