Apocalypse City
Chapter One
"Come on guys, we have to get out of here! Don't even know if we've lost the Zed yet." The foursome trudged through the forest, led by Rory Finnigan. They stepped lightly, for they had only just escaped the zombie attack on their storage unit.
"I wonder what happened to the rest of-" "Shut the fuck up, Tony!" whispered Rory in a hoarse voice. He looked at the other three (Tony, Gail, and Tim) as if to say, "Don't say a damn thing." And he was right to. Their narrow escape was only due to the efforts of the guards at the storage unit. Rory had no idea whether or not anyone else had gotten away, but he couldn't worry himself with such things just now. He and his small squad, who had been just about to leave to go foraging for food, were only lucky that they had their weapons, ammo, armour, and other supplies.
"We need to find somewhere to wait the night out." said Tim as he looked at the quickly-darkening sky. The four of them continued to fox-walk through the wood, all the while scanning near and far for a hut, a tent, an armoured car, anything that could conceal them whilst they rested. Of a sudden, Tony stopped. The rest turned to observe him pointing at something far off in the distance. Rory followed his finger to a small, log cabin in a clearing, about a 5 minute walk away.
"How did you see that, Tony?" asked Gail in a hushed voice. Before Tony could answer, Rory stole the opportunity.
"Smoke. Someone's in there. C'mon, they might give us refuge. Let's get closer. Watch behind us, Gail."
Gail scanned their rear flank as they continued to walk, almost in silence, except for the occasional crunchy leaf or muffled cough, at which Rory would turn on his heel to look at the perpetrator in anger. They continued on for what seemed like forever due to the eerie hush of the trees, and the lack of tedious moans emitted from nearby corpses.
Finally, after what seemed to the foursome to be ages, they reached the door of the cabin. Gail, Tim, and Tony all turned and planted a knee on the ground, watching behind them for any Zed about to take a chunk out of their anatomy, while Rory knocked ever-so-quietly on the heavy wooden door before him. It took a few moments, but eventually, after many quiet knocks, some shuffling inside the cabin was heard. They could hear the lock on the door undo, and a forty-something-year-old man opened the door, just so it was ajar.
Before he could get a word out, Rory spoke. "Sir, I don't mean to be a bother, but our outpost just got overrun, and we just need a place to stay the night." The man looked him over a moment, looked back into the cabin, nodded at someone, then turned back to Rory.
"You been followed?" he asked gruffly. Rory told him he wasn't one hundred per cent sure, but he was fairly certain that they were the only ones awaiting entry into this sanctuary. The man looked him up and down, and then finally let Rory and the others in.
"Where'd y'all say you was from?" Now the man had gotten more than a few words out, an obvious Texan accent could be heard.
"We came from a storage unit in town, just on the other side of the forest." answered Tony.
The man responded naught but with a nod. He introduced himself as Buck, then introduced his son, Beau, who had until now been hiding in the shadows, and completely invisible to the others.
"My wife died one day while we was foragin' fer food. She was an angel. God, I got over it quick. What other choice did I have? Elsewise, I would'a gotten eat by one o' them pricks out there," said Buck, breaking the awkward silence. "She was from Louisiana. She named him," he continued, pointing to Beau. "We lived in Austin for a few years, 'fore we moved up to these parts. Utah, eh? Sure as hell is better up here than down south. We got a lot o' them Californians down in Austin. Seems quite a distance, don't it? Shoot, according to one of the survivors from Malibu, just 'bout noone made it outta that state alive. Seems that just 'bout everyone from the west coast is gone." After that, noone spoke much. Hell, noone spoke at all. They just ate beans in silence, waiting, listening, watching for any sign that the dead might be just outside, waiting for their feast.
Eventually, one by one, everyone started to nod off to sleep. Beau and Buck, of course, had their own beds. They had the courtesy, however, to lay down blankets, furs, and sleeping mats for the foursome, save Gail, for whom there was an extra cot.
The next morning, Rory awoke with quite a startle. He was being yelled at by Gail to, "wake the fuck up." As further events would reveal, the reason was because the previous night, Rory's squad had, indeed, been followed for miles by the dead. They were now right outside the door, clawing, banging, scratching, moaning, trying monotonously to get into the cabin.
