April 29, 2018
7:46 P.M.
Uniontown, Pennsylvania, United States of America
"So, what? You're going down there in that ridiculous outfit?"
"Yeah, dad. I'm going to a shooting range in this ridiculous outfit and you can't do shit about it."
My step-father shrugged and leaned back in the chair he was lounging in. "No, I can't. I don't really care, either." The living room was darkened, the curtains drawn tightly. Light wasn't a friend of my step-dad, nor my mother, but they insisted on planting a garden every-goddamn-year. Luckily for me, I moved out right after graduation, so they couldn't get me to help. Granted, I hadn't moved too far away, but still... I moved.
Turning around, I quickly gave their pet chihuahua a belly rub before walking up the stairs, my boots thumping on the wood underneath the carpeted covers, the dog barking at me uncontrollably for no reason whatsoever. My dad told her to shut up while I just shrugged it off. Definitely didn't miss that. The dusk sky cast an orange glow into the second floor's hallway and my boots kept thumping on the floor. I pushed the door open and grabbed two objects on the dresser right next to said portal.
I fastened the two Colt M1911 automatic pistols to my side holsters and walked over to the bed. There stood my backpack, which I had filled with M1911 magazines, each at the full capacity of seven .45 caliber rounds. I zipped up the backpack and slung it on my back before turning my attention to the bed, grabbing the eight magazines I had separately laid out, and clipping them to my belt. The backpack wasn't small, nor did it contain little. In addition to the M1911 magazines were a good bit of different magazines, several boxes of contacts, a couple bottles of contact solution, contact cases, four toothpaste tubes and a toothbrush, my glasses in their case, my iPod, two pairs of earphones, and its wall charger, among other things. Even a laptop and its charger were in the bag. I was going kind of survivalist with what was in the backpack, more overboard than anything.
I was wearing a set of reinforced military-grade combat armor, which I had managed to buy at a military surplus store, over a pair of camouflaged pants and a gray T-shirt. On my feet, over-top a pair of socks, were a pair of combat boots, again acquired from the surplus store, as well as a bandolier and a combat knife strapped to my chest, the knife in a sheath.
After I had all of these clothes and weapons on my person, I sat down and looked around, wondering what I could do before I went to the range. It was my plan to go when it got dark, that way it wasn't too hot; the armour wasn't exactly the coolest thing, neither was it practical. My eyes hovered on my old gaming console and I nodded, deciding to play it. My arm shot out and my finger pushed the "on" button of the air conditioning unit, which the power prick for my old Xbox 360, which I had left there for when I visited since I had an Xbox One, was resting on. The air conditioner rumbled a little, showing its age, and began pushing out cool air while I grabbed the old, worn controller with the fucked-up left analog stick and pushed the start button down with my left hand, turning the Xbox on and pressing the power button on the twenty-some year old SDTV to turn it on. With all that done, I signed in on my Xbox LIVE account and looked to see who was online, specifically those playing on 360 which were few and far between all over the globe. I saw that three of my best friends were on, all of whom were idling on the dashboard, so I invited them to a party.
First to join my party was Luke, who, as soon as he joined the party, shouted, "JESSE!"
My reaction was something along the lines of, "Ow fucking shit goddamn it my fucking ear damn it!" very quickly. Luke had a habit of doing that, and it seemed like old habits indeed died hard. After a brief second, the pain in my ear subsided, and I asked Luke, "Why the hell are you on 360 anyway?"
"I'm visiting my mom and step-dad," Luke replied. "What about you?"
"Same, but my parents wanted me to visit for my birthday." As I said this, I opened the disc tray on accident. My Xbox 360, as well as Luke's, was a Slim, and made a DING! when the disc tray was ejected or turned the Xbox on or off; granted, these sounds were absent if said actions were done with the software.
"I heard that!" Luke exclaimed. He always did that, every damn time I opened the disc tray, he fucking heard it and said to the world that he heard it. "Happy birthday, by the way," he added, basically an afterthought.
"Thanks," I said as another friend joined the Xbox LIVE party.
"Jon!" Luke damn-near yelled.
"Aw, fucking shit! Goddamn it Luke!" came Jon's reply, being just as unprepared as I was.
"So Jon," I began, skipping formalities. "Why're you on 360? You visiting your parents?"
"Yeah, actually," he replied. "What about you two?"
"Same," I answered for myself and Luke. At that time, my last friend joined and I said, "Luke, don't even fucking yell. If you do, I'll smack you in the face."
"Colton!" Luke loudly proclaimed, despite my threat.
"I'm going to fucking rip off your balls, Luke!" I threatened. Both of my threats were empty, but Luke at least apologized.
"Hello, everyone," Colton said in greeting. "How come you're all on-"
"Visiting our parents," Jon said, cutting him off. "I'm guessing you're doing the same."
"Well, sort of," Colton confirmed. "I'm actually in town because my sister wanted me to come into her class to talk to the kids about engineering and such, because I am an engineering student," he said, the last part being a little braggart-like. "Oh, but I am staying with my parents."
"Well that's great, Colton. Speaking of student-related shit," I said, snickering just a tad. "Luke, how's being an NHL player going?" That elicited a laugh from Jon, one that I shared.
"Shut up," Luke said dejectedly.
"Whatever," Colton waved off the threat. "I'd just like to say I'm doing great, doing engineer stuff. By the way Jesse, happy birthday."
"Thanks, engie, build me a sentry already," I joked. "Happy belated birthday to you Colton. Now Jon, how is it going on your side of the spectrum?"
