I Am Zombie Bait

Chapter 35

There were a few reasons I'd decided to stage my drama fest on the opposite end of this alley. For one, it's not a big alley. So Bubba and his big back end would have a lot of trouble getting through it to get to me. Given how relentless zoms are, I wouldn't be surprised if he beat himself half to death trying to get through. In fact, this was a really big hope. The more tore up he was when he came to my death trap, the better.

The other reason, acoustics. Bubba was making a decent amount of noise looking around building rubble. And while my shout may be loud, nothing catches a zombies attention like a good old echo. So as my roar reverberated its way down the alley, I debated simply turning and running before I knew whether Bubba was following me or not. Because I knew, even with the buildings of the alleyway between us, I would barely make it back to the death trap before his large, lumbering feet squashed me flat. But I had to be sure. I had to be.

Well, there wasn't any need. Bubba was very quick to give up his digging and began slamming his way through the alley. I could feel the street beneath my feet shaking with the force of his strikes. If the buildings hadn't been nearly twice his height, they probably would have given away on the first hit. How was he still in one piece? While I was wondering that, he struck a second time. Yup, time to go. I launched myself down the street. Not really, I just started running. It sounded more dramatic the other way. There was two blocks between where Bubba was making a new street, and the Bubbanator. I counted. It took me about... two and half minutes to travel a block while running. I had no idea how accurate that was, I didn't have a watch, but it's nice to think I actually knew how long a minute was. It's the little things, you know? Either way, in my head, it took five minutes to get back to the death trap.

A lot can happen in five minutes. A lot can happen in five seconds. One friend can have his head blown away by a shotgun. A group of other friends can be crushed by a building, leaving one alone. Or a man can push someone down the stairs of an alley and lock her in there, leaving her to be food for the zombies. Someone could even yell, drawing the attention of zombies, leading to her parents getting bitten. I never knew how long five seconds could be until the zombie apocalypse. I never knew a lot of things.

A very loud crashing shook me from my thoughts halfway down the first block. I glance back to see Bubba crashing his way out onto the main street. So much for that extra time I was hoping for. I picked up the pace.

My radio crackled to life on my belt. "Was that you, Zombie Bait?" I heard Eliza voice the question and did my best to contain my grunt of annoyance. She must have heard the crash from five blocks away.

I ripped my radio off the belt. "I'm not zombie bait!" I yelled back at her.

There was a pause before she replied. "But didn't you tell me to call you that?"

"Listen, you can't hold present me responsible for past me's actions-" There was a weird sounding crunch from behind and I turned to see two giant, grey hands flying down from above. "Oh sugar honeyed iced tea." Not much for last words, but there you go. Couldn't really blame myself. It's hard to process things when you see your death hurtling toward you like that. You'd think after having nearly died so many times, something like that would change. Nope, not for me, apparently.

As far as I could tell, Bubba, in his attempt to reach me had decided to jump, that or he simply lost his balance. One way or the other, his stupidly oversized body was coming down, his hands outstretched as he tried to get me. He fell short though, which I guess was a good thing. That was, until his body hit the ground. The really impressive thing about it was the sound. He didn't hit all at once, his body more rolled into the ground. So I could hear the sound of the pavement getting crunched over the whole course of his fall. It was actually pretty cool sounding. That was until his hands smacked down. And they came down with a lot of force. I was about one vehicle length away from where he landed. Not a big vehicle like a truck, more like a minivan or one of those suburban SUVs you see soccer dads driving. This made it sound like I had no problems, I wasn't crushed, yay me. Well, Bubba hit the ground hard enough to still make something of a shock wave and send me flying. I rolled a few times when I landed, which may sound not so bad, but really it hurts like a mother ripping off your ear.