A New Day

[noobbot]

Dan sat there, idly, his M1911 in his hand; the hard, warm wood beneath him. His head was in between his knees, and his arms held his knees together. The room wasn’t splendor at all; the walls were torn up, with scattered holes, and the wallpaper itself was peeling off. Even the floor had dirt and debris on it. The room he was in was particularly unkempt, and he was in a corner. No where to run; hiding was out of question.

The prospect of the end was near, though he’d survived. Had he really survived? Was it truly him, or another man?

One thing was clear: death was inevitable. It was going to get you some time, and now seemed his time. That son of a ~~~~~; ~~~~ him, whoever he was; decided the clock had run on too long for Dan. Dan, who’d conquered death so many times, was now going to succumb to its oppressive and absolute grip. He’d be a memory scorched on many a dead man’s mind, and a few of the living, too.

He was an unfortunate one; all those around him, everyone that interacted with him, seemed to die. Luck wasn’t one of the cards in his hand, and that bit him on the ~~~ many a time…


He was lying on his bed, when suddenly the world was turned upside down. The old comforts of home; the pillows, the cleanliness, fresh clothing, water, power, and hygiene – all gone; a memory. Not quite faded, and not forgotten, but a memory, nonetheless. This new world was one of filth and horror; gruesomeness and death; one of polar opposites.

As he was in his bed, gun fire erupted in the streets. When he had collected his thoughts and fully awoken, he stepped outside, in his underwear – a plain t-shirt and boxer shorts – to a terrible sight. In the streets, the police were battling people. In fact, one of the cops turned his gun on Daniel, only to be bitten by one of the lunatics he was previously focused on.

“What the ~~~~,” Daniel uttered. “What the ~~~~’s going on here? Get the ~~~~ away from my house!”

Daniel was a rather wealthy and successful lawyer, and he owned a fairly nice house in a well-respected community. He was single, unlike most of the other local owners, but he got along with them well. He, too, was respectable, and he’d helped many of his neighbors in civil court, for what ever needs they had, and he won 95% of his cases; a very high number in that world.

In an instant, that life was wiped, and the new Dan emerged. His former success no longer mattered; the courts didn’t exist any longer. Order, as he knew it, was erased. This new Dan was not a kind one, nor was he caring; survival and instincts consumed his thought. Any logic he possessed (he was a fairly intelligent man) was now put to the task of living; surviving.

He went back inside his home, put on blue-jean pants, got his keys, ran back out the door, and climbed into his Porsche convertible. He was going to get something, out of instinct, out of logic, but what? He couldn’t remember, but that didn’t matter. He knew where it was, and he pursued it.

His destination: his former workplace; his office.


It took him roughly forty-five minutes to reach his objective. He opened the door to his car, stepped out, and approached the door to his workplace. He removed his keys from his Porsche, revolved the key ring to another key, and he shoved it in the key slot on the door. He turned the key to the right, yanked on the door handle, and stepped inside.

Once he was inside, it dawned on him; what he wanted was his gun. His gun was a particular M1911 with a 4” barrel, which fired .45ACPs and accepted double-stack magazines. That was it.

He took a right, then a left, then went forward, to his desk; flanked it; pulled the drawer open. He removed his M1911 from the drawer, pulled open another container, and he inserted the magazine that was formerly inside that drawer. He pulled back the slide.

He was locked and loaded; prepared for the world outside. Well, he had 13 rounds to prepare for the world, all of which he’d use, and wisely at that.

When he turned to go back to the door, he found one of his former employees, an attractive female secretary (whom he’d engaged in intercourse with many a time), who was bleeding from her arm rapidly.

“It won’t ~~~~ing stop, Dan! It won’t stop bleeding,” she shouted, teary-eyed. Dan recoiled, but soon after, he wheeled around the desk and held the woman’s wound.

“Don’t worry, everything will be alright. Just keep some pressure on it. I’ll find a bandage,” Dan pacified the woman, and held her. She began whimpering and crying, and Dan held her tighter.

A few minutes later, he again instructed her to, “keep pressure on the wound,” and he went into the storage closet, where a few [large] bandages were. When he arrived again, the woman’s hands were completely blood soaked, and she occupied his chair.

