"Ack! I've been shot!" Robert yelled as he was screaming in pain. "Tell my wife and children I love them!"
"Erm, sorry to break this to you Mr. Lonely, but you don't have a wife or kids," Jack said. "And this is only a pellet gun. One hundred and fifty FPS to be exact."
"You're not the one who was shot, Jack," Robert replied.
"Haha, true. But keep talking and you'll be shot again," Jack inputted with a grin.
Robert and Jack have been best friends ever since sixth grade. Both were now in eleventh grade and were enrolled at Monta Vista High School. Robert was a slender sixteen year old, nearly 6'2", with dirty-blond hair. Jack, who wasn't nearly as tall—5'6" to be exact—was seventeen. Both lived in Morgan Hill, a smallish town near San Jose.
Along with their other friends— Ryan, Seth, and Pedro (who also lived in Morgan Hill)—they were a part of a club that included just the five of them. Though the boys had created the group quite some time ago, there was never a unanimous vote on what it should be called, so it had yet to be named. Honestly speaking, they didn't do much in their little club. Mostly they just played videogames and occasionally went skeet shooting. Technically speaking, Robert was the leader of the clan, but no one really admitted that. His tall figure and commanding voice just made him a natural for that sort of position.
They were currently walking home from the bus stop. It was a beautiful Friday afternoon. It was near summertime, so all the boys were anxious for the end of school. Robert and Jack were going to invite the whole club for a sleepover at Robert's house, but first they had to ask Robert's parents. Their house wasn't anything special, but it had quite a lot of acres. All his other friends' houses had almost no outside space.
Now, at this point, you may be wondering what Jack was doing with a pellet gun at school. The truth was, Jack and all his other friends were gun fanatics. Although none of them owned a real gun because they were "too young" and "not mature enough", they still had plenty of pellet guns. One day, they all hoped to get a powerful gun, one that actually pierced straight through a plastic water bottle.
Once they had arrived at Robert's house, they immediately began pestering his parents to let them have a sleepover at their parents' private cabin, which was stationed up on the nearest mountain to the house. It was secluded and quite luxurious, equipped with electricity, first-aid kits, bedding, food (canned), drinks, standard furniture, kitchen appliances, and, most important of all, WiFi.
"Please mum! Jack can drive us up there with your van! Pleeaaase!" Robert began.
"Yeah, I'll be careful not to drive it off a cliff, and I promise I won't quickscope noobs while I'm driving! Please!" Jack added.
"Jeez, fine, whatever. Just be back by Saturday night, okay?" Robert's dad replied.
"Oyush," Robert and Jack said in sync.
Immediately the young teenagers pulled out their phones and dialed their friends to tell them the plan. In thirty minutes, Pedro, Ryan, and Seth—all of which were sixteen years old—arrived at Robert's house equipped with sleeping bags, junk food, electronics of all sorts, and, of course, their pellet guns. The plan was to drive up to the cabin, get settled, order a couple pizzas, play Hide-and-Seek when it got dark, eat the pizza after they were done, and decide what to do on Saturday during dinner.
"What pizza place are we ordering from?" asked Seth as he was waiting for Robert and Jack to pack up.
"The best one, of course," Robert replied. "AKA Dominos." Various groans and "yesss"'s followed.
Once everyone was packed up, they loaded their equipment into Robert's mom's minivan and embarked on the drive to the cabin. The ride didn't take long, maybe twenty minutes or so. As promised, Jack drove very carefully, which added to the minutes it took to get up to their destination. As you may know, driving up a mountain with a borrowed car isn't exactly the most comfortable thing to do. At last they arrived.
"Yeeeahh! Time for some real fun," Ryan exclaimed with a devious grin. Occasionally, Ryan liked to pull some pranks on his friends, some harmless, some not.
"If you put on The Ring again while we're sleeping, I swear it'll be your last night to live," promised Pedro, who was awfully tired of his antics.
"Oh no, I would never do that again. Playing the same prank twice isn't fun," Ryan replied, then muttered, "I have something better than that."
At once, they all began unloading their belongings from the van into the cabin. After the van was empty, Jack drove it around back to a proper parking space. When he came into the house, he found everyone on their phones, playing games such as Clash of Clans and Summoner's War. Robert, on the other hand, was ordering pizza.
"Put all the meat and spicy stuff you've got on half of one, and the rest just put on pepperoni," Robert requested. He looked around to see if anyone was objecting to the spicy part, but they were all too focused on their phones, except Jack, who didn't seem to mind. "How long will it take?" Robert asked the pizza maker.
"'Bout forty minutes," was his reply. Robert thanked him, gave him the address, and then hung up.
"Forty minutes just to cook two pizzas? What has this world come to?" said Robert with a fake, sad expression on his face.
