Neighborhood Watch by Evan Bollinger

only shrug.
    Soon we were heading down the stairs. With every step we took, the weak wooden panels croaked and whispered, telling a tale we might never catch. I could have stopped and turned around, but there was nothing preventing me. I was in control, I could do this. There had to be an explanation for all of this.
    There should have been a musty smell. Most basements had a smell, especially in older homes of older people. There should have been inadequate air flow, unfinished ceilings, visible pipes, disorganized storage, or something. There should have been inconsistency.
    There wasn't. It was a perfect space. A warm and comfortable den with a leather couch, a leather chair, and a modern big screen T.V. It was a totally normal and acceptable place for a person to unwind and relax.
    Except for the walls.
    “Look at all these newspapers, goober...”
    I could see that the entire wall behind the couch was filled with newspaper clippings, articles, cutouts and snippets. There were short articles and mere headlines, and photos, and full page, or even two-page write-ups.
    On a table behind the couch., I could see that there were stacks of books. Some were half open, some bookmarked, some even torn apart. They were everywhere. Around the table on the floor, and left for dead in the corners.
    Maybe this room wasn't so typical after all...
    ***

Final Stand
     
    Mitch had a book in his hand, a small, nondescript paperback. He skimmed through  quickly and the turned to the title page. “ Advanced Weather Modification ,” he read out loud. He picked up another book before tossing it to the ground. “ Cloud-seeding as a corollary .” There were books on the table about the “ionosphere,” about weather manipulation techniques, and artificial environmental controls.
    “He was trying to change the weather,” I said.
    “To create a super storm,” finished my brother.
    I breathed. This was bigger than just him. You had to get up in the clouds to seed them, I thought. You had to find a way to get the stuff up in there, didn't you? That's how you got the clouds to change and produce more rain or snow. Didn't you need pilots and planes? 
    “Look at this,” my brother said. There were other books, dark, thick, hardback tomes. I roamed about the room, picking them up here and there, sometimes kicking them aside or over to read their covers.
    “ Necro-Alchemy, ” Mitch announced for one. “ Neurochemical Phenomena of Cerebral Death... ” He kept walking. “ Cryopreservation – An Exploratory, Vol.3 ...”
    I scanned the ones at my feet. They were all more of the same, more titles with big words about scientific things. More titles that referenced death, dying and the preservation of life. And then my eyes set upon a small one. It had a number of pages bookmarked by messy folds, but otherwise seemed completely un-special.
    Virological Revival.
    “Virological revival.”
    My brother looked over at me—“Who?”
    “Virological revival,” I repeated, as if I suddenly understood. “Virological... that means the study of viruses. Reviving... using the study of viruses.”
    My brother returned the book in his hand to its resting spot. “Like.. reviving people from the dead? As in...”
    “Zombies.” I rubbed my head. This was not a big surprise, Mr. Clark had used some kind of virus or chemical perhaps to bring back the dead. But why? And which dead? And how often did it work? Some people rarely got colds or bad viruses—could the same be true for this? Were some people... 'immune'?
    And at the end of the day, with everything we had seen... Had he intended for this to happen? And what about all those books about weather modification? Was this storm part of his plan too?
    “Maybe he messed up,” I said.
    “How?”
    “I'm not sure, but why today, why now?”
    My brother shrugged. “The storm makes it tough for people to escape.”
    “Nah, it's more than that,” I said. “Think about it. The storm happens today