Until The End

by Brown, Derek

  March 20, 2014

  Nothing new today we have been training hard I think Anthony is trying to take some aggression out on me; he beat the crap out of me this morning during our sparring session. We listen to the news almost on the hour every hour but it is just more and more stories of death, doom, and gloom. The stories of cities being overrun were beginning to filter in slowly at first but have become to appear more rapidly. The radio reporter said the Los Angeles was not safe to go near that the infection rate there was astronomical due to the population level. News came in that New York, Washington DC, and most the northeastern states were considered lost causes, having been overrun by the infected, no safe zones were known to exist in those areas. Chicago was hit extremely hard and experts believed that due to their stance on gun control and lack of guns that the citizens there were unable to fend of the attacks of the infected as well as other cities had been able to. They also said that certain areas in Fresno were not safe to transverse any longer including the tower district where it was now considered a death sentence to enter. Reports were coming in that a gang had set up along the area of Blackstone Ave and Dakota Ave and they were demanded any who entered to pay a toll. The reporter said the Fresno Police Department was stretched too thin to currently handle the developing situations across the city. Also the area of Fresno that ran along the 99 was not considered safe with eye witnesses reporting the infected swarming everywhere there. My wife threw up her hands even at the end of the world the only thing the news was reporting was death and crime. She busted up laughing, I chuckled, Danielle began laughing, and even the stoic Anthony cracked a smile at the truth of her joke. The news report did say that the Fresno Airport was still considered a safe haven for all to come for safety. It said that the Air National guard and the Army National Guard Units were patrolling and keeping the area safe. We all discussed going there again but I still felt like it was a bad idea but I did finally break down. We all decided that maybe we should at least check it out. So Scarlett and I decided that we are going to go out and check it tomorrow morning. Anthony is still not healed enough and Scarlett refused to allow me to go out by myself so this was the only compromise that could be made. I told her we were going to have to find something that didn’t quite show off her amazing figure quite so much. That was because we didn’t want her to be able to be identified as a female easily while we were doing recon on the Safe Zone. Too many crazies out there so it was better to be safe than sorry, you know.

  March 21, 2014

  It is pouring down rain outside right now and as I watch it come down against the window I became lost deep in thought. I had awoken this morning before anyone and I find myself sitting here writing. Pondering the future and what the next step should be. Truth is I am scared to go out there with Scarlett, I mean she will be using the crossbow and have one of the AR15s so she will be prepared. Still going out into the unknown at times like these, we don’t know if we are going to be coming back. Anthony just got up and apparently he couldn’t sleep either. He has been productive though and he had found an old set of walkie talkies in the garage that I had forgotten about. He was rigging them now so that they worked and we could be in contact while we were out there. I seriously wonder if he ever sleeps, he is always awake, I mean I barely sleep but it seems like he is never asleep. We got everything packed up and ready. We both got dressed in all black clothing to maybe give us some sort of advantage. With it being overcast and raining the black would blend in even better than I had originally imagined it would. I will write more when we get back, wish me luck.

  March 23, 2014

  So we got back late last night, bloody, beaten, and plus one military Humvee with a 50 caliber gun on top parked out front of the house and a new house guest. We had begun our journey to the Safe Zone early the morning of the 21st. It was pouring raining and we decided to take my truck until we got a couple miles from there we would continue on foot. It was slow going between the cars being everywhere, watching for the infected, and the rain pouring down. We made several short cuts out of the sidewalks and we became grateful that we had brought the truck. We saw several infected staggering around mindlessly they would come our direction but we left them in the rearview mirror as we kept driving. They seemed to be drawn to the noise of the engine of the truck. Scarlett asked out loud.

  “Where is everyone? Where did they all go?” I had to admit that it was extremely eerie to see the lack of people. It was a ghost town besides the infected milling about.

  “I don’t know. I really just don’t know what is going on.” I replied. As we got closer to the Safe Zone we noticed that the amount of cars in the road began to lessen and we saw fewer and fewer infected in the area. The airport was only about 15 miles away from the house but it took us over an hour to get within two miles of the place. We parked on the side of an old white warehouse building next to the golf course called Airways and located on the north end of the airport. Once we turned the car off we noticed how quiet it was in the area, the normal sounds of people were completely absent. At first we didn’t think anything of it as we got out and got our gear ready.

  “You hear that?” Scarlett asked me. She looked around and grabbed her rifle and slung it over her shoulder; she placed a large knife in her belt. Then she leaned in and grabbed her crossbow, I watched her and I thought to myself damn was she hot.

  “I don’t hear anything, to be honest.” I paused as I grabbed my bow out of the truck it was a Bowteck Carbon Knight Black Ops compound bow it had been a gift from my wife on my 30th birthday. I also put on the kukris and I slung my katana over my shoulder and put a 9mm in a holster on my belt. I wanted to keep quiet so I tried to pick gear that would work but still keep it quiet.

