SE Hinton owns The Outsiders, and Seth Grahame- Smith owns "…and Zombies" series.

Hell Is Other People: The Outsiders…and Zombies

When I stepped out into the sunlight from the darkness of the movie house I had only two things on my mind: Curly Shepard and a ride home. I was wishing I had a ride home because we hardly drive anywhere these days and I kind of miss it.

They use the oil from the refineries to keep the fires lit on the parameter of the city all day and night. Gasoline for cars is almost nonexistent. We have a couple of five gallon cans in the basement that my brother, Soda, stole before the tanks at the DX went dry. I imagine Steve Randle has some squirreled away too. Between us, I doubt we even have enough to fill the tank on Darry's truck. Not that it would matter. Darry says the truck ain't for driving anymore. The noise attracts attention and we have to be sure that we have the seat cushions and tires to burn, if we still need to, when winter comes.

I was thinking about Curly Shepard because I hadn't seen him since school let out for good, but I was pretty sure I'd seen him just now. I had been running from a pack of Them when I heard a whistle: the signature whistle that our gang and the Shepards use to inquire who's there. It's the only proof we have that any of the Shepard outfit may have read Mark Twain. A shared whistle, like a code, is a practical thing to have, but I also find it comforting. I picture Tim or Curly or one of the Shepard jailbirds reading Tom Sawyer by a crackling fire, and it makes them seem more civilized. It makes me think back on a time when we were all a little more civilized.

We got to know real fast how civilized some people were when They started turning up. A lot of people blamed my family for starting it all in the first place. They blamed our parents.

My parents were killed almost eight months ago when their car stalled out on the railroad tracks east of town. The train that hit them was carrying all the usual stuff: corn, iron scraps, lumber. At first, we thought that we were the only victims of the tragedy, but then stories started to surface about the dogs.

It was all rumor at first: the accident had occurred just few blocks north of Buck Merrill's roadhouse, and a couple of regulars had come into the bar saying there was Army guys guarding the wreck. Dally had been in Buck's when it happened. He hadn't said anything about it to us at first out of respect for our parents. He didn't want to make a big sensationalized soap opera out of their death, he'd said.

He told us what the men in Buck's had said only after Soda had a strange run-in at the DX with a man who had spit at him and said it was because of the Curtis's that we were all going to wind up dead. The man didn't explain what he meant, but it rattled Sodapop enough that he brought it up that night, and that's when Dally told us what he'd heard.

The men he'd overheard in Buck's were railroad workers, and they said there was another car on the train, one that wasn't listed on the manifests and inventories. It's like it had just appeared and attached itself to the train in the night. They figured it must have something to do with the military, though, given the way the truckload of Army soldiers swooped down and inspected and then stood guard over it until the sheriff's office was done clearing away the rest of the wreckage.

"What was on the car?" Buck had asked, and Dally tried his best to lean in without drawing attention to himself.

"Dogs," one the men had said.

"Dogs?" Buck was incredulous. "Like four legs and floppy ears?"

"Yeah, dogs. Woof woof," the man said.

"Well, what kind of dogs?" Buck asked.

"Don't know exactly. We heard them say 'Dogs of War' a couple of times. At first, we didn't see nothing, and we figured that was just the name of some project. Some Army project called the Dogs of War," the second railroad worker said. "But then, we actually started seeing dogs."

"Live ones?"

At this point, Dally told us, the men became uncomfortable. They exchanged nervous looks with one another and squirmed a little on their bar stools.

Finally one of them said, "what would you say if I told you I wasn't sure?"

"Well, you said you saw dogs," Buck replied. "Were they moving? Did they bark?"

"Yeah, they moved, and they sure was mean, but they didn't bark. They just snarled. It's like they were rabid. Foaming at the mouth, their eyes all crazy."

"So, they were rabid dogs," Buck said, "but they were still alive?"

The first man shook his head. "That's the fucked up thing. They were more than alive. The soldiers couldn't kill 'em. I saw them shoot three or four that broke off and tried to run into the rail yard. They was hit, and they fell, but then they got up again."

At this point, Dally says, he quit trying to look cool. He turned straight towards the men and stubbed out his cigarette in the ash tray before them. "I think it's time you cut these fools off, Buck," he had said.

The second man looked Dally straight in the eye. "I saw it, son, and I was stone-cold sober when I did. One of them dogs just got right up, shook it off, and turned on the soldier that shot him. Took a chunk out of that poor boy, too."

"Well, what happened to him?" Buck asked.

