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When Grace is Lost
Title: When Grace is Lost
Author: Elon
Status: Finnished
Words: 12 425
Day submitted: 2010-10-12
It is said that the night is darkest just before dawn. But what if there is no dawn, what if there is no hope? Are we all just supposed to give up on life? Lie down and die? No, I will fight! I will live for as long as I can! If those inhuman bastards want to rip me to shreds I’ll give them hell before they can even touch me! And, if one unfortunate day, they were foolhardy enough to attempt to hurt me, I would be prepared for that with four grenades held close to my heart.
These were the thoughts always flowing through the head of 25-year-old Jake Darion. He was always on the edge, never relaxed, always on the lookout for danger even before all this. Beside him sat Cornelia, steady at her Remington 7600. “You wont hit any of them at this distance with a shotgun, you know” Jake teased. Cornelia looked up from her scope. “For the last time it’s not a goddamn shotgun! It’s a rifle!” she yelled back at him. “Whatever baby, you still keeping the score?”. “Yeah, and I’m still in the lead honey” Cornelia answered as she pulled off another perfect headshot at one of the creatures surrounding the house, even though it was dark outside. “26 on my side” she said with a supercilious smile. Jake shot and missed, again. “How can this be so damn hard!?” he uttered angrily. “Ok, you win. I’ll go inside and help the others with the food. Rifles are not my weapon of choice anyway”. He put his rifle on his back along with his shotgun, opened the balcony door and stepped inside. “Hey Trevor, how’s the food coming along?”. “Just fine, Stacey is a really good cook apparently” Trevor calmly answered. Trevor was unique in that way; no matter the situation Trevor never got upset, angry or panicked. He always managed to remain calm. If you were to ask him how he kept his cool he would answer something like “I don’t see how panicking will help to solve the situation”. You had to give it to him, there was a reason for not showing any emotions, but mostly it just pissed off people around him. His appearance, however, told a different story. He was very big; you wouldn’t’t be surprised to hear that he had won a medal in weightlifting. He looked like the kind of guy you would expect to punch a big hole in the wall if he got mad. “Why are you still wasting ammo? You ought to know that we'll need it later” Trevor asked Jake and gave him a look as if he was a small child who had done something wrong. “Oh come on! We’ve got plenty of ammunition! And bullets count for nothing if we can’t hit our targets”. Trevor was quiet for a while, thinking about what Jake just said then he replied: “Okay then, but I don’t want to hear that you run out of ammunition, save at least 500 rounds in case of an emergency, and always keep it in your bag”. “Yeah, yeah I know, we wont have time to pack when it’s time to leave”. “How is Kayla, by the way?” Jake asked. “She’s still a bit sad but other then that she is fine, considering the circumstances” Stacey answered. Jake Walked out of the kitchen into one of the small bedrooms where he saw Kayla lying on the bed hugging her bear that they found the other day. The bear was missing an arm and one of the eyes looked like it was about to fall off. Kayla didn’t mind; she said it reminded her of her old bear and of her parents. “Hey there little one” Jake said as he sat down on the bed next to her. “What… Eh… What are you up to?” he asked. Kayla turned and looked at Jake. “Nothing” She said quietly. “Don’t you wanna help Stacey with the food?” “No… I want to hug Mr. bear” she said with tears in her eyes. Jake could see on the pillow that she had been crying but did not know what to say to such a young child. “It’s not good for you to be here all alone. You should be with us and have some fun instead of lying here” Jake said to her trying to get her in a better mood. “No, I like being with Mr. bear” She replied, childishly. “Okay then, tell us if you want anything” Jake said and left the room.
Cornelia had just finished her shooting practice when Stacey called out that the food was ready. “What are we having today, Stacey?” Cornelia asked as she made her way to the kitchen. “The frozen potatoes and burgers which we picked up from the store today” She answered. “I just hope it tastes good” Cornelia said as she sat down around the table. “Anything new on the radio?”. “No, just the same old message telling us to head north to Canada” Trevor answered. “You guys think we are gonna make it there?” Jake asked. “I don’t know, but we have come a long way and I don’t think we should stop now” Cornelia answered as she gave Jake a bit of a worried look. “There, here are the potatoes” Stacey said and handed Trevor a bowl of hot potatoes. “And here are the burgers”. Stacey took a seat next to Kayla who sat on her chair with her teddy bear. “Where’s Canada?” She asked. “It’s a place where everything is good, where there are other people” Stacey tried to explain to her. “But there are people here too” Kayla said. “Not those kind of people Kayla, nice people who will help us. Eat your food now so you won’t go hungry”. “Okay” Kayla answered in her cute childish way.
They continued their meal discussing what to do the next day. They were still low on food and they know that there were more food stores around here but they wanted to keep moving towards Canada. In the middle of their conversation they heard a strange sound coming from the entrance door in the apartment. “Quiet!” Trevor whispered loudly and everyone immediately stopped talking. “Listen”. It sounded like someone was scraping the door with bare fingernails. “What’s that sound” Kayla whispered terrified. No one wanted to answer her and no one did. Jake slowly stood up from the chair and as quiet as possible made his way towards the door. He put his eye against the peephole and saw something he wished he hadn’t. He already knew what was on the other side of that door but he just had to look through the peephole, didn’t he. He looked straight into the eyes of a half eaten, half rotten creature and his face went white. “They are here” he whispered with a small panic in his voice. “How could they possibly have made it through all of those trolleys?” Cornelia whispered back. “Are you sure it’s not just one?”. Jake looked through the peephole again. “No, there are more behind it” He whispered back. “It’s all because you decided to have your shooting competition!” Stacey hissed at Cornelia and Jake. “They have never found us before!” Jake hissed back at Stacey. “Stop fighting” Trevor whispered loudly. “Right now it does not matter why they are here, what matter right now is if we should fight or run! Jake, how many are there?”. “20, maybe more” Jake replied, still white in his face. “How could they have been so quiet?” Stacey asked, still whispering. “Everybody got everything packed like I told you?” Trevor asked. “Yes” Everyone replied. He sank down to his knees in front of Kayla. “Kayla, I need you to be brave, can you do that?” “I guess” Kayla whispered sobbing. “I need you to put Mr. Bear in your backpack right away, you think you can do that yourself, quietly?” “Okay” Kayla answered and ran quietly into the bedroom where her backpack was. “Everyone else got everything, are you ready to go?” “We already told you” Cornelia hissed at him. “Okay, that door is going to hold up for a while so let’s finish our food first. We are going to need it”. Kayla came running back with her pink and blue backpack on her back. “Good, eat up your food then wait in the living room” Trevor said to her calmingly. You could now hear banging noises from the door and see how it shook from each time the creatures on the other side smashed their heads or whatever it was they smashed into the door trying to break it. They all ate as fast as they could with their rifles, shotguns and pistols ready for when the door would break. The scraping sound from the cutlery seamed to attract more creatures because it now sounded like big fleshy raindrops was hitting the door and you could clearly see a big dent in it. “Looks like this is it guys” Cornelia said and took aim with her rifle. “You don’t mind if I kill some of them?” she asked sarcastically. “I'm right behind you”, Jake said and winked at Cornelia. “Ear plugs in, rifle up, take aim, safety off and…” Cornelia instructed and Jake followed. “You guys probably wanna be headed for the balcony right about now” Jake said and exchanged a quick look with Trevor who nodded and followed Stacey and Kayla out to the balcony. “My world is unaffected, there is a dream inside a dream, I'm wide awake the more I sleep, you’ll understand when I'm dead…” Jake whispered to himself and cocked his shotgun with a crazy look in his eyes. Cornelia gave him a questioning look. “…saw heaven, hell were lies. When I'm god everyone dies…” He continued singing to himself. He took a firmer grip of the shotgun and glanced quickly at Cornelia, who was steady at her rifle. Then he pulled the trigger “SHOOT, SHOOT, CAN YOU FEEL MY POWER! SHOOT, SHOOT, HERE THE WORLD GETS SMALLER!!” he shouted as loud as he could. “SHOOT. SHOOT. SHOOT MOTHER ******, SHOOT!!” he continued screaming as he fired of shell after shell towards the broken door. Eventually he ran out of bullets and the loud bangs from his gun stopped. “Jesus Jake, I know you like to scream and all, but what the hell? And you're not leaving any kills for me!” “Well, when I shoot stuff is really the only time I can scream without drawing attention, so why not scream?” Jake answered with a big smile. “Well there’s no need to be acting crazy” she replied, smiling back on him. But when she looked back at the door her smile disappeared. “Didn’t you say there were 20 of them?” She asked. “Well yeah, more then 20.” He answered. “No way you got them all with eight rounds”. “Huh…” Jake replied and walked closer to the door to see exactly what had happened. His face went even whiter then before and he yelled: “RUN!” in an almost girly pitch as he set of towards the balcony shortly followed by a confused Cornelia. “How many were there? You don’t think we can stop them?” she asked him but got no answer. As they got to the balcony they discovered that the other already had made it to the next rooftop via the rope hanging from the balcony’s rail to one of the opposite shorter building’s TV antennas, which Trevor had set up before. “Ladies first” Cornelia teased Jake as he threw himself over the edge, catching the rope between his arms with his shotgun. Cornelia looked over her shoulder to see if the zombies had fully breached the door yet and heard a terrifying cry, high-pitched, almost like a child screaming. She followed Jake’s example and slid along the rope after him. When they had made it half way across the rope the zombies eventually breached the door and stormed the apartment, heading for the balcony. Unfortunately for the zombies they weren’t smart enough to realize that if you threw yourself over the edge of the balcony without grabbing the rope you would most certainly fall down to the ground with lethal results. Zombie after zombie came running and then flew over the rail in a very acrobatic somersault before falling to the ground, smashing their heads open on the hard asphalt below.
These are the unheard prayers of young Stacey Rowena. She had been looking for love as long as she could remember, love from a parent, love from a boyfriend or just love from a pet. She was not particularly attractive but no precisely ugly either, at least she didn’t think so and she had never really been called ugly. Now the young ex-student was on the run with four complete strangers from something she did not really know what it was. Now they were stranded on a rooftop with no apparent way off it, fearing that the door leading up to the roof would slam open and zombies would be crawling all over the place. Stacey kept her eyes fixed on that small thin door, expecting it to break at any moment now. Jake was the first to disturb her thoughts. “So… Now what?” He asked. “Our car is down there” Trevor said and leaned over the edge, pointing at a small white minivan with a thick mesh net instead of a windshield. “Well it’s too far to jump” Jake immediately said. “We could try to shoot down the rope” Cornelia suggested. “There’s a door over there” Kayla said and pointed towards the door Stacey was still staring at. “No!” Stacey suddenly exclaimed. “Why not the door?” Kayla asked in a nagging way. “It just… just doesn’t feel good, could we maybe be a bit quieter?” Stacey said looking worrying at the door. Trevor looked at Stacey for a while, then the rope and lastly the door. “Stacey is right. The door is an unnecessary risk, we don’t know what’s in this building, let’s try the rope. Cornelia, you’re our best shooter, do you think you can do hit it?”. “Well I could give it a try” Cornelia replied with a crooked smile. “Jake, watch the door. The gunfire might attract whatever is inside of there” Trevor commanded Jake. Stacey took aim at the door with her 9mm Glock 17 as well.
Zombies were still falling from the balcony like tapping water and their scream might have covered the gunfire from being heard by other zombies, but that’s just wishful thinking. Cornelia sat down, took aim at the thick rope and fired one round with a loud single bang. The rope twitched as if she had hit it but it did not snap. “Did you hit it?” Trevor asked, looking carefully at the rope. “I think so but it didn’t break for some reason” Cornelia replied, also looking at the rope in confound. She shot it again, and again. After four shots they could clearly see that the rope was damaged and parts of the rope had snapped but the rope still held up. “Guys” Stacey suddenly whispered. “I think they are coming up the stairs”. “Oh ****. They are, I can hear them!” Jake confirmed and took a better aim with his Remington 870 shotgun. Now even Cornelia and Trevor’s faces started to lose their colour as a result of blood rushing to their livers, which is the body’s response to fear. “Hurry Cornelia!” Trevor said, still in a calm voice. “I'm trying, I'm trying!” Cornelia answered with some panic in her voice while she fired round after round, missing over half of them because of the pressure. “Move aside!” Jake suddenly shouted and aimed his fully reloaded shotgun at the rope. He emptied the magazine on the rope in a big hail of lead and a series of loud gunshots without any real success. “That’s it, this rope has to break!” Trevor said as if he was angry at the rope and pulled in it as hard as he could, hard enough to pull someone’s arm off. The rope creaked and sounded like it didn’t want to snap but then all of a sudden it did, at the spot where Cornelia got a few good hits and Trevor fell down on the rooftop-floor with a big thud.