  “That’s the problem; there is no sound, no people, no infected. nothing. It’s quiet.” She said as she was looking around and then we locked the truck up. Cautiously we moved to the corner of the warehouse to get a better view. Slowly we looked around the corner and observed the airport. Located in front of us was our first obstacle the fence that had always surrounded the airport it was about six feet tall chain link with sharp barbwire on top of it. As far as we could see in either direction the fence just went on and on with no cover I really didn’t want to move along the fence. As we moved to investigate the fence Scarlett saw it first though there was a hole cut into the fence about ten feet to our right. As we moved closer we could tell someone had tried to hide the hole because the links didn’t match up quite right. We saw that it was easily pulled apart and we both slipped in quickly. We slowly made our way across the runway and saw several large green tents across from us towards where the terminals were located. The rain did make it hard to see but as we peered through the rain we couldn’t see any movement at the tents. We both crouched down and slowly moved inching our way towards the tents. It must have taken us about 15 minutes to make it across the runway but it seemed to drag on forever, like it took us hours. My muscles were aching and protesting against me crouching and moving so slowly. As we neared the tents we still saw no movement but as we got about 10-15 feet away we saw why. The tents were scorched with burn marks and it smelled like sulfur from a fire, this is what we must have seen burning. There must have been a terrible fire so many of the tents were burnt and we began to see bodies of people who had been too slow to get out. As we moved further into the safe zone the absence of noise became more apparent. We both moved quietly afraid to upset the silence. The stench death was almost like an impenetrable cloud of doom hanging over us weighing down on us. Scarlett grabbed my hand and pulled me close to her and she whispered in my ear. I could feel her hot breath on my cheek as she spoke softly.

  “Just hold me for a second please. I don’t understand it all how this could happen. It is so awful. How can we survive this, they had trained soldiers and bigger guns than we do. What can we do that they couldn’t do, how can we survive this?” When I turned and looked into her face I saw tears falling down and her eyes were full of sad
ness and despair. The death surrounding us and the fear of all this was setting in upon her. I held her close squeezing her tightly pulling her into my arms as the rain fell upon us. I just wanted to take the pain away from her if only for a moment. We stood here clasping each other trying to shield each other from the pain and the suffering around us.

  “We will survive because we must. Okay we can overcome this, everything else we have overcome this is just the next challenge in our story. Now let’s just go a little bit further and check for any survivors or anything else that might come in handy. There must be supplies around here somewhere. Be careful though and keep your guard up.” Then I turned around and started to disengage myself from her and I saw movement toward a tent underneath the flight tower it was a quick movement. It was gone in an instant before I could exactly pinpoint what it had been through the falling rain. I turned towards Scarlett and motioned in that direction and I pulled an arrow out and cocked and she did the same with her crossbow. A section of the building had fallen down in the path leading directly towards the tent that we were aiming for and so we had to go around a whole row of tents to the east in order to bypass the wreckage. As we turned the corner and moved in the direction of the flight tower we both stopped dead in our tracks. A little boy stood there in the middle of the path he looked about four or five years old with dark brown hair and he had dark black skin. He was standing still not moving with his back towards us staring at something in front of him. Neither Scarlett nor I moved for a minute we both just stood frozen in place watching him as the rain fell down around us. I couldn’t tell you how long we both stood rooted there until slowly Scarlett moved towards him quietly reaching her hand out. I came up behind her covering her with my arrow still cocked pointed at the boy cautiously. All of a sudden the little boy spun facing us, he must have heard us. Time froze as Scarlett was still about five feet away from him and I was two feet behind her. His yellowish gray eyes starred at us and we both noticed he was missing part of his right cheek bone as his flesh was hanging. We could see his white teeth through the hole in the skin and his veins were bulging out of him like they were going to explode from the inside out. Scarlett and I stood rooted in place and it seemed like it was all a dream in slow motion. The dream ended rather abruptly as the little boy let out a loud shrill shrieking noise almost like a bird call. Without thinking I brought my bow up and let the arrow fly and it hit its mark as his head exploded. The screaming sound stopped as quickly as it had started. Then we finally heard the noise that had been absent as several of the infected began to appear. We heard their echoing screams calling out like they were answering the call of the little boy. The terminals were located above us like in most airports the windows faced the landing strip so people could watch their loved ones departing. Those same windows now became filled with faces of the infected as the pressed and mashed themselves to get a view of us. There were so many staring down at us and as they pushing against the window panes we could then windows starting bungle. Then out of nowhere infected started coming out from the tents staggering towards us. Scarlett and I began to fire arrows at the infected closest to us. Then we both turned and ran as fast as we could. The tents became a maze like the something out of a horror film. I was unsure what direction to go and we just kept turning and frantically trying to get away from the sounds behind us. Then Scarlett tripped and fell. I turned to help her up and three of the infected came around from the corner to the left of us. Then five more came from the right corner, so I dropped my bow by Scarlett and pulled my kukris out and I stood over Scarlett ready for them to come. There were tents to our left and right creating a corridor almost, I could see the runway in front of us but there was no way we could reach it right now. I lashed out with all my strength against the first infected to come within arm’s length of us and I chopped its head off. Before I could even think or breathe two more came at us and I chopped an arm off of one and bent down brought the kukri behind the knee of the other one and it fell. I brought my kukri up into the skull the one whose arm I had cut off then I slammed the kukri into the head of the one on the ground. I savagely went after this little skinny infected guy wearing a green shirt and swung my kukri and his head rolled to the ground. Then I leaped at two more that were getting close to Scarlett. I brought both my arms up and I stabbed the blades into their heads as they fell to the ground. As they fell I tried to pull my blades free but I lost my grip because the handles were covered in infected blood. I never had noticed that it was black almost like tar and it was thick and stuck like rotten milk. I managed to get myself up right just in time. I turned towards another infected that was coming towards us from the right. I tackled it and punched its head in with my fist as hard as I could and its skull caved in, it stopped moving. I pushed myself up and pulled my katana out. Then I rushed the last two infected that had attacked us and cut one of their heads off in one single motion of the blade. The other infected I drove my sword into its chest pushing my blade all the way up into it so we were face to face. I could its teeth chopping to get a piece of me. Then I punched him and kept punching him until Scarlett had to pull me off. I was covered from head to toe in thick dark blood. As Scarlett pulled me off, my rage began to dispel and I almost forget where I was as I moved to attacked her. I pulled back and realized where I was at, quickly I turned away and retrieved my weapons and tried to wipe them clean. I was wiping the blades with my shirt trying to get the blood off. There was so much dark black blood it was impossible to get them clean.

