Neighborhood Watch Read Online Free PDF Page A

the ground. It was a  normal one.”
    “But how do you know?” Sam said.
    My brother began to talk but Sam was already rattling away: “Because if they're not dead, if they're not 100% certifiably dead, they'll come for you. They'll crawl for you, they'll walk millions of miles, through lava and... and record rain storms, for you .”
    “We have to kill them.” I said with an air of finality. I was tired of others ignoring me, lecturing me, telling me what had to be done as if they knew. Well I knew. I knew more than either of these two because I had seen more than them. I had seen the zombie at our cul-de-sac, and I had seen the one the cop killed and the one at Mr. Clark's house. I had seen three distinct... 'creatures,' and I knew what I was talking about.
    “I saw a liquid at Mr. Clark's house,” I explained. “I think he started it.”
    My brother rubbed his head. “Great, crazy science man decides to start zombie apocalypse. Wonderful headline for your papers, goober.”
    “He picked a good day to unleash,” Sam said.
    I looked out the window, again to that everlasting storm. I could still remember the picture of that woman on Mr. Clark's kitchen table. Right aside the glass of dark liquid.
    “Who knows if Mr. Clark intended this,” I said.
    “Well what else would he intend , brother?”
    “I dunno.”
    My brother looked over to Sam. “Samwise, your dad's in security, right? Does he have any weapons or anything?”
    Sam rolled his eyes. “Yea, my dad just keeps shotguns and bazookas lying around.”
    “Come on man, think,” my brother urged. “He's gotta have something we can use.”
    Sam seemed at a loss. My heart sank. I knew that if we couldn't figure out something fast, Sam's terrifying prediction would come true. Our communities weren't that big as far as total area, but they were crowded. My paper routes varied, but many of them were one series after another of snaking turns and endless loops.
    “I got it!” Sam said then. “What about this?”
    He raced off to some part of the house, much like I had done earlier in my own house. They had laughed at me then, but now nobody was laughing. We all knew what we were up against. And by knowing this, we knew—truly—that we didn't know anything.
    Zombies weren't supposed to be real. How could we just read websites about something that had never existed? How could we ever trust these 'facts' about a creature, a being, an undead person? For all we knew, we were up against the shit storm of the century.
    What if they started flying? Could zombies fly?
    Hopefully this question was more stupid than scary...
    “Here we are!” Sam declared. He placed the nondescript bronze container onto the desk. Reaching in with obvious care, he extracted the find. They were goggles, but not just any goggles. They were headgear. Fancy, sturdy, cutting-edge goggles.
    “Infrared,” Sam said to my brother's awestruck face. “Legit shit, man.” He handed one to my brother as he fastened the other one around his eyes.
    I looked from Sam to my brother.  “Will they work?” I asked.
    “Definitely,” Sam said. “Zombies give off heat.”
    I nodded. I had read the same thing but I wanted others to say it. According to fvza.org , the body temperature ranged between 65 and 75 degrees in colder temperatures.
    “We were wrong about the head,” Sam said. He was already back on his laptop, goggles on but not activated.  “Even if they're missing ¾ of their brain, they'll keep coming. You have to completely sever the brain stem to kill them.”
    “And they won't bleed out,” I added.
    “No,” Sam agreed. “Their circulation is too slow, it's why their blood is so thick. You can't even disable them long... says here they can still walk after 24hrs even if their spine was severed.”
    “Wonderful,” my brother said.
    I sighed. “The one I saw was muscular but super sharp and bony too.”
    “Did it have flesh?” Sam asked.
    “Not really.”
    Sam frowned.