Buck looked furiously in Rory's direction, then threw him, none too lightly, his shotgun. Rory handed it back and grabbed his uzi from beside his makeshift bedding. He walked to the window and peered out. The sight he saw was one he would never have thought was possible.
Thousands upon thousands of Zed were out there. They lined the forests' edge, pouring in from every direction, mostly concentrated toward the city, the direction from which Rory had come. The rest had no doubt heard the loud and desperate moans of their kinfolk and come hobbling along on all varieties of rotting legs that could carry them only so fast. Nonetheless, there were too many to fight, and Beau clearly knew this. All of them had their guns, but neither Buck nor Beau wanted to fire. They told Rory and his people to hold their fire as well. They all retreated into a more centred area of the cabin, into the middle of the room. Everyone but Tim.
Of a sudden, the sound of smashing glass resounded through the woods, echoing off of every tree and every body, as one of the rotting, decayed hands destroyed the glass and grabbed Tim by the chest, pulling him in. He had been too near the window. Before anyone could react, the zombie took a chunk out of Tim's neck. He uttered a bloodcurdling scream, one of pure agony, as the zombie clenched its red, bloody meal between its teeth. It gnawed at the flesh hanging from its mouth, looking neither appeased nor finished. Much of the stringy muscle tissue fell onto the ground out of its maw as it reached in for another munch. All the while, Tim continued to cry out in pain, begging to Tony to shoot him. Begging to Tony, then to Gail, then to Rory, then to Beau and Buck, then back to Tony. He begged and pleaded for someone to end this agony that everyone knew would end in his death either way. Finally, someone worked up the courage.
Beau took a step forward, toward Tim, and looked him dead in the eye, while Tim looked back, his eyes full of fear and tears. Beau looked at him mercifully, covered his face with his hand, and shot Tim right in the head. Tim's limp body collapsed to the floor, though it was immediately pulled back up and out of the window by the walking corpses which were now distracted with getting some Tim-meat pie.
"Everyone get in, now!" bellowed Buck. While everyone was distracted with Tim, Buck had opened a small trapdoor in the floor, into which he was beckoning the still-living. They all clambered into the hole, which turned out to be much more than just a hole.
"Tunnels? You have tunnels going under your house, Buck?" asked Tony. Rory was simply puzzled. Who had tunnels under their house. Buck climbed in last, and slammed the trapdoor shut behind him. He locked it with upwards of 5 different locks, then put a wooden board over it, clearly meant to strengthen it against anything.
"This cabin? Shoot, this ain't my house. This is a Goddamn fortress. Beau and me built these tunnels here soon after we found the cabin. We knew we would need an escape route if some fuck-ups-" he eyed Rory angrily at this point, "-decided to piss us over completely by bringing the dead back with 'em. And thus, we got a use for 'em. Took us right around a year an' a half to finish the tunnels, but we got it done, didn't we Beau?" Beau simply nodded in his father's direction.
Rory suddenly noticed that they were walking down the dirt passageway, and felt unexpectedly unsafe. Buck assured him the tunnels were completely secure, unless there were explosions above them.
"There's a fork up ahead. You'll take the right passage. It'll take you into a small town, name o' Daggett. Plenty o' supplies, good gun shop. The tunnel goes into a house on the other side o' town from the guns. Don't worry about it, it's a small town," he explained, seeing the expression on Rory's face.
"And what about you? Where are you gonna go?" he quizzed Buck enthusiastically.
"No offence, man, but I don' need no more trouble from you damn travellers. I'm goin' to Salt Lake. Heard they might have a settlement established there. I ain't sure though. Hell, the tunnel to the city ain't even finished yet. That's OK, there's some shovels and supplies down there. Beau and I can finish. And don't even think 'bout following' us, we got guns and we ain't afraid to use 'em."
When they reached the split in the passageway, they said their goodbyes and parted ways. Rory didn't know what was going to happen to them, but he knew there was going to be hardship, and it would start as soon as they got to the end of that tunnel. Perhaps, even, sooner.