Zombie stories

Dominckmagas' Story

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

PRELUDE
I had nowhere to go. I backed into the corner. There were at least twenty of them steadily advancing on me. I raised my gun and fired into the crowd.
BANG.
BANG.
BANG.
One fell and was replaced by two others. They were getting closer. I’d seen what they did to my girlfriend, Nicky. I saw them tear her apart, saw her live long enough to see them stick their filthy, rotten hands through the skin on her belly and claim their gruesome prize. Her screams still echoed in my head, piercing at first, then gradually residing, but not actually going away for quite a while. It took her a long time to die. Thankfully, she passed out from the pain before long, but it just took her so long to stop moaning in pain. Nicky had saved me, provided a diversion while the ghouls had feasted on her, temporarily abandoning their hunt for me while they feasted on their easier prey. Now, all that Nicky had died for, her saving me, meant nothing, I was going to be devoured by the mouths of this vicious horde. I was screwed, except that I had one more option available to me. I shakily raised my revolver to my head. I was about to pull the trigger when one lurched forward to me, arms extended, I withdrew the revolver from my temple and shot a clean hole in its skull. It fell over, very dead. I shoved the barrel into my mouth, feeling the heat from my last shot, and savoring the lingering taste of cordite and of the steel pressed against the roof of my mouth. I wasn’t shaking anymore, not nervous. I knew I would see Nicky soon. I would see my whole family. Smiling at the advancing masses, I mumbled, “Try and kill me now.” I pulled the trigger.
CLICK.
What? That wasn’t supposed to happen, I looked at my revolver, and hastily shoved it back into my mouth. The undead were growing closer to me, so close actually, that I could smell their rancid flesh. I pulled the trigger again, convinced that it had misfired.
CLICK.
CLICK.
CLICK.
Panicked, looking own the barrel of the gun, I fired it several more times in rapid succession.
BANG.
I missed. In my haste and panic, I had allowed the barrel to slip out of my mouth and was looking down into it instead. The recoil from the gun sent the bullet flying harmlessly wide, burying it into the brick behind me, spattering me with chips of the wall. Now, the zombies were practically on top of me. In my desperation, I had slid down the wall and was now sitting. The zombies closest to me threw themselves at me, and I had no choice of escape. I was condemned to the same fate as Nicky.
RINGRINGRINGRING.
What? The zombies slowly lost their form and the hallway I was in started to fade to black. Soon, I became and incorporeal form, and then was gone.

CHAPTER 1
I slowly opened my eyes, stunned at the sudden brightness. My alarm was ringing beside me, so I swung my hand over and shut it off. I sat up in bed, stretching and yawning. I should really stop watching those zombie movies I told myself. I looked over my shoulder to the other side of my bed. Nicky. There she was, safe and sound, nestled under the warm covers of our bed. Of course there weren’t any zombies. Just a dream. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and yawned again. I bent over and kissed Nicky on the forehead, and she rolled over and groggily opened her eyes. She smiled at me and closed her eyes, content to remain in the warm bed for a little while longer. I got up and donned my robe. I then proceeded to head to the kitchen for a coffee and a bowl of Cotton Candy Flavored, Caramel Covered, Chocolaty Sugar-O’s. As I grabbed the milk out of the fridge, I switched on the T.V. we had in the door of the fridge. As I walked to the front door to get the mail, I heard the newswoman say something about an outbreak of African Rabies. When I returned with the paper and a stack of bills, another reporter was talking about a group of hunters that had gone missing nearly a week ago. They switched to a video of the search. There were searchers everywhere, and every other person carried a hunting rifle of some type. There were even two members of the state law enforcement with assault rifles. I just passed it off as it being coyote season or something. It showed them coming upon a blood-drenched boot sitting in a patch of dried blood. They must have been attacked or something or he must have messed his foot up pretty bad. It was around that time that Nicky waltzed in. She took one look at the gruesome picture and shuddered.
“Wow, things sure are messed up nowadays,” she exclaimed “With all of these people going missing and getting sick and stuff.” She walked over to me and hi-jacked my coffee behind my back while hugging me as a diversion. She slid away, a sly grin on her face, as I reached for my coffee. She leaned against the counter and took a sip, feeling the caffeine course through her. Luckily, I had planned for this exact scenario, for it had happened many, many times before. I pulled another coffee out from behind me and gazed at the paper.
“You think that’s weird?” I said to her, “Wait ‘till you hear this. Some guy in Mexico has been arrested for killing 13 of his neighbors. He was found on his rooftop with a shotgun. His neighbors were lying around his house, dead. He killed them all with headshots. There’s more. Apparently, he had bite marks all over him. He died on his way to the hospital. Wow. That’s odd”
“Well,” she exclaimed, “At least it’s not happening here, right?”
“Right.” I replied. I finished my coffee and headed to the bathroom to have a shower. While showering, I reflected on last night’s dream. I couldn’t even imagine having something that bad happen to Nicky. I loved her, I really did. I made sure to tell her that as often as I could. After I got out of the shower, I put on an old shirt and some stained jeans. I also grabbed a hoodie. I passed Nicky on the stairs.
“What’s with the old clothes? Don’t you have to work today?”
“Yeah, but we’re going paintballing.”
“Really? You never mentioned it to me.”
“Oh, it must have slipped my mind. Anyways, Geoff thought it would build teamwork skills or something.”
“Your boss wants to have an office full of computer nerds, not that you’re a computer nerd, of course, to go outside and play paintball?”
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
“Then why do you have a sweater? It’s like 85 degrees out!”
“It lessens the impact, so that the paintballs don’t hurt as much.”
“Um, ok. Well, honey, see you.”
“I love you Nicky, see you later.”
“I love you too Mark.” I gave her a kiss, picked up the keys to our Jeep, and headed out of the door. I walked down our gravel driveway to our Jeep. It was an older one, and not one of those city ones. This one was a real all terrain vehicle. It had big, thick tires, a reinforced chassis, fog lights, metal plates on the bottom to avoid snags, a snorkel for the engine, and re-inflating tires. It also had a winch on the front. This was a man’s vehicle. Nicky and I both loved everything about the outdoors. We loved camping, hiking, swimming, rock climbing, kayaking, everything. We actually met each other while climbing Devil’s Tower. We instantly hit it off and had a few drinks at the local bar. That was 7 months ago. Now, we lived together. We had bought the Jeep to go with our love for adventure. Many times in the past few months had we loaded it up with climbing gear, our kayaks, or camp gear, and gone on a little adventure. Unlike many people with off road vehicles, we actually used ours. I hopped in and backed out of the driveway. I could hear my dog, Sasha, barking at the noise of the car as I backed out. She was a 9-month-old pit bull-shepherd that Nicky and I had purchased. She was like our baby, and was the nicest, most gentle dog, despite her rather aggressive lineage. I waved at Nicky, who was standing at the window, and drove off. We lived on acreage in the country, only 30 minutes from the city. I was originally from a smallish city in Alberta, Canada, but moved to Seattle to pursue my ambitions of becoming a graphic artist. While driving into the city, I saw two ambulances racing past. Farther down the road, I saw them stopped at a car. I didn’t want to hold up the cars behind me, so I just continued driving.

CHAPTER 2
When I finally arrived at the address given to me by my boss, I found that it was an abandoned apartment/office building with a field in the back. The field had many wooden and tire obstacles strewn around it. I parked my Jeep and walked to the office. I found my co-workers and boss waiting for the rest of the people to arrive. I sat with some friends and made some small talk. One of them was reading something on his Blackberry.
“Whatcha’ reading, Steve?” asked Aaron, a friend from R&D.
“Wait till you hear this guys. I have a friend who works as an emergency dispatcher, you know, sending out ambulances and stuff. Well, he says that earlier today, a report of a wrecked car on the side of the road was called in, so he sent out some ambulances. When they got there, they found the car in the ditch, engine running. There was a dent in the front bumper and the hood, and the windshield was cracked. He said it looked like the driver had hit something, but there was no blood on the hood. He told me that there was a LOT of blood inside the car though. So now, the driver’s missing. Weird, huh?” We all nodded our agreement. Finally, the rest of the people arrived. We were split up into teams, given the ground rules, and then sent to the equipment booth. It was to be a straight up team death-match. The first team to loose all of its players would lose. Our first match would take place in the building. My team walked into the building’s east entrance, and the other team walked into the west. We were to start on the blow of the referee’s whistle, which he said he would blow in ten minutes. I took refuge under a desk against a wall on the second floor. It had a missing shelf so that you could see through it without being seen. There were a few filing cabinets lying around, so I stacked a few up in front of the desk to provide cover. I had tried to distance myself from my team, so that they wouldn’t give my position away, but Steve had followed me and took refuge across the room by an open door.
I looked at my watch. It should be ten Minutes just about… TWEEEEEEEET! now.
I sat quietly in my spot and waited. We didn’t see anybody for the first 15 minutes or so, until someone crept through the door directly in my line of sight. I glanced over to Steve, but he didn’t notice him. He was walking straight at me. I didn’t know how accurate my gun was, so I didn’t want to chance missing him, and giving my position away. I let him come closer. Suddenly, there was a scream and the floor above us, probably Rob and his paintball grenade gone very, very bad. The guy in front of me looked up at the noise, and that’s when I took my shot. I smoothly pulled the trigger twice quickly, and two purple spots appeared on his neck. A hit. He dropped his gun in a mixture of pain and surprise, and looked around, not knowing where I had shot him from. He then sat down on the floor and started coughing violently. By this time, Steve had noticed him and thought him hurt. He rushed over and asked him if he was OK. At that time, another person came through the same door and spotted Steve, with his red armband. He raised his gun and lined him up in his sights.
SPLAT!
A paintball exploded on his hopper. He turned his gun towards my hiding spot and unleashed a torrent of paint balls. Before he could shoot me though, I shot him twice in the face, effectively blinding him by coating his mask with paint. That’s what you get for not going down the first time I thought. Him and his buddy held their hands up in defeat and sulked out of the room. I looked at Steve with a I just saved your sorry butt look. He nodded his head to me and returned to his hiding spot. We heard many shots throughout the building, but it wasn’t until ten minutes later that I saw my next opponent. He had walked through the door behind Steve, somehow missing him, and was coming for me. I don’t know if he saw me, but he had his gun raised and was looking carefully into the shadows under the desk where I was. I had my gun pointing through the missing shelf, and was in the wrong position to shoot him. If I tried to move my gun around, he would see me and shoot. As I was pondering my fate, my guardian angel made a phone call… to Steve.
RingRingRing.
The guy turned around upon hearing Steve’s phone. I saw Steve’s face behind his goggles. His eyes were so very wide. The man started unloading on Steve, and even after he was hit, he kept shooting. That made me angry. I quickly and silently hopped up and ran over to him. I put the barrel of my gun to his neck. Upon feeling the icy coldness of my gun, he stopped shooting.
“Mercy” I whispered into his ear. It was one of the rules, if you could get close enough to an opponent, you could opt for a mercy kill, taking him out without shooting a bullet. Any wise opponent would accept, for they were almost certainly out. This wasn’t a wise opponent.
“Screw you!” He said as he spun around, gun leading. Or, at least he tried to. Upon hearing him say that, my anger for what he had done to Steve bubbled forth. I shot him five times, point blank in his neck. He just growled and kept turning, so I tripped him. When he was sprawled on the floor, gun having slid away, I raised my gun, and placed a shot right between his eyes. “You’re out!” I declared to him. At that time, the ref blew his whistle. I didn’t even know he’d been watching.
“GAME OVER!” He yelled. Steve and I had been the last guys on our team, and the other guy was the last on his team. I had won the game for my team with just 11 bullets, all of them hits. My opponent took off his mask. It was Geoff! My boss! All I could think was OHCRAP-OHCRAP-OHCRAP! Instead of his expected response, he laughed, shook my hand, and congratulated me on a game well played.
"Where'd you learn to shoot like that?" He asked
"I mustn't have told you, I liked in Canada for most of my life, and I hunted a lot."
"Oh, cool. I love the hunting up there"
We walked outside to see the rest of the guys sitting on benches, having some drinks. There was Rob, covered in purple paint, our team’s paint color, confirming my suspicion about the grenade. We played quite a few more games that day, my team usually winning, and me always being the last man standing on my team, usually the last man standing, period. I drove home that night feeling proud about myself. I didn’t even hear the radio announcer talking about the rash of killings in the town that day. When I got home, I showered, sat down with Nicky, and watched our favorite movie, Night Of The Living Dead.


