Glorious Devil, Furious King

by Trash Bean

A junior in College goes to town to celebrate Halloween at the campus clubs and bars. He passes out, and upon waking up he finds himself assaulted on all sides by cannibalistic corpses. He quickly surmises that the event is wide spread, and decides to fight his way across the country to Pennsylvania to rescue the girl of his dreams.

"You wanna go out tonight?" I did not. I had a Chinese oral test the next morning, and I needed to outline three chapters in Micro economics, macro economics, and Marketing, and write a paper for my global music class. It was ten o'clock, and I needed to focus.

"Sure man, let me get something warm on." Yeah, I had classes. But I'm a sophomore college student blowing thousands of dollars a year to eventually, hopefully, get a real job and spend another four plus years paying off the debts I was incurring now. And I had another two years to focus on earning good grades, and that would be in courses I actually gave a shit about. I slipped on my Sperry Topsiders and tossed on the thick green Carhartt jacket my biological father had given me on our latest hunting trip two years ago. I grabbed my iphone 4, wallet and keys, and shut off the lights. I winced to myself as the odorous wall of dog shit and burnt popcorn smashed into my nose, then sighed and locked the deadbolt to my room.

The guy who had yelled through my oak door to go uptown was this blonde, bearded kid from Arkansas called Chum-li, and he was at the moment swaggering down the upstairs hallway of our fraternity house pounding on doors, rallying the troops to go and get hallo-wasted with him. He glanced back down my way to see if his spectacular persuasion had pulled anyone from their rooms, and beamed at me. He briskly walked down the hallway and we exchanged high fives.

"You comin' out tonight man?" He asked. He had a slightly southern accent, but not the, "sweet southern drawl" type. He was wearing a white t-shirt with sweat stains somewhat concealed by a green striped button up, Levi jeans and boots.

"Obviously man. You got any cigs?" I asked, giving him a half grin. Technically I was supposed to be quitting, and all the brothers in the house knew it, but you can't just quit something like that cold turkey. To be fair, it was my first since yesterday. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Naw man, I'm not going to enable you to smoke. Help me find Vib or Nick, and then we can go." He turned around and swaggered back down the hallway knocking on doors. There were maybe ten or fifteen doors on this floor, and we soon gave up after a few short knocks.

"I guess the rest of them are already out man. Let's go, we can meet up with them later." He finally said, and I nodded. We headed to the end of the hallway and opened the metal door, letting in a gust of freezing wind. We both winced and cursed as the icy daggers tore into our face.

"Fuck man, let's hurry up and get inside somewhere." Chum-li said, and we headed out and down the exposed metal staircases that led two stories down to the parking lot. We followed the alley parallel to our house two blocks towards High Street until we met up with a crowd of freshmen huddling around Skipper's. We didn't need to glance at each other to know we were going somewhere else. The neon lights on either side of the road cast an amber glow on the streets. We quickly made the short walk to the Woods, one of the newer big dance club and bars on campus. We got in the rapidly shrinking line, breathing fog into the cold night air. The sky was still somewhat overcast, undoubtedly remnants of the largest hurricane the East coast had seen in years, spilling over the Appalachian Mountains like the fog created by placing dry ice in a tub of water. It looked like the storm didn't end in West Virginia; it was destined to engulf the entire United States in grey overcast stratocumulus clouds. I shivered.

"Can I see your ID?" My observational reverie was broken by the doorman, a kid my age wearing a thick coat, gloves, and a yellow "Woods" shirt. I offered my license to him and grudgingly accepted the two black x's his partner drew on the back of my hands. I waited for Chum-li to get through the door before I dipped my thumb in an unattended cup and started wiping off the marks before they dried. The Dj's tonight were playing some song by Swedish House Mafia, and the blue spotlights were going crazy on the dance floor. Chum-li tapped me on the shoulder and mouthed "What do you want to drink?" pointing to the bartender waiting for his order. I leaned in and yelled for a rum and coke. Chum nodded and leaned towards the bar tender who nodded and took our money. He quickly poured out two rum and cokes and set them in front of us before moving on to the next customer. We grabbed our drinks and quickly headed for an unoccupied booth near the back of the dance floor before it was snagged.

We sat down in our proudly won seat and sipped on our drinks. The pulsing music gave a primal beat that the crowds of students danced along to; shaking, gliding, jumping, and grinding against each other in an ordered chaos. Even within the seemingly unexplainable writhing mass there was some basic order, society still had some hold even here, in the midst of this chaos. I took another sip of rum. We killed another three drinks apiece, and by that time I was definitely feeling that liquid courage burning in my gut. I set down my third empty cup and looked across the table. Chum was looking pretty done in, red faced and glassy eyed.

"I'm going to dance! With her!" I yelled across the table, pointing to a cute gothic looking girl dressed in as Freddy Krueger with fishnet leggings and heels. The pulsing bass overpowered my slurred, stuttered speech, but he laughed and nodded. He yelled something incomprehensible back, then stood up and ambled over to the bar. I watched him for a second, then tried draining the remnants of whatever was left in my cup before getting up myself.

The girl I had pointed to must have spent some effort on her costume, it was done incredibly well. As in, the girl had taken a horribly disfigured nightmare creature and turned it into an attractive costume that inspired more thoughts toward S&M than horror. The basic outfit was right, red and brown striped shirt, and hat, and a clawed hand, but that's where all similarity ended. She wore black heels, torn fishnet leggings, dark denim short shorts, a black leather vest, and had foregone the disfigured face in favor of beauty. She looked like she could have been from South America or Mexico, with her tanned skin and naturally black hair cut short. She had brown eyes, which I noticed were locked onto mine. She seemed to check me out, then twirled back around facing away from me. I walked closer and started dancing with the girl.

She knew how to dance. The way she moved reminded me of the dancers on rapper's music videos; her hips seemed to sway like snakes in Thailand, mesmerizingly smooth and inviting, for a moment her hair swung just so I was able to see her diamond stud ear ring before it was hidden from view. We may have danced for one song, or ten, I couldn't quite remember. All of the sudden the booming bass died and was replaced by a gentle acoustic tune, a slow dance to cool things off and give couples a chance to make out, say bye and head home together. Freddy Krueger turned to face me again, and yes! She was definitely Latina. She smiled at me and put her arms around my shoulders. I hesitated a second, then set my hands on her waist. The noise level was down to a reasonable level now, enough so I could hear her ask my name.

"My name's Rob. Who are you?" I whisper yelled in her ear. She half laughed, half nodded, then set her forehead on my chest. I could faintly hear a siren passing outside, which I promptly forgot about. The bar had started emptying at some point, there weren't too many people left dancing actually.

"Rob…I'm Livvy…let's go home okay? Where…where do you live?" She said, slurring her words around a bit. I nodded and looked around for Chum-Li. He was nowhere to be found, but Nick was working at the bar. I took the girls hand and led her to the bar. Nick watched me walk to the counter and met me there.

"Do I need to say anything?" He asked, I rolled my eyes at him.

"Do I look like a freshman?" He shook his head and nodded at the girl. I followed his gaze and laughed a bit. She already had her head on my shoulder, eyes closed. It was pretty cute really. I turned back to Nick.

"Come on man…could I bum a cig? I'll be good." He slapped a half empty pack of Marlboro's on the counter and walked back to serve a townie that had snuck in. I grabbed the pack and stuffed it into my coat pocket, then took the girls hand and walked out the door. I could see the lights from the police cruiser who had passed earlier, he was parked maybe three or four blocks down street, monitoring someone sat down on the curb. They looked pretty pale, probably alcohol poisoning.

"Hey, hey Bob…I live in Wells…Wells Hall, okay? Can we go there? My roommates…my roommates out…" The girl said, then laughed hysterically at the police car. "Froshie woshie got a little schwasted!" I shrugged and took her hand, gently leading her back down high street toward King. We saw another cruiser with its lights on farther down High street, near the nicer student café called Bell Tower. I took Lizzy down slant walk, then to her hall. We waited in the cold while she fumbled for her card key for a couple minutes before she slapped it against the lock. It triumphantly beeped green before electrically unlocking the door. We walked up a flight of stairs and to what I presumed was her room. She took my wrist this time, and held her card key up to the black box on the door handle which beeped green before opening. Her room had a low shag carpet, and the usual posters and decorative things to make the room look less like the concrete prison cell it was. There was a low amber ambience light somewhere in the room, providing just enough light to navigate around the room. The girl, Lizzy, gently led me into her the room. Or rather, she tried.