The door Stacey and Jake were supposed to cover flew open and an angry of zombie was rushing towards them. Stacey froze and Jake had had not have time to reload. “****!” Cornelia yelled and aimed her rifle towards the zombie closest to Jake but it had already reached him and another one was on the way. It tackled Jake down on to floor. Both of them slid dangerously close to the edge. “GET IT OFF ME!! GET IT OFF!!” Jake shouted as he fought it, trying everything not to get bit. Cornelia shot the other zombie running towards him in the head and stopped it dead in it’s track. “I can’t get a clear shot!” Cornelia yelled as she was trying to shot the zombie wrestling with Jake. From what seamed to be out of nowhere Trevor appeared. He threw himself at the zombie, pushing it off Jake and grabbed it by its neck with his huge hands. Then he stood up, holding the thin, bony zombie in midair with one hand. He looked at the small creature with despise right before he punched it in it’s forehead with such a force that you could hear the cranium crack and the neck snap. The lifeless body flew more then 15 meters before hitting the asphalt below. “LETS MOVE!” he shouted back at the others and helped Jake up. Stacey unfroze, turned around in confusion without really knowing what was happening. “Stacey, climb down the rope!” Cornelia yelled at her. She started stumbling towards the rope but then stopped as if she had forgotten something. “Stacey, come on! ” Cornelia yelled once again. Then she realized the gravity of the situation and ran towards the rope. “Kayla, who’s taking Kayla” she said in her confusion. “I’ll take her!” Trevor replied and grabbed Kayla around her waste, picking her up like a teddy bear, as he ran past her. Cornelia and Stacey were more then a third on the way down when Trevor and Jake got to the rope. They could see and hear more zombies running up the stairs. “You go first Trevor, I’ll hold them off while you start climbing!” Jake said trying to be a hero. He cocked his gun putting a shell in the chamber. The first zombie that appeared in the door opening got more then 300 small lead balls pressed into its head which made it fall over backwards and tripping the one behind it. The second shot hit a third zombie inside of the small rooftop shed still heading up the stairs. It fell down and blocked the path for further zombies heading towards them. “Let’s go Jake!” Stacey shouted from the street below. “In a sec sweetheart, don’t miss me too much” Jake replied in his flirty way. Stacey couldn’t see what was happening up on the rooftop, she could only hear gunshots and screams from dying zombies. Then there was a loud bang, such as one from a grenade going off. “JAKE!” All three of them except for Kayla yelled thinking he just blew himself up. Then Jake came swinging down the rope like a monkey man. “Missed me?” he teased with a smile on his face. “Get in the goddamn car!” Cornelia yelled at him, angry with his little hero show. Then Trevor put the pedal to the medal and they drove out of the abandoned alley.
This was what the thought of Trevor just before he pushed down the pedal with his foot. It was true too. If it hadn’t been for Trevor they would have died in that apartment. The others did not think of any real escape plan. He was the one who had to make sure they all knew what to do when the worst happened, which it did all too often. And now was not an exception. When they drove out of the alley Trevor wished they had just stayed in the apartment. The street was full of zombies, both dead and alive blocking the way. Other cars were also a problem since many of them had crashed, making it very hard to get through. “Oh come on!” Jake uttered in the back seat of the van. “We will never get through here!”. “Keep it calm, we will. I did this while you were down at the supermarket earlier today… Except there are more of them now” Trevor answered and kept driving the car slowly into the haze of other less fortunate cars. The zombies on the street noticed them immediately and started running towards them. “Kayla, cover your eyes and ears” Cornelia calmly said to her and Stacey sitting next to Kayla put her hands on her ears. The small horde of zombies heading towards their cars eventually reached it and started to pound everywhere they could on it. “As if there wasn’t already enough of dents in the damn thing” Trevor complained quietly and kept pushing the van though the small horde. It kind of reminded him of when it was hailing which made him think of his childhood. Some of the zombies in front of the car fell down as their foot got caught under the wheel and the van slowly crushed their legs, waist and eventually their entire body. They were now driving on a thick rug of meat and bones, which cracked with a loud and unpleasant noise under the weight of the car. They screamed in what seamed as despair and pain but stopped as the tyres crushed their lungs, squeezing out the air in them which made the zombies sound like they were coughing. It was a minute of sadness for Trevor since it reminded him that these creatures once were humans, and when he heard their screams of pain he though he heard the only human thing that was left in them, pain.
After what seamed as hours they finally got out of the small city with their van, which was now close to breakdown from all the pounding. Kayla was still crying, which she had done since the pounding began. They had reached a highway without too many cars on it but they still had to drive in a zigzag pattern to avoid cars standing in the way. “There, there, it’s okay. They are gone now” Stacey said in an attempt to comfort Kayla. “Why are they doing that?” Kayla sobbed and dried of tears from her face with her arm. “I don’t know, I think they are sick” Stacey answered. “But you shouldn’t kill sick people! You should help them!” Kayla sobbed with a raised voice. “We can’t help them Kayla, we don’t even know why they are acting like that”. Kayla went quiet and watched out the mesh net window, still crying but not as loud as before. It was dark, close to midnight and they all needed to sleep. “If anyone see a motel, gas station or anything, let me know. I need to focus on not crashing this car” Trevor informed the others. They eventually reached a gas station and pulled in beside the gas pump. Trevor killed the engine and listened for any sound indicating there was something wrong. It was dead quiet except for the wind whispering in the air. “Stay in the car, Cornelia start the car at any sign of trouble” Trevor said to Cornelia sitting in the seat next to him. “Will do” she answered and looked at him. “Are you okay? You seam… a bit off” She asked. “No, no, I’m fine” Trevor replied and stepped out of the car along with an M16. First he checked the pumps for gasoline but both of them were empty. All of a sudden a bright light from inside the gas station store dazzled him and he had to cover his eyes with his hand to see anything. “Hello?” he shouted but without any answer. He saw someone moving inside of the store and raised his M16. “Put down your weapon” a voice from a megaphone yelled at him. He hesitated for a while but lowered his weapon in fear they might be pointing a weapon at his head from inside of the store. “Who are you? And why did you stop here” the megaphone continued. “We are just looking for a place to sleep, nothing more! We don’t want any trouble!” Trevor replied in a low-pitched half intimidating voice. “Okay, stay there” the megaphone answered and went quiet. The door to the store opened and a small man came out from it. He walked up to Trevor and stopped just a few meters away from him. “Hello Mr.” he said and smiled. “Hello to you too” Trevor replied, confused about the man’s strange smile. “So, you need shelter? You also need gas I see…”. “Well yes, we are low on both” Trevor answered and smiled back at the strange man. “A sense of humour, I like that. Follow me and we can continue this discussion inside”. The man turned around in a kind of pirouette and walked back towards the door. “Go on, I don’t bite”. Trevor looked at Cornelia who had moved to the drivers seat and shrug his shoulders. He started to follow the man inside. Big fences and barbwire protected the stores windows. A couple of dead bodies were lying around the fences, some stuck in the barbwire. The man knocked on the door and someone on the inside opened it.
Inside the store several men sat around a big table, each of them holding a big gun. “Lads, we have a visitor. He says he needs shelter and gas”. The men looked at Trevor, some of them looked frightened by his size. The strange man who Trevor followed sat down at the table with the other men. “Go ahead, take a seat” he commanded Trevor who sad down at the only available chair opposite to the strange small man. “So, what do you have to offer us in return then?” he asked Trevor. “Well… we got plenty of ammunition, some spare guns and a little bit of food and a couple of jerry cans with water” Trevor answered. “Hmm… Interesting… Guns we have, water too as long as the tap water doesn’t run out. We could always use more ammunition. Food however is a bit of a shortage here, how much food did you say you had?”. The man looked at Trevor with the same strange smile he had by the car. “Well… not much, just a few bags of frozen fries and some energy bars” Trevor answered, trying not to look worried. “I don’t think that is enough food for this trade… Do you Rodger?” the man asked one of the other men at the table who agreed and gave Trevor an angry look. “Tell you what, you can sleep here, if you find us some food tomorrow. As insurance we will of course need one of you to stay here. Deal?”. Trevor glanced at the van outside and thought for a while. “Of course, no problem. Could I go out and get the other?” he replied and made an attempt to stand up. “Wait! Don’t you drive away now, we want that food and if you try to drive away from here your night will end bad” the strange man said and this time without a smile on his face. “I understand” Trevor said calmly and walked out the door.
“What’s happening!?” Cornelia hissed at him when he got back to the car. “They want food and ammunition” Trevor answered. “We can’t just give them our supplies!” Cornelia exclaimed. “They are offering us shelter for tonight, and if we try to leave now they will shoot us”. Cornelia looked at Trevor with worry. “Fine then… Are you sure they won’t just raid and kill us, or worse?” She asked in a quiet tone so that none of the others would hear. “I don’t know…” Trevor answered and you could see that he too was worried. They all stepped out of the car, Trevor carrying the supplies. The strange man stood by the store door waiting for them. “Come on! Those zombies is still out here you know!” the man said and they all hurried inside. The strange man closed the door behind them and locked it. “Welcome to our base” he said happily, looking at all the newcomers. “Come and I will show you your room” he went behind the counter and opened a door. Trevor and the others followed him down some stairs leading to a big storage room with spare car parts and similar things. This gave Trevor an idea. “You don’t happen to have a pump we could use?” he asked the man. “Well… actually we do. What exactly do you need a pump for?” the man said and gave Trevor a curios look. “Well I was thinking you could suck up gasoline from cars on the road” he answered. “Oh that. Yeah, we have done that too” the man said, sounding disappointed since he thought they were going use the pump for something new and original. “But no problem, we will get you a pump… Here we are”. They had reached the end of the storage room and the strange man had opened a small door, reviling a small room with four beds inside it. “Have a good nights sleep, we will wake you up at 9 o’clock tomorrow” the man said and headed upstairs again leaving them alone in the small room. “Well… let’s go to sleep then” Trevor said and laid down on one of the beds. The others followed his example and soon they were all asleep.
The next day they woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. “Time to get us some food!” the strange man said from the other side of the door. Everyone except Trevor and Cornelia groaned a bit before getting up from the small uncomfortable bed. When they opened the door they noticed that the strange man still stood there, with a tray of fries. “Well I figured you will need some kind of breakfast before heading out, so eat up” the man said with that strange smile of his. Trevor looked at him with confusion. “Hey, I’m just a businessman, not a monster” The man said and handed him the tray. After breakfast everyone except for little Kayla and Stacey was heading for the car. “Kayla you need to stay here, it’s too dangerous for you to come with us” Cornelia explained to her. “But I don’t like those people” she whispered in Cornelia’s ear. “Don’t worry, Stacey will be here with you” she said and pointed at Stacey who smiled back at Kayla. “… Okay then…” Kayla said and ran over to Stacey, hiding behind her legs from the strange men in the gas station store. “We will be back in a couple of hours!” Trevor said before he shut the car door. When they were all inside of the car Jake looked questioning at Trevor. “Why do they have to stay here? Kayla always just waits in the car when we get food” he said and looked worried at Stacey and Kayla who was standing in the door opening, waving goodbye to them. “Because… Because the men in the store believes we will just take off otherwise, and I don’t blame them for thinking that” Trevor answered. “Let’s just get this over with, everyone got their gun loaded?” he said and started the engine and drove off.
After driving along the highway for one and a half hour they eventually got to what looked like a supermarket, but the sign was ripped down, lying flat on the ground in front of the main door. “This doesn’t look good, lets keep driving” Jake said. “No, I’ll check it out” Trevor said and pulled over. “Cornelia, you know the drill” he said and opened his door. “Trevor wait! … I’m coming with you” Jake said and stepped out of the car too. “All right, but no hero stuff here, just walk into the supermarket, if it looks okay take a trolley and fill it up with food” Trevor said and aimed his M16 towards the main door as they were walking towards it. They nervously walked up to the door and slowly opened the sliding doors since the electricity was out. The store was empty, it looked like it had already been looted, and the only food they could see was a bunch of mouldy vegetables and fruits. “Looks like someone got here before us, let’s see if they left anything edible” Trevor said and took a trolley lying sideways a couple of meters from them. They walked to the freezers in hope that there would be food there, but there was nothing there except disappointment. “I’ll see if there’s ant can food left” Jake said and ran off behind a shelf. Trevor kept searching in the rest of the freezers without any success. Suddenly he heard something fall to the floor with a loud noise. “Jake! Where are you?” he shouted and watched for any movement around him. “Jake!” he shouted again. “Here!” answered Jake with a strained voice. Trevor ran towards the sound and found Jake fighting a zombie. “Why can’t you just shoot them instead of fighting them?” Trevor said, calmed down when he saw that Jake had the zombie pinned with a trolley against the wall and wasn’t in any real trouble. “It’s not my fault, it sneaked up on me!” he said and took aim with his shotgun at its head. “Goodbye to you too” he answered to it’s crazy screaming and pulled the trigger which left a nasty bloodstain and a couple of holes in the wall behind the zombie. The lifeless body with its squashed head fell down on the floor when Jake let go of the trolley. “Well… No success with the can food, you?” Jake asked as he wiped of some of the blood spatter from his face. “No, no luck for me either. Let’s try the next store w come across” Trevor answered and started heading towards the car. “Nothing?” Cornelia asked as she saw them come out from the supermarket empty handed. “Nope, we have to find another one” Jake answered and they got back in the car again. “Are you guys all right? I heard gunfire”. “Trevor felt like brawling with another zombie” Trevor answered a bit annoyed and they drove off, looking for another supermarket.