CHAPTER 3
The next morning when I went to work, Bob, Steve, and Joe, weren’t there. I thought nothing of it. I just figured that they went drinking last night and were too hung over for work. Things continued as normal for the next few days. The guys still hadn’t come to work. Must’ve gotten really sick, I thought to myself. On Saturday morning, I sat and watched a Roadrunner marathon with Nicky and Sasha. We sat on the couch in our PJ’s for a few hours, eating cereal and sandwiches and watching cartoons. It was times like those that I realized how much I really loved her. I went to the store that afternoon to pick up groceries and some camping supplies for our trip later that month. On the car ride home, I heard on the radio that joggers have started to go missing. The lady warned people not to go out at night and to go with another person. When I got home, I had a long talk with Nicky about the rash of killings and disappearances. I was worried for her because she often took the dog for long walks at night, and I sometimes did too. We both had concealed carry permits, but we didn’t have any small guns, we only had and old 30-06 hunting rifle that my father gave to me, and an old Mossberg 500 that we found in the basement when we moved in. The next day, we went down to the local gun shop. I purchased a Para-Ordnance (I’m still partial to Canadian-made products) Nite Hawg, which is chambered for a .45 round, while Nicky purchased a Taurus PT22 BGR, which uses a .22 round. We bought 500 rounds for my gun, and 1000 for Nicky’s. the next day we took the guns to a shooting range to get the feel of them. We shot about 150 rounds each, and by that time, we were both quite comfortable with our weapons of choice. During the next week, things started to get a little more chaotic. More people started missing nationwide, and the number of murders involving head shots increased dramatically. It was on the night of July 4th, that everything changed. I had taken Nicky to a fancy restaurant, giving the excuse that it was my birthday and also Independence Day. I knew the real reason. As we walked into the restaurant, I placed my hand in my pocket and felt the little box that contained the one thing that might change my life forever. After our dinner I had something to say to Nicky.
“Nicky, you know that I love you, right?”
“Of course I do”
“Well, all these crazy things that have been happening the last week have made me think about what’s really important in my life.”
“What do you mean Mark?”
“I mean that I’m about to do something that terrifies me more that that time we went bungee jumping in Morocco.”
“You were quite scared in Morocco.” She laughed.
“I just wanted to ask you. Nicky?” I stood up, walked over to her, and knelt down. Her eyes started to tear up. I think she knew what was coming. I pulled that little box out of my pocket, and opened it as I started talking again.
“Will you marr-”BOOOOOOOOOM!!

CHAPTER 4
A huge blast rocked the table and cut me off mid-sentence. A women screamed. Everybody looked out of the window. A huge fireball engulfed a fuel tanker in the harbor on which the restaurant was stationed. As we watched, a second explosion rocked the tables once again as a huge tongue of flame shot out of the top of the boat. Burning figures started jumping off of the side of the boat, some just shambling off of the side, falling into the water. None of them surfaced. We were evacuated from the restaurant. As we ran from the building, I grabbed Nicky’s hand. She spun around to face me. She looked beautiful in her long silver dress and her red hair done up in a bun behind her head. She had been out in the sun quite a lot recently, so a few freckles covered the bridge of her nose, only enhancing her beauty. I looked deep into her eyes and pulled out the box again. I knelt down. Her eyes started to well up, a few people around us stopped to look at us.
“Nicky, I love you more than you can imagine, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” I opened the case to reveal a modest ring. Her hand went to her mouth as tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
“Yes. Of course I’ll marry you.” People started clapping. Nicky looked around, embarrassed. I looked only into her eyes, unaware of the people around me, or the sound of sirens in the distance, or of the oily smoke that hung in the air. At that moment I knew only her. I slid the ring onto her delicate finger ad stood up. I drew her into a passionate kiss, holding her, and spun around sweeping her off of her feet and spinning her around. Then the police had to shoo us away because it was dangerous. Foolish. I knew that in her arms, I could never be harmed, and I would never allow her to be harmed either.

CHAPTER 5
Our wedding was to be in a month, except that we never had it. The world didn’t hold together that long. The morning after the explosion, we watched the news. The previous nights explosion was passed off as a gas leak on the boat and faulty machinery. Nicky and I were not stupid people. We put the pieces of the puzzle together. We both came to the same conclusion. Something very bad was happening, and it was happening now. Over the next few days, we stocked up on water, food, ammo, and anything else we could find. We encountered our first zombie a few days later, when I heard the dog barking late at night. I took my pistol and a spotlight and headed out. We had a little rabbit pen that we kept all of the rabbits we found in. We had about 13 rabbits. There was only one left when I got there, and it was in the hands of a hunched over person. I shined my spotlight into its face and shouted at it. It looked up at me. It was terrifying. Half of its face had been ripped away, exposing the teeth and tendons. One eye was missing. Its face was covered in blood, both old and new, and bits of fur. It absentmindedly raised the squealing rabbit to its mouth with grimy, bloody hands.
“Put the rabbit down!” I yelled at it. It brought the rabbit closer. I shouted my command again. Nothing. I fired a round over its shoulder. The sudden noise shocked it. It then proceeded to eat the rabbit alive.
“Oh my…” That was all I managed to say as I threw up all over my boots. I walked towards it. As I drew closer it dropped the rabbit, raised its arms up and headed towards me, letting out a soft moan.
“STOP!” I yelled at it with a firm voice.
“You’re trespassing on my property. If you proceed any closer, I will shoot you. I'm warning you.” It just kept coming closer. I repeated my command again, and it kept advancing. I put another round over its shoulder. It didn’t even flinch. I put a round through its leg. It didn’t even stumble. It got closer and closer. I started to back up. I put three rounds into its chest. It fell over. I was panting from the adrenaline rush. I’d never shot anybody. I rushed over to see if he was alright. Before I could get to him, he sat up and gazed at me. There was no way that any person could have survived that. He got up and continued on towards me. I aimed for his head. I turned my face away, eyes squeezed shut, and pulled the trigger. The loud report of the pistol and the sound of something falling over were the only sounds around. I opened my eyes. It didn’t get back up. That’s when I figured it was a zombie. I dragged it to a ditch a few hundred yards away and buried it along with the gloves I had been wearing. I went into the house without telling Nicky what had happened. The next day, the news station on T.V. announced the creatures identity. Zombies. They had a military commander onscreen telling us to shoot them in the head. As he was telling us what to do, three flaming zombies advanced on him and dragged him down before he could pull out his gun. The camera shook as something struck the person holding it. It fell at a perfect angle to reveal the cameraman being devoured by 2 ghouls. That was one of the last T.V. broadcasts.

CHAPTER 6
That was three months ago. Now, Nicky and I are living in our homemade stronghold with 4 other survivors. There’s Kurt, Angie, Maggie, and Dion. Kurt was one of the military’s special task squads during the zombie clean up. His squad was killed and now he’s living with us. We rescued him from his undead squad mates about three days after I killed my first zombie. We took all of their weapons, equipment and ammo, and we burned the corpses. Angie is 24, a few years younger than Nicky and I. She rescued Kurt and me when we were walking by the local Wal-Mart. We had been overrun by zombies, when they started getting picked off. It was Angie, she had been holed up in a nearby house, when she saw us. She was the unofficial sniper of our group. Then there’s Maggie and Dion, who are married. A fire caused by an explosion at a gas station had burned down their house. They were heading out of town on foot when they came upon us. We gratefully accepted their company. Dion was a very accomplished mechanic, carpenter, and had helped us build and fortify our stronghold. Maggie was a tailor and her father was a gun maker so she is a valuable asset to our team.
We had two more people with us, Will and George. They were killed during one of our excursions into town. We had been walking to a gas station to get fuel for our car and for our generators. It was still in the first stages of the outbreak, so we were slightly under prepared. I was walking with Kurt (we hadn’t met Maggie or Dion yet, George and Will. While walking down a street, a zombie came out behind our group. It started following George, since he was in the rear. The zombie silently approached George. I had turned around just in time to yell out a futile warning before the zombie struck. It must have had a punctured lung, for its ribs had been poking out of its chest at a strange angle. That would have explained how it had been so silent. Te bottom half of its jaw was missing, leaving the face in a permanent half-smile. That would have normally left the zombie without a mode of attack, but this zombie had other natural weapons. One of its arms was broken and had a sharp, jagged piece of bone sticking about six inches out of the remaining part of its arm. It lunged at George with its bone-spear and impaled him in the lower stomach. Kurt raised his gun and shot the zombie clean in the face. He was about to shoot George too, so that he wouldn’t turn into a zombie, when Will stopped him.
“Let me do it. He’s my best friend.”
“Kurt, I think we should let him,” I replied “Let’s go and give him some privacy so that he can say some last words.” Kurt nodded his head in agreement and handed Will a pistol.
“You know what you have to do.” Will nodded his head gravely as he took the pistol from his hands. We walked around the corner to give him some privacy. George was coughing and sputtering. We heard Will whisper something, and as we rounded the corner, he was out of our sight.
BANG.
The sound echoed through the streets. We decided to give him some time with George’s body when-
BANG
A second shot rang through the air. Kurt and I looked at each other and dashed around the corner to see Will, lying there beside George with the pistol in his hand, smoke still rising from the barrel. The smell of cordite still lingered in the air. Both had clean holes in their heads. The pressure must have gotten to him. After killing his best friend, he turned the gun upon himself.

