Chapter 6

Ted had to get out of his seat. He didn’t know if he was going to scream or throw up.

“What is she thinking? What is going on out there?” he kept asking himself. He wanted to be out there. He wanted to be helping, but he knew that any further action would put the rest of the group at risk. Ted had to let Beth handle this situation.

Agile Tip: The team learns best on their own and through small failures

Ted put his hand on Paula’s shoulder. She was eerily quiet as if she was already in mourning.

“Paula. Beth is going to get your son back.” Ted offered her some comfort.

Paula slowly turned her head up to Ted. “Can you promise me that?”

Ted looked away. There was no way that he could promise that. He had faith in Beth, but with that many zombies out there, it would take some miracle for her to come back without her or Kenny at least getting bit.

Walking away from the monitors, Ted thought he needed a drink. He kept a few bottles of booze locked away for special occasions, but he felt like he needed one just to make it through this.

“KENNY! NO!” screamed Paula. “That bitch!”

Ted turned around just to see a figure wearing a helmet land on the ground.

Moments before, inside the treehouse, Beth was hard at work on her plan. She had bent the metal stop sign into three parts and was working the metal back and forth until they snapped off. She ended up with three jagged and sharp pieces of metal.

Kenny was also working. He was stuffing whatever he could find into the burlap bags. He bragged the bottles, but Beth shook her head.

“Not the bottles, they are our backup weapons,” she said. Kenny looked confused, she smiled, “Smash it over their head and jam the broken part into their brain.”

Kenny looked almost impressed. “That’s pretty badass.”

“Hey,” Beth said in a stern tone, “Language, mister. I don’t want your Mom, to think I was teaching you filth when we get back.”

 Kenny smiled. For the first time, he felt like they were going to make it. Kenny grabbed a few more pieces of junk and put them in the burlap bags. It was then he noticed a zombie was crawling into the treehouse.

“Beth!” Kenny shouted and pointed. Beth didn’t even hesitate. She grabbed a piece of the jagged metal stop sign and plunged it into the eye socket of the zombie and into its brain. Beth held tight to the metal and kicked the zombie off it. It fell back out the door.

 Kenny pointed at her hands. “You’re bleeding!”

Beth looked down. The metal of the sign cut up her hands.

“It’s nothing. Much better than a bite.” She said. “But we have to hurry; they are starting to figure out how to get in here.”

Beth grabbed the jersey off the wall and put it on the makeshift dummy that they had made with the burlap sacks. She placed the helmet on it and looked at it.

“Close enough, eh?” Beth nudged Kenny. “Looks just like you."

Prototypes: Use them, whenever you can. They are fucking cheaper.

Kenny laughed. Beth looked at her hands and started to smear some of her blood on the dummy.

 “And now it smells like you,” Kenny said.

 Beth smiled. She ripped off a piece of her shirt and bandaged up her hand.

“Do you have any toys in your bag that make noise?” Beth asked Kenny. 

He shook his head, “No, Mom made me take all the batteries out, so they didn’t attract zombies.”

Beth pulled out her small flashlight and screwed off the end. Two double A batteries fell out.

“Give me the noisiest one that takes double A’s,” she said.

Kenny smiled as he was starting to understand the idea, he dug through his bag and pulled out a small toy fire truck which handed to Beth.

Beth put the batteries in and turned it on; right away, the toy started to flash and cry with an annoying siren. 

The noise made Beth crinkle up her nose. “Oh, man, that is annoying,” she said.

Kenny laughed. “That’s what Mom says.”

Beth turned off the truck and placed it inside the dummy. She then took a spare burlap sack and cut it into long strips with her stop sign knife. He wrapped the strips around Kenny’s bare arms and his neck. She did the same to herself with the remaining pieces.

“Now, we aren’t going to distract them for long, so as soon as I say ‘Go!’ you haul ass for hatch A. You got me?”

Kenny laughed, “Language, Miss. Don’t want Mom to think you were teaching me filth.”

Beth ruffled his hair. She braced herself. She was as ready as she was going to get.

She turned on the noisy fire truck again and sealed it up in the dummy. She picked it up and hurled it through the side window of the treehouse.

It worked. The noise and shape, as well as the smell of Beth’s blood on it, took the zombies attention. They shuffled towards it.

“GO!” Beth whisper screamed to Kenny. He leapt out of the treehouse and hit the ground running.

Back in the hideout, Ted pointed to the screen. “Look! There’s Kenny! It was a dummy!”

“Oh, thank God,” Paula screamed.

Ted turned to others, “He’s heading towards hatch A! Go get him.” Others in the group nodded and ran off.

“That means she’s going to go to entry point C,” Ted said to some others. “Go help her!” The others ran off.

“How do you know that?” Paula asked.

“It’s what I would do,” Ted said, trying to sound confident.

Kenny didn’t look back at the treehouse until he reached the hatch. Before he opened it, he looked back to see Beth landing on the ground outside of the treehouse.

Two hands reached out of the hatch and grabbed Kenny, he almost screamed, but another hand covered his mouth. It was others from the group. He was so relieved.

Before he went into the hatch, he looked back at Beth just as a now zombified Dylan grabbed her.

The others shut the hatch.

Agile tip 1: The team learns best on their own and through small failures

Agile Tip 2: Prototypes: Use them, whenever you can. They are fucking cheaper.