It was close to three o’clock when they found the next supermarket, which didn’t looked looted like the last one. “Let’s hope we find something this time” Trevor said and stepped out of the car. He gave Jake a look to tell him that he shouldn’t mess up this time and they went towards the main entrance. This time there were glass windows on the walls so they could see what was inside before opening the door, and what they saw both disappointed them and made them exited. The store was full of food, but also full of zombies. It would be a great risk going in there, but they wouldn’t need to search for another supermarket. They both stopped and looked at each other. “Well… if we’re gonna do this we need Cornelia too, since she’s the best shooter” Jake said and Trevor nodded in agreement. They went back to the car and explained the situation to her. “How many did you say there were?” Cornelia asked when she heard the news. “We’re not sure, maybe a total of 50 inside the whole store” Trevor answered. “Why are they even in there?” she said and looked over towards the store. “I guess they are ex-looters or shopper” Jake said who was also staring at the store. “What do you think guys, can we do this?” Cornelia asked enthusiastically. Both Jake and Cornelia turned to Trevor who looked at them with scrutiny. “Okay, but we will head back to the car as soon as it gets out of control, and I’m betting it will” Trevor eventually said and Cornelia stepped out of the car. “Everyone got enough ammunition?” Cornelia asked while and opened the back door of the car and pick up some extra magazines to her rifle. “I’m good” Jake said and showed his pockets full of shotgun shells. “Me too” Trevor said and Cornelia closed the door. “Let’s go then!” she said and they headed towards the door of the supermarket. “Jake, take that trolley over there!” Trevor commanded Jake and pointed towards a lonely trolley standing on the parking lot. “Aye-aye sir!” he replied and got the trolley. “Okay, this is how we are going to do, we rush to the freezers where you Jake fill up the trolley with as mush as you can while me and Cornelia cover you. Cornelia you take the front of the corridor and I’ll take the back” Trevor explained when Jake came back with the trolley. “Let’s do this!” Jake said, all psyched up about it. Trevor slid the doors up and they were off. Trevor ran in the front, with Jake behind him and Cornelia in the back. They ran in-between two high shelves filled with soda and other drinks when five zombies came rushing from the other end of the shelf corridor towards them. Trevor sprayed 5.56 mm rounds through them and they fell down on the floor. Jake pulled down some soda bottle into the trolley and lifted it up to avoid the bodies and they kept running. Now everyone in the store knew they were there and came rushing towards them. They ran as fast as they could, shooting bullet after bullet at all the approaching zombie. Eventually they reached the freezers and Jake started throwing everything from frozen peas to hamburgers in the trolley. “Hurry!” Trevor shouted through the haze of bullets and loud cries from the wounded or dying creatures around them.
After just a few minutes the trolley was full and Trevor shouted: “Get to the car!”. Dead bodies lying on top of each other surrounded them and there was no clear path for the trolley. “Trevor, I can’t push the trolley through here!” Jake shouted back to Trevor. “Cornelia, cover us! We will have to carry the trolley back to the car!” Trevor said and grabbed one side of the trolley. “Lift on three, one, two three!” he instructed Jake and they started running slowly with Cornelia in the front covering them. “Behind us!” Jake yelled as at least ten zombies approached from behind them. “Got it!” Cornelia said and shot two zombies in one shot. They kept running as fast as they could, carrying a trolley weighing close to 100 kg while being chased by zombies. “Take the M16!” Trevor shouted to Cornelia who took the M16 hanging on his back. With the M16 still strapped to Trevor’s back she shot down the remaining five that was chasing them. “Almost there” she said and reloaded the M16 with a magazine from Trevor’s pocket. When they finally reached the door Trevor let go of the trolley and closed the door after them. They thought they were safe outside but all the gunfire had attracted zombies near by who was starting to crowd the parking lot. They rushed as fast as they could towards the car and Cornelia who was in the lead opened the cars backdoor. “Get the damn trolley in here!” she yelled while shooting some of the zombies coming their way. Together Trevor and Jake threw the trolley in the van, slammed the door shut and headed in the car themselves. Only a few second after Trevor closed his door the zombies caught up with them and started pounding the van as they had done the day before. “Everyone ok?” Trevor asked and tried to catch his breath. “I'm … I'm ok…” Jake said panting. “Cornelia, you ok?” Trevor asked her and she nodded as an answer. “That was a close one” Jake said and looked at the zombies who had gathered around the car trying to break it. “Let get out of here, please?” Cornelia said and Trevor started the cars engine.
They got back to the gas station at approximately four o’clock and the strange man was standing by the gas pumps waiting for them. “Welcome back!” he said when they pulled in. “How has your day been?” he asked when he saw that they were covered in bloodstains. “Well… Lucky I guess, we merely escaped from a bunch of those zombies, but we got your food” Trevor answered. “Good, hand it over and you can continue your journey to wherever you’re headed” the man said and reached out his hand as if he thought he could carry the food in one hand. “It’s in the back, I’ll help you with it” Trevor said and stepped out of the car. “Do you have any gas?”. “Yes, of course, the gas I promised you. And I believe a pump.” The man answered. “Your friends are listening to the radio in the staff room, want me to go get them?”. “That would be nice” Trevor answered in a friendly tone and the man went inside to get them. While the man was inside Trevor and Jake carried out the Trolley and put back all the merchandise that had fell out from when they threw the trolley in the van. “Here they are, safe and sound” the man said when he came back out with Stacey and Kayla. He walked over to Trevor and handed him a gas tank and a pump. “Here’s the gas and the pump, pleasure doing business with” he said and then he grabbed the trolley and started pushing it back to the gas station store again. “Bye” Trevor said and did a goodbye gesture with his hand. “Everyone in the car, we need to keep going if we’re gonna reach that safe zone” Trevor said and opened the door to the drivers seat. The strange man then stopped and looked back at Trevor. “You really think there’s a safe zone, don’t you” he mocked them. “Good luck with that”. He went inside and closed the door behind him. Trevor ignored him and sad down in the car seat, trying to start the car but it wouldn’t start. “Huh” he said to himself. “Guys we need another car, could someone go look if there’s another van close by?” he informed the others. “But I like this car!” Kayla complained, as any child would have done. “Sweetie, this car doesn’t work anymore, we will find another one like this one” Cornelia explained to her. Jake stepped out and looked around for a van and found one just fifty meters away. “There’s one!” he said in delight. “Great, could you go over there and see if the keys are still in it?” Trevor asked him and Jake ran over to the car. “Yeah, there are keys here alright” he shouted back to the others. “And a driver” he said quietly to himself as he watched the battered body with missing pieces of flesh which the zombies probably had stole from him. Jake opened the door and took off the seatbelt from the dead driver who fell out of the car. He checked the rest of the car for bodies but it was empty apart from some bloodstains.
These were the feelings of ten-year-old Kayla as she jumped into the new van. She didn’t like it as much as the last one, it smelled funny but the colour was better then the other one, blue. She liked to be in a car, it felt safe with everyone gathered, together. The car started and started to move. Jake sat beside her with an electric drill and screwed on the last metal mesh net around the window. “Hey, I’m not done back here!” he said when the car started to move. “Oh, sorry” Trevor said and stopped the car again. A few seconds later Jake was done and they drove off. They had just a couple of hours left before the sun would go down behind the horizon and the darkness would come back. Kayla didn’t like the darkness, especially not when there were monsters around. She leaned her head against Stacey’s arm and looked into her eyes. “Do you think they are mad at us?” she asked Stacey. “Who is?” she answered. “The crazy people” Kayla said. “Oh, sweetie, I don’t know. Let’s not talk about them ok?” she replied and they both went quiet. Eventually they reached a motel and they stopped near the motels front door. “Stay in the car, Jake and me will make sure it’s safe here” Trevor said and they stepped out of the car. After a few minutes some gunfire was heard from inside the house. Cornelia looked worrying at the house. “If they aren’t back within two minutes I’m going up there” she said and took a firm grip around her rifle. Another shot was heard and Cornelia assumed the worst. “Screw this, I’m going in!” Cornelia said and ran into the building. A few more shots were heard and a couple of minutes later all three of them came back, Jake covered in blood. “Well, the house looks clear, just a couple of them in the lobby” Trevor said when he had opened Stacey’s door. “So we’re sleeping here?” Stacey asked him worried that there might be more of them. “Yeah, someone will have to stay up though, we will have to take turns.” Trevor answered and they headed inside. Inside there was a big lobby with dead people lying around as if they had just died while doing everyday things. One of them was even sitting in a sofa. “Cover your eyes sweetie” Cornelia said since she was the one who opened the door. “Why? It’s not like I haven’t seen all this before?” Kayla responded in a cocky way. Cornelia looked at her, a bit confused and then said “suit yourself” before they all went inside. It was true that Kayla had seen worse things then this, but when they got inside she closed her eyes anyway, wishing that everything would just go away. They went up some stairs and got to a narrow corridor where all the motel rooms were. They were very quiet as they walked because they still weren’t sure if there were zombies in the building. Trevor walked first with his big M16 raised to his shoulder. “Okay, go though the rooms, we will stay on the bottom floor so that we can jump out the window if we have to, I’ll park the car on the other side later” Trevor said quietly to Jake and Cornelia who started to opening the doors, checking each room, prepared for an attack at any second. Eventually the finished clearing out the bottom floor without encountering any zombies, only dead people and they had to decide for which room to stay in. They all agreed on a room in the corner of the building since it would be the room closest to the road in the event of an emergency situation. They unpacked their things beside the bed each of them were sleeping in. There wasn’t much to unpack; they basically just put down their guns and backpacks, except for Kayla who only took out her teddy bear from her backpack. Now they were all lying in a small motel room with a locked door somewhere between Kansas and Nebraska. Despite the locked door none of them felt safe, Kayla could swear she heard something move on the floor above them but didn’t say anything. After an hour or so Trevor stood up from his bed, listening to the sounds from the floor above. “I’m just gonna check something” he whispered, opened his over stuffed backpack and pulled out a hand grenade and a fishing line. Kayla looked him questioning but then turned around and hugged her bear. Trevor unlocked the door and stepped out into the corridor. “Why is he leaving?” Kayla asked Stacey lying next to her. “I don’t know, I think he is setting up a trap” Stacey answered. “A trap? Like a cage?” Kayla asked confused. “No, with the grenade, so that we will wake up if any of those crazy people come here, go back to sleep” Stacey said and stroke Kayla’s back. A couple of minutes later he got back and quietly awoke everyone. “I’ve set up a grenade trap outside, so no one goes outside until I have disarmed it” he explained, making sure everyone understood. “Are we clear on that? No one walks out of this room until I say you can”. He looked at everyone and they nodded in response. After many long hours they all fell asleep, fooling themselves that it was safe to sleep.
A loud bang awoke them all at around four and in a heartbeat Jake, Trevor and Cornelia had their guns cocked and ready to fire. But it went quiet, no screams and no movement. They exchanged questioning looks and then a loud scream was heard in the room right on top of theirs. What sounded like thousands of feet stomping made everyone’s faces loose it’s colour. There must have been over two hundred of them in the three floors above. They only cleared out the first floor and when they didn’t find any they assumed there weren’t any in the floors above either. The thundering sounds moved towards the stairs and they could hear how they came rushing down the stairs, screaming in anger, pounding the walls in fury as they ran. It felt like the whole building shook, Kayla even thought the house would collapse. “It’s okay sweetie, they wont find us” Stacey whispered in Kayla’s ear even though she didn’t really believe that herself and Kayla noticed that but kept quiet. To their surprise they didn’t find them. They ran around inside the building, slamming on door to door without really knowing what to do. They didn’t get anymore sleep that night, all of them stayed up, just watching the door. Fearing that it would be pounded into pieces at any second. It took several hours for the zombies to calm down and when they eventually did it was close to 9 o’clock in the morning and time for them to keep moving. None of them dared to open the door so they decided to walk out the window, which actually was closer to the car now that Trevor had moved it. They got out of the window as quietly as they could, one by one, none of them even dared to breath. When they finally reached the car they all could breath again and the fear let go of them. “Why didn’t we check upstairs?” Jake eventually said, looking at Trevor. “There were not a single one of them on the bottom floor, just a couple in the lobby, I had no Idea that there would be that many upstairs” Trevor answered, just staring into midair. “Jesus we could have died… Don’t you always say clear out the WHOLE building before staying there?” Jake said angrily. “Hey, it isn’t my fault and you know that!” Trevor roared back at him. “Guys! Stop fighting! It was just a simple mistake and we won’t do it again. Besides, what are the odds that the whole first floor was empty when the rest of the building wasn’t?” Cornelia interrupted them. “Yeah, I guess you’re right… At least we got out alive ” Trevor said and started the car.
They slept in the car for the next couple of days until Cornelia couldn’t take it anymore. None of them had showered in three weeks and the car smelled worse then rotten dead meat. “I can’t take it anymore!” the exclaimed and opened the car door for some fresh air. “Cornelia, close the door, it’s in the middle of the night” Trevor asked her in a sleepy voice. “No! No I need to take a shower, we need to wash this car, I can’t stand the stench anymore! If I don’t get to take a shower soon I’ll shower in our ******* drinking water!” she yelled back at him. “Okay, okay, we will se what we can do about that tomorrow, these Little Trees doesn’t seam to do anything about the stench” he answered and pulled down the Little Trees hanging from the rear-view mirror. Cornelia went back into the car and tried to go fall asleep with little success. The next day they drove past a lake and stopped there to take a bath. The view was beautiful. There were big majestic spruces surrounding them and a small wooden cabin just by the small dirt road where the van was parked. The water was clear and you could see to the other side of the lake where there were even more spruces stretching along the horizon. It was as if the infection never got here, everything was so peaceful, birds were even singing. They played in the water for a whole hour before deciding to leave again. Kayla like the water, her parents used to take her out to the beach in the summers where she would play in the sand and in the ocean. Now she missed them more then ever but at the same time she had never felt happier then now after the infection. When it was finally time to leave she complained even though she knew that they had to leave. “No one forgot anything?” Trevor asked when they were all back in the car. “Nope” answered Jake and the rest just shook their heads. “Let’s go then” he said and they were off again. Kayla thought it was cosy when they drove on dirt roads. She could hear the small rocks move under the cars tires and somehow that made her feel safe. She leaned against the door and looked out the window at all the trees quickly passing by. This was the first time since a long time she had actually felt like she was home, like she belonged, like she was back with her parents again. With those thoughts in her head she fell asleep and dreamt of her parents.