"Slow WiFi? This app is taking forever to download," Pedro replied. Robert gave him the "it-was-a-rhetorical-question" look.
Seth looked out the window, saw that it was almost completely dark outside, and asked, "We gonna play Hide-and-Seek now?"
"Yeah, come on you lazy bums," commanded Jack.
Everyone got up, got their shoes back on, and went outside, except Jack, who was loading his mini pellet pistol, and Robert, who was putting on his GoPro he had gotten for Christmas. The way these boys played Hide-and-Seek was a bit different than the way most people play. Instead of the "It" just seeing someone, he had to shoot him with the mini pistol. Of course, he had to be close enough to actually shoot him, because a 150 FPS pistol isn't at all accurate. He was also equipped with a low-powered flashlight. As for the hiders, there was no base, and the thought of getting shot was enough to make them hide well and, if necessary, run fast.
When outside, Pedro asked, "What're the boundaries?"
"The whole property," Robert answered without hesitating. There was a long, tall fence that ran across the perimeter of the property—which was about two acres—that marked the end of Robert's land.
"Who's gonna be it?" Jack asked, hoping he wouldn't have to be the unlucky one.
"Let me use Name in the Hat," Robert suggested. Name in the Hat was an application on his smartphone that randomly selected any inputted names. Robert pulled out his phone and punched in the names.
"The winner is..." he said as he "pulled a name out of the hat." "Pedro!"
"Gosh darnit! This thing is rigged. Whatevs though. Jack, gimme the gun. I'm counting to sixty, so better hurry," Pedro said in disgust.
Jack handed him the gun and started running away to hide. Pedro started counting while the others hid. Sometimes in Hide-and-Seek, the hiders clumped into groups, but not this time. Everyone went their separate ways.
If it were normal kids who were in the woods, alone, and in the dark, then they might have gotten scared. But not these kids. Darkness was their ally, and they used it to their advantage. With such a weak flashlight the seeker had, it was easy to hide anywhere.
When Pedro finished counting, he pulled out the flashlight, cocked the gun, and set off. He had scanned quite a lot of land, yet hadn't spot a human figure, nor heard a noise. Suddenly, he heard a twig crack to his five o'clock. Quickly, he twirled around and dashed toward the noise. Whoever had caused the clamor had clearly sprinted away from the seeker. Pedro pursued him and guessed that it was Jack. When he had gotten reasonably close, he took a quick look down the iron sight and squeezed the trigger. The pellet zoomed right passed Jack's ear. Pedro fired again and, this time, nailed him right in the head.
"Ow!" Jack yelled as he stopped running. "Turn your aimbot off, Pedro."
"It's not aimbot, nub, just skills," Pedro retorted.
Once they got back to the cabin, which was in the middle of the property, they yelled for the others to come back. They did, and Pedro handed the pistol and flashlight to Jack. He started counting while the others retreated.
The boys played around three rounds, and were now on their fourth. Ryan was currently "It." The rest of the boys—Robert, Jack, Pedro, and Seth—flocked together and hid at the lowest point (altitude wise) of the property. They all hushed when Ryan yelled that he was coming to find them.
"Muhahaha, he'll never find us," Robert uttered quietly.
It had been about ten minutes when the foursome saw a glimpse of something hiding behind a tree. They were trying to figure out what it was when, suddenly, a chainsaw turned on. Then a figure with a white hockey mask, holding a chainsaw, stepped into sight. All of the boys were paralyzed with fear. There was barely enough light to see the chainsaw, but the boys guessed there had to be blood on there.
Slowly, the figure stepped closer, bringing his chainsaw with him. The sound was terribly loud. Once the boys got ahold of themselves, they immediately began running in the opposite direction, only to run into the fence. Judging by how tall it was and how close the man in the hockey mask was, the boys knew this was the end.
"We're dead meat!" Pedro yelled.
When the man was about five feet away, he unexpectedly turned off his chainsaw. Then, he took off the mask and started laughing hysterically. The man was actually Ryan!
"I'M GOING TO FREAKIN'MURDER YOU!" Pedro screamed, which probably wasn't the smartest thing to do in the woods.
"Seriously Ryan? You need help," Jack added.
"Yeah, and where the hay did you get a freakin' chainsaw?" Robert asked with a serious tone.
"It's my dad's. He lets me use it sometimes to chop firewood in winter," Ryan replied, still crying from laughing so hard. "Got it all on your GoPro, eh Robert?"
"Well, I will make sure that this does not go on YouTube," Robert vocalized.
"Oh come on! Why not? It'll get a ton of views!" Ryan answered.
"Maybe, maybe not."
"Come on!"
"Keep nagging me and I won't."
