Chapter One
Corporal Baker kept her rifle ready as she moved down the abandoned road. All around her was nothing but forest and the setting sun began to unnerve her.
"Keep weapons tight, Baker," commented Baker's traveling companion. He was another soldier, like her, but not from her same unit. The man had a shemagh wrapped around his head all day unless he was eating. This caused Baker to have memorized every movement of his eye and surrounding muscles to tell his emotions and feelings.
"I am Tweety, just a little on edge is all," Baker replied. That was another thing about this man. He never told her his real name. He had said to call him "Tweety", whatever the hell that meant. The major difference between Baker and Tweety was that while she wore ACU, Army Camouflage Uniform, styled gear, Tweety had his gear with the ABU, Airman Battle Uniform, pattern. The ACU was essentially a series of different colored pixels to create a universal camouflage. The ABU style tried to do the same but did so with a pixelated tiger stripe design. However, he did have the rank of Air Force Master Sergeant on his shoulders so she wasn't inclined to question him.
The Airman remained silent as the pair advanced down the road. Empty vehicles littered the asphalt, some with massive blood stains in or around them. Wonder where the bodies went, the thought sent a shiver down Baker's spine. There were many things that could have happened to the bodies.
"We'll stop here for a second," Tweety began as he stopped and looked around in a circle before looking at the Corporal, "take out that radio and see if we can't pick up a signal."
Obeying, Baker knelt down, set her rifle on the ground, and slid her pack off of her back. Opening the top, she pulled out a small, wind-up radio. Turning it on and setting it for scan, she began to crank the handle and static began to play through. She watched as the small machine went through every channel it could find but it was the same story on every channel: empty static.
Looking up, Baker saw Tweety shake his head before motioning her back up. Re-packing the radio, Baker took a small sip from her canteen before swinging the pack onto her back, grabbing her rifle, and standing to her feet. Seeing her up, Tweety nodded her way before motioning down the street with his M4 Assault Rifle,
"That sign a bit back said that a city was just a few miles that way. If we jog, we should be able to get there before dark."
Baker nodded, feeling her helmet bob on her head, before taking off in a jog after Tweety. She kept her eyes scanning and rifle ready however. She had come to far to be taken out here on this damned road.
When the first reports began to come in of people dropping from an unknown sickness, Baker had been performing a combat exercise with her company. While she was only a Military Police Officer, she still had to learn how to fight and survive. In the middle of the exercise, however, Baker and her company had heard gunfire coming from the main section of the base. Rushing back, they were met with a gruesome scene. Body parts were strewn across the pavement. Those less mutilated bodies began to stand up and shamble towards still living personnel with an empty look in their eyes. Those bitten would collapse moments later in a fit of seizures before laying still. About a minute later, they'd stand right back up and continue on like the others.
Armed with M16s loaded with blanks, Baker's company tried to move to the armory without getting caught in the mass of the infected. Some of the company began to get picked off as they moved, sometimes they would be surrounded and just disappear within the swarm. Though it hurt them to do so, the company left everyone who was bitten or looked to be bitten.
Reaching the armory, there were only a handful of them remaining. Arming themselves up with M4 Assault Rifles and M9 pistols loaded with live ammunition, the company made the decision to abandon the base and try to head away from the city. That proved to be a mistake as when they began to move through the city, their numbers began to dwindle more and more. Soon it was just Corporal Baker and her sergeant. But when he collapsed, revealing the large bit mark on his leg, Baker reluctantly put a bullet in his brain before he could rise back up.
Not wanting to make their deaths meaningless, Baker continued out and away from the city. After a few miles of travel, she saw smoke rising to the sky from within the forest. Dashing towards it, thinking it was a camp of some sort, she was shocked to see that it was a crashed, military transport. Climbing inside, she found multiple corpses, some of the infection, and several spent shells. Going around, she set to the aching task of making sure the dead stayed dead. When she was about to put a round through a masked man, however, she saw his chest rise and fall and saw his eyelids twitch.
Helping the man out of the plane, Baker checked him for wounds and found none. Setting up camp, she waited out the night until the man awoke with a start, aiming his pistol straight at Baker. Baker had a little trouble of convincing him that she wasn't bitten, especially after being told to strip to "make sure", but soon he lowered his pistol.
After that night, the two had been traveling together down the long stretch of empty road. They barely ran into any of the infected and had seen no sign of life whatsoever.
"There, in the distance, you see that?"
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Baker looked up to see what looked to be buildings in the distance. In front of those buildings was another shape, something that rose about one story high and was topped with a spiral of something.
"A wall!" she exclaimed happily. It was than that she saw the muzzle flashes coming from atop the wall and the multiple, humanoid shapes, outlined by the setting sun, milling about in front of the wall.
"Shit, hold," Tweety ordered as he threw his closed fist up. Baker stopped as she examined the horde.
"Those are survivors but it appears that their under attack by that horde of zom-"
"Infected," Baker interrupted. Tweety gave her a questioning look and she sighed before explaining, "They are not a different species. If we call them... that than we take away whatever humanity they have left and than they might as well be no more than dogs or deer."
"They are not dogs and deer," Tweety began, causing Baker to smile, "They are less than that," the smile vanished, replaced with a scowl, "They are dead. They killed your company and killed my team. Those zombies are not worth your pity. Hell, if they weren't so dangerous, they wouldn't be worth the bullet required to put them down. Now, you can stay here, walk away, or come with me, help those survivors, and finally be able to stop wandering."
With that, Tweety stood and began to jog towards the horde. Breathing a heavy sigh, Baker stood and followed. She wasn't in the mood to argue about ethics and morality with this man, especially with safety so close at hand.
