I Am Zombie Bait

Chapter 20

It was a new day. The sun was shining, the panthers were lounging, which is pretty much all they ever do during the day, and breakfast was marginally edible. I'm no cook, but still, can't be picky in the zombie apocalypse. I stretched my right arm in a few different directions, flexing my fingers. The pain was almost entirely gone. I hoped that was a good sign. Bagheera came walking into the living room. He let out a large yawn before laying down on my bed.

"I sleep there, you know?" I said, looking at him. He looked at me, licked his lips, and then started licking himself. "Dude! So uncool!" Sleeping there would never be the same. I thought about throwing my water bottle at him when I heard some scratching. I leaned in my chair until I could look down the hallway at the front door. One of the panthers, I think Jaguar, was there. She looked back at me before turning and scratching the door again. I sighed and got up. Ever since those stupid cats broke my front door, I didn't really have a way to fix it. It would still close like it was supposed to, but the latch, not to mention the slot on the door frame, had been blown right off when which ever feline fancied themselves a furry demolition ball decided to come in and wreak me. So, in my usual elegance, I came up with a completely ridiculous and crude answer to my unusual problem. Lucky for me, I already had a similar system on my other doors. It worked for those, it'd work for this. I attached a rope to the top corner of the door, ran it through some hooks, before tying it off on a decent bag of rocks. A panther pushes the door open, the rope gets pulled, the bag of rocks rise in the air. Once said panther is through, the weight of the rock pulls the string back and boom, the door is closed. Glory be to simple engineering. And chocolate. By the chattering of zombie teeth, did I miss chocolate. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to find some, other times, I find zombies. Sorry, not other times, many times. ...most times. All the time! Whatever! I'm not bitter. I'm focused, that's right. I need to solve the issues that have to deal with my life, not hunt for things like chocolate. Like how I needed to figure out a way to let the panthers out without having to open the door for them. Speaking of...

I walked over and pulled the door open for my scratching feline friend. Jaguar rubbed against my leg as I did. "Yeah yeah, get outta here," I said, giving her head a scratch. She went out and I let the door close. And when I turned around, there was Cougar, looking at me expectantly. "You want out too?" He turned around in a circle and then stared at me. As if that answered my question!

"You guys are unbelievable!" I opened the door and out he hopped. "This isn't some revolving door you know!" I called after him. I expected him to ignore me, but instead he just stopped, and started growling.

"Okay okay, I'll open the door for you! Yeesh!" I quickly said, until Bagheera rushed past me to stand next to Cougar. I noticed Jaguar was only a little ways off too. All three of them were staring off in the same direction, letting out the occasional growl. "What is it? What's going on?" Yeah, like they were going to answer me. Maybe I was going crazy, I couldn't stop myself from talking to them. I ran back inside and grabbed my binoculars before dashing back to the door. I slipped my boots on and ran outside. As soon as my feet touched the ground, the panthers started moving. And I followed them. They lead me out through the gate and down the street. We made a few turns to some areas I wasn't yet familiar with, but they didn't slow down.

I didn't know what was going on, but it was starting to freak me out. It'd only been a little over a week, but I'd never seen these guys act like that before. What could be out there that it'd trigger this kind of response? We got a few blocks over before they suddenly stopped. I skidded to a halt right behind them. At first, I didn't understand what we were doing there. I didn't see any zoms or any signs of people. So what were they so worried about?

And then I felt it. The ground shaking slightly underneath my feet. I didn't understand at first, but then I remembered the last time I'd felt something like that. To be honest, with everything that had been going on with the panthers and my wounds, I'd completely forgotten about Bubba. And yet here he was, this giant of a zom wandering the streets like your average 20 foot tall pedestrian. He was still a few streets down when he came into view. I about peed my pants when he turned our way, but he didn't seem to notice us. Bad eyesight maybe? He turned back and kept lumbering on. The panthers growled again before turning back to look at me. I returned their looks.