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I Read, Pt. 1.2 of Many
Check out Part One HERE.
Check out the I Read Saga page, HERE.
Gary Palmer was mall security. Then the mall blew up. He’s now an ex-member of Recon Team 12, but that’s later on in his story.
His best friend was a fellow by the name of Mike Huntington.
“Gary!” Mike called across the bustling food court.
“Whadaya want?” Such was Gary’s typical response.
Mike pushed his way over to Gary. “Hutch wants you to stay overtime.” Reynard Hutchinson was the Chief of Security for the Oakridge Mall, where Gary and Mike worked.
Gary rolled his eyes. “And, why’s that?”
“You’ll have to ask him. Hey, at least he told me to stay on, too.”
“Jee willicars. How long do we stay on?”
“’Till ten.”
“Ten?” Gary sighed. “I guess I need this job, so. . .”
Mike raised his arms. “Hey, at least you’ve got me!” Gary glared at him menacingly.
Through the day, he gave a Japanese couple directions, gave several old ladies directions, threatened some mallrats, stared blankly into space, and chatted with a few chatty chatters. He bought a lunch from A&W, pathetically attempted to flirt with a Zellars cashier, aimlessly roamed around Oakridge for a few hours thereafter, and finally bought a dinner from A&W, just before closing time.
He met Mike again when he reported in at the main security office. “Why, hello, Gary, dear chum! How fares you?”
Gary smirked. “I’ll pull through. Where’s Hutch?”
Mike exaggeratedly shrugged. “Ah, but who’s to know?”
A woman by the name of Genine Palin, who was standing next to Mike, scoffed. “Child.”
Mike put on a manic grin and turned to her. “Love ya too, honey.”
Palin was taken aback, rolled her eyes, and stocked off.
Mike turned back to Gary. “Gotta love ‘er.” Hutch came striding in.
“Hello, kids! Who’s staying on tonight?” 23 hands went up, including Palin’s. “Right. I can see that a couple of the graveyard shift regulars showed up early. Good for you, ya kiss-ups. Well, here’s some good news: I’ll be staying on tonight, as well! Everyone who’s not staying on can go home, now.” At which point he went striding off to his office.
“Well, that was shorter that usual.” Gary noted.
“Quite so.” Mike responded.
“Kay,” some unknown voice exclaimed, “everyone who’s not staying, go! We gotta lock up! Come on!”
Mike grinned. “Good old Chuck Greenburg, the goon. Leave it to him to scream orders at whoever’ll listen.”
Greg sighed, “Jackass.”
The dayshift security left, the last of the nightshift security arrived, and everything was locked up, with a total 34 security guards present. It was a big mall.
At about 9:30 PM, a gunshot rang out and a man came running through the empty parking lot, screaming hysterically. He charged into a Safeway gate, and began screaming about wounds, begging to be let in. Gary happened to be near this gate at the time. He called it in on the radio, reporting directly to Hutch.
“Mr. Hutcheson, I have a situation in the Safeway.”
“Yes?” Hutch sounded impatient.
“There’s a man at the Safeway gates.”
“A drunk.”
“He seems wounded, and he’s desperate to get in.”
“A drunk after a bar fight.”
“And he’s holding a nine millimeter.”
Hutch’s tone became more serious. “Wasn’t there just a gunshot? I thought it was some junk falling, or a backfiring car.”
“Yeah, I think I heard one, too.”
“Find out what happened. Over and out.”
“He has a gun.”
“Over and out!”
Gary sighed. “Charming.” He called for Mike on the radio, “Hey, Mike?”
“Yup?”
“Come to the Safeway. There’s some guy outside, screaming to get in, and I’d like some backup.”
“Good god, you’re pathetic. Bah, I’ll be right there.” Mike soon arrived. Upon sight of the screaming fellow outside, he ceased walking and rose an eyebrow. “Holy crap. We don’t usually get this sort of thing, do we? What’s wrong with him?”
“Well, Mike, why do you think I called you in for backup?” Mike just stared at him. “Because he seems psychotic and I don’t want to go near him without backup, of course.” Mike lowered his eyebrow. “So, could you keep your gun on him?”