He wrapped the bandage around her forearm, where the laceration was, and bound it with staples. “Thanks, Dan,” she complimented, as she slumped back in his chair, quickly becoming unconscious.

Dan slapped her cheeks, requesting, with every slap, “Get up! Wake up!”

She never did; not then, any ways.

Dan fell to his knees, his palms on his forehead; his fingers pulling on his hair. One of his compatriots – someone he’d known since the start of his business, and been rather close to – died, in his hands.

Look at how much blood there is! She must’ve lost 2 pints, just here! I should’ve seen it coming!

I need to sober up. I need to get over this. I can’t dwell on this. I need to get up.
But that was easier said than done. When he got up, he found himself weak, unwilling; on the verge of suicide. Then, he’d come his closest he’d ever been to actually pulling the trigger on himself. The cold, unforgiving steel barrel was pressed against his cranium, parting the nearby skin. His life had little meaning, or contained little pleasure, even prior to this disaster, however, now, things took a turn for the worst.

Why the ~~~~ should I persist? There’s no purpose…

He couldn’t bring himself around to doing it; after all, how much worse could life get? It seemed he was at the bottom-of-the-bottom now, and it might get better. It was just rioting; it’d all blow over, sooner or later…


Up until then, he’d been completely oblivious to a pain in his shoulder. Indeed, he hadn’t even noticed the pain, nor had he seen the blood leaking out. But it was there, and judging by the blood loss, he’d received the wound a little over an hour before then; when he was at his home.

The wound was a nasty one, located just below his left clavicle on his left shoulder. He’d been lucky whoever shot him hadn’t hit his neck, head, or his right arm. Right there was a 0.5” entry, and a 1.2” exit wound. It didn’t bleed too much, luckily, but it was important. He’d have to seal it up before he went to his other business.

To do so, he’d have to find something hot, but what? What could he use? He searched the desks of his employees, and found in one man’s desk, a certain James Evan, a lighter and a few packs of cigarettes.

His office, of course, had a no-smoking policy; however, he didn’t do much to enforce it. There was no checking of desks or private property for the contraband, and at this point, he was glad.

Dan thumbed the igniter of the lighter multiple times, but to no avail. When he shook it, there was little sloshing noise; the lighter was low on fuel. He tried again, and after a minute, a flame finally danced above the lighter. He thrusted a cigarette into the flames, then applied it to both sides of his wound.

He shouted, repeatedly, in a burning agony. But soon, the benefits overwhelmed the pain. The hole no longer bled, and it was all but sealed on both sides. The pain was still present, however.

[noobbot]

Outside were the now familiar sounds of chaos – cars, gun shots, screams, and the sound of death (which occupied many forms). He got up from his seat, still quivering from pain, and approached the door. When he looked outside (the doors were wide-open), he saw cars swerving around - a few of them even hit each other or their surroundings – and he saw people running around, some chasing others. Very few people had guns, and those who did, shot at every unfamiliar person in sight.

He immediately closed the door, and when he did, he leaned against it, panting. Just the perception of what was occurring outside made him lose breath. He immediately began finding ways to reinforce the door, as to prevent the outsiders from entering. First, he started by engaging all the locking systems around the door, then by using furniture to impede the motion of the door.


After he’d erected his [crude] barricade, he sat down in the chair he’d been in roughly half an hour before (when he stood to go to the door and make the barricades). He sat down, slumped into the chair, and fingered his gun. He was toying with it; he needed to prepare himself for whatever was next to come. And he’d only 13 rounds, so he’d have to spend them wisely.


He sat there, in that same, awkward position for what must’ve been an hour.

Abruptly, a growling noise and movement ejected him from his trance-like state, and he looked 20 feet to the side of him.

There stood the formerly dead secretary. Dan stood, out of his chair, and moved backward. He yanked out his M1911, but when he tried to pull the trigger, he found he couldn’t.

What the ~~~~? Her pulse went flat more than three hours ago! How the hell is she still alive? Those were his initial thoughts, but then, he thought, it’s a good thing she’s alive. She can help me!

He didn’t pull the trigger, and he couldn’t bring himself around to doing something so final to someone he’d known. The secretary was fast approaching him, and he simply continued to back up. Before long, the secretary began running at him, he stumbled, and subsequently fell to the ground.

