Seventeen

Dalton gripped the flashlight and opened the door. He saw only the backyard, silent and still. A little brighter now. The moon must be back. He snapped the flashlight off and stuck his head outside the door. He looked both ways. Nothing.

He took a deep breath. He heard Maylee and Brooke start banging on the bathroom door. He heard the corpses moan in response.

"Hey!" came Maylee's voice, sounding far away and muffled. "We're in here! Come and get us!"

Dalton ducked out the door and into the yard.

He took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the moonlight and to listen. He heard moaning here and there, but nothing close. He swallowed and headed for the side of the house.

Rounding the corner, he saw nothing. He sighed in relief and walked as quietly as he could up the side of the house. He stopped at the corner, where he could see the street.

A few corpses were wandering up the street. At least Dalton assumed they were corpses. They moved too slowly and too strangely to be human. None of them saw Dalton.

He heard screams somewhere far off. Voices he didn't recognize. Screams of pain or fear. Maybe an alarm, too far away to be sure.

He steeled up his courage and poked his head around the corner. The front yard looked clear. He smiled and stepped out, facing the side of the front stoop.

Cold hands closed on his throat from behind.

Without thinking, Dalton dropped to his knees. The move was out of panic more than anything else, but he slipped free of the corpse's fingers. He spun onto his rear and looked up.

It was a woman with blond hair and ...

Dalton blinked.

Mrs. Harris. His teacher. He recognized her blond hair and green eyes, but the bottom half of her face was torn to shreds. A wet cavity of blood and meat. Her tongue flopped from side to side. Two bones on each side of her face, what was left of her jaw, worked up and down. She reached for him.

Dalton screamed, clambered to his feet, and ran.

He ran to the front porch and looked inside. The living room was a wreck. A big group of corpses was clustered outside the bathroom door, groaning at Maylee and Brooke as they banged on the door from inside. The corpses didn't notice him, but they were blocking the way to the kitchen. He'd have to use the side door, the one the eyeless man had come through.

He swallowed and hoped there weren't any corpses in there. Mrs. Harris gurgled at him from his right, reminding him to hurry.

He ran for the other side of the house. Fear of Mrs. Harris pushed him around the corner without stopping to look. He stopped when he realized what he was doing. It was clear. No corpses between him and the kitchen door. It swung to and fro, just as the corpses had apparently left it. He glanced back at Mrs. Harris. She was just past the front porch now, moving slowly and making a low choking growl.

Dalton sucked in his breath and ran for the kitchen. He stopped when he reached the door.

Through the doorway to the kitchen, Dalton could see the corpses crowding the bathroom. They were all in the hallway and the kitchen looked clear. He could see the phone in its cradle next to the microwave. The phone Brooke had used to call for the pizza.

As quietly as he could, he crept into the kitchen and headed for the phone.

He could hear Maylee and Brooke banging on the door. The corpses were focused on them. None of them noticed Dalton creeping up from behind. He was almost to the phone.

Groaning came from behind him. Dalton turned. The corpse from earlier, the one with his head bent all the way back, was standing in the doorway. The corpse's back faced Dalton, which meant the corpse's head faced Dalton. The corpse saw. He groaned at him.

Dalton screamed. The corpses in the hallway heard and turned and groaned at him. Corpses closed in on him from both sides.

* * *

Maylee was in the middle of hitting the door, hand raised in mid-strike, when Dalton's scream echoed through the house. The sound sent cold panic through her. She heard the corpses at the door change their focus, heard their groans now being directed at the kitchen. "Dalton!" she yelled.

"There's too many!" he yelled.

"I'm coming!" she yelled. She unlocked the door.

"Maylee, don't!" yelled Brooke, pulling Maylee back. "Let me do it! It's too dangerous."

Brooke opened the door. Over Brooke's shoulder, Maylee could see the corpses moving to the kitchen.

"Hey!" yelled Brooke. She kicked one of the corpses in the back. "Look, dumb-asses! More meat over here!"

The corpses turned to Brooke. Maylee could see Dalton in the kitchen, running away from the corpse with his head bent all the way back.

"That's right!" yelled Brooke at the corpses. "Come on!" She ran down the hallway. The corpses slowly followed her. Maylee stood as far back and as still as she could, amazed that none of them noticed her.

When the hallway was clear, Maylee snatched up her bat from the back of the toilet and ran for the kitchen. Dalton was barely avoiding the broken-neck corpse, which was stumbling around and grabbing at him.

Maylee ran up to the corpse and, screaming, slammed the thing across the head with her bat. The thing's head snapped up the other way, landing against the thing's chest. The corpse groaned, muffled now, and stumbled away. She ran to Dalton and grabbed him.

"Did they hurt you?" she asked.

"No," said Dalton. "No, I'm fine."

"Come on, we gotta go!"

She pulled him out the door and looked up and down the side of the house. A blond woman, face in ruin, was rounding the corner from the front. Maylee figured she and Dalton could get around her. The backyard was too dark to chance.

"Wait!" said Dalton, pulling on her arm. "The phone! I forgot the phone!"

* * *

Brooke ran for the living room, hoping the corpses were following her. She stopped and looked back. Sure enough, they were stumbling after her, groaning and working their jaws. She looked around for a weapon. Nothing. Just toppled furniture, a ruined TV and ...

her phone!

