Plants vs. Zombies

Chapter 22

Alex opened his eyes after what seemed like a few minutes. When he looked at the clock, though, he saw it had been half an hour. He then got out of bed and rubbed his eyes. It was going to take more than 30 minutes to help his sleep get back to normal.

He walked out of his room and caught a peek at Josie's room. She was still in bed, sleeping on her stomach and body stretched out. It looked like she may have been drooling, as well. And yet, it still looked kind of cute to Alex.

He then went downstairs and found his younger brother watching a movie on the TV.

"Hey," Alex simply greeted. Freddy turned around and gave a small nod in response.

Alex then sat next to his brother and watched the movie with him.

"It's kind of smart to not give your real names to strangers in the zombie apocalypse," Alex commented in regards of the movie. "Because he's right; names mean getting attached."

"Yeah, but your codename or whatever is still like a name to get used to," Freddy replied.

"I guess. But I'm glad I've seen this movie a million times; it helped a lot with surviving this last year."

"I'm sure! Especially 'Double-Tap'. That's come in handy."

"Without a doubt!"

They then chuckled. Then, awkward silence, save for the movie audio.

"You know, this is probably the first time we've had real, fun alone time as brothers in a long time," Alex pointed out.

"That's what I was thinking," Freddy agreed with a nod.

"Well, I like it. It reminds me just how much family I have left."

"Even if it's only 1 person..."

"It's better than none at all!"

"Maybe you're right..."

"Well... Let's just keep watching. They're at Bill Murray's mansion now!"

ERT! ERT! ERT! They paused the movie and ran downstairs to the basement. Crazy Dave stood by the work bench with the biggest smile on his face.

"I finally got it!" He said happily. "I got the Plant that will help us!"

He then stepped out of the way to reveal a green Plant that appeared to simply be a pale-green stalk with many dark-green leaves, save for 2 dotted eyes in the stalk.

"This is Umbrella Leaf," Dave explained. "His big, strong leaves will protect itself, as well as all other Plants one space away from it, from overhead attacks, including basketballs and Bungees!"

"Perfect!" Alex said happily.

"About time!" Freddy scoffed.

Alex ignored him and sat down to plant. Now that he had Umbrella Leaf, he had a different setup in mind.

He planted the Sunflowers along the back column, as usual, but in front of the second Sunflowers from the top and from the bottom, he planted Umbrella Leaves; that way they'd be protected if there were any more Catapult Zombies.

When Regular Zombies began approaching, he planted Cabbage-Pults in front of the first available Flower Pot in the row, whether it was in front of a Sunflower or an Umbrella Leaf. When the Cone Heads came, he planted Kernel-Pults in front of the Cabbage-Pults.

Soon, as expected, another Catapult Zombie rolled onto the roof. It then began launching basketballs at the Sunflowers in the back, but the boys cheered when the Umbrella Leaves near the flowers seemed to grow and their leaves surrounded them, blocking the ball!