“Stop running at me! What the ~~~~ are you doing,” he prompted, but he got no response more than a bright glare of delight in its eyes and a snarl. It (or she; he couldn’t decide) leaped onto him, and began snapping at him.

He tried to push her off, constantly screaming, “Get off! What the hell’s gotten into you?” But it didn’t listen or heed his advice; rather, it stubbornly continued, trying to bite at his carotid artery.

Dan grabbed his M1911 by the action and barrel, and smacked the former secretary on the head with the solid steel pistol grip. It recoiled, and fell off Dan long enough for him to regain his foothold. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He asked, as he pointed the muzzle at her head.

He found his finger perilously tight around the trigger, and by accident, he discharged one .45ACP into the skull of his [former] secretary. The round struck it on the back of the cranium, as it was facing down, trying to recover itself, and the bullet exited through its neck, most assuredly hitting the larynx and a carotid or jugular along the way.

Blood poured out from the secretary’s neck, mouth, and the back of its head.

“Oh Jesus. Oh, what the ~~~~ have I done?” Dan said, looking at the pooling blood around her head. “She could’ve been fine, for all I know! Maybe it was amnesia, and she attacked me out of instinct!”

He cursed himself, but he secretly (even to his conscious self) knew that she wasn’t fine; that she was in fact ~~~~ed from the start.

The thoughts of suicide from earlier returned. When you coupled his [now] wrecked home, with the fighting on the streets, his lack of family, and his dead secretary, it was simply too much for Daniel to bear. His life was pretty f*cked up before this new commotion, but now it was worse.


But after a half hour or more of silent sobbing and mourning, he found his survivalist self, Dan, reemerging.


Suddenly, his thoughts of sorrow and of suicide ceased. He set onto the task of dumping her body out of a window. Luckily, there was a window nearby, not more than four feet off the ground. He opened the window, dragged her to it, and began shoving the body outside. Within seconds, it fell with a dull “thud.”


He then cleaned the mess, which consisted mainly of blood, bullet fragments, and muscle tissue. The blood wouldn’t come out of the carpet, and remained as a dark red stain, but everything else gladly came off. The rooms were rather clean, other than that, especially when compared to the outside. When he peered out of a window, he saw fires raging along many of the buildings, people still shooting others, and blood.

He was sitting there, staring outside, at the chaotic scene, when a banging noise startled him. “Hey! I know you’re in there,” somebody from the outside shouted. He must’ve been a young man, judging by his voice.

When Dan went to the window relative to the noise, and he parted the blinds, he saw one man and many, many more behind him. “Let me in! These ~~~~ing psychos are chasing me,” he explained, and so Dan lifted the window up.

“Come on,” Dan said. “Grab my ~~~~ed hands.”

The man eagerly obliged, and when Dan pulled his body inside, the man was panting. “The name’s Jay. What’s yours,” Jay asked.

“I’m Dan,” he said, sparing the formalities.

“You know we’re going to have to get the ~~~~ out of here sometime, right?”

“Yeah. ‘Doesn’t matter much to me, though,” Dan replied. “I’ve got my car outside.”

“The Porsche convertible? That’s yours?”

“Indeed.”

“Wow. You’re ~~~~in' rich,” Jay commented.

Changing the course of the conversation, Dan asked, “What do you have on you, in the prospect of weapons and utilities?”

“Nothin’ much. I have a knife, pocket lint, and a candy bar. You?”

“I have my forty-five and what ever else is in this office.”

“You’re ~~~~ting me, right? You have a gun?”

“No, I’m not ~~~~ting you, and yes, I have a gun. A double-action .45ACP double-stack, to be precise,” Dan assured. “Look but don’t touch. It bites.”

“Holy ~~~~. That’s a true piece of art,” Jay stated, staring at the handgun.

“At any rate,” Dan began, as he stood up. “We need to find out what we have, collect it, and plan from there.”

And so they both set off, looking for whatever necessities and useful items they could muster up or find…


In their eager search for supplies, they found rather little useful. Most of the items lying around the building were computers, pencils, pens, and papers; nothing useful for survival. Those served well at documentation, yes, but what could they do with them; for their own purposes?

“I’ve found: a hammer, some nails and screws, cigarettes, lighters, and some food in the lounge. What’ve you gotten?” Dan asked.

“I got a flashlight, cell phone, some money, and paint,” Jay replied, bored and uncertain.

