This is my second and last story that I am entering into Zaratan's Halloween Hijinx Contest..

Warning: This is a zombie story, and might have disturbing images. I tried very hard to keep the descriptions toned down, yet keep the feel of classic flesh eating zombie movies. Please let me know if the rating should be raised. I hope it doesn't, as that would exclude this story from the contest.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters involved, nor do I have any connection with any movie that I may have unconsciously referenced. (I seem to do that a lot) Again, this is a graphic story, and I hope you read responsibly. No zombies were harmed in the writing of this fic…

Ron of the Dead

8:30am

Ron woke with a start on Saturday morning, not quite sure of what actually woke him. Was it a sound, a smell, maybe a dream… what? He threw down his covers and let out a big yawn and stretch, then looked over at the clock next to his bed. It read 8:30 AM.

"Aww Mann!" Ron said to himself. "And I didn't need to get up until 10! I could have slept another… hour and a half!" With bleary eyes, Ron knew that if he went back to sleep, even his Teddy Bear alarm clock wouldn't wake him up, and he would miss going with Kim to the mall.

Well, at least I have time to get something for breakfast. Then I'll get a shower and head to Kim's. He thought, and proceeded to get dressed in a pair of gray sweat pants and a simple white T-shirt. He looked over at Rufus' cage, and absently noticed that his little buddy wasn't there. Hmm… must have gone down to breakfast earlier.

Silently Ron went down the steps from his attic bedroom, and turned the corner around the banister at the bottom of the stairs. From there he could see both of his parent's eating something at the kitchen table. He could hear the sound of the TV coming from the Family room, but he didn't pay any mind.

If Ron had been listening to what was being said, he would have heard the following: "Ladies and gentlemen… this is the Emergency Broadcast center for the entire Tri-City area. It is imperative that you DO NOT go outside today. There is a serious contagion in the area, and the local CDC would like to keep the contagion limited as much as possible to as few people as possible. Please, lock your doors and stay away from your windows. If anyone tries to enter your house for any reason, do not, I repeat, do not let them in, as they could be contagious. It appears that if a person who is not contaminated has their skin broken by the teeth of the infected, that person will in turn be immediately infected. Right now local scientists say that there is a 15 minute incubation time after the initial break of the skin to the ghastly results. We will be back in a few moments with a live report as to what is going on in Middleton. In an effort to relieve some of the tension, we will now play a short 15 minute cartoon of Scamper and Bitey."

As Ron walked from the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen, he saw a stack of mail on the entryway's small table. He saw red stains on the envelopes, but didn't think much of it. He then saw his father's briefcase sitting on the floor next to the entry of the kitchen. The handle of it also had small splotches of red, but again, he thought nothing of it. At this point he was hungry, and he just wanted some breakfast.

Finally Ron walked into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator to get a carton of milk. Just as he turned around to sit at the table he looked up, and the sight that was before him caused his mouth to drop open, and his hand to drop the carton of milk, which broke open with the impact spilling it's contents.

Yes his parents were sitting at the table eating, but it's what they were eating that surprised him the most at first. It was Rufus! His mom had a leg of the little pink mole rat sticking out of her mouth, and his father was biting into the soft underbelly of the little guy. Both sets of his parent's eyes met his at the exact same time, and they immediately dropped their respective parts of Rufus that they were currently chewing on.

As Ron's brain was trying to make heads or tails of what was going on, he began to notice a few things about his parents that didn't seem quite right. One, their eyes were a sickly yellow, and two, they both had a large part of skin on their neck torn off. The fact that the wounds weren't healing threw up a small flag, but with a combination of his sleep addled brain and just seeing his mom and dad eating his beloved pet, it was all too much for him to comprehend.

Both Jean and Gene were now standing, and their arms were reaching out for Ron, their mouths open wide. Ron's mom was closest to him, and her hand clamped onto his wrist making him cry out in surprise. Ron started to pull away, but found it very hard to do, as it seemed his mother was quite strong.

Seeing his mother's lips start to pull back exposing blood stained teeth, Ron then saw her open her mouth and start to pull his arm towards her. She's going to bite me! Finally Ron's brain started to kick into gear, and he pulled back harder, pulling his mother off balance.