To most people this might seam terrifying but she had accepted it for she had died once before. When she came back it felt just like when you wake up in the morning without having a dream, she just woke up in the hospital without any memories of a heaven, hell or any sort of afterlife. This morning she woke up dreamless as well. Cornelia was close to her thirties but she looked as if she were twenty. She was always the funny, a bit immature person around her friends and it was no difference now as she sat in the car with four strangers who she barely knew. She had grown to like most of them, some more, some less. The last thing she wanted right now was for this to end, but she knew it eventually would. She just hoped zombies wouldn’t be the reason. It was early in the morning and she was the first one to awake. The sky was free of clouds and the sun was just rising on the horizon giving of a warming red-orange light. She stepped outside of the car to stretch her legs and get some fresh air. Last days bath had made her feel fresh and clean, too bad there weren’t time for many of those. She went down to the water, sat down in the sand and stared out over the red glowing horizon. The sight gave back some hope. She had made it through a lot but she had also lost many close to her. Her times alone were far too few and she never really got her privacy, they all had. They each had two pairs of cloths, which they changed and washed at times like these. She buried her feet in the sand and felt the cold sand gently stroking her warm bare feet. This was worth living for, this was worth fighting for she thought but got interrupted by something moving behind her. Quickly she picked up her rifle from the sand and turned around, only to see Jake taking a piss in the bushes. “I can see you you know” she said to him and he almost tripped by surprise. “I don’t mind if you don’t mind” he joked as an answer but you could see him blushing. He went down to the water and washed his hand, then sat down next to Cornelia. He watched the sunrise for a while and then turned to Cornelia, looking serious. “I know we have been fooling around a lot and all, but I need you to answer a question honestly” he said, looking into her eyes. “Sure” she answered, expecting a question regarding her emotions for him. “What do you think of me, I mean as a person, not how you feel for me” he then said, still looking into her eyes. “Your okay I guess” she said and smiled back at him. “Seriously, it feels like I’m just messing up all the time, trying to be funny but failing, putting people in danger” he said with a serious voice. “Ha, that makes two of us” Cornelia answered and winked at him. “Seriously though, you aren’t putting anyone in danger. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be sitting here right now and if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t either. We all protect each other”. She took his hand and looked into his eyes and said: “I just want you to know that I really care for you, and that I would do anything to protect you”. Then she kissed him and he kissed her.
A few hours later they were back in the car again, back on the cosy dirt road. Normally the highway would have got them to Canada faster, but the highways here, near North Dakota, were completely jammed at some places and it was impossible to get through. After a couple of hours they had officially reached Canada. The radio had told them earlier that there were several safe zones in Canada; the one they were closest to was located in Edmonton. It was a former max security prison where the military had simply thrown out all the inmates when things went critical and offered non-infected civilians protection. The supplies were provided by a series of “scavenge operations” which both military personal and volunteers participated in until they could set up a big enough safety perimeter to grow crops and get freshwater. It all sounded promising but they had also heard reports that similar facilities that had been overrun all across the continent and that they were suffering from food and water shortages. Some even claimed that you were better of alone. But Cornelia didn’t care what others said, she knew the facility was still up and running, who else would have sent those messages on the radio. The only complication was that for them to get to the Edmonton Institution they would have to get dangerously close to a big city, namely Edmonton. In the past they had always stayed away from cities because of the total chaos in and around them. They hadn’t heard of or met anyone who had made it out alive from a bigger city but this was their only chance of a life free from running and scavenging. A life where comfort, food and shelter could be taken for granted, a life they all once had. After driving around on small dirt roads all day, time caught up with them and the darkness fell over them once again. They pulled over by an abandoned house but spent the night in the car. They had just enough gas left to make it to Edmonton, which wasn’t far away. Cornelia got next to no sleep that night. Everyone was nervous in for tomorrow, knowing that after tomorrow they would be either safe or dead. The next morning there was no romantic moments, no beautiful sky and no beautiful lake. Just an old house that appeared to have been abandoned for decades though the infection only started months ago. They ate the last of the food they had scavenged to breakfast/lunch and then they were ready for the big challenge of getting to the safe zone. None of them had any real plan yet, none of them even knew what to expect once they got close to the city. But that didn’t stop them, they had gotten this far and now they would stop for nothing.
As they approached the main road they realized that this could be much more difficult then they had imagined. The road ahead of them were stacked with car wreckage, some still burning. Seams as if they weren’t the only one who had tried to reach that safe zone. “Damn it!” Jake exclaimed in frustration. “Relax, we will just find a way around” Trevor said, trying to calm everyone down. “Haven’t you checked the map? This is the only bridge across this damn river for more then 20 kilometres and I bet the next one is just as crowded as this one!”. “Well… then I see only one option… We walk. It’s only a little bit more then five kilometres. We could always try to find a working car on the other side of this car wreckage... But I doubt there’s one considering how many people has done this before us” Trevor said thoughtfully. “But what about the zombies?” Jake objected. “You got any better idea?” Trevor responded and looked at him. “Fine, but it’s not my fault if anyone dies” Jake said and opened the car door. He opened the cars back door and started stuffing his backpack with ammunition and some water. Everyone except Kayla did the same. “Kayla, you stay behind me now honey, ok?” Cornelia told her and she nodded without even a thinking of arguing. Then they started walking, with Trevor in the front as usual followed by Jake, Cornelia, Kayla and lastly Stacey. They sneaked through the burning car wreckages, carefully and quietly moving forward. The only think Cornelia could hear was the wind and an annoying lonely crow feeding on the victims of the car crashes. They got past the wreckage and across the bridge without encountering anything at all. On the other side of the river there were almost no cars at all. Jake ran up to one of the cars and tried turned the keys left in it but the car was all out of gas. “Damn it, we should have brought gas” he yelled out loud. Trevor stared at him as if he was stupid. “You didn’t think of that earlier?” he said and put down his backpack on the asphalt road. “Fortunately I did” he then said and picked up a small bottle of gas from it. “This won’t get us far but it was all we had left” he said as he emptied it into the cars tank. It was very tight with five people in the small car and their backpacks didn’t exactly make the situation any better. Trevor was in the drivers seat as before and tried to start the car. The engine cried like a dying horse then went quiet. He tried the ignition again with the same result. Then once more. The fourth time the engine surprisingly started and the car crawled forward like the half dead horse it had sounded like before. Then they picked up some speed and actually got somewhere. They could now see the facility but it wasn’t clear if there were people there or if it was abandoned. As they got closer they could still not see any sign of life. Then, suddenly, there were some movement, but not from inside of the facility. They could see how a bunch of cars parked in front of the facilities main doors shook up and down as if someone was jumping on them. Seconds later a humanlike creature could be seen among the cars, then another one appeared, and another one. More and more appeared from behind the buildings beside the cars. Eventually a whole swarm of them could be seen standing far away, waiting. “We are not seriously driving into that?” Stacey said and looked at Trevor as if he was crazy. “I have not come this far just to turn around!” Trevor answered and accelerated the car. The zombies in the distance were now taking the shape of a full sized horde, slowly approaching them. Then as if on command all of them started running towards the small speeding car. It almost looked like a black liquid moving towards them, flowing out from behind the buildings, being pushed between the cars parked in the way. “We will make it to the front gate before them!” Trevor said and stared as if possessed at the crowd coming their way. “No, no we wont. Trevor stop, STOP THE CAR, TURN AROUND!” Jake yelled at him but he didn’t listen. “What exactly is you plan here!? How do you even know anyone will open that door?” Jake continued but there was still no response from Trevor. They started to get close to the gates and it looked as if they actually had a chance at getting inside, but the liquid of zombies did not have long before they too were at the gates. They finally reached the corner of the facilities concrete wall, slid around it and crashed right into a military humvee parked at the other side of the corner. The tiny car flew into a roll with the five passengers inside of it. It landed upside down and everything went quiet in Cornelia’s ears. “Jake!” She yelled. “Trevor? Is anybody still alive!?” she cried but no one answered. She had blood dripping from her right ear and couldn’t move her legs. She put one hand on Trevor’s shoulder and shook him. “Trevor!?” she yelled in panic. Then he mumbled something and opened his eyes. “What... What happened?” he said and looked around in the small car with five injured people inside of it. “We crashed, there was a humvee parked on the other side of that corner” Cornelia answered. Then they got reminded of the real danger by a loud scream from just a couple of meters away. The wave of zombies had reached them and now there were little they could do. “NO YOU BASTARDS!! I WAS SO CLOSE!” Trevor roared at them and started firing away bullets with his M16 through the shattered window. Cornelia turned to the back seat and tried to awake Jake, Stacey and Kayla. “Wake up” she yelled at them and shook Jake’s leg as violently as she could. “Wake up, wake up wake up!!” she kept yelling but none of them did. They were all just hanging there from their seatbelts, upside down. It was dripping blood from both Stacey’s and Kayla’s head. Trevor opened his seatbelt, fell down into the ceiling of the car and kept shooting at the approaching zombies. There were just too many of them and soon they had reached the car. An arm reached in through the broken backseat window and pulled in Stacey’s arm. Trevor was shouting all sorts of curse words at them as he shot round after round into the surrounding horde. Cornelia opened her seatbelt too and picked up her rifle from the cars ceiling. A lot more arms reached in through all four windows of the car doors. Cornelia started fending of the zombies trying to get in through her window. They started pounding on the windshield too, hoping to break it. “Jake, WAKE UP!” Cornelia shouted with tears in her eyes as she shot zombies trying to get inside the car from all four windows. More of them got a hold of Stacey’s arm and they pulled it so hard you could hear it pop out of it’s joint. After just few seconds later the arm fell right off the unconscious or dead Stacey. Blood was pouring out of Stacey’s armless body and there was now no doubt about it, Stacey was dead. The zombies now climbed in the window and started to chew on the armless body. Cornelia could not help them. She was too busy fending off the ones trying to get in through her window. Trevor was still raging and had emptied at least four entire clips at the zombies outside the car but they just would not stop coming. They were now pulling Jake’s arm. He opened his eyes. “Cornelia? What’s happening?” he said absentminded. “Jake! Jake, you’re alive!” Cornelia yelled in relief. Then the zombies pulled in his arm and he immediately realized what was going on. “HELP ME!!” he shouted at Cornelia as his arm began to snap. Cornelia aimed her rifle at Jake’s window and hit two of the three zombies trying to rip off his arm. Jake got his arm back and picked up his shotgun but before he had time to shoot a zombie had already threw itself through the window and was biting him in the arm. He screamed in pain and managed to fire off a shot into the zombie’s head but another one, eating on Stacey threw itself on him and bit him more. He screamed even louder in pain and pushed the zombie off of himself. Another one reached through his window and got a hold of his leg. Cornelia could do nothing except watch as they slowly killed Jake, knowing that she would be next. A bunch of them had now got a hold of his leg and they all tried to rip it off. “Cornelia… I … I love you… ” he managed to squeeze out and then his leg gave up and it got ripped right off and he cried louder then ever before. “I love you too Jake! Don’t die, you can’t die! Please no!” Cornelia yelled back as she shot zombie after zombie trying to climb in her window. Then Jake was pulled out the window and a lot of unpleasant sounds and screams were heard. Cornelia started to cry, she gave up, now they would climbed in to the backseat and she would be overwhelmed. “Trevor” she sobbed. He was still firing his M16, mumbling, “I was going to make it” to himself when what sounded as a very loud high-pitched engine roared through the screams and gunfire. Zombies outside the car fell down like domino bricks. More gunfire could be heard from outside of the car and even some voices. Cornelia turned to the backseat and saw two zombies lying on top of Stacey and Kayla, blocking the way in for the others. She took aim and shot them both in the head, being careful not to hit Stacey or Kayla in case they would still be alive. The gunfire from outside was deafening and they could no longer hear any screams. Trevor had stopped firing his M16 and just sat quietly staring straight ahead. The heavy gunfire stopped and everything went dead silence. Cornelia looked at Trevor, who looked back at her. “I knew it, I knew they would rescue us!” he whispered and dropped his assault rifle, which fell into the ceiling with a small thud. “Anyone still alive in there?” a voice from outside shouted. “Yes! Yes we are here! We made it!” Trevor shouted in joy. “I’m sorry we took so long, but there aren’t many of us left in here so we can’t be everywhere at the same time”. The big metal gates opened and their promised life of comfort and safety came to get them.
Author: Elon
Status: Finnished
Words: 12 425
Day submitted: 2010-10-12
CHAPTER ONE
Cosy home
It is said that the night is darkest just before dawn. But what if there is no dawn, what if there is no hope? Are we all just supposed to give up on life? Lie down and die? No, I will fight! I will live for as long as I can! If those inhuman bastards want to rip me to shreds I’ll give them hell before they can even touch me! And, if one unfortunate day, they were foolhardy enough to attempt to hurt me, I would be prepared for that with four grenades held close to my heart.
