Killing Them Loudly
The Present
I glanced down the long street. Rows of double-storied silent houses stood to either side of me, glaring. Or maybe they weren’t glaring, maybe that was how it felt to me. Glancing to my left, I couldn’t see the sun above the roofs, but I knew it was on its way up from the brilliant rays shining between houses and spilling onto the road.
The street was quiet, as was the neighbourhood. It was that all pervasive, almost preternatural silence, that you get in a vampire film just before the victim walks into the grasp of the diabolical to lose all their blood and turn into the undead. That kind of quiet. Considering the circumstances, it was appropriate to the situation.
The door to my immediate left was closed, and the windows were shut. Nothing had changed since yesterday. This was good.
The door of the house to my right was wide open. This was not as it was yesterday. This could be bad, very bad. The gate to that house was still closed. That didn’t make sense. Why would the gate be closed and the door open? A normal person would know better than to leave a door open.
I walked to the gate. It was higher than me by about a foot. Gazing between the bars, I peered into the dark hallway. There was no movement within. Sliding my eyes to the top of the gate I noticed those unpleasant, pointy looking, fleur-de-lis barbs that people use to deter potential miscreants. Climbing over that wasn’t going to happen. I looked for the latch on the gate and found it. It wasn’t locked. Lifting the latch, I moved the gate forward. A large squeak issued from the gate. The sound chased goosebumps up my spine. A huge crash echoed out from the house. I wasn’t alone.
Throwing open the gate, the sound of its base scraping along the footpath reminded me of when my best friend used to scratch their nails down the chalkboard in class. Ugh. With caution, I stepped along the path towards the stairs. My foot landed on something prickly. I glanced down and lifted my foot, removing the double-g from beneath. Weeds were pushing up the pavers from their position.
“Brraaaiiiinnnnnssssss,” moaned something from just in front of me. My head snapped up. Damn these creatures move fast. There, five feet from me strolling down the steps, with the automatic memory embedded within the muscles of the creature, was a zombie. Flesh sloughed off them with every step taken. It was a woman, or used to be a woman, a bit taller than me, wearing a red top and a black skirt. There was no hair left, so she must have been a zombie for a while. The gums were also devoid of teeth. Another indicator as to the length of time as a zombie. I kept staring at the face, feeling I should know this person. Then it hit me. It was Mrs. Snitchinker, my calculus teacher from high school.
“You’re stupid,” hissed Mrs. Snitchinker once the other students had left the room. My test had been marked with a D. There was no problem with the answers. The answers were correct. It was how I had worked through the problems that was the issue. “You are the stupidest student I have.”
I looked at Mrs. Snitchinker, tears stinging my eyes. Warmth float from my neck up. A hot liquid oozed from my girl parts, staining my knickers. My period had started, and I didn’t have any protection on. Why did this have to happen at just this moment? My period wasn’t due for another two days. It always came early when I got a shock.
I grabbed my test paper and shoved it into my backpack, exiting the room. By the time I started walking down the hall to my locker, I heard a wave of snickers and giggles stalk me. My shoulders hunched over, and I stared at the floor as I walked. The noises behind me got worse. A boy shouted, “Hey, Carrie, ready for the pigs blood?” I cringed.
By the time I got to my locker the hallway was full of laughter and people pointing, talking, screaming, and yelling. Whether at me or if it was teenagers being teenagers, it didn’t matter. I had had enough. Looking at my locker, I considered its contents. There were no valuables in it and no pads. Leaving my locker closed, I kept walking. I walked and walked and walked out of the front doors of the school and out of the gate. No one tried to stop me.
“Well, well, well Mrs. Snitchinker. Is that really you?” I asked, sarcasm colouring my words. My body relaxed.
The zombie continued moving towards me, hands extended moaning “Brraaaiiiinnnnnssssss,” with every exhalation. She showed no recollection of her name. The zombie stopped moving when it got to within a foot of me. The mouth started working in silence, drool oozing from the corners of the mouth.