CHAPTER 7
“Oh my.” I said, “I barely even got to know them.” Kurt said a short prayer for them, and then we did the necessary task of taking their gear.
“We should get going;” Said Kurt “The noise of those shots will draw them from all around.” In my shock, I hadn’t even thought about that. We started to jog back to my vehicle, which we had left at the edge of the city, not wanting to chance taking it in, when we saw a Wal-Mart that, miraculously, appeared not to have been looted.
“You know, we are running low on batteries,” I suggested to Kurt “Maybe we could stop in?” He nodded his agreement. We proceeded to the store. We had to break a window to get in, for the doors were locked. A few minutes later, we emerged from the store with bags of batteries, ammo, and essential goods. We turned the corner to find a huge hoard of zombies that had been brought to us by the noise of the window breaking. We turned around, just to find more zombies blocking our path. We were surrounded! As we looked for a way out, a muffled crack was heard, and a zombie fell. Two more shots rang out, and two more zombies fell, breaking a hole in the ring. We heard a shout.
“Over here! Run to my voice” We didn’t wait to question our savior. We ran towards the voice. As we were running, I noticed a door to a building open up ahead of us. We dashed for the door. When we got inside the building, we noticed a small-ish woman with a bolt-action police sniper rifle. Judging by the look of the place, she had been holed up there for a while.
“We need to get moving, quickly. Do you have a vehicle?”
“Um, yes,” I replied to her “It’s about a ten minute walk away.”
“Good, because they will be coming here soon. Help me gather some stuff.” We obeyed her and gathered up as much useful stuff as we could carry. By this time, we could hear the moans and bangs on the front door. Whey had arrived. We followed the woman to a back door. We then took all of the supplies and made a dash for my Jeep. On the drive home, she told us he name was Angie. I informed her that we had a fairly secure shelter just out of town. That’s how we met Angie.

CHAPTER 8
Now, a month or so later, things were looking good. We had enough food to be comfortably fed for quite a while, we had water, and we had found plenty of solar generators to power some of our equipment for quite a while. We had also scrounged enough fuel to power our gas-operated generator for some time. Things were good. We all knew the dangers of a zombie attack, and were all veterans of many conflicts. The trouble was, we hadn’t seen any zombies for quite a while. We were used to seeing few zombies, for we tried to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible. Inevitable, a few stumbled onto our property. They were always dispatched quickly and efficiently. The strange thing was, we hadn’t seen one for nine or ten days. This was unheard of. There was a problem with that though, we were getting lazy. We started being less cautious. We would leave exterior lights on more often, whereas they only used to be used in case of an emergency. We let our defenses fall, that’s why we didn’t hear the noise. At least the others didn’t. On night, I was just sitting, taking my turn watching the perimeter, when I heard, or thought I heard yelling. I passed it off as a trick of the wind, or of some unfortunate survivor being routed from his hiding spot by some ghouls. When we took a trip into the city the next day, what we found surprised us. Dead bodies everywhere. Seeing as how the dead had been walking lately, it wasn’t strange in that sense. It was strange in the sense that all of these dead bodies were perma-dead. Either they all had gunshot wounds in their heads, or their heads were decapitated. As we were walking through the scattered corpses, we noticed some that seemed out of place. There were about ten that we saw that all had leather vests and motorcycle gear. Kurt walked over to one by the curb and flipped him over. Kurt reverently bent over and picked up something shiny. When he turned around, we saw that he had a sword. Not just any sword, but a katana. “What’re you going to do with that?” questioned Maggie
“I think I might use it, maybe, just maybe.” He replied snidely. He walked back to the dead biker and retrieved a sheath and four grenades. He belted the sword to his hip. We proceeded on to a house where we had stockpiled goods. We didn’t want to leave any of the stuff in an obvious place, where it might get stolen, so we had stashed as much as possible in an abandoned house. When we got there, we had Dion guard the door, and as we entered the house, we found a bigger surprise. All of our stuff was gone! Spray painted on the wall was the word Thanks! Someone had stolen our stuff.

CHAPTER 9
At that moment, we heard a gunshot. Dion must have encountered a zombie. We peered out of a window just in time to see Dion’s body crumple. Shocked, I looked farther along the street. I saw a man on a motorcycle shouldering a rifle. He spotted us, grinned, and pointed a finger in our direction and shouted a command. Almost as soon as he said his command, I heard a great roar. Around the corner came at least fifty bandits, all riding motorcycles.
“Oh, crap,” I proclaimed, “We have to leave. NOW!” I grabbed hold of the others as we head to the back door. By this time, we could hear the motorcycles, and they were very close. We ran down the alley in the direction of my parked Jeep. We scrambled along the alley, running full speed. Kurt called for us to wait.
“Wait! What do you mean wait?” I yelled at him
“Just wait!” he yelled back at me. I waited. Kurt picked up a flat rock, pulled the pin out of one of the grenades, and placed it grenade on the ground, and the rock on top of the safety lever. He then ran to catch up with this. We all had an idea f what he was doing. He passed us while we were still looking at the grenade.
“You should be running.” He warned. We began running, finally understanding the full scope of his plan. We resumed our mad dash down the alley, hearing the motorcycles on the other side of the house. They must have figured out that we ran away by now I thought. About fifteen seconds later, we heard the bandits enter the alleyway. We ducked behind a house to see the effectiveness of Kurt’s booby trap. The first few bikes passed the rock, which was tilted so that we could see the grenade and they couldn’t, when one bike clipped the side of the rock. We saw the rock slide off and the safety lever flip off of the grenade. The next few bikes sped past, unaware of the danger below their feet. Then, an explosion rocked the alleyway. Everywhere within a five-yard radius was engulfed in flame and shrapnel. The force knocked the ones who had passed the explosive over. The alley quickly filled with dust. We then made a break for the Jeep. Within five minutes, we were at the Jeep. We all loaded into the vehicle. We sped off out of town. Unknown to us, a lone rider sat behind us at the end of the road. He spoke something into a radio, then raised a rifle and put his eye to a scope.

CHAPTER 10
CRACK!
“What the-“ I said, then I saw Maggie slump over in the seat beside me. A crimson stain blossomed on her shirt, right over her heart. She was dead. Angie yelled and twisted around in her seat. She brought her rifle up to bear. She took aim and squeezed the trigger. There was a bang as the rifle shot flame out of the barrel. The bandit fell over backward, quite dead. Our Jeep sped towards our fort. When we got there, Nicky, Kurt, Angie and I piled out of the vehicle. We all grabbed Maggie and hauled her off into the fort. We got our bug out bags ready, and we waited. We wanted to see if they would pursue. They didn’t come that day, or the next day. We soon thought they had just forgotten us, until the night, six days after we had escaped the city. We saw a red glow on the horizon. As I watched, at least two hundred motorbike-riding bandits rode towards me, all with torches. Some of the first ones fell prey to our traps, most of which were just early warning systems for zombies. Flash bangs were triggered throughout the crowd. Some bikes fell over, tossing their riders. Those didn’t do any serious damage. About a month ago, we found a dead military convoy. We had scavenged explosives, which Kurt had set up for us. Those did more damage. The claymores sent riders and bikes flying through the air, aflame. Some bikes exploded, adding to the devastation. We had some buried drums of crude oil we had found. They were rigged to blow on the push of a button. I waited until they passed them before detonating them. Kurt, Angie, and Nicky had just crested the stairs and were almost beside me as the drums detonated. Great walls of flame and dirt rose into the air, turning the night into day. Some more bikes fell to various other traps, including trip-wired grenades and the like, but it didn’t slow the main force. There were still about one hundred-fifty bikes that hadn’t even breached our established perimeter, and all of our traps were gone. We had killed a total of fifty or so bikers with all of our traps. There was no chance of killing the rest. We rushed down the stairs. The rest of the bikers cautiously picked their way through the smoldering wreckage that littered the bare ground between the edge of the trees and my home. We all grabbed our weapons and bug bout bags. Then we left. We escaped into the trees behind what had been our home. We ran to the top of a ridge about a mile from our former home. I peered through my binoculars.
“You guys might want to take a look at this,” I sighed as I passed the binoculars to Nicky “They’ve taken over our base.” Nicky let out a resigned sigh as she peered through them and passed them on to the others. I had seen the bandits patrolling the walls of our fortress, they had taken it as their own. After we had all taken a good look, I asked the question that everybody had been thinking.
“Do you think I should detonate it?” I asked. Everybody nodded. I pulled a small remote control from out of my pack. I flipped open a cover for a switch. I flipped the switch, arming the detonator. I then gingerly placed my finger on the trigger and squeezed. A tear ran down Nicky and Angie’s face. Kurt and I watched in silence. The detonator made a faint beep, and about one second later, we saw the place explode. There were multiple explosions, each one destroying a part of our home. The place that had sheltered us, that had protected us for so long. We had prepared for this eventuality. We had rigged our diesel and oil tanks with the rest of the explosives we had. In the room were all of our leftover grenades, ammunition, and also all of the explosives that we had scavenged, but not knew how to use. They all went off. C4, grenades, artillery shells, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. They shot off into the sky like macabre fireworks. The massive shockwave and wall of sound finally hit us. It knocked all of us back a step. That night, we slept under a tree in sleeping bags, now having full realization that things could only get worse.

CHAPTER 11
The next morning, we all awoke to the grim realization of our situation. We had no shelter. We took stock of our supplies. We had four pistols with two extra twenty-round magazines each. Kurt and I each had an assault rifle, each with two extra thirty-round clips. Nicky carried the 30-06, and she had a drawstring bag with forty extra rounds. Angie carried her sniper rifle with fifty extra rounds. I carried the Mossberg 500, and I had a pouch with 25 shells for it. Kurt still carried his katana. Each of us had a combat knife we had taken fro dead military personnel. We each also had some food and water in our bags, and general camping and survival gear. We knew that we had to find a semi-permanent place for us to stay. We had a quick breakfast and then talked about our plan of action.
“I think we should stay in the forest,” Said Kurt, voicing his opinion “There’ll be less zombies there.”
“I don’t know, Kurt. We need to establish a permanent dwelling. For that reason, I think we should go into the city. As for the zombies, we haven’t seen any in over two weeks! I think that they may have moved on.”
“I agree with Mark,” exclaimed Angie “The city seems to be our best option for supplies, shelter, and overall security.”
“I don’t know, Angie,” Nicky objected, “There might be more of those bikers in the city. It could be dangerous.”
“It’s not like we’re any strangers to danger,” Kurt interjected, “I’m rethinking my opinion, I think that the city might be our best bet.” I nodded approvingly. We all looked at Nicky. We weren’t going to force her to do anything. We would discuss it until we all came up with a suitable plan.
“Yeah, I guess the city's the best plan.” She reasoned.
“Perfect!” I grinned, “We’re all in agreement then. To the city it is!” We packed up our stuff and started heading for the city. Along the way, we encountered our first zombie in quite a while. I dropped him quickly. We then spotted a couple more. They were dispatched efficiently.
“Where are they all coming from?” Angie questioned. Another few came at us and were dropped. Suddenly, a large force emerged from the forest and converged on us. There were hundreds. They surrounded us, cutting us off. The circle closed in. I blasted a few rounds from the shotgun into the crowd, opening a crack in the circle. We ran through the gauntlet of ghouls, yelling. Split fingers and cracked nails brushed our skin and grabbed hold of our backpacks and weapons. We dropped our stuff and dashed out of the crowd. We ran towards the city, occasionally turning and firing into the crowd with whatever weapons we had left. Nicky had dropped her rifle, Kurt and I had our assault rifles stripped from us. All we had left was our pistols, my shotgun, and Angie’s rifle. Things didn’t look good.

