Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I'm back by popular demand. And by popular I mean by like 5 people. XD
This will be shorter that the original one but I still hope you guys like it.
Lets get right to it shall we?
Don't forget to Read & Review!
Read & Review
Read & Review
Read & Review
Wow is there an echo in here?
Hope you enjoy!
Warning: There will be a LOT of characters in this story. Just like in Project Z, this was supposed to be just a story with my friends on twitter. So expect a lot of names.
You're blinded by the sunlight as you crash through the thin steel door of the facility. After a second, your eyes start to adjust to the brightness and as soon as you see the clearing, you sprint towards the small town. Before you could get far you suddenly hear the door slamming open behind you.
"Don't let her get away!" a man screams from the open door.
You jump for cover behind a mini-van as bullets whiz past your head. "Come out, come out wherever you are!" He laughs and you wish you hadn't dropped your bow so you could put one between his annoyingly perfect eyebrows.
"Make sure she's dead. I have to deal with the other…problem." You hear him say to the man beside him.
You drop to the ground and see a pair of polished leather shoes start to walk away from another pair of high grade military brown boots. A moment later, you hear the gun whiz to life followed by another hail of lead and gunpowder; pounding against your makeshift shield.
There was only one thing you could think of: you needed to get away. You needed to get to Heather and the others.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." You mumble, managing to scramble closer to the car as bullets and sparks explode all around you. You were trapped. Unless this bastard decides to let you go, you were good as dead.
Jesus, fuck. You should have listened to Heather; you shouldn't have gone alone. "I'm sorry." You whisper to yourself as you feel the bullets start hitting the inside of the car, the door on the other side probably reduced to scrap metal, there's now only one sheet of steel between you and a very painful, albeit, quick death.
"Naya, why the fuck, do you get yourself into these situations. Goddamn it." You scold yourself as you hit the back of your head against the door. "Okay, come on, there has to be a way out."
You shift your attention to the small warehouse-looking building near you. Aside from a few barrels, the building itself was at least 50 yards away; you wouldn't even get to 10 without getting shot.
But you had to try.
You couldn't die like this.
Not without a fight. "Fuck it." You say as you prepare yourself to run, crouching on all fours and digging your feet into the ground for traction.
"One… Two…Thr-" As soon as you lunged forward, your jacket gets caught on a piece of metal protruding from the tire. You quickly pull yourself free and try again. "Okay… for real… One… T-" Suddenly, everything goes quiet. You risk it and stick your head just above the car window; you can't help but thank whoever the hell was watching over you as you realize what was going on.
It's jammedyou think to yourself as you watch the shooter try to pull on the ejector.
Without thinking, you sprint toward the warehouse. You easily jump over an overturned barrel like a fucking Olympic runner but you fail to slow down and crash against the large door of the warehouse.
It's fucking locked.
This shit doesn't happen in any of the action movies you've seen. "Mother fu-" the sound of the machine gun whirring to life cuts you off. You turn around and see the soldier running towards you, like the massive gun weighed nothing more than a bag of gym clothes.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." you panic, bouncing a little on your feet while looking around. You manage to get your feet moving, running towards the back of the warehouse. There had to be a back door or something. Bullets start flying past you again and before you could get to cover, you feel a searing heat on your leg.
"Ah fuck!" you cry out as you crash down, dust flying all around. You grab your leg and instantly feel the damp fabric; you don't dare look at the wound because you're pretty sure you are going to pass out if you did. "Goddamn it." You tear the lower half of your shirt to use it as a tourniquet.
You quickly tie the fabric below your knee but your hand slips and your gloves scratch across the open wound, making your cry out; tears involuntarily stream down your cheeks. This is no time to be a baby. Get up You tell yourself, tying the fabric just above the wound and standing up.