These were the thoughts always flowing through the head of 25-year-old Jake Darion. He was always on the edge, never relaxed, always on the lookout for danger even before all this. Beside him sat Cornelia, steady at her Remington 7600. “You wont hit any of them at this distance with a shotgun, you know” Jake teased. Cornelia looked up from her scope. “For the last time it’s not a goddamn shotgun! It’s a rifle!” she yelled back at him. “Whatever baby, you still keeping the score?”. “Yeah, and I’m still in the lead honey” Cornelia answered as she pulled off another perfect headshot at one of the creatures surrounding the house, even though it was dark outside. “26 on my side” she said with a supercilious smile. Jake shot and missed, again. “How can this be so damn hard!?” he uttered angrily. “Ok, you win. I’ll go inside and help the others with the food. Rifles are not my weapon of choice anyway”. He put his rifle on his back along with his shotgun, opened the balcony door and stepped inside. “Hey Trevor, how’s the food coming along?”. “Just fine, Stacey is a really good cook apparently” Trevor calmly answered. Trevor was unique in that way; no matter the situation Trevor never got upset, angry or panicked. He always managed to remain calm. If you were to ask him how he kept his cool he would answer something like “I don’t see how panicking will help to solve the situation”. You had to give it to him, there was a reason for not showing any emotions, but mostly it just pissed off people around him. His appearance, however, told a different story. He was very big; you wouldn’t’t be surprised to hear that he had won a medal in weightlifting. He looked like the kind of guy you would expect to punch a big hole in the wall if he got mad. “Why are you still wasting ammo? You ought to know that we'll need it later” Trevor asked Jake and gave him a look as if he was a small child who had done something wrong. “Oh come on! We’ve got plenty of ammunition! And bullets count for nothing if we can’t hit our targets”. Trevor was quiet for a while, thinking about what Jake just said then he replied: “Okay then, but I don’t want to hear that you run out of ammunition, save at least 500 rounds in case of an emergency, and always keep it in your bag”. “Yeah, yeah I know, we wont have time to pack when it’s time to leave”. “How is Kayla, by the way?” Jake asked. “She’s still a bit sad but other then that she is fine, considering the circumstances” Stacey answered. Jake Walked out of the kitchen into one of the small bedrooms where he saw Kayla lying on the bed hugging her bear that they found the other day. The bear was missing an arm and one of the eyes looked like it was about to fall off. Kayla didn’t mind; she said it reminded her of her old bear and of her parents. “Hey there little one” Jake said as he sat down on the bed next to her. “What… Eh… What are you up to?” he asked. Kayla turned and looked at Jake. “Nothing” She said quietly. “Don’t you wanna help Stacey with the food?” “No… I want to hug Mr. bear” she said with tears in her eyes. Jake could see on the pillow that she had been crying but did not know what to say to such a young child. “It’s not good for you to be here all alone. You should be with us and have some fun instead of lying here” Jake said to her trying to get her in a better mood. “No, I like being with Mr. bear” She replied, childishly. “Okay then, tell us if you want anything” Jake said and left the room.
Cornelia had just finished her shooting practice when Stacey called out that the food was ready. “What are we having today, Stacey?” Cornelia asked as she made her way to the kitchen. “The frozen potatoes and burgers which we picked up from the store today” She answered. “I just hope it tastes good” Cornelia said as she sat down around the table. “Anything new on the radio?”. “No, just the same old message telling us to head north to Canada” Trevor answered. “You guys think we are gonna make it there?” Jake asked. “I don’t know, but we have come a long way and I don’t think we should stop now” Cornelia answered as she gave Jake a bit of a worried look. “There, here are the potatoes” Stacey said and handed Trevor a bowl of hot potatoes. “And here are the burgers”. Stacey took a seat next to Kayla who sat on her chair with her teddy bear. “Where’s Canada?” She asked. “It’s a place where everything is good, where there are other people” Stacey tried to explain to her. “But there are people here too” Kayla said. “Not those kind of people Kayla, nice people who will help us. Eat your food now so you won’t go hungry”. “Okay” Kayla answered in her cute childish way.
They continued their meal discussing what to do the next day. They were still low on food and they know that there were more food stores around here but they wanted to keep moving towards Canada. In the middle of their conversation they heard a strange sound coming from the entrance door in the apartment. “Quiet!” Trevor whispered loudly and everyone immediately stopped talking. “Listen”. It sounded like someone was scraping the door with bare fingernails. “What’s that sound” Kayla whispered terrified. No one wanted to answer her and no one did. Jake slowly stood up from the chair and as quiet as possible made his way towards the door. He put his eye against the peephole and saw something he wished he hadn’t. He already knew what was on the other side of that door but he just had to look through the peephole, didn’t he. He looked straight into the eyes of a half eaten, half rotten creature and his face went white. “They are here” he whispered with a small panic in his voice. “How could they possibly have made it through all of those trolleys?” Cornelia whispered back. “Are you sure it’s not just one?”. Jake looked through the peephole again. “No, there are more behind it” He whispered back. “It’s all because you decided to have your shooting competition!” Stacey hissed at Cornelia and Jake. “They have never found us before!” Jake hissed back at Stacey. “Stop fighting” Trevor whispered loudly. “Right now it does not matter why they are here, what matter right now is if we should fight or run! Jake, how many are there?”. “20, maybe more” Jake replied, still white in his face. “How could they have been so quiet?” Stacey asked, still whispering. “Everybody got everything packed like I told you?” Trevor asked. “Yes” Everyone replied. He sank down to his knees in front of Kayla. “Kayla, I need you to be brave, can you do that?” “I guess” Kayla whispered sobbing. “I need you to put Mr. Bear in your backpack right away, you think you can do that yourself, quietly?” “Okay” Kayla answered and ran quietly into the bedroom where her backpack was. “Everyone else got everything, are you ready to go?” “We already told you” Cornelia hissed at him. “Okay, that door is going to hold up for a while so let’s finish our food first. We are going to need it”. Kayla came running back with her pink and blue backpack on her back. “Good, eat up your food then wait in the living room” Trevor said to her calmingly. You could now hear banging noises from the door and see how it shook from each time the creatures on the other side smashed their heads or whatever it was they smashed into the door trying to break it. They all ate as fast as they could with their rifles, shotguns and pistols ready for when the door would break. The scraping sound from the cutlery seamed to attract more creatures because it now sounded like big fleshy raindrops was hitting the door and you could clearly see a big dent in it. “Looks like this is it guys” Cornelia said and took aim with her rifle. “You don’t mind if I kill some of them?” she asked sarcastically. “I'm right behind you”, Jake said and winked at Cornelia. “Ear plugs in, rifle up, take aim, safety off and…” Cornelia instructed and Jake followed. “You guys probably wanna be headed for the balcony right about now” Jake said and exchanged a quick look with Trevor who nodded and followed Stacey and Kayla out to the balcony. “My world is unaffected, there is a dream inside a dream, I'm wide awake the more I sleep, you’ll understand when I'm dead…” Jake whispered to himself and cocked his shotgun with a crazy look in his eyes. Cornelia gave him a questioning look. “…saw heaven, hell were lies. When I'm god everyone dies…” He continued singing to himself. He took a firmer grip of the shotgun and glanced quickly at Cornelia, who was steady at her rifle. Then he pulled the trigger “SHOOT, SHOOT, CAN YOU FEEL MY POWER! SHOOT, SHOOT, HERE THE WORLD GETS SMALLER!!” he shouted as loud as he could. “SHOOT. SHOOT. SHOOT MOTHER ******, SHOOT!!” he continued screaming as he fired of shell after shell towards the broken door. Eventually he ran out of bullets and the loud bangs from his gun stopped. “Jesus Jake, I know you like to scream and all, but what the hell? And you're not leaving any kills for me!” “Well, when I shoot stuff is really the only time I can scream without drawing attention, so why not scream?” Jake answered with a big smile. “Well there’s no need to be acting crazy” she replied, smiling back on him. But when she looked back at the door her smile disappeared. “Didn’t you say there were 20 of them?” She asked. “Well yeah, more then 20.” He answered. “No way you got them all with eight rounds”. “Huh…” Jake replied and walked closer to the door to see exactly what had happened. His face went even whiter then before and he yelled: “RUN!” in an almost girly pitch as he set of towards the balcony shortly followed by a confused Cornelia. “How many were there? You don’t think we can stop them?” she asked him but got no answer. As they got to the balcony they discovered that the other already had made it to the next rooftop via the rope hanging from the balcony’s rail to one of the opposite shorter building’s TV antennas, which Trevor had set up before. “Ladies first” Cornelia teased Jake as he threw himself over the edge, catching the rope between his arms with his shotgun. Cornelia looked over her shoulder to see if the zombies had fully breached the door yet and heard a terrifying cry, high-pitched, almost like a child screaming. She followed Jake’s example and slid along the rope after him. When they had made it half way across the rope the zombies eventually breached the door and stormed the apartment, heading for the balcony. Unfortunately for the zombies they weren’t smart enough to realize that if you threw yourself over the edge of the balcony without grabbing the rope you would most certainly fall down to the ground with lethal results. Zombie after zombie came running and then flew over the rail in a very acrobatic somersault before falling to the ground, smashing their heads open on the hard asphalt below.
CHAPTER TWO
On the run
It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant. But these friendships only felt unsafe, uncomfortable and strange. Anyone could die at any moment and some already had. As far as love goes I feel ignored and a bit too young. When 99% of the men in the world are flesh eating zombies it would be a lot easier if love really was blind. Please let us reach Canada, please.On the run
These are the unheard prayers of young Stacey Rowena. She had been looking for love as long as she could remember, love from a parent, love from a boyfriend or just love from a pet. She was not particularly attractive but no precisely ugly either, at least she didn’t think so and she had never really been called ugly. Now the young ex-student was on the run with four complete strangers from something she did not really know what it was. Now they were stranded on a rooftop with no apparent way off it, fearing that the door leading up to the roof would slam open and zombies would be crawling all over the place. Stacey kept her eyes fixed on that small thin door, expecting it to break at any moment now. Jake was the first to disturb her thoughts. “So… Now what?” He asked. “Our car is down there” Trevor said and leaned over the edge, pointing at a small white minivan with a thick mesh net instead of a windshield. “Well it’s too far to jump” Jake immediately said. “We could try to shoot down the rope” Cornelia suggested. “There’s a door over there” Kayla said and pointed towards the door Stacey was still staring at. “No!” Stacey suddenly exclaimed. “Why not the door?” Kayla asked in a nagging way. “It just… just doesn’t feel good, could we maybe be a bit quieter?” Stacey said looking worrying at the door. Trevor looked at Stacey for a while, then the rope and lastly the door. “Stacey is right. The door is an unnecessary risk, we don’t know what’s in this building, let’s try the rope. Cornelia, you’re our best shooter, do you think you can do hit it?”. “Well I could give it a try” Cornelia replied with a crooked smile. “Jake, watch the door. The gunfire might attract whatever is inside of there” Trevor commanded Jake. Stacey took aim at the door with her 9mm Glock 17 as well.
Zombies were still falling from the balcony like tapping water and their scream might have covered the gunfire from being heard by other zombies, but that’s just wishful thinking. Cornelia sat down, took aim at the thick rope and fired one round with a loud single bang. The rope twitched as if she had hit it but it did not snap. “Did you hit it?” Trevor asked, looking carefully at the rope. “I think so but it didn’t break for some reason” Cornelia replied, also looking at the rope in confound. She shot it again, and again. After four shots they could clearly see that the rope was damaged and parts of the rope had snapped but the rope still held up. “Guys” Stacey suddenly whispered. “I think they are coming up the stairs”. “Oh ****. They are, I can hear them!” Jake confirmed and took a better aim with his Remington 870 shotgun. Now even Cornelia and Trevor’s faces started to lose their colour as a result of blood rushing to their livers, which is the body’s response to fear. “Hurry Cornelia!” Trevor said, still in a calm voice. “I'm trying, I'm trying!” Cornelia answered with some panic in her voice while she fired round after round, missing over half of them because of the pressure. “Move aside!” Jake suddenly shouted and aimed his fully reloaded shotgun at the rope. He emptied the magazine on the rope in a big hail of lead and a series of loud gunshots without any real success. “That’s it, this rope has to break!” Trevor said as if he was angry at the rope and pulled in it as hard as he could, hard enough to pull someone’s arm off. The rope creaked and sounded like it didn’t want to snap but then all of a sudden it did, at the spot where Cornelia got a few good hits and Trevor fell down on the rooftop-floor with a big thud.
