“Ass”, Dave said.
Jason got up to his feet. He was a little shaky on his legs. Margie caught him.
“Thanks, kiddo. Now come on, we need to get to the base. Dave, I heard you fill in our new friend. We need to hurry.” Jason bumped into the walls on his way out of the gun shop.
“Is he always like that?”, Margie asked.
“Usually, he’s not a morning person, either”, Dave replied.
They met with Jason outside of the shop, who was looking at the two corpses on the floor.
“Come on, we don’t have time for him.” Jason made his way to the nearest exit that he remembered.
“Goodbye, Paulie, and thank you”, Margie whispered at the scene.
The group made their way to the exit. Jason stopped and looked down at Kara, a look of terror frozen on her remaining eye.
“Come on-oh-shit”, Jason stood at the doorway, the parking lot was littered with zombies. Dave’s car was on the other end. It would be too risky to run over to it.
“What do we do?”, Margie asked.
“Should we fight our way out?”, Dave asked.
“Noise, Margie, you said they go to noise, right?”, Jason said excitedly.
“Well, yes, but…”
“Dave, uh, sorry about your car, man.”
“What do you mean?” Dave asked.
Jason fished around his pocket for the car keys. Remembering he had grabbed them a second before they made their way to the mall. Jason looked back.
“Okay, get ready to run. We’re going to head for the road under the highway over there. That should take us to the direction of the evacuation site”, Jason said.
He pressed the PANIC button on the car keys.
Dave’s car began to make one of the most annoying noises known to man…a typical car alarm.
The zombies turned their heads to the source of noise and began to make their way towards it.
“AW, NO! Not the blue rider!”, Dave yelled.
“The blue-what?”, Margie chuckled.
“We can mourn the death of the blue rider in a second, right now we need to…” Jason was interrupted by a loud explosion off in the distance.
A building in the adjacent city had just exploded and was beginning to collapse. The falling building slammed into another building. The noise shook the very ground that the group stood on as they watched in sheer awe.
They could hear the windows exploding, the bricks hitting the floor, some bricks even landed in the mall parking lot.
“Five seconds, Jay. Five. Seconds! That would have been enough noise, right there!”, Dave yelled.
“Well, it didn’t die in vain, and say good-bye, who knows when we’ll see the blue rider again!”, Jason yelled back as he started running towards the road.
Dave and Margie followed quickly.
A Walk to Remember
“What do you think will happen when we get to the evacuation center, Jay?”, Dave asked.
“I don’t know. They’ll take us somewhere far away that not even the zombies will touch. Nebraska, probably”, Jason said with a smile.
“Or maybe South Dakota!”, Margie chimed in.
The group shared a much-needed laugh. The road they traveled was littered with the occasional body, but most of them were not zombies.
“Handiwork of those men from earlier, I guess”, Margie said
“That’s right, you mentioned the men in the truck shooting people”, Dave replied.
“Well, hopefully all that, and…all of this will be gone soon. I hope they take us somewhere that’s nice and green”, Jason calmly said.
“I lost a lot of people since this started. I saw my father die right in front of me, shredded apart by those things. Then the people I was with, I lost them, too”, Margie sadly said.
“Well, you won’t lose us”, Dave said.
“Yeah, we’ve been through a lot, like, paintball. We used to do that when things were normal”, Jason said.
“Paintball. That’s it?”, Margie said. “You guys are funny.”
“Well, no, there were other things, like, rock climbing! That was dangerous”, Dave quickly said.
“Dude, we never went rock climbing”, Jason replied.
“Well, she didn’t know that!”
Margie laughed.
“If that was funny, this whole thing, really, really must have gotten you down”, Dave said.
“Well, yeah…”, Margie said.
An awkward silence filled the air.
“So, what did you do before this, Margie”, Jason asked.
“I volunteered at church. My dad was the pastor there. It wasn’t much, and sometimes I hated it, but, I’d give anything to go back to it now”, she said.
“I was a bank teller. It’s amazing how much of themselves people reveal when you handle their money”, Jason said.
“Oh, anything good? I always had a feeling that there was good in people, even after seeing all…”, Margie was interrupted.
“No, they were bastard covered bastards with bastard filling”, Jason quickly said back. “I always wondered how the world would be like if there weren’t any people around at all, just for a day. Well, be careful what you wish for, I suppose.”
“Look.” Margie pointed to a dimly lit construction sign that read.
“EVAC ONE MI – “
Most of the light bulbs that make up the sign, it’s orange paint was scratched heavily, and it was moved around.