There's a fiery ache in your leg but you ignore it as you limp to the fire escape, you could go in through the upper floor windows and maybe you could lose him inside the warehouse. You climb the ladder as quickly as you can but halfway up you hear a loud moan. Suddenly, half the ladder collapses. Your hands shoot up and grab the ladder, your feet are left dangling 20-feet in the air. You look down briefly and see the barrel of the gun pointed right at you. You scream and will your arms to pull you up but it's too late.
You feel a sharp pain on your side that weakens your grip on the ladder; your left hand manages to grab hold of the last step. You take a big gulp of air but you could feel the air leaving your body uncontrollably.
Again, you force yourself to reach up and climb the ladder with just your arms until you were high enough that you could use your legs. You focus everything you have into reaching the top of the fire escape that you start to get tunnel vision.
If you could only get into the warehouse, the locked doors should slow down this fucking maniac and you could catch your breath. You manage to reach the dirt stained window on the third floor. You take another useless deep breath before breaking the window with your elbow and jumping in.
You get a few steps into the darkness of the warehouse before you legs collapse underneath you. It feels as though there was no oxygen in the warehouse and you start to get dizzy and the corners of your vision are starting to turn white. "Help…" you cry out but it comes out as barely a whisper.
You look around for anything that might help but you only see large crates that were scattered all around the room; you notice that they had ASTI's logo on the cover,
Help…
You call out again but you're not sure if you actually voiced it out or if it was just in your head. All you could see was the white closing in on your vision and you hear a door blast open but you didn't have the energy to move.
The last thing you remember seeing is one green eye before you feel the white engulf your brain.
All you could see was white everywhere.
Funny, you always thought blacking out would be… well… black.
"Well I'll be damned. She did say you were stupid enough to come here alone." you hear behind the white sheet over your brain.
*8 Days Earlier*
"I swear, these two have been at it since Mica and I came back from our last mission in Texas." Heather playfully complains, subtly pointing her eyebrows somewhere to your left.
You didn't even need to look to know what those two were up to. After, Heather and Mica were asked to join a convoy from Texas to Los Angeles. Apparently, it was some important person that personally requested them, which of course meant they could not decline.
They had to drive to Texas and then drive back. There were a lot of delays with the convoy; two cars breaking down on separate occasions, large groups of the undead along the highways and a bout of motion sickness from a certain Lucas Young.
They eventually got back, 4 days later. Needless to say, you and Mila were not very happy with the turns of events. It seems like Dianna, Tami and Lea will never let you forget how loud you were…um… "arguing"… that night.
"Babe…" You coo as your arms wrap around the blonde's waist, "don't be a pot calling the kettle black."
"What do you mean?" she asks
"I mean…we've been pretty active in that department."
"What department?" Thuccy asks from behind you.
"The sitting-on-each-others-face department." Heather answers plainly and you choke on your own tongue.
"What she means is—uh—I mean…"
"Cool." Thuccy replies blankly before walking towards the stables.
The two of you watch as the petite Asian makes her way to the large door. Something about her reaction bothers you; normally she would squeal, scream or become incoherent. Why did she seem so… glum?
"Is she okay?" Heather asks before grabbing both of your backpacks off the floor and handing one to you.
"She's been a little down lately; I don't think she ever got over losing the others." You answer as you take the bag and pull on the straps to cling the bag tighter against your back.
"I understand. I hope she feels better soon." Heather says sadly, Heather never liked seeing people sad. She even took time off training to talk to the girls to help them cope with losing their friends.
"Me too." You hold your hand and pull her towards the stables too. "Mica! Mila!" You call out behind you.
"I have Thunder and Lux all prepped up for our trip." Mica tells you two as she passes with Mila in tow
"Thanks!" Heather says from beside you.
"Lux hasn't been eating much lately, did you guys figure out what was wrong with her?" You ask, concerned for the well being of your horse.
Weeks after you got to the farm, Ximena and Vanessa found a huge stable a few miles away that was filled with horses and cows. It took 4 full days to safely move every animal from the stable to the farm.
