Zombie Days

Prompt:
One night, some children find a zombie hunter while searching for a doctor.

“Sissy, time to wake up.” Jeremy poked at the lump under the frayed blanket.

The lump let out a groan, but didn’t stir.

“Sissy?” Jeremy tried pulling at the blanket. It was yanked back out of his hand.

“Go away.”

“But we’re hungry,” Lucy said, drawing out the word into a long, whiny note. She clutched her blankie with both hands.

“Leave me alone!”

Jeremy and Lucy looked at each other. This had never happened before. Sissy always made them breakfast.

“I think she’s sick,” Lucy whispered.

Jeremy looked back towards the lump on the bed that showed no sign of moving and his shoulders sagged. “C’mon Luce. We’ll find our own breakfast.”

Lucy popped her thumb into her mouth and followed as her brother led the way to the dingy room that served as the kitchen, dragging her blanket behind her.

The kitchen didn’t hold much, a small battered table with two mismatched chairs, and a dented refrigerator that wouldn’t have worked even if the electricity was working. Sissy kept what food they had in there to keep it safe from mice.

There wasn’t much in it now, but tucked in the back Jeremy found a box of cereal.

“Here,” he told Lucy, who’d climbed up on one of the chairs. “We can have this.”

“Not supposed to eat out of the box,” she said around her thumb.

“We’re going to have to this time,” Jeremy told her. “It’ll be okay, it’s just this one time.”

They polished off the cereal and then just sat there looking at each other.

“Do you really think Sissy is sick?” Jeremy asked.

Lucy nodded. “She smells just like that girl did that we found last week. She said that girl was sick. What are we gonna do Jeremy?”

“You’re going to stay here with Sissy and I’m going to go find someone to help.”

“Nuh uh! I’m not staying by myself.”

“You won’t be by yourself, Sissy’ll be here.”

“I’m not staying. I’ll follow you.”

Jeremy knew she’d probably do just that. “Okay, you can come with me. But you’re not allowed to complain about being tired or anything.”

“I won’t,” Lucy promised.

Jeremy was actually glad of his sister’s company. It made him feel braver. He’d never been outside without Sissy. She’d warned them it was too dangerous out here, especially for little kids, that there were a lot of bad people who’d want to hurt them.

But she’d also told him how to tell the good people from the bad. Bad people had sores on them and smelled. And they walked funny. Sometimes they made a moaning sound. Good people may not be clean, but they didn’t have sores. And they walked and talked normal.

Jeremy was starting to get worried when he spotted the man. He had a backpack on and moved quietly through the rubble. He was still making up his mind about the best way to approach him when Lucy knocked over a can.

The man’s head snapped around and he was moving towards them before the can finished rolling down the slope of refuse.

“What are you kids doing out here by yourselves?” he asked.

“We’re looking for a doctor,” Lucy told him. “Are you a doctor?”

“Is one of you sick?” He looked at them sharply.

“Sissy is,” Lucy told him.

“Sissy looks after us,” Jeremy added. The man looked okay, and he didn’t smell like the bad people.

“How long has Sissy been sick?”

“She wouldn’t get up this morning,” Jeremy said. “We had to get our own breakfast.”

“Maybe you should take me to Sissy.”

When they got to the apartment they could hear Sissy moaning – it was a scary sound.

“You kids wait here,” the man said. “I’ll see what I can do to help Sissy.”

Jeremy and Lucy went into the kitchen and sat at the table. For once, Lucy wasn’t being a chatterbox. After a few minutes, the moaning in the other room stopped. The man came to the kitchen door.

“Did you help Sissy?” Lucy asked.

“I’m sorry kids,” the man said gravely. “But Sissy didn’t make it.”

Lucy’s eyes filled with tears. Jeremy felt like crying too, but he was a big boy and big boys didn’t cry. “Who’s going to look after us?” he asked.

The man heaved a sigh. “I guess you’ll have to come with me,” he told them. “I’ll take you to a place where there are other people. You’ll be safe there.”

However, it was a long way to the sanctuary, and the zombie population was growing daily. But with luck they’d make it, and in a few years there’d be two new zombie hunters to add to the roster.