Neither Dan nor Jay said another thing to add to the conversation; they fell completely silent. Dan was deep in thought about the next process; the next move. Jay was reminiscing on the past, thinking of the earlier events, and the weeks before.

What led to this? Why? Who allowed this to happen? Those were the questions in everyone’s mind; however, Dan had managed to push those further back into his own, while Jay didn’t.

They later ate dumb, too, as they found little to say. The food they ate was by large stale chips, cookies, and other snack items, bread, and some delicatessen meat. Hardly enough for long-term sustenance, but it’d ease the hunger for the mean time.

“It’s almost twilight, so we should get some shut-eye,” Dan stated, breaking the silence.

Jay didn’t say a word; rather, he went off into another corner and lay on the carpeting, staring at the ceiling. Dan did the opposite; he moved a little from his spot, laid down, and fell asleep almost instantly. Jay didn’t do the same for hours.


Outside, much of the ruckus had subsided; however, there were still sporadic gunshots and other loud, violent noises. One man had managed to climb onto a literal pile of vehicles with a Chinese-made Norinco SKS, and fired on the crowd of infected below him for upwards of an hour, until the mob overwhelmed him and devoured him. He screamed and bitterly resisted as he was being eaten, and he hadn’t even expended his last shots.

[noobbot]

Dan woke up in the early morning to loud crashing noise, and to the sight of a car protruding from the wall. “Oh f*ck!” He shouted as he gathered his kit. “Jay, get up! We’ve gotta get the f*ck outta here!”


Jay sighed, stood, and collected his things together, too. When Dan actually looked into the car, he spotted a man, whose body was outside of the car, resting on the hood; glass embedded in his flesh. The man’s throat, head, and torso had major lacerations, and blood quickly engulfed the front-end of the vehicle. Upon closer inspection, Dan also noticed a gun shot wound to the lung of the man.

“Come on,” Dan beckoned as he broke a window. Everything was wrapped around him, or in his arms, and he now weighed an extra 30 pounds, and Jay had an additional 15 pounds on his person.


They both quickly boosted themselves out of the window, and ran while on the other side. They immediately went for the Porsche, which had by now sustained many gunshots, including a few that hit the tires and seats. Dan lifted the door to the trunk. “Load everything into the trunk; we need to get out of here as quick as possible!”

And so Jay silently obeyed, lifting everything on him into the container gingerly. Dan did the same, then jumped in the driver seat, removed his keys from his pocket, stuck the proper key into the ignition, turned, and floored the accelerator.


Within minutes, Dan decided to seek a gun shop. However, the nearest was five miles away, and he’d have to go through a densely populated area to achieve a decent arrival time; detours would take him over 10 miles or more to get to the same place. In which case, I can probably get there going the main route in the same or less time than an alternate one, he thought, and so he did.

The sporty Porsche coup Dan was driving zoomed past cafés, electronics outlets, various stores, and other businesses with great haste and delicacy. He didn’t even hit a corpse, piece of debris, or zombie, unless such was necessary. That went on for the first few minutes, however.


Then, Dan’s car had arrived to the central area of the city; the heavily populated area. He found that avoiding objects now required excellent skill, a kind of driving and maneuvering skill he didn’t possess. All along the way, he was constantly hitting zombies, but trying to avoid head-on collisions, as that would send the zombies into his lap. Rather, he hit them with the corner of the car, as to avoid that problem. It worked marvelously toward averting damage for a while, but before long the light had been ripped out, and the hood was dented to all hell.


Once they’d reached their destination, the car was nearly ruined. They both quickly got out of the vehicle and unpacked its contents. However, when they looked up at the gun store, they found it barricaded.

“Hey, let us in, we’ll help!” Dan begged; extremely excited, because the ~~~~ers were fast approaching.

“F*ck it; we’re going to have to find another way in,” Dan stated. “They’re not going to open up for us.”

“Is there even another way in? Or are we stuck in this ~~~~ hole out here?”

“I sure hope there is, Jay, because otherwise,” he said, with an uncanny calmness in his voice. “We’re as sure as dead.”


Dan looked around the building; his mind was working fast now, as adrenaline coursed through his blood and danger stalked him. He’d have to act within a minute or less, as the zombies may’ve been 100 meters off, by now - within plain sight.