She rushed over and bent to pick it up. She opened it and started punching in 911.

The corpses reached the living room. They came at her, groaning.

No time for phone calls. She closed the phone. "Guys!" she yelled, hoping Dalton and Maylee could hear. "Go out the kitchen door! I'm going out the front!"

She turned to rush out the front door. The pizza boy stood there, neck gaping and oozing dark blood. He gurgled and hissed at her.

Without thinking, without time for thought, Brooke backed away. Cold hands fell on her shoulders. She spun, screaming. The man with no eyes groaned at her. She wrenched herself free, backing away from the approaching group of corpses.

The pizza boy at her back grabbed her by the hair. He moaned and bit into the back of her head. Brooke sucked in a sharp gasp as his teeth scraped against her skull. Then pain hit and she shrieked.

She felt the pizza boy pull away a section of her scalp. She heard him chew. The corpses in front of her, led by the eyeless man, drew close. The eyeless man moaned and leaned in to bite her shoulder. Blood shot across the eyeless man's face, pooling in his empty eye sockets. Brooke screamed and the eyeless man chewed.

The other corpses drew near. Brooke was nearly lost in a haze of pain and shock. Her right hand still gripped her cell phone.

The kids.

She mustered the last bit of sanity and strength she had. She turned to face the pizza boy. He was chewing on a hunk of her scalp. Brooke saw her own hair and skin dangle from the pizza boy's mouth.

"Fuck you," she said. Then she flung the phone over his shoulder, out into the yard.

Please God, let them find it.

The eyeless man bit into her neck. Numerous cold hands closed on her.

Brooke screamed one last time.

* * *

"We have to get the phone!" said Dalton, pulling Maylee back toward the kitchen.

"Forget the phone!" yelled Maylee, tugging him back the other way. "We have to get out of here!"

"We gotta call Mom!" yelled Dalton, wriggling his hand free of Maylee and running back inside.

"Dammit, Dalton!" said Maylee. She gripped the handle of her bat and followed.

Maylee ran inside and first saw the broken-neck corpse stumbling blindly around. His face was still buried in his chest and he was far enough away to be safe for the moment. Dalton was grabbing the phone off its charger. He started dialing. Maylee ran over and snatched it from him.

"Forget the damned phone!" she said, dropping the phone on the counter. "We have to get out of here NOW."

Brooke's screams came from the living room. Both Maylee and Dalton stopped and looked at each other. The broken-neck corpse jerked in reaction to the scream, moaning into its chest and reaching at nothing.

"Brooke!" yelled Maylee, running through the kitchen and into the hallway. Dalton followed behind her.

The hallway was full of corpses, all pushing their way into the living room with their backs to Maylee and Dalton. Somewhere among them, Brooke was screaming. Maylee couldn't see her.

"Brooke!" Maylee shouted. She slammed the bat into the head of the closest corpse. The corpse shook and turned to face her. It was an old woman wearing a floral-print dress and a half-rotten old hat. Her eyes were white and she chattered brown, rotten teeth at Maylee.

Maylee screamed and the corpses clogging the hallway turned in response.

"Crap," said Dalton.

"Yeah," said Maylee. She turned to run back to the kitchen. Dalton followed.

Maylee stopped as she reached the kitchen. The blond woman missing the bottom half of her face was staggering in. Her bloody, ruined jaw worked up and down and she let out a bloody hiss.

Maylee gripped her bat tight and ran to the woman. Screaming, she slammed the woman across the head as hard as she could. The woman's head snapped to one side with a loud "pop" and the woman staggered. Maylee ran past her and into the side yard, assuming Dalton was behind her.

She was wrong. She spun around, looking. "Dalton?"

"Mom?" came Dalton's voice from the kitchen. "Mom, it's me!"

Maylee ran back into the kitchen. Dalton was at the counter, phone held to his ear.

"Dalton!" yelled Maylee. The corpses from the hallway were staggering into the kitchen. The two corpses already in the kitchen were staggering around, heads limp, but it was only a matter of time before one of them found him. Maylee rushed over and snatched the phone from Dalton's hand. "Dammit, we have to go!"

Mom's voice came from the phone, quiet and metallic sounding. "Maylee? Is that you?"

Maylee looked around the room. They had seconds to get out, maybe. She put the phone to her ear. "Mom?"

"Maylee?" came Mom's voice. "Oh thank God. Is there..."

"They're everywhere Mom, they just keep coming!"

"I know, honey. Just please get somewhere safe!"

Maylee looked around. It was going to be tight. "Mom, I'm sorry."

"What?"

Maylee swallowed. "I'm sorry for what I said, Mom." She sniffed and wiped at her eyes.

Dalton seemed to finally notice how close the corpses from the hallway were getting. He looked around, panic on his face.

"Maylee honey, I'm sorry too." It sounded like Mom was crying. "Just please..."

Dalton started screaming. Maylee looked around. The corpses were close now. One grabbed Dalton. He kept screaming, struggling with the corpse.

"Dalton!" yelled Maylee, dropping the phone.

"Maylee! Dalton!" came Mom's distant voice from the phone as it fell. Then Maylee was too far away to hear.