Chapter one: The Murderers.
The snow fell softly on to the rotting flesh of the dead. The high street of the small town was trashed. There were shop windows smashed, leaving broken shards of glass littered outside of the empty stores. Across the way there was a lone man walking toward the town center. He looked hurt. The groaning became louder as he drew nearer. As the sun shone through the clouds his face became visible. He was a tall slim man, no older than twenty five. His cheeks stained a dark crimson. As he turned toward the fast food restaurant his moans echoed the streets. An eyeball was hanging out of its socket, held onto his face by a single strand of flesh. He limped over to the looted fast food joint, trailing his leg behind as he walked.
BANG!
The lone man fell to his knees as the sound of a gunshot came from inside the restaurant. He slumped backward. He was dead. His lifeless body lay still as a bullet wound was revealed in between his eyes.
"Did I get it?" A voice called from inside the fast food restaurant.
"Yeah, good shot Clive!" A womans voice replied.
The two people walked cautiously out of the wrecked fast food place and out into the cold. The man was tall and slim. He wore a hooded fleece jacket and jeans which seemed to small for him. His hair as black as night and beady little eyes that gazed upon the freshly dead body. He held a Baseball bat in one hand and a pistol in the other. The hand which he was carrying his pistol shaking violently. The woman however was the complete opposite of the man. She walked with a sense of authority as she brushed her messy blond hair from her beautiful face, she looked about the same age as the tall man. She wore a large coat and white trousers, which had obviously been on her for a long period of time as they had lost their whiteness. Her weapon of choice seemed to be a little less intermediate than the mans. A short lead pipe was held firmly in her right hand, raised above her head just in case the stranger decided to rejoin them in the living world. As the two murderers reached the dead man, the man known as Clive knelt down and prodded the body with the baseball bat.
"He's gone Brittany" Clive stated as he retreated from the body.
"I can see that" Brittany said "We should get going before more of them find us. The gunshots would have given us away."
Clive and Brittany walked away from the body with no remorse. They reached a large iron gate with a homemade sign attached to it written in big bold letters.
THE WORLD HAS FINALLY COME TO AN END!
"Should we go in there?" Clive asked, looking nervous "There are probably loads of them in there"
"No we shouldn't" Brittany replied to Clive "There would be, as you say, loads in there. We should go this way instead" she said, pointing down an empty street.
"You're the boss" Clive tried to smile but it seemed impossible in his present situation.
The pair of them set off down the empty street which Brittany had suggested the walk down. They seemed to be really paranoid, looking around every few seconds as though they were expecting company. Weapons were put down on the ground as the couple stopped for a breather. Clive pulled out a flask of hot tea from the backpack he was wearing.
"We better be quick" He said as he poured the two of them a drink into two mugs he had gotten out of the bag "I think i heard something on the way down here"
"You're just being paranoid" Brittany told him with a stern voice "But we better be careful anyway" she said as she gulped down her tea.
"What was that?" Clive said, spinning round to face a nearby bush. Dropping his mug, he raised his Baseball bat and started walking over to the bush where he had heard a rustling noise.
A woman appeared behind Brittany as she watched Clive inspect the noise. The woman looked as though she had just been attacked. Bruises over her pale, lifeless face. A gash on her left shoulder revealed where her t-shirt was torn showing dark blood stains. Clive turned around to see if Brittany was following and stopped dead in his tracks. He pointed behind Brittany with a look of terror. Brittany ducked as the woman lashed out at her. Clive dashed toward the injured woman and smacked her around the head with his Baseball bat. The woman sank to the floor as the bat made contact with her temple. Brittany sighed.
"I could have took her!" Brittany snapped as she nudged the dead woman with her feet.
"Sure ya could have Britt" Clive grinned, shaking from the cold.
"I could have" She managed to muster up a smile and hugged Clive "Thanks babe"
"No problem, you would have done the same for me"
Brittany kissed Clive on the lips softly to thank him and then picked up the mug that he had dropped. Clive poured the two another drink each and then packed the mugs and flask back into his bag. They continued on down the road. Clive put his arm around Brittany and smiled.
"Come on, we better get this stuff back to Liam. He'll be pissed, we should have been back over an hour ago"
Chapter two: The Warehouse.
Clive and Brittany walked cautiously down the long and winding roads of the small town. Still looking paranoid. They came across a large warehouse and stopped outside. The warehouse stood tall in the winter snow. Rotting corpses were piled up across the street from it, all with precise bullet wounds showing on their foreheads. The bodies carried a terrible smell toward the couple. The two walked around the side of the warehouse as the sun was setting.
"I'll never get used to that smell" Clive frowned as he knocked on a small door.