I pulled her close to me, hugged her briefly, then turned on my heel and walked to the exit. I ignored whatever else she said, I wasn't interested. I was out the nearest exit before she could stumble down the hallway. Standing outside I was beginning to feel the cold again, and the withdrawal symptoms. I pulled Nick's pack of cigarettes and my lighter from my coat pocket, fumbling one between my lips and managing to spark a flame. I stuck the tip of the cig into the flame, watching the paper and tobacco catch fire. Soon the nostalgic odor of burning Marlboro cigarettes hit my nose. I remembered the old man. My grandfather died when I was young, maybe fifteen or sixteen. I never got to know him until after he had passed, but one of the few memories I have of him was his near constant smoking. That, and his killer sausage gravy and biscuits, and working since eighth grade. But regardless, the smell of Marlboro's always brought me back to those moments. Fishing, cooking, all of it.

I flicked the ember off the tip, and tossed the butt in a trashcan near my fraternity house. I took a moment to appreciate the aging house we now occupied. Built on the side of a gentle hill, our front lawn was framed in a short brick wall, the front sidewalk was flanked by two concrete wooden benches. Two red brick pillars supported a room on the second story directly above the front door. Our letters ran across the left side of the building in polished bronze. I smiled at the familiar site, and trotted up the steps to the front door. The worn oak door was solidly locked shut, kept so by a small mechanical key code mechanism. It was an investment made so only brothers of the house could get in. I quickly tapped in the password and shut the door behind me. The front of our house was kept as close the original style as is possible, thus the original wooden floor boards and banisters remained.

I made my way up the red carpet stairs to the second floor where my room was situated. In a few short minutes I was back in my room, lying comfortably on my loft bed, which is when I remembered to check my phone, which I had conveniently left on the floor. Grudgingly I got out of bed and picked up my iphone. One new text message.

"Hey, I know you're out, but I just wanted to say I love you and I'll ttyl!" From Rachel. Rachel was my girlfriend; we had met on a cruise this past summer, and had talked every day since. The only problem in an otherwise wonderful relationship is that we lived ten hours apart, almost five hundred miles. Every now and then one of us would make the trip and we'd see each other, but things were good. She was beautiful…a short, brown haired, brown eyed Jewish girl, a gift from God to a guy like me. I doubt she had ever told a lie in her entire life, and there wasn't a soul alive she wasn't kind to. Rachel. I decided not to reply immediately, I wanted to let her sleep. But I brought my phone up on my loft with me and passed out pretty quickly.

I woke up on a beach. The sky was red, and overcast. No one else was on the beach, just an abandoned beach chair, umbrella, and towel, which I was laying on. I felt confused. No, not confused…anxious. Nervous. And I soon saw why. Far out at sea I saw a wave growing, but it wasn't just a wave. It spread across the horizon, as far as the eye could see, what appeared to be an inch tall wall of water was forming. And as I watched it form, I could see the wall grow larger. Slowly, steadily, the one inch wall became two, then three, then it was maybe a hundred yards away and I could see it for what it was: a wall of ocean water towering over my head would soon consume me. And it did. I tried running towards the levvy, but the sand slowed me down, and soon the water and debris enveloped me. I was underwater for seconds, then I whatever forces were at work here pushed me to the surface. Everything that might have resembled land was gone, only the red sky and sea and waves.

I jolted awake; I immediately began paddling to stay afloat. Then I realized I was still on my loft, on my bed. I had been dreaming? I had a history of dreaming, or having nightmares, but rarely as vivid as that. I wiped my eyes and sat up, starting my daily routine of waking the fuck up, when someone screamed. Screaming isn't really all that rare on a college campus, especially on the weekend, but not this early in the morning. The hurricane had blown past, and the overcast skies were mostly gone. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and yet someone nearby was screaming at the top of their lungs. Not a great way to start off the day, and if that wasn't a bad omen I didn't know what they hell was. I swung my legs over the edge of the loft and hopped off. I threw on my shower shoes and headed towards the back of the house where the screaming seemed to emanate from.

By the time I reached the metal back door on the second floor, the screams had died down, which almost made me turn back around and go to bed. But it had definitely originated from our back porch, and if something had happened or was happening, our house was possibly liable. So I twisted the handle and pushed the door open into the bright November sky. Our back porch was more functional than the front porch, the basement continued past the first two floors which provided us with a nice concrete patio on the back that overlooked our back alley and parking lot. We held cookouts on the back porch, we had built up a small collection of benches and a grill to fill in the space, which was surrounded by a metal rail and two sets of steel stairways that ran up the side of the patio and up to the second floor, where I was. And right in the middle of our back porch, kneeling in a growing pool of blood was Batman, hunched over the body of a girl dressed as Minnie Mouse.

Batman reached a hand back behind his head and brought it down viciously onto Minnie's corpse. From where I stood, I could see him tear off a hunk of flesh and shovel it into his mouth. He was an ugly son of a bitch. Every bite I could see his jaws flex, undoubtedly grinding and breaking his teeth into fragments. I saw in one instant a shard of tooth come out and bounce into the puddle of blood. Batman didn't seem to notice, or care. It grabbed the strip of flesh it was chewing on and took another bite, working it over. I had watched this unfold for maybe a minute before I felt the bile rise in the back of my throat. I turned on my heel and sprinted into the nearest bathroom to void myself.

"What the fuck…what the fuck?" I wiped my mouth off with a paper towel before repeating myself. I had just witnessed someone beating eaten. This had to be like inception or something, a dream within a dream. People don't eat each other! That's a thirteen year olds wet dream, not a fact of life…and yet, there lay a bleeding girl being ripped apart by Batman. I sprinted down the hallway into my room and grabbed my phone. I hit emergency dial and dialed nine-one-one.

"911 what's your emergency?" I realized I had hardly been breathing, and took a deep breath. The operator repeated her question.

"Someone is being attacked on our back porch, we need an ambulance and police right away. The address is…" A flash of color through my window caught my attention. Had he gotten bored with Minnie and gone for someone in the street? I rushed to the window. A guy and a girl, probably a couple, were running away from a group of five, maybe six. It appeared that the guy had been attacked, his arm was covered in blood and they were hobbling down the hill as fast as they could. Faintly I heard the operator trying to get me back on the line, the exasperatedly say something about all available officers are on call, someone will be with you shortly, stay indoors, etc. I hung up.

I sat down on the tan recliner sitting in the corner of my room, and took a moment to think. Someone was being eaten on my back porch. The guy seemed to have no sense of pain, or coherent thought for that matter. He was eating a girl, who was definitely dead. Two people at least were attacked by a mob, and police cars were busy. Something was wrong here…I shot out of my seat and put on my Belleville steel toed boots. They were tan, three inch soles with steel toes and metal hoops for lacing the string, and affectionately known as my "ass-kicking" boots. I started to head for the back hallway door, then thought better of it and went back into my room to grab a hammer I had been using to put up posters and construct my cabinet. With hammer in hand and boots on my feet I quietly opened the back door.

The Batman hadn't made much progress with Minnie. I watched him for a second, then slammed the door shut. He jerked his head around and snapped at me, then stood up and stumbled towards the metal stairs that led up to me. He tripped on the first step and smashed his face into the red brick wall of our house. He must have really been going, because when he rose up again without pause the left side of his face looked like sausage. The Batman mask was cracked, and I noticed his eyes were glazed over. He started pulling himself up the stairs, not bothering to stand up again.

"Buddy, if you can hear me you need to stop moving. Lie on your stomach and stop moving. Hey!" I yelled at him. As expected, he continued to crawl towards me. I put both hands on the rail, and pushed myself up and over the crawling figure. I planted my feet under his left shoulder, grabbed him by the back of his suit and pulled him up and backwards, throwing him down the stairs. He landed awkwardly on his arm, the way it hung when he pushed himself up made me think it was broken or dislocated. His face was all the worse to wear, but he was still up and functioning. I took another couple of steps down and waited for him. This time he came at me on his feet. Again holding myself up using a railing, I planted steel toed boot in the center of his mug. I grinned as his head snapped back, and wound up for another kick. I aimed a boot at the center of his chest and let loose; it struck home and he fell like dead tree felled by an axe. I walked down the steps and put my foot on his chest. Then Minnie started moving.

