Brain Dead

by Alice Carina

  "Attention survivors," Milly said, her voice cracking as she said 'survivors'. This was further proof that she was bothered about saving the survivors. Definitely not a good sign. She paused, waiting for their attention, even if we couldn't be sure if they were listening or not.

  She looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. "You're absolutely sure we have to save them, right?"

  I stared at her blankly. "Zombies or survivors. It's your choice."

  Milly frowned and turned back to the shopping centre. "Attention survivors. If you have access to a microphone or loud speaker, please respond."

  And so we waited. I was still uncertain about Milly, but so far she hadn't done any real harm. And she was doing what I had told her, but I was certain that there would be trouble later on. It all really came down to whether it was before or after we saved them that she caused trouble that really mattered.

  It was barely a minute before we heard their reply. "Who are you? What do you want from us?" The voice sounded pretty young, too.

  "We are just some of your fellow survivors that happened to be passing by," Milly said in a conversational tone. "We are offering our assistance to save you from your current... dilemma."

  There was silence after that. And it wasn't a good silence, like they were just weeping in happiness and were trying to regain their composure before they responded. No... This was the silence that meant they were wondering exactly how they were going to use this to their advantage while leaving us in a very bad position. I was wondering how they planned to do that while we waited. It seemed like it would be pretty difficult.

  "What exactly are you proposing?" he - whoever it was - asked skeptically.

  Milly glanced at me again, licking her lips and narrowing her eyes. I could see it in her expression; she was thinking about how to avoid saving them without making an even larger horde of the living dead gather right around the corner to our hiding place. Obviously she was still struggling to think of a solution from the way she gritted her teeth.

  "We have a plan, and if you follow our plan, all of you will escape unharmed. Well, if everything goes well that is. If you cooperate with us, and listen to our every command, we can have all of you out of there and away from the zombies by the end of the day," Milly said, but not very convincingly. There was an unusual amount of uncertainty in her voice, and I had a feeling she was doing it deliberately.

  "How can we trust you? You might just be doing all of this to bring about our deaths," a new voice said abruptly. This one was calm and sounded a lot wiser than the other. Probably the leader of the religious cult we had gathered in the building in front of us.

  "Why would we bother?" Milly asked, a note of disdain clear in her voice. "It doesn't look like you'll last much longer if we don't help you." She laughed cruelly, clearly amused by the prospect.

  "I recognize that voice," he said angrily. "It is Milly. No wonder you wish our demise. Now I know we will surely be in danger if we listen to this plan of yours!"

  She had taken it too far. This is exactly what I had hoped wouldn't happen. I grabbed the microphone from her before she could do any more damage. I really shouldn't have let her go that far in the first place. Instead of yelling at her, I gave her a glare before turning back to the building. I ignored Milly's laughter as best I could as I tried to think about how I was going to convince them when I didn't like people. Kind of hard with no real social skills. Oh well, I had to try at least.

  "Don't listen to her," I began. "If you do not follow our plan, you will definitely die. All of you. So I suggest you at least listen to our plan before making assumptions." So far so good.

  Or so I thought. "Why are you helping that girl to deceive us?" he demanded. "The wicked will not be forgiven of their sins. Trying to kill your fellow man is an unforgivable act..."

  He continued to preach in a similar manner for almost ten minutes before he paused, for breath I assumed. Man was he long winded.

  "Why would I want to kill you?"

  "I do not know the minds of those twisted beings that would turn against their own kind in this world where we should stand united," he declared.

  "So, basically, it sounds crazy. Now, I can understand why you might be skeptical..." Really, I did understand. No one is to be trusted. "... However, we do have a pretty good reason to help you."

  "I will not be swayed by lies about helping your fellow man for the sake of survival," he interrupted.

  "I wasn't going to say anything like that. I was going to say that the horde gathering around you will attract a lot more zombies if you don't escape. We don't really want more zombies, so we want you gone. Simple as that. I would even suggest that we don't meet at all, not even after we get you out. I say we go our separate ways and never meet again."

  This brought another pause, but this one was better, like they were thinking over what I had said. "Why should we trust you? We could simply wait out these zombies until they lose interest."

  "Both you and I know that they'll break through the doors before you get a chance to escape."

  "We have God's protection," he replied simply.

  I rolled my eyes. Heh, how had that helped them so far? "You know, this reminds me of this joke I heard; this guy is stranded in the middle of the ocean, and each day a boat finds him and offers to help him, and he refuses each time, saying 'God will save me'. On the third day, he dies and goes to heaven. When he gets there, he goes to God and asks him why he didn't save him. God replied; 'What are you talking about? I sent three boats to save you.' Sounds kind of similar to this situation, huh?"

  Another long pause. "You think that you were sent to save us?" he asked, doubt in his voice.

  "I'm saying that you shouldn't pass up an offer to save you when it might be your only chance to survive. Think about it; why would we risk coming here at all to make sure you died? Seems kind of pointless to me."

  "What exactly is your plan?" he asked.