“See those gutters,” Dan asked.

“Yeah. What about ‘em?” Jay replied.

“We’re going to climb them, then jump to the roof of the firearms outlet. It’s our only choice, by now.”

Dan let Jay climb first; then followed him, about three feet below Jay. Dan constantly shifted his head, looking most at the horde of infected incoming. Detail was now visible; many in the mob were covered in blood, their clothes were torn, and fury lit their eyes. The only audible sounds being emitted from them were grunts, growls, and moans. Those people were seemingly savage, truly.

Jay was now standing at the top, offering his hands toward Dan. “Go and see if there’s another way in on the roof of the store,” Dan instructed.

Jay obliged, and set off to the task Dan assigned him. Dan put his right forearm on the lip-like wall on the roof, brought his other arm up, and pulled himself up, finally throwing his leg over the side.


At that instant, he realized something: he had 12 rounds to change his life. Inside the shop, there might be more; but as of now, he had 12 shots. That would be eleven he could use; he needed one for himself. Dan walked to the edge of the roof on the building he currently resided on; the corner closest to the back of the gun shop perpendicular to Dan.

He then looked to the right of himself, toward the street, and there was Jay, trying to scramble on top of the roof of the gun shop. He was kicking, and his arms were atop the roof, but his grip was giving out, and before long, he’d slip. Instinct kicked in, and without saying a word, Dan leaped across the gap onto the other roof.

Once he’d regained his foothold, he ran to Jay, who was near falling. “Grab my hands, Jay,” he said.

Jay grunted, and tried doing so, but something was pulling on him. When he looked down, a bloodied face was perilously close to sinking its teeth in Jay’s lower leg. He wriggled, but did not achieve freedom of the ~~~~ head’s grasp until it had already bitten him. Jay let out a shrill scream, and was finally pulled to safety.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just that…” Jay said, wincing in pain. “It’s just that one of those f*ckers bit my leg. I’m fine. Really.”

Dan looked around, and it appeared the only way into that two-story shop would be a fan. “Jay, if you can, help me f*ck up this air-conditioning unit here. It’s our only way in, I’m afraid.”

“Okay. Hold on a minute,” Jay was sitting; then got up.

They both walked to the unit and began pounding on it simultaneously. Well, air conditioning will be the least of my worries if I occupy this building. No, not “if;” I will live in here.


It took them many hours, and eventually a nice pounding with the hammer and prying of nails and screws to bring the unit up. Once they did, the best they could do was push the unit, in unison, off the side of the building. And so they did.

When they dropped down into the vent, it was evening. Inside, the temperatures were very hot; not only had power been turned off, but air circulation had nearly ceased, as the unit they had torn out to access the area supplied that movement of air. The vents were rather tight, so they had to crawl, past a certain point. Dan was always in the lead, and would leave the vents first.

The closest viable opening they found was in one of the rooms above the store – a supply room. Dan punched and pushed at it with what little room he had, and after several minutes, broke it out. He emerged from the vent literally drenched in sweat; still every pore let out sweat; and he was lying on the floor. The odor of himself was unbearable.

He got to his feet and brushed the dust and dirt off himself after several seconds of lying there. Dan then aided Jay; helping him ease out of the vent quicker than if he’d done it by himself. Once they were both ready, Dan drew his M1911, opened the door, and stepped out of the room.

There, he was greeted by several rifle barrels pointed at him and Jay.

“You fellers were makin’ a lot a noise. If ya’ll wanted in, ya shoulda been quieter. I ain’t gon’ take lightly to some sum ~~~~~~es like ya’ll in here. And I ain’t gon let ya leave alive. No sir,” one man in overalls said. He had a dirty, scuffed, and scratched double-barrel 12 gauge in his hands, and the wooden stock was braced against his shoulder. The muzzle pointed at Jay, who’d at this point, began tearing.

“I’m getting out of here alive, whether your dumb-redneck-~~~ wants me to or not, and so is my here partner. You should step aside before ~~~~~ gets messy,” Dan said. His hand gripped the M1911 in his hand tighter than ever before; the plastic indented and raised surface was beginning to leave its mark in his palm, and the metallic trigger guard dug into his right index finger.

Dan then raised his own pistol; the scene now resembled that of a Mexican-standoff; something you’d see in a movie. But this was no movie; not for Dan and everyone else in that room.