“Ah, right.” Mike unholstered his 9mm pistol, got into a good position, and leveled his gun on the maniac. “Go on, Gary.” Gary went on.
He, too, unholstered his pistol. “Hello, sir. Why did you come here?” The man had what looked like bite wounds all over his arms and legs. “Sir, what happened to you?” The man began screaming incoherently about a dead guy eating him. “Sir, what happened?” He then started screaming about shooting someone in the head. “You shot someone? Sir, did you kill someone?”
“He was dead!” The man began sounding more coherent. “He was already dead!” Mike was quite concerned.
As was Gary. “Sir, you shot someone? Did they attack you?”
The man was looking fainter. “Yes, yes, he attacked me! Yes!”
Gary turned to Mike. “Call Hutch. Now.” He turned back to the dieing man outside. “Sir, where was this?”
The man really was looking unwell, and his voice was getting gradually softer as he said, “Three. . . Third. . . East Third Street.”
“You said East Third Street, sir?”
Mike chimed in, “Hutch says let him in.”
“Sir!” Gary said. The man was slipping in and out of consciousness. “Sir, I’m going to open the gate so you can come in.” Gary did so, and dragged the man inside. “Sir, what’s your name.”
“Bill.” The man muttered.
Gary turned back to Mike. “Is Hutch coming? Shouldn’t we call the ambulance? Where’s Hutch?”
Mike was frantic; he’d never seen anything like this. “Hutch? Hutch, yeah, yeah, he’s coming, yeah. He said wait for him.”
Greg continued consoling Bill until Hutch arrived. He was shocked. “Oh, god, look at all that blood he lost.”
Greg was miraculously unfazed by the whole situation. “What about an ambulance, sir?”
“Yeah, about that, we’re gonna keep him in our first aid ward and see what we can do for him before the ambulance arrives.” He yanked a radio out of some undisclosed location on his body and sent out a security-wide bulletin, “We have a situation at the Safeway main entrance. I need a stretcher here, and I want all our men to report here. This is Hutchinson.”
Out of the radio there flowed a string of “Yes sirs.” Several men showed up at once, none of whom had any stretchers with them, which greatly annoyed Hutch. Eventually, the stretcher showed up, and it took four men to get the somewhat chubby Bill onto it. Gary grabbed the now unconscious Bill’s gun and stuck it in a side pouch on his uniform. The whole group rushed off to the first aid ward.
Hutch pointed to a guy named Rudy Norton, and told him to call 911 to get an ambulance down there. When Rudy did so, the color left his face. Palin noticed. “What’s your problem?” Rudy pressed the speakerphone button and put the phone back on the hook.
There was the voice of a young woman on the phone. “Thank god! Help us! We’re at the – oh, oh, no! Augh!” She dropped the phone. “Clair! Oh, god, Clair! Die!” There was a loud crash. “Die, you – AUGH!” There were moans in the background, all sorts of screaming and shouting, gunshots, random crashing, and in the foreground the sound of the woman who answered the phone screaming madly. “NO! Oh, AUGH! HELP ME! MY ARM!” She let out one last bloodcurdling scream, and then she could no longer be heard. The cacophony in the background, however, continued.
Amidst the racket flying out of the speaker, the security team stood silently staring at the phone. This lasted for several minutes. Eventually, Hutch chimed in. “We need somebody to lock the door at the Safeway. We also need somebody to go on the roof, and see if they can tell what’s going on. Palmer, Huntington, you go to the roof. Palin, Sanders, you do the door.” He picked up the phone and dropped it back onto the hook, in effect hanging up. “That’s enough of that. Garcia, Wood, you come with me, and the rest stay with this guy, in case he wakes up.” He gestured towards Bill, who was off to the side, looking very pale. “Go!” Gary and Mike rushed off to the nearest maintenance stair case, and everyone else went off to their assigned jobs.
“Well,” said Mike, “this doesn’t look good.”
“True.” Gary said.
“Really doesn’t look good.”
“Not at all.”
“What do you thin—”
Gary cut Mike off with, “I don’t know. Let’s just get up on the roof and see if we can see anything. Kay?”
Mike was running out of breath. “Kay.”