The girl must have passed quickly, and judging by the fact that she was disemboweled and no longer moving, I assumed she was like the guy I had just kicked down the stairs, insane, crazy, whatever he was, but this scene was far too similar to the video game "Dead Island". People don't move without half of their internal organs, not without making screaming in agony. I raised the hammer I had brought outside over my head and took a couple deep breaths, then walked towards the girl. She was still trying to work out how to get up off of the ground by the time I was in front of her, and was about half way on to her knee. I swung the hammer in a big arc and brought the metal claw down on the back of her head, at the base of her skull. The steel claw pierced her skin, and I heard an audible crack as the claw fractured her vertebrae. There wasn't much blood. Something was rasping though. It wasn't Minnie. Batman…was he still…functioning? I turned around just in time to grab his wrist and elbow and push him towards the patio railing. I tried pulling the hammer out of Minnie's neck, but it must have been stuck in her spine. I needed another weapon, or to create distance. There wasn't much on the porch, just a grill, and two benches…and a case of cheap beer that had been left out over last night. I quickly grabbed the cardboard case and rummaged through it, grabbing one of maybe ten unopened cans leftover. Sure enough, it was still slightly frozen. I turned to face the Batman. He was already recovered, and almost on top of me. I sat the beer down and grabbed his wrists, and pulled him forward over an extended leg. He hit the concrete hard, landing partially on his victim. I took the semi-frozen beer can and straddling him, brought the can down on his skull, hard. The can felt solid, and left a circular mark on his forehead. I raised my arm up high, and brought it down again. And again. And again. It took me several tries before he stopped struggling, and another couple strikes to make sure he was done. I wasn't sure if it was necessary to destroy the brain to kill them…but it was one-hundred percent effective. I sat back on my two victims, and dropped the can. It was then I saw that the can had ruptured in several places and was leaking beer. I grabbed another beer from the case, and retrieved my hammer.

I headed back inside. I slowly walked down the hallway, trying not to make any noise. I didn't want to think about any of my brothers like batman and Minnie. I didn't want to find out. Not yet. By the time I got back to my room, I was feeling a little less sickened by the worst violence I had ever participated in. I had seen pretty intense stuff on the internet, but nothing like what had taken place on my back porch. Not even close. But I wasn't sick to my stomach to have hurt someone, I was attacked…right? The guy had been ripping out that girl's stomach, he wasn't eating her in self defense. I was glad I at least had the common sense to put my boots on, bring something to defend myself with. If I died, who would look after Rachel?

"Oh fuck…" That's when the sickness set in. When I realized I had no idea how widespread this thing is, or would be. I needed information, I had to know. But first…I pulled my head out of the trash can, wiping vomit off of my face. First things first, I needed to think. And I needed to find out as much as I could about the situation as soon as possible. I grabbed my computer and turned it on. I tried, anyway. The battery was dead. I reached for the battery charger when I noticed its green light was dead. I checked the outlet, everything was plugged in. I tried turning on the TV, and again nothing happened. The power was off? Well…that escalated quickly. I grabbed my phone and tapped in the password and tried Face book. I let the screen load for five minutes before realizing it wasn't gonna happen. I switched over to 3G, and it loaded fairly quickly. Figures. Fucking Wi-Fi. My newsfeed was spammed as usual with cheesy pictures and horoscopes, but the sporadic posts by friends were interesting, but not particularly useful. Then I saw CNN's "This Just In" segment and tapped on that.

"Major population centers around the world are experiencing what can only be called a real Zombie Invasion. Those who are wounded or killed by the infected are rising up after a short inoculation period to continue spreading the virus. US military units are being pulled from around the globe and deployed inside the United States to contain outbreaks and secure services like water treatment and electricity. We have been advised to inform you to save water, and use up perishable food first before opening preserved food, and ration what you eat. CNN cannot at this time say where the virus came from, or how it was introduced so rapidly, but one thing is certain: this is not a prank, and the virus is not airborne. Be very careful when dealing with the infected. More updates soon."

I leaned back in my couch. This was impossible. Zombies? For the love of God, how many times had my friends and I joked about a zombie apocalypse in the past year? I had to be dreaming…and yet, there were two corpses on the back porch. They were real. I brought up the messages on Face Book and tapped her name. On mobile. Not online, not able to get my messages. I closed my eyes. This was probably the worst time to not have a phone with online capability. I double tapped the home button, and tapped the text tile and Rachel's name.

"Hey, I don't know when you'll get this, if you'll get this, but I need to tell you I love you. Get online and check out CNN, that will explain everything. I am coming for you. It should be ten days or so before I see you, maybe sooner. If you need to talk to me, I'll get on my phone every day at around five p.m. Be safe." I sent the message, and clicked the power button. I had sent the message without thinking, but it was a feasible path. It had purpose.

My parents lived in the woods, far removed from a town much smaller than Oxford, they would be safe. And they had all of my guns. They would be fine, but I needed to get out of Oxford or risk getting caught right in the middle of whatever happened in Cincinnati. I pulled off my boots as I thought. I had no idea how badly traffic would be, but I knew that it was eight days walk, probably more if I included sleep and finding food. Hopefully that wouldn't be a problem. I would need better weapons than what I had, I was definitely not in combat ready shape, I couldn't go hand to hand with a crowd of zombies. I needed guns. Ideally I would be able to find a motorcycle, there were townies who liked to cruise around when the weather was nicer. Harley's with saddle bags, although I'd need to find one of the sport bikers for their riding gear. Preferably I could grab some preserved food from the café across the road. Then I'd probably start the trip…but I would definitely need to hold off on getting the bikes. By the time I had worked out that generic plan, I was completely undressed. I wasn't completely prepared, on a college campus that was impossible. But I was as prepared as possible.

I put on two thick wool socks, and slipped on a pair of cotton sweatpants, and two pairs of jeans. With each pair I put on a leather belt. I put on as many wife beaters as possible, three t-shirts, two sweat shirts, and a thick wool pea coat. I pulled on my boots again, and laced them up tight. I pulled on my pair of leather driving gloves, and pushed my loft mattress up. Weapons are illegal to have on campus, but then again these we weren't technically weapons. I had brought my eighteen inch kukri machete, ten fifty-five carbon steel with an anti rust finish, to my apartment. It had a polypropylene handle, with a custom leather sheath. Additionally, there were two knives alongside the machete. Two four inch blades, one with a false Bowie clip and finger guards, the other was a hunting knife that my father had given to me on our first successful hunting trip, it was a Winchester model. I picked it up and pulled it out of its sheath, gently touching the wooden handle.

The day I had been given that knife was the first and only successful hunting trip my dad and I had ever gone on together. We met my Uncle and his son, my younger cousin on a road near our family property. My cousin told us we could use his tree stand, he never saw anything in it but it had a nice view. We groaned about it, but we went anyway. It was too cold, too early to argue about it. We climbed up the stand, loaded our guns, and waited. We may have waited in that stand for an hour, maybe two before a herd of deer came down the valley we were watching over. There weren't any bucks, but to a fifteen year old novice that hardly mattered. I was excited, but I kept calm. We both took aim, and took our shots. I remember my breath rising on the air, how quiet everything seemed. It was like everything in that valley was holding its breath, waiting for the shot. I squeezed the trigger. Flame and smoke shot out of the barrel. The herd of deer looked around, shocked, and my Dad unloaded into them. I fumbled with the second shell, trying to put it into the breach, but my glove got caught in the action and I missed my chance to take the next shot. But one deer had dropped on the spot; another one ran up the opposite hill, the other two had taken off down the valley away from us. I gave my gun to my Dad and quickly climbed down the ladder. He lowered our guns down and I grabbed mine. I walked to where the deer had been struck. The deer that my dad had shot was collapsed in a shallow creek bed. It flopped around when it saw me; apparently my father's slug had shattered both of its shoulder blades. I pulled the hammer back, aimed at its head and shot. The round struck, but it kept moving. I shot the poor creature in its neck, heart, and head before it finally stopped moving. I had never killed anything before, I wasn't sure how I felt about it at the time. My dad and I looked for the deer I had shot and eventually we found the body of the one that ran up the hill. It was a clean kill. After I had drug it down to where his deer was, he pulled out the knife and showed me how to gut a deer. After he finished his, he offered me the blade.

Back in the present, I put the blade back in its sheath. That was the only time I had used this blade for its intended purpose. I guessed that was about to change. I put the two knives in my pockets, and strapped the machete onto my belt. It wouldn't be safe to engage these things in melee combat, but it was the best I could do at the moment. I grabbed my school backpack and stuffed what little water I had into the pack. I didn't have much food, just two protein bars and frozen food that would spoil soon. I thought for a minute, and then grabbed a small jar of protein powder I had bought over the summer for a six week lifting program. Its effects for muscle growth were debatable, but if I remembered correctly protein powder was packed with vitamins and carbs. It might be able to keep me going if I couldn't find food. I sent a quick prayer that that wouldn't be a problem. I didn't have anything else that was particularly useful, just a bunch of books and video games that would be completely useless once the power shut off. Then I remembered something important, and chuckled to myself. I rifled through the books, then grabbed the two I was looking for. When I was a freshman I had brought my old boy scout manual and a text book on basic blacksmithing, I always had a nerdy interest in the outdoors self-sustaining lifestyle, so these had of course made their way into my library. As I set those in my bag, one more book caught my eye. The Prince, written by Niccolo Machiavelli in 1532, was a political philosophy piece. I grabbed it and tossed it in the bag as well. There was nothing else worth taking now, so I took the hunting knife out of my pocket and unlocked the door.

