The Saga Of Tom Stinson (Book 1): Summer School Zombocalypse by Eric Johnson

gone insane?”
    “ Get out of the car now,” Tom ordered, but the twins were hysterical and refused.
    “ Take us home, you promised.”
    “ There’s no way I can get you home right now. It’s too . . .”
    “ When?” Emmett interrupted.
    “ I don’t know. Just wait until my dad gets home, he will know what to do,” Tom replied. Up the street, zombies were coming. There were many.
    Panicking, he thrust his arms through the window and pulled the twins towards him, “All I want is you guys to cooperate. We have to get out of here. We gotta go fast.”
    “ You could have taken us home,” Emmett said, “We passed our street, and you kept going.”
    Still they refused to move, shaking their heads and holding onto their seat belts. Winston shouted, “Drive.”
    “ What’s wrong with you two,” Tom said. “Get out of the car. I get it, you want to go home, and you’re scared. Stop being stupid about it.”
    How was he going to get them out of the car? He heard his dad’s voice in his head. Take our government for instance. With them, bribery gets you everywhere . And he decided that he wasn’t above it himself. In a tempting but shaky sing song voice Tom said, “There’s Rocky Road in the freezer.”
    Reluctantly the twins climbed out. Again, Tom urged them to hurry, but they moved slowly, and he pulled them by the arms.
    “ Don’t pull us,” they complained.
    “ What are you doing to those boys?” His neighbor demanded to know as he took video with his phone.
    “ Hurry, keep your eyes on the house, and move,” Tom said, but they did what everyone else does when told not to look. They looked, and let out a burst of high pitched screams.
    The neighbor saw, screamed just as loudly, and disappeared into his own house.
    “ I told you not to,” Tom said as he hurried them through his front door and slammed it shut locking it behind them. “I can’t believe how many are coming. I don’t think we are going to be safe.”
    “ Do you know what you’re doing?” Emmett asked.
    “ We aren’t safe in here. I know that. I think we only have a minute or two before they are at the door.”
    “ Thinking and knowing are very different,” Emmett said.
    Tom paused a long moment, not knowing where they would go next. “We’re going to get out of here to a safe place where they can’t get us.”
    “ But we are inside. We are safe, right?” Emmett pulled back the blinds. “That’s what you said. Get to my house where my dad is. So where is he?”
    Grimly Tom replied, “Not here.”
    There must be someplace safe, he thought. Sudden inspiration struck. “Tree house! If the zombies can’t climb we will be safe up there, out of reach. We can pull up the ladder and there’s no way for the zombies to get us.”
    “ It’s raining, we’ll be miserable. Does it have a roof?” Winston asked.
    Tom grabbed the bag of water and the Rocky Road from the freezer. “Follow me.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
TREE HOUSE
    Tom led the twins out through the back door and across the yard to his tree house. It was a little more than twelve feet up. A ladder rested against the platform, and there was a basket with a pulley and winch hanging over the side. He climbed up.
    Emmett stood at the bottom of the ladder. “This is your big idea? That tree house will fall apart if we get in it.”
    “ It’s this or be eaten. Now climb!”
    The ladder was slippery from the rain and shook from having both twins on it at the same time. Inside, the treehouse was worn and dirty from use like many of the things in Tom’s life. Rain dripped through the loose boards of the roof and blew in through the window.
    The carpet squashed as they crawled in and the pungent odor of salty cheese mold and damp wool stung their noses. The years of tracked-in dirt had turned to mud and stained the knees of their pants. Tom strained to pull the ladder up and twins tried to help. The end of the ladder thumped into the wall that faced the garage and knocked a