They were on the third floor when Mike heard a whole lot of screaming and a few gunshots. Gary kept going, but Mike stopped. “What was that?”
Gary stopped. “What?” He heard it. “Oh, god.” They turned back and ran back down the staircase. Just before they reached ground floor, Genine Palin and Terry Sanders came barreling through the door to the ground floor. They were terrified.
“Palmer! Huntington!” Palin pushed them aside and kept going up the staircase. “Follow us! We’re going to the roof!” Mike and Gary followed them.
Mike was in a state. “What’s going on?”
Palin probably rolled her eyes. Out of breath, she wheezed out, “That guy in front of Safeway. He woke up and attacked everybody.” That shut Mike up.
But not Gary. “Where’s everyone else?”
Still wheezing, Palin said, “We dunno.”
“Shouldn’t you?”
“Probably not.”
“Why the roof?”
This time Palin definitely rolled her eyes. “Where else should we go?”
Greg sighed as best he could while out of breath. “Elsewhere? What about the east security office on the third floor? That’s pretty close.”
Palin attempted a sigh as well. “Terry and I are going to the roof. Do what you want.”
By now Mike was lagging behind, and was stopped by Gary. “Mike, you okay?” Mike just responded a witless stare. “You’ll pull through. We’re going to the east security office on the third floor, okay?”
Mike had regained a bit of his breath. “And Palin?”
“She’s going to the roof still. Come on.”
Mike and Gary were on the fourth floor, so they quickly ran down to the third. They opened the door, and ran out into the mall. Mike insisted on going to a balcony before the security office, so that they could see what was going on below.
The sight that greeted them was the injured man, Bill from the Safeway, devouring Chuck Greenburg about twenty feet away from the balcony, two floors down. Mike was speechless, and this time Gary was too. Bill finished with Greenburg and began to stagger off in the direction the balcony was facing. Then there was a loud bang and part of Bill’s arm flew off. He turned around, facing Mike and Gary, and started to walk in their general direction.
Suddenly a roar of gunfire exploded, tearing bits of Bill off and sending them flying in all directions. No gaping wound seemed to affect him. The back of his head blew out and he fell backwards, seemingly dead. The gunfire ceased, and the familiar voice of Hutch called out, “Garcia, stay here! Wood, c’mon!” Two figures appeared from under the balcony, rifles trained on Bill’s body. “Wood, keep your gun on him.” One of the men stopped and the other cautiously approached Bill, and then kicked him in the stomach. And again. “He’s dead! Send out a radio bulletin, Garcia, saying that.”
Gary regained his composure. “Mr. Hutchinson! It’s Gary Palmer and Mike Huntington, sir!”
“Palmer? Where are ya?”
“Third floor balcony, sir.”
Hutch looked up at them. “Ah. Okay. What’re you doing up there?”
Mike chimed in this time. “We were going to the security office.”
Hutch nodded. “Okay. What’d you see from the roof?”
Gary responded, “We didn’t make it. We heard some shouting and guns, so we came down to see what was going on, and then Palin and Sanders came running up and told us that Bill went nuts, so we decided to go to the office.” At this point Gary’s radio informed him of the fact that Bill was dead.
Hutch turned to look at something under the balcony. “Oh, god! Garcia, your left!” Hutch and Wood raised their guns and aimed them under the balcony.
The radio said, “What? OH MY GOD!” It then started screaming. Hutch and Wilhelm Wood started firing, and Gary then recognized their guns as M4s. The radio ceased screaming soon after, but Wilhelm and Hutch kept firing for a few moments.
The moment they stopped, Gary asked what happened. “Garcia!” Hutch was quite worked up. “Garcia, are you okay? Garcia!” This time Gary demanded what happened. “Norton came up from Ricky’s side and attacked him. My god, half his neck was missing!”
Greenburg’s corpse twitched. Then his right arm moved. Then the rest of him moved, getting up! “HUTCH!” Gary called, “HUTCH, GREENBURG!” Chuck Greenburg’s dismembered corpse lunged at Wood, tackling him down. Hutch turned and shot Chuck in the head, but not before Wood took a bite on the arm. Mike threw up.