Within moments, razor sharp teeth had dropped down from her toothless gums. Those teeth were super pointy. Mrs. Snitchinker must have been one of the first zombies to turn, way back when, which wasn’t that long ago. How long ago was it that people turned into zombies? A month? 6 months? A year? I couldn’t remember. It had been a while.
There were no teeth on the bottom gums. I had done some autopsies with what was left of the bodies after my first kill. Curiosity always got to me. Those bottom gums were full of microscopic wholes that oozed some sort of weird acid that ate into a person’s flesh, including their own. They stopped ejaculating acid after death. The acid was only triggered when a zombie came into proximity with a living person, like me.
“About that D you gave me, Mrs. Snitchinker, you remember? Yeah, my last day of school. There was nothing wrong with my solutions. It was simply my working out. I googled that on the internet. Apparently a person who can work out a different way of solving the problem and coming up with a solution is considered intelligent. But noo. You attacked me and my period started, and everyone laughed at me. So, this is the consequence of being a bitch of a teacher towards me. You got zombied and ran into me,” I had this habit of talking to the zombies during interactions. They didn’t understand, but I did. It was the only contact I had with anybody since this whole thing started.
I kicked my right leg out in a roundhouse kick, taking the decaying creature by surprise. Well, everything would be a surprise to a zombie, wouldn’t it? What is a zombie but a level lower intellect than the average sport watching weirdo. Wait a minute, weren’t the sports watchers the first to become zombies? Doesn’t matter. The past is over. It is not the present.
My foot landed with a meaty thud into the zombie’s hip. Her arms dropped. My leg snapped back, and a huge piece of gluteal flesh came away. Bile rose in the back of my throat. I swallowed the stinging liquid back down. Under normal conditions I would have probably winced and shuddered, but these aren’t normal conditions. I gave my foot a little shake before placing it back on the uneven pavers.
The being raised its hands towards me, palms facing down. The final knuckle joint on the little finger smashed onto the ground. Dear God, I thought to myself, is this what is to happen to me if I don’t win, not only this fight, but every other?
“Brraaaiiiinnnnnssssss,” moaned the zombie.
“Not mine,” I retorted, drawing back both fists. Elbows angled behind my back; I nestled my fists at my waist. Shuffling my right leg, I placed it I a foot and a half behind me. There was still bit of flesh stuck between my toes.. I really wish I had put on shoes this morning. Wait a minute, that’s why I was on this excursion, because I needed new shoes. The others had gotten too much acid drool on them when I had had to kick the head off a huge, male, zombie. This guy had been about 200 kilograms worth of living death.
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” I yelled at the zombie. On the final Ah! I released my right fist. As it connected with the zombie’s jaw, I released my left fist to the same location, withdrawing my right back into my waist. As my left fist connected, my right fist flung out. I did this several times over until, with a deafening crack, I snapped the neck of the zombie straight off the walking corpse.
The skull landed on the top step of the porch, balancing on the edge. It glared at me, meeting my eyes. A chill thrilled down my spine. A slight wind rose and tilted the head forward, destabilising it. Thud, thud, thud, went the head as it toppled down to rest at its own feet. The entire body disintegrated with a puff of dust.
“Brraaaiiiinnnnnssssss,” moaned the zombie.
“Is this for real? Man, you are dead. You are the stupidest zombie I’ve ever killed. Your bodies gone. Shut up!” I hollered. Moving two paces forward, I kneeled, grasping the zombie head through the eyes and nose like a bowling ball, and stuffed it in my knapsack.
I have no idea why I collect their heads, but I do. So far, I had a tiny pyramids worth off all my kills stored up in the back yard of my home, all moaning “Brraaaiiiinnnnnssssss,” all the time. What I have noticed from my collection of heads is that the more there is in one location moaning “Brraaaiiiinnnnnssssss” the less zombies hang around. Maybe it is some sort of deterrent or maybe the zombies have some sort of respect for brain hunting grounds. Doesn’t matter. It works.