With a flick of his wrist as he pulled, Jean fell forward as Ron stepped to one side, and her head connected with the edge of the counter. She went down like a rock. Ron then looked down and stared at her with almost a sense of disconnection as blood started to pool next to his mom's head.

Heavier steps to his left brought Ron's attention up, and he stepped back just in time to miss the swing of his father's hand. It was a slow swing, but Ron still felt the wind from the missed strike.

"D… Dad… What… what's going on h… here?" Ron was able to stammer out, as he backed up against the stove.

Gene didn't make a sound as he stepped forward again, and his foot landed in the puddle of milk caused by Ron earlier. His foot began to slip, and in a small effort to regain balance, Ron's dad tripped over his wife, and he too went down hard. One hand flew out in an attempt to catch himself, but all it caught was a towel laying on the counter on which a bunch of large knives were laying on to dry after being washed.

Ron saw what was going to happen next and he closed his eyes and turned his head so he would not see the inevitable. He cringed at the sound of the knives clattering on the floor, and when Ron opened his eyes again, sure enough one of the larger blades had imbedded itself into his father's skull.

8:34am

Ron's brain kicked into overdrive. "I gotta get to Kim's house!" He yelled and in a flash Ron was in his garage, opening the door while he powered up the scooter. In what could be considered a 'flash', the scooter carried him out into the morning sun. The scene around him was almost surreal. There were cars sitting on people's lawns, and a child's bike lying in the middle of the street.

Further up the street away from the direction he wanted to go, a car was sitting over what used to be a fire hydrant, the water shooting all around the car like a very strange fountain.

There were very few people around, but those that Ron saw were moving quite slow. One of them was chewing on what looked like… a person's arm? And another was sitting on a front yard ripping a leg off of an obviously dead dog.

"C'mon Betsy, don't fail me now…" Ron said under his breath to his scooter, and twisted the accelerator as far as it could go. Blue smoke belched out of the tail pipe and the old scooter launched forward with a bit of a wheelie. Ron never knew that a hand from a third person without any legs was reaching for his back tire when it squealed on the pavement.

The rest of the short trip to Kim's house was almost uneventful, that is if you didn't count another car that Ron saw with it's driver hanging out the window with a large gaping wound in the top of their head.

8:36am

When Ron finally reached Kim's house, everything looked like it was normal enough, but he saw that the front door was slightly ajar. After dropping the kickstand, he slowly opened the front door with nary a squeak, but his heart was pounding in his ears. After taking a step inside, Ron's eyes scanned the immediate area, his senses on full alert. The power must have been off, as there wasn't any light anywhere, and it was a bit dark. Ron tried to call out, but his voice caught in his throat.

"K…" After clearing his throat, Ron tried again. "Kim?" As soon as he called out, he heard two distinct thumps come from the kitchen. Ron looked over towards the entryway, and saw two small forms step into the room.

"Jim? Tim?" The twins didn't say a word and moved towards Ron. Then off to his left Ron heard a yell.

"Ron! Look out!" A redheaded blur jumped from the stairs leading up to her room and lashed out with a foot into the twin who was closest to her, which happened to be Jim, sending him back into the kitchen. She then performed a flawless roundhouse kick and sent Tim the same way as his brother.

Finishing the last kick, Kim looked at Ron with almost wild eyes. "Ron! What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be out of your house! Didn't you hear the news?"

"Umm… no." Ron answered with a confused look on his face. "What's going on here Kim? My…. My parents just… they… they're…"

"Were they infected?" Kim asked placing a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly she was man handling Ron and looking him over with a fine tooth-comb. She pulled up the short sleeves of his shirt, looked at his neck, and various other parts of his body, short of pulling all of his clothes off.

"Good… looks like you weren't bitten… But now that you've entered my house from the front door, there will be… others." Kim quickly glanced back at the kitchen entrance as if expecting something terrible to come out but didn't.

"Kim…" Ron said nervously as he noticed how keyed up she was. "Why… why did you just kick the twins hard enough to break their necks?"

"I'm actually hoping that's exactly what I did." She then gave Ron a quizzical look. "You really don't know what's going on, do you?" Ron shook his head.