CHAPTER 12
When we finally reached the outskirts, we were quite tired and it was getting dark. We spotted a row of small apartment buildings and rushed towards them. We were quickly running out of ammo. As we were running down the street, an arm reached out of a sewer grate and grabbed onto Angie’s ankle. She fell. Hard. We heard the crack as her forehead connected with the pavement. We turned to see rotten arms pulling her towards the grate. Her head lay at a sickening angle, suggesting a broken neck. Nicky screamed. As we watched, Angie was pulled through the large grate with the sickening crack of bones and the sound of ripping skin. Her gun was pulled down with her. We turned away and ran, unable to watch. Angie was lucky, it was a quick death. Ours wouldn’t be. We approached the door. It was locked. We tried kicking it in, to no avail. I finally turned my gun to the door. I blasted the lock with the shotgun. Nothing. I had two more bullets. My spare shells were lost in the crowd. Nicky and Kurt fired into the nearest zombies with their pistols. They soon were out of ammo. I gave my pistol to Nicky, and a magazine to Kurt. I fired one more round into the door. Nothing. This was my last round. I blasted the lock, barrel flat against the door. The door shuddered and swung in. By this time, Kurt was out of ammo again and Nicky was sure to have very little left. Nicky and I rushed inside.
“Kurt!” I yelled, “Get in here!” He turned and looked at me with a forlorn gaze. He pulled his sleeve up to reveal a bloody chunk missing.
“I’m infected,” he said, drawing the katana, “You and Nicky get inside and barricade the door, I’ll buy you some time.” I looked at him, and clasped his wrist in mine.
“You’ve saved Nicky and I many times before. Thank you.” I closed the door and Nicky and I barricaded it. We then ran up the stairs.
“OW!” yelled Nicky behind me. I turned to see her lying on the stairs, her leg twisted at an impossible angle. I placed her arm around my shoulder and carried her to the roof. We arrived just in time to look over the side to see Kurt make his last stand. His first few swings were straight and true, popping heads off. Soon he started to occasionally miss the neck and hit them in the shoulders and arms. He kept swinging. He held his own for a surprisingly long time. Soon, though, the katana was not going all the way through the necks. It was getting dull. It was never meant to cut through so much bone. The next time he swung it, he severed one particularly rotten zombie’s neck and his momentum carried the sword deep into the chest of another. He kept a firm grip on the katana and gave a herculean tug, but the sword was embedded in the zombie. The rotting corpse fell onto Kurt, knocking him over. Without the continued assault, the zombies poured over him. We saw Kurt’s face between zombies. He mouthed Goodbye and reached down. He was smiling.
BOOM

CHAPTER 13
He had primed a grenade. We were thrown back onto the roof by the concussive force of the explosion. When we looked back over the ledge, we saw the zombies had been blown back too. They pulled themselves up and advanced on the door. We could hear the banging on the door, and soon, we heard the crack that indicated that the grenade-weakened door had been breached. We heard them shamble up the stairs.
“Come on,” I urged Nicky, trying to pick her up, “We can jump onto the next building.” She smiled and shook her head. She gestured to her violently broken leg as a single tear rolled down her cheek.
“You’ll be OK,” I assured her, “Come on.”
“It’s more than that,” She admitted. She rolled her sleeve up to reveal a nasty bite, much like Kurt’s.
“Just shoot me.” She grabbed my hand, and forced her pistol into it.
“I love you.” She quietly said to me. I knew I had to do it. There was no way she could escape, and I wasn’t about to let her be eaten alive. I kissed her, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger. A choked sob escaped my throat. Zombies started pouring onto the roof. I placed the still-smoking barrel to my temple. I’d see Nicky, Kurt, Angie, Maggie, Dion, Will, George, and everybody else soon enough. The zombies advanced. The pistol was hot against my skin. I slowly pulled the trigger, preparing to seal my fate. Right before the trigger clicked, I swung the gun away from my head and blasted the closest zombie away with my last bullet. I leaned down and quickly kissed Nicky. I looked at the zombies. I guess I’d see my friends and Nicky later. Their times had all come, but it wasn’t yet my time. I threw my pistol at the nearest zombie, turned, ran towards the building adjacent to the one I was on, and jumped. It wasn’t yet my time.

The End



Delusions
Delusion - A persistent false belief. In a rare type of psychosis named folie a deux, two people have the ability to "share" a delusion (often one chooses to share the symptoms or delusions of the first). folie à famille denotes a condition where an entire family shares the delusion. It is not clear at what point a belief considered to be delusional escapes from the folie à... diagnostic category and becomes exempt because of the number of people holding it

I. Folie à Deux
"I really don't want to go either, Thomas, but…"
Thomas' knuckles turned white around the steering wheel of the Lexus. His nails bit bloody marks into his palms as he turned the car towards his version of hell on earth. "Then why are we going?" He already knew the answer.
"We can't just ignore – "
"Yes, we can. I thought we proved that."
"But Thomas, it's a – " his silence told her to stop. Her mouth hinged on the word and clamped it off.
"I was right…there is no room in hell for that child..."
"She was a baby! You sound as crazy as my sister about this."
"Get out of the car, Jill."
Jill shook her head and heaved her frame from the car, still acclimating herself to long-gained weight. Before the two of them made it to the front step, the door was opening.
The last nine years had been eerily kind to her single sister. Her skin was radiant, almost that of a fifty year old, even though Eve was pushing eighty. "Hello, Jill, Thomas, please, come in." Jill relaxed at the even, musical tones of Eve's voice and barely brushed past her sister; Thomas mumbled a greeting and fell silent as he crossed the threshold.
Thomas wished the house was a mess of animals and filth, but was instead greeted with obsessive cleanliness. Jill navigated through the once-familiar house and settled herself on the couch. Thomas slumped next to her. Eve stood and considered them for a moment before she sat in a chair facing them. The light from the bay window that overlooked an empty, groomed field turned her blue eyes to ice.
"Thank you both for coming," Eve started, looking through Thomas. She could see the thin shadow the girl's body cast behind the French doors to the dining room. "She's been looking forward to meeting you."
Thomas couldn't keep the scowl from his face. His eyes scanned the walls, searching for something, anything that would validate his discomfort. The memories pushed to somewhere in the front of his head and settled behind his left eyelid, which twitched. He knew Eve saw it.
"Laurie," Eve called, "Come meet your grandparents."
Thomas and Jill collectively thought their individual hearts were going to explode. They both thought they would have more time to prepare, more time to ask questions, before they were faced with her.
It wouldn't have mattered; nothing could have prepared them for the girl who joined Eve at her side. Her hair was such a light blonde it was nearly colorless, her eyes seemed to be white with burning shadows of green and blue. Her skin was colorless parchment, neither healthy nor sick. Her entire being stood in stark contrast to the long, black dress she was wearing. To Thomas, she was breathtakingly close to nothing. To Jill, the tiny girl was more substantial than she had imagined.
She stood for such a long time examining them in claustrophobic silence that they wondered if she could speak at all. They could sense the truth, but not its particulars -- they were the first people, besides Eve, that the girl had ever remembered seeing.
Her voice broke the confining silence -- low emotionless tones that blended into the cream colors around them. "It's nice to meet you. Can I get you something to drink?" Laurie averted her unblinking gaze, staring through the floor that lay between her and her grandparents.
Thomas' jaw trembled. Laurie's eyes met his, trapping him, her cold glare tangled with the impotent rage in his. He thought of how lucky she was to feel nothing and she wished she could feel anger.
"You should answer the girl, Thomas," Eve's voice was mocking and flat.
When she relayed what she thought of their visit to Eve later, Laurie told her great-aunt that she wanted to ask her grandfather if a cat had his tongue, but was too afraid of pushing him over an edge. Eve would laugh and pat the girl on her sleeve, but knew that if she had said anything, Thomas probably would have died of a heart attack on the spot.
"Why don't you get them some iced tea, my dear," Eve said. Laurie nodded and turned, everyone's eyes pierced her back as she walked out.

