Read Mistakes I Made During the Zombie Apocalypse for Free Online

“I’m trying to keep it that way.”
    “You should have locked your door,” Grant said. He didn’t mean for it to sound like a threat, it really wasn’t, but it did. The man cocked the gun. Grant stepped back again until he was almost on top of Ian, who was already up against the closed front door.
    “You think you can walk into any house you want? Just because the world ended doesn’t mean that everybody else went with it.”
    Ian wanted to calm the man enough for them to make it back outside without bullet holes in their bodies. “You are right. It was wrong of us.” He reached behind himself for the doorknob and slowly turned it.
    “Find another house!” the man seethed through gritted teeth. He didn’t like playing the bad guy and his jaw was getting tired from clenching.
    “Aye aye, captain!” Grant said, turning on his heels and running through the now open front door.
    Outside, the street was full of the dead.
    Ian glanced around for anything in which to hide, but the options were limited to some large dumpsters, with a stinky sludge in the bottom, and a child’s small playhouse in the backyard next door.
    Grant thought of a better idea.
    “We can hide in the basement.”
    “Of this guy’s house? No way!” Ian turned his back to Grant and considered the garbage cans again. Sludge or shotgun?
    “They aren’t using it and they’ll never know we are there.” Grant was already at the wooden door. It, like the front door, wasn’t locked. They climbed in.
    The basement was full of stuff. Furniture, paintings, stacks of books, and clothing that looked to date back to the fifties. There was a thin layer of moisture on the floor and the entire space smelled of mold. Grant led the way on a small path carved through the junk. The only place they could find to sit was near an old utility sink in the darkest corner. They sat shoulder to shoulder with their backpacks in front of them. Ian shone his flashlight and discovered piles of rat feces beneath the sink.
    • • •
    You’ve been in far worse places than this closet.
    “But Grant was with me. He made things bearable.”
    • • •
    Grant turned to humor to weather the situation. “Don’t fart,” he said.
    “Don’t make me laugh!” Ian hissed. He shifted his focus to other things, like the spider resting on its perfectly spun web above the sink. Several insects sat motionless on the sticky surface, waiting patiently to be devoured. Or maybe they were dead. Ian felt kinship with them. He knew what it was like to lay below the top of the food chain; to be stuck in impossible situations with, barring a miracle, little hope for survival.
    Above them, they could hear the man pacing and yelling at his wife. The children began to scream. Breaking glass next and then the firing of the shotgun followed by the thump of a newly made corpse hitting the floor.
    Now only one child screamed. The back door was thrown open and small feet made their way quickly down the back stairs.
    Ian and Grant were both holding their breath and silently hoping no one would try to hide in the basement. They waited ten minutes before speaking.
    “We led the dead right to them. We got them killed!” Ian was still watching the spider, which had begun to wrap its prey in small bundles of silk.
    Grant shrugged. “The guy was a prick anyway.”
    “What about the kids? Don’t you feel bad for them?”
    “We’re kids too, you know? I’m feeling pretty damaged right now.”
    “You’ve been damaged since birth, Grant.”
    “And now I’m hurting even more!”
    Ian knew he was joking again. Grant wasn’t serious about much of anything.
    “How long are we going to stay here?” Grant asked. “My legs are cramping.”
    “You’re the one who chose this bat cave so don’t even start complaining. We have to wait even longer now. The screaming and the shotgun blasts didn’t help our situation.”
    Grant stood up to move his legs and take a peek at the backyard. “Shit,