Dead Quarantine by A. Rosaria Page B

adult
things. He wanted to enjoy high school before moving into
adulthood. His education had taught him that they were the greatest
nation, most powerful, and most free. But what had happened today
was not that great. People had been gathered together to be
preemptive destroyed like they were livestock with mad cow
disease.
    “How can you be so sure that no one survives
being infected?”
    “Seen one not become one?”
    No, he hadn't, but not seeing something
wasn't evidence to the contrary. No one saw God, but God existed;
the Bible was evidence of God's existence. He looked outside; a
zombie in construction clothing stopped in front of the window and
started banging his fist against it. How long would it hold? And
why would God allow this? Was this a test for humans to endure?
Regretfully, he had never read the Bible, so he wasn't sure if the
scriptures told about the dead rising and chewing on human
flesh.
    “I've got to see for myself. Even if a
remote chance exists that my mom and sis are still well, I need to
take it.”
    Norm sighed and stood up. “Guess you have a
point. Come on. We need to move. It won't take long before they get
inside.”
    A zombie's fist cracked the window. Ralph
jumped up. He had allowed himself to fall into a sense of security
having walls around him. The door seemed sturdy enough, but the
windows obviously weren't. He followed Norm to the kitchen in the
back of the house. A door led to the yard. Norm switched the
outside light on. No zombies were near the door. Ralph followed him
outside.
    “Close the door behind you,” Norm
whispered.
    The sound of shattering glass came from the
living room.
    “Hurry!”
    Ralph ran back to the door and slammed it
shut.
    “They don't seem to know how to open doors,”
Norm said. “It will delay them.”
    They ran to a nearby tree line. They took
cover behind a bush.
    “What now?” Ralph asked.
    “Eight of these sons of bitches left. I
counted five at the house, so three must still be roaming
about.”
    Norm pointed at the spot Ralph had run into
the zombies. “I parked my truck near the construction shack.”
    They had no weapons to defend themselves
with. He had seen that boy rise back up. He had heard his heart
stop. Still, if he had a weapon, he wasn't sure he would use it.
Norm had smashed one zombie's head to a pulp without hesitation
while saving him.
    “Norm.” The older man, he must be in his
thirties, looked at him. It was an awkward question. He did not
know him well enough to ask, but he felt he needed to know. “Have
you killed before?”
    Norm's eyes glazed over. He drew back from
Ralph. “I'm not your brother, never served with you, so never ask
me that again.”
    Norm crouched to the side of one of the
houses. Ralph followed him as well as he could.
    “Punk, you listen to me; follow close, don't
say shit, and leave them to me. You'll only get in my way.”
    Ralph held his lips together, so as not to
say anything stupid and lose the only person around who could
possibly help him. They crept along the wall. Norm checked around
the corner and signaled when the coast was clear, and they moved to
the next house. They went from house to house until they reached
the construction shack. It wasn't what Ralph expected. When he
thought about a shack, he thought of a wooden structure,
haphazardly put together, but it was the container office he had
already seen on his way up. He guessed the construction workers
used it as a break room. Norm's car, a green 2005 model Jeep
Gladiator, was parked next to it.
    “Fuck, two of them.”
    Ralph saw them. One was hard to miss—a big
fellow—and the other was a man who was dwarfed next to his
companion.
    “What do we do now?”
    “We wait until they pass.”
    But they did not pass by. Instead, they
shuffled in their general direction. Ralph felt panic growing. He
looked wildly about for anything. A distance away, he saw a sledge
hammer. He would have to cross into the open to grab it, and