I would need food. So the best bet would be just across the street, in the back rooms of the café and deli in the basement of the four story library. I walked across the second story foyer into the president's suite, a tiny wooden room at the front of our building with windows looking over the street and down the road both directions. There was dirty hookah pipe on the table, and the room itself smelled like a mix of ash and air freshener. Carefully, I looked out of the windows on the side looking for more of those things that might have been creeping around. There were several around the intersection about sixty yards on the right, the left and center were clear. I took a deep breath and walked downstairs. I opened the door a crack and listened carefully. Straining I was able to hear sirens somewhere on campus, and farther away. There were periodic screams, but as far as I could tell everything was deeper into campus. I opened the door and put away my knife, favoring my kukri. I quickly crossed the street and parking lot. Then I was pressed up against the wall of the basement, somewhat concealed by the brush lining the parking lot. I checked glanced around, the peeked up into the smaller window. There wasn't anyone that I could see, so I snuck around the corner and into the small alcove that was the basement café entrance. The doors were unlocked, which meant that someone had gone to work before bailing. I could see the bakery sweets had been set out, but no one was at the register. The room was quiet, which wasn't normal. On a regular day the espresso machines would be hissing, people would be chattering and laughing, and finding a working outlet was always a bitch. I headed towards the hallway to the left of the counter. There were two restrooms, a staircase, and the metal double doors that led to the stock room. I approached those doors and tried them. Locked. I cursed, and headed back. As I passed the counter, I noticed the door to the deli was open. I quickly hopped the counter, and took out the curved knife I had in my off hand.

Immediately I slipped on a puddle of blood and fell on my ass. I could practically feel the adrenaline train hitting me full force. I got on my feet as quickly as possible. I needed to get in and out of there fast. This place wasn't safe. Less safe than it had been previously, technically every location was a danger zone, at least for now. The door was propped open, and I could see back into the deli. Nothing was there that was out of place, just a trail of blood smeared on the floor and the recently sterile metal surfaces of the sandwich table. I took a small step forward, then another, and another. I was in the middle of the deli when I heard short, raspy breaths coming from the store room. I held the machete point first in front of me; the knife hand was coiled back near my left ear. I carefully peaked past the threshold of the storeroom and saw the register attendant. He was still laying on the floor of the room, it was obvious something had taken a chunk out of his arm. I carefully stepped into the room and stood before him. He looked up at me, a deep growl bubbling out of his throat. I raised my machete arm over my head, pointing the knife at him, and brought the thick blade down on his skull. The bone cracked and my blade sunk into his exposed head. Neither of us moved. I levered my blade out of his cranium, and his body fell back to the floor. I couldn't look at him. He had been injured, and I had put him down for good. The room itself wasn't particularly cold, but I felt a chill run up my spine. How many times would a scene like this play out in the coming days? Would someone finish me off in a manner like this? Would I have to destroy my friends to save them? I washed my blade off in the sink, wiped it down with a rag and returned it to its sheath. I stepped over the guys corpse to get to the canned foods area for the deli, it was around then that I realized that delis and coffee shops didn't have much use for canned foods, although I grabbed a couple bottles of water and as many of the protein bars that I could find and put them in my bag.

When my bag was full, I returned to the counter. There were several of the things around the counter, reaching over trying to grab me. Thankfully the counter was too high for them to climb (fall) over, but I was somewhat trapped. I started sweating, and my adrenaline shot up again. My mind was racing, it was like I was taking a final…where my failure meant being ripped apart by undead hands. What to do…there were too many to dispatch separately behind the counter. So since fighting was out, it was time for flight. I quickly looked around behind the counter and spotted what I had been looking for. I grabbed the fire extinguisher from its home beneath the registers and pulled the pin. Earlier I had been thinking about why the eyes were always glazed. I had made up a theory that it was either the virus diluting their eyes, or they had lost the senses responsible for involuntary movements, like blinking. I smiled at how ridiculous the situation was, then pointed the hose at the geek's faces and let loose a stream of high pressure chemical fire retardant. The chemicals pounded away at their eyes, ideally scratching their corneas away. When the stream died down a minute later, I hopped the gate and headed for the stairwell in the hallway I had tried first. The stairwell was clear, so I slammed the door shut and looked through the security windows. The group of monsters were stumbling this direction. One ran straight into the doorway leading into the hallway. I grinned and bolted up the stairs. The main library was sporadically covered in the things, but most were focused near the main stairwell. I was in one of two back stairwells near the back of the building, and I was able to avoid any unwanted attention. I crossed to the other stairwell and went back downstairs. The group that chased me were still pounding at the opposite stairwell door, and wall. So they couldn't see very well? Interesting. I silently slid out of the café the way I had came in. The group I had seen down the intersection had disappeared, though more had appeared on the left side of my house about thirty yards up the street. I slipped back in my house and locked the door. I looked out the small windows flanking the door to check for geeks, and went back upstairs.

There wasn't anything else left for me to get in my room, but I wanted to check the house for my brothers. If anyone was still alive, or asleep, I wanted to at least let them know. Maybe take them with me, or if they weren't…well, I owed them that much. The rooms in the foyer were empty, I assumed they were already out of the house. At least, nothing inside tried to break the door when I knocked. I went through the front of the house with no luck. I set my bag down on the ground, and went through the process again in the second story hallway. Again, nothing. I thought for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts and decide what to do next.

I recalled that one of my brothers in the front of the house had a machete under his bed, I had gotten the inspiration for mine from him. If anything, I would have a secondary blade to use, although I wasn't sure how I felt about dual wielding something like that. I'd feel like a dumbass and not be able to use all of my muscle for both blows. Still, I knocked. Again, no answer. Confident that there weren't any monsters in the house at least, I put away my weapons and took a couple steps I ran forward and kicked the door just above the door knob, just like the Worst Case Scenario Survival guide had suggested. The doorknob splintered a bit, but still held the door tight. I repeated the process two more times before the frame surrounding the handle splintered outwards. I quickly pulled out a knife and walked in the room. I saw a dark figure move in the shadows of the room and jumped back. Just in time to avoid the machete that slammed into the door frame where my head had been.

"Whoa! Hold up man, I'm ok!" I yelled, whipping my kukri from its sheath. The person who swung at me ripped the blade out of the door and stepped into the light.

"Dude, where have you been? This is some fucked up shit man." Chum-li said, putting the machete back in his belt loop. I put away my blades and shook his hand. He was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and boots. I didn't think he had any time to prepare before he realized what was going on.

"Sorry about that man, I wanted to make sure that girl got home ok. How long has this shit been going on? Jesus…" He shrugged, throwing up his hands in exasperation. He gestured towards the room he had been hiding out in. I raised an eyebrow but followed him in. Then I realized what he had been doing. He had already gone through the rooms in the house, grabbing whatever dry foods he could. He had a small stockpile of ramen, macaroni, water, and an absolute ton of alcohol. Everything from cases of Budweiser, Yuengling and Natty to the private stock of liquor almost every brother had. It may not be nutritional, but it had carbs and would undoubtedly be valuable in the days to come.

"So I'm guessing you know what's going on outside, right?" I asked him, falling back into the comfortable blue couch. The room had belonged to a senior here taking a victory lap, it was probably one of the best rooms in the house, and it was well furnished. He sat down in the recliner at the head of the coffee table in the room.

"Yeah man. Everyone here was either gone or zombified. I already took care of the zombie ones…like you probably know." He had a vacant look in his eyes. I didn't ask who. I didn't want to know. I just grabbed a can of Budweiser and popped the tab. Chum watched me for a second, then took a can himself. We drank in silence for a minute.

"So what are you doing?" He finally asked, setting his can down. "I was kinda planning on going down to my family's place, make sure they're ok." He was looking me in the eye now. I met his gaze and thought for a moment while I sipped my beer. I was going to get Rachel. That was a fact. Did I want to stop by and see my parents? No, they would be safe for awhile. They were hours away from any major city, and the rednecks and countryside would make it hard for them to be detected. I would go to Rachel. She was in the most immediate danger, and even if I couldn't get to her soon, I'd be damned if I abandoned hope for her. I just needed a plan.