Nearing the horde, Tweety and Baker stopped, got on one knee, lifted their rifles, and fired into the mass of Infected. Most of them turned to the new, unprotected attackers and began to shuffle towards the prey. A few even broke out into a fast jog. They were picked off first. Baker saw a lull in the gunfire from the wall as they were most likely surprised. The lull didn't last long however as the gunfire resumed and the horde began to get mowed down by the combined fire. The last of the Infected stumbled and fell between Baker and Tweety, both moving away from it and putting half a clip each into it's corpse.
The two were breathing heavily with sweat rolling down their skin. They looked at each other, their eyes visually inspecting the other for bites. Then, without warning, Tweety broke out into laughter and Baker couldn't help from joining him. It was joyous laughter. They had found survivors. Not only survivors, but survivors who had started a new, fortified city within this apocalyptic new world.
The grinding of gears and metal on metal caused them to stop laughing and look at the wall. They were close now, close enough to see the many pieces of sheet metal used to make the wall and to see the barb wire coil stretching along the top. The gate, an old bus, slowly rolled backwards by some, unseen method. The moving of the bus allowed a small group of six people to exit the compound and form a semi-circle in front of the opening. Two were wielding homemade flamethrowers.
The survivors remaining on the walls kept their eyes on the surrounding area as Baker and Tweety cautiously approached.
"Stop right there," commanded the man in the middle of the semi-circle. He wore an old, worn-out business suit and had what looked like a hunting rifle slung over one shoulder. The two soldiers stopped and spared a look to each other before looking at the man.
"Soldiers, huh? Haven't seen any of you around here. Are there anymore of you heading this way?"
Baker allowed Tweety to answer, who shook his head, "Not that I know of."
The man nodded before shrugging, "Oh well. What are you two doing out here? There ain't a military base anywhere round here."
"Surviving," Tweety replied simply. When it looked like he wouldn't expand on that, Baker stepped forward and spoke,
"We were trying to find survivors and a place to stay."
The man gave Tweety a 'your on my turf now' look before nodding to Baker, "Well, you just found both, considering you can keep your friend there under control."
"He won't be any trouble," Baker began before turning to Tweety, "will you?"
"No, I won't," Tweety begrudgingly replied.
The man just nodded before waving the two forward. They were watched closely by the other guards as they approached.
"If you'll follow me, we just have to make sure y'all weren't bitten. Don't worry, we got separate facilities for men and women."
Baker and Tweety followed the man into the compound. Turning around, Baker saw the two flamethrower wielding survivors step out of the defensive perimeter and begin to burn the corpses of the Infected. The sickening smell of burning flesh permeated the air but Baker knew it was better to burn them than let them rot.
On the other side of the wall sat two tents. The smaller one on the right was open to the environment and contained folding chairs and a table, which was occupied by some of the guards. The bigger one on the left is where their guide led them to. Entering it, Baker saw that it was divided into three portions by two tarps. The middle, where they were, looked to be a sort of waiting area.
After telling the two to hang on a sec, the man leaned out the tent and called out two names. Before long, two other survivors came into the tent. One was a man dressed in work clothes with some construction gear on while the other was a woman dressed in casual clothing.
Tweety was told to follow the man into the left side while Baker had to follow the woman into the right side of the tent. That was where, surprise, surprise, she was told to strip naked so that the other woman could check her for bites. The other woman was kind and had even said that her name was Sam Callahan. Baker already began to like her and she liked her even more when Sam deemed her clean real fast.
After getting her gear back on, she was led back to the middle. Sam left, leaving Baker to wait with the guide. It was minutes later when the sounds of a scuffle could be heard behind the dividing tarp. Within a flash, Baker and the guide had their pistols, his being hidden in his jacket, aimed at each other.
"Tweety?" Baker called out questioningly. She heard laughter on the other side of the tarp but it was quickly cut off by a yelp of pain and then one of surprise before the male inspector came flying through the tarp and crashed to the ground in a heap. The tarp was torn down by the man's weight, revealing a stark naked Tweety, his shoulders heaving and anger in his eyes. Baker caught sight of two things before she looked away. One was a peculiar tattoo on his shoulder that contained a parachute, an angel, and a scroll and the other was the numerous amount of scars running across his chest. Her eyes darted away before they could travel any lower.
"The hell is going on?" asked the guide with anger evident in his voice. Tweety didn't answer but, instead, Baker heard him cross the area and get right up in the inspector's face.
"You can make fun of my job. You can make fun of my rifle. Hell, you can make fun of me. But if you ever say shit about the good Corporal again, I will tear your balls off, ground them to paste, and force feed them to you. You understand?" Tweety was enraged, Baker could tell by his voice. She tried to fight off a blush when she heard mention her but she felt herself losing the fight.
"Yes... sir," came the whimpering reply.
"Good."
With that, Baker heard Tweety walk back, scoop up his gear, and than walk behind the other tarp to get dressed. Slowly, Baker and the guide lowered their weapons. The guide began to chuckled as he helped his friend to his feet.
"Goddamn Harold, you never learn do ya?"
Baker just watched them carefully as she awaited Tweety to finish getting his gear back on. One thought came to her mind, The hell did I get myself into?
A/N: Alright. This is based around the flash game called Rebuild 2. That's right, it has a number 2 so it's super fancy. Anyways, unlike in the game, I will have the soldiers wear modern gear and I have added realistic shops, restaurants, and gas stations. As you have also seen, I added in the fabled gates that are talked about in game and added in a sort of Quarantine/Inspection Tent.
Hope all of you enjoyed this and keep an eye out for the next chapter.