Your friendly Neighborhood Zombie, Pt. 1: Mickey Mouse

I awoke with the usual stiff feeling of sleeping on a broken and stained mattress. I fell out of bed and laid on the floor for a bit. I hated mornings. I finally unrolled my self from the quilt and pushed myself up. Outside the window was a gray cloudy day. I hated cloudy days too.

I walked into the Kitchen and looked down on my I.D. beside my coffee mug. The card was torn and stained. 'Jake Mullis' the faded name read. 'Born January 1st, 1984'. I started to make some coffee and looked out the window. I didn't see any of them. Yet.

I poured some coffee and sat down in my easy chair. I thought I heard a moaning sound outside, but I pushed the thought away. The doors and windows were nicely barricaded. No need to worry. Dang, being 24 and alone in these times was nerve-racking. I turned on the TV and closed my eyes. No need to see the picture; hearing voices was enough. I didn't think I had heard myself speak in 3 weeks.

When the coffee was gone, I got up and put the mug in the sink. I walked back to my room and slowly got in the shower. My joints were stiff from the bad sleep, and the hot water loosened them. When I was done I got out and threw my bathrobe on. I stood in front of the mirror and used the electric shaver, careful not to touch the long scar from my left eye to my mid-cheek. I tried not to remember how I had gotten it.

I clothed myself in loose jeans and a tight black T-shirt. I walked down the basement steps, careful not to slip on the water-covered steps.

The basement was filled with every kind of weapon imaginable. Guns, Swords, Knives, even a few grenades. Most of it was unusable though. My great-great-grandfather had started to collect them back when the dinosaurs roamed, and he had passed the weapons and hobby down through the generations. Rusty old swords were in a pile in one corner. Nicely-kept, shiny swords were in protected in a glass case. Gun racks filled the room, with guns of every kind from every piece of gun history. Knives laid out on any flat surface other than the floor. A few grenades (All unusable) were in a drawer hidden in one corner. But all these weapons were unusable; all of them had some malfunction, from guns not having triggers to knives not being even remotely sharp. A door leading to a much smaller room was hiding behind a gun rack. I walked through the door into the room where all the usable weapons were kept.

7 rifles, 2 shotguns and a pistol (That's 10 guns, for those of you unable to count) were hung on a gun rack on the far wall. 13 melee weapons were hung on the wall to the left. I had swords, maces, knives, and a battle-ax. On the wall to the right was a table with countless papers laid out across it. A mickey mouse phone stood on a corner of the table.

I sat down in the chair for the table and rifled through the papers looking for the neighborhood map. I found it beneath an article on the latest zombie outbreak in Georgia. I looked over the map and marked it in some places with a red Sharpie where I had seen them yesterday. The map was filled with red marks. The neighborhood was infested with them. I tacked the map up on the bulletin board, and grabbed a mace, my personal favorite zombie weapon. It was black all the way down.

The clouds blocked the light from my eyes. It was humid, and I could tell it was about to rain. I needed to hurry and do this so I could get back inside. I saw no zombies, so I rushed across the road. The house across the street from mine was deserted. The family had taken up and moved to Canada when zombies came to the neighborhood. As if Canada could protect them from the demons.

I swiftly went inside and raided the kitchen. The refrigerator was still plugged in and running, and the family had been a bunch of fatties. I grabbed a pack of ham and a bag of those green apples, whatever they're called.

I rushed back outside and felt rain pounding on my shirt. The small mace was pretty heavy along with the ham and apples. It was pretty hard to see through the rain. I made it inside my door and locked it up. I put the food in my fridge and walked back down to the basement to put the mace up.

While I was hanging it, the phone rang. The annoying Mickey Mouse phone made a different saying every time it rang. I quickly picked it up.

"Hello?" I coughed out. This was the first time I'd spoken in 3 weeks.

"Jake? Is that you?" I didn't recognize the voice.

"Uh, yes. Who is this?" I knew I was being rude, but I wanted to go make a ham sandwich.

"It's your neighbor, a few houses down. You don't know my name. I just looked up yours in the phone book. Look, I need help. Do you have anything to kill zombies with?"

I turned and looked at the weapons. "I sure do".

"Well, can you get down here with a weapon? I'm at 2015 Northside Rd."

"What's wrong?"

"Zombies are surrounding the house... There's about 7 of them..."

"Well, they can't get through the barricades, can they?"

"Er, that's just it. I have no barricades."

I nearly choked. What kind of fool wouldn't put up any barricades? Unless they didn't have the materials, of course, but there was an old wood pile down the road.

"Ok, I'll be down there ASAP."

I hung up, grabbed a shotgun and rushed out the door. When I reached 2015, I saw that it was indeed surrounded. The zombies had obviously noticed it was un-barricaded.

2 of them fell pretty quick, and the rest turned to me. I counted 5 more. Then 3, then 2. They were closing in on me. I knocked one in the head with the handle and backed up. I aimed, fired and shot. Their heads fell to the ground. I turned and saw a Middle-aged man in the doorway wave at me. I waved back and began to walk to my house. I was too wet to talk to him.

I got inside, changed clothes and settled down with a bowl of hot soup. Fighting zombies always racked my nerves. The I got in bed for another night of not-sleeping. Great.