Zombie Party

Zombie Party Chapter 1:

Red pistol clutched in sweaty hand, Archie took aim at the rotting creature shuffling toward her. The bullet dove into the zombie's forehead, resulting in a geyser of bright red blood. Two more zombies lurked behind the now headless, collapsing figure. Archie wiped her palms on her jeans and aimed again, firing two consecutive shots that effectively decapitated the remaining enemies.

There was a chime and blinking lights, then the words "Mission Complete" flashed across the screen in front of Archie's face. She dropped the plastic gun onto the bed she'd been sitting on and jumped up. "See? Twenty head shots in a row! Beat that!"

Preston, a small-framed boy with orange-red hair, was still sitting on the edge of his bed. "Yeah, but you died like ten times. Your scores always suck because you don't watch your health meter."

Archie frowned and looked back at the screen. "B rank? Seriously?" She plopped back onto Preston's bed and handed the red gun to him, then watched as he carefully made his way through the level. He scored no head shots, didn't even take out all the zombies, but managed to make it to the end without losing a single life.

He grinned at her as his "A rank" score flashed across the television. "See? Surviving is always more important than killing all the zombies."

"I'm tired of this game," Archie said, falling back onto the mattress and looking up at the ceiling.

Preston leaned over her, and she almost caught a glimpse of his eyes beneath his long orange bangs. It occurred to her that she'd never seen his eyes, even though they'd been friends for years.

"Let's watch a movie then," he said.

Archie sat up and looked at the clock on his wall. "It's already seven. What time will your mom be home?"

"She gets off work around nine. Let's hope she never makes it home."

Archie laughed, not at all alarmed by Preston's tendency to wish death upon his mother. In fact, she often wished it herself. Too many times had Preston shown up at school with mysterious bruises and claims of having fallen down the stairs or bumped into a door. Archie knew, had known for a long time, what was really going on.

She watched Preston as he scanned his shelf of DVD's, looking too young to be seventeen, and wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps his smaller size was a result of the way he'd been raised. I could kill the bitch myself, Archie thought.

Preston turned around to face her, two movies in his hands. "Death Bar 3 or Death Death Death 4?"

Archie smiled. "Death Bar 3."

The movie, about the patrons of a small-town bar fighting off a zombie horde, was gory and cheap, but fun. It was over by 8:30, and Archie picked up her bag from the floor of Preston's room. "Guess I better clear out. Your mom would be pissed if she came home early and found me here."

Preston laughed. "The only thing worse than a freak for a son is a freak for a son who hangs out with a bleached out floozy." Then he smiled somewhat bitterly and added, "Just another nugget of wisdom from mom."

"She really called me a floozy?" Archie asked, running a hand through her short, blonde hair. "Yeah, it's bleached. So what?"

Preston suddenly held his hand up in a motion that told her to be quiet and jerked his head toward his window. After a few seconds, he asked, "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That noise."

Archie looked from the window to his face. "What noise?"