"She's extraordinary," Eve commented, keeping her voice as low and as comforting as she could. "You have no idea. I could swear she never sleeps." Eve shook her head. "She could do so much, but she needs to be safe…" Eve gestured the thought away before continuing. "She's exceptionally bright, she reads voraciously."
"That's not why we're here, Eve. You really scared me on the phone the other day, talking as you were." Jill laughed the giggle that told everyone she was frightened. "Genetic anomalies, backwoods prophecies, other crazy talk….If other people hear you talking like that, they'll –"
"They'll what? Believe it? They're already curious, with our grandmother … with the way that Matthew and Deborah died –" Eve stopped when Thomas flew to his feet.
"Don't mention that little crackwhore! Especially now."
"Your son loved Deborah, and though young, she loved him back, with all her heart. If you had ever bothered to accept them, you would have seen that."
"It was foolishness!" Thomas exploded. "A man his age with a little high school tramp like that…That freak of a child is what that addict deserved! The rest of us shouldn't be saddled with the curse of their mistake!" He stood, shocked, in the echo of the blast.
"I hardly believe a day in nine years is saddled with anything, Thomas." Eve examined him. "Did you pray for it? Did you pray for your God to seek vengeance on them for what they did?" She examined his face and got her answer. "I knew it. You meddled with something you have no understanding of -- over what, hopes and dreams you lost out on? What about their hopes and dreams?" Eve shook her head. "If you believe what Cochran had to say at all, which you seem to believe convenient parts of it, then you know that Matthew died trying to help his wife." She turned away from him. "You can't blame Laurie forever. She is, as you have made her. Her very own person. Unlike any other."
Laurie took that moment to walk in and serve the iced tea. She had heard the whole conversation, save Thomas' bit about curses (she was dropping ice in the glasses at that point). She studied her grandfather as she moved to set his glass down on the coffee table in front of him. He moved forward to take it; his hand brushed her cool one and stuck there for a long moment.
Laurie looked at him, knowing how he felt about her father, that all the pain inside him was infantile grief and denial that boiled outwards, towards her, and she absorbed it, took the part of his life that was wrapped up in shielding himself from anguish, pulled it into herself. His hand trembled, grasping for hers, the glass tumbling to the floor and doused his leg with a coolness that didn't match the heated, sharp cold from her. He watched her, his mouth slacked open, his eyes watching for breaths that didn't happen. The eyes that gazed back at him now were his own – deep swells of brown pulsed into her irises as all that grief, anger, and loneliness flowed away from him. Now, he could hear her, could hear Eve tell her of great responsibility and great loneliness, could feel the emptiness of an existence without history.
Jill yanked Laurie away from Thomas by the sleeve with a yelp. "What have you done?" she screamed. Laurie looked at her, unblinking.
"It's okay," Thomas said, his voice soft. "Jill, she's – "
Jill's lip curled as she shook her head. "No, no! That little freak, she's nothing! Come on, Thomas, you were right. This is nonsense!"
"No, Jill," Thomas began as his wife brushed past him and her sister to the door.
"Thomas. Come on." When he didn't immediately follow, she stomped loudly out the door.
Eve smiled knowingly at him. "You look relieved."
Thomas was watching Laurie as he began, "I have one question. Jill never told me," He paused and his eyes flicked to Eve. "What did your grandmother believe?"
Laurie's flat voice answered him, "That another great healer would be born from a curse, someone that would divide the living yet blur the line between the living and the dead. A scourge, a minister…" Eve's eyes grew restless in their sockets.
Thomas shook his head, "She was mad," he muttered, believing every word the girl said. He jogged to catch up to his wife.
Laurie turned to Eve, ready to talk about the experience, but Eve waved her away. "Go in front of the mirror and practice blinking, I have to rest."
Less than a minute later, Laurie was in her room, staring at herself. She waited until she could think about something other than blinking. It wouldn't be practice if she was so focused on it. Somehow, she had to remember to blink when she wasn't thinking of it. She picked up a clump of her hair and examined it. Unnatural, she acknowledged.
She studied her face in the mirror, the forgotten hair slipping through her slackened fingers. No wonder, she thought. She could understand her grandfather now. Somewhere through the years with Eve, she had managed to take that feeling and hide it…
Blink.
She wondered what more she could have done. Was she really all that different? Or was it that she couldn't hide her flaws? She focused her eyes to her own reflected forehead.
Breathe.
Damn, she forgot about breathing.
Blink.
She wondered when Eve would call to her again. Laurie once cherished holding her hand, seeing her life dance in front of her. She once revered Eve's pain, relished it. Now she thought of those moments as nothing more than one more tick on a long list of freakishness.
She frowned, recognizing everything she saw in her grandfather, everything from those moments paraded back in front of her in a flash. She thought of Eve hollowing, Eve who did nothing more than be for "just a few moments," her hands reaching…
Blink. Breathe.
Those came easily. Laurie made the mental note that it looked bad to do both at once. She thought of her grandmother, how her grandfather ached. She flinched from the thought.
She wondered how long it would take her to empty her grandfather of those hated, elongated minutes that he kept so carefully locked from her. She wondered when he would call for her. It was milk souring, inevitable – she knew it. She could see it in Eve. She looked at her hands, marveling that her skin showed no signs of their aging.
Blink.
She wondered how long it would take before she pulled that last bit of her aunt to herself, when she enveloped all that raving, all the life. How long until she pulled that last, defining memory…and how could that ever be, when Eve had so many memories, and Laurie had so few?
Breathe.
'So close to nothing.' She remembered feeling that part of him, it was the first thing that had washed over her when they touched. Why had he touched her? She almost could have pulled it off, if it hadn't been for that one, fatal touch.
Blink.
She decided she should have a somewhat random pattern, just in case it wasn't always two blinks to one breathing. She had noticed her aunt, grandfather, and grandmother all blinked and breathed in different rhythms.
As always, their feelings. She didn't understand why they would want to throw them away, why that when there were so many other things that she could do…

II. Folie à Famille
Jill wished that she didn't have to answer the door, but knew that Thomas wouldn't stop raving about it until he saw her, so she answered the doorbell after the first ring.
Laurie was still small, but nine years contributed to her now filled-out, feminine frame. She dyed her hair black, and her eyes were a pleasing cerulean color that blended well with the pale tones of her skin. "Grandmother," she said with a nod. "I'm sorry to hear about him." She remembered to make herself breathe, and then mentally slapped herself for the delusion.
Jill nodded. "The doctors say any day now," she said, throwing herself as close to the wall as she could to let Laurie pass without having to brush against her. "He's been sick for a while."
"That's why you couldn't make it to Aunt Eve's funeral." Laurie's voice was without accusation, but Jill was still shocked at the words.
"Yes, of course," Jill said. She shivered under Laurie's unblinking gaze. Laurie accepted the lie. "How long will you be staying?"
"I have a flight out tonight." Laurie saw no reason to act nice. Jill stood silent and uncomfortable under her gaze. "Don't trouble yourself, I can find him." Laurie took her coat off and handed it to her grandmother, careful not to touch her, just the fabric. "This shouldn't take long," she said, skipping the stairs two at a time, hoping to leave the storm of thoughts in her wake.
She could sense him the way she could sense them when she let herself, and she found his deathbed easily. She wrote it off as an easy feat because of the heavy smell of impending death as she closed the door behind herself. "Hello, grandfather." She kept her back against the sturdy door.
"Laurie," his weak voice moaned her name, the sound caught up in the pulse of the ceiling fan. "Laurie, take my hand, take…"
She shook her head. "Don't you remember? It's mad…" her voice trailed.
"Then how do you know?"
"Know what? That my grandmother called me to you after nine years, that…"
"No, that's not why you're here. You wouldn't come for her."
"Why should I come for you?"
"Because I believe her, I believe your…" his voice disintegrated into a rattling sigh.
Breathe. She wondered when her secret madness would stop, when she could stop acting. She hoped it was when she walked out the door. He struggled until he was sitting up, and then pitched himself forward, his limbs shaking under the strain. She wondered when he had moved last.
"Please, Laurie…" his voice was a crackled moan that split the foul air. He dragged himself towards the end of the bed, his reaching hand only inches from hers. She was trapped between him and the door.
"Please, don't do this to me. just leave me alone…"
Her hand was caged in his fingertips in the next moment. His cry of relief filled the air around them, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets, the blue-tinted contacts stuck in place. The pain, the promise -- everything he had -- poured towards her and she backed away, her hand dropped away from him. She gathered Eve's strength, "You don't know what you're doing. Always meddling with what you don't know," he cast a short, recognizing glance at her.
"It's not madness…my desk, look on my desk…" Her face flinched.
"No, grandfather." Laurie's voice was now solid. "Enough."
"Eve was right…" He pulled himself up onto all fours before throwing himself back into a sitting position. He reached his hand towards her.
She wanted to teach the lesson he needed so badly to learn. She watched his hand tremble, recognized the pain warping and disintegrating his stance. She grasped his hand in hers, its warmth flooding her arm. His eyes rolled back in their sockets, years passed between them in a moment. His eyes opened and locked with hers, his fingers gripping her as he began to see slim flashes of her life intermingle with his.
Her home education, the parade of people lead by her great aunt pleading for her touch, the night she ran away all blended in flashes with his own. She saw her dead father through his eyes, the son destroyed by his own fatal choice, the mixing of his blood with Deborah's. She saw herself – silent, tiny, covered in their blood, those creepy, often colorless eyes. It was his last glance at her before seeing her nine years before. Even now, as the life that hurt him so badly flowed from him, she knew he hated her.
He thought her hand grew warmer around his, still the cold warmth of her pierced his skin to the point of pain. She tightened her grip and helped him to sit back. They lived the first onset of cancer, the chemotherapy, the radiation, she felt him began to relax. She squeezed her eyes shut, pulling it all away, feeling it rot her away. Her chest tightened and she gasped, a strangled sound coming from the back of her throat in the wake of the unplanned sweep of air. "Forgive…" he sighed, a question and answer. Laurie nodded, shaking as she released him, the final, rattling pain ripped through her, and with blurred vision she watched the change as fell back onto the pillow.
She closed his eyelids, watching for his chest to move, not bothering to mimic the motion in her own in that moment of tentative loneliness. She thought of her father's gasping, wet breaths and she jerked backwards, as if motion would interrupt the flood of shared and new memories.
"Please don't come back," she whispered. She turned to his desk and found a large three ring binder on it. She flipped it open a few pages, skimming articles about feral attacks that were sweeping through the less populous areas of the country. "Madness," she muttered as she closed the binder and tucked it under her arm.