Wood continued with his screaming, and Hutch was looking faint. He looked up at Mike and Gary, and said, “Palmer, get a bigger gun! The security office has some.” Mike and Gary continued staring in disbelief, to which Hutch said, “GO! NOW!” They went then.
Mike seemed to have been having a panic attack, so he was winded, weak, and woozy. Gary carried him half way to the security office when a scream sounded from behind them. He dropped Mike and spun around. Just outside the entrance to the stairwell, there was somebody being attacked by somebody else. Mike threw up again. Gary picked him up, and they both went as quickly to the office as Gary’s legs could carry them.
Gary threw Mike to the side once they were in and slammed the door shut, locking it.
“Thanks for chucking me.” Mike moaned.
Gary glared at him. “Oh, shut up.” He went off in search of the alleged guns. They were in the room marked “Armory.” There were only five 9mm pistols in there, but a lot of ammunition. Gary loaded up two of them, filled up a bag he found off to the side with the rest, and chucked one of the pistols at Mike.
“Oh. Guns.” Mike had calmed down slightly from his panic attack.
Gary rolled an office chair towards Mike, and sat down on one himself. “There are three more pistols and a bunch more rounds, but that’s all this office has. When you calm down, we better find somewhere else that has a rifle of some sort.”
Mike was doing much better, now. “Well, there’s the main security office, the north office, the south office, and that gun store on the first floor.”
“I think the north office is the closest, isn’t it? Yeah, it is, so we’ll go there. You’re looking better.”
Mike sighed. “You’re taking this well.”
Greg grinned. “I’m expecting a nervous breakdown any minute, now.”
“Are ya then, boyo?”
“You betcha. C’mon, let’s go.” Gary got up and helped Mike out of his chair. He got up, and Gary told him to unholster both his pistols.
Gary unlocked the door and threw it open. There were two people just outside the door. Gary was taken aback. “Oh! Hey, there.” They were a man and a woman. “Hello?” The two outside started moaning, and started to turn around. Gary unholstered one of his pistols and trained it on the man. “Hello?” The two finished turning around. “Oh, god!” They were both covered in blood, the man with a chunk of his chest missing and several of his innards as well, and the woman with bites all over her arms. Mike and Gary opened fire.
Gary opened fire on the man’s chest, but the recoil put one in the guy’s head. That dropped him. Mike panicked and most of his shots missed. Gary turned his gun to the woman and shot her in the head. It worked again. Mike was in the middle of another panic attack.
“Mike?” Gary’s voice was shaky. “Are you okay?” Mike was too busy wheezing in the corner to answer. “Oh, get over it. Mkay, so we’re going to the north office. Get up!” Mike shakily got up, still wheezing. “Oh, crap, reload first.” Gary removed the clip from his pistol and started refilling it with bullets. Mike did the same. “Mkay, let’s go.”
They slowly left the office and headed for the northern maintenance staircase. A short burst of rapid fire and a shout sounded from somewhere to their left, almost panicking Mike again. They stopped for a moment to see if it was of any consequence. It wasn’t, so they continued onward.
The door for the northern maintenance was smeared with blood. Gary heard Mike’s breathing rate increase. “Okay,” Gary whispered, “I’ll lead.” He slowly reached for the door handle and turned it. Somebody started shooting right behind them. Mike fell over and Gary spun around. It was Hutch, firing off into a shop. “Hutch! It’s Palmer and Huntington again!”
Hutch turned to face them. “Palmer?” His voice was shaky. “I decided I’d come to the office to see if you were still there. You still don’t have any real guns?”
“Nope. Where’s Wood?”
“He’s down holding the fort in the main office. His bites weren’t too bad. What’ the heck’s happening? I think us and Wood might be the only ones left alive.” Hutch sighed.
“My god. We were going to the north office to get some guns.”
“Ah, no need. We have a few things in the main office. C’mon.” Hutch walked over to Gary and Mike and opened the door to the stair case. “I’ll lead.” Gary helped Mike up and they followed after Hutch. There was blood smeared all down the staircase, keeping Mike in a sorry state all the way.
They reached the ground floor and Hutch signaled for them to stop. “You hear that?” There were somewhat faint popping sounds. “A gun.”