  “Colin you almost attacked me, what’s wrong?” Scarlett turned towards me with fear in her eyes and tears rolling down her face. “Look what you did to these things!” Just as I was going to respond several loud howls sounded out and we both grabbed each and ran as fast as we could towards the runway. Then as we made it onto the pavement we turned and saw so many infected chasing us that we were both frozen at the sneer number of them. All of a sudden we both heard an engine roar to life. A beige military Humvee raced towards us and pulled up next to us. A guy in full ACUs and a combat helmet got out. He was covered in dried old blood and had big black sunglasses and we couldn’t really see his face clearly. He stood there for a moment not saying anything just sizing us up. As I stared back I couldn’t help but feel he did look odd familiar. Then something clicked as he tore his helmet off and I knew who he was.

  “Brother what the hell are you doing here and why did you piss those things off they were finally quieting down. I thought I might actually get a decent night’s sleep tonight.” He said as I looked at him with what must have been a dumb founded look on my face. It was my brother Anthony who was sergeant in the Army. He was literally sitting in front of me in the middle of the bloody end of the world.

  “Anthony, what the fuck is going on?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. My brain was still trying to wrap itself around what it was seeing.

  “Hell yeah it’s me but do you mind if we clear this up in a bit, we have hostiles approaching on our six? Do you remember how to operate the 50 cal.?” He was quickly getting back into the Humvee; he wasn’t really waiting for an answer. We quickly filed in behind him and slammed the doors as he floored the gas as the infected closed in on us. “Where to brother? Nothing like saving your brother’s life, all in a day’s work.” He said as he flashed me a quick smile as he chuckled as he winked at me. I swear I almost wanted to punch his cocky son of a bitch ass but I was too happy to see him. I didn’t have time to ponder the thought as I jumped up into the 50 cal. I began firing rounds to clear a path for us to get out. Anthony floored it and we were flying out of the side gate. Scarlett must have been explaining where to go because I noticed we were racing towards my truck. As we approached Anthony made a wide U-turn and we saw that the infected were not far behind us. We pulled up to the truck and I jumped down into the Humvee and we quickly told Anthony to follow us home as Scarlett and I got out. We ran over to the truck and jumped in and I started the engine quickly and it roared to life and I floored it. Th
e drive home was quick and fast we were weaving in and out of the abandon cars that littered the streets. At one point we were in such a hurry we jumped a curve and drove on the sidewalk. I am not going to lie; it felt like I was driving in Grand Theft Auto on the Xbox 360. Once we got close I made a couple loops and drive-byes past the house just to make sure no one was watching us. It was getting late by the time we actually pulled up to the house and got unloaded. Anthony followed us in and we were greeted by Danielle and a very suspicious Anthony, oh dear two Anthonys this is going to get confusing. Maybe we can call Danielle’s Anthony, Cupcake, a nickname I coined for him once, which is a better than the nickname I came up with for my brother, Dumbass. . They greeted us at the door and we sat down to explain what we had seen and what had happened out there. After they had digested all that we had to say they both just stood there starring at us. It was a lot to take it, the fact that the National Guard station had been overrun was shocking news. One thing thought we all agreed on was that it was time to start making some decisions.