Firrox
A rather odd looking man sits a top a makeshift throne in the middle of a ravaged room surrounded by standing corpses "Fuck I need more bodies and get me another hotdog!" he shouted to his minions. The world has been ravaged by hordes of undead, there are several major survivor groups and one great undead leader. However lets go back to where it started and when he first became what he is today.
He was 19 working at a mall as a clerk. The mall was just build recently and they had so many customers they decided to extend their open hours from 5AM to 10PM. Which was odd seeing as the town didn't seem big enough to get so many customers that it would be profitable to keep the mall open that long and so early. They however still have yet to fill the extra shift and how one of his co-workers quit the last week they were extremely short handed and what workers they did have had to be stretched as thin as possible. He had just gotten off a 13 hour shift at his work he was happy to returning home and finally relax.
It had been a bad day for him right from the start he had knocked out the alarm next to his bed when he was asleep and had been yelled at for getting to work late because of it. His work normally wasn't that bad. He would help some people find what they were looking for help them with their bags every now and then but not today, oh, no today it was slammed with people on a day they just so happened to be so short handed, yelling and arguing those impatient bastards making him work as if there was not going to be another day and not giving him a second to think just so they could save every precious second of their time in the store. Today just did not seem to be his day.
As he was a few blocks away from his run down apartment he noticed something so strange that he stopped in mid step. There was a pillar of smoke coming from about a block away from his apartment complex. He rushed towards it and saw a great bonfire in the middle of the street and apart from the blazing bonfire in the middle of the road something was off, something was not right. It was quiet, there was no fire trucks, no emergency response vehicles. Nothing it was just a small group of people standing there at the fire, not moving, not talking, not making any sounds. He started walking slowly towards these people. As he got closer he noticed these people did not live in the area and the cloths they were wearing had weird symbols sewn into the backs that seemed to glow in the evening light.
When he got closer he looked around at the houses not a one had people in them they were desolate. He called out to them "HEY! Whats going on? Where is everyone?"
They all turned to him at once and at first they didn't do anything they just stood there looking at him. A chill went down his spine and he froze on the spot he couldn't move. They had these looks that had such glee on them it was frightening. Then they all said at once "Can you smell it boy!?" the man in the middle yelled. He regained control and took a big whiff of the air, it was a bitter sweet smell and it was something he had never smelt before "What is that?" he responded. "That! Is the completion of our work our lives work!" all eight said at once "What?! What is it? What did you do?!" he yelled back. This time one stepped toward him and said "Listen here boy! We were tired of this world and what it has become, so we decided to end it and in the best fashion. Any moment the fumes from the fire will spread to everyone and there will be no way to contain it. It will kill them and turn them into the monsters you will soon see and they will destroy the population of this planet and now that we... that we..." the man and the others fell over almost like a set of dominoes.
At first he wanted to go see what was wrong with them but his instinct told him to first get a weapon. He ran into the house to the right of him. It was a good friend of his house who he had known for many years his best friend Jack, he grabbed the shotgun and the bug out bag that Jack kept in his closet and ran out to where the group of people had fallen. But they were gone and as he paused he thought 'Oh man this can't be good. OH! The fire!' He slung the backpack and shotgun on his shoulders as he ran to a house nearest to the fire grabbed the hose that was laying on the lawn turned on the water and attempted to put out the fire, Just as the fire started going down there was a tug on the hose followed by a loud noise that drew his attention from the fire. A group of zombies busted the door down and started shambling toward him, He panicked as he tried to grab the gun on his shoulder and fumbled as he finally got a grip on it he started spraying into them, a few fell but there were still more, he knew he couldn't take them all.
He turned tail and fled back to his Jack's house and picked up a red bandanna and fashioned it to cover his nose and mouth to prevent blood from getting in his mouth, he also picked up Jack's lucky black bandanna seeing as how he could use the luck and would return it if he happened to see him again but he knew that he most likely wouldn't see him again. He got back to the mall and all of the malls main entrances were locked and barricaded. At first he thought 'Great well there goes my plan'. He sat down and he started to reached in his pocket to grab more shells to reload with when he suddenly felt the urge to slap himself in the face. He had a key to the employee entrance on the side of the mall.
As he started walking over the employee entrance door there was a person at the door already "Yo! Open the door we need to get inside quick!" he shouted out to the man. There was no response from the man but a few seconds after, the man spun around and lurched toward him he fired once and hit the man in the chest he fell backwards but was not down for good. He walked slowly toward the zombie as it started to get up, this time he had better aim and blew the head straight off the zombies neck. Taking a quick look around the surrounding to double check if there were anymore zombies he unlocked the door and went inside. the employee entrance seemed to be untouched no barricades no overturned tables 'too bad there is nothing of use here' he thought to himself as he went looking through the room.