"Me neither" Brittany sighed "I just try to phase out my sense of smell all together"
"Well you know what Liam's like" Clive strained a laugh "That gun of his is like a child to him. Except you don't shoot out zombies brains with a child"
"That's disgusting" Brittany said with a stern voice, trying to hold back her laughter.
The wooden door swung open and Brittany and Clive were dragged inside. The inside of the warehouse was quiet, there was only the sound of a crackling fire in the middle of the large room. Brittany slumped onto a couch as Clive emptied his back pack onto a nearby table. He went down a list he pulled from his pocket and checked everything off as he went. In the corner of the room there was a large pile of weapons. Most of them were blunt objects such as Baseball bats, Golf clubs, Iron bars and other close range weapons. Through all of the blunt instruments, fire arms could be seen. And sitting by itself next to the pile was a long, shiny rifle.
"That's everything Liam" Clive told the man who dragged them into the warehouse.
"Where have you guys been? You were supposed to be back over an hour ago! You do know that it's five o'clock? The sun is setting, if you weren't back when you were then you could have been killed" Liam snapped as he rustled through the goods Clive had brought back.
Liam was a middle-aged man. His hair was fading a light grey. He had a crooked nose and wide eyes, which examined the items on the small table. The clothes of choice for Liam were quite interesting. He wore a yellow Hawaiian shirt with a green pattern sprawled across the front, three quarter camouflage trousers and a fedora on his head which he tilted took off when he had seen something that took his fancy.
"Ah" Liam grinned as he picked up a red packet of sweets "Maltesers! Where did you find them"
"They were at the back of a shelf in the shop" Clive said as he picked up a bottle of beer "May i interest you in a bottle of Middlesbroughs finest ale?" he said in a mock voice, trying to hold back the laughter by biting his lip.
"Oh i do believe so good sir" Liam laughed as he took one Malteaser from the packet and put the rest in his pocket.
"How about you Britt? You want a beer?" Clive asked Brittany as he handed Liam his beer.
"I'm fine, I'm going to try and get some sleep" Brittany said as she curled herself into a ball and closed her eyes.
The two men walked into a small room which looked like it had once been used as a security office. A broken computer monitor lay on the floor face down, there was a control panel that didn't look like it worked anymore and there were three chairs in the corner. Both men took a chair and sighed in unison. They stayed quiet for a little while, taking an awkward sip of their beers every thirty seconds or so. After a while Liam cleared his throat and began singing quietly to himself. Clive just looked at the floor as Liam began to sing, as though it happened regularly. Liam was singing about a small girl who he loved dearly but that she had died by the hands of another, a monster. A tear left Liam's eye as he finished singing.
"I miss her Clive" He said with a frown, resting his head in his hands.
"I know you do, it was horrible what happened to Sara"
"DON'T SAY HER NAME!" Liam yelled at Clive as he downed his bottle of beer "She was such a good kid. And to die like that? It's just wrong. No father should have to go through that ever" he said in a calmer voice.
"I'm sorry" Clive sighed as he took off his hooded fleece "I know you miss her, no one should ever have to go through that. She was only nine and"
"I KNOW HOW OLD SHE WAS CLIVE!" Liam shouted once more "WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO SAY NEXT? WHERE YOU GOING TO TELL ME HOW SHE DIED? IT WAS THEM SICK fkS. THE fkING ZOMBIES DID IT! THEY ATE HER! IS THAT WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO TELL ME? 'COZ I KNOW HOW IT HAPPENED, I WAS THERE!" His face grew red with anger as Clive sat there staring at the floor "I was there"
"I-I don't know what to say mate" Clive said, stuttering "I k-know that, I-I wasn't g-going to say that" he managed to muster up an awkward smile but only for a second.
Brittany came running into the room with Clive's gun held firmly in her hand. As she entered the two men jumped out of their seats and sighed when they realized who it was. Clive sat back down but Liam barged past him, kicking the computer monitor against the wall on his way out. Brittany sat down in the seat where Liam was sat and sighed.
"I know it's going to sound harsh" Brittany began "But he needs to get over Sarah. It's not health for him to be this way"
"You're right, but he does have a reason to be angry" Clive sighed as he took the gun from Brittany and put it on the messed up desk behind him.
"Do you think we'll ever have kids?" Brittany asked casually, as if she just asked for the time.
"W-Well we should w-wait until all of this mess is over to d-discuss that Britt" Clive said in a shaky, nervous tone.
"It was just a thought" Brittany sighed as she stood up "I'm going back to sleep" she said as she got up and stepped over the trashed computer screen.
Clive sat alone in the security office, staring at the same spot in the wall for a while until his chin fell to his chest. The bottle of beer fell from his limp hands. He had fallen asleep.