The door Stacey and Jake were supposed to cover flew open and an angry of zombie was rushing towards them. Stacey froze and Jake had had not have time to reload. “****!” Cornelia yelled and aimed her rifle towards the zombie closest to Jake but it had already reached him and another one was on the way. It tackled Jake down on to floor. Both of them slid dangerously close to the edge. “GET IT OFF ME!! GET IT OFF!!” Jake shouted as he fought it, trying everything not to get bit. Cornelia shot the other zombie running towards him in the head and stopped it dead in it’s track. “I can’t get a clear shot!” Cornelia yelled as she was trying to shot the zombie wrestling with Jake. From what seamed to be out of nowhere Trevor appeared. He threw himself at the zombie, pushing it off Jake and grabbed it by its neck with his huge hands. Then he stood up, holding the thin, bony zombie in midair with one hand. He looked at the small creature with despise right before he punched it in it’s forehead with such a force that you could hear the cranium crack and the neck snap. The lifeless body flew more then 15 meters before hitting the asphalt below. “LETS MOVE!” he shouted back at the others and helped Jake up. Stacey unfroze, turned around in confusion without really knowing what was happening. “Stacey, climb down the rope!” Cornelia yelled at her. She started stumbling towards the rope but then stopped as if she had forgotten something. “Stacey, come on! ” Cornelia yelled once again. Then she realized the gravity of the situation and ran towards the rope. “Kayla, who’s taking Kayla” she said in her confusion. “I’ll take her!” Trevor replied and grabbed Kayla around her waste, picking her up like a teddy bear, as he ran past her. Cornelia and Stacey were more then a third on the way down when Trevor and Jake got to the rope. They could see and hear more zombies running up the stairs. “You go first Trevor, I’ll hold them off while you start climbing!” Jake said trying to be a hero. He cocked his gun putting a shell in the chamber. The first zombie that appeared in the door opening got more then 300 small lead balls pressed into its head which made it fall over backwards and tripping the one behind it. The second shot hit a third zombie inside of the small rooftop shed still heading up the stairs. It fell down and blocked the path for further zombies heading towards them. “Let’s go Jake!” Stacey shouted from the street below. “In a sec sweetheart, don’t miss me too much” Jake replied in his flirty way. Stacey couldn’t see what was happening up on the rooftop, she could only hear gunshots and screams from dying zombies. Then there was a loud bang, such as one from a grenade going off. “JAKE!” All three of them except for Kayla yelled thinking he just blew himself up. Then Jake came swinging down the rope like a monkey man. “Missed me?” he teased with a smile on his face. “Get in the goddamn car!” Cornelia yelled at him, angry with his little hero show. Then Trevor put the pedal to the medal and they drove out of the abandoned alley.
CHAPTER THREE
The lucky
It is said that success is relative, but not here, not in these god-forsaken lands. Here it is absolute, either you make it or you don’t, either you live or you die. My companions don’t seam to think the same way, but then they were never prepared for something like this, they didn’t have a plan. It is only thanks to me we have made it this far. Only thanks to me we are still alive… Most of us.The lucky
This was what the thought of Trevor just before he pushed down the pedal with his foot. It was true too. If it hadn’t been for Trevor they would have died in that apartment. The others did not think of any real escape plan. He was the one who had to make sure they all knew what to do when the worst happened, which it did all too often. And now was not an exception. When they drove out of the alley Trevor wished they had just stayed in the apartment. The street was full of zombies, both dead and alive blocking the way. Other cars were also a problem since many of them had crashed, making it very hard to get through. “Oh come on!” Jake uttered in the back seat of the van. “We will never get through here!”. “Keep it calm, we will. I did this while you were down at the supermarket earlier today… Except there are more of them now” Trevor answered and kept driving the car slowly into the haze of other less fortunate cars. The zombies on the street noticed them immediately and started running towards them. “Kayla, cover your eyes and ears” Cornelia calmly said to her and Stacey sitting next to Kayla put her hands on her ears. The small horde of zombies heading towards their cars eventually reached it and started to pound everywhere they could on it. “As if there wasn’t already enough of dents in the damn thing” Trevor complained quietly and kept pushing the van though the small horde. It kind of reminded him of when it was hailing which made him think of his childhood. Some of the zombies in front of the car fell down as their foot got caught under the wheel and the van slowly crushed their legs, waist and eventually their entire body. They were now driving on a thick rug of meat and bones, which cracked with a loud and unpleasant noise under the weight of the car. They screamed in what seamed as despair and pain but stopped as the tyres crushed their lungs, squeezing out the air in them which made the zombies sound like they were coughing. It was a minute of sadness for Trevor since it reminded him that these creatures once were humans, and when he heard their screams of pain he though he heard the only human thing that was left in them, pain.
After what seamed as hours they finally got out of the small city with their van, which was now close to breakdown from all the pounding. Kayla was still crying, which she had done since the pounding began. They had reached a highway without too many cars on it but they still had to drive in a zigzag pattern to avoid cars standing in the way. “There, there, it’s okay. They are gone now” Stacey said in an attempt to comfort Kayla. “Why are they doing that?” Kayla sobbed and dried of tears from her face with her arm. “I don’t know, I think they are sick” Stacey answered. “But you shouldn’t kill sick people! You should help them!” Kayla sobbed with a raised voice. “We can’t help them Kayla, we don’t even know why they are acting like that”. Kayla went quiet and watched out the mesh net window, still crying but not as loud as before. It was dark, close to midnight and they all needed to sleep. “If anyone see a motel, gas station or anything, let me know. I need to focus on not crashing this car” Trevor informed the others. They eventually reached a gas station and pulled in beside the gas pump. Trevor killed the engine and listened for any sound indicating there was something wrong. It was dead quiet except for the wind whispering in the air. “Stay in the car, Cornelia start the car at any sign of trouble” Trevor said to Cornelia sitting in the seat next to him. “Will do” she answered and looked at him. “Are you okay? You seam… a bit off” She asked. “No, no, I’m fine” Trevor replied and stepped out of the car along with an M16. First he checked the pumps for gasoline but both of them were empty. All of a sudden a bright light from inside the gas station store dazzled him and he had to cover his eyes with his hand to see anything. “Hello?” he shouted but without any answer. He saw someone moving inside of the store and raised his M16. “Put down your weapon” a voice from a megaphone yelled at him. He hesitated for a while but lowered his weapon in fear they might be pointing a weapon at his head from inside of the store. “Who are you? And why did you stop here” the megaphone continued. “We are just looking for a place to sleep, nothing more! We don’t want any trouble!” Trevor replied in a low-pitched half intimidating voice. “Okay, stay there” the megaphone answered and went quiet. The door to the store opened and a small man came out from it. He walked up to Trevor and stopped just a few meters away from him. “Hello Mr.” he said and smiled. “Hello to you too” Trevor replied, confused about the man’s strange smile. “So, you need shelter? You also need gas I see…”. “Well yes, we are low on both” Trevor answered and smiled back at the strange man. “A sense of humour, I like that. Follow me and we can continue this discussion inside”. The man turned around in a kind of pirouette and walked back towards the door. “Go on, I don’t bite”. Trevor looked at Cornelia who had moved to the drivers seat and shrug his shoulders. He started to follow the man inside. Big fences and barbwire protected the stores windows. A couple of dead bodies were lying around the fences, some stuck in the barbwire. The man knocked on the door and someone on the inside opened it.
Inside the store several men sat around a big table, each of them holding a big gun. “Lads, we have a visitor. He says he needs shelter and gas”. The men looked at Trevor, some of them looked frightened by his size. The strange man who Trevor followed sat down at the table with the other men. “Go ahead, take a seat” he commanded Trevor who sad down at the only available chair opposite to the strange small man. “So, what do you have to offer us in return then?” he asked Trevor. “Well… we got plenty of ammunition, some spare guns and a little bit of food and a couple of jerry cans with water” Trevor answered. “Hmm… Interesting… Guns we have, water too as long as the tap water doesn’t run out. We could always use more ammunition. Food however is a bit of a shortage here, how much food did you say you had?”. The man looked at Trevor with the same strange smile he had by the car. “Well… not much, just a few bags of frozen fries and some energy bars” Trevor answered, trying not to look worried. “I don’t think that is enough food for this trade… Do you Rodger?” the man asked one of the other men at the table who agreed and gave Trevor an angry look. “Tell you what, you can sleep here, if you find us some food tomorrow. As insurance we will of course need one of you to stay here. Deal?”. Trevor glanced at the van outside and thought for a while. “Of course, no problem. Could I go out and get the other?” he replied and made an attempt to stand up. “Wait! Don’t you drive away now, we want that food and if you try to drive away from here your night will end bad” the strange man said and this time without a smile on his face. “I understand” Trevor said calmly and walked out the door.
“What’s happening!?” Cornelia hissed at him when he got back to the car. “They want food and ammunition” Trevor answered. “We can’t just give them our supplies!” Cornelia exclaimed. “They are offering us shelter for tonight, and if we try to leave now they will shoot us”. Cornelia looked at Trevor with worry. “Fine then… Are you sure they won’t just raid and kill us, or worse?” She asked in a quiet tone so that none of the others would hear. “I don’t know…” Trevor answered and you could see that he too was worried. They all stepped out of the car, Trevor carrying the supplies. The strange man stood by the store door waiting for them. “Come on! Those zombies is still out here you know!” the man said and they all hurried inside. The strange man closed the door behind them and locked it. “Welcome to our base” he said happily, looking at all the newcomers. “Come and I will show you your room” he went behind the counter and opened a door. Trevor and the others followed him down some stairs leading to a big storage room with spare car parts and similar things. This gave Trevor an idea. “You don’t happen to have a pump we could use?” he asked the man. “Well… actually we do. What exactly do you need a pump for?” the man said and gave Trevor a curios look. “Well I was thinking you could suck up gasoline from cars on the road” he answered. “Oh that. Yeah, we have done that too” the man said, sounding disappointed since he thought they were going use the pump for something new and original. “But no problem, we will get you a pump… Here we are”. They had reached the end of the storage room and the strange man had opened a small door, reviling a small room with four beds inside it. “Have a good nights sleep, we will wake you up at 9 o’clock tomorrow” the man said and headed upstairs again leaving them alone in the small room. “Well… let’s go to sleep then” Trevor said and laid down on one of the beds. The others followed his example and soon they were all asleep.
The next day they woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. “Time to get us some food!” the strange man said from the other side of the door. Everyone except Trevor and Cornelia groaned a bit before getting up from the small uncomfortable bed. When they opened the door they noticed that the strange man still stood there, with a tray of fries. “Well I figured you will need some kind of breakfast before heading out, so eat up” the man said with that strange smile of his. Trevor looked at him with confusion. “Hey, I’m just a businessman, not a monster” The man said and handed him the tray. After breakfast everyone except for little Kayla and Stacey was heading for the car. “Kayla you need to stay here, it’s too dangerous for you to come with us” Cornelia explained to her. “But I don’t like those people” she whispered in Cornelia’s ear. “Don’t worry, Stacey will be here with you” she said and pointed at Stacey who smiled back at Kayla. “… Okay then…” Kayla said and ran over to Stacey, hiding behind her legs from the strange men in the gas station store. “We will be back in a couple of hours!” Trevor said before he shut the car door. When they were all inside of the car Jake looked questioning at Trevor. “Why do they have to stay here? Kayla always just waits in the car when we get food” he said and looked worried at Stacey and Kayla who was standing in the door opening, waving goodbye to them. “Because… Because the men in the store believes we will just take off otherwise, and I don’t blame them for thinking that” Trevor answered. “Let’s just get this over with, everyone got their gun loaded?” he said and started the engine and drove off.
After driving along the highway for one and a half hour they eventually got to what looked like a supermarket, but the sign was ripped down, lying flat on the ground in front of the main door. “This doesn’t look good, lets keep driving” Jake said. “No, I’ll check it out” Trevor said and pulled over. “Cornelia, you know the drill” he said and opened his door. “Trevor wait! … I’m coming with you” Jake said and stepped out of the car too. “All right, but no hero stuff here, just walk into the supermarket, if it looks okay take a trolley and fill it up with food” Trevor said and aimed his M16 towards the main door as they were walking towards it. They nervously walked up to the door and slowly opened the sliding doors since the electricity was out. The store was empty, it looked like it had already been looted, and the only food they could see was a bunch of mouldy vegetables and fruits. “Looks like someone got here before us, let’s see if they left anything edible” Trevor said and took a trolley lying sideways a couple of meters from them. They walked to the freezers in hope that there would be food there, but there was nothing there except disappointment. “I’ll see if there’s ant can food left” Jake said and ran off behind a shelf. Trevor kept searching in the rest of the freezers without any success. Suddenly he heard something fall to the floor with a loud noise. “Jake! Where are you?” he shouted and watched for any movement around him. “Jake!” he shouted again. “Here!” answered Jake with a strained voice. Trevor ran towards the sound and found Jake fighting a zombie. “Why can’t you just shoot them instead of fighting them?” Trevor said, calmed down when he saw that Jake had the zombie pinned with a trolley against the wall and wasn’t in any real trouble. “It’s not my fault, it sneaked up on me!” he said and took aim with his shotgun at its head. “Goodbye to you too” he answered to it’s crazy screaming and pulled the trigger which left a nasty bloodstain and a couple of holes in the wall behind the zombie. The lifeless body with its squashed head fell down on the floor when Jake let go of the trolley. “Well… No success with the can food, you?” Jake asked as he wiped of some of the blood spatter from his face. “No, no luck for me either. Let’s try the next store w come across” Trevor answered and started heading towards the car. “Nothing?” Cornelia asked as she saw them come out from the supermarket empty handed. “Nope, we have to find another one” Jake answered and they got back in the car again. “Are you guys all right? I heard gunfire”. “Trevor felt like brawling with another zombie” Trevor answered a bit annoyed and they drove off, looking for another supermarket.
