First Kill: Part I

After a long week struggling to sell homes in a recession, Finn tried to relax on his back deck. But his neighbors’ dogs interrupted that from happening. He wondered what those stupid dogs could possibly be barking at for so long. His headache started coming back.

"Here you go, sweetie," Miranda said in a high-pitched tone, sashaying across the deck and handing him a cold bottle of Corona with a lime wedge leisurely floating about inside.

"Gracias, senorita," he replied with a bad accent, setting the beer down on the patio table and finishing his current one with two large chugs, both already warm. "I don’t know why I’m so hungry. I had a late lunch."

"Do you want some chips or something?" she asked, sipping her wine as a light breeze brushed a long strand of amber hair into her face.

"No, I can wait."

"Okay, I’m gonna finish getting ready and then we can go," she said, tucking the strand behind an ear and walking back across the wooden planks in her fluffy white robe and designer jeans.

"Sounds good, hot-stuff," he chimed, admiring her as she went.

"I’m so excited for their margaritas!" she exclaimed, just before disappearing into the kitchen.

She was in a good mood. He was trying to get there. But it was a tough. Reminding himself it was a beautiful Friday evening, the whole weekend was staring him in the face and he had the sweetest wife in the world, he pushed his problems at work to the back of his mind and decided he was going to enjoy every minute of this weekend if it killed him.

"Oh my God, I forgot to tell you," Miranda piped in, suddenly reappearing in the sliding glass doorway.

"Oh my God, what?" he quipped.

"I found the perfect dress for Sarah and Brian’s wedding!" she announced, sending a wincing pain through his body.

"You did?" he quivered.

"Yeah, it’s a black halter dress with a floral print and it has pockets. It’s so cute!"

"Umm," he began.

"But it was on sale!" she quickly added.

"What about the dress you just bought for Karen’s wedding?" he interrogated, unmoved by the good deal.

"That was last summer!"

"Listen, can we just get going? I am starving," he suggested, hoping she wouldn’t bring it up again at El Rodeo. They shouldn’t even be going out to dinner tonight, let alone buying new dresses, but he could really use some good margaritas and mexican food right now.

"Alright, I just have to find a top real quick and I’ll be ready to go," she said in a triumphant tone, vanishing into the house again.

Finn let out a deep sigh, knowing how long it could take her to find a top real quick as he watched the sun begin its long descent behind the woods bordering their backyard. Two squirrels went zig-zagging after each other across the green grass and wound their way up a tall tree, as if there was a magical spiral staircase around it, and were quickly gobbled up by the shadowy forest. The neighbor’s dogs on the other side of his house now joined in on the incessant protest, relentless in their pursuit of annoyance.

Finn leaned back in the chair, stretched his arms out and tried to relax. He had been looking forward to this moment all week and hoped they could celebrate him finally selling the Tanner house, but the couple’s financing had fallen through earlier this afternoon. He needed that commission too. Miranda was already pulling extra shifts at the salon.

"We may have to eat that dress for dinner next week," he said to himself, the dogs barking even louder now.

He made a quick mental note to buy a dog whistle or a stun gun or something this weekend and to not forget about it this time. If his idiot neighbors didn’t want to train their stupid dogs, he would. Or at least try anyway. He guessed they barked all the time because their shine had worn off, like a new toy, and their owner’s attention had been diverted to newer acquisitions like babies, cars and flat screen TV’s. His headache grew.

"How’s this look?" Miranda asked from the doorway, startling him from his thoughts.

He turned to see her donning a white tank top, ripped jeans that cost a hundred and twenty-five bucks to come ripped, and black high heels that probably cost more than he wanted to know.

"Wow, you look awesome."

"You think?" she asked, a symphony of yaps polluting the air around them.

"What’s that?"

"I said, do you really think so?"

"Of course I do. You look super hot. Now, let’s hit it."

"I don’t know, do these jeans make me look fat?" she asked, turning around and shooting another stabbing pain down his spine. "And don’t say no, my face does!"

"Man, what is the deal with those damn dogs?" he griped, turning to see if any of his neighbors would have the common decency to come outside and shut them up. None did.

"Oh, I need a necklace!" Miranda suddenly remembered, darting back into the house before he could protest.

He dropped his head, knowing that finding the right necklace in there could be like finding the Ark of the Covenant. He did love her though. He loved how she almost enjoyed getting ready for something more than the something itself and quickly reminded himself not to spoil the night with a bad attitude. It was her weekend too.

"We’re gonna be here all night," he said hopelessly to a nearby robin as a large branch snapped just inside the tall trees on the far side of their yard. He strained to catch a glimpse of the deer but couldn’t see anything. They were all over the place around here. In fact, most of his neighbors had put up privacy fences to keep the wildlife out and their kids and pets in, but Miranda and Finn had neither and didn’t care if some deer or foxes came to visit once in a while. On Tuesday he had seen a huge buck out here while drinking his morning coffee and hoped it was back, almost positive it was a ten point.

The dogs were going berserk now. A rowdy chorus of yelps and howls, that left some hoarse. Finn pounded his beer, trying to squash the headache that had been haunting him for the last few hours. Ever since the Tanner deal fell through. The smaller dogs’ high-pitched yips pierced his ears like sharp little needles.

"Man!" he moaned, just as another branch broke. This time much closer.