Mike was breathing heavily, again. Gary glared at him. “Isn’t it Wood?”
Hutch signaled for silence again and went slack-jawed listening. “Naw. . . No, it’s coming from above us.”
“Palin.” Mike wheezed.
Hutch turned to face him. “Think so?” He sighed. “Should we go up there?” Gary brought up the subject of proper guns. “Ah,” Hutch said, “well, the main office is on the other side of the mall, so. . . I think that gun store’s around the corner, isn’t it?”
Mike was wheezing on the floor again. “Why am I the only one upset?”
“Shut up.” Gary hissed at him.
Hutch picked Mike up. “Us. Gun store. Now. Come.”
Mike was doing a bit better and said slightly less wheezingly, “What about Wood?”
Hutch was just opening the bloody ground level door. “Bah, he’ll be fine. He knows what he’s doing. C’mon, let’s go.” He cautiously opened the door and stuck his head through, looking around. The blood trailed off to the right but, thankfully, they had to go to the left. “Right,” Hutch continued, “looks okay out there. Come on. He walked out into the middle of the concourse, a Build a Bear Workshop facing the door. Mike and Gary followed after, with Mike casting a wary eye to the right. “Let’s go.” Hutch raised his gun and started silently walking to the left.
“We’re taking a right here.” They took a right there. Hutch suddenly stopped. “Here it is.” He scanned the storefront and then let out a throaty sigh. “It has a metal shutter across the door.” He looked around at the other stores and put on a manic grin. “Hang on a minute.” He went of to where they came from and took a right.
Mike and Gary heard some glass smash, somebody walking on the glass, some metal clanging, some metal scraping, and then Hutch appeared again, dragging a barbell along behind him. He grinned. “I remembered that there was a fitness store around the corner there, and I thought a two hundred pound barbell might to a number on the display window.” He made it to the gun store. “Mkay, Palmer, you pick up that end. Huntington, you take my gun and stand guard.” He handed Mike his gun, and Gary came and picked up one end of the weight. “Got it, Palmer? Okay, one, two, three!” They chucked the weight through the inch-thick display window without any trouble. It made a terrible noise, though. “Well, that worked well. Oh, for god’s sake, Huntington!” Mike had fallen over.
They walked into the store. There were guns of all sorts all over the walls and in the display cases, and ammunition all over the place. Mike grabbed a .38 revolver and a semiautomatic hunting rifle. Gary took a magnum Desert Eagle and a pump shotgun. Hutch already had his M4, so he just took a Deagle as a side arm.
Gary loaded his shotgun and cocked it. “Well,” he said, “isn’t that a fun sound?”
Hutch ignored him. “We need to get upstairs quickly. Huntington, toss a bunch of our ammo types in that bag.” He gestured towards the bag of 9mm’s that Gary was still holding. “And chuck a couple good pistols in there, too.” Hutch went over to the display window and stuck his head outside to take a look. There were at least ten dismembered people staggering toward them, all in security uniforms. “Ah, crap.”
He leveled his gun on the centre of their hole and backed up. “There’s a bunch of those. . . things coming down the hall.” Mike got all worked up. “My GOD Huntington! Get a GRIP on yourself!” Hutch turned to Gary. “Palmer, see if there’s a back way out of here. If not, get back here quickly to help us.” Gary ran to into the back office, took a look around, and noticed another door in the back of the room. He went to go try it. It was locked.
Gary stared, frustrated, at the door for a moment, but realized he could shoot the lock out with his shotgun. He did so. He heard Hutch’s voice behind him shouting at Mike. He opened the door and found it opened into a long, dark hallway. He fumbled around for a moment and found a light switch for the hall way. It was a maintenance hallway.
“Hutch!” He called, “I found a back way!”
“Come on, Huntington!” Hutch and Mike soon materialized, with Mike lugging along an overstuffed bag. Hutch ran into the hall, franticly tossed his head from side to side, and then took off to the left. “I see a sign for a maintenance elevator!” Gary and Mike chased after him. Gary heard some crashing and moaning behind them.
Hutch got to the elevator first and pounded the button. “Come on!” A man with half his face missing fell through the door to the gun store. Mike recognized the other half as Wilhelm Wood’s!
