Scenario 0: Prologue of the Living Dead
Ulrich slumped against the wall next to the door that led up to the roof and sighed. His adrenaline had worn off and the events that had transpired in the past five hours were starting to take their toll on him. He slid down the wall into a sitting position on the floor trying to ignore the charlie horse that was throbbing in his left leg. He glanced down at his body and felt his stomach lurch. He was covered in dried blood and gore, so much of it he wondered if it would ever come out of his clothes. If it would ever wash off of his hands. The blood that belonged to those things that used to be his classmates. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his cell phone. He flipped it open and stared at the screen intently as if by sheer force of will he could make Yumi call him and tell him that she was alive. That she was okay. That she was a thousand miles away from this whole mess. After a moment or two of silence he flipped the phone back shut and rammed it into his pocket in frustration. He had never felt so useless in his life. Ulrich had no idea what was going on or what he could do to fix it. Two months ago he could have just said "X.A.N.A" and he and his friends would stop him and save the day. But X.A.N.A. was gone now. Nothing but a bad memory.
Ulrich reached into the waistband of his jeans, drew out the revolver he had gotten from the dead police officer and held it in his hands. Herve had showed him how to use it earlier; how to fire and reload but Ulrich was still getting used to it, preferring to use a baseball bat. He turned the revolver over in his hands and opened up the cylinder. Out of the six bullets in the cylinder two of the bullets had detonated "primers" as Herb had called them meaning they had been fired. Ulrich slid the two spent casings out of the revolver and tossed them aside. He then dug out two fresh bullets from the right breast pocket of his army jacket and slid them into the revolver before closing it with a flick of his wrist. The gun was enough to kill one of those things with a single well placed shot but it took forever to reload as demonstrated by its previous owner. Ulrich tucked the revolver back into his waistband and pulled himself up to a standing position, wincing from the pain in his leg. He pulled open the door to the roof and walked up the stairs. When he reached the summit he pushed the heavy steel door open and was greeted by the late morning sun.
The roof was the first place they attempted to run. In hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea because now they were stuck, the courtyard of Kadic swarming with those things and there was no telling how many were still in the building. Sitting in the middle of the roof were the students that escaped the slaughter in the cafeteria. Himself, Odd Della Robbia, Samantha Knight, Jeremie Belpois, Aelita Stones AKA Aelita Schaefer, Sissi Delmas, Herve Pichon, Nicholas Poliakoff, Emilie LeDuc, Emmanuel Maillard and Caroline Savorani were all on the roof of the junior high school classroom building. These were all that made it out alive. If they weren't up here then they were down there and if they were down there…
Ulrich walked across the rooftop, his feet crunching on the gravel as he moved towards the group of students. Odd looked up at him smiled lightly. He was sitting next to Jeremie and who was fiddling with the radio they had gotten from a classroom trying to find a signal with Sam sitting next to him trying to get a hold of anyone on her cell phone. Ulrich could tell by the look on her face she was having as much luck as everyone else.
"Any luck?" Ulrich asked as he came up to the group.
"Yeah the U.S. Government just deployed Chuck Norris with a slingshot. We should be in the clear." Odd said.
Ulrich wasn't in the mood for Odd's wise cracks. In the span of four hours their lives had been utterly destroyed. They were all huddled around the radio, hoping for some kind of report saying that they were in the clear, that the army was being deployed and that the whole situation would be dealt with by lunch and that everything they had witnessed would be a dark chapter in the history books in a few years. Ulrich hoped this would happen but deep down, something was telling him that nothing would ever be the same again. By the ledge of the roof he spotted Tina. She had her back to them and was gazing in the distance, her arms folded across her chest and she was biting the nails on her left hand. Ulrich trudged over to her stood next to her. She was his age but short, about Odd's height without his shoes and tall hair. She wore denim jeans, a black tank top, brown cowboy boots and a red bandana over her long blonde hair. Ulrich said nothing and followed her gaze. In the distance he could see jet black smoke rising in the sky. He could hear the subtle sound of automatic weapons fire under the drone of sirens and the screams of the dying and the moans of the dead.
"I'm sure your families fine." Ulrich said softly. "Your father's army right?"
"I'm not holding any hope." She said just as softly. "My brother always told me not to live on false hopes. Expect the worst so you can deal with it easier."
"That sounds pretty bleak." Ulrich said.
"I can't spend my time worrying about them." Tina said more to herself than Ulrich. "They are probably dead. All of them. I need to worry about myself if I'm going to survive."
She blinked and looked over at Ulrich smiling softly.
"How's the radio coming along?" She asked.
Ulrich shrugged and looked over to Jeremie.
"It probably won't work." Ulrich said softly.
"Probably." She smiled weakly.
Ulrich sighed and trudged across the roof to his friends.
"What's wrong with it?" He asked Jeremie.
"I dunno." Jeremie said. "I'm not even picking up an EBS so I don't think it is the radio stations themselves. Probably just the radio."
"Because someone, I don't want to point out names or anything Emmanuel, decided to use the radio as a bludgeon against Gaston." Herve said shooting Emmanuel a dirty look.
"Hey don't blame me!" The pony tailed metal head said in defense. "That bastard was going for my throat and I didn't see you guys scrambling to do anything about it!"
"So you use our only possible life line to the outside world to smash in his skull?" Herve snapped.
"Fuck you pizza face!"
"Shut up!" Jeremie said suddenly.
They immediately stopped arguing as Jeremie held the radio up to his ear and gently adjusted the dials. They could all faintly hear speaking through the speakers but the signal was weak and laced with static.
"Turn it up!" Samantha said leaning forward.
Jeremie nodded and turned the volume up.
"For -ose….. It… twelve….. acts of violence…. Paris. "
Jeremie slightly turned the knob a little to the left and it cleared up significantly.
"What was originally thought to be a riot started in the downtown metropolitan area but now has spread like a wildfire of mass hysteria all over the city. Eye witness reports have been flooding our studios since the incident started and we have been told that by some that their attackers seemed to be in a trance-like state, unresponsive to anything their victim had to say. Other reports have described the attackers to be ferocious and almost feral in nature, attacking with rabid ferocity. In the past hour we have received similar reports from all over the country. The GIGN have been deployed and- one moment."
There was a silence followed by the rustling of paper.
"… Are you serious?" The anchor woman said. "This is- this- is this some kind of sick joke? …. Uhm, I'm sorry. I have just received this report from the Center for Disease Control. I'm having a little trouble reading this. It has been confirmed that… that the bodies of the recently deceased are coming to life and… and attacking the living. This- this is an incredible! How or why something like this could happen is beyond my knowledge but this is not a joke. I repeat, the bodies of the recently-"
Jeremie turned the radio off and looked up at his friends, his face as pale as those walking corpses below.
"Told you." Nicholas said softly.