Kim the reached into her cargo pants and pulled out her Kimmunicator, turning it on. Ron expected Wade to answer, but instead he heard a radio broadcast.

Once again, the entire town of Middleton has been closed. No one will get in or out until the military has made a decision as to what to do. It's unclear at this time, but it has been reported that an air strike may be possible. We expect that decision to be in less than 10 minutes. If any residents are still in the town, find a reinforced shelter if you can. If not, lock yourself in the sturdiest room in your house.

Kim pressed a button shutting off the unit. "Ron… we need to find a strong shelter somewhere. There's nothing remotely strong enough here to withstand a direct hit of any kind. Other than the Space center, you have any ideas?"

"Uhh… yeah. I've got a…" Ron paused. "Wait… Why can't we go to the Space Center?"

"It's been… compromised." Was all Kim said, and Ron didn't press the subject. "Now you had an idea?"

"Bueno Nacho." He simply said.

"What! Ron… how can you think of food at a time like this?"

"Not for eating Kim… for the locker."

"Locker?" She said, absently pulling on one of the long sleeves of her mission shirt.

"Yeah… The meat locker there is two feet of concrete reinforced with hardened steel and lined with lead. I bet a nuclear blast couldn't even level that thing." Before he could voice any kind of protest Ron found himself dragged into the garage by his shirt. Then he found himself being tossed unceremoniously into the passenger seat, and Kim fired up the engine.

Just as Ron was able to get his seatbelt on, he looked out of the windshield, and standing there between them and the open garage door was the Tweebs. Or what used to be the Tweebs. With the morning sun spilling in from outside, Ron could see that they had the same sickly yellow eyes his parents had, and they also had what appeared to be matching wounds on their faces. One had his left cheek almost ripped completely off, and the other had the same wound, but on the opposite side. With the two standing side-by-side as they were, it was if they were two beings with one huge, grotesque smile.

"I'm sorry guys…" Ron heard Kim say under her breath, and she stomped on the accelerator, making the tires spin and fill the garage with the smell of burning rubber. The squeal of rubber almost drowned out Ron's scream, and when the tires finally gained traction, the Sloth shot out of the garage at break-neck speed, slamming into Kim's two younger brothers.

…x x x x…

Ron regretted opening his eyes after he knew they were on the road. Kim had turned on the wipers and windshield fluid in an attempt to clean off two large splotches of red on the glass. He promptly opened his side window and threw up as they sped to Bueno Nacho.

8:41am

Kim barely slowed down as she made the turn into the parking lot of Bueno Nacho. "Kim… What are you…"

Before Ron could finish his sentence, the front end of the Sloth smashed into the front glass doors, buckling the frame and sending glass flying throughout the inside of his favorite fast-food restaurant. Ron just sat there in mute shock for a few seconds and finally came out of it when Kim yanked him out of the passenger door.

"Where's the locker?" She almost screamed in his face.

"It's in the back Kim. Jeeze, what's the rush?" He looked into Kim's green eyes not noticing that once again she was trying to pull down a sleeve on her shirt. "We just need to go behind the counter here and…"

Ron had gotten no further than a step behind the counter when he was yanked back by Kim. An ugly, almost deformed hand came swiping down in front of his face, and out from behind a corner, stepped non-other than Ned. Both Ron and Kim's eyes went wide at the site of their friend. His entire right side looked like it had been soaked in grease… Grease at a temperature of about 210 degrees.

He stumbled out from behind the counter as Kim and Ron backed up, with Kim holding fast onto Ron's arm. "What do we do Kim? I mean… its Ned!"

"Bash him in the head." Kim quickly said.

"Bash Ned in the head?"

"That's what I said!"

Looking around the immediate area, Kim saw a mop leaning against the wall, and quickly snapped the handle off with a swift kick. She reared back with the piece of hardened wood, and then just as she began her swing, Kim stopped.

"Kim! Why did you…"

"Look at his eyes Ron! They're not yellow!" Ron then looked a bit closer, and indeed, the one eye he could see was not yellow. In fact, it looked like it was full of pain.