Lux was this annoying white horse that kept trying to push other horses to get to the front. She wouldn't let anyone else touch her except for you, hell, she almost bit Lea's finger off. You and Lux were like a match made in heaven.
"She had gotten through one of the barrels in her stable and managed to eat two plastic jugs." Mila explains as the four of you pass through the front door; she walks straight to Lux's stable and lifts the cover off of a large blue barrel to reveal a pile of plastic water jugs.
"She passed it out last night and has been eating normally." She adds before smiling at you and turning towards her own horse, Reese's stable.
Thuccy approaches with her own horse and stand just outside of the stalls, "Let's go." She says blankly before starting for the door.
You and Heather make eye contact and you see the worry in her blue eyes.
"She seems to be in a good mood." You hear Mica's disembodied voice
"We should talk to her." Mila says as the two walk out on their horses.
"Ha!" the two say at the same time, pushing their horses to run and catch up with Thuccy.
"I'm worried about her." Heather says from beside you, she's already riding Thunder and strapping a large rucksack to the hook on your saddle.
"We can talk to her when we get back." You smile at her as you make yourself comfortable on the horse's back.
"I hope she's okay." The blonde says sadly
"Me too."
The two of you quickly catch up to Mica, Thuccy and Mila; your mission was simple, get supplies from nearby abandoned towns.
Get in. Restock. Get out. Simple. Right?
Not really. Looters and other survivors have bled every major city and town nearby dry of any food and weapons, leaving only spoiled meats and stagnant water. Apart from the food shortage in the farm, a flu had spread to over half of the people living there and the hot summer sun did not help the situation at all.
"I need a towel! Someone get me a towel!" Mila shouts over the buzz of movement and pain permeating the air, "Mica, get out of here!" she orders, glaring at the blonde and pointing to the door.
Mica ignores her and heads to the table where a little boy lay coughing and convulsing, "What's going on?" she asks with a shaky voice as she covers the boy's mouth with a cloth.
"We don't know. We think it's some kind of virus" Heather answers, stabbing a syringe on the kid's leg.
"He's coughing up blood…" you explain pointing to the now blood soaked cloth over the boy's mouth, "It won't be long now and he'll be dead."
It was Ella that discovered this just a few hours ago. First the cough, then the fever, black patches on the skin, convulsion, blood, death. It always happened in that order.
"Tami! Call Lucas, ask if he knows something about this and if they have anything that might help!" Ella's voice erupts over the groans of those infected by this new disease.
Suddenly, Mila appears beside you and for a second you thought she had punched Mica in the mouth.
"Keep this on." She murmurs and you realize that she had clamped a face mask over Mica's nose and mouth. "Same with you two, we don't want this thing spreading even more." She says, handing you and Heather a face mask each.
You put it on quickly and looking around you see everyone doing the same. There were about 20 people sprawled out on tables, chairs and beds of hay. All of them were shaking and choking on their own blood.
What the hell is happening?
"Dianna!" Lea's voice suddenly pierces through your thoughts, which is funny because she wasn't even in the room; she was outside burying the bodies.
"I'm busy!" You look over to Dianna; She had her back to the door and was helping a young woman to her side so that they don't choke on their own blood.
There's a commotion outside then you see a figure running right at her growling and enraged.
Oh no.
"We can head west. I know there's a small farming village with several small shops." Thuccy says, snapping you back to the present.
Heather opens up the worn map and lays it out on Thunder's neck and bites the cap off the red pen that was assigned to be your team's color. "So we go through… here?" she asks
"Yeah, there shouldn't' be any problems through there since it's just a path that farmers use to transport their hay or whatever. There are no houses from here…" Thuccy points to somewhere on the map, "…to here. There's a grocery here, there should be enough supplies for everyone. I'm talking food, clothes, medicine." She adds.
"Sounds like a good plan, what are we waiting for?" Mica cocks her head to the side like she didn't understand why we were still standing around.
