Mail Order Massacres. Hunter Shea
they are!”
Chapter Ten
“Is it gone?” David asked.
Patrick stood vigil by the window. He kept the blinds closed, cracking two slats just enough to spy between them.
“Yeah. It took off when there was nothing left of Jimmy or his father.”
“Let me see.”
Patrick stepped back so David could take a look. He saw that all there was left was a red stain on the ground. Even their clothes had been eaten.
David looked like he was going to be sick. “We have to get to my house.”
“I kind of want to be here when my mother comes home.”
“Bozak, you know word has gotten out about what happened on Virginia Avenue. The state police probably have all the roads to this area blocked off. If she went shopping at the mall, there’s no way they’re letting her back here.”
Patrick hoped he was right. That was a far better thing to consider than the alternative. He just knew his father wasn’t all right. He couldn’t have gone down there in the thick of things without getting hurt or worse.
He’d been trying hard not to cry this whole time, but a tear still leaked out from his right eye.
“What’s so important that we have to go to your house?” Patrick asked.
“I have to check something. You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“After what we just saw, nothing’s crazy.”
“Plus, my house has fewer windows and doors. It’s way more secure.”
Ever since they had seen Dawn of the Dead, they pictured ways to fortify every home, store and building from zombies. These things weren’t zombies, but it was even more important to be in as safe a place as possible.
“I’m not going out there without a weapon,” Patrick said.
“Your dad have a gun?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then we’ll just have to improvise.”
David dashed into the basement, advising Patrick to gather all of his baseball bats. They met back in the kitchen.
“Grab everything sharp,” David ordered, going for the knife rack. The big carving knife sang when he removed it. Once the floor was filled with knives and cooking forks and baseball bats, David took a roll of duct tape from his waistband. “Let’s turn these bats into monster bashers!”
For the next ten minutes, the heavy ripping of duct tape filled the air. The boys taped the utensils, pointed ends facing outward, all along the bats. When they were done, they had four makeshift maces.
“Those things have pretty big heads,” Patrick said. “It’ll be hard to miss with these.”
David swung one of the bats, spearing a loaf of bread on the table. The bag exploded with a loud pop.
“I don’t think they’ll be so hungry when they get brained. You ready?”
If Patrick could have his way, he’d never leave the house. Armed guards would have to assure him that everything was restored to normal before he stepped foot outside.
But David had always been the leader of their small pack, and Patrick didn’t want to look like a wuss. He was also curious to see what was making him risk their lives.
“I’m not locking my door,” Patrick said. “Just in case we have to run back in here.”
“Smart idea. Okay, on three. One, two, three!”
Patrick opened the door while Dave stepped outside, both bats held before him. If anything had been lying in wait, it would have impaled itself on the knives taped to the end of the bats.
The coast was clear.
The block was eerily silent. There wasn’t even a lick of wind.
“Go, go, go,” David barked. They ran across the street as if their asses were on fire and the only bucket of water was fifty feet away. They hopped the gate, afraid to undo the metal latch and alert one of those creatures to their presence.
Patrick saw a line of gray muck, like the world’s biggest snail trail, snaking past David’s house. He prayed that whatever made it was long gone, unlike the cloying stench coming off the trail like waves of heat.
David led the way. They crept along the side of the house, entering the back door that was kept unlocked during the day. Once inside, they dropped the bats, panting.
“See,” David said. “That was easy.”
Patrick just shook his head, wondering if he was too young to have a stroke. “All right, we’re here. Now what?”
“Downstairs.”
They clomped down to the still-empty downstairs apartment. David went straight to the garbage can, upending it so the few contents spilled all over the floor.
“It’s a good thing I kept forgetting to take out the garbage,” he said. “Sometimes putting things off is a good thing.”
There was the box they had opened for the Amazing Sea Serpents, along with the empty packets and instruction book. David scooped up the cardboard back with the cartoon of the grinning sea serpent family. He held it close to Patrick’s face.
“Look familiar?”
Patrick squinted, studying the comic drawing.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Those creatures outside. Don’t you think they look a lot like the Amazing Sea Serpents?”
“Not really, no.”
David sighed, exasperated. “Look, they have tails; those things have tails. The sea serpents are standing upright, and so are those monsters.”
“But the rest looks nothing like them.”
“You remember those weird sludge balls that kept on growing?”
“I’ll never forget them, or the stink they made.”
“When we were close to them down on Virginia Avenue, didn’t the smell seem familiar?”
Patrick sat at the kitchen table, resting his head on his arm. “I was too busy pissing my pants to notice.”
David started pacing. “I think those sludge things somehow grew into those monsters. Something in the sewer kept them alive instead of killing them. And now they’re too big to stay down there.”
Looking up, Patrick said, “I hate to say it, but you might be right. Now that I think of it, they do look a little like those curled-up black balls. At least the head part does.”
David flattened the instructions on the table.
“This is all in Chinese or Japanese or whatever. There’s no telling what it says.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure it spells out how to turn your dumb pet into a man-eating monster.”
David folded the paper and put it into his back pocket.
“We have to find someone who can tell us for sure.”
“I’m not going back out there, man.”
David rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Look, I don’t want to, either. But we may be the only two people who can find a way to stop them.”
Chapter Eleven
David could tell his friend wasn’t digging his plan. He might be right. Maybe it was better—and smarter—to just hole up in one of their houses and wait for the good guys to swoop in and clean everything up.
Then he thought of the massacre on Virginia Avenue.