As they walked out of the gun store Kendo looked at his companion and said "Let's take the car. We'll get there faster."

John looked back to Kendo and replied "I'd rather not. It's maybe more dangerous and longer but we will also be forced to pay more attention to our surroundings and can find an escape quicker than were we in a vehicle.

"Hmm, it makes some sense but I still think we should take it." Kendo said.

"Be my guest, you travel with me as long as you want to. I force you to do nothing." John said as he started to walk just a little north and behind the station.

Kendo looked at his blazer and then back in the direction that John was headed. "Hey wait up!" He yelled as he struggled to catch up.

They walked along the back of the station, hearing the constant moaning of the undead around the station. They finally made it to Warren street, which was named for the former mayor of the city, Michael Warren. From here they headed south back to Ennerdale. John walked along the wall next to the station and leaned out to see a large crowd of zombies trying to get in the gate.

"Okay, There are a lot of them just outside of the gates. If we run across the street maybe we can get over there without them sensing us." John said.

"Okay, we going to go at the same time?" Kendo asked.

"No, I'll run across and when I give you the signal, you run." John explained.

"Alright, let's get a move on then." Kendo said.

John looked again and seeing it was clear, sprinted across the street and hid in a small alleyway. He drew his gun and made sure it was clear before holding two fingers up giving Kendo the signal to run. Kendo dashed across as quick as his body would allow him and luckily the undead did not see them.

"Okay, take a second to rest because we are going to head east from here to the next alley." John said as Kendo leaned against the wall.

When Kendo had rested and was ready to continue, John sent Kendo first with John bringing up the rear. A couple of zombies near the gate saw them, let out a moan and started to move toward them.

"Go, go, we are about to have company." John said as he rushed Kendo to the alley.

As John turned the corner to see ten of the undead in a group. They looked up in the duo's direction and started to moan.

"We already have some." Kendo said.

As Kendo raised his shotgun to fire John put his hand on the top of it and said "Wait, watch for anymore coming down the street and let me know. We don't want to attract the attention of the rest of the horde."

John holstered his gun and drew his sword. He walked forward a few steps and thrust the sword into one's head and slashed out with a large portion of it's brain and head coming with it. He readied himself and slashed through three walking side-by-side with the torsos falling to the ground. John swung again and cut the head of two more clean off. John made another thrust into one's head taking out the one behind it as well. The last continued to come at John and he put it down with a diagonal slash. The three torsos that had fallen to the ground started to move crawling along toward them.

"Damn, look at that. They just keep coming, even after being separated from their legs." Kendo said looking away from his post for a brief moment.

John walked over without uttering a word and brought the sword down on each one's head and then walked over the one with the diagonal slash and finished it off.

"Okay, let's go. It's not much farther now." John said as he sheathed the weapon and looked back to Kendo.

"You didn't just find that sword did you?" Kendo asked.

"You are a traveling companion, nothing more. I never asked you about your background aside from who you were and I would appreciate the same." John said continuing on.

"Okay then. I won't pester you anymore about it." Kendo said.

"Good, I would prefer it that way." John said.

They walked to the end of the alley and turned left. The school was straight across from them on the otherside of the street. John leaned against the building to his right and peeked around the corner.

"Okay, there are a few but not as many as there were at the station. We could probably take a slower pace now." John said.

John led the way across the street and toward the entrance to the L-shaped school. The football field was right on the corner of the street. On the field was a helicopter with other survivors on it. The blades were spinning as it was getting ready to take off.

"Hurry, Kendo. It's getting ready to leave! Let's go!" John yelled back as Kendo trailed behind him.

John started running and hit the fence. He started to run to his right toward a path that led to the parking lot and an entrance to the field nearby. He made it to the gate and ran though just as the chopper started to lift off.

"Hey wait! We are humans! Stop!" John yelled trying to get their attention. He could see survivors looking out of the chopper down at him as was passing over him.

Kendo finally caught up and looked at the chopper until it was no longer in view.

"Well, I suppose we should just go back and try to go to the stadium then?" Kendo asked looking at John.

"Let's look around here and see if we can find anything useful." John said as the started walking back toward the gate.

"What could we possibly find here of use?" Kendo asked turning in John's direction.

"There is the possibility of finding you a melee weapon here. Something a tad quieter than your gun." John said.

"These are the only weapons I need. They can take can of anything that comes our way." Kendo said with a smile.

John stopped and turned to face Kendo. "What about when you run out of ammo and I will also say that silence is better than an instant kill at times. On that note go to the gym and try to find an aluminum baseball bat, if you can't find one a wooden one will do. If you still can't find one, try to find something that won't break easily."

"I thought that you wouldn't force me to do anything?" Kendo said.

"I won't, but if you don't come back with a melee weapon then we part ways. You choose." John yelled back to Kendo as he walked out of the gate and was looking straight at the school.