"N… Ned? Is that… you?" Ron asked, and he saw the eye blink in an answer. "But why didn't you say any… The grease! It went down your throat destroying your ability to speak." Again the eye blinked to confirm Ron's crude diagnosis.

"Ron… Kim's voice interrupted the 'conversation' between Ron and Ned. "Looks like we're going to have some customers."

"Well tell them to wait Kim… They..." Ron paused and looked out the smashed front window, seeing about 15 people slowly ambling towards the restaurant, and each of them had a different wound. One was missing an arm, another just a hand. Quite a few had some sort of wound on or about their neck and face, and one was even hobbling along on one leg, holding him self up by leaning on another. They all had the sickly yellow color to their eyes.

A crash behind Ron made him turn around towards the drive-thru window, and he saw a girl with slash marks all over her face crawling through the now broken drive-up window. There were so many slash marks on her face that Ron almost didn't recognize who it was until he saw what used to be long flowing blond hair. Now it was matted with dried blood and caked with mud.

"T… Tara?" He squeaked out.

"We've GOT to get inside that meat locker Ron! Go on! I'll hold them off…" Kim turned and was stopped by a deep-fried hand when it grabbed onto the broken mop handle. Ned blinked, and his head made a motion towards the back indicating for them to go on back. He was also saying that he would hold off the attackers while Kim and Ron locked them selves inside the meat locker.

Both young heroes reluctantly went to the back after being pushed along by DFN (Deep Fried Ned). While Ron began searching through a myriad of keys that were on a very large key ring, Kim turned her Kimmunicator back on to listen to the emergency broadcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Military has made a decision. Here is General Simms.

"We regret to inform everyone that it has been determined that Middleton Colorado is… expendable. We want to keep this contagion contained, so we will eliminate the town in… 30 seconds."

"But General Simms… We thought there would be a warning before you made this decision." The surprised voice of the announcer said.

"This IS our way of warning you."

"Ron! Get in that locker… NOW!" Kim yelled just as Ron found the right key.

"But Kim… aren't you coming too?" He said as he now stood in the open doorway of the meat locker.

"I… can't." Was her simple answer, and they both then heard the scuffle outside the dining area, which had to be Ned trying to fight off 15 some odd flesh-eating zombies. "And Ned can't hold them off much longer."

"But we have less than 15 seconds Kim! You have time… C'mon…" Kim just shook her head sadly, and pulled the long sleeve that she had been tugging on up past her elbow. There on Kim's forearm, just above where the sleeve had ended, was a small but distinct bite mark that had barely broken the skin.

"It was Jim." She said, and Ron saw her start to slightly convulse where she stood.

"No… No… Noooooo!" Ron wailed, and Kim took a step towards him. Her now sickly yellow eyes locked onto his brown orbs. Whether by happenstance, or if somehow Kim still had some control, her hand caught on the edge of the heavy door, pushing it shut as she tried to reach at Ron with her other.

Caught behind the door and Kim's hand Ron tried to fight against it, but she was pushing too hard. The momentum of the thick reinforced door was too much, and just before it latched shut Ron saw a sliver of intense light leak into the locker, causing steam to rise where it had landed inside.

…x x x x…

15… 20 minutes later… Ron wasn't sure how long it had been since he heard and felt an incredible blast rock the meat locker. True to his prediction, it had withstood a nuclear blast… albeit a low-yield nuclear blast. Guessing it had been about 30 minutes, Ron reached for the latch, and before he could even take hold of it, it started to turn on its own.

"Huh?" He said while narrowing his brow. What could have survived a nuclear blast? Well… besides him. Thinking that maybe there were rescuers of some sort checking for survivors, Ron started to push against the door to help whomever was pulling on it.

After much pushing on his part and the pulling form the other side, a few inches was made between the door and jam. Wrapping his fingers around the edge of the door, Ron gave another mighty shove, and just as the door swung open and stopped, he peeked around the door just in time to see and feel a pair of very large mandibles sink into the flesh of his hand.

His eyes widened at the sight of sickly yellow eyes, and Ron said one name in surprised confusion… "Roachy?"

The End…

Thus ends my second entry into Zaratan's Halloween Hijinx Contest…

Sleep well!