The sight of an abandoned house wasn’t exactly the most uncommon thing in those days. But, that didn’t lessen the sense of dread that you see when you see it. Cassie, Tim, and Pete were fairly used to seeing derelict buildings, all around town. Some boarded up in preparation for someone else cleaning day. When they went out into the woods that night, they weren’t sure about what they were looking for. As most kids do, when they go into the woods they didn’t go looking for anything in particular. They just, wanted to have a little fun and the abandoned house in the clearing was just the place for it, a perfect, dead vessel to contain their adolescent ideas.
The trio sat outside of the house. It was one of the older styles of homes. They had only seen things like it in movies. An old two-story in the style of what Tim’s mom called a McMansion, which he thought sounded like a dumb name. Cassie and Pete weren’t exactly up for the excursion, the house seemed to the two of them to carry negative energy, unlike anything else.
“We should head home,” said Cassie as she gazed into the building through its cracked and vandalized windows, “My mom’s gonna kick my ass if she finds out that I left your house.”
“Give me a break, Cass,” Said Tim as he strolled up to the porch and made a pose like that one weird singer his mom used to be a fan of by leaning his shoulders back and his hips forward, “See, it’s perfectly fine.”
Pete wasn’t confident in their friend, “What if...say…there’s a…”
Pete made a motion with his hand to indicate a more complicated idea, “What if there is a…”
“A what, Pete? A zombie?”
“Shut up!” said Cass in a harsh whisper, like she was afraid of somebody hearing them. Or perhaps she was afraid of something hearing them.
“Oh what? Your guyses parents are cranks. Zombies aren’t a thing anymore. I mean, have you guys ever seen one?”
Pete and Cass fell silent, twiddling their thumbs quite literally as they contemplated their friend’s taunt.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Well...The door’s probably not even unlocked!” interjected Cassandra in her most confident mimic of her mother’s stern voice.
Tim, with an equally confident flourish, pulled the door open with a very loud squeak that sounded in absolute silence like the loudest thing any of them had ever heard.
“Huh, it seems like the universe is on my side, today, Cassandra,” He said her name in a much better imitation of Cassie’s mother.
Pete reluctantly started to snicker at the joke, “That’s not funny.”
“It’s pretty good, though,” they said in retaliation.
“Come on, you two! Let’s explore for a bit and then we’ll leave. Sooner in, sooner out. Shouldn’t take any more than, what? Twenty minutes?”
His friends groaned and sure enough, the three kids found themselves at the entrance of a large living room. On the north wall was a mangled wall attachment that must have, at some point held up a flat-screen television, while the old leather furniture was littered with scratches and dead leaves. Tim took a triumphant breath and smelled the stench of old wood and rot. It smelled like a paradise to him. He drew a small pen flashlight out of his jeans and shined it around to get a better look. Anything valuable had been looted from the place back before The Plague, but that didn’t matter to him. The building was possibilities.
“Can you smell it guys?”
“The smell of dead leaves?” offered Pete.
“No, Peter. The smell of adventure.”
There was a long pause between the three of them. Pete and Cass just looked at their oldest friend like he had just said the dumbest thing imaginable.
“That is...profoundly stupid of you to say, Tim. It’s an old house. It isn’t anything.”
“What do you mean, this is the spice of life, guys! I mean, look at it. This place is a work of art, a relic of a bygone era. It’s a gem.”
“It’s more like a piece of lead.” said Cassandra, there was a strange vibration in the air, “Wait, shut up!”
“Don’t be a dick, I was…!”
Tim was cut off by Cassandra raising a single finger in defiance. All three of them fell silent and they heard...whispering.
“And Paul, and...” spoke a man’s voice.
“I did hear that,” responded another.
“What if this kills him?” Said a new voice.
“That’s true,” Said the first voice again.
The three fell silent and the voices seemed to grow fainter.
“We should leave,” spoke Cass in a harsh whisper.
“Nah, it’s probably an old phone or something,” said Tim, keeping his normal tone in check.
“How many old phones have you seen whose batteries last more than a couple of hours, Tim?”
“None, but there must be a lot, though. Right?”
“Wrong.” said Pete, “Let’s just cut our losses and call this a bust and go.”
“No, no. We’re in, let's figure this out.”