III. Folie à Monde …Of course, Laurie didn't like the fact she was insane, but she did her best to adjust her life around it. At first, when she began to realize it was all just a delusion, it was difficult to stop some of the thoughts from coming. For instance, she still seemed to have episodes of selective memory (she still was unable to ever recall having slept – she would close her eyes and allow her mind to wander through a dark, waking dream, but she didn't sleep. And she couldn't remember having a period – but always remembered having an unopened box of tampons in the bathroom). Because of her odd, sheltered formative years with her great aunt, she had never been to a doctor when she was younger. She didn't need to go to one now (and indeed, she couldn't) to find that it was a psychiatric disorder that now drover her away from them – a rare breed of instilled paranoiac delusion – folie a deux.
Her grandfather's insane deathbed ramblings only served to amplify that mad, delusory part of her thoughts. In the years following his death, she changed her name, moved erratically from town to city to suburb to country and back to city again. She moved northward, away from the oppressive heat of unconscionable memory and towards, she hoped, some sort of settled existence.
But still, even in Pittsburgh, her cruel subconscious would sneak up on her. Behind her eyelids, in the vein-lit world of visualization, she would see them. Sometimes she would sense them first, sometimes she would catch them from the corner of her closed eyes, and sometimes she would hear her name whispered beneath the moan of the wind. She wished that with the deaths of her family that her dreams of the waking, walking dead would fade – that the delusion would suddenly sever itself from her thoughts forever with the last of its dreamers. Still they were there, fumbling towards her, shuffling, gaining volume and ferocity as time wore on. Even with the distance separating them, they were as real as the people she had touched, perhaps even more so. They were not bound by the unwritten – from them was complete stability – memories that were unclouded by desire or nostalgia, everything objective with the knowledge of the end. They were unchanging but complete. Sometimes, behind the sealed windows to her soul, she would wish she could join their mindless, restless ranks – to be lead without spirit instead of in spite of it. She would sit up and shake the delirium and move as quietly as possible through the rest of her day, intrigued by the textured depths of her own emptiness.
Inevitably, someone would wander close. They would ruin it – all it would take was one stray brush of their hand on hers – one pale, thin strand of knowledge coursing through her, one more suspended moment of disbelief, one more mental slap, and eventually one more move. Her only chosen constant companion was the isolation born from too much that was impossible to share. How could she share it when she couldn't understand it? How could she understand it without believing it? And still, there she was – those stubborn steel strands of thought reaching back towards the crowd, their whistling, rasping breaths rattling her name somewhere in the ether of imagined sounds and real silences. No, she could never show that most fundamental part of herself, her madness, especially not the part of her that wanted to bask in the knowledge that it was her own cursed, corrupted blood that began it all. No room…
Laurie sat up and shook the offending train of thoughts from her mind. She sighed and turned on the evening news. "The epidemic of mass murders has been spreading northward from Georgia…" Georgia…her grandmother…she blinked twice, a flood of thoughts and her grandfather's memories (Jill with Matthew, laughing…thin…STOP) beat against the floodgates of her logical mind. "So far there has been no apparent pattern or reason…" she thought of her name caught on the breath of a darkened sky, "though the assassins all appear to be in a trance, possibly under the effects of a biochemical attack. The mayors of Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh have requested the assistance of the National Guard, and the President is meeting with Homeland Security and Pentagon officials now. All airspace has been shut down pending investigation of the causes of this deadly epidemic." Laurie heard several shots sever the air, followed by a wilting scream, "the safest course of action is to stay where you are…"
"Fuck that," Laurie breathed.
"Please do not go outside until we are able to deliver firm information on the identification of the infected and the properties of the pathogen responsible…" Laurie wondered how many people were eve grasping what wass going on, much less attempting to perform a clear-headed assessment of their safety. She stuffed first aid supplies and dry foods into a hiking pack. She changed while the newscasters, who were layering themselves with a cheap veneer of calm, interviewed local physicians. She tied the field pants tight around her legs and stuffed shotgun shells and bandages into the pockets until they were nearly too heavy for her legs to handle. She pulled her grandfather's shotgun from the bottom of her closet as the Emergency Broadcasting Signal blasted from seemingly every corner of her apartment. By the time the newscasters were repeating their agoraphobic request, she was turning the key in her Jeep's ignition.
She slammed into traffic and maneuvered towards the back roads as quickly as possible, trying to circumvent the highway until absolutely necessary, and silently cursing the city of bridges. She would glimpse in all of the other drivers the same determined, frightened look. It wasn't long before she found herself at a dead stand still just inside of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. She frowned and tried the radio. She could still make out the voice of the newscaster over the crackle of static. "Estimated deaths by dawn number in the thousands, especially as major city arteries become clogged with those attempting to evacuate, despite requests to the contrary…" She closed her eyes and loosened her grip on the steering wheel, still unable to fathom what the disembodied voice was telling her and how it all fit with…
Breathe.
She kept her eyes closed. She didn't need to look to know that traffic was at a stand still. She didn't need to look that they were coming…
Three loud knocks on her window jarred her back into the driver's seat. She faced a tall, man with rich blue eyes. "Come with me!" he shouted through the glass. "Follow me!" he yelled. She reached into the back of her Jeep and pulled out the pack and the gun, struggling for a moment to get around her open door. She heard a crack and stopped, turning to glimpse them for the first time.
She could see them streaming and stumbling through the tunnel's opening. They blocked the setting sun, casting shadows through the short tunnel. Laurie watched as they overtook some of the escaping drivers and passengers…
"Come on!" the man shouted at her, pulling at her free hand. Laurie didn't look back again until she thought she recognized her name rumbling towards her under the screams. The man was dodging and shouting for people to follow. Car doors began to spill motorists into screaming, stumbling puddles. "Jesus," the man breathed as they wove their way free. Some still sat in their cars, their faces an eerie echo of the approaching blank-faced crowd. They didn't stop running after they cleared the tunnel – even when the screams faded into dark silence they didn't stop running. He held on to her hand – when the jarring motion of their escape would inevitably shake her hand from his, she would find his fingers encasing hers again. She felt him grow tired and pulled it from him, spurning him forward and away from any impossibly inevitable confrontation with her delusional destiny.
She didn't recognize where they were, though she could sense they were on the northern edge of the city, when he finally stopped. Laurie pulled the last strings of fatigue from his muscles again before she released his hand and looked down the road. He stopped to catch his breath.
"Jesus, you're in good shape," he panted.
"What's your plan?"
She waited while he caught his breath and mopped sweat from his forehead. "See that building down there?" Laurie looked in the direction he indicated. "That's an office building for the hospital. The security office is on the top floor – it's only got one entrance with a good, strong door on it. We've got some snacks, a radio, a couple of hand guns, a couple of vehicles, and a closed-circuit security system." She looked at him for a long moment. "I'm director of security there," he supplied.
"We'd be safer out of the city."
"Can you think of another place with any kind of communication to a heliport? I honestly don't think we'll be driving out of this, not out of this city.
Laurie nodded.
"I'm Ed, by the way," he said, holding his hand out.
"Laurie," she surprised herself by answering with the name she hadn't used in nine years.
"Wish this was under better circumstances."
Laurie nodded and followed him towards the office building, the suburbs stretched silent and dark around them.
Ed was about to swipe his card to get into the office building when he paused and pulled a revolver from his holster. "If that shotgun is too much, you could balance your gun and your…" he trailed when he saw the sawed-off barrel trained steady on the door in front of him. "Okay then. Never mind." He stopped. "You look kind of pale, you ok?" She nodded for him to continue. "We're going to need to take the stairs, so we can secure all the floors," he apologized.
Laurie's mind flashed dimly into his history (his mother, pale, bleeding, in the shadow of his – STOP!). She inched away from him and the thought. He swiped his card and they stepped into the darkness.
Ed knew the three story building well – it had, predictably, emptied at five, unaware that it would never again see those occupants – but securing the building with the scant supplies they had was a task that took much longer than he had originally expected. By the time they closed the doors to the security office, it was inching closer to two in the morning. Ed turned on all of the lights, trying to feel safe. He flicked on the security monitors. "If anyone or anything tries to get in here, we'll know about it."
Laurie wondered if he should be more worried about what was already there with him. Every time she blinked she was subjected to another torrent of thought. "I don't know how long we should stay here," she whispered. They were so close. He had his back to her while he adjusted monitors and turned on the radio. She stopped blinking, deciding instead to avoid his gaze altogether.
A scream pierced the silence around them as Ed tuned in various monitors. She looked down, hearing the underlying drone of dead breaths. "Christ," Ed breathed. She studied the tile floor while he broadcast, "If anyone can hear me, the office building is secured, I repeat the office building is secured…" He repeated directions, called for an answer, the only response quiet moans and clamorous crashes. She heard him turn the volume down. "What the fuck is going on…"
A part of Laurie had been spent in preparation for this all of her life, and that part knew exactly what was going on. She heard her name called and tried to ignore it.
"Laurie!" Ed turned around; concerned that somehow she had been infected…She nodded and joined him at the monitors. "Look at them all," he pointed to the dim shadows in the outer reaches of the parking lot. "Jesus, Laurie, just look at them…"
She stopped remembering to breathe. As her eyes moved from monitor to monitor, she could feel the contact lens catch in the corner of her eye. She tried to resist blinking but couldn't, and for a split second her vision was bathed blood red before returning to the black and white security screen.
"I don't think they can get in here," Ed said, watching the advancing shadows. "It's just a matter of keeping an eye out," he continued, indicating the wall of monitors. "I figured on trying to get some of my guys on the radio or phone or something while you got some shut eye. You look like you could use a bit of sleep."
"I'm not tired yet, but thanks," she said. The last thing she wanted to do was have her eyes closed… She was going crazier, she decided, right along with the rest of the world.
"That's understandable. It's been a crazy night. Want soda, bottled water, anything like that?" She shook her head. "What do you think they are?"
Laurie shook her head, grateful that she didn't have to face him. "I don't know."
"I think I do, even though it sounds crazy to say it, I think it's zombies." She kept her back to him. "See? It sounds crazy, but look at them." She turned around and watched the dim, approaching shadows on more than a half a dozen of the monitors. "I don't know what else to believe."
Laurie felt the urge to blurt it out all out, to add her own delusion to the mounting madness, but what was one more mad voice in the world. She stopped herself.
Breathe.
Blink. She saw him confronting his father, knew his mother was behind him, somewhere in the shadows…
"It's as reasonable as anything else I've heard," Laurie admitted.
"Yeah, I guess it really it. I guess it just doesn't…feel all that reasonable. I-I should be trying to find out if there is anyone in earshot."
Laurie nodded.
"There's a cot in the closet over there."
"I still don't think it's a good idea that we stay here very long. We should take what we need and go."
"I just want to check on a few people, just give me until dawn…"
Laurie nodded and turned away from him before he noticed she hadn't blinked for a while. She didn't bother to mentally kick herself for it. "I understand, I just think it won't take long until we're completely surrounded."
"I don't think they can hear or smell us up here, and they sure as hell can't see us up here. I'm sure they'll clear out by dawn, there's nothing for them here as far as they're concerned." He pointed at one of the monitors. "Besides, that's the security department's Jeep, right there next to the entrance. We've got enough firepower t o clear that distance, and right there," he pointed to a key rack on the wall "are the keys to that baby."
Laurie nodded. She turned back to the cot and lay down facing him, closing her eyes to feign sleep.
She lost herself in the mixture of images and sound. His voice droned through repeated efforts to get someone to answer his calls. Most of his attempts were met with silent static. She heard him talk to the room around him, "I hope you can hear me…"
As time wore on his voice, she could hear the underlying tones of desperation overlay nearly every word that cracked out of his mouth. She thought of what she had learned about epidemiology –healthcare workers were always at ground zero. She could hear the intimations of chaos as she saw it unfold projected on the inky back of her eyelids. She forced them to stay closed, absorbing the strange synch between imagined images and real sounds.
She thought of Eve, of all her stories of Armageddon, the tales of family curses. The webs of thought intermingled with Ed's voice. She thought of the newscasters, of their ignorance of their facts, and wondered if they knew just as much as she did, what they would be saying…
She heard Ed's voice crack, followed by a fit of coughing. She pulled it away from him, knowing now it was different – she didn't have to touch him any more. Something was inside of her was becoming inevitable, terrible choice, and she flinched away from the feeling of her own skin. She heard him turn to check on her. She kept herself as still as possible under the warmth of his gaze. She heard him step towards her and pause before she remembered to breathe. He retreated an turned on the television to KDKA.
The first television station…she thought, wondering if it would also be the last. "The one commonality in all the attacks is that the victims appear to be partially devoured by their attackers. Reports are now mounting from the states on the southern eastern seaboard, now stretching to all major metropolitan areas north of Miami to south of New York…" Laurie thought of the tunnel, of those in the hospital. She heard Ed shift in his seat, a sharp exhale coming from him.
"Ed!" A woman's voice overtook the drone of the newscasts. "Ed, there's a bunch trapped over there, but some of us got out, we're going to try to get to you. Over?" The radio cut off her inane giggle. Laurie could see them sneaking past some of their comrades towards a safer hiding place. She saw them watch the massacre of two nurses who were trying to help patients from their rooms.
"Nora, is that you?" Laurie heard the pitch of Ed's voice slide upward.
"Yeah, and we're going to head for you. Shouldn't take us too much longer. How can we get in?"
"The only way in is the front entrance."
"Gotcha, we'll radio when we're closer. There's seven of us." Laurie opened her eyes.
"See you soon, Nora, good to know you're ok," Ed answered. He stood and took two steps towards Laurie. "Someone heard…"
Laurie nodded, her eyes slow to adjust to the light beneath the contacts.
"Can you see them yet?"
"No."
"How long?" Laurie fixed her gaze on the bank of monitors behind them.
"I don't know," Ed answered, following her eyes. "Holy shit…" he started. Dozens of them littered all of the screens. Ed fumbled for the radio. "Nora, if you can hear me…You're going to have company…"
Laurie and Ed waited long, tense moments for a reply.
"They might have already found that out," Laurie said.
"Jesus," he muttered.
They watched the screens, scanning for anything in motion and alive. The sky began to break into a light shade of gray that hailed dawn.
"How long have they been gathering like that?"
"Hours."
She saw a vehicle dart in and out of one of the view of one of the cameras. She stepped beside Ed, her eyes moving across the screen, sweeping across arcs of black and white detail. "There," she pointed. The sedan plowed past the camera, revealing two doors that had been torn from their hinges on the passenger side. Ed winced at the sight. They tracked the car as it wove through crowds of the zombies, heading for the front door of the facility. "They're gonna," Ed stopped on a sharp inhale as they barreled into the back of the Jeep, slamming it forward through the plate glass encasing of the first floor. Laurie and Ed watched as four people climbed out of the sedan, sprinting for the camera that used to be perched over the window. While Ed watched them approach the barricaded staircase, Laurie's eyes stayed locked on the wreckage of the sedan, as she watched someone try to struggle free from the wreckage. She watched, unblinking, as the zombies made their stumbling, steady approach. Ed was grabbing a flashlight, crowbar, and screwdrivers, his eyes scanning the room for other supplies. Laurie leaned into the screen as the zombies overtook the car. "No," she said softly, her eyes dry under the contact lenses.
"The staircase is totally blocked," Ed announced into the radio as he watched them scramble frantically for the stairs. "You're going to have to use the elevators and we'll pull you up," he said, moving towards the rope he spotted.
"I thought there was only one way in," Laurie said as she watched a mass of writhing dead fall through the shattered lobby.
"There is only one way in, the elevator's not running, our power failed over to the backup generator while you were sleeping. Don't give me that look, I was going to tell you when you woke up. It's going to be fine, we just have to…" he flinched at the sound of shouting emanating from his radio. Laurie watched as the group hurried into the elevator, the doors snapping shut. The elevator's camera revealed two huddled, shaking figures. Laurie watched on the other camera as the group she watched fall through the window clawed at a man, pulling him to the ground. He disappeared beneath the writhing mass that had overtaken him. In the corner of her eye she watched as another group tore into someone who had fallen as they rounded the corner towards the elevator. Laurie didn't know which was worse, the dark insanity behind her eyes or the abandonment and cruelty she saw before them.
"We're coming," Ed barked into the radio. He motioned Laurie towards the door with his head. She moved over to the shotgun and picked it up, her eyes never moving from the monitor.
"How long is that door going to hold up?" she asked, keeping her eyes away from the camera situated in the lobby…or the one outside…
"We've gotta help them, fast," he said, propping the door open with a chair. He turned down the hallway and ran, yelling "We're coming," and sliding onto his knees in front of the elevator, prying it open. By the time she reached him, he had it propped open with a screwdriver. He wrapped the rope around the cords and let it drop into the elevator shaft before he started to wind it around his arms and pull it over his waist. "I've broken my ankle three times," he said. "I can't jump down." He indicated the rope. "I'll make sure you get back up." He planted his legs. "Okay?"
She looked down to the top of the elevator, where the rope barely reached. "I'm going to have to help them climb up."
He nodded and planted himself as she grabbed the rope. She put the shotgun at his feet and began to lower herself onto the elevator. She heard the echoes of the zombies slamming against the elevator door mixing with the sounds of the trio in the elevator. She wondered how long it would be until one of the stumbling, jerking hoard would press against the call button.
"How do I get it open?"
"Kick one of the panels down!" Nora screamed up at her. Laurie strained to hear Ed over the shouts and thumps beneath her. She gave up and kicked a panel free, a wall of noise hitting her ask she knocked the lights to the floor of the elevator.
She was looking in on a woman and a man. She could barely see the man, he was slumped into the corner. Nora filled her vision. "Get us out of here!" she squealed. Laurie steadied herself and reached her hand down to help her up, and Nora pulled so hard on her hand Laurie's knees buckled and she lurched forward, slamming down against the frame that once held the lights. She yelped as Nora grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up, another panel crashing to the floor below as she started to climb the rope. Laurie reached down to help the man.
"I can't reach…I'm hurt. He pulled himself forward so she could see the wound that spread across the calf of his leg -- shredded muscle twitched under a thick coating of viscous blackened blood. Laurie jumped into the elevator and tried to help him, Nora's frantic movements shifted the rope into grotesque arabesques just out of his reach. She felt him catch the edge of the ledge when she heard the doors opening behind her. The rope's movements became more erratic and she heard Nora scream "Leave them behind, Eddie!" as she saw the crowds' shadow grow on the wall behind the man's legs. She was caught on the wave of the zombies, the demarcation between the living and the dead. Dr. Blair kicked his bloodied leg at her, dragging long traces of blood and memory across her arm. His little girl. He kicked his other leg and tore the contact lens from her left eye. She felt the rage in him surge through her arm. She just wouldn't let go, she felt him think about the kick that he hoped would send her flying into that mass of filth and she wrapped her arms around his legs tighter, the moaning crowd reached for her and lunged for him, cementing her grasp around him.
She felt pressure and pain build in the man's spine as he tried to hoist himself up and the crowd pulled him down. She was pinned to him as they pulled him away from hope. She felt his muscles begin to snap as his ribs caught on the ledge. They yanked him suddenly and violently downward – he who treated his patients with a mere sliver of respect in between banging Nora in the broom closet, he who would still love her to be dead just so he could continue to float, directionless, through life. She didn't pull it from him, she let it stay as his body gave way, his flesh tore open, his warm blood flowed down the side of her face.
The crowd around her move towards the still-twitching meat. She gasped, her hand flew to her chest. She felt as if she was being kicked. The collar of her shirt was twisted and soaked with Dr. Blair's blood. She coughed and gasped, feeling something surge inside of her. She looked down to her hand splayed across her chest, and watched a thick dark line stain her skin, surging in a curving, arched line from under her hand. The next pain sent her reeling and grasping at her neck, where she felt so much gather with building, horrible pressure. She gasped as the inky-black skin twisted and crawled long spiral strands through her arms. She was panting when it hit her next, spiking long vines of jet black skin around her fingers. The throb of pain flashed through her head as the she felt cold and soothing limbs surrounding her more and more tightly. She felt the corrupted, cursed blood propelled through her veins with the last, elongated throb. She hadn't realized she was panting until she stopped breathing again. The corpse of Blair stopped its motion and she felt one more chest-shattering thump that sent veins of fire through her forehead.
She heard her name, Ed called for her, screamed her name over the wilted drone of it around her. She felt herself lifted towards the sound of his voice as more and more zombies pressed in to fill the elevator. She grabbed the rope and hoisted herself up, watching as the zombies pressed upwards, the crowd below her inching closer and closer to her with every moment. She jumped and hoisted herself to the third floor, leaping to overtake Nora, tackling her to the ground. Laurie stood and Nora growled deep in her throat, lunging at Laurie. Laurie side stepped her, watching as Nora tried to stop herself at the open elevator shaft. Nora's ankle buckled under and snapped, sending her off-balance, where she hung suspended in mid-air before tumbling into the moaning darkness. Laurie wiped the remaining contact from her right eye as she turned to face the security office. "Laurie?" Ed asked. Laurie felt them below, scrambling to climb on top of each other, to make an undead ramp to reach her. Nora's screams gurgled through the air, and Ed stood, his body drained of motion at the sight of Laurie, the eerie pulmonary patterns jetting through her skin formed a black diadem across her forehead. Long trails of blood ran from her bright white eyes. She lunged for him, knocking him to the ground and the pistol from his hand in a swift, surprising motion. He threw her light weight off of him and began to get up, reaching out to grab her by the throat when she gripped his wrist in her hand. "I could have saved you," she whispered, grasping both of his wrists. The sound of his scream barely penetrated the tapestry of life she tore from him. She went to college, saw the Dead, married twice, saw the birth of a child. She felt his struggling wane. She broke a few hearts and rare promises, she gambled with old friends just to hear their stories. The screams of the dead and the dying merged into a glut of white noise to her ears as she felt him begin to tip backwards. She pulled him away from the pain and loneliness. He fell back as she pulled him into her, and she watched his body hit the floor. His limbs jerked, pulling him upwards, his blue eyes swam in their sockets – empty, dead and hers. The radio's warnings droned on, unnoticed. copyright, Jamie Toth (C)