"I'm going to get Rachel. She lives outside of Philadelphia. That's ten hours by car, and probably twelve days walking from here. I know where we can get guns, and gas, and possibly MRE's, depending on whether or not the National Guard has hit the armory I know about nearby. From there I would like to try and find a motorcycle or something, but that may be too dangerous. It still might be dangerous to go at all, but it's a plan." He looked at me for a moment and took another sip of beer.

"You aren't going to Wal-Mart, are you? We have enough here for awhile…" I shook my head, and pointed to his stockpile.

"We have a lot of alcohol and some dried goods, but that won't last long. And I'd prefer to not subsist on alcohol. No, when I was going to that leadership camp for Greeks I noticed that there was a National Guard armory in Lebanon. I'm guessing they care more about their own families than protecting the rest of the world, and even if some troops have stopped in there I bet that there will be at least some rifles and ammo they could spare. I want to go find out. They should have machine guns, grenades, rifles, handguns, food, and medicine, everything we would need to have a fighting chance against larger crowds of these things." I said, looking him in the eyes. He wasn't drunk at all. I could see the focus in his eyes, it reminded me how smart the guy was when he wasn't drinking. He nodded and tossed his empty can in the trash can. I threw mine on the floor and squashed it.

"We're not in Kansas anymore Toby." I growled. He laughed and kicked the trash can over. We loaded as much of the booze and food as we could into the back of his truck in our parking lot and covered it with a couple of tarps. We could use them for tents if we needed to. Most of our brothers were dead or already out of town, and I didn't want to wait around to see what might come for us from Cincinnati. He put the truck in gear and we backed out of the lot. I winced at how loud the truck was, but we'd be ok. He pulled out onto Campus Avenue and maneuvered around the monsters standing in the street, they gnashed their teeth and grabbed for us, but we were already gone.

Lebanon was a good hour away, so I tried taking a short nap. It was about two o'clock, I felt drained. Killing zombies does that to you. Eventually I nodded off, and started daydreaming. Or, remembering a conversation I had with Emily one day. It was the last day of her birthday week visit, we were laying on the side of the hill near her cul-de-sac. The sky was vividly blue; it was almost unnatural how clear the atmosphere was back there. We were lying side by side, holding hands, talking about the future. For a very happy couple living ten hours away, we talked about that a lot. The future, what we would do when we graduated, and at that moment we were talking about where we could go on vacation together someday. She had dark chocolate colored hair and matching eyes, and her smile could warm the soul in an instant.

"I want to go to Hawaii someday! My aunt lives there, but we always forget to ask her if we can come visit her. Wouldn't that be fun?" I smiled, nodding. The grass tickled my neck, so I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hand.

"We could go up and watch that volcano erupt, the one that's always going? It's kind of safe, but really cool. And we could hit up all the beaches and bars!" She rolled her eyes and smiled at me.

"You would mention the bars, wouldn't you frat boy?" She winked at me and I groaned, falling on my back. She knew I drank, and thankfully she wasn't opposed to it. I got the feeling that if she were ever over here she would join me in a night or two of bar hopping.

"Baby, it's not what we're doing that matters. It's the fact that it's you and me seeing the most beautiful things in the world together that matters." She looked at me, that look that only a lover would understand. She leaned over to me and kissed me. In the truck, I felt us slow down and regretfully roused myself from my dream. We were near Lebanon, practically in it. As far as I could tell the road up there had been pretty clear of vehicles, everyone had seemed to get out of the cities early. But here the road was suddenly jammed with empty cars, or still occupied but far from safe. Chum-li was studying the road.

"Do you want to try and go around? I think this shit goes all the way through the town." I glanced over the jumble of cars and trucks before nodding and popping open the door. I could hear a very low moaning coming from the jam, I assumed that a mob of zombies had rampaged through the town. Which meant this place was more than likely to be infested with the damned things. We would need to be quiet, and stay out of sight. I started walking towards the sidewalk, the stopped. I turned around and saw Chum-Li staring at the truck bed sadly.

"That's a lot of booze to leave behind man." I nodded my head. The loss of booze was another blow to our already low morale. I patted him on the back and we made our way to the sidewalk. The road in was mostly residential, but soon we were getting closer to the main street. We passed a fire station, it was almost empty. There weren't many zombies walking around, we were able to avoid the few that we did see. I wasn't complaining too much though, it meant we had to risk ourselves a lot less. I checked my GPS for directions, then turned it off.

"The armory is on East Main Street. We'll need to go straight forward until we hit North East Street, then take a right and go down to State Route forty-eight, then take a left and go straight down until we get to Taylor Street. That's the location, so if we get lost somehow, meet me there…let's hurry. I'd like to have a gun as soon as possible." I wrote down the directions on a sticky note pad I had in the front pocket of my bag for him, then slid my kukri out of its sheath and started down the road. While we were probably better off than most of the people who were here, we were still only two guys with machetes. Against any more than a few of those things, we might now make it out safe. I couldn't afford that. The jam continued until the first major intersection in town…it seemed like the traffic was trying to get onto the highway that would take them to Cincinnati. They didn't make it. This street had a few zombies on it, and they were walking towards the forty-eight. Chum-Li and I crept up behind the nearest one. It was an older lady, probably in her sixties. I doubted she was able to move very quickly in life, death had surely not relieved any of that immobility. I raised my machete arm up and behind my head, and brought the thick part of the blade across the back of her neck. The blade smashed into her nape and left a brutal gash that severed her spine and broke several vertebrae. She dropped without much of a sound, and we moved on to the next one. I let Chum-Li take this one; he was a larger, middle aged guy who could have been a gas attendant for a living.

Chum walked up behind the thing as quiet as I had been. His machete was a straight edge, and thinner than mine was. It had been used quite a lot, and I could tell it came from Wal-Mart. He mimicked my movement and brought the edge down on the man's neck. The slash wasn't as deep as mine, but the man dropped all the same. Chum turned around to grin at me when I noticed he had just knocked the guy over. He was on his hands and knees and was scuttling around to grab its prey. I rushed forward and grabbed Chum, pulling him out of harm's way. The monster snapped its teeth at us, and I kicked its forehead in with my steel toes. The thing's brains poured out of the hole I left in its head, covering my boot in pink and grey brain matter. Chum stared at the body before glaring at the machete and testing its edge.

"This fucking thing is dull! Such bullshit!" He whispered as angrily as he possibly could. I shrugged and offered him my curved knife. It was the best I could do without telling him to ditch the machete, we could sharpen it later. He groaned and grudgingly took the knife.

"We need to get into that armory soon. This couldn't keep anyone safe for long." He whispered, showing off his two blades. I agreed. A knife and a dull machete wouldn't be very useful in a fight, and the user would be at risk in every combat situation. I took out the next two zombies with machete swipes to the spine, and we were able to sneak around the other four on the state route. Then I saw why the route was jammed. There were two National Guard trucks blocking Taylor road, they had mounted machine guns on the roofs of the truck cabs, but they had proven inefficient at quarantining the local populace from the infested. Several hundred zombies roamed inside the perimeter fences, locked in the field beside the armory. Chum and I crept along the opposite side of the highway until we were blocked from the view of the field by the two giant trucks.

"Well shit, now what?" He asked me. I peeked around the corner of the truck bed to examine the situation a bit more. I couldn't hear any gunshots or screaming, so either the troops never made it here or were quickly overrun. The road behind the trucks was clear of vehicles and zombies as far as I could tell. I climbed up on the back of the trucks and looked in the beds. There were two soldiers lying still on the floor. They were not alive. I pulled myself up into the truck and examined them. They had been shot in the head, presumably to keep them from turning. I quickly searched through their Velcro pockets looking for ammo, but had no such luck. Their rifles and side arms had been taken as well. I took a quick look at the guns on the cab of the roof and decided they would be too heavy to lug around and aim accurately. I picked one up anyways and carefully lowered it onto the ground. Whoever had taken the personal weapons either didn't have time or the strength to carry the bigger guns with them, and now we had what looked to be a .50 caliber machine gun. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing. I climbed down and lugged the gun over to where Chum-Li was. When he saw the MG his eyes lit up and he laughed out loud.

"Dude you're freaking crazy…is that mine?" I offered the gun barrel to him, which he grabbed and pulled close. I told him the other belt was still in the other gun, and he clambered up to get it himself. While he was getting the second belt of ammunition, I was thinking about how we should proceed. We had one gun, two machetes, and two knives, between two people. The armory was still viable option, but we would be closer to the giant crowd of zombies in the field. But we needed real food, and real weapons. I was decided. When Chum came back he had the other belt wrapped around his neck. He grabbed the MG and held it somewhat awkwardly. He looked like a far too happy blonde Rambo. I nodded towards the armory, a simple two story brick building just twenty yards away.