“Mr. Hutchinson!” He wheezed. “Wood!”
Hutch was too worried about the elevator to have noticed. “He’s okay.” He kicked the elevator door. “COME ON!”
Gary had recognized the man as Wood, as well. “Wood’s here, Hutch!”
With an annoyed look on his face, Hutch turned to see what they were talking about. “Oh, god. . .” His voice was quite shaky again.
Two more men and a woman staggered through the door. Hutch raised his gun and just started firing, nearly every round missing, not dropping anybody. The M4 started clicking rather than banging. He was out, and Wood had nearly reached them, moaning and snarling all the way.
A little chime sounded to their left and the elevator door opened. Mike and Gary jumped in immediately, but Hutch just stood there staring at Wood. “Hutch!” Garry begged, “Hutch! Wake up!” Hutch wasn’t moving. “HUTCH!” There was another chime and the elevator doors started to close.
Gary reached through the remaining gap and grabbed onto Hutch, pulling him in. This opened the elevator doors. He threw Hutch on the floor and pressed the “Door Close” button. Wood made it to the elevator, and stuck his hand in just as the door was closing, which opened it again. “Oh, god.” Mike moaned.
Gary grabbed his shotgun and shot Wood in the head, blowing the good half off. Mike had taken up pounding the “Door Close” button. Another man arrived at the elevator, and Gary blew his head off too. The doors closed, and the last sight Gary saw through the doors was two bloody corpses on the floor, and blood all over the opposite wall.
Mike hit the “Roof” button, and the elevator began to move.
FIN
"At last!" Cry the villagers. "The next installment is here!"
I (Drewblet) couldn't figure out for the life of me what to do next, then I read A City So Dead (that's the current version. CLICK HERE for the version I read) by AgEnT_GrEEn, and I thought "Mall!" and ideas started coming to me. So here's the result.
In case you care, I'm working on I Read Pt. 1.3, Pt. 2, and Pt. 2.2, and those'll be coming soon. Pt. 2 is starring Jack Angler again, and Pt. 2.2 isn't. Pt. 1.3 is a continuation of this story. I played Half-Life 2 (for the bajillianth time) again, and read Nineteen-Eighty-Four (for the bajillianth time as well) again, and took the basic literary style of Nineteen-Eighty-Four (Book noir), and got one or two ideas from Half-Life 2 and Nineteen-Eighty-Four, and that's Pt. 2.2 of I Read. I also include a bit of backstory, seeing as it takes place several months after the outbreak. Keep and eye on the I Read Saga directory!
Full credit for the story goes to Drewblet (Drew Ryttersgard), and credit goes to AgEnT_GrEEn for the inspiriation that sparked this installment.
Check out Part One HERE.
Check out the I Read Saga page, HERE.
Your friend and mine,
Drewblet.
"At last!" Cry the villagers. "The next installment is here!"
I (Drewblet) couldn't figure out for the life of me what to do next, then I read A City So Dead (that's the current version. CLICK HERE for the version I read) by AgEnT_GrEEn, and I thought "Mall!" and ideas started coming to me. So here's the result.
In case you care, I'm working on I Read Pt. 1.3, Pt. 2, and Pt. 2.2, and those'll be coming soon. Pt. 2 is starring Jack Angler again, and Pt. 2.2 isn't. Pt. 1.3 is a continuation of this story. I played Half-Life 2 (for the bajillianth time) again, and read Nineteen-Eighty-Four (for the bajillianth time as well) again, and took the basic literary style of Nineteen-Eighty-Four (Book noir), and got one or two ideas from Half-Life 2 and Nineteen-Eighty-Four, and that's Pt. 2.2 of I Read. I also include a bit of backstory, seeing as it takes place several months after the outbreak. Keep and eye on the I Read Saga directory!
Full credit for the story goes to Drewblet (Drew Ryttersgard), and credit goes to AgEnT_GrEEn for the inspiriation that sparked this installment.
Check out Part One HERE.
Check out the I Read Saga page, HERE.
Your friend and mine,
Drewblet.
Drewblet |
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, Dec 20 2008, 10:27 AM EST
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