"Wonderful," Jon answered. "I'm getting loads of poon each weekend. Oh, and happy birthday."
"Thanks, but you and poon," I started, sighing. "I really don't care about you and poon."
"What, did you and your girlfriend get into a fight?" Jon said slightly mockingly.
"No, you fuckwad." I sighed. "Since we're all here... you guys wanna play some Der Riese on World at War?"
They all agreed in some form or the other, such as Jon saying he didn't have Map Pack 3 before I reminded him that he bought the bundle in our senior year in high school. I hosted the game, so I was playing as Tank Dempsey, my favorite zombie killing badass, who was followed by Nikolai, everyone's favorite vodka-drunk Russian that Jon was playing as. Luke was Takeo, much to his dismay for some reason, and Colton was Doctor Richtofen. On the screen, the traditional tune that played when you started a game sounded, as well as the big "Round 1" in the middle of the screen. Nikolai said something about having no power, just like when he was home.
I was racking up the points, using my age-old strategy of shooting the zombies four to five times then stabbing them on round one, shooting them eight times then stabbing on round two, and so on. I only used this strategy during the early rounds, though if I could get the Bowie Knife before round ten and still had the wildly underpowered M1911, I'd keep going, especially with rape trains.
We spent the first three rounds just catching up on how we've been since high school graduation. Come the fourth-round, I voiced a rather valid observation: "I wonder why the servers are still up after ten years."
The other three agreed with me, but we assumed it was just because either a) Activision wasn't going to shut them down until the Xbox LIVE service was shut down on Xbox 360 or b) private matches could still be played without a server, which was my guess.
Even though I was still in my armor with the guns and backpack on my person, I was comfortable, given that I turned the air conditioner on before we started to play. I got up at the end of the fifth round and looked outside. Not even twenty minutes earlier, it was sunny outside, the sky a shade of light orange. All of a sudden, it's overcast outside and looks like there's going to be a big and powerful storm moving through. I paid no mind to it and when I mentioned it to the other three, neither did they, so we kept slaying.
The sixth round marked the spawning of the hellhounds, which we just call "dogs." I had the Wunderwaffe DG-2, the Sturmgewehr-44 (the StG-44), and Monkey Bombs at that point, courtesy of the Mystery Box. Jon had the double-barrel shotgun and the Thompson, Luke had the MP40 and the BAR, and Colton had the Ray Gun and the Gewehr 43 as well as some Molotovs. We sort of made the box move as usual, so Colton was a little mad. The dogs were dispatched quickly and we proceeded to kick ass.
We got the Max Ammo power-up that was ritualistically dropped at the end of a hellhound round after we reloaded. What we actually did, was wait until the round started so I could toss some Monkey Bombs before we got the Max Ammo, though Luke made damn sure no one got the max ammo before he threw all of his grenades, even after I threw the bombs.
I still played lots of Xbox in college, as did Jon and Luke, and we talked a lot, even hung out sometimes. Colton got on sometimes, but he took his work way too seriously, but I hung out with him more often than the other two. No matter what, I was still the best Zombies player out of us four. I had the most revives, points, and kills and no downs. There was always just one problem with me playing zombies: my Xbox would randomly disconnect from Xbox LIVE. Thankfully, it didn't happen during that game, or else I would have never been Dempsey in World at War again with people. However, if it would have happened, I would have been grateful, and so would have my friends.
It was starting to rain outside, the rain being audible on the window of my room that faced Route 40. There was some thunder and lightning, but we kept on slaying. Since it was raining, I was going to take all of the armor off and store the guns and ammo after we all got downed, because I couldn't go to the range in that weather.
We kept killing and fucking shit up for another twenty to thirty minutes. By then, I had turned off the air conditioner due to the storm. Round fifteen started and I had a Wunderwaffe DG-3 JZ and a Spatz-447+. Jon had bought and Pack-a-Punched an M1897 Trench Gun (my second favorite shotgun), getting the Gut Shot, and also had a Gibs-o-Matic. The Thompson was always better in the World at War maps than the M1927 Thompson in Mob of the Dead. It sounded sexier, too. Luke had an Afterburner and a Widow Maker, while Colton had Pack-a-Punched the Ray Gun, getting Porter's X2 Ray Gun, and he also had bough and Pack-a-Punched the Type 100, receiving the 1001 Samurais. We all had the four perks, and Jon and I had bought the Bowie Knife.
We were on round sixteen at that point, gearing up for another dog round, when shit went down. I mean it went down. Before I even explain what happened, I'll just say that I've read many fanfictions since I was fifteen, and what happened was so cliché.
Outside, the storm went into full force. No longer was it just a little bit of rain and some thunder and lightning in the distance, it was raining hard and the thunder got much louder. Lightning struck near my parents' house, probably setting a tree ablaze in the nearby forest.
We assumed we could just keep playing, although I was getting a bad feeling. We were doing pretty good for not playing World at War together for about five years, and the other three would not have it if the game suddenly ended. We pushed on through the storm. It was a grave mistake.
At the start of the seventeenth round, I heard a loud sound, an electrical one. I can't mimic the sound at all. I stood up and looked out of the window facing the road. Next to the road was a power line that branched off towards the house. The lightning struck that power line. Well, shit, I thought. The fucking game's gonna end. All within a second, the lightning that struck the power line surged through my Xbox and I was engulfed in the blue mass and the power went out. After that, everything was black.
Author's Note (September 5th, 2014): This is probably my worst fanfiction in terms of how it's written. I've rewritten some of this chapter, but for future chapters (up to nine, which is better, methinks), be wary of short sentences and misspellings. Thanks and carry on!