Jason and Tony stared at each other, the gaze on each child’s face steelier than what most ten-year-olds could accomplish.
“Are you ready?” Jason asked.
“I was born ready,” Tony spat back at him. “If I could survive a zombie attack I’m not going to be scared of a little kid like you.”
The rest of the kids gathered around them started to ooh and ahh. They’d all heard Tony’s story of the zombie attack before, although few of them actually believed any of it. They also all knew that Jason was actually a month older than the other boy, and that calling Tony a little kid made no sense. None of that mattered compared to the theatre of the face-off between the two of them.
Neither of them said another word, or broke their stare away from the other, until Eric, the one kid that didn ‘t have a hockey stick with him, dropped the orange ball in front of them. Immediately the boys’ sticks broke out into a flurry of activity, each one of them fighting for control of the ball.
Eventually Tony took control, and passed the ball forward to his younger brother, Mark. Mark missed the pass, and the ball bounced off of the car behind him; luckily, it was one of the few cars parked on the street that didn’t have an alarm in it. Mark collected the ball off the bounce, deked his way past a defenceman, and flung it at the net. It sailed over the goalie’s stick, giving his team an early 1-0 lead.
Play continued for the next twenty minutes, the kids repeatedly running up and down the street until they’d reached a 2-2 tie. Aside from Tony’s one early error, they managed to avoid hitting the cars on the sides of the street, which would have brought out adults to stop the game. The gameplay was exciting enough that they managed to even attract an audience, as some of the other neighbourhood kids started piling onto the electrical box by the side of the road for the best view.
“CAR!” one of those spectators yelled, just as Mark was in the middle of a breakaway. The players reacted immediately, each of them exactly aware of what was required of them. The players closest to the goal helped the goalies carry the nets to the side of the street, while the rest of the players ran to the sides, standing silently as the car passed. Eric, still acting as referee, made a mental note of where the ball was, and who had it when the call was made.
The car slowed down a bit as it passed, the driver no doubt worried about the kids darting out in front of it and being hit. Eventually, though, it cleared the area the kids had marked off for themselves, and play resumed.
They played for another fifteen minutes, without any additional scoring from either side. Then, again, one of the kids on the electrical box stood up and yelled out another warning. “ZOMBIE!” the kid shouted this time. Play again stopped immediately, but this time the kids just dropped their equipment in the middle of the street, hopping fences into neighbours’ backyards or taking cover behind the cars parked on the side of the road. Mark and Tony found themselves behind the same vehicle. “Don’t worry,” Tony whispered to his brother as the two shambling corpses made their way down the centre of the street. “They’re slow, and they can’t see very well. They won’t be able to find us.”
“What if they do?” Mark hissed back, his voice wavering in fear.
“We’ll run,” Tony whispered. “We’re way faster than they are.”
As if to prove Tony’s point, one of the zombies fell into the hockey net that lay abandoned in the street, tipping it forward and falling to the ground. He got a foot caught in the netting, as well, and spent the next few minutes trying to wriggle free of it. The children tried their best to stifle their laughs; they were unsure as to how well the zombies could hear, and didn’t want to alert them to their presence.
Eventually the zombie was able to free itself, and continued to saunter behind the other one, both of them scanning for unsuspecting or clueless prey waiting in the open. Tony and Mark did their best to stay completely hidden, though; neither of them wanted to test Tony’s claim that they were faster runners.
After what seemed like an eternity, the zombies were safely out of sight, and the kids emerged from their hiding spots to take their places back on the asphalt. None of them felt very much like playing any more, however, so they all collected their things and returned home.
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©2011 Ryan Underhill
Ryan is an author living in the wilds of suburbia. Check out more work by him at http://www.ryanunderhill.blogspot.com
