Zombie Short Story Competition Entry #4

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Debbie was never a very insightful four year old. But then again, insightful four year olds are hard to come by.  Normally, Debbie quite liked the taste of brains. Very juicy. But for some reason, she wasn’t too fond of her mothers’ brains. Maybe, it had something to do with that weird connection that Debbie once had with her victim. But that Debbie was gone now. Only the odd little memory or the glimpse of a feeling would surface occasionally: she recognised a teddy bear that belonged to the other tasty little girl next door, she noticed someone else had beaten her to one of her classmates, and felt the jealousy that followed.

Now, as she chewed absently on the remains of her mothers’ brain, she felt a stab of guilt. No, nothing as strong as a stab, more like... a paper cut. Yes, a paper cut of guilt. Sadly, this little nuisance was enough to affect her taste buds. It’s not as if her appetite was ruined, that’d be ridiculous. But she was so hungry that she had to settle for second best.

So, Debbie finished off the rest of the brain, and picked at the pieces stuck on the inside of her mothers’ skull. Mummy always said to finish all of your dinner before dessert.

“What is for dessert, mummy?” The humane part of Debbie thought. One very startled scream came from daddy, and her question was answered.

Wade burst into the church and immediately shot a zombie in the head. The panicked screams of the terrified, helpless victims stopped as they turned to look at their saviour, to the angel surely sent from above to save them in their time of need. To the eleven year old boy with the mini rifle.

Wade wore a triumphant smirk as he advanced forward taking out more zombies before a girl bounded after him with a baseball bat, giving each fallen zombie a whack on the head for good measure. Together they swept the pews of the undead and heroically saved the poor, defenceless civilians – a gospel choir in bright red robes, hiding rather obviously behind the small altar. Wade thought, with an audible sigh, that these hopeless citizens would never learn.

But still, he looked on with pride as said hopeless citizens took in the sight of their glorious salvation. And the gospel choir looked on with confusion at the arrogant little boy and the unsettlingly cheerful little girl. The boy, dressed in ripped jeans and a leather jacket that was far too big, was stupid enough to prance around shooting zombies like that, and obviously thought of himself as a hot-shot video game character. The girl on the other hand, who was still wearing her baseball jersey and shorts, was stupid enough to take no heed of the danger and skip alongside him, swinging her bat like she was hitting home runs.

“It’s safe. You can come out now.” Wade announced, “Lucky that. Who knows what would’ve happened if I hadn’t got here.”

The adults groaned and mumbled nervously as they rised, checking the boy’s handiwork. Even though it looked safe, everyone stayed on edge. One of the singers was about to demand what the boy was thinking, when the girl piped up.

“Ooh! Are you a choir?! You must be to wear those silly dressing gowns! Sing us a song, please? Here, I’ll start us off!” She then proceeded to sing ‘Hey Mickey’ at the top of her lungs. One of the singers at the back looked prepared to join in, until Wade put his hand over her mouth.

“Sorry. That’s Allie.” Wade rolled his eyes, “She does that. And I’m Wade. Bet you’re glad we showed up?”

The adult who was earlier interrupted spoke up, “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Uh, saving your butts, duh.” Wade scoffed at them, not happy with the lack of gratitude.

“That was incredibly dangerous! You could have easily been killed!” The gospel singer was now red in the face.

Wade’s grin reappeared. “Don’t sweat it, man – I play a lot of first person shooters. I knew what I was doing.”

The man looked ready to explode when another woman spoke. “Where did you get that gun?”

He shrugged. “Belonged to my dad when he was young, picked it up when I heard what was going on, came and rescued the people I heard screaming.” More questions and accusations arose, but Wade just waved them off. “No time for this, we should get out of here.” Ignoring complaints thrown his way, he walked off to make escape plans.

Allie stood silently among the arguing grown-ups, rocking back and forth on her heels. Occasionally, she would pass a random statement to one of the adults, even though they couldn’t hear her. “I was in the middle of baseball practise when I heard... We’re both eleven by the way... The zombies are really ugly aren’t they?”

Just as the choir were discussing how to deal with getting the gun off of him, Wade strode back up to them with the best plan he could think of. “Okay. We’re going to charge out, guns blazing, mow down some zombies, and move onto another town.”

The choir went silent at the boy’s ridiculous excuse for a plan. Yes, only a gaming eleven year old would think that was a good plan. Many of the adults started to protest, when Allie suddenly charged through them and out of the church, yelling “Great idea, let’s go!”

Wade ran after her, but threw back over his shoulder, “Better hurry! I’m the only one with a gun!” With this, the hapless singers had no choice but to follow their only hope of defence.

Wade seemed to have conjured an endless supply of ammo, and was not cautious as to how he spent it. He dramatically shot anything that moved or seemed a threat, dead or undead. Allie proved to have an excellent arm, and often got the better of a zombie with a few good blows to the head. The poor choir had no option but to follow their leaders and avoid corpses and pools of blood. A few decided to empty their stomachs on the way, but Wade’s only compassion was, “Take your time... but hurry.”

After their long campaign through the town, they finally came to the end of the main road which led on to an old country lane.

“This road... it’ll take us to the next town, right?” asked one of the choir members, a glimmer of hope in his eye.

Another answered, “Yeah... the next town has a police station. We can get them to help us!”

“If the town’s not infected,” Noted a sour woman at the back of the group.

Before the others could get too distraught by this thought, Allie bounded forward, “Well the road looks clear! Might as well give it a shot!” She skipped on, the others groggily falling into step behind her.

Allie’s thoughts were set solely on the end of the road. Secretly desperate to escape somewhere safe, she darted ahead, oblivious to her surroundings. Oblivious to any more threats. Oblivious to Debbie.

Wade followed Allie through the street, proud of his success. But as he did, he caught sight of something in an alley, just ahead of them. He was about to call out to Allie when it lunged.

A small figure leaped at her as she came within range and tackled her to the ground. Wade immediately charged to save her, loading his rifle as he ran. Allie screamed just as he got close enough to take aim. He was as ready as ever to take the shot, but the sight of the little girl made him drop his weapon there and then. All sense of heroism and superiority disappeared as he ran, to stop her... to save her...

Debbie became very angry as something started pulling her away from her meal. She was too hungry for this! She pulled off a chunk of meat from the neck of her victim as she was dragged off; leaving the food to spasm, then go limp.

She let herself be pulled away before turning on her competition. As she went to bite his flesh, that humane part of Debbie began to act up again. She used to know this person... She used to know him so well that she hesitated, only for a moment. But long enough for one of the adults to pick up the rifle and shoot.

Long enough to shoot. But not long enough to aim.

The bullet hit Wade in the jaw. He slumped to the ground, lifeless. The smell of fresh blood suppressed any feelings from Debbie, and she began to rip into his skull. The adults took this opportunity to run the other way – into the clutches of more hungry zombies. Debbie didn’t bother with them. She was too hungry. But... she could taste it again. The guilt.