“Have it yer way, mister,” the Southern man in over alls said…

[noobbot]

Dan tugged on Jay’s right sleeve, and pulled him toward the room to his right; the storage room they’d left moments before. “Stay in there,” he commanded.

There were three men in the room; then there was Dan. The odds were greatly stacked against him, at this point, for there were four barrels aimed all on his center-mass. There was a double-barrel 12 gauge, a .30-06 bolt-action, and a semi-automatic .277 rifle.

Dan stepped forward, his M1911 still raised, his eyes still sighting. “Shall we?” Dan asked.

“Mmhmm, we should,” the Southern man said. Beside the Southern man, there was an Asian guy (with the .277) and a businessman (with the .30-06). The man in the forefront was, of course, the Southern man.

Dan braced himself for what was to come, and he pistol-whipped the assumed leader of the posse; the Southern man in over alls; from the right to the left, then to the right from the left, spun him around, and held him as a meat shield. “Don’ shoot! Don’ shoot, Gawdammit,” the man said as Dan squeezed the trigger of the M1911 in his hands, thus effectively impacting the Asian dude in the upper torso with a .45ACP, sending him to the floor and killing him.

“Yeah, don’t shoot, man,” Dan told the nervous businessman with the .30-06.

The man stood, with the rifle shaking in his hands. The bifocals on his face vibrated, as did the rest of his body. But Dan, on the other hand, was confident and knew that the guy wouldn’t shoot. It was painfully obvious that the businessman lacked the proper guts to pull the trigger, either because his conscience couldn’t handle the weight of blood on his hands, or he was afraid of the repercussions for such an act.

Dan held the leader’s throat by the intersection between his forearm and upper arm so tight the man struggled to breathe, yet the Southern man pleaded for his life. “Don’ shoot,” he kept saying, although he was now in tears and whimpering.

But the businessman did pull the trigger. The round impacted the Southern guy’s torso, killing him nearly instantly, and over penetrated into Dan’s abdomen. But before the businessman could even cycle the bolt of his .30-06, he was shot in the forehead, sending gray matter, skull fragments, and blood out of his head.


Dan fell to the floor, bleeding fairly rapidly from his gut. ~~~~, he still had 10 shots. That’d be 10 shots he wouldn’t get to use… But at least he got his assailant, too. And that guy died much quicker than Dan will…


After the shooting had stopped for minutes, Jay finally walked out of the storage room, and found four corpses on the ground. “What the f*ck,” he muttered; one of the carcasses was moaning.

He walked to where the sound originated, and he saw Dan, with his hand covering his gut. When he lifted Dan’s palm, he saw not only a bloody hand, but a bullet wound inside Dan’s stomach. “What the f*ck am I supposed to do?”

“Put your hands on it, press down, and find something that can serve as a makeshift bandage,” Dan instructed, wincing all the while. “Also, if you can, find the bullet and pull it out.”

Jay looked at the wound. The sight of it alone gave him a nauseous sensation, but now he had to stick his hands in it?

He had to do it. Dan had saved his ~~~ plenty a time before, so he needed to return the favor. He reached into Dan’s innards, and felt around. Dan cursed and shouted in pain as Jay prodded his gut for the small, dodgy brass bullet. After a bit, Jay felt a conical, metallic piece amidst tissue, and he pulled it out. It wasn’t the entire bullet, but this would accelerate the healing process.

He then set off to find a bandage of sorts. He went in the bathroom, where he figured bandages would be, but there were none. Paper wouldn’t suffice, at least not in this case. He ran around the floor of the building they were on – the third story – but did not find a single thing.

But then, an idea dawned on him: he could use someone’s shirt as a bandage. He looked around the room. Dan’s white tee was too small to be practical, but the businessman’s over shirt would be sufficient. He tore the entire bottom of it off; now, in his hands, he had a sizeable bandage.

Jay then sat Dan against a wall, tore Dan’s shirt away, and wrapped the bandage around his entire abdomen. After he’d tied it very tightly, nearly the entire front of the provisional bandage became blood-soaked within seconds.