Initially, when a man wearing a suit and tie struggled with a thorny Gooseberry shrub and shambled out onto Finn’s freshly cut grass, he thought it was Rick from next door. Finn had seen Rick in those woods searching for an escaped canine a time or two, but not in shiny dress shoes like this. Finn watched the stranger slowly amble along the tree line, staring down at the grass as he languidly went.

"What the hell?" Finn muttered, realizing it wasn’t Rick.

The suited stranger trudged along. Finn looked from the man to the backyards of his neighbors again with a gaping mouth. Not a soul was to be seen, which he found odd.

He turned back to the guy, who aimlessly shuffled across Finn’s lawn, shrouded in partial shadows. Then the stranger stopped. He slowly looked up from the ground and Finn got a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He watched the intruder stare straight ahead at Rick’s tall wooden fence, hiding two of the barking dogs. Finn wanted to grab his cell phone from the table but couldn’t take his eyes off him, paralyzed by the random absurdity of the whole thing. In slow motion, the visitor turned his head towards Finn and looked right at him. A cold shiver ran through Finn’s entire body as the drifter held his stare. Finn gawked back. Frozen.

"Can... Can I help you?" he somehow managed to shout.

The stranger did not reply. He just stood there staring at Finn, who fidgeted in his seat and looked around again. He was alone. The trespasser began creeping towards the deck. Towards Finn. As he grew closer, Finn noticed a bright yellow carnation pinned to his lapel, just below where his left eyeball dangled by a thin bloody vein. The outsider slipped his wet, blackened tongue out the corner of his mouth and began licking the bouncing orb, his other eye concentrating on Finn. The man pulled his tongue back in and grunted and snorted and choked.

"Oh my God," Finn squeaked.

The stranger gently reached his arms out towards him, like a father would to his young child he hadn’t seen in a while and suddenly it hit Finn like a ton of bricks: the man was dead. Walking dead.

Snapping out of his daze, Finn sprang out of his patio chair and bolted inside the house.

"How’s this look?" Miranda asked just before they collided in the doorway, knocking her to the kitchen floor with an ‘oomph!’ and sending her full glass of red wine shattering all over the place.

"Call the police!" he yelled, stampeding into the hallway, whipping open the closet door and grabbing his shotgun from behind the vacuum.

"What the hell, Finn!" she stammered, sitting up and looking at the mess he had just made while rubbing her elbow. "That hurt!"

"Call the cops! There’s a zombie in the backyard!" he wailed, realizing how crazy that sounded and fumbling four shells into the weapon at the same time.

"You got wine all over me, you idiot!" she bellowed, looking down at her ruined tank top and jeans. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Just call the cops, damnitt!" he ordered, racking a load and gliding back through the kitchen, out onto the deck, where the man was so close now that Finn could see his teeth were broken into shark-like jagged shards. Yellow drool oozed down his chin.

The thing moaned and stretched its arms out for Finn, who raised his hunting weapon and took aim. It limped closer, nearly to the short flight of stairs leading to the deck. "Stop right there!" he ordered. But it refused.

Miranda snatched the iPhone from her purse on the couch and dialed 911 with shaking fingers. She went into the kitchen as it began to ring, straining to see around Finn. To see who the man was in their backyard.

Finn looked around for help or confirmation that he wasn’t losing his mind, but no one was around. The dogs howled. They seemed a million miles away now.

"This can’t be real," he murmured, wide-eyed with the butt of the shotgun firmly into his right shoulder. His index finger felt the cool grooves on the dark metal trigger as the thing took a step up the deck stairs and violently coughed up a massive green loogey mixed with blood.

"What the..." Finn whispered in horror, seeing its lips were gone.

"911, what’s your emergency?" the dispatcher asked Miranda, who was about to tell her, when the shotgun went off outside and she screamed instead.

Birds took flight and the dogs stopped barking as the stranger flew backwards onto the lush grass. Silence ensued. The thing didn’t move. Finn had seen enough zombie movies to know that a head shot was the only way to bring ‘em down for good. He readied himself for it to get back up or for more of the rotting ghouls to come slithering out of the timber, but neither did. The woods were dark and quiet, the squirrels long gone.

Finn could hear his rapid breathing and Miranda screaming into the phone that her husband had just gone crazy and shot a man. He snorted at the remark and was more surprised she was able to get through than she thought he was crazy. Usually the phones were the first to go when the dead rose to reclaim the Earth. Then the electricity. Either way, he figured the police would be busy responding to similar calls all over town. He’d have to be prepared to make a stand without them. Cautiously, he descended the short flight of steps into the backyard and approached the intruder’s fallen body.

"What the hell are you doing, Finn?" Miranda yelled from the doorway, in tears and still on the phone.

He looked up to her and didn’t respond, choosing to turn his attention back to the thing instead. Its head was completely gone. Actually it was there, it was just spread all over the lawn behind him. The smell was putrid. Nervously, Finn nudged the man’s body with his new Puma sneakers, expecting the thing to grab his foot at any second. But it didn’t.

"I told you, I don’t know who he is!" Miranda repeated into the phone behind him. "But he’s not moving!"

Maybe his neighbors were already dead, Finn thought to himself with sweat trickling down the back of his neck. His breath came hard and fast and he wondered why no one had come running out of their house to see what had happened. A bombardment of thoughts crashed through his head. Maybe they thought it was just some leftover fireworks. Or maybe they were already dead. Or they had just gone out to eat. Or they were already dead. Probably be back soon. Or the next to rise and pay him a visit...