  Chapter twenty one

  Chapter twenty one: attack

  Matt's POV

  This was definitely not going the way I had hoped. Already, there were too many problems, and I knew that before long there would be even more. There were too many zombies in the area, the survivors didn't trust us - which was mostly Milly's fault - so they probably won't follow the plan, and already we were attracting attention to ourselves.

  I was watching the building mostly, just in case they tried something funny with their sniper, but whenever I looked down I could see the mass of zombies crowding the street. And I could see more and more of them drifting closer to our building. I was pretty sure Jake had noticed as well, but he gave no sign of concern. That actually worried me more.

  I didn't think Jake would risk his life in this plan, but it was looking more and more likely that he was deliberately drawing attention to us. I knew that we could easily escape before the first zombie managed to get to the door of the roof, especially since we had closed all the doors in the building beforehand, but I still didn't like it. We were in danger the longer we were here, so I wanted to finish this as quickly as possible, but it didn't seem likely with how unwilling the other survivors were to listen to us.

  I was sorely tempted to ignore what was happening and escape with Jake, just to make absolutely sure he wasn't in danger. It bothered me that we would have to leave the survivors to die, but I was willing to live with that burden if it meant he would be safe. Unfortunately, I figured the guy himself would struggle, a lot, and even when we were safe he probably wouldn't let it go. So, I decided I would only do that if it was an emergency.

  There were even more zombies gathering around our building, and when I looked at them through the rifle scope, I could see little groups forming around the doors and windows. It was really starting to bother me how they always seemed to know exactly when and where to attack. It didn't matter if you were in sight or smell range, they always seemed to know exactly where the doors and windows were.

  I was beginning to th
ink that Jake was right; the zombies were smarter than we knew. That would certainly explain how they were gathering at the doors that were on the other side of the building, nowhere near the speakers and the noise we were making. And yet they seemed to know that if they got into the building, it wouldn't matter where they were. All they had to do was find us.

  "Jake..." I said cautiously, motioning to the now violent movements of the zombies below. It wouldn't be long until they broke through the doors at the rate they were going.

  "I see them," he said, not even bothering to look down. This seemed slightly reminiscent of my childhood days when I would try to get the attention of my parents. They would give the same answer, and they would have the same expression as they said it, too. I was beginning to doubt how safe this plan really was. Because it wasn't looking good.

  That was when I heard a crash coming from the street. The zombies had broken through the door to our building. Now that they had, I could see a stream of the rotting flesh of zombies as they pushed their way inside. More than a few zombies were left with wounds from the broken glass, but it didn't slow them at all. It only left chunks of flesh clinging to the glass.

  "So, do you want to go through with the plan or not?" Jake said, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice the only sign of worry over the approaching zombies.

  There was silence for another minute while the survivors deliberated. Milly was looking like she wanted to kill someone as she glared at the shopping centre. I swear she wanted to burn a hole in the side of the building, and probably through the survivors as well, simply through the power of her anger. I was actually beginning to worry that she would succeed.

  "We have discussed your plan, and we have agreed that it is a good chance of survival," they said finally.

  I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought that we were finally, FINALLY, going to be able to get away from there. We still had to worry about getting away, but it wouldn't be as dangerous as it could have been if we had been forced to wait any longer. I was still annoyed, probably less so than Milly, but enough, that we had been forced to wait this long already.

  It was bad enough that we had to go out of our way to save them when they had gotten themselves into this mess in the first place, but they were ungrateful! All we had been met with was hostility and anger when we trying to save THEM! This was worse than the last homicidal survivors I had come across; at least they had been polite!

  "That's good," Jake said. It was kind of cute how he was trying so hard not to abuse them for being ungrateful brats. Even with all the effort he was putting into acting calm and composed, he was gritting his teeth and digging his nails into the concrete rooftop. I patted his head and he glared at me, but he seemed slightly less tense than he was.

  "Now," he said, the usual arrogance leaking into his voice. "I suggest you get moving before it's too late. Oh, and the last person to leave should tell us, so we can do all we can to draw attention away from where you come out."

  I wasn't sure what Jake was planning, but suddenly it wasn't just his life I was worrying about. No, from that evil smile, I would say that the only person out of both us and the other survivors was Jake himself. There were so many things wrong with that, but I was relieved that he didn't actually plan to risk his own life. Well, as relieved as I could be in this situation.

  There was a pause. "Understood. We will begin moving now. Keep yourselves safe now," the older guy said sarcastically. Seriously, even Jake wouldn't be this rude to someone who was saving his life! Wait... I saved his life... All he did was abuse me... There seems to be a flaw in my conclusion. Oh well, it doesn't matter; I'm nice enough for the both of us.

  Just as I was going to suggest we get the heck out of there and go home where it was safe, I heard another crash, this one much closer. Soon I could hear footsteps coming from the stairs behind us. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the door tremble from the first attack. I could hear the grunting of a LOT of zombies on the other side of the door.

  Definitely not a good sign.