"Don't know," the man said. "That's when they spotted us. The ushered us out of there damned quick. Told us to take the rest of the day off and keep our goddamned mouths shut about what we saw."

So after that, rumors about rabid dogs spread like wild fire through Tulsa. The police took preventative measures and shot every dog they laid eyes on. Mine included. I hate to say it because I loved my mom and dad, but when the cops came for my cur dog, it was almost as bad as when they came to the house to tell us our parents were dead. I begged Darry to let me hide that dog, but he said we couldn't be raising Cain with the law like that. We needed to stay on the straight and narrow if we wanted to keep on the good side of our newly appointed social worker.

If only we'd known then that our social worker would soon cease to be a problem for us. She would disappear, along with much of the rest of town, and we would have much bigger problems to deal with. I still miss my dog. I miss mom and dad, too.

We piece it together bit by bit as the days go by: the dogs, the Army, the railroad car. How it happened doesn't seem near as important as what we do now that it has. There are a couple of things we know for sure:

They meet the definition of zombies, like movie zombies, in that they're dead and they come back to life. They don't seem to feel pain and they don't care if you're in pain either.

The first ones seem to have been infected by the dogs. That must have been one hell of a rabies virus they were carrying. It was transmitted by bites, but not all the zombies bite. Some do, and if they bite you, you'll become infected, die, and come back as one of them.

The zombies that don't bite, just kill anything that crosses their path. They're strong; they can squeeze the life right out of you. They don't seem to have any desire to eat brains or flesh or anything, though. They just kill. We haven't figured out what makes one a "Biter" and one just a "thug". Those are Two-Bit's words for it. His terminology has caught on. That's what pretty much everyone calls them now: biters and thugs.

They don't like to be inside, and they don't like metal. Cars were the safest hiding places, and the perfect weapons too, until the gas ran out. For the first month or so, that part of our lives barely changed. We just drove around all the time- cruising the Ribbon, running over the occasional group of zombies. We could sit in our cars and talk to one another and they wouldn't come close, but we never figured out why.

When the gas ran out, we started using the metal for other things, though. At first, it nearly broke Soda and Steve's hearts to have to be dismantling cars for scrap like that, but then Darry got the idea of reinforce the fence around our yard with hoods off of cars, and Soda and Steve were on a mission. We have the coolest fence in town now, to hear them tell it. They can name the make and model making up every foot of our fence.

They've left the hood ornaments in place for decoration, and they've even tried to stick to an eye-catching pattern with the colors. Darry thinks they're both off their nut, but I kind of like it. It's not decorating like Mom would decorate, but at least somebody's trying.

We still feel pretty safe going out during the day, but sometimes you just come upon a bunch of them and there's nothing you can do about. That's what had happened to me. I've always been a fast runner, and I guess I've gotten faster since we ran out of cigarettes and I had to stop smoking. Darry's okay with me scouting around the neighborhood and even in to the downtown areas sometimes to look for supplies because he knows I can outrun almost anything.

This afternoon I had gone off on my own. I told Darry I'd keep an eye out for knives and scissors- two of the things he's got on this supply list of his- but really what I wanted to do was go to visit an abandoned car on Graham Street where I'd found a puppy two days earlier. I bet I sound like a big baby, all broken up over the loss of my dog when there's so many worse things going on, but I feel like I betrayed him. He was a good dog, faithful to me to the end, and I let them take him away and put him down. Anyway, when I came upon that abandoned car and heard the whining, I almost felt obligated. If I couldn't save my dog, maybe there was something I could do for this one.

He was still a pup, I could tell by his feet. Great big feet, too big for his body. He looked to be some kind of mix, a shepard and a hound. He had one blue eye and one brown one. His coat looked like it might be the kind to get heavy when the cold weather came. He was huddled up behind the wheel of an abandoned Dodge Dart. When I bent down to get a closer look at him, he was tame enough to poke his head out and sniff me.

That was two days ago. I gave him the rest of the sandwich I'd been eating as I walked and promised to come back with more. Today, I was bringing him a can of soup. Darry'd kill me if he knew I was wasting soup on a dog, but I couldn't help it. I just missed my old dog so much.

When I reached the car and bent down, I saw him there hiding against the opposite wheel. He twacked his tail on the ground when he saw me and then crept a few steps closer when I showed him the soup. I didn't have any kind of bowl for him so I poured it out on the ground. He lapped it up, and I lay on my stomach next to that car watching him.

When he'd finished, I rubbed my fingers together and made a high-pitched kissing noise to call him to me. He took a step forward and then stopped. He cowered down and then backed into the shadows again. That's when I heard the footsteps. It was Them.