"Hey, um, guys?" Seth began. "I hate to break up with sweet and loving conversation, but shouldn't the pizza dude have been here by now?
"Oh yeah, that's strange. I didn't see any headlights or hear an engine," Jack recounted.
"And I made sure that the gate was open," Robert accounted.
There was silence for a moment, then the group all went back to the cabin. Once there, they saw no car. No pizzas. No humans. Nothing. Robert pulled out his phone and checked the call log. He had called Dominos eighty minutes ago, and the phone operator said it would be about forty. Something had to have happened.
It was agreed that they would split up and search the area around the gate going away from the cabin. They were mostly looking for a crashed car, tire tracks, or headlights. Driving up woods on a mountain in the middle of the night could have caused an accident. Using the flashlights on their phones, the boys found nothing. After about fifteen minutes of searching, they agreed to meet up.
"The driver probably got the address wrong. It's easy to get lost up here," Seth rationalized.
"You could be right, I guess. Let's head ba—" Robert said as he spotted a faint light. "You guys see that?"
"Yeah, let's check it out," Jack stated.
When they found the source the light, they wished they hadn't. There was a vacant Domino's car in the middle of the road, with a puddle red liquid in the front.
"Umm..." Seth began. "That is pizza sauce... Right?"
"Ryan! If this is another one of your stupid pranks—" Pedro started.
"It isn't!" Ryan answered with innocence. "I swear!"
As they rounded the car, carefully avoiding the "pizza sauce," they saw what looked like a human hovering very closely to another human.
"Hey, um, mister? You alright? There's this liquid over here and I wasn't sure if it was blood—" Robert began, but as he said this, the creature that was hovering over the other creature quickly got up and flung himself at Robert! As the creature tried to bite Robert's neck, Robert quickly realized that this was no human. Not anymore, at least. Its eyes were that of rubies, and the creature's torso was bent over as if it were hunchback. As he was under attack, Jack ran over and twisted the neck of the creature. The move didn't just twist its neck, it tore it right off from the original body. Immediately, the body stopped moving. However, the head was still trying to bite someone's neck, this time it was Jack's. Instinctively, Jack dropped the head and kicked it toward the cabin. It traveled about ten yards.
There was silence for a moment, except for the panting of Robert and Jack.
"What the heckidy hoo was that?" Ryan asked with his jaw still hanging open.
"Was it... A zombie?" Seth suggested.
"No way. They don't exist," Pedro rebuffed.
"Dude, the head was still moving after I tore it off. Of course it wasn't an animal or human!" Jack yelled.
"How come the head was still moving, but the body wasn't?" Robert asked.
"So many questions... At least we got it all on your GoPro, Robert," Jack stated.
Suddenly, the other body opened its bloodshot eyes, brought his head up, and looked around. When it spotted Robert, it groaned, and tried to stand up.
"Run!" Robert yelled.
"Get in the car!" Jack ordered as he dove into the driver seat.
They all stockpiled into it and shut the doors. Jack locked them.
"We're dead meat! Why'd we even get into the car? We're trapped now!" Pedro shouted.
"No we're not, dummy. The keys are in here," Jack retorted as he turned the keys and brought the engine to life.
Once alive, he put the car in reverse and drove over the zombie's head with the right rear tire. Brains, organs, and blood were everywhere. There was silence yet again.
"Two people dead already..." Ryan muttered.
"Not people, zombies," Robert corrected. "Big difference."
After making sure the zombie was truly dead—meaning the brain was smashed—Jack put the car in drive and drove toward the cabin, making sure to smash the decapitated head on the way. When they arrived, they discussed what happened while inside the car.
Robert began the conversation. "Okay, let's just say those were zombies. If that's true, we can assume that there are more of them, infecting more people. Which, in turn, means that we're in—"
"—the zombie apocalypse," Jack finished.
Silence.
"So, are we going to gather supplies and stuff?" Seth questioned.
"First, we should call our parents to make sure they're okay," Robert said.
They all agreed and pulled out their phones. As they suspected, there was no connection.
"Is it our location, or is it like down-down?" Ryan wondered.
"Well, considering what's happening, I would say it's down-down," Jack answered.
"My theory," Robert started, "is that the pizza driver ran into the zombie, got out to check if he was okay, and then was attacked by him."
"More than likely," replied Jack.
"We should come up with a name for our group and become like professional survivors and help other people," Seth suggested.
"How about 'Pedro's Assault Team'?" Pedro asked sarcastically.
Robert ignored him and said, "How about 'Survivors of the Apocalypse'?"
"Yeah," everyone else answered in unison.
So it was settled. Their group would be called "Survivors of the Apocalypse." Even so, everyone wondered on the inside if everyone would survive. They all hoped so.
Jack said, "Pizza anyone?"