The Zombie Wars

Hi, I'm a new member to this glorious collection of Zombie survival and well i have a story I've be working on

12/29/10
Camp O'Hara, CA U.S
USMC Cpl. Mark Johnson

Mark sat back down on his cot and field stripped his M16A4 and began the daily task of oiling it's parts and cleaning every nook and cranny of the weapon. The Zombie War was nearing the eleventh year mark and the entire world was still plunged in chaos. The Japanese with their small island nation had had the best and the worst of the war. Being so isolated from land the native zombies were nonexistent. But it was the zombies from other countries notably China and Korea during the mass exodus from many countries infected civilians continued to pour into other "Safe Zones". Japan of course decided to cut off four sections of their own country to be selectively nuked by the United States. this caused the Zombie population to be wiped out but leaving Most of japan a nuclear wasteland. California where Mark was now sitting was a last ditch effort to retake the Great Parries and push the Zombie Hordes back to the Eastern Seaboard where the infection started. The Rocky Mountains provided a natural buffer zone around The West Coast which the US military took to full advantage and started to build defence bases at 150 mile intervals. Each base consisted of 2 divisions a fighter and bomber aircraft squadron and assorted vehicles of war.
"Hey Mark" a voice from outside called
"Yeah?" Mark replied
Were movin' out tonight and we're starting operation: Zombie Overdrive."

"Alright John, let me get my shit together and I'll be out in five"

Mark reassembled his weapon and pulled his flak jacket and web gear on. Mark slapped his extra mags home and then taped several side by side for easier reloading. then Mark tested his laser dot sight, surefire flashlight, and his crucifix and stepped out into the sunlight and then looked into the ash covered sky and readied up and ran to his Osprey transport and cycled in that's as much as i have so far more to come soon leave comments also i didn't really know where to put this so well here it is




Chapter 2

Mark sat in the matte black U.S.M.C. Osprey with the red glow of the cabin lights. The rear door of the Osprey was left open and the rear gunner took potshots at Zeds. The Browning 50.cal machine gun lit up the cabin and rounds fell to the ground. Mark looked out the door and saw what he was used to seeing. Burned out cities and towns. Cars clogged up the highways. Just to be cleared out by bulldozers as people reclaimed lost territory. Humanity was starting to take back what was once theirs. Mark's Osprey fell into formation with eight others, just as they closed in to the remains of Carson City. The area around the capital building had been reclaimed by survivors over the course of the war. If you could call this cluster fuck a war. Command had established contact with the survivors and had brokered a deal,to allow the Ospreys to land. In exchange for the landing zone. Ammunition,food,and medicine was flown in the night before via seven C-130's.

