We walked through the football field as we tried to locate Lester's car. As we made way around court, like an alarm was rung, an army of sick people came pushing through every corner of the main building and they where coming straight for us.
Lena let out a scream as we began to run." Fuck!!!" I screamed in frustration as I ran with the guys at my heels we ran as fast as we could but the sick people where faster than we imagine."Shit they are fast" Elise screamed as she ran faster. Like the universe was totally mad at me, I tripped on my own foot and fell face down."Ethel!" I heard my name being screamed as I tried to get myself up. I pushed myself up but I was pushed down as a heavy weight fell on me.Damn those things stink. I heard the gnashing of teeth and the snarling close to my ears which wasn't a pleasant sound at all.My elbow collided with it's face as I used my legs to kick it off me. Elise then grabbed me by the collar and pulled me towards her. I then managed to get up and looked around.Lester was pulling Lena along with him as he ran. Jake was bashing the heads of some of the sick people as I closed up on him. I grabbed my bat and hit the sick people beside me hard and it's head just splattered.My insides churned as I watched it's shaking body hit the ground. I kept chanting in my head that they where dead and we're only ridding them of the agony. Yes... We are only helping not killing right?.We soon got to where Lester and Chloe where and Lester was already starting the car. We all jumped in and I was breathing heavily.The car started almost immediately as we rode down the road which was clear of sick people. But cars where everywhere and blood. I sneaked a glance at Lena who was doing everything in her power to avoid looking at the road.I really felt bad for the poor girl. She was so Little to be going through this but she's really lucky she has a brother as fine as Lester ..... I mean..... Like Lester.He really really obviously cared for his sister and I'm sure he'll do anything to keep her safe.Lester drove down the road in a moderate speed which was really starting to piss me off. I mean everything was starting to piss me off."Hey look!" Elise said as she pointed to my right. It was shop which had a sign. " Rob's Gun shop"Lester made a sharp turn I nearly hit my head in the window."Hey!" He muttered a sorry and kept driving to find a parking spot."Does anyone know how to handle a gun?" Jake asked as he looked around."I do" Lena said smiling widely"Anyone apart from the Kid" I laughed at her pissed face she's so so cute."I do" Lester said and they all turned to look at i and Elise."Urm .....I know how to paintball guns..." I shrugged"Yhup me too" Elise grinned."So no gun for you guys" Lester smiled and I scoffed as I shrugged in my seat."Yeah I think it's better we stick to a bat yeah?" Elise looked at me and I sighed."Yes Elise a bat is the best option" We pulled into the parking lot of the gun shop which was clear no cars what so ever was in sight and it didn't look damaged at all."Well this shop looks good" Jake said and I nodded. Weird right?."So ... I'll go in first and scout the place for those things. If the place is clear I'll call you guys in" Lester said."I'll come with" Lena said with fear all over her voice."No you stay here and protect them yeah?" She nodded as she looked down at her feet."I'll come with you" I said"Fine you can come with " he nodded and looked at Jake "keep an eye out for those things" Jake nodded and Lester and I walked into the shop.We went through the other side as Lester suggested we use the back doors. The door was huge and black. It was very very old. And it was locked.Lester looked around and found a crowbar which he used to open the door. Honestly, I don't know how he did it. I was busy looking around for any signs of sick people. And I was worried Incase there was an alarmAfter a deep breath, we walked into the shop our chest heaving well maybe just mine but I was scared. Lester was right in front of me as we walked slowly.As we got the to middle, I looked around in awe. The whole shop was covered in guns, grenades, and some other things I don't know."Well there's a lot" and I nodded we should've brought a large bag. Immediately that thought crossed my mind, I looked around and saw large duffel bags hanging on the wall."I think we should call the others so we can pack more weapons" i said and he nodded in agreement.We called the others in and handed them duffel bags and we began to pack. Jake was so so excited like he won a lottery as he picked the guns and examined them. How can someone be so happy for guns."You seem really happy" Elise voiced out my mind. See.... Twin thing."Yeah.... My dad always took me hunting so... We usually picked out the guns together" he smiled sadly and my heart ached for him."Hey I need the keys to these beautiful knives thingy" I said trying to change the subject. Jake then walked over to my place and peered into the glass."Step back" he said and I did as he said. He looked around and picked a small metal stick and smashed the glass with it. I flinched at the sound and stared at him. "there.... You don't need a key now" ."Thanks champ" I said and he smiled."Do you think you can open this one too?" Lester called from behind us and we all turned to look. I began to laugh as Jake rolled his eyes."I'm not Thor or superman" and I laughed even more. Soon, Elise joined me. Well it was a cage where the guns are kept to be safe. And it was well...chained and only a key can open it."Found the key!" Lena said and we all looked down at her"Thanks kiddo" Lester took the key and I turned back to get a knife. Since guns weren't an option knives are the best. I looked around the sharp knives which looked very pretty and chose three sexy sharp ones."Y'all done?" Lester asked and we nodded."Wait I think we should look at the back" I said"I'm coming with" Lester said as we walked around back with our duffel bags. We found some plastic plates abd cups with utensils which we stuffed."There's a lot of water lucky us" I smiled as I picked some bottles and Lester did the same."We're done" I bent to tie the bag and I felt a cold