"We need more. Since you have the gun, you hang back and make sure nothing gets too close. If you have to shoot that gun, we need to abandon the mission and run. Got me?" He grinned and nodded. I hoped giving him that gun wouldn't make him cocky. Fully automatic fifty caliber rounds flying around didn't sound safe or fun to me. I tried to imagine myself living with hundreds of quarter sized perforations, and then tried forgetting the image entirely. I took out my machete and proceeded to carefully stalk towards the armory building, trying my best to avoid attracting the attention of the zombies in the field. There were only two of them in the parking lot, I decapitated both of them. Thankfully these bodies had been in the sun a little more than the ones in Oxford, they had had time to decompose a tiny bit. Pretty soon we were on either side of the double doors leading in to the building. They were metal, meant to keep people out. The way the bloodied hand prints covered the glass, I assumed they worked. I grabbed the door handle and pulled. It was locked. Didn't budge. I looked at Chum, and gestured towards the trucks with my head. We started quickly but quietly creeping back that way when the doors clicked and opened.

A soldier was pushing the doors open, and two more came out with guns aimed at us. Then they were sweeping the area looking for zombies. Finding none, they let their guns drop to their sides and walked closer to us.

"Get inside quick!" The one ordered. The two backed into the building after us, and the guy at the door proceeded to quietly close and lock the door again. Inside were more soldiers behind fortification. Probably five or six total including the three behind us. What I presumed to be their ranking officer was in between the two bunkers inside. He was wearing desert camouflage with no body armor or helmet, and had short red hair, green eyes, probably the same height as I was. He looked stressed.

"I am Sergeant Craig Waters; I'm the ranking officer at this outpost. State your names, ages, and occupations for the record." He was staring at Chum-Li, I guessed the gun he had was making the guy nervous. They weren't exactly standing down, or lowering their guns or whatever it was called. And that was making me nervous.

"I'm Robert McCarthy, twenty year old college student. Supply Chain." At this point in time I didn't think it made much sense to know my age, but who knew what the military was doing. They sure as hell weren't in Oxford, and they definitely weren't taking out the crowd of zombies they had corralled in their backyard.

"My name is Chum-Li, I'm twenty years old and I'm a Mechanical Engineering student. There are a ton of zombies in the field next door man" I groaned in my head. Chum made his points by being blatantly obvious, and it typically made the recipient feel like a dumbass. I could practically see the vein twitch above the sergeant's eye. He pinched the bridge of his nose before responding.

"You saw our little herd? Good. You know we have a problem. That problem needs taken care of, and we happen to be short on hands. I don't know where you two are going, but if you help us out with that crowd in the back I'll let you keep the supplies we give you. That's a fair deal." I kept waiting for him to burst into laughter, or confetti to pop out of hidden canisters. It didn't. Chum-Li looked at him, then at me before bursting into laughter. It took him a moment to recover before he saw no one else was laughing with him.

"You're not serious are you? You're in the fucking Army, and you need us? Two sophomore college students, to do what exactly, wipe out a bunch of zombies? Come on, man up!" Apparently that didn't do much for Sergeant Waters' mood. He scowled and pointed at Chum-Li.

"The only reason I'd even ask is because your lard ass somehow survived this far! And you have that M-2, which makes you a giant walking question mark. I won't ask you again." This yelling wasn't good. Chum glared at the guy, and the two guys flanking Craig squeezed their rifle grips. I didn't think they would actually shoot us. Or maybe they would...thinking back to the two soldiers I found shot in the back of the truck; I decided it would be dangerous to assume anything about these people. Chum was always good at reading people; he had a gift for talking to people and understanding them. He felt something changing and let the machine gun drop from his shoulder and hang in his hands.

I didn't like this at all. If bullets started flying, I'd be done. I knew Chum, but these people…I put a hand on the machete's handle. The Sergeant slowly unbuttoned the strap on his holster. I took a deep breath, and prepared to grab the soldier behind me. Around the time the Sergeant grabbed the pistol grip, a soft voice spoke up from somewhere behind the trio in front of us.

"Mr. Waters? What are you doing? Who's there? Are my parents back yet?" The sergeant turned around and whispered something angry sounding, pointed then threw his hands up in frustration. He turned back around to look at us, no longer grabbing for his pistol. A tiny head popped out from behind his leg, it was a kid. I groaned to myself and looked away from the guy. Chum could have started shooting at any second, hell; I was ready to decapitate the guy behind me! Paranoia can seriously escalate a situation, I should know.

As a teen, my family's house had been broken into several times. As a result, we had progressively taken more and more security steps to protect our house. Not that they had done much to deter crime, but they scared away most would be thieves. Except those stealing for drug money. They switched to breaking into our cars. One night I was watching television later at night and I heard a car door slam. I was very awake at the time, and I rushed into my room to grab a revolver I had recently acquired. I stormed out of my house naked save my underwear looking for a meth head thief. Later I found out the wind had blown a shovel off the side of the house, but I had stayed up the entire night waiting for someone to make a run for the road. Paranoia could be a severe debilitation if you let it control you like I had that night. These soldiers assumed we were crazy, and had very nearly caused a shoot out they couldn't afford. I turned to look Waters in the eye and tell him how much of a cluster fuck he almost caused, and was silenced by an icy gaze from the boy behind the soldiers.

The kid had bright blue eyes, and longer blonde hair. He was kind of grimy; a streak of dirt or dried blood marred his cheek, but there were more important things than personal cleanliness in this kind of situation. We stared at each other for a moment. Chum was looking at the boy as well. Well, scowling seemed to fit better here. I think he realized how close we had come to killing each other as well. He wasn't a violent guy, the only time I saw him throw a punch was when he was mind blazingly drunk AND dared to. I walked closer to where Sergeant Waters was standing and just past him.

"Sergeant Waters, how about you show us around the place and explain this situation a little bit? Then we can talk about helping you clear out that field." It was obvious he wasn't happy about it, but he nodded to the guy behind Chum.

"This is the maintenance hall. Everyone else is in the assembly hall, just down this way. Not much of the platoon was able to muster here, half of us were asleep and the other half was out partying in Cincinnati or Oxford. Our initial goal was to get geared up and secure the armory." He pushed open the double doors leading into the assembly area, revealing a small indoor campsite. There were maybe ten people there, either women or children. I could guess what happened to their husbands and fathers. Sergeant Waters led us across the assembly hall.

"We tried quarantining the infected, but it spread pretty quickly. We had all the uninfected camped out in that field you saw earlier. Those who were infected or injured were kept out, that's why the roadblock was set up. Those people out there went home, or gathered somewhere, I don't know. But when they came back, every single one of them was a zombie. They didn't follow the road; they came out of the woods and flanked us without a problem. We hadn't left many men guarding the gate, they were taken out fairly easily. The herd attacking the uninfected camp finally got our attention. We tried grabbing as many people as we could, and that's where we got little Nathan O'Brien here," He ruffled the kid's hair for a moment, eliciting a smile and a chuckle.

"Now Nathan, you go on back to the camp site, Rob and Chum-Li and I are going to talk about adult things. We'll be back before too long!" Nathan turned around and sprinted off towards the camp. He was a cheerful guy, all things considered. We both watched him run off before returning to our conversation from before.

"I'm sorry for being so anal about our initial meeting, but as you can undoubtedly see we have a lot to protect here. They're all that's left of this town, and we can't put them at risk battling those things outside. We couldn't effectively deal with both the zombies and defending the remaining survivors. With you two, now we can. That is, if you're willing to help us." He gave us a pointed look. I was down to do whatever it took to get rifles and ammo. I looked at Chum-Li.

"Sure I'll help. But if you hide anything from us again we're done. Where is that gear you mentioned?" Waters groaned, but he was definitely grinning. The two soldiers behind us returned to their posts, and Sergeant Waters unlocked one of the metal cages on the side of the hall. He reached in and pulled out some kind of M16 style assault rifle and handed it to me. I took the rifle and cradled it between my hands. I had only ever shot a rifle like this once before in my life. It was fairly recently, too. Only two years ago, I had spent a weekend learning how to safely operate a pistol.

