As the campfire embers slowly faded and the adults' conversation quieted on the garden chairs, a very different kind of excitement was brewing inside the tent. Milan and Zente, who were only pretending to sleep, carefully opened their eyes in the dark. One quick, conspiratorial glance was enough. Out came the hidden flashlights and the "weapons" left over from the afternoon battle—a stick for Milan, a plastic sword for Zente. On tiptoe, holding their breath, they unzipped the tent, which sounded deafeningly loud in the quiet night. They stepped out onto the cool, dewy grass.
The nighttime garden looked completely different. The friendly bushes became dark, crouching shadows, the tree branches stretched toward the sky like bony arms. The chirping of crickets and a distant dog's bark sounded eerie. The boys turned on their flashlights, the thin beams of light danced nervously in the darkness, and they jumped at every sound.
"Psst! Do you hear that?" Zente whispered, his voice barely more than the wind.
"What?" Milan whispered back, staying close behind Zente.
"I don't know... But it's definitely some... zombie noise!"
They crept slowly toward the center of the garden. Zente's flashlight settled on the wooden box in the corner, which hid the waterworks.
Because of the play of shadows, it looked as if a dark figure was crouching there, motionless, lying in wait.
"There's one! Do you see it?" Zente nudged Milan.
"It's not moving... it's waiting for us! Be quiet!"
As they watched the suspicious box, they suddenly heard a faint rustling from the far end of the garden, from the thick lilac bushes. They both shone their lights there. At the meeting point of the beams, among the dark leaves, suddenly two bright points flashed—two eyes, cold and motionless, reflecting the light. They couldn't see the animal's body in the dark, only the eerily glowing eyes.
For a moment there was stunned silence, then the boys burst out in a panicked whisper-shout:
"ITS EYES ARE GLOWING! IT'S A REAL ZOMBIE!"
As if shot from a cannon, they ran back to the tent, nearly tripping over the garden gnome in the dark.
They tumbled into the tent, then ran out shouting to Tibi, who was dozing by the fire.
"Dad! Dad! Zombie!" they gasped, talking over each other.
"It was there! At the end of the garden! We saw it! Its eyes were glowing! It was huge! A real, flesh-and-blood zombie!"
Tibi woke up, blinking sleepily in his chair.
"What? Zombie? What? Kids, what did you dream?"
The noise woke Gergő, Borka, and Zita too.
"We didn't dream it! It was really there!" Milan insisted, his voice trembling.
"Its eyes were glowing, like... like a demon's!"
"And it was huge!" Zente added, eyes wide.
Tibi, skeptical but seeing the boys' genuine terror, stood up a bit worried. He grabbed a stronger flashlight from the terrace.
"Alright, let's check out this glowing-eyed zombie. But you stay behind me, and not a word! Understood?"
The boys nodded vigorously and lined up close behind Tibi as he cautiously headed into the dark depths of the garden. Gergő and Borka watched curiously, Zita a bit worried, from the terrace.
They reached the bushes. Tibi shone the powerful flashlight all around. Nothing. Just the wind rustling the leaves and some trampled grass where the boys had stood earlier.
"See? There's nothing here," Tibi said with relief, though his voice was still cautious.
"But it was here! We swear! It was standing right here! And its eyes were glowing!" the boys insisted desperately, pointing at the dark bushes.
"It was probably just a cat," Tibi tried to reassure them. "Or the neighbor's dog snuck in and its eyes reflected the light. Or maybe it was just the shadows playing tricks on you."
Tibi led the still-shaking but now a bit calmer boys back to the tent.
"Now sleep! There are no zombies here. It's just your imagination playing tricks in the dark," he said as he tucked them in.
Gergő added from the tent entrance: "We'll check the camera in the morning if you don't believe us. Now go to sleep."
The boys crawled into their sleeping bags, but it was hard to fall asleep.
"Its eyes were glowing because it reflected your flashlight," Zita added. "Much friendlier than a real zombie, don't you think?"
They jumped at every sound, and the image of the glowing eyes lingered in their minds for a long time in the dark.
The next morning, while munching on cocoa rolls on the terrace, the boys were still talking about the nighttime adventure and the scary, glowing-eyed creature.
"Alright, kids, let's see what the garden security camera saw last night," Gergő said, pulling out his phone to open the camera app.
He called the boys over. He rewound the footage to the right time. The screen showed the nighttime garden. At first, only darkness was visible, then the beams of the boys' flashlights appeared.
As the light swept over the bushes, the recording clearly showed... a deer! With two big, shining eyes staring into the light, and after the boys ran away in panic, the deer also got scared and disappeared into the darkness with a few graceful jumps.
The boys stared at the footage in shock. For a moment there was silence, then Milan and Zente shouted almost at the same time:
"It was a ZOMBIE DEER!"
The adults burst out laughing.
"No, kids," Borka explained with a smile.
"It was just an ordinary, harmless deer. It probably just came into the garden to graze at night."
The boys slowly calmed down, though they looked a little disappointed that they hadn't met a real monster. Still, the sight of the deer amazed them.
"Okay, maybe it was just a deer," Zente finally admitted. "But there could still be zombies here! Next time we'll be better prepared and catch them!"
Milan nodded. "Yes! And then we'll be the heroes!"
The adults just smiled. The memory of the nighttime adventure, with the glowing-eyed "zombie" and the morning reveal, would surely remain in the family stories for a long time.