The trio carefully made their way down the hallway, trying to keep as quiet as possible. The voices continued, coming from a room at the end of the hallway. They moved closer, not sure what to expect.
Once they reached the door, they peered through the keyhole. Within, they could see a lone zombie, slowly walking into a wall, a pair of earbuds hanging off of their shirt played the voices.
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“What the heck…”
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The zombie smacked their head against a wall, sending it falling onto their ass. The earbuds had fallen off and the zombie slowly began to stand up, looking at them with a puzzled expression on its face.
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“Well Zeus almighty, that is unpleasant to look at," said Cassie.
"Yeah, let's get out of here, I was so wrong," said Tim.
"No, no, no, wait...we need to do something," said Pete.
"What can we do?" asked Cassie. "I mean, it's already dead."
"Yeah, but it used to be a person, once...My parents taught me the old ways, ancient things. Maybe we could use lavender to coerce it to come out and we can lead it somewhere safe?"
The others looked at Pete, then back at the zombie. They had no idea if it'd work, but they had nothing else to lose.
The group ventured out of the Germ House, running down the unused game trail when they heard voices coming from nearby. Acting as one, all of them fell and dropped into the bed of a creek to hide. It was there that they heard the distinctive voice of Angela and their erstwhile band of psychos.
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"I think you're full of shit, Angel," said one of the girls that followed her around.
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"No I'm not, I saw it here last night. A one hundred percent genuine zed head." they said.
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The trio could smell gasoline in the air as the older kids moved around.
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"You know what we gotta do then? We gotta find it and put it down, or else we're all gonna end up like it," said Angela.
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The three kids, realizing they were in over their heads, quietly made their way out of the creek and ran the whole way home.
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They tried to gather as many bottles of lavender soap, shampoo, and perfume as they could carry. Not one adult in the neighborhood paid them a mind. It was in such a time, things like that were commonplace and the fear of roving gangs of pedophiles wasn't so common in the public mind.
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The trio snuck back to the house. The front door had been kicked down and they could hear the older kids cheering while one of Angela's friends poured gasoline in a circle around the front porch, a sour look on her face.
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"What the hell are they doing?" Pete asked in a whisper.
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"They're going to burn the house down with the zombie inside," Tim replied.
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"We can't let that happen, this is our one true calling in life!" shouted Cassie as she stood up, above the bush. Catching the gaze of the older girl who was pouring the gas.
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"Hey!" she shouted. "What the hell are you doing out here?"
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Cassie took off in another direction, the girl on the porch gave chase, leaving the gas can behind and the boys to deal with the rest as she tried to get the older girl to follow her deeper into the woods.
Peter took off his shirt and Tim looked at him, "What the hell are you doing?"
"Well in case it doesn't work, I'm just going to throw this over it's head so it doesn't maul us." He said as they approached the house.
Once inside they made for the hallway as Angela upstairs began to smash walls with a hammer. They made their way towards the room where the zombie was and the floor smelled heavily of bleach and gasoline
The zombie was still there, crouched in the corner, trying to hide. The boys threw the shirt over the zombie's head and, to their surprise, it seemed to be calming down. Pete, who had picked up the lavender soap, began to rub it on the zombie's neck and arms, and it began to relax even more.
"I think it's working," Tim said, and the boys looked at each other in awe.
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"what are you two doing?" said Angela, witnessing this scene. A dry look on their face.
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"We're going to rescue this zombie and there's nothing you can do to stop us!" shouted Tim. Only for Angela to back hand him.
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That left it all on Pete. Pete and the ghoul he held by an old t-shirt. He dragged the ghoul along, pressing against it and knocking Angela out of the way.
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The boy and the zombie fled into the woods, the zombie's weak legs shambled as fast as they could shamble, eventually shaping off so Pete was left dragging the top half of it's body through the woods as it groaned.
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Pete, being tired from the run collapsed into the mud.
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"We did it. We saved it. We saved it." he said.
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When he woke up, it was raining and the smell of lavender was gone. The ghoul had seized him by the foot, and Peter could see then that the ghoul had bitten through the fabric of the shirt he'd wrapped around it's head exposing a mouth full of blood and broken teeth.
Tried with all of its might to pull his sneaker-protected foot into its hungry mouth.
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Pete screamed.
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