metal at the back of my head and I heard a gun cocked."Turn around slowly and don't do anything stupid or I'll blow your head off" a male voice sounded behind me. We dropped our bags slowly as I turned to look at Lester.Shit.The world narrowed to the shattered maw of the doorway. My feet were rooted to the spot, fused to the concrete by a surge of primal ice that shot up from the ground and into my veins. My breath, which had been coming in ragged gasps from the fight on the bridge, simply stopped. The scene in the lobby was a still life of slaughter.It wasn’t the random, hungry chaos of the dead. This was… methodical. Calculated. Chairs were overturned not from a struggle, but from a systematic search. Lockers were pried open, their contents—old magazines, a few cans of food, a child’s torn teddy bear—strewn across the floor like garbage. And the bodies… they weren’t just bitten. They were executed.A man I vaguely recognized, Mark, was slumped against the reception desk. He’d been shot in the back of the head. A dark, tidy hole in his skull, the exit wound a grotesque blossom of bone and brain matter on the polished wood of the desk in front of him. Another, a woman named Sarah, lay face down in a cong
The thrumming in my skull was the first thing to greet me, a dull, insistent drumbeat against the back of my eyeballs. Consciousness wasn't a gentle dawn; it was a clumsy burglar tripping over the furniture of my mind. I winced, squeezing my eyes shut against the thin, grey light filtering through the grimy window. Every muscle fiber screamed in protest, a unified chorus begging for just five more minutes, an hour, maybe a week of oblivion.Last night’s meeting with Carlos and Moe hung in my memory like a ghost—a necessary, grim specter. We’d huddled in the pantry, the air thick with the scent of old potatoes and our own fear. Our voices were low, conspiratorial whispers that scraped against the silence of the sleeping house.“We can’t refuse them,” Carlos had said, his fingers tracing the grain of the wooden table. “Eli’s men. It’ll look like we’re hiding something. We need to appear… grateful. Cooperative.”Moe, ever the pragmatist, had nodded, his glasses catching the flicker of ou
The walk back from Eli’s condo to the flickering lantern-light of the memorial was a journey through a landscape of silent, shared horror. Carlos and I did not speak a word. We didn’t need to. The image of that blood-caked knife, the stiff, gore-soaked fabric, was seared onto the back of my eyelids, a grotesque negative of the peaceful scene we were returning to. The very air felt different now, tainted. Each shadow we passed seemed to hold the potential of Eli’s grinning, duplicitous face. The distant, murmured prayers from the memorial service sounded less like comfort and more like a dirge for our own shattered innocence.We moved like ghosts, our footsteps silent on the grass, our bodies tense, coiled springs of dreadful knowledge. The normal sounds of the night—the chirping of crickets, the sigh of the wind through the skeletal trees—now felt like a mockery. How could the world continue its mundane rhythms when we now knew a murderer walked among us, his hands steeped in blood, h
The two hours that followed the tense meeting in our makeshift shelter were a masterclass in the kind of desperate, hopeful logistics that had come to define our new existence. The plan was simple in objective—bring the survivors from the apartments to the relative safety of our fortified shelters—but complex in its execution, a delicate dance of risk and trust. The air, thick with the scent of damp concrete and collective anxiety, seemed to vibrate with a new, cautious energy.I watched the group dynamic shift and reform. Moe, a man whose quiet demeanor I had previously mistaken for indifference, became the unexpected cornerstone of the operation. He didn’t just offer; he insisted, his voice a low, steady rumble that cut through the nervous chatter.“I have a van,” he stated, his hands, calloused and capable, resting on the map we’d spread over a salvaged door that served as our table. “It’s old, but it runs. We can fit eight, maybe nine people per trip if we squeeze. It’s better tha
The silence in my own head was a screaming thing. It had been days since the murder, days since we had all made that unspoken, desperate pact to pretend that the world had not cracked open beneath our feet. We moved through the sterile, fluorescent-lit halls of the Arcadia Sanctuary like ghosts performing a pantomime of normalcy. But the pretense was a fragile shell, and the memory of Mr. Gable’s blood-soaked body was a corrosive acid eating away at its underside. My thoughts kept circling back to one immutable, terrifying fact: Eli was hunting the immune. And my mind, traitorously, kept pulling Lester into that dark orbit.I found him in the common area, meticulously cleaning a set of tools that already gleamed. Lester, with his open face and a soul that seemed to have been forged from a purer, simpler metal than the rest of ours. His trust was a given, not a prize to be won. It was his greatest strength and, I feared, his most fatal flaw.“Lester,” I began, my voice carefully neutra
The grim atmosphere of the communal dining hall was a palpable weight, pressing down on every whispered conversation and clattering bowl. The initial shock of the murder had hardened into a low-grade, persistent fear, a current of paranoia that ran beneath the surface of our morning routines. It was into this tense environment that Lena and Abby returned from their lessons, their young faces clouded with a distress that had nothing to do with schoolwork."Ethel.."Lena said, her voice small as she hurried to my side, her small hand finding mine. "It's Sarah. Mr. Gable's daughter. She's in our class."My heart, already heavy, sank further. I followed her gaze to a corner of the hall, where a young girl, no more than nine, sat hunched over on a bench. Her small body was wracked with silent, shuddering sobs, the kind that seemed to tear at the very fabric of her being. Abby was already there, one arm wrapped around Sarah's trembling shoulders, speaking to her in a low, soothing murmur. Le