“I need help! Somebody help me!” Jay shouted. At that point, Dan was unconscious, and was quickly losing blood…


Jay was crouched over Dan’s slumped body, crying out for aid. The blood in the same room that flowed from the other corpses didn’t bother him much; maybe because he didn’t look at it, but nonetheless, what caused the ache was seeing a friend die. He’d not been Dan’s friend for long, but if not for him, Jay would’ve most certainly been killed by the mob that followed him.

Jay stood, staggered away, and vomited in a corner. “Jesus Christ! Somebody f*cking help me,” he pleaded. He staggered off into a corner, regurgitated the content of his stomach, and resumed his frenzied search.

20 or 30 feet away were the stairs. Jay figured there were more people down stairs (Why would they all come up here?), and anyone of them might have more medical knowledge than this mellow, laid-back 19 year old, who never really cared much for learning. He hated school; he hated academics, so he definitely wasn’t going to a university or college.

He grabbed the unconscious Dan by his forearms and dragged him to the stairs. Jay soon realized that this wasn’t like in movies; this was rather tiring, even for an energetic kid like himself. He continued to drag Dan, down the stairs, continuously moving. He didn’t stop, despite panting and feeling general fatigue.

Dan’s head bounced on every step; his entire body seemed to shake simultaneously. It took Jay a while to reach the floor of the stairs, and by then, he was breathing very heavily, and pulling Dan became something of a chore.

“Is anybody here?” Jay shouted, panting all the while. Indeed, there were other people; a few women, a boy. The boy appeared to be sick; his ribs were defined, protruded, his skin pale, and he was sweating profusely.

An elderly woman tended to him, pressing a damp sponge to his forehead. Next to him was a nearly full bucket, containing a multi-colored vomit. It was clear that some of the bucket’s content had spilled, as there was a puddle underneath it, flowing away from it. But even beyond the child’s immediate surroundings, the entire room was in chaotic disarray.

No one answered his many pleas for help. They remained as silent then as they were ever; their eyes stared at Jay as if they’d seen a whole range of horrors. Indeed, they had. They’d seen people eaten alive, sick ones (like the boy), and much more indescribable carnage.

“God ~~~~ it,” Jay complained, while stomping on the floor. “SOMEBODY ~~~~ING HELP ME!”

As the rage washed over, that pain in his leg, that bite, pulsed, becoming even more profound than before. That act reminded him of the bite, which was now purple. The flesh appeared to be rotting, and blood still trickled out of the wound.

“There’s some penicillin, here,” the elderly woman replied, calm, nearly monotonous. She handed a pill to Jay; her eyes were penetrating, her face emotionless. She seemed to stare through Jay, and this crept the ~~~~ out of him.

Jay sat Dan against a wall, retrieved a bottle of water, opened Dan’s mouth, and inserted a Penicillin pill. He closed Dan’s jaw, forcing him to swallow subconsciously.


By then, the entire front of the temporary bandage around Dan’s abdomen was bloody. Dan shivered occasionally, though Jay knew not why. By that time, the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) came about Dan, and Jay misinterpreted that as a sign of infection. He was correct in one thing; Dan did have an infection, however the REM is a natural occurrence during sleep that occurs when the brain reaches peak activity during unconsciousness – or dreaming. However, because Jay regarded academia as meaningless, he wasn’t aware of such.

Any medical expert would’ve seen that the shivering, fever, and paleness on Dan were early signs of an infection. However since the penicillin was already administered, there was little Jay could do, but wait, pray, and hope Dan recovered…

[noobbot]

Numerous days had passed, and finally Dan sat; finally the fever and infection were waning. How many, however, both Jay and Dan were oblivious to. Two days, three days, four days, maybe, but a few was the most accurate figure Jay could muster up.


“What the f*ck happened?” Dan asked, nearly rhetorically; every event for the past… few days was completely obscured. The last thing in Dan’s memory was firing that round at the businessman’s head. No, it was his chest. Although, suddenly, he remembered firing multiple shots all over the man’s body. “Where’s my 45?”

“Upstairs, I believe,” Jay replied.

By then, the feverish boy was dead; his body covered by a tarp. The men who’d engaged Dan and ultimately died remained upstairs, however…

Dan climbed the stairs. It was very exhausting, in fact, he felt very out of shape. Lethargy overwhelmed him, causing his senses to become dulled. He even had a numbing sensation overcome his body for much of the climb.