The two guys were family friends, and gun aficionados both. Two guys named Jared and Logan, they were probably just entering their middle age stage. Logan collected weapons as a hobby, only Kalashnikov's or AR's. In order for me to get a real pistol, my parents had made me go with them to learn gun safety on a range. So that day, we had gone out to practice pistol safety. We had learned basic gun safety, keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire, be aware of your target and everything behind it, always treat a firearm as if it were loaded, so on and so forth. Then we set up a couple of stages and ran them through. I had been given a Glock 17 in all black, I had been practicing reloading empty magazines prior to the actual range shoot, it felt comfortable in my hands and I nailed my targets pretty quickly. We spent an hour or two shooting targets like that before we ran out of nine millimeter ammunition. We were packing away our pistols when Logan led us to the back of his SUV and opened the hatch. He had packed three assault rifles, an AK-74M, a P90 civilian variant, and some kind of civilian model assault rifle designed to be similar in appearance and functionality to a modern military rifle. He handed me the AK first. It was a more modern version of the AK-47, chambered in a round that challenged the range of an M16 and the stopping power of a traditional AK-47. I looked down the sights and slid the bolt back towards my shoulder. It produced a satisfying cha-chink and I was ready to go. We put on our glasses and hearing protection then set up some targets on the far end of the range. M16 sighs and AK sights are stylistically different, but the idea is basically the same for all weapons and all iron sights. I put the pin between the two back pins and pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked hard, but not nearly as hard as I was expecting. The bowling pin appeared to jump up and away from the fifty-five gallon drum it had been resting on. Thirty minutes later I had spent about sixty rounds per magazine on each rifle and had just popped off the last round. It was exhilarating, I felt like I appreciated at least a little bit of the ballistics of each at the end of it, and all of that feeling came rushing back. I supposed Sergeant Waters could see me smiling uncontrollably.

"You've used one of these before, haven't you?" He said, pointing at the rifle. Or, not at the rifle but the way I had unconsciously put the safety on after checking the action. I let the slide snap forward and took the pistol and holster he offered next. All this was nice, but there wasn't any ammunition to make it effective. I held my tongue; I was patient enough to wait. Waters looked at Chum, and then down to the machine gun we had scavenged.

"Do you want to keep that, or what? You'd probably be better off with that than anything I could give you." Chum-Li let the gun hang in his hands, testing the weight. He spun around to aim from the hip a few times. Sergeant Waters watched him, an amused look crossing his face. He fished around in one of the boxes and pulled out a pistol grip attachment which he offered to Chum.

"We can attach that grip to the barrel of that to make it easier to fire, if you want. Pre-loaded magazines are in that crate over there, and if you want slings they are in that box. We're going to be meeting up with the rest of my soldiers in that maintenance hall entry way, so grab some ammo and get ready to fight." I nodded and watched him jog back down the hall towards the way we came. Chum was affixing the pistol grip to the barrel of the machine gun. I grabbed two slings and as many magazines as I could fit in my backpack and kept two in my front coat pockets along with my knives. Chum just grabbed a fresh box for his M-2 and strapped in the new belt. I checked the pistol I had gotten and checked the mags that came with it. One in the grip, one on the holster, and I couldn't find anymore. They were fifteen count magazines, so I had a total of thirty shots once the rifle ran out. I prayed that wouldn't be anytime soon. Once ready, Chum and I headed back towards the main entrance. We saw Nathan and three other kids playing near the tents set up around the hall. They stopped kicking a ball around and waved to us.

I waved back at them, and quickly made my way towards the maintenance hall. There were actually only ten soldiers left, or able to go out fighting. This immediately felt like a bad idea. There were seven guys with guns going to attack a crowd of maybe two to three hundred zombies, with more possibly hidden just out of sight. I had always hated the Rambo-types, and now here I was being one. The soldiers were the four from our first contact, five extras, plus a guy wearing a toboggan and carrying what looked to be a sniper rifle of some sort with a box magazine that looked like it could hold maybe fifteen to twenty rounds. He'd be watching our back, or finishing us off if we got bit. I was glad I had decided to take a helmet; I wouldn't want to be one of those things. I was either alive or dead, not somewhere in between. Sergeant Waters looked tougher than when we had first met, he had donned a MOLLE vest and had grabbed his own personal rifle that had been taped and equipped with a bayonet.

"Well, I guess this is it. That bitch Jackson is either hiding or ran out. It's just us. Regardless, we can't stay here waiting for something to happen, those monsters are just got stand there until they rot to pieces. We are going to speed up the process. If you run out of ammunition, go ahead and switch over to hand to hand combat, and watch the backs of those who are still shooting. Once we are all out, we'll fall back to the armory under the cover of grenades and Louis." Louis, the guy with the toboggan, nodded his head and shifted his weight.

"Make every shot count, and try to aim for critical shots. Damage to the center mass doesn't even make these things blink. Be careful men, we have people relying on us, not just to sandbag some flood plain or look pretty in a parade. That you're here means you were waiting for this moment, this chance to defend innocent American lives from danger, and that moment is right now. Let's get this done." He shouldered his rifle, and the soldiers fell into a door breaching position. Chum and I looked at each other and moved onto either side of the hallway. Sergeant Waters and another soldier stood in front of the doors, and once everyone was ready to go, they pushed on the handles and walked into a crowd of zombies.

The doors knocked two bodies out of the way, but several zombies poured in through the doors, grabbing and gnashing their teeth at the two. They hardly had time to get their rifles up before they were being pulled down and torn into. I saw a large, middle aged thing grab Sergeant Waters' helmet and bite into the man's face. He hardly had a chance. We hardly had a moment to be horrified before more of the things were pouring past the two fallen soldiers. The first group of guardsmen started firing their rifles on full automatic. For a second it appeared that their shots were having effect, tearing into the monster's rotten flesh, tearing off chunks. But the moment they stopped to reload the wall of dead bodies pushed forward, engulfing them. The remaining group of soldiers started firing slowly, stepping backwards between shots. If we could funnel these things we could still stand a fighting chance, if we didn't bury ourselves inside. The soldiers took defensive firing positions staggered throughout the hall and proceeded to take careful shots at the walkers coming at us. Everything seemed to be going well; Louis and I weren't firing, mostly watching. Chum-Li blazed away whenever a crowd of zombies entered the hallway to thin their numbers. One of the doors just behind the soldiers started shaking, but no one noticed except Louis and I. The door popped open and another stream of zombies poured into the hall.

We couldn't fire without hitting the soldiers; there wasn't anything we could do. All of a sudden, there weren't nearly as many guns firing as there were screams. All three of us turned heel and sprinted towards the assembly hall. Louis kicked in the door and disappeared in the assembly hall. Chum and I got to the door at the same time. He turned around to spray the advancing herd with fifty caliber rounds while I opened the door and pulled him back into the room. I took a quick second to survey the assembly hall. There were a few zombies in here as well; Louis was already busy dispatching them by hand. I couldn't see any of the remaining townspeople. I didn't want to think about zombie children. The situation was bad enough, nightmares and doubts would only serve to exacerbate the situation. I dodged the few walkers charging us and sprinted towards the place we had gotten our gear. I pushed the door in and immediately saw where the survivors had gone. Or some of them, anyways.

Nathan and a few of the other kids had locked themselves in one of the steel cages that contained the gear stored on site, and a group of women had tried something similar, but a walker had gotten in before they could lock the cage, and ended up locking themselves in with a zombie. It hadn't looked like much of a fight, as the women hadn't had any time to prepare or grab a weapon. The kids were split between crying and screaming. I didn't want to know how many of their mothers had just been torn apart less than ten feet away from them. Except for Nathan…he looked shocked, but he wasn't screaming like any of the others. Regardless of how little he knew the women, they were torn apart…that should've produced some shock. I noticed that there was blood splattered across his face, joining the mud in marring an otherwise perfect face. He was staring at the female walkers, then looked at me. As soon as he saw me tears started pouring down his cheeks. I grabbed the door and tested it.

It wasn't locked. They had just shut the door and prayed the monsters didn't try it. Or maybe the things had never thought to pull instead of push? It hardly mattered. Nathan rushed out of the cage as soon as the door opened and clung to my leg. For a brief moment I was afraid he had somehow been infected and was about to take a healthy bite out of me. Then I remembered kids weren't emotionally prepared for a world like this. I noticed Louis pulling the garage door at the end of the hall open and again disappear. I took Nathan's hand and pulled him towards the garage door, the rest of the kids and Chum followed behind us. The door to the assembly hall finally pushed in, and more zombies started pouring into the hall. Chum turned around and started laying down the lead. He was probably around halfway through his first belt. I took the other side of the hall and sighted down the rifle. I put a rotting gray face between the back sights and squeezed the trigger. The head exploded in a puff of pink mist. Another zombie had already pushed past the now dead body and was closer than the previous. I shot again, and then ran to the garage door. We couldn't win this fight, we needed to escape now. I let the gun hang from its strap as I tried pushing the door up. Apparently it had mechanical motors somewhere that operated the thing, because I could hardly budge it. I got it just up to waist level when I knelt to check the situation.