Mark's Osprey touched down and the Marines filed out. Mark took a deep breath and exhaled. The stench of death hung low and thick. And the moans of Zeds could be heard just as the Ospreys engines died down. The Zeds were mobilizing. The survivors ran to the ten foot tall wall that surrounded their camp. The Zeds began to pound on the steel and concrete wall. The survivors took out their weapons and bean to fire. The Marines joined in and took up positions along the fence and began firing.

Mark slipped the safety off of his M16A4 and clicked it to single shot. He looked down the sights and led a Zed at a hundred yards and fired. The round zipped downrange and slammed through the former football player's skull.

"Nice shot."

Mark turned to see the Navy Corpsman draw her Colt.45 and plugged a Zed trying to climb the wall.

Mark replied "Not to bad yourself. Never knew the Navy liked dirt."

She holstered her sidearm and introduced herself.

"Sup,Midshipmen Clarks"

"Corporal Mark Johnson, First Marine Recon. Kinda pointless now."

She didn't reply but sat down behind the raised section of the wall. She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. And exhaled. Seeing her features through the smoke and war paint. Gave Mark just a small reprieve from the horrors he'd seen. She had to be just 5 foot 6 maybe 110 pounds soaking wet. But hell. She was the best looking Corpsman Mark ever saw. Mark sat and joined her just as the shooting died down and the last few Zeds were put down. The survivors gave the children cans of gasoline and sent them around to pour the gas on the bodies and burn them. A good way of dealing with the bodies. Mark took out his own pack of Marlboro Reds and lit one with his only working Zippo, and took a long drag. A camera-man from Time was embedded with Mark and his unit and was always looking for his next big shot. What was better then two battle weary soldiers taking a breather. And they were from different services. He came from nowhere and took the shot. Mark had his cigarette hanging loosely out of his mouth and Clarks was just sitting there with it in her fingers. The mixture of smoke and ash made it the shot of the decade. That a lot of people might not live to see.

End chapter 2 Chapter 3 in the works




THE DAY THE DEAD WALKED

(SNIP!)

Hi. I'm the original author of The Dead of Winter, the story which this was a direct cut-and-paste of. I posted it on /zom/ in 7chan about a year ago, then made it publically available to anyone who wanted to read it online (it's here: www.thegreathippo.com/deadofwinter/1.html). I've removed the story here because the above poster is a plagiarizing douchebag who decided to steal someone else's story work and try to take credit for it (and even, apparently, looked into getting it published). A few points against that:

* The above poster's MySpace page says he's 15. A 15 year old did not write this story.
* 'The Dead of Winter' makes a lot more sense as a story name than 'The Day the Dead Walked' (seriously, wtf), especially since one of the characters--both in his copy and my copy--actually say the line. That was intended, of course.
* I actually have several original rough digital drafts. And a hard-copy I made at Kinko's around the same time I wrote it. Plus, several marbelized notebooks filled with hand-written rough drafts of the first few chapters. Most of that is stuff I can't show you, but if it becomes a serious issue, I can use a scanner to provide the hand-written notes.

I'd really appreciate it if an administrator could come in here and just annihilate this page. And maybe ban the douchebag for life. If you're an administrator and you need evidence of malfeasance, email me at devorn@thegreathippo.com--I'll provide all the evidence I can manage.

On a final note, I have every intent of taking The Dead of Winter down--not because plagiarizing douchebags are claiming they wrote it, but because I'm going to be making a major revision and rewrite aimed for publication and I'd rather not have it up and about during that pro

The End of hope

The End of Hope

SGT629

Zombie Assault Force

General

Fear; its powers take hold of all my judgment and hope. All that matters to me is the next breath of air, the next heartbeat, and the next step that takes me. My legs pump nonstop, my heart thunders in my chest. My muscles scream bloody murder for even a brief respite; but my mind knows what my muscles don’t. I ran from room to room, the walls seem to close in on me like a sarcophagus’. I crane my neck to confirm my suspicions; they’re right behind me. Their eyes, like bottomless pits, stared back at me with one desire in their minds; fresh meat. “You’ll have to work for your meal!” I hollered at the top of my lungs. They stopped chasing me and I soon knew why. At full speed, I rammed into the wall blocking me. I was cornered, unarmed, and I was on the menu. “Is this how it ends?” I asked to no one. I looked through the skylight and prayed. They just began to enclose me. I remember how it began for me. It was the Monday before Halloween. We listened for the sweet sound of the bell to let us out of hell itself. It rang clear and true to the hearts of all the kids racing out to the buses awaiting them. But something was amiss. I could tell right away; not a single engine was running and not one driver was in their bus. I climbed into the nearest bus only to see blood everywhere and a fleshless corpse locked in an eternal scream. I ran as hard as I could to the bus at the front of the line screaming for kids to follow. As they boarded the stench of death swelled up in my nostrils making the cafeteria lunch I had eaten seem even more repulsive. I looked for the cause of the stench and I saw Middle school students crawling limping and moaning towards us at a pace fit for the dead. After we got everyone onto the bus and slammed the doors with a satisfying click, the zombies reached us and began to scratch and roar at the kids on the bus. “Hang on!” I shouted as I started the bus and slammed on the gas. We fled out of the school parking lot and made it to route four. “Where are we going?!” asked nearly fifteen horrified kids.

You choose my destiny

Page 4-Fight

Page 6-Flight

Page 8-Surrender

FIGHT

“I say we go from house-to-house, get weapons and ammo, and find a defendable position.” I said to the kids on the bus. “Let’s just go to a gun store!” one kid shouted out. “This is Maryland! When was the last time you’ve been to a gun store in Maryland?” I shouted back. We reached an agreement with my plan and set off to gather every gun we knew of; then we’d go to the Sam’s Club and barricade ourselves in. We went to each house collecting weapons until we got to my house. I gathered my guns, knifes, swords, and my chainsaws when I walked out the garage to see zombies circling the bus. I called one of my friends on the bus and told him my plan. I revved the chainsaws and roared as I ran towards their rank. I swung left and right in a horrible fury. I hacked and slashed until I got to the doors of the bus. They grabbed my bag of guns and a few kids opened fire on the horde. I jumped into the driver seat and locked the doors. I threw it in reverse and ran over dozens of the foul dead. I was going too fast to see a huge ditch which flipped the entire bus on its side right out side of one of my neighbor’s houses. We fought the zombies all the way to the house but only a few of us made it inside. We were the unlucky ones. As soon as we turned around zombies poured through the living room. We fought until the guns were out of ammo, my chainsaws ran out of gas and we became too tired lift the heavy swords. “Run!” I cried and we ran through the house becoming more and more separated that soon enough I ran alone. I ran from room to room, until I was boxed in and completely surrounded. “Is this how it ends?” I asked of no one. Silently I prayed as the foul stench of death surrounding me; and the razor sharp teeth found the flesh they craved.

Flight

“I say we go as far north as we can, maybe even Alaska.” I said to the kids on the bus. “Why would that help?!” one kid shouted out. “Because zombies have no body heat; they’ll just freeze!” I shouted back. We reached an agreement with my plan and set off go North. We made it to a gas station and we got all the food, water, clothes, and maps as we could. We raided Safeway and stole all the food we could fit on a school bus. Some of the older kids went to RadioShack and got all the radio equipment they could find. I ordered a group to find every single container with a lid to fill with diesel. After that we were off to Alaska. Five days after we started we had gained a couple cars we found with keys still in them. We used them to push the cars that were abandoned after the attack out of our way. We got so far with so little contact with the zombies that when we found a road blocked by cars and zombies most of us went into a panic. I shifted to reverse and backed up as fast as I could. “There’s another route three miles back!” I heard from our designated navigator. “I got a signal from the army! They’re coming to get us!” one of the radio kids said. I wasn’t about to wait for them so I told the kid to give them our heading and floored it. If rescue was here I wasn’t about to miss it. The two capture cars rammed obstacles out of my way and I drove on full speed ahead. “Choppers!” somebody yelled out. I looked around for zombies; seeing none I turned on the bus’s strobe lights and the chopper descended. Five men got off and approached the bus. They were armed and they weren’t wearing army uniforms. “Don’t open the doors!” I screamed too late. The kids in the back were already pouring out of the back. The men opened fire killing all of the survivors. I roared as I gunned the engine and rammed their helicopter into smithereens. I opened the door and limped into a building off the side of the road. Zombies came from everywhere surrounding me. I ran from room to room, until I was boxed in and completely surrounded. “Is this how it ends?” I asked of no one. Silently I prayed as the foul stench of death surrounding me; and the razor sharp teeth found the flesh they craved.

Surrender

“I don’t care.” I said to the kids on the bus. “As far as we know everyone is dead except us. I’m going home.” “You’re just giving up? What about us? What about you?” one kid asked. I didn’t reply. I drove to my house got out and left them behind. I went inside and drank a lot of hard liquor letting the burning sensation wash away the truth. A joke ran through my mind “wine’s fine but liquor’s quicker.” I sat down in a leather chair as “Thriller” played ironically on my iPod speakers. My brother came down just as I passed out only it wasn’t my brother. My brother’s neck wasn’t supposed to hang like that. I had a dream; an awful dream of loneliness and hunger. All I wanted to do was eat meat, the fresher the better until I wasn’t alone with my hunger. I awoke and saw the world through different eyes. I don’t even think I was using my eyes. I smelled blood and death. I had never smelled something so good. I wanted more. I wanted to taste it; to feel it’s lifelessness in my mouth. I looked down and it was just blood all over the floor. I have never been so disappointed. I walked to the door and opened it looked around and saw zombies. I knew they were dead yet I could hear them talking. I walked over and saw my parents. “How are you feeling bro.” my brother asked without moving his mouth. “So hungry…” I tried to say but all that came out was moaning. That didn’t seem to make a difference to them. “That school bus fell over at the ditch. Let’s get them” my mother, the most peaceful person I knew, was advocating cannibalism! But I was too tired to argue; we walked over to the bus and crawled in the broken door. I could feel their life in my stomach, my hunger rose like a serpent coiled to strike and I jumped on the nearest kid and bit down hard. It tasted so good it was the only thing I could think about. All my memories, my experiences were gone; all that was left was the hunger and it would never be sated. That was the last time I remember anything other than hunger. Now all life has been extinguished. We shamble on trying to fill a hunger that can never be filled. There is no death just rot. We can’t be happy or sad but we feel constant agony. As our bodies decompose the agony grows. Each step we take we continue to degrade until we can move no farther. We rot until the end of time wasting away until nothing remains of us bought agony.