When he reached the pinnacle of the stairs, he turned to the left. Down that way was nothing, beside a few doors. He then turned to the right, to a sight of death. The paled, decaying bodies emitted foul stenches. Blood nearly covered the floors, but there were four weapons here.

“This is ~~~~ing putrid,” Dan stated to himself.

But still, he persisted, clamped his nostrils with his left hand, while gathering the four firearms. The first he picked up was his M1911, which he stuck into his belt, then scooped the remaining three with his right arm. His nostrils were still tight.

The combined weight of the three rifles alone, were in his right arm, about 40 pounds. This was a rather cumbersome load, considering Dan hadn’t engaged in any physical activity, besides writhing in his sleep, for some time. Regardless, he descended the stairs, one step at a time.


When he reached the bottom, he immediately set the rifles down in a corner and sat in another, completely fatigued. He removed his M1911 from his waste band, and in the process of doing so, liberated the magazine from its place. He peered into the magazine, realizing there were 10 rounds, meaning he had, after all, shot everyone he had so far only once. That mean the businessman had, in fact, been shot in the head.

But that was trivial, and it was hardly important. Here, in this shop, there had to be more ammunition, right?

Instantly, his thought shifted to a noise. It was a crinkling, brushing noise. When he looked to its origin, he saw the tarp move. “Jay, what the hell is under that cover over there?” He questioned loudly.

“A dead kid, why?” Jay responded.

“Because it’s moving,” Dan elaborated. Indeed, by that time, the former child was nearly afoot.

Dan slammed the .45ACP double-stack magazine back into its proper place, the M1911, and rested the sights on the boy’s chest…


The boy turned toward Dan, walking the entire time. Dan held the M1911 there, pulled back on the trigger, as to relieve 3 out of the 4.5 pounds of pressure required to shoot it, fine tuned his sight position to the approximate area of the boy’s heart, and fired. The round smashed into the boy’s chest, spraying blood, fabric, and flesh out of the hole. The boy was spun around, however, he quickly returned to pursuing Dan.

“What in the ~~~~,” Dan said. Any normal human would’ve been killed by that, most assuredly. Judging by the blood leaking out of the wound, Dan had hit the heart or a major blood vessel, but apparently, the boy wasn’t fazed by the shock.

Dan reset his sights on the boy, his finger on the trigger. The barrel let out a mighty roar; another round impacted the kid’s chest. This time, it hit his center mass, sending him back a few feet, although was still standing. Higher volumes of blood spilled out, and now the floor around the child was soaked, and yet he wasn’t dead.

Eight rounds… ~~~~. I’ve already wasted two on this kid, so I’m going to have to use at least one more. This place better have more, he thought, as he raised the sights to the kid’s head, and pulled the trigger.

The kid finally died, but his blood encompassed a rather large area around his corpse.

The Mozambique Drill; that’s what it’s called. Two rounds to the chest, one to the head. But apparently, this kid wasn’t even dead, after what would’ve killed someone – a normal human, that is - loaded with hallucinogens.

We’ve gotta get these carcasses out of here, Dan thought. Indeed, the scent from upstairs had reached the lower floors, and now they had one more body. Not only was the smell unbearable, but disease was another thing to worry about. Though he knew the corpses belonged not inside the building they were living in, where would he dump them?

After a few minutes of thought, it occurred to him that the upper floors likely had windows that were unbarred, so he’d have to drag the bodies there. Luckily, three of them were already on the top floor, how ever, this one wasn’t. 70 pounds generally wouldn’t be much, but Dan was required to drag these 70 pounds up two flights of stairs.


It took longer than 30 minutes to toss the child out of a second-story window, and dump the three men upstairs’ corpses from a third-story window. At the street level, below, the zombies crowded around the four bodies, eagerly devouring them…


Now that the immediate problem was solved, Dan returned to the first floor, where he scavenged for ammunition. There was quite an abundance of ammunition, so Dan topped off his magazine. He had also found two more magazines, one single-stack, the other double-stack; he filled both.

By then, the sun had begun setting. It cast a red glare over their part of the Earth, and now the shop was dark.

__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Note: The many posts by me, without response by other people, were due to the fact that there is a character limit.

[OkeiDo]

Man this story is really good! Good describing, good storyline!

keep it up!

[Bowwy]

Seriously. I like this story.