“Oh damn, look at this”, Dave said. He was pointing the sign’s tethering chain, which was snagged on a truck that had driven off the nearby highway.
The group investigated the truck, but saw only a badly decayed body snapping it’s jaws sitting in the driver’s seat.
Jason snickered a bit at the hat it wore. It read, “Keep on Truckin’” .
Margie and Dave looked at him with their eyes wide open.
“What?! It’s delicious irony, ‘cause you know, he can’t truck…any…more. You guys suck, come on!”, Jason snapped.
“Dave, what did you do before all of this?”, Margie asked.
“Well, I used to work with animals. I loved those things, but, I don’t want to think how they’re doing back at the environmental center without me”, Dave said with a hint of sadness in his voice.
“Come to think of it, I’ve barely seen any animals since this whole mess started”, Jason said
“Well, animals are smart, whenever there is a crazy natural disaster, they sense it first and leave. Who knows, this is probably nature thinning out an overpopulating world”, Dave replied.
“Or, God.” Margie said.
“Yes, or God”, Dave sheepishly replied.
“Look. There it is”, Jason said loudly.
“It’s the base! There’s a lot of dust coming out of the ground! That must be one of the helicopters. Come on!”, Dave yelled!
The group ran to the base as fast as they could go. The gates were wide open, almost welcoming them inside.
Margie caught a glimpse of a beautiful white dove flying overhead holding what looked like an olive branch in it’s beak. The sight filled her with hope and dread all at the same time.
“Margie! Come on! They’re gonna leave without us!”, she heard one of the friends yell.
She ran after them.
The End of All Things
The group arrived to their base, and was headed to the path of a helicopter awaiting take off. Inside, they saw many people, some bleeding and looking outside at the group suspiciously. The men in uniform told them to stop and pointed their guns at them.
“GET BACK! WE’RE FULL!”, the soldier yelled. He was slowly boarding the helicopter as he had his gun fixed on Jason and then Dave.
“It’s only the three of us. We came all this way!”, Jason yelled.
“We’re NOT infected!”, Dave yelled.
“You must have room for a few more”, Margie said to him.
“GET OUT, NOW! WE’LL SEND SOMEONE BACK FOR Y
OU!”, the man yelled, as he strapped himself in. He got on his radio. “Alpha, this is Saving Grace, prepare evac for possible carriers. Over.”
No one responded.
“THEY’LL COME FOR YOU!” His voice was barely audible over the engines at this point. The aircraft began to lift off the ground.
Dave fell to his knees. “No.”
“Oh, no, no”, Margie said.
“Jason looked back and saw that they had stumbled on to a minefield of bodies. There was a huge battle here. Bodies of men, women, and children littered the entire base. The corpses of army men still in their combat fatigues were all among them. Dave quickly got up when he noticed the corpse that lay next to him.
“Let us on!”, Margie yelled.
At this point, the helicopter was already over their heads. The group shielded their face from the dust and debris that lifted from the blades.
“No one’s coming for us”, Jason said, all hope gone from his voice.
“Jay…these bodies. Only a few of them were infected. They are covered in bullet holes.” Dave said with much fear in his voice.
Margie kept her eyes on the helicopter. She saw a commotion going on inside. Picking up a soldier’s gun and peering through the scope, she was able to get a better look.
There were infected aboard the aircraft. They were turning and attacking the survivors inside.
“Oh, God”, Margie was able to mutter. “They’re dead, they’re all... oh, God.”
“What’s happening?!”, Jason yelled. He looked at the helicopter flying erratically. It began to veer in different directions and then drop. It lifted a little bit.
Margie was able to see the soldier who they were just talking to get his neck bitten into by a young blonde girl wearing pajamas. She almost seemed to look directly at Margie as she bit into the soldier, his blood covering her little mouth.
“It’s going down. Oh shit, it’s coming down!”, Dave yelled.
The aircraft tried to make a clumsy landing and Margie was able to see a few people fall out of the helicopter. It came in towards their direction before pulling up one more time.
“Margie, what do you see?”, Dave asked.
She stood silent, fixated on watching the battle through her scope. She considered trying to shoot at the machine, but thought it would make no difference.
“The pilot is dead”, She coldly replied to him.
A zombie covered one of the pilots’ face with it’s hands before biting into him, she just saw the blood pouring out of him.
The machine began to spin. More people spilled out and landed nearby with horrible thuds.
“Oh shit”, Dave whispered.
