“This neigh­bor­hood is so quiet; it feels like it’s been aban­doned.”

“Yeah this feels like a zom­bie movie.”

“I won­der how hu­mans would do against zom­bies.”

“You mean like 28 Days Later zom­bies or Dawn of the Dead zom­bies?”

“Well I mean Dawn of the Dead zom­bies would be easy be­cause you could just walk back­wards and shoot.”

“As long as you looked be­hind you enough; but yeah 28 Days Later zom­bies would be a lot harder. I won­der how good their sta­mina is, like if you could just out­run them. I don’t re­mem­ber in the movie any ex­tended runs.”

“Yeah I don’t know. That’s like my biggest fear though. Being in a huge field with noth­ing around, being chased by fast zom­bies with no trees or any­thing.”

“You feel any­thing yet?”

A car drove around the cor­ner and Eliot filed be­hind John as they walked down the side of the road. They came to the sec­tion of the fence where it was peeled away, the cor­ner droop­ing down like a piece of paper. Under a brown shroud of leaves the ground sloped down to a small stream and up again. The cool air smelled faintly of smoke, as if once the heavy blan­ket of sum­mer heat was re­moved the hid­den truth lin­ger­ing be­hind it was re­vealed.

“What if we come across some re­stricted gov­ern­ment test­ing build­ing and had all these se­cret agents track­ing us be­cause we found out their se­cret?”

“I’m start­ing to feel it. My arms feel like they’re not re­ally mine you know? Like they’re there but not re­ally part of my body.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Sev­eral tree trunks lay fallen over the fence. Some lay as an­gled bridges over sag­ging woven metal and oth­ers left whole sec­tions of fence man­gled on the ground.

They fol­lowed the fence along until it turned and de­scended down into the val­ley again. The two boys stretched out in the leaves each with arms folded be­hind their head. Masses of branches and leaves reached over and to­wards them like the skele­tons of mon­sters.

“I feel like I’m on Endor.”

Eliot laughed. “You know Cantrell’s like ten min­utes that way right?”

John grinned with di­lated eyes and turned from Eliot to­wards the gray­ing sky.

Eliot gazed into the sky be­tween the trees.

“Is it love, again? Dum­b­le­dore’s fa­vorite so­lu­tion? Love?”

“I’m gonna go see if I can climb that tree trunk over the fence over there so I can see if there’s any­thing over there.”

“John I just saw Lord Volde­mort in the sky. Talk­ing to me. I’m so glad I lis­tened to Jim Dale ear­lier today.”

John threw his head back in wild laugh­ter. “That’s awe­some dude. Wanna come with me?”

“Sure. But I’m not climb­ing. I bet you break your leg again.”

“It doesn’t look that bad. I just feel like ex­plor­ing around you know? See the what there is to see.”

“I’m see­ing every­thing in a checker­board of British flags. Your face is cov­ered in them.”

John gig­gled as he shuf­fled along the tree while Eliot watched with arms folded.

“I’m only here so I can get help if you hurt your­self John.”

“I’m fine.”

The tree had bashed the fence down halfway and its end hov­ered three feet over the ground on the other side. In the dis­tance a few houses sat in si­lence amongst the trees.

John hopped lightly to the ground.

“See? No prob­lem.”

“Until some­one comes and shoots you for tres­pass­ing.”

“Hah.”

The boys heard the shuf­fling of leaves and saw a man ap­proach­ing them. He was wear­ing a large brown jacket and car­ried a shot­gun at his side.

“Watchoo boys up to out here?”

“Oh noth­ing, sir, just ex­plor­ing. We were just leav­ing though.”

“Ex­plor­ing? Ain’t nothin’ out here but trees and leaves.”

“Sorry, sir, if we’re both­er­ing you, we cer­tainly don’t mean to harm”

The man raised the gun in the di­rec­tion of John.

“Sir.” John raised his hands with fin­gers ex­tended in front of his face and stepped back against the fence.

“Sir if you just let my friend leave then we’ll get off your prop­erty.”

“And never come back.”

The man smirked. “Why don’t you hop on over and save ‘im?”

Eliot shook the fence with clawed fin­gers.

“C’mon man, just let us leave and we won’t bother you any­more. Just let my friend hop back over the fence and we’ll leave.”

“Yeah, we didn’t mean any —”

The man fired into John’s chest. Eliot watched jets of red burst from his back like curses from a wand.

Eliot screamed and sprinted down the val­ley as the man re­loaded the shot­gun. The clink of metal on metal ac­com­pa­nied the sound of the sec­ond blast and Eliot fell and rolled into a tree. Shrill laugh­ter rang from above. The man ap­proached the fence.

Peer­ing up the hill Eliot saw a grin­ning Lord Volde­mort climb the fence and stroll to­wards him with wand raised.

The trees swayed in the wind, their whis­pers join­ing the whis­pers of the dis­tant cars, as they laid their leaves onto the ground of the empty lot.

Amanda Hein­bockel