Free The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 2, The Aftermath by S. Ganley

them in this exact state , wandering from the shoulder of the road, down a slight depression several yards into the nearby grass lawn and then back again. Garrett tracked them for almost a full minute and with only a few momentary lapses in their pattern, at least one if not two of them were able to view the road they would have to cross at any given moment. There was no way they would be able to simply dart across unobserved at this point in the road.
    Looking back up towards their friend skirting the hedges now less than a football field's distance away, Garrett saw that he had found a desirable spot and had just completed his crossing into the yard beyond the hedge and was now hustling over towards the garden shed with the zombie on the other side. If they were going to intervene in the coming encounter they were quickly running out of time. If the guy screwed up his attack on that zombie, there wasn't much doubt it would have enough time to get off a warning cry that would see at least these other three zombies running into the fray and more than likely many others as well. The zombies they had lured away during their drive through the neighborhood may already be on their way back and within earshot of the wails of their comrade. It would certainly make their planned scavenging trip much more challenging and would more than likely also get this other guy killed and served up on a buffet line for his neighbor’s pleasure. Doubling back and crossing the street three houses further down the block was an option. They would be able to cross at a slight bend in the road and down an incline that would provide them some cover as long as they kept low to the ground. Garrett knew that if they were forced to take that option there was no way they could make it across and intervene in the coming altercation in time. Even running straight across from their current location they would have to move quickly if they were to get there in time, the guy was almost to the shed already. Garrett figured that since he didn't seem to be carrying any type of obvious weapon that he planned on finding something in the gardening shed to improvise with. Give him two minutes to find something suitable, another two minutes or so to work up the nerve to actually do it, and his estimate gave them less than four minutes to get over there before the zombie dinner bell sounded.
    Both Calvin and Miranda had reached the same conclusion as Garrett upon spotting the zombies not far from their route across the street. Once again, it was Miranda's sharp eyes that helped them find a ready solution to the problem. Without saying a word she pointed to a spot between the two driveways leading to the street in front of them. The driveways followed a winding path from the garages at the side of either of the neighboring houses, meeting up at a point where they were separated by only about fifteen feet of drainage ditch between them. The ditch was slopped out from the road reaching almost four feet down from street level at its deepest point as it flowed back into the yards. Almost directly in the middle of that portion of ditch there was a wide storm drain that ran underneath the road where it more than likely met a similar ditch on the far side. That side of the road had a nice dense patch of trees just on the upward side of the storm ditch that would provide adequate cover for their movements until they reached a point in the yard where they could dart across the front of the house using the angle that the house itself had been built to conceal them from the three zombies down the road. Garrett studied the storm drain and thought that even though it would probably be a tight fit for Calvin and himself, they should be able to squeeze through with little trouble.
    "What do you think?" Garrett asked as he watched Calvin also sizing up the storm drain.
    "I think that the lady has a good eye for detail. I saw that drain as well but didn't give it a second thought as a