Here is the sequel to my first story, Deader than Dead. The viewpoint will be a multiple third-person instead of David's point of view. I hope you guys enjoy reading it.

Ch. 1

Bradford gets the ball and charges his way up the court. Only five seconds are remaining in the Championship game for the NCAA title. His team is behind by two points. All hopes rest on him.

Four..three...two...Bradford heaves the ball between half-court and three-point-line. The buzzer sounds just as the ball swishes through the hoop. Nothing but net. The opposing team drops their heads in defeat as the crowds go nuts.

Bradford raises his hands as his teams swarms him and raises him onto their shoulders. He had finally done it. He won the highest award possible and broke the record in scoring in a game. There was nothing that could top this moment. Absolutely no-

"Are you daydreaming again?" a voice called out, breaking Kevin out of his thoughts.

"Maybe," Kevin scoffed.

"Well, pay attention to the road. I don't want to be roadkill for zombies," Christopher said.

Kevin groaned and shook his head, trying to focus on driving down the street.

It doesn't matter. The streets are clear enough and their isn't exactly any traffic. Why do I always get paired with the Manager?

But then again, it wasn't always like this. Running for their lives, hiding out in abandoned stores and eating nothing but canned food. However, things were easier now than they had been.

Back in October, Kevin was in his senior year at high school. Straight-A student and the highest scorer on his basketball team. Even though he had no parents and lived in the school dorms, he was happy. He had his best friend, David, giving him motivation to succeed. All of his teammates supported him and Kevin gave them confidence. And finally, he just went out on a date with a girl named Kelly, who he realized was someone special.

Then, Z-Day came as Kevin came to call it. By some unknown reason, a virus or some act of God brought chaos to the world and turned a majority of people into undead cannibals called zombies. He had witnessed it firsthand. Two people in the same dorm as him broke into his room and began feasting on his roommate while he was still alive. Kevin had woken up to his dying gasps. He fought of the zombies and rushed his friend to nurses station when his friend died, then came to feast on Kevin. He was lucky and escaped.

Later, he ran into David and found that his family was dead too. They tried to rescue his father, but they were too late. Then, they found Diane, David's current girlfriend, and together made camp in an abandoned Wal-Mart store. They were able to arm themselves with firearms and turn the store into an impenetrable fortress. But they learned that the world leaders had rallied together and had been forced to destroy several major cities in order to contain the zombie outbreak without even trying to save the people who were still alive.

After a few days of trying to survive, they discovered other survivors scattered throughout the city. Kevin and David set up a search party to and look for them, each one finding a group of survivors. Kevin's party was able to use his survivor's vehicles and pick up David's. They got back safely. The only one that was injured was David.

The best part about that rescue was Kelly was a member of David's group. Kevin was overjoyed to see her and she felt the same about him. Since then, they spent all of their time together.

That was in October. If they kept up with the current time, it was now August 25. They had survived 9 months so far in this chaotic world, fighting zombies and their sanity.

The winter months proved to be the toughest challenge. The cold weather didn't seem to slow the zombies down, but it did keep everyone else on their toes. All the meats, produce, and dairy product had either been spoiled or had been eaten They only thing they had to live on were canned goods, freeze-dried food, and water. They also had to run the generator in the store only on spare occasions because of the dangers outside. The snow and cold had made it dangerous to get fuel and the gas station they had previously used had run out of fuel. The nearest one was nearly five miles away so they used the generator once a week for a full day. Everyone inside was always wearing several layers of clothes just to keep warm.

Then there was the depression. Being stuck in a store for several months, eating canned food and not being able to go outside, even on the roof, was able to even drive Kevin up the wall. Even with a store full of toys, games, movies and music, it was still not enough to cheer them up. Pretty much all kinds of cabin fever had settled inside the building. Even David, who was usually passive, was about to go nuts from being kept inside.

Then tragedy struck. Greg, a trucker from Miami and one of Kevin's survivors, found out his family had probably been killed when he learned that his home city had been one of the cities destroyed by the world leaders. He refused to eat or talk to any of us. He eventually starved. They had to dispose of his body by wrapping it and burning it on a pyre on top of the roof. Everybody knew it wasn't a proper burial, but it was all that they could do.

Then there was one of the fuels they made in January during a snowstorm. Jake lead a group of three to get the remaining gas that was running out at the gas station. It was the first time Gloria, one of David's survivor's and a night school student, went out into the field. She was overconfident in her limited abilities and an disappeared when she checked the perimeter around the station. The weather was getting worse, but Jake continued to search for her for nearly a half hour before David ordered him to return to the store.

They found Gloria a month later, her body torn to shreds.