I saw the taillights rapidly approaching and had just enough time to jump backwards before Louis drove through the door. The panels splintered outwards as the giant truck plowed through the flimsy material. Chum took a moment to look at what had caused all that noise before resuming his firing on the door. The things literally took no damage from the shots, but many had broken spines or arms and were crawling towards us. Louis ran around the end of the truck and helped me toss kids into the bed of the truck. I picked Nathan up by his arm pits and more or less tossed him up and into the truck bed. I turned around and grabbed my rifle from my side in time to see a crawling body drag itself closer to Chum's feet. I had plenty of time to take the shot, and nailed it. I guessed Chum felt the pressure from the round, because he turned around and started running to us. I pulled myself onto the truck bed and grabbed his gun as he climbed up beside me. Louis got back in the cab and gunned the engine. We lurched back out of the garage and blew through the metal gates guarding the garage, plowing over several walkers in the process. At least half of the horde was still inside, the rest were attempting to get in or pouring out of the hole in the garage door after us. We passed the two trucks on the road and headed down the highway.

"Damn it man! We forgot the booze!" Chum yelled, startling one of the kids closer to him. He probably shouldn't use language like that around them. But then again, this was the zombie apocalypse. And I realized I was actually exhausted from that tiny action in the armory. Fighting was always draining; I had learned that lesson playing paintball way back in the day. Particularly the first time I had participated in a coordinated large game. There were thirty players per team, and the arena was a couple acres long. There were several large skirmishes; the initial one involved my squad of five and another small squad against the majority of the opposing team.

We had a superior position and a defensive objective. And we were able to successfully execute an ambush at the beginning of the fire fight. We were able to successfully repel the assault. One of our general's runners told us the opposite side of the field hadn't fared as well, so my squad packed up and moved in with the other sides. It was a good run from where we were with gear; we worked up a pretty good sweat. However, unbeknownst to us at the time, the opponent had taken part of the 'city', and we were about to enter some serious close quarters combat. Our reflexes were sluggish when we arrived, and we put up little fight before being eliminated. My limbs felt like deadweights, and it took great effort to hold my paintball marker at ready. As I sat in the bed of that truck, I felt like a statue.

"At least…we're alive…" I muttered. It was a tough fight, and we had lost a lot of food at the armory and on the highway. We would need to scrounge for more sustaining food, and we couldn't all last very long on my stash of granola and protein bars. I had a plan up until now, but with these kids and Louis, I wondered what would happen now. I couldn't bring a bunch of kids into a major city, probably infested with zombies in what shaping up to be more of a suicide mission than anything else. I would need to find a place for them to stay safe, find food, and still somehow make it to Philadelphia in a little less than two weeks. Thinking of Philadelphia, I remembered to check my phone. I pulled out the glass covered mobile and held the power button for a moment and waited for it to boot. Soon notices started pouring in from Facebook, twitter, missed phone calls, and texts from several people. I took off one of my gloves and scrolled down the notifications. Several were from relatives, friends, or acquaintances, and one text from Rachel.

"I'm going to my house. I love you. Be safe." I read the text several times, trying to pull more assurance from the simple message. If she was home, she was much safer than in the middle of Philadelphia. It was also somewhat closer, maybe by an hour driving, which in this case was almost negligible. I exited to the lock screen, now clear of notification alerts. It was a picture of Rachel and I on one of our rare visits to see the other. She had stolen my phone and made it my lock screen nearly three months ago; I didn't want to change it. I held the power button down and turned the mobile off. It was then I realized Nathan had been looking at my screen as well. He looked curious, and I realized he probably hadn't seen too many smiles since this thing started.

"Is she your girlfriend?" He asked, staring me in the eye. I couldn't restrain myself; I smiled wider than I had in days. I guess my smiling was infectious, because he started sheepishly smiling too. I nodded, and put my phone safely away in my pocket.

"Tell me about her?" He asked. Chum grinned; he had heard our story before. Several of the kids stopped crying and looked my way. I flicked the safety on my rifle into the safe position, and leaned against the steel side of the truck bed. I could probably lighten the mood if I told the story, so why not? I tried my best to remember everything before starting.

"Her name is Rachel, and she has brown hair and eyes, and is nicer than anyone I've ever known. We met on a cruise this past summer. I was down in a club, dancing with some random girls. It was really hot in there, so I went up on the top deck to get some cool air. I decided to get some ice cream too, and that's when I saw her. She was reading a book at midnight. I thought that was kind of strange, but she was gorgeous. I had to try talking to her. I walked past her, trying to think of something to say, and all I can come up with is to blurt out, 'can I interrupt you for a minute?', thankfully she was nice, and we started talking. We didn't notice it, but we were so comfortable talking to each other we forgot to introduce ourselves until an hour later. We wound up talking for four or five hours before we had to go to sleep. But we spent every day after that together on the boat. Before we left the boat, I had kissed her and promised I would see her again. We had a phone call, or skyped everyday since, literally up until all of this started. And now I'm going to find her." I found myself day dreaming about the memory and snapped myself out of it. Most everyone had politely listened and then gone back to cleaning blood off of their faces, except Nathan. He was still staring at me in that neutral way of his. It was like he wanted to know more, or actually see her. I rolled my eyes when I saw that the blood from earlier had dried on his face.

"Nathan, you've got blood on your face, how about you take care of that?" He nodded and tried wiping his face off, to no avail. It had already dried, and he couldn't see to effectively scrape it off. I helped him scrape off the crusted blood before beginning to reload the magazine I was using. I had only taken maybe four shots, and I was guessing the magazine I had was just a twenty round clip since it wasn't curving. It didn't take long to reload the missing cartridges and replace the clip, chambering a round. I wasn't about to get caught off guard and have to rack a round before fighting. I checked to make sure I had both knives, when I noticed Nathan was watching with supreme interest in machinations. I offered the hunting knife my father had given me to him, handle first.

"Check it out. But be careful. I don't know if we can stitch you up." He took the blade, testing the edge and weight. It looked more like a sword in his hands, but he appeared to be cautious with it. He reminded me of myself, if a hell of a lot more careful. I couldn't remember the number of times I had accidentally cut myself fooling around with knives or my machete. One particular occasion captured my mind; I had just been given the machete I now carried. I had arrived home early from school, and noticed the package on the front porch of my house. We lived in the woods near a very small town. My house was a one story home with cedar sides and large windows, a true idyllic house in the woods. I saw that the package had been shipped by a renowned blade making company that often posted videos of their products being tested for durability and sharpness. I ripped open the package with a savage giddiness, and grabbed the kraton handle tenderly. I had to test the factory edge myself, so I went outside to a thin, dying tree stump on the outskirts of our backyard. I swung the blade down in a powerful arc and saw the blade bite into the tree. I pulled the blade out and swung again in a cross hand slash. This time, instead of burying itself into the tree, it bounced. Later I realized I had probably hit a knot or at an improper angle, but it bounced and came down on my thumb. I started bleeding and went inside to treat the wound. One should carefully test the capabilities of his weapons before needing to use them. Around that time the truck had slowed to a halt, then shut off.

I told the kids to stay in the truck, then Chum and I lowered ourselves off of the truck bed. We met Louis on the side of truck. We must have looked like an odd group, a national guardsman, and two strangers wearing a pea coat and toting machine guns. If only my friends from my paintball days could see me now. Louis took his toboggan off and ran a hand through his buzz cut.

"Alright, we need to figure out where we're going before we go any farther. If that's how bad a small town like Lebanon can be, I don't want to know how bad the major cities are." Louis had a good point. We needed a destination. We needed a plan. Not only that, but we would need food soon, and preferably a place we could stay without getting overrun.

"We're gonna need food. And a place to stay, it's going to be dark soon. We're on seventy-one now, right? What's near us that is isolated and has food?" I asked. Louis ran up to the cab and grabbed a map from the dash. We crouched around the map as Louis found our location. Now was one of the moments I had paid more attention in Boy Scouts, that information would be incredibly useful nowadays. I'd have to brush up on my skills when I got the chance to read the manual I had in my bag. Louis pointed to a thin strip of highway on the map.

"We're about here. We could try Majestic Springs Golf course, or we could camp out in Caesar Creek State Park. I think we could be safe for the night in the golf course clubhouse, and find dinner. But where do we go from there? We're between the three biggest cities in Ohio, and I don't have any current orders. I don't have anything really…" Chum and I looked at Louis. I had forgotten that his entire family, and probably all of his friends had just been eaten alive. I put a hand on his shoulder.

"The golf course sounds great. And I may have an idea as to where we can go from here." I pointed at the intersection of seventy-one and thirty-five.

"That's Washington Court House. If we take thirty-five and head south from there, we'll end up in my home town. It's two hours to the nearest major city, much longer if you're walking. You guys can recuperate there, and I can make sure my family is ok before moving on."