  The door strained under the weight of the zombies. I could see the hinges practically being ripped out of the wall, and the door itself was bending under the weight. A crack appeared in the wood as I watched. We were trapped between zombies and an empty drop. This was definitely not a good sign.

  Chapter twenty two

  Chapter twenty two: escape

  Jake's POV

  Zombies breaking through the door was not exactly a comforting thought. And to think, it all could have been avoided simply by not having to have such a long conversation with the survivors. Great, just great. Now not only were we surrounded by zombies, but while we waited for the idiotic, useless, pathetic, ungrateful - I could go on - survivors to leave the shopping centre, there was every chance of being eaten.

  While we waited to be eaten by the flesh-hungry living dead, we started barricading the door - and really, by that point it was just pieces of wood hanging together by threads - with whatever we could find. Mostly it was just more pieces of wood, some cracked pieces of concrete and a ladder that Matt had found on the other side of the roof. It wasn't much, but by the time we had finished, it had slowed the zombies considerably.

  And now we were playing the waiting game. I wondered what exactly was the point of waiting there any longer, but it WOULD help... And it would make things so much easier later on. But I would also have to risk being cornered by the zombies and eaten alive. Why was I waiting again???

  I was spending some quality time leaning against the door - we took it in turns to add extra weight onto the door - when the other two turned to expectantly. Uh oh. It looked like they wanted to know the 'plan'. Or maybe they wanted to yell at me for getting them into this situation. Well, I knew Milly did, but was this really worse than a horde spanning blocks.

  Wait a bit and it just might. The door shuddered again behind me as the zombies pushed on it again.

  "Well?" they asked in unison.

  "What?" I asked as innocently as possible. Which wasn't very innocent. It might have been able to fool a three year old, but not adults that knew and distrusted me. Dang.

  "Why are we still here?" Milly demanded.

  "Zombies are scary?"

  Why did everyone always glare at me when I answered their questions? Really, they wanted answers, but if it wasn't the answer they wanted they always got so angry. Some people needed to go to anger management classes. Too bad those don't exist anymore. I could have had so much fun.

  "Jake, this is serious," Matt interrupted. Always the peacemaker, he looked pointedly at Milly as he said, "We did know that the sound would attract the zombies, but we kind of DO need to get out of here before they eat us."

  "True. But they aren't eating us yet, so we have some time," I added helpfully, earning me more glares.

  "Jake..." Milly said in a warning tone. Okay, okay, I did need to stop pulling their chains when they were in this kind of situation.

  "We are waiting just so we can make the whole horde focus on this area while they escape. It doesn't need everyone, so if it makes you feel better, YOU can leave," I told her, smiling in that way that always seemed to creep people out.

  "Why didn't you say so earlier?!" Milly yelled.

  "Because only one person can leave," I said pointedly. "So I thought it would be better if we all went down together." A total lie, but it worked well in guilt tripping her.

  "Why only one?" Matt asked curiously.

  "Well..." Time to be honest. "It was originally going to be just you, but now the zombies are here, so someone has to hold the door." So upsetting; I could have been home by now if it wasn't for these zombies!

  "Why just Matt?" Milly asked in confusion.

  "Rifle." I thought that would answer their questions, but it only seemed to make them more confused. Hehe my work here is done.

  Just as I was going to explain - really, I was! I wasn't going to mess with them any more! Honest! - the door shuddered and anoth
er crack splintered through the wood.

  "This isn't really the best time, so maybe you should go?" I said, wincing as the wood scraped my back. Ouch. That was going to hurt in the morning.

  Milly didn't need to be told twice. She took one look at the sorry state of the door, winked at Matt and shrugged her shoulders. "See you later then!" she called back as she jumped the gap between our building and the next. "At least I hope I will..." she added quietly.

  What kind of last words to us was that? Couldn't she think of anything better?! We might die here because of some stupid mess SHE helped cause and she was abandoning us with THAT?!!! And I thought the religious fanatic survivors were bad. I was really starting to see why they kicked her out!

  Matt looked troubled, but he quickly hid his worry as he stood next to me, leaning on the door to help lessen the strain. He looked surprisingly at ease despite our situation. Knowing him, it would be something like trust or friendship or something like that that was easing his fear. It was hard to say when lately he had been acting so bipolar.

  "So," he said with a forced smile. "What's the plan?"

  Just then, we could hear the squeak of the survivors' speaker. "I'm the last one," said a woman, probably middle aged by the sound of her voice. "I'm leaving now, and I suggest you do the same. If you're still there at all." Good point.

  "Okay," I said quickly. "I'll hold the door, you go shoot the glass."

  "Glass?" Oh, right. I hadn't gotten to explaining my plan.

  "Doors and windows. Of the shopping centre. We want them to shatter. Let the zombies in, okay?" I explained as simply as possible, considering the situation wasn't very kind to the brain.

  Realization spread across Matt's face. "I'm on it!" he said, already sprinting to the edge of the roof and his rifle.