But there was some good news. When the zombies first arrived, they pretty much had the same capabilities as they did when their bodies were alive. Speed, strength, agility. David called these kind of zombies 'Runners'. But after about month, they found out that their bodies were deteriorating. Beginning to rot away. The zombies had slowed down from a fast pace to a staggering walk. Their primal screams and yells had now become grunts and moans. Just like in the old movies. Kelly had dubbed these zombies 'Stiffs'.

This allowed everybody to gain an upper hand on the zombies. When spring came and the zombies were in an advance state of decomposition, Kevin lead a offensive attack against the Stiffs that had surrounded the store. He and several other survivors with a handful of weapons were able to wipe out all of the zombies that remained outside. They're were still a lot in the town, scattered throughout the area. So the objective was to hunt down and kill what zombies remained. That has been the objective for the summer..

That's what Kevin and Christopher were doing now along with several others. They were riding in a jeep that Kevin 'borrowed' from a dealership outside of the city a few months ago.

"Do you think the smell of death will ever go away," Christopher asked.

Kevin sniffed the air and answered. "Nothing lasts forever. Everything has to end at one point in time."

"So whose time is over? Us or them?"

"It's going to be us. I guarantee it."

Christopher laughed. "You sound so sure. Remember what David told us the other day? There hasn't been anything new on the internet for nearly three months. No TV or Radio either. You think after all this time that something would be up if we were winning."

"Have a little faith, Chris," Kevin said.

"It's Christopher. How many times do I have to tell you?"

Kevin sighed. Christopher was the assistant manager at a Burger King where Kevin found his survivors. He had this conduct that everything should be in strict order so nothing is disorganized. Heather called him Hitler's ghost.

But Kevin could see his point. Nothing new was on the only source of communication to the outside world: the internet. Somehow, cyber space was still active around the world and was still broadcasting information. At least until a few months ago.

Not only that, every time a search party went out to check the perimeters to see if any Stiffs were around, there would always be one present. The group could wipe out a sector one day and there would the same amount the next day. Bodies were pilling up in the streets and were really starting to stink. It was a never ending battle.

And just last week, Kevin found that they were running out of ammunition.

"And look now, we have company," Christopher said.

Kevin slowed the jeep to a stop and gazed forward. Three Stiffs were staggering in the streets toward them. They had decomposed so much that it was difficult to see what gender they were. They just looked like walking clay figures with tattered clothes and dried blood on them.

Kevin put the jeep in 'park' and got out.

"I got this," he said.

He walked up towards the group and reached over his shoulder for his weapon. Instead of a firearm, Kevin pulled a sword from its sheath. David had found this sword several months ago in a pawn shop. Because he was a terrible shot with a gun, David had given him this blade. Kevin had to admit that he liked the sword better then the gun. It never ran out of ammunition.

The blade was four feet long and ended in a two-hand grip handle with red and black diamond stitching. The scabbard matched the design.

Seeing Kevin get out of the car caused the Stiffs to hurried forward, hobbling in stiff knees. Kevin walked to the first one and swung the blade towards the Stiff's neck. The blade sliced cleanly through the rotted flesh and spinal cord. The head spun through the air before landing on the pavement. The headless body collapsed in a heap, but the severed head kept trying to take bites at Kevin.

The other two came at the same time on either side of Kevin this time. Kevin swung the blade at the second zombie's neck, but the zombie shifted at the last moment. The sword instead was driven into its shoulder. Kevin tried to jerk the sword away; however, it was stuck there. The last zombie staggered forward to take advantage of Kevin's predicament. With his hands still on the sword, Kevin used a front kick to knock the third back and finally got his sword free.

Kevin swung his sword over his head and sliced through the second Stiff's skull in a downward strike, slicing the skull in half. The third Stiff had recovered from the kick and hurried forward again. Kevin swung his sword in a horizontal arc and cleanly chopped the top half of the last Stiff's skull. The body fell to the ground.

Kevin turned around and faced Christopher. "How was that?" he asked.

Christopher shrugged. "Nothing new."

Kevin sheathed his sword and walked back to the jeep. The first Stiff's head was still growling and moaning. Kevin stepped forward and smashed his heel into the temple of the head. It crushed like a grape as it gave one last groan.

"Now that was just disgusting," Christopher said.

"Part of the job. They're not dead until the brain is destroyed."

Christopher nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Let's just get to the next sector. I want to get done before we head back."

Kevin got back into the jeep and drove down the street, swerving to avoid the bodies in he just decapitated.

"This is what I was talking about," Christopher started. "We wiped out nearly 15 zombies yesterday in this sector alone, 11 this morning and 3 just now. And just think about what everybody else is going through It's like the Hydra dragon: every time we cut off a head, three more come back."

"We have to keep trying," Kevin sighed. "It's the only thing we can do."