It was close to three o’clock when they found the next supermarket, which didn’t looked looted like the last one. “Let’s hope we find something this time” Trevor said and stepped out of the car. He gave Jake a look to tell him that he shouldn’t mess up this time and they went towards the main entrance. This time there were glass windows on the walls so they could see what was inside before opening the door, and what they saw both disappointed them and made them exited. The store was full of food, but also full of zombies. It would be a great risk going in there, but they wouldn’t need to search for another supermarket. They both stopped and looked at each other. “Well… if we’re gonna do this we need Cornelia too, since she’s the best shooter” Jake said and Trevor nodded in agreement. They went back to the car and explained the situation to her. “How many did you say there were?” Cornelia asked when she heard the news. “We’re not sure, maybe a total of 50 inside the whole store” Trevor answered. “Why are they even in there?” she said and looked over towards the store. “I guess they are ex-looters or shopper” Jake said who was also staring at the store. “What do you think guys, can we do this?” Cornelia asked enthusiastically. Both Jake and Cornelia turned to Trevor who looked at them with scrutiny. “Okay, but we will head back to the car as soon as it gets out of control, and I’m betting it will” Trevor eventually said and Cornelia stepped out of the car. “Everyone got enough ammunition?” Cornelia asked while and opened the back door of the car and pick up some extra magazines to her rifle. “I’m good” Jake said and showed his pockets full of shotgun shells. “Me too” Trevor said and Cornelia closed the door. “Let’s go then!” she said and they headed towards the door of the supermarket. “Jake, take that trolley over there!” Trevor commanded Jake and pointed towards a lonely trolley standing on the parking lot. “Aye-aye sir!” he replied and got the trolley. “Okay, this is how we are going to do, we rush to the freezers where you Jake fill up the trolley with as mush as you can while me and Cornelia cover you. Cornelia you take the front of the corridor and I’ll take the back” Trevor explained when Jake came back with the trolley. “Let’s do this!” Jake said, all psyched up about it. Trevor slid the doors up and they were off. Trevor ran in the front, with Jake behind him and Cornelia in the back. They ran in-between two high shelves filled with soda and other drinks when five zombies came rushing from the other end of the shelf corridor towards them. Trevor sprayed 5.56 mm rounds through them and they fell down on the floor. Jake pulled down some soda bottle into the trolley and lifted it up to avoid the bodies and they kept running. Now everyone in the store knew they were there and came rushing towards them. They ran as fast as they could, shooting bullet after bullet at all the approaching zombie. Eventually they reached the freezers and Jake started throwing everything from frozen peas to hamburgers in the trolley. “Hurry!” Trevor shouted through the haze of bullets and loud cries from the wounded or dying creatures around them.
After just a few minutes the trolley was full and Trevor shouted: “Get to the car!”. Dead bodies lying on top of each other surrounded them and there was no clear path for the trolley. “Trevor, I can’t push the trolley through here!” Jake shouted back to Trevor. “Cornelia, cover us! We will have to carry the trolley back to the car!” Trevor said and grabbed one side of the trolley. “Lift on three, one, two three!” he instructed Jake and they started running slowly with Cornelia in the front covering them. “Behind us!” Jake yelled as at least ten zombies approached from behind them. “Got it!” Cornelia said and shot two zombies in one shot. They kept running as fast as they could, carrying a trolley weighing close to 100 kg while being chased by zombies. “Take the M16!” Trevor shouted to Cornelia who took the M16 hanging on his back. With the M16 still strapped to Trevor’s back she shot down the remaining five that was chasing them. “Almost there” she said and reloaded the M16 with a magazine from Trevor’s pocket. When they finally reached the door Trevor let go of the trolley and closed the door after them. They thought they were safe outside but all the gunfire had attracted zombies near by who was starting to crowd the parking lot. They rushed as fast as they could towards the car and Cornelia who was in the lead opened the cars backdoor. “Get the damn trolley in here!” she yelled while shooting some of the zombies coming their way. Together Trevor and Jake threw the trolley in the van, slammed the door shut and headed in the car themselves. Only a few second after Trevor closed his door the zombies caught up with them and started pounding the van as they had done the day before. “Everyone ok?” Trevor asked and tried to catch his breath. “I'm … I'm ok…” Jake said panting. “Cornelia, you ok?” Trevor asked her and she nodded as an answer. “That was a close one” Jake said and looked at the zombies who had gathered around the car trying to break it. “Let get out of here, please?” Cornelia said and Trevor started the cars engine.
They got back to the gas station at approximately four o’clock and the strange man was standing by the gas pumps waiting for them. “Welcome back!” he said when they pulled in. “How has your day been?” he asked when he saw that they were covered in bloodstains. “Well… Lucky I guess, we merely escaped from a bunch of those zombies, but we got your food” Trevor answered. “Good, hand it over and you can continue your journey to wherever you’re headed” the man said and reached out his hand as if he thought he could carry the food in one hand. “It’s in the back, I’ll help you with it” Trevor said and stepped out of the car. “Do you have any gas?”. “Yes, of course, the gas I promised you. And I believe a pump.” The man answered. “Your friends are listening to the radio in the staff room, want me to go get them?”. “That would be nice” Trevor answered in a friendly tone and the man went inside to get them. While the man was inside Trevor and Jake carried out the Trolley and put back all the merchandise that had fell out from when they threw the trolley in the van. “Here they are, safe and sound” the man said when he came back out with Stacey and Kayla. He walked over to Trevor and handed him a gas tank and a pump. “Here’s the gas and the pump, pleasure doing business with” he said and then he grabbed the trolley and started pushing it back to the gas station store again. “Bye” Trevor said and did a goodbye gesture with his hand. “Everyone in the car, we need to keep going if we’re gonna reach that safe zone” Trevor said and opened the door to the drivers seat. The strange man then stopped and looked back at Trevor. “You really think there’s a safe zone, don’t you” he mocked them. “Good luck with that”. He went inside and closed the door behind him. Trevor ignored him and sad down in the car seat, trying to start the car but it wouldn’t start. “Huh” he said to himself. “Guys we need another car, could someone go look if there’s another van close by?” he informed the others. “But I like this car!” Kayla complained, as any child would have done. “Sweetie, this car doesn’t work anymore, we will find another one like this one” Cornelia explained to her. Jake stepped out and looked around for a van and found one just fifty meters away. “There’s one!” he said in delight. “Great, could you go over there and see if the keys are still in it?” Trevor asked him and Jake ran over to the car. “Yeah, there are keys here alright” he shouted back to the others. “And a driver” he said quietly to himself as he watched the battered body with missing pieces of flesh which the zombies probably had stole from him. Jake opened the door and took off the seatbelt from the dead driver who fell out of the car. He checked the rest of the car for bodies but it was empty apart from some bloodstains.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sloppy
It is said that the only thing certain in life is change, and this was more then just true for little Kayla. This was the reason why she was sad, why she cried at night. She didn’t like change. She wanted everything to stay the same. She wanted time to stop. Her life had changed radically when her parents died. She had been moving between strangers, never had a person who she could see as her mommy. Everyone had died and she had been the only one still alive, hiding. Now she lived with these strangers and the only thing she wanted was for them stay.The sloppy
These were the feelings of ten-year-old Kayla as she jumped into the new van. She didn’t like it as much as the last one, it smelled funny but the colour was better then the other one, blue. She liked to be in a car, it felt safe with everyone gathered, together. The car started and started to move. Jake sat beside her with an electric drill and screwed on the last metal mesh net around the window. “Hey, I’m not done back here!” he said when the car started to move. “Oh, sorry” Trevor said and stopped the car again. A few seconds later Jake was done and they drove off. They had just a couple of hours left before the sun would go down behind the horizon and the darkness would come back. Kayla didn’t like the darkness, especially not when there were monsters around. She leaned her head against Stacey’s arm and looked into her eyes. “Do you think they are mad at us?” she asked Stacey. “Who is?” she answered. “The crazy people” Kayla said. “Oh, sweetie, I don’t know. Let’s not talk about them ok?” she replied and they both went quiet. Eventually they reached a motel and they stopped near the motels front door. “Stay in the car, Jake and me will make sure it’s safe here” Trevor said and they stepped out of the car. After a few minutes some gunfire was heard from inside the house. Cornelia looked worrying at the house. “If they aren’t back within two minutes I’m going up there” she said and took a firm grip around her rifle. Another shot was heard and Cornelia assumed the worst. “Screw this, I’m going in!” Cornelia said and ran into the building. A few more shots were heard and a couple of minutes later all three of them came back, Jake covered in blood. “Well, the house looks clear, just a couple of them in the lobby” Trevor said when he had opened Stacey’s door. “So we’re sleeping here?” Stacey asked him worried that there might be more of them. “Yeah, someone will have to stay up though, we will have to take turns.” Trevor answered and they headed inside. Inside there was a big lobby with dead people lying around as if they had just died while doing everyday things. One of them was even sitting in a sofa. “Cover your eyes sweetie” Cornelia said since she was the one who opened the door. “Why? It’s not like I haven’t seen all this before?” Kayla responded in a cocky way. Cornelia looked at her, a bit confused and then said “suit yourself” before they all went inside. It was true that Kayla had seen worse things then this, but when they got inside she closed her eyes anyway, wishing that everything would just go away. They went up some stairs and got to a narrow corridor where all the motel rooms were. They were very quiet as they walked because they still weren’t sure if there were zombies in the building. Trevor walked first with his big M16 raised to his shoulder. “Okay, go though the rooms, we will stay on the bottom floor so that we can jump out the window if we have to, I’ll park the car on the other side later” Trevor said quietly to Jake and Cornelia who started to opening the doors, checking each room, prepared for an attack at any second. Eventually the finished clearing out the bottom floor without encountering any zombies, only dead people and they had to decide for which room to stay in. They all agreed on a room in the corner of the building since it would be the room closest to the road in the event of an emergency situation. They unpacked their things beside the bed each of them were sleeping in. There wasn’t much to unpack; they basically just put down their guns and backpacks, except for Kayla who only took out her teddy bear from her backpack. Now they were all lying in a small motel room with a locked door somewhere between Kansas and Nebraska. Despite the locked door none of them felt safe, Kayla could swear she heard something move on the floor above them but didn’t say anything. After an hour or so Trevor stood up from his bed, listening to the sounds from the floor above. “I’m just gonna check something” he whispered, opened his over stuffed backpack and pulled out a hand grenade and a fishing line. Kayla looked him questioning but then turned around and hugged her bear. Trevor unlocked the door and stepped out into the corridor. “Why is he leaving?” Kayla asked Stacey lying next to her. “I don’t know, I think he is setting up a trap” Stacey answered. “A trap? Like a cage?” Kayla asked confused. “No, with the grenade, so that we will wake up if any of those crazy people come here, go back to sleep” Stacey said and stroke Kayla’s back. A couple of minutes later he got back and quietly awoke everyone. “I’ve set up a grenade trap outside, so no one goes outside until I have disarmed it” he explained, making sure everyone understood. “Are we clear on that? No one walks out of this room until I say you can”. He looked at everyone and they nodded in response. After many long hours they all fell asleep, fooling themselves that it was safe to sleep.
A loud bang awoke them all at around four and in a heartbeat Jake, Trevor and Cornelia had their guns cocked and ready to fire. But it went quiet, no screams and no movement. They exchanged questioning looks and then a loud scream was heard in the room right on top of theirs. What sounded like thousands of feet stomping made everyone’s faces loose it’s colour. There must have been over two hundred of them in the three floors above. They only cleared out the first floor and when they didn’t find any they assumed there weren’t any in the floors above either. The thundering sounds moved towards the stairs and they could hear how they came rushing down the stairs, screaming in anger, pounding the walls in fury as they ran. It felt like the whole building shook, Kayla even thought the house would collapse. “It’s okay sweetie, they wont find us” Stacey whispered in Kayla’s ear even though she didn’t really believe that herself and Kayla noticed that but kept quiet. To their surprise they didn’t find them. They ran around inside the building, slamming on door to door without really knowing what to do. They didn’t get anymore sleep that night, all of them stayed up, just watching the door. Fearing that it would be pounded into pieces at any second. It took several hours for the zombies to calm down and when they eventually did it was close to 9 o’clock in the morning and time for them to keep moving. None of them dared to open the door so they decided to walk out the window, which actually was closer to the car now that Trevor had moved it. They got out of the window as quietly as they could, one by one, none of them even dared to breath. When they finally reached the car they all could breath again and the fear let go of them. “Why didn’t we check upstairs?” Jake eventually said, looking at Trevor. “There were not a single one of them on the bottom floor, just a couple in the lobby, I had no Idea that there would be that many upstairs” Trevor answered, just staring into midair. “Jesus we could have died… Don’t you always say clear out the WHOLE building before staying there?” Jake said angrily. “Hey, it isn’t my fault and you know that!” Trevor roared back at him. “Guys! Stop fighting! It was just a simple mistake and we won’t do it again. Besides, what are the odds that the whole first floor was empty when the rest of the building wasn’t?” Cornelia interrupted them. “Yeah, I guess you’re right… At least we got out alive ” Trevor said and started the car.
They slept in the car for the next couple of days until Cornelia couldn’t take it anymore. None of them had showered in three weeks and the car smelled worse then rotten dead meat. “I can’t take it anymore!” the exclaimed and opened the car door for some fresh air. “Cornelia, close the door, it’s in the middle of the night” Trevor asked her in a sleepy voice. “No! No I need to take a shower, we need to wash this car, I can’t stand the stench anymore! If I don’t get to take a shower soon I’ll shower in our ******* drinking water!” she yelled back at him. “Okay, okay, we will se what we can do about that tomorrow, these Little Trees doesn’t seam to do anything about the stench” he answered and pulled down the Little Trees hanging from the rear-view mirror. Cornelia went back into the car and tried to go fall asleep with little success. The next day they drove past a lake and stopped there to take a bath. The view was beautiful. There were big majestic spruces surrounding them and a small wooden cabin just by the small dirt road where the van was parked. The water was clear and you could see to the other side of the lake where there were even more spruces stretching along the horizon. It was as if the infection never got here, everything was so peaceful, birds were even singing. They played in the water for a whole hour before deciding to leave again. Kayla like the water, her parents used to take her out to the beach in the summers where she would play in the sand and in the ocean. Now she missed them more then ever but at the same time she had never felt happier then now after the infection. When it was finally time to leave she complained even though she knew that they had to leave. “No one forgot anything?” Trevor asked when they were all back in the car. “Nope” answered Jake and the rest just shook their heads. “Let’s go then” he said and they were off again. Kayla thought it was cosy when they drove on dirt roads. She could hear the small rocks move under the cars tires and somehow that made her feel safe. She leaned against the door and looked out the window at all the trees quickly passing by. This was the first time since a long time she had actually felt like she was home, like she belonged, like she was back with her parents again. With those thoughts in her head she fell asleep and dreamt of her parents.