"It's a little too far, don't you think? That's almost an hour away by car." I ask, squinting up towards the sun. Telling by where the sun is and the shadows on the ground you could tell that it was around noon, "It will take us hours to get there safely."
"It'll be worth it. I'll go alone if I need to." Thuccy says and you could feel the conviction in her voice. She knows how desperate the situation is back at camp and you know she's seriously going to go whether you came with her or not.
You nod once, "If it gets dark, we stay wherever we can find. It's dangerous to travel at night." You tell them, all heads nodding. "Let's go."
The sun is just sinking behind the trees as you reach a small town hidden between the small hills and thick forests. There were wooden buildings spaced wide apart and for all intents and purposes it looked like a town out of an old western movie.
"Follow me." Thuccy calls, moving quickly to the middle of the town.
"It's empty." Mila says and you know she's not talking about the jug in her hands. The whole town was empty, not a soul or a single undead monster.
"An abandoned town?" You growl, all that effort for nothing.
"Seems like it." Mila answers but keeps searching nonetheless.
You walk Lux along a row of small wooden houses and you're vaguely aware that Mica and Heather were walking behind you. No clothes hanging and no movements aside from your teams'. If there had been anyone that lived in this town they were long gone before the outbreak even started.
You turn a corner and there you see several cages littering the streets, "What the…" you trail off as you approach them, trying to analyze what you were seeing.
Cages.
Chickens in cages.
Chickens in cages surrounded by several wooden spikes.
There was blood on the tip of one of the spikes, it was dry and dark like it had been there for a while; baking in the sun.
"I found something!" You hear Thuccy scream from several meters away. You move along wit the rest of the team towards her location and you arrive at a small building with the wooden plank that read "TOWN INVENTORY". You watch the petite girl step out with arms full of food.
"Oh my god." Heather mutters covering her mouth in surprise. You, Mica and Mila jump down from the horses and quickly help her haul the supplies to the bags hanging from the saddles.
As soon as she hands over the goods Thuccy jogs back to the door ahead of us, "Hey! Wait up!" You call after her, strapping the bag closed "There's more in there! Food, medicine, wa-"
The next thing you realize, Thuccy is laid out on the floor, writhing in pain. "Thuccy!"
By the time anyone had got to her, there was already a pool of blood growing just over her left shoulder, "Help! She's been shot!" you yell out, "Christ! What the fuck happened?" Mila quickly presses a piece of her jacket against the hole on Thuccy's shoulder.
"I don't know!" You panic, frantically looking around for the shooter. You see a quick flash and suddenly the ground below you explodes in rock and dirt.
"Get to cover!" Heather commands before pulling you behind a small stone fence. Smacking the horses on the way, sending them stampeding to safety.
"Mila, let's go!" Mica shouts and you see her pulling the two women to cover, having to drag Thuccy backwards across the dirt; bullets landing on the wall just to their right.
The amount of bullets landing made it clear that there was only one shooter, one bullet every couple of seconds from somewhere far away with a silenced weapon. You peak above the fence and again see a flash but this time you notice that it came from one of the houses, just behind the caged chickens.
"I found him, let's go!" You push Heather to the jump the other side, "Stay here and keep her alive." You tell the two just as they reach cover behind the other stone fence.
You jump over the barrier and sprint towards the house where the shooter was hiding. You could still here shots being fired but this time Mica and Mila were firing back. This needs to end quickly; they didn't have a lot of bullets. You weave through the chicken traps and stop just at the door of the house. "Window." You tell Heather quietly as you pointed out the barrel of the gun sticking out between the wooden planks.
Heather pulls out her side arm and you adjust your bow in your hands, why didn't you fucking bring a pistol?
She takes point and opens the door slowly and steps in. You follow close behind while looking around you for any signs of back-up or zombies. You both make your way up the wooden stairs to the attic and aim your bow as she opens the door; that's when you notice a thin string just inside the door, close enough that when the door is opened it will hit the string.