"I still think it's useless."

That's it! Tonight, I'm asking David to switch people. I can't stand this guy's whining, Kevin thought.

But that was going have to wait until later. Right now, Kevin and Christopher had to check two more sectors before they could call it a day. This had become a daily routine for the past few months. Kevin had adjusted to this new life, but he didn't like it even if it was safer know than when Z-Day first started.

Kevin had his future planned. Five different colleges had their eyes on him and were ready to offer him a full athletic and academic scholarships depending on which college he wanted to choose. He even had Duke on his list of colleges that were watching him.

A day never went by when Kevin didn't daydream about playing NCAA basketball. It was his dream. He had hopes that one day he would surpass the greatest players to ever play. Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan. He hoped to one day to be the best.

Now his days were spent surviving in a apocalyptic world. There were some benefits he learned while trying to survive though. He learned how to defend himself against any kind of zombie when he didn't have a weapon on hand as well as training with several different types of weapons. He knew how to hot wire a car, properly distill water to purify for drinking, clean and load any kind of firearm and properly take care of his samurai sword as well as properly sharpening the edge. He was lucky it had only one nick on it at the guard with his sword. Any other kind of damage would had been impossible to repair. And if he ever broke the blade, he would be in deep trouble.

Not only that, he had become stronger and faster than ever before. His speed was more than a match for a Runner and he could easily knocked down the toughest zombie.

His looks had changed as well. His blond hair had become longer and shaggier, coming down to his jaw. He had grown another couple of inches, towering over everybody at the store. He cut the sleeves out of his shirts because arms were too big to fit. His had picked up a couple of scars from either accidents from his sword or from trying to bust through windows to escape from Runners earlier in the year. He always wore running shoes and a pair of runner shorts for quick escapes. Elbow and knee pads covered his joints to add padding to strikes or in case he fell down and injured himself.

Kevin brushed the hair out of his eyes as he continued to drive down the street.

Kelly's right. I'm going to need a haircut soon.

Thinking about Kelly made him smile. They met about a week before Z-Day struck. She had just move to town the day they met and he was assigned as her guide through the school. He was instantly infatuated with her the moment he laid eyes on her face. They spent the whole day touring the campus while he was trying to gather the courage to say something that wasn't school related. At the end of the day, when she thanked him for the tour and was walking home, he blurted out a quick request for a date.

She stared at him for a few silent seconds with a blank expression on her face. Kevin was really sweating at this point, almost regretting the decision of asking her the day he met her. He should have waited a few days, but it seemed like his mouth moved without him commanding it too.

Then Kelly smiled and said yes. She set the date for the following day and said what she liked to eat, then walked away. Kevin was frozen for a few minutes as he watched her walk away. When she turned around a corner and disappeared, he jumped for joy while screaming at the top of his lungs. Later at basketball practice, he seemed to be lighter and faster that the coach asked him if he was on steroids. Then had to do a drug test.

His thoughts continued on Kelly until a beep, then a voice, brought him out of his thoughts. It was his radio.

"Samurai, this is Veteran. Over?"

Veteran. That would be Jake, one of David's survivors and a security guard. He was a man in his forties with thinning hair, but a strong build from his days in Desert Storm. After his tour of duty, he came back and tried to become a police officer. However, due to his record at Juvenile Hall, they turned him down. He tried to fight it, but it was no use. So he had to settle for the position of security guard of the urban district on the north side of town.

But Kevin never took this guy lightly. When Z-Day occurred, Jake got several people out of danger and barricaded them into the skating rink. They had to survive on stale popcorn and pop, but Jake kept them safe. Besides David, Jake was the other guy everyone looked up too.

Kevin picked up the radio. "This is Samurai. Me and Manager have just finished checking the south areas. We're now returning to back to base."

"Good. Me and Nurse have finished checking the north side of the city. Burger Boy and Blondie called in and are done checking the east side while Nightmare and Firefly are on their way back from the west side."

"Roger. We'll see you later."

"Over and out."

Kevin put the radio back on the dashboard and headed back to the store.

"Why must you guys have codenames while talking on the radio?" Christopher asked.

"Why not?" Kevin shrugged.

"Because it's childish."

Kevin rolled his eyes. "You just don't understand."

"No, I don't. Tell me."

"It's just cool," Kevin stated. It just seemed obvious. Everybody had liked the idea and it just seemed like fun picking out names to call each other over the radio. Christopher didn't pick though. His was just given to him.

"So immature," Christopher sighed.

Yep. So asking David to switch tomorrow, Kevin thought.

I'll try to have the next chapter up as soon as I can. But I'm afraid it's going to be bi-weekly updates instead of weekly. I just have too much to do.