CHAPTER FIVE
The inevitable
It is said that death is not the end. Sadly this is just a lie of the scared and greedy man. A beautiful lie built to comfort, to control. The truth however is rejected, our minds can’t even comprehend the meaning of death, nor should it. But to Cornelia death was crystal clear. She understood that death meant the end, nothing more, nothing less.The inevitable
To most people this might seam terrifying but she had accepted it for she had died once before. When she came back it felt just like when you wake up in the morning without having a dream, she just woke up in the hospital without any memories of a heaven, hell or any sort of afterlife. This morning she woke up dreamless as well. Cornelia was close to her thirties but she looked as if she were twenty. She was always the funny, a bit immature person around her friends and it was no difference now as she sat in the car with four strangers who she barely knew. She had grown to like most of them, some more, some less. The last thing she wanted right now was for this to end, but she knew it eventually would. She just hoped zombies wouldn’t be the reason. It was early in the morning and she was the first one to awake. The sky was free of clouds and the sun was just rising on the horizon giving of a warming red-orange light. She stepped outside of the car to stretch her legs and get some fresh air. Last days bath had made her feel fresh and clean, too bad there weren’t time for many of those. She went down to the water, sat down in the sand and stared out over the red glowing horizon. The sight gave back some hope. She had made it through a lot but she had also lost many close to her. Her times alone were far too few and she never really got her privacy, they all had. They each had two pairs of cloths, which they changed and washed at times like these. She buried her feet in the sand and felt the cold sand gently stroking her warm bare feet. This was worth living for, this was worth fighting for she thought but got interrupted by something moving behind her. Quickly she picked up her rifle from the sand and turned around, only to see Jake taking a piss in the bushes. “I can see you you know” she said to him and he almost tripped by surprise. “I don’t mind if you don’t mind” he joked as an answer but you could see him blushing. He went down to the water and washed his hand, then sat down next to Cornelia. He watched the sunrise for a while and then turned to Cornelia, looking serious. “I know we have been fooling around a lot and all, but I need you to answer a question honestly” he said, looking into her eyes. “Sure” she answered, expecting a question regarding her emotions for him. “What do you think of me, I mean as a person, not how you feel for me” he then said, still looking into her eyes. “Your okay I guess” she said and smiled back at him. “Seriously, it feels like I’m just messing up all the time, trying to be funny but failing, putting people in danger” he said with a serious voice. “Ha, that makes two of us” Cornelia answered and winked at him. “Seriously though, you aren’t putting anyone in danger. If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be sitting here right now and if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t either. We all protect each other”. She took his hand and looked into his eyes and said: “I just want you to know that I really care for you, and that I would do anything to protect you”. Then she kissed him and he kissed her.
A few hours later they were back in the car again, back on the cosy dirt road. Normally the highway would have got them to Canada faster, but the highways here, near North Dakota, were completely jammed at some places and it was impossible to get through. After a couple of hours they had officially reached Canada. The radio had told them earlier that there were several safe zones in Canada; the one they were closest to was located in Edmonton. It was a former max security prison where the military had simply thrown out all the inmates when things went critical and offered non-infected civilians protection. The supplies were provided by a series of “scavenge operations” which both military personal and volunteers participated in until they could set up a big enough safety perimeter to grow crops and get freshwater. It all sounded promising but they had also heard reports that similar facilities that had been overrun all across the continent and that they were suffering from food and water shortages. Some even claimed that you were better of alone. But Cornelia didn’t care what others said, she knew the facility was still up and running, who else would have sent those messages on the radio. The only complication was that for them to get to the Edmonton Institution they would have to get dangerously close to a big city, namely Edmonton. In the past they had always stayed away from cities because of the total chaos in and around them. They hadn’t heard of or met anyone who had made it out alive from a bigger city but this was their only chance of a life free from running and scavenging. A life where comfort, food and shelter could be taken for granted, a life they all once had. After driving around on small dirt roads all day, time caught up with them and the darkness fell over them once again. They pulled over by an abandoned house but spent the night in the car. They had just enough gas left to make it to Edmonton, which wasn’t far away. Cornelia got next to no sleep that night. Everyone was nervous in for tomorrow, knowing that after tomorrow they would be either safe or dead. The next morning there was no romantic moments, no beautiful sky and no beautiful lake. Just an old house that appeared to have been abandoned for decades though the infection only started months ago. They ate the last of the food they had scavenged to breakfast/lunch and then they were ready for the big challenge of getting to the safe zone. None of them had any real plan yet, none of them even knew what to expect once they got close to the city. But that didn’t stop them, they had gotten this far and now they would stop for nothing.
As they approached the main road they realized that this could be much more difficult then they had imagined. The road ahead of them were stacked with car wreckage, some still burning. Seams as if they weren’t the only one who had tried to reach that safe zone. “Damn it!” Jake exclaimed in frustration. “Relax, we will just find a way around” Trevor said, trying to calm everyone down. “Haven’t you checked the map? This is the only bridge across this damn river for more then 20 kilometres and I bet the next one is just as crowded as this one!”. “Well… then I see only one option… We walk. It’s only a little bit more then five kilometres. We could always try to find a working car on the other side of this car wreckage... But I doubt there’s one considering how many people has done this before us” Trevor said thoughtfully. “But what about the zombies?” Jake objected. “You got any better idea?” Trevor responded and looked at him. “Fine, but it’s not my fault if anyone dies” Jake said and opened the car door. He opened the cars back door and started stuffing his backpack with ammunition and some water. Everyone except Kayla did the same. “Kayla, you stay behind me now honey, ok?” Cornelia told her and she nodded without even a thinking of arguing. Then they started walking, with Trevor in the front as usual followed by Jake, Cornelia, Kayla and lastly Stacey. They sneaked through the burning car wreckages, carefully and quietly moving forward. The only think Cornelia could hear was the wind and an annoying lonely crow feeding on the victims of the car crashes. They got past the wreckage and across the bridge without encountering anything at all. On the other side of the river there were almost no cars at all. Jake ran up to one of the cars and tried turned the keys left in it but the car was all out of gas. “Damn it, we should have brought gas” he yelled out loud. Trevor stared at him as if he was stupid. “You didn’t think of that earlier?” he said and put down his backpack on the asphalt road. “Fortunately I did” he then said and picked up a small bottle of gas from it. “This won’t get us far but it was all we had left” he said as he emptied it into the cars tank. It was very tight with five people in the small car and their backpacks didn’t exactly make the situation any better. Trevor was in the drivers seat as before and tried to start the car. The engine cried like a dying horse then went quiet. He tried the ignition again with the same result. Then once more. The fourth time the engine surprisingly started and the car crawled forward like the half dead horse it had sounded like before. Then they picked up some speed and actually got somewhere. They could now see the facility but it wasn’t clear if there were people there or if it was abandoned. As they got closer they could still not see any sign of life. Then, suddenly, there were some movement, but not from inside of the facility. They could see how a bunch of cars parked in front of the facilities main doors shook up and down as if someone was jumping on them. Seconds later a humanlike creature could be seen among the cars, then another one appeared, and another one. More and more appeared from behind the buildings beside the cars. Eventually a whole swarm of them could be seen standing far away, waiting. “We are not seriously driving into that?” Stacey said and looked at Trevor as if he was crazy. “I have not come this far just to turn around!” Trevor answered and accelerated the car. The zombies in the distance were now taking the shape of a full sized horde, slowly approaching them. Then as if on command all of them started running towards the small speeding car. It almost looked like a black liquid moving towards them, flowing out from behind the buildings, being pushed between the cars parked in the way. “We will make it to the front gate before them!” Trevor said and stared as if possessed at the crowd coming their way. “No, no we wont. Trevor stop, STOP THE CAR, TURN AROUND!” Jake yelled at him but he didn’t listen. “What exactly is you plan here!? How do you even know anyone will open that door?” Jake continued but there was still no response from Trevor. They started to get close to the gates and it looked as if they actually had a chance at getting inside, but the liquid of zombies did not have long before they too were at the gates. They finally reached the corner of the facilities concrete wall, slid around it and crashed right into a military humvee parked at the other side of the corner. The tiny car flew into a roll with the five passengers inside of it. It landed upside down and everything went quiet in Cornelia’s ears. “Jake!” She yelled. “Trevor? Is anybody still alive!?” she cried but no one answered. She had blood dripping from her right ear and couldn’t move her legs. She put one hand on Trevor’s shoulder and shook him. “Trevor!?” she yelled in panic. Then he mumbled something and opened his eyes. “What... What happened?” he said and looked around in the small car with five injured people inside of it. “We crashed, there was a humvee parked on the other side of that corner” Cornelia answered. Then they got reminded of the real danger by a loud scream from just a couple of meters away. The wave of zombies had reached them and now there were little they could do. “NO YOU BASTARDS!! I WAS SO CLOSE!” Trevor roared at them and started firing away bullets with his M16 through the shattered window. Cornelia turned to the back seat and tried to awake Jake, Stacey and Kayla. “Wake up” she yelled at them and shook Jake’s leg as violently as she could. “Wake up, wake up wake up!!” she kept yelling but none of them did. They were all just hanging there from their seatbelts, upside down. It was dripping blood from both Stacey’s and Kayla’s head. Trevor opened his seatbelt, fell down into the ceiling of the car and kept shooting at the approaching zombies. There were just too many of them and soon they had reached the car. An arm reached in through the broken backseat window and pulled in Stacey’s arm. Trevor was shouting all sorts of curse words at them as he shot round after round into the surrounding horde. Cornelia opened her seatbelt too and picked up her rifle from the cars ceiling. A lot more arms reached in through all four windows of the car doors. Cornelia started fending of the zombies trying to get in through her window. They started pounding on the windshield too, hoping to break it. “Jake, WAKE UP!” Cornelia shouted with tears in her eyes as she shot zombies trying to get inside the car from all four windows. More of them got a hold of Stacey’s arm and they pulled it so hard you could hear it pop out of it’s joint. After just few seconds later the arm fell right off the unconscious or dead Stacey. Blood was pouring out of Stacey’s armless body and there was now no doubt about it, Stacey was dead. The zombies now climbed in the window and started to chew on the armless body. Cornelia could not help them. She was too busy fending off the ones trying to get in through her window. Trevor was still raging and had emptied at least four entire clips at the zombies outside the car but they just would not stop coming. They were now pulling Jake’s arm. He opened his eyes. “Cornelia? What’s happening?” he said absentminded. “Jake! Jake, you’re alive!” Cornelia yelled in relief. Then the zombies pulled in his arm and he immediately realized what was going on. “HELP ME!!” he shouted at Cornelia as his arm began to snap. Cornelia aimed her rifle at Jake’s window and hit two of the three zombies trying to rip off his arm. Jake got his arm back and picked up his shotgun but before he had time to shoot a zombie had already threw itself through the window and was biting him in the arm. He screamed in pain and managed to fire off a shot into the zombie’s head but another one, eating on Stacey threw itself on him and bit him more. He screamed even louder in pain and pushed the zombie off of himself. Another one reached through his window and got a hold of his leg. Cornelia could do nothing except watch as they slowly killed Jake, knowing that she would be next. A bunch of them had now got a hold of his leg and they all tried to rip it off. “Cornelia… I … I love you… ” he managed to squeeze out and then his leg gave up and it got ripped right off and he cried louder then ever before. “I love you too Jake! Don’t die, you can’t die! Please no!” Cornelia yelled back as she shot zombie after zombie trying to climb in her window. Then Jake was pulled out the window and a lot of unpleasant sounds and screams were heard. Cornelia started to cry, she gave up, now they would climbed in to the backseat and she would be overwhelmed. “Trevor” she sobbed. He was still firing his M16, mumbling, “I was going to make it” to himself when what sounded as a very loud high-pitched engine roared through the screams and gunfire. Zombies outside the car fell down like domino bricks. More gunfire could be heard from outside of the car and even some voices. Cornelia turned to the backseat and saw two zombies lying on top of Stacey and Kayla, blocking the way in for the others. She took aim and shot them both in the head, being careful not to hit Stacey or Kayla in case they would still be alive. The gunfire from outside was deafening and they could no longer hear any screams. Trevor had stopped firing his M16 and just sat quietly staring straight ahead. The heavy gunfire stopped and everything went dead silence. Cornelia looked at Trevor, who looked back at her. “I knew it, I knew they would rescue us!” he whispered and dropped his assault rifle, which fell into the ceiling with a small thud. “Anyone still alive in there?” a voice from outside shouted. “Yes! Yes we are here! We made it!” Trevor shouted in joy. “I’m sorry we took so long, but there aren’t many of us left in here so we can’t be everywhere at the same time”. The big metal gates opened and their promised life of comfort and safety came to get them.
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, Nov 23 2010, 7:05 PM EST
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