A trap!
There's a loud snap and you do what you can, pulling Heather behind you as the cutting edge of a bloody axe flies towards your face.
Shit.
You squeeze your eyes shut, not wanting to see the axe splitting your skull in two. Pain shoots out from the tip of your nose where the axe initially hit.
Oh God this is it.
After a second, you realize that the pain remained at the tip of your nose. Maybe you just didn't feel the rest of it cracking your skull?
You open one eye slightly and see the blade of the axe pressed up against your nose. You lean your head back and touch the tip, it's bleeding. "Holy sh-"
The handle had reached its limit, hitting the door frame and stopping just before the head got buried in your face. Heather releases a breath and wipes the blood off your nose, "are you okay?" She asks
"I'm fine, let's go."
As if to highlight you're point, another shot rings from the room upstairs, "careful!" she whispers loudly before stepping around several more traps, pointing them out to as you passed to make sure an axe or a shovel doesn't split your face in half.
You go right and then left at the end of the corridor, you watch for other booby traps as you reach for the dangling rope that would pull down the stairs to the attic
Are you ready? You mouth and Heather gives you a quick nod before pulling the pin on a flash bang and keeping the lever held down. You can still hear gunshots coming from above; the shooter is still oblivious to your presence and just like in practice, you count it down with a nod of your head,
Nod. Nod. Nod.
You pull down the stairs quickly and ready your bow, watching as Heather lobs the grenade into the attic.
There's a loud BANG along with a bright white flash. Without looking Heather sprints up the stairs to at a time, "Heather!" you shout after her, jumping the first three steps easily and getting to the top just in time to see the blonde tackle the shooter harshly.
She sweeps her leg across the shooters feet and a second later the shooter is lying on the floor, knocked out from Heather's takedown. You kick the rifle away just as she straddles the girl by sitting in her ass and pulling the girl's wrists back.
"She's alone." The dance says as she straps a cable tie around them.
At first glance the room looks messy, boxes and crates lined the walls of the small attic and it smelled of piss and dead rat. "This place is a mess." You murmur, lifting the cover off of one of the crates littered around the room.
There's a whistle from outside which you quickly answer with a whistle of your own to let them know that it's safe. "Naya, look at this." Heather approaches you from behind holding a small box in her hands.
Chocolates.
Bags and bags of chocolates.
Reese's, M&M's, Milky Way Bars.
God just took a dump and it landed in this box. You haven't seen a Milky Way bar in over 4 months and your mouth just starts drooling at the sight. You set your bow on one of the chairs and go through the boxes with both hands.
"There's tons of them in these boxes." Heather says quickly, pointing at a stack of 5 large boxes. "And here…" she adds before pulling you to a crate leaning against the side of the door, "these are full of weapons. Guns, bullets, body armor…everything."
She was right, the crates were filled to the brim with military grade AR-15s. "Holy shit, I guess now we know why there doesn't seem to be a lot of zombies here anymore." You run your fingers through your hair and look at the unconscious girl.
She looks so you, probably not even older than 18 years old.
How did she get all these?
"A little help?" Mica's voice breaks your thoughts and quickly you go through the same path you took, disabling all the traps along the way. As soon as all the traps are disabled you were all able to haul Thuccy up into the attic, "we need to stop the bleeding now or she's going to fucking bleed out in front of us." Mila says in a panic as she pulls out her first aid kit.
"We need to get the bullet out." Mila mutters as she produces a pair of latex gloves.
"What are you doing?" You asks quickly
"I left my equipment back at camp."
Oh shit. She was going to pull it out with her hand.
"Do you at least have anesthesia?" Heather asks, pressing a cloth onto Thuccy's shoulder
"No time. Plus, she's unconscious she wont feel a thing." The doctor answers, cutting through Thuccy's shirt. "Babe, I'm gonna need you to hold her down just in case." She instructs Mica who quickly kneeled above the unconscious girl, gripping her hands to the floor.
