Ein

The first thing I felt when I woke up was the breeze on my skin. I thought maybe i had left a window open or something. I rolled over where i was sleeping on the floor to try and find the offending window, but instead saw a giant freaking hole in the wall. I sighed when I remembered where I was exactly.

Hell's city, once known as ST. Louis, Missouri.

Other survivors were way too scared to go in the city due to all the groups who went in and never came back. Everyone thought they were dead. In a sense, they were dead. Well, dead-ish. I still don't understand just how in the hell someone can walk around without a heartbeat.

Yeah, zombies. Deal with it. I sure as hell have been, for the past two years. Most people left nowadays try calling them anything BUT the z word. Honestly, that's the literal goddamned term, so i see no point in calling them anything else. No one really knows how they did get here, though. One minute everything's chill, and then the next, zombies come in all like 'What up, bitches?' . I remember this one catholic church full of nutjobs down in Alabama who claimed they were (I shit you not) 'A manifestation of mankind's sins sent down by our heavenly father to punish man for their sins' . I didn't really care, kinda stopped paying attention to their psycho-babble bullshit when i found out they were sacrificing passerby's to a group of zombies in hopes of 'redeeming" mankind and get god to forgive us. Burnt them and their freaky ass church to the ground after i got their prisoners free, right after setting their 'pets' onto them. Karma's a bitch.

The point is, they just showed up one day, and no one had any freaking idea how or why. And that is how i ended up in a torn to shit apartment complex with probably a hundred or so zombies roaming the street below me. I had to bunker down in this place for the night after getting five miles into the ghetto part of what was once home of the St. Louis rams (pretty sure i saw Austin davis with his left arm ripped off). I could see the archway in the distance from where i was, part of it blown up. Someone probably kamikazed the place when shit got real.

I just kind of stared out at the horizon for a bit, enjoying the short and quiet moment. The sky was tinted a greyish green (been like that for a few months all around the U.S.) and a storm brewing in the distance. For whatever reason, zombies got way more active and shit when a storm came anywhere, which was bad news for anyone who was caught unprepared. Wasn't the case for me, though.

First off, I had a silenced P90 submachine gun i had found in Mississippi. If the zombies got past that, then they had to deal with my G18 pistol. If they got past that as well, then you had to deal with my kukri machete strapped to my chest and a fire ax I had been using ever since the beginning. And if, by some miracle from whatever deity you believe in, they got passed all of those things, I kicked their face in Chuck Norris style.

Yeah, im not the kind of guy most people wanna piss off.

I just muttered a 'Goddamn It' to myself and made sure that i had all of my equipment before i left. Once i was sure nothing was amiss, i put on my mask, a black half face respirator, which was essentially a bastardized version of those things painters wear, and pulled my hood over my head to the point where it covered my forehead. I then walked back up to the giant gaping hole in the wall and started to scale the side of the building until i reached the roof. Just as i got over the edge onto the roof itself, I heard a static sound come from my hip.

"Hey, Oregon, you there man?" I heard a voice on my radio say. I pulled the handheld radio of my pocket and keyed the button to speak.

"What's up?" I said after i looked around for any nearby zombies that would be attracted to my voice. Didn't want to fight any if i didn't have to right now.

"So, did you make it to St. Louis?" The voice asked me.

"Yeah, Im here. It's as big of a shit hole as the rumors said, Curtis. Everyone's dead man. Well, dead-per se." I responded

'Who is this new person' You may ask? His name is Curtis, an acquaintance of mine. Curtis has been there for me ever since I was young and we were living together when I was in Miami when shit hit the fan. Thankfully, we were well prepared for something like this, the reason why is that one day we got bored and decided 'Hey, let's buy a bunch of stuff for the apocalypse'. After words, we found out there were other people like us who wanted to make a group that would meet up in the event of an apocalypse, and we eventually bullshitted our way into making that a reality that we claimed was a 'great fitness regime' where we would run around the city, do parkour and a bunch of other exercising stuff that made us the equivalent of actual soldiers. Some people used to think we were stupid for doing such a thing. Now they don't think jack shit, cause their dead. Karmas a bitch.

"How's your situation down there?" Curtis asked me.

"I'm already halfway through the city. I have a straight shot through on the rooftops to a safe house just outside of the city." I chuckled to myself. "Being a parkour badass sure has it's perks." I answered.

Like i said, parkour was part of our training, and boy has it come in handy. It was pretty cool being a fifteen year old parkourist in high school. Ah well, That was two years ago. All of my school mates probably ate each other by now. Last time i had spoke to Curtis in person was around a year ago when our group of survivors successfully secured Tampa. Then I just one day decided to hike my way to Oregon and try my luck there, hence the name. (Actually got the idea from a group of people I ran into one day in Atlanta. They called themselves Tallahasee, Columbus and stuff. Nice people.)

"What about loot there? There's gotta be some good stuff if everyone there's dead." Curtis proposed. That actually caused me to smile due to our sick sense of humor, and 'because he was right. Even if half of it wasn't as good as my gear, there was still some pretty cool shit in St. Louis due to the military outposts stationed every block or so. Weapons and rations galore.

"Spot freakin on, man. M16's, M60's, tanks, It's insane Curtis. Remind me to come back here one day when things get cleared out, will ya?" I told him with the giddiness of a five year old at chucky cheese. I sighed out loud though when i remembered the storm brewing nearby.

"I need to get going, man. The zom storm is gettin' close, and id rather not be out in the open when it hits." I informed him. I heard Curtis grunt in affirmative at my reasoning.

"You be careful out there, Oregon. You get bit, and I'll personally come over there and beat your zombified ass, you hear?" He said. I Snorted at him.

"As if, old man. Zombie or not, i'll still beat you senseless… later, man." I ended the call and turned off my radio to save the batteries. Then, I started to run.