The helicopter crashed into the ground with a loud, earth-shattering explosion. It was less than 100 feet away from the group. Dust and rocks hit the friends.
“This is it, isn’t it?”, Jason said.
The group watched, they froze as they saw several, dozens, then hundreds of the slaughtered corpses rise. The explosion gave them that final push to get up and seek out new food. The undead rose all around the group and began to make their way over to their meal.
Margie held Dave’s hand.
Jason pulled out one of the guns he had taken from the shop in the mall.
“I always knew it’d end this way”, he said.
“Ass”, Dave said quietly, but with a smile.
Dave pulled out his shotgun and cocked it.
Margie let go of Dave’s hand. He noticed tears pouring down her cheek as she shakily pulled out her father’s gun.
The three looked all around them. They were utterly surrounded and the gap between them and the dead was getting smaller and smaller.
“Well, this is great and all, but is anyone going to shoot?” Dave said.
Jason took aim and fired at the closest zombie. It was a man with a Bluetooth headset strapped to his ear still.
“I fucking hated those things”, he said as he fired another shot to put him down for good.
“Remember, like it matters, but shots to the head bring them down, for good!”, Dave yelled.
Dave fired his shotgun at the crowd, bringing down several at once.
“There are guns on the floor! They could still have ammo in them!”, Margie yelled.
Dave nodded and fired off another shell into a group of zombies.
Jason fired into a crowd of the monsters and after a little while, he began to think if he should save one bullet for himself at the end.
“Fuck it”, he fired off the last round in the Desert Eagle and smiled at the sound the bullet made ripping through a hungry zombie’s head.
He pulled out another handgun from his jacket’s pocket, and began to fire.
Click
Click
“I’m out!”, Dave yelled.
“Here, make it count!”, Jason replied as he ran to Dave, handing him another gun. “One left” He thought to himself.
Margie fired her gun carefully, making sure to save as many bullets as she could. The gap between them and the dead still grew smaller and smaller. The sickening moans of the monsters caused the entire group to shake periodically.
“Livin’ the dream, eh Dave?”, Jason yelled.
“Sure, why not!?”, Dave yelled back as he fired another shot.
Click
“Shit!”, Jason said to himself and threw the gun at the nearest zombie. His foot hit something hard. It was one of the soldiers’ assault rifles.
“Always wanted to use one of these”, he said to himself again.
Squeezing the trigger, the gun fired in 3-round bursts. “Nice!”, he said to himself as he shot a few more of them before the magazine emptied.
As Jason was about to throw it, the gun had the grenade attachment on it, he felt a weight in that end.
“Always wanted to try this”, he thought. He looked for the trigger, found it, and fired midway into the crowd of undead.
A huge explosion sounded as the shell exploded, bringing down many zombies with it.
“JESUS H. CHRIST! WHAT WAS THAT!”, Dave yelled.
“It was pure awesome, that’s what it was!”, Jason yelled.
Click
“Shit!”, Dave exclaimed.
Jason heard it and handed him the last gun.
“Do it for the both of us”, Jason said as he picked up another gun off the floor.
Margie’s gun was empty at this point. Standing there and staring at the horde, she attempted to grab at a dead soldier’s pistol that was still in the holster. The corpse got up and grabbed her and opened its mouth at her arm.
“MARGIE!”, Dave yelled. He shot the solider in the nick of time.
“Thanks”, she said as she quickly drew the gun and fired at a zombie right behind Dave in one fluid motion.
“My kind of woman”, he said.
The group was all but overwhelmed at this point. They were backed into a wall of sandbags. Firing the last of the assault rifle into the crowd in front of them, Jason felt cold, bony hands grabbing him and trying to pull him over the sandbag wall.
He looked down at the hands and laughed at the colorful nail polish.
“No!”, Dave yelled and tried to shoot at the zombie grabbing his best friend.
Click
Click
Click
Jason pulled the hand off and smacked her with the butt of his gun.
“Relax, even when they were alive, they couldn’t keep their hands off of me”, Jason said with a sad smile. His arm began to bleed a little bit.
“Margie, it was nice meeting you”, Jason said
“Dave, thanks for being my best friend. You were always there when I needed you. Now it’s my turn”, Jason said with tears in his eyes. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Yelling, he jumped over the sandbag wall and began hitting zombies closing in on his friends with the butt of the gun. He quickly picked up a sheathed combat knife and pistol off of the floor. He fired the remaining rounds into random undead and
then began stabbing at the zombies closing in on him with the knife with intense ferocity.
When They Come Page 9