John walked to the main entrance of the school and opened the large double doors. Inside on the left wall were trophies from the wins that the schools soccer team had won. On the right side was the office and nurse's station. He drew his gun, opened the door slowly and walked inside. Seeing that it was clear the walked back to the nurse's office and started to look though the office for some first aid supplies. He opened the umbrella emblazoned first-aid box on the wall and got out two rolls of gauze, some alcohol pads, the needles, some band-aids and a bottle of alcohol. He took off the belt, set it and the gun on the desk and opened the back pouch. After putting the supplies inside, he zipped it back up, put the belt back on and grabbed his gun.

"Okay, One more place to check." John thought as the walked back though the office and out to where he started.

He walked around the corner toward the classrooms saw off the right a map of the school. He started looking over the map.

"Ah ha." John said as he found what he was looking for and walked to the stairwell on the northern end of the building. He headed up to the third floor. He opened the door and looked down the hall. It was clear and he started down the hallway searching for his destination.

He kept a steady pace and almost passed the room he was looking for before he realized what the was. He looked in the door and saw the chemistry lab. He opened the door and walked back to a wooden door at the back of the room. He jiggled the doorknob but it didn't budge. He holstered his gun, rammed his shoulder into the door while holding on the the knob to keep it from breaking anything behind the door.

Inside was one of the undead. John backed out of the small room into the lab and drew his sword. He kept backing up far enough to lure it out into the open. He cut the zombies' head clean off of it's body and sheathed his sword. He stepped over the body and back into the room. Inside were various chemicals and reagents. John perused the selection and picked out a few chemicals and took them out into the classroom. He went back inside to retrieve some test tubes and eyeglasses and got to work.

After about thirty minutes, He finished what he wanted to. He went back into the small room and came out with some small cork tops. He put them in the tops of the test tubes and put the vials into a small pocket made for grenades on his belt. He patted them gently.

"Thank you, Joesph." John thought to himself as he walked out of the classroom to go and find Kendo.

Meanwhile, As Kendo went to the gym to find a melee weapon.

"Dammit, I still don't see why he wants me to find a melee weapon. My guns can handle anything and what was up with him being such a hardass." Kendo grumbled to himself.

After watching John head toward the school, Kendo went out of the same gate, headed south to the end of the chainlink fence and east to a large building separate from the main building. Kendo knew that this was the gym because his nephew had been on the soccer team.

Kendo walked to the door and pulled on the handle. He looked around to see any sign of life because he felt like he was about to commit a crime. Not seeing anyone, he took the butt of his shotgun and broke the window in the door. He reached inside, pushed the handle in his direction and opened the door. He walked inside the building, walking slowly and searching for any zombies that may have made it inside.

He walked past a trophy case showing of pictures of the teams from past classes and stopped to look at the most recent.

"Mikey, I am glad you and your dad are safe." Kendo said.

Kendo was comforted by the fact that his brother Joe and his family had decided to go to the beach for a couple of months after Joe's son, Michael, had graduated. They were able to go because the Kendo brothers had an extremely good year with all of the money they raked in with the approval of the Samurai Edge by the Raccoon Police Department. Word was that even more S.T.A.R.S. Units around the country were considering using it as their official sidearm which would rake them in even money and on top of that national notoriety.

He walked down and opened one of the sets of double doors of the right side of the case. He walked into the large gym and basketball hoops on both sides of the gym with a large picture of the team's mascot, Buzzy The Bee, underneath the laminated floor. He walked to the other end of the gym and opened the doors that led down to the boy's locker room. He walked down the flight of steps and came to the end of the room. The went down the hall to his right slowly jiggling the doorknobs on the left which would not budge, and continued on.

After he got to the end of this hallway he turned right and heard showers running over the wall to his left. He turned the corner and didn't see anything on the benches down the hall. Kendo opened the door on his right and saw that it was the laundry room for the boy's side of the gym. He continued up the hallway to opened the next door. Inside the room it was pitch black. He reached over and felt around for the light switch revealing that this was the equipment storage room. He walked further inside looking for a baseball bat, preferably metal, like John had recommended.

To his right was a cart with basketballs and on his left was a shelf that stored all of the team's baseballs and extra mitts. He walked further down to find a rack full of both aluminum and wooden baseball bats.

He put his shotgun strap on his shoulder and took one of the metal bats down off of the rack. He swung it a couple of times and then heard moaning behind him. He turned around to see one of the undead behind him with it's arms outstretched dressed in a towel.

"Okay, lets see how this melee thing works out." Kendo said as he raised the bat ready to swing.