I got to my feet slowly and turned around. About six of them where coming towards me, only about 30 feet away. That was too close for me. I hoped to Heaven that puppy would stay put, and I took off. I would have been in good shape, too, except that a whole different pack of them came out of an alley near the end of the block, almost cutting me off. I veered around them, but now I was just running with no real direction in mind.

It was then that I heard the whistle. Two short notes and a long one, the signal that we picked up from the Shepard boys. It was coming from inside the doors to the Glenmark Theater. As fast as I could, I ran for the theater doors and burst inside. Birds rustled as I entered. I looked around for whoever had whistled. For a moment I was struck with terror: what if the zombies had learned to whistle and it was a trap? Looking around me, though, I saw no one. The ones that had followed me were milling around outside under the marquee- they don't like to come indoors. I backed away and hurried up the stairs into the balcony.

"Shepard?" I called out. "Curly, is that you, man?"

No answer. I waited and listened hard, but it got so it was too quiet. Every little scrape and scuttle- probably just birds and mice- made my heart jump into my throat. I waited until I couldn't take it anymore. Then I crept to the back of the theater and snuck out the fire exit.

I was never so happy to see anything as I was too see our homemade fence. I was so happy that I broke out into a run. I slowed up pretty quick, though, when I saw Darry waiting on the other side.

"Where have you been?" He said in a loud whisper. There must have been some of Them hanging around.

I pointed back towards the way I came and shrugged. That was a mistake- to act all nonchalant. Darry opened the gate and yanked me inside.

"You said you needed scissors," I protested.

"I need to know when you're going out- always. You know better than to sneak off on your lonesome like that. Or maybe you don't. Hell, you never think, Ponyboy."

"He must've been thinking about something." Sodapop says in a normal voice. He's sitting up on the porch roof keeping a lookout. "Look at how hard he's sweating."I pick up a pebble from out of the yard and throw it at him. Just my luck- it hits Steve Randle, who's sitting up there with him.

Steve doesn't say a word. He just glares at me.

"Scissors, huh?" Two-Bit comes around the corner of the house, loudest of them all. "What do you need scissors for, Darry? Gonna give the kid a haircut?"

Two-Bit rumples up my hair as he goes past me towards the porch. He climbs on to the rail and raises his arms. Soda and Steve pull him up.

"Anybody seen Dal and Johnny today?" He changes the subject, and I'm glad for it.

Steve says, "Johnny's home. He gave the signal about half an hour ago. He's probably in there taking a nap."

Johnny's parents got it early. His dad, on a drunk, thought he could fight a bunch of Them off when they came into the yard. He was wrong. His mom stood there and screamed at Them to stop until they turned on her too. From the way she carried on, you might have thought for a minute that she really loved Johnny's dad

Nowadays, Johnny's house is the quietest place on the block, and he's loving every minute of it. No one throws him out of his own room any more. He doesn't have to duck any punches just going from the front room to the kitchen. Sometimes, he told me, he just stays in bed till noon because he can.

"Yeah, I bet that's what he's doing. I know what I'd be doing if I had a whole dark house to myself all day long."

Dallas Winston has arrived. He struts past me grinning- no doubt at my ears turning crimson. He doesn't say where he's been or what he's been up to, but he's twirling something shiny around on his index finger.

He hands the shiny object to Darry."Will ya look what I found?" It's a pair of scissors. "You might want to wash them off. They're a little bloody. I ran into Sylvia downtown. Finally took care of that little tramp once and for all."

"Christ, Dal. You killed Sylvia?" Soda is agast. I can't say that I'm all that surprised. This is Dally, after all.

"She was already gone," Dal tells him. "I did her a favor. You know how she felt about her hair and shit. She'd die all over again, if she could've seen herself stumbling around town looking like that."

"You're a saint, Dallas," I mumble.

Darry, holding the scissors at arm's length, tells him, "Thanks, Dal."

"Yeah," Dally continues. "I found a whole mess of good shit in the drive-in by the high school. Y'all should come out there with me. There's knives, metal, some stuff in cans. I don't know if it's still good, but it's worth a better look. Ponyboy, what do you say?"

I look at Darry. He's still mad, but he can't resist the idea of scratching a few more precious items off of his list.

"Can you make it back by dark? It's only a couple more hours."

"That's cutting it close, but if we have the kid…" Dally, Johnny, and I sometimes go out together. If we get caught by a pack of Them, we can split up in three directions and lose Them.

Darry relents with a shrug.

"I'll go out ahead," Dally says to me. "Go wake Johnny up. Let's go have us a time."