As soon as Mila's fingers go in, Thuccy's eyes fly open.
"WHAT THE… FUCK ARE… YOU DOING!" she says in between screams; her knee fly up, hitting Mila on the back of her ribs, causing her fingers to dig deeper into the girl's shoulder.
"FUCK YOU!" Thuccy thrashes
"Calm down!" Mica yells, pushing her wrists against the floor
"YOU FUCKING CALM DOWN!" she twists in an attempt to pull Mila's fingers out.
"It's in too deep!" The doctor says as she pulls out her fingers
Heather suddenly kneels and for a second you think that she had vomited.
"Here. I have scissors!" the blonde calls out
She quickly tosses a pair of scissors towards Mila who catches it effortlessly.
"It's dirty." She says, scrunching her nose
"You're going to need to sterilize that or she'll die from an infection anyway." A disembodied female voice says and you realize that it came from the shooter, "I can help you."
The four of your look at each other for a minute, trying to decide what to do, "Why don't you just tell us where it is?" you ask.
"I'm not an idiot. If I show you, there's nothing I can do to stop you from taking everything."
"You're the one who shot at us and we're the one you can't trust?" Thuccy shouts from her place, "you're fucking crazy." She adds
"Let me go and I'll help you or die from a rusty pair of scissors. Your choice." The shooter adds with finality.
"Fine." Heather says after several seconds, kneeling beside her and cutting the cable tie with her knife. "One of your fingers move in the direction of a weapon, I will kill you myself."
"Geez…" the shooter murmurs as she rubs her wrist to get the blood flowing again. "I thought you were nicer in real life."
She knew who Heather was so she probably knows you too. It's kind of the way it's always been, "the alcohol?" you ask, not wanting Heather to have to answer.
Heather did change but only because we've bee threatened enough to know not to trust anyone outside the camp. It was too dangerous.
"Right." The shooter nods as she walks over to a large crate and pulls out some supplies. "Sorry for shooting at you." She apologizes before handing over a small box filled with medical supplies like gauze, materials for stitching skin, morphine needles, tape, alcohol and two scissors; a regular one and one that had a flat end.
"For your nose." She adds, handing you a band-aid
"Thanks." You tell her, opening it and sticking the band-aid on the tip of your nose
"Why did you?" You ask, handing Mila the supplies\
"Shoot at you?"
You nod.
"I thought you were one of them…"
"Them?" Heather asks
"The soldiers that are sent in to sweep through town to make sure everyone was in their proper place"
"What are you talking about?"
Before she could answer, there's a loud rumble that erupts from outside, "what was that?" Thuccy asks dreamily, the morphine starting to kick in.
Mica moves to the window to look but you notice that the shooter had darted out of the room. "Hey! Where are you going?!" you shout, running after her.
"Keep your voice down!" you hear her whispers loudly as you round the corner. She's resetting all the traps that you disabled on the way up.
"What are you doing?"
"We need to shut everything down before they set up." She says hurriedly without looking at you, setting trap after trap.
"What's going on?"
"We don't have time for this!"
You block her path by standing in front of the last disabled trap, "tell us!" She look at you with wild panicked eyes before pushing you harshly against the door "Help me set these up or get out of my way." She growls at you.
"We only have a few minutes until they start, if we don't get these up then we're good as dead."
That's it!
Chapter one D-Z-O-W-N!
Who do you think is the shooter and what's happening in this small abandoned town? Good? Bad? Ugly? You have to wait and see!
What did you guys think? Let me know!
Read & Review
Read & Review
Read & Review
Read & Review
Damn there's that echo again.
Now for the twitter usernames! ((Nobody is using private anyway so I GUESS this is okay. Be sure to follow them ASAP because they might change their usernames!)) More to follow:
Mica - hemosfingers
Thuccy (read as TOKE-SEA) – dorkgron
Mila - brittana