The zombie got within his range and Kendo swung with all of his might. The creature's head went flying out of the door and Kendo stood there for a second looking at the head and would have stood there longer if the headless corpse had not tried to grab him. He took the end of the bat and shoved it into the torso of his assailant and pushed it away. After he managed to get the corpse off of him it fell to the ground, dead again. He walked over to the head to see that it's was a teenager's head and couldn't help but feel sorry for it as it batted it's eyes twice and finally ceased it's weak moans.

"I really am glad you are gone Mikey, because I don't now if I would have been able to do this to you." Kendo said.

He got up and walked to the end of the wall, peeked around the corner and saw that there was a large opening in the wall at the end. He walked slowly down the wall to the end and saw that it was the boy's shower. The water was running from all of the showers and in the corner were three zombies feeding on a barely discernible teen's corpse. They had long since cleaned out the abdomen and were working on the arms and pulling all of the skin off of the head.

They continued eating and then one looked up to see Kendo, who was almost petrified by the sight, and started moaning. The first one that had noticed him got up and started walking in his direction. The other two looked in his direction and also started to rise to their feet and shuffle toward there next meal. Kendo stood there motionless and as a tear dropped from his eye he snapped back to consciousness. He realized where he was and started swinging at the zombies. He hit the first one in the head and knocked it down. He hit the next one over the head, caving in the zombie's head. He swung at the last one's torso knocking clean off and back against the wall.

Kendo walked over to the first one that he had knocked down and gave it two hard swipes to the head to make sure it wouldn't get back up. The corpse that he had knocked against the wall was already crawling back toward him. He raised the bat high up in the air and hit the zombie's head until you almost couldn't tell what it was anymore. He stopped and composed himself and walked out of the shower and back down the hall from where he had come. He almost ran to the end and hit the door going out. He breathed the air, thinking that it was the best he had ever breathed even with the smell of the undead and smoke wafting though the air.

"Okay, I've got a fucking melee weapon. Now to find Mr. Hardass and get out of here." Kendo thought to him himself.

He walked from the gym to the closest entrance to the school and it was a side entrance normally used for escaping in case of fire. He looked inside and didn't see anything. He broke the window with the bat, reached inside and opened the door. He walked inside and continued past some classrooms. He reached the end of the hall and turned left. He continued down the hall looking in the classrooms trying to find John which wasn't the easiest task with the lights flickering.

"I sure hope he isn't dead and I am just wasting my time." Kendo thought to himself.

He passed a few more doors and he heard a slight sound like a clicking sound, It reminded him of a giant bug. He looked behind him and didn't see anything and continued on. I managed to make five or six more steps and he heard it again, this time it was longer and continued for a few seconds even after he had stopped.

"Oh, shit." Kendo said as he started running.

The clicking sound started going at full speed toward Kendo. He figured it was coming from up in the ceiling tiles. He ran for about a minute when he realized he was not going to be able to get away. He threw his bat at the tiles and a leg popped down and then quickly retreated back into the ceiling. He took the shotgun off of his shoulder and fired a shot. The tiles where he fired the shot fell to the floor in pieces. He pumped it and fired again at some tiles closer to him. Just as he pumped it again and brought the gun up to fire, the tile above his head fell out and hit him on the head. As he has trying to get his composure and reached to grab his dropped gun, two arms with claws on the end came down out of the hole above him and grabbed him up.

"What the fuck is this shit!" Kendo yelled.

The creature opened it's maw which consisted of an upper jaw and two mandibles that resembled a spider's fangs but were turned upward. As it hissed the tendrils hanging out of it's mouth were violently shaking. As it was about to plunge it jaws into Kendo's head when from behind it a shot rang out. The creature dropped it's prey to the floor as it let out a loud shriek in pain and tried to grab at it's lower back. Kendo sat there for a minute until he heard someone yelling from down the hall behind the creature.

"Move Kendo! Get the hell out of there!" The voice said.

Kendo got up and started to run toward the voice. As he got closer he managed to see who it was. It was John. Kendo felt a rush of relief come over him until he felt the rush of a bullet fly past his head. He ducked down fearing another one would fly over.

"Get the fuck down here! I'm not going to hit you!" John yelled at him.

Kendo had his doubts but got up and started running again. Another shot flew by his head but this time he kept running. He heard the creature still screeching. The next sound he heard was a thump fall to the ground and the screeching stop. He stopped and looked at the body laying in the floor.

"You alright?" John asked as he came up behind Kendo.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm all right. Thanks man." Kendo said breathless.

"Wait, you have a couple of blood marks on the backs of your shoulders. We are going to have to take care of that before you lose too much blood. Take off your shirt." John said gruffly.

Kendo took the suspenders off of his shoulders pain running though his arms now that John had brought attention to the wound. John reached in the first-aid pack and got out the bottle of alcohol, one roll of gauze, and four band-aids. Kendo took off his shirt and held it in his hands while John started to patch up the wounds.

"How bad is it?" Kendo asked.

"Not too bad, any deeper and you would have needed stitches, but you'