He was walking quietly through the corridor heading to the main lobby of the mall when he heard footsteps around the corner. He took a few steps back and crouched down aiming the shotgun upwards to get a steady shot off. After a few moments there was a sliding noise as if something hit the wall and slumped slowly to the floor. Shots rang out through the mall like an explosion but they seemed to be so distant. Still crouching and ready to fire at a moments notice he said "hello? Is someone there?" but no response came from the other side of the corner. He creped around the corner and saw a corpse lying against the wall it had one of the samurai swords through the chest the cheap kind they sold on the other side of the mall for cos playing. He looked closer, this guy didn't seem to be a zombie, wonder what would possess someone to kill him. Would the rest of the people in the mall be crazy? Or perhaps it was this man that went crazy and they were forced to kill him? He paused for a moment looking around to see his killer but he didn't see anyone.
As he slowly wondered into the sporting goods store it was already ransacked. Anything of real use was already taken 'Well I guess I will have to wait till I can get some shoulder pads' he thought to himself with mild disappointment. He paused for moment as he came across two bodies in the back of the store. The tall one was about six feet tall well... he would be, if his head was still on, he also had a large bite mark on his left arm with the flab still attached and hanging off the edge of the where he had been bitten. The other was much smaller most likely a teenager around the age of 14 he seemed to have a much more painful death, his head was smashed in probably with a bat. 'OK so if they're are groups fighting for the mall, I hope that either A.)the fight is over or B.) that I choose the winning side'. In the next row over he heard what sounded like someone or something nudged into the golf clubs.
He moved slowly to the edge of row and looked into the mirror hanging off the ceiling, there was a tall slender looking woman with brown hair, she was covered in blood and was holding a wooden bat while crouching on the floor rocking in place. "Hey miss I am sane and not a zombie or soon to be one. I want to ask you a few questions" he said in a very gentle voice. "Who are you!? What side are you on!?" she replied.
"I am Alex, and I am not on any side I just got here." Still trying to sound as gentle and friendly as possible.
"You shouldn't lie like that especially now. You couldn't have just arrived our group had already blocked all entrances there is no way you could get in. You know if you keep lying people might just kill you! What side are you on tell me the truth!" She yelled. Her body started to tense up.
"Are you sure you blocked ALL ways in?"
"Yes! I saw each one!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes! I saw every fucking entrance they were all blocked! Now stop playing games and tell me before I come over there and bash your fucking head in too!"
"Well apparently you didn't even look at the employee entrance everything there is still where it was when I saw it this afternoon during my break."
"The employee entrance? You work here?" She started to relax again.
"Well not in this store exactly but yes I work in the apparel department as a cashier I know it's kind of a pansy job" He said with a light chuckle.
"So you don't know what's going on?" she said.
"Well I saw the people who started this whole mess and the dead guy out there with the sword in his chest along with the two in here who I am assuming is your handy work"
"I only killed two of them! The one with the sword killed Jacob he took his head clean off so I put it through his chest and as for the teenager he was a going insane so I smashed his head in." She stood up.
"So you were saying about the groups? Who are they? Where are they and why are they fighting?"
"We were one group at the start of this we took this place and barricaded it, raided the important stores and forced out or killed any worker that wouldn't join us. Right after we finished barricading the entrances a fight broke out over what we should do and who should be our leader, Zack should be our leader he knows a lot of survival techniques and was in the army for several years where as that other guy, oh what was his name again? David I believe, he's just a gun nut, all of his answers are shoot it."
"Well then I guess I chose to join Zack's side. Can I come over to you so we can see each other?" As he started to peak around the corner.
"Yeah I guess" She started to walk slowly towards the end of the isle.
"So where is the res-" Alex started too ask but suddenly the manikin next to him went down faster than a suicidal jumper off a twenty story building after being fired. A man wearing football pads and a helmet with a crossbow "Join David or die!" he yelled as he ran away.
"That yellow belly bastard! All he fucking does is take a shot and run away, when I get my hands on him! Anyways my name is Cassandra I hope you can make yourself useful." she said with a forced smile.
"Nice to meet you Cassandra. Now as I was saying where do we meet up with the rest of your group?"
"Last I saw they were on the second floor near the gun store"
"Wait then why do you have a bat if you were at the gun store?"
"We haven't been able to get into it yet we were about to work on the lock when this whole mess started. The only guns we had was the 2 rifles Zack had but he didn't have much ammo for them" Cassandra had an annoyed look on her face.
"we done here?" Alex slung the shotgun around his shoulder and pulled out a pistol "yeah let's go meet up with Zack and the others" Cassandra replied.
They went up the stairs trying to stay as quiet as possible. "So what's with the bandannas? Do you ever take them off?"
"Well the red one is protect myself from random blood spray and the black on is for good luck" "Good luck?"
"Yeah it was my friends lucky bandanna but he wasn't home and I figured if he's not using it I could"
"So you stole it?" "Not really it's more like I'm borrowing it" "Right... well it doesn't really matter anymore I guess. They should be on the left up head."