When the World Turned

“Walter?” My mouth drops. I never expected to see another one until we found the cure. And he knew my name? Something’s not right here.
I don’t know what to say, so I just nod.
“Walter, it’s me, Jimmy. Your uncle.” I’m speechless. Bull’s mouth drops to the floor. Literally. It’s pretty normal for all zombies really.
“Uncle Jimmy…you’re a…you’re not a…”
“A zombie? No I’m not. I’ve been hiding out in here. It was a pretty good hiding place until you two showed up.”
“Oh, my bad. It’s okay though. There are no more zombies around here. We don’t eat humans.”
“You don’t eat humans?”
“Nope. No brain-snacking for us.” Bull says after he puts his jaw back on.
“Well, that’s a first. I guess I won’t need this then.” He takes a gun out from behind him. He was really going to shoot me.
“What happened to your family?” I ask.
“Well, we were at Sammy’s soccer game and it was in the beginning when most people weren’t even aware of the outbreak. I tried to help them, but it was too late. I hid in our van until they all left and I found this old place a couple months ago.”
“What about your parents, Spanky?”
“They… I’m not really sure about my dad, but I got home from school one day and mom, well, she was chewing on the neighbor. I went to dad’s work and it looked like there was an accident. This is my friend Bull, by the way.”
“Hello Bull, I’m Uncle Jimmy.”
“I don’t think I have an uncle.” said bull.
“No, Bull. He’s my uncle jimmy.”
“So, you’re just my jimmy?”
“Uhm, yeah I guess you could say that.”
Bull goes into the living room where there’s a video game. Me and Uncle Jimmy sit in the kitchen.
“Your friends not…well he’s kind of…”
“Yeah, he had a lot of his brains taken out during his turning.” I interrupted him.
“His turning?” Uncle Jimmy said, confused.
“That’s what we like to call it. It’s better than saying a zombie bit our non-zombie body, and thus turning us into one of them, but luckily Bull and I do not eat humans. We’re not quite sure how that happened though.”
“Well, I’m glad to know that there are some out there that do not eat humans. It’s reassuring. What are you doing here? Your house is quite some ways away?”
“Bull and I are going to district 13, the place where all of this started. We’re going to try to find a cure.”
“That’s ingenious. You can get to a place without any trouble, but what if there isn’t a cure?”
“Then we’ll make one. I’m not just going to sit on my decaying butt and do nothing; we have to at least try.”
“I would like to go with you guys, but I don’t think that would be safe.”
“It probably wouldn’t, but we can help you survive until we get back, we can bring you some food.”
We finish talking and I’m about to get Bull and tell him we’re going to the store. I walk into the living room and look at the pictures on the wall. I look around the room but I do not see Bull anywhere. I walk up the stairs to see if he’s up there. Uncle Jimmy and Toothdecay are behind me. Jimmy asks how a dog manages not to get eaten during all of this, we both just laugh. I really don’t see how Toothdecay hasn’t got eaten, I mean really these brain craving corpses don’t mind eating their own families, but they’ll pass on a dog? That’s kind of bizarre.
“Bull, where are you?” I scream after searching the whole house.
“Does he always just wonder off?” Uncle Jimmy asks.
“All too often.” I say.
“Hey dudes, come see this awesomely amazing thing I found.” we hear coming from the garage. The only place we didn’t look.
“What is it, Bull?”
We get go to the garage and it’s packed of all kinds of tools, boxes, and random junk. The stuff you would expect to be in a garage. Then I see what awesomely amazing thing Bull has discovered.
“It’s a four-wheeler. I’ve always wanted one of these, but my mom said they were too dangerous. I bet we’d get to D-13 faster with this.”
“Yeah, let’s see if we can find the keys.” Bull started singing a song as he went through all the boxes.
“Going to drive across the country,
going to save the world.
Just gotta find some keys so we can get busy.
Sweet pickles! I just touched something squishy,
Today I met an awesome man named just jimmy”
Uncle Jimmy goes upstairs and I go into the kitchen. I find lots of keys but none of them fit. Then, Uncle Jimmy comes downstairs with a key he found in the parent’s room, and it fits. Some people might have thought to take the van, but honestly, the four-wheeler’s cooler than a mini-van. Uncle jimmy gets an old water hose and sucks the gas out of the van and fills the four-wheeler.
“Bull, we need to go to a store and get some non-perishable food, for Uncle Jimmy.”
“We’ll be right back.” I tell Uncle Jimmy.
We decide to leave Toothdecay to keep Uncle Jimmy company, then get ready.
When Bull volunteers to drive, I feel an odd gratitude for being dead. Uncle jimmy raises the garage door, but just high enough for us to get out so he can close it faster. There are a few zombies walking around outside so we tell him to be very careful, since not all of them would turn down the opportunity to munch on his flesh. We get to the store; the self-opening doors are already opened so we just drive the four-wheeler in. While Bull drives slowly I load up on canned foods and cereal as we drive by the shelves. After we have both our back packs full of food and water, we drive out and get back to the house.

I guess Uncle Jimmy heard us pulling into the drive way, because the door starts opening a little and then I see him stick his head under really quickly.
We get in the garage and give him the food and re-fill our backpacks with the flashlights and batteries that we had to unload to fit the food in them. Toothdecay jumps in my lap.
“I think he wants to come with us.” I say looking at Uncle Jimmy.
“I don’t think he likes me too much. You guys should take him.”
“Well, I guess it’s time to go. I promise we’ll come back, hopefully with good news.” I say.
“I hope so too, you guys be careful don’t... well, I guess there’s not too much trouble you guys could get into.” Jimmy says with a half-smile on his face.
I tell Uncle Jimmy to lock all the doors and board up the house from the inside, and Bull and I will find something heavy to put on the windows and doors outside. We take some boards and nails and throw them out side before we go out so that we can block the house. We finish covering the house, then get back on the road.
“Bye, my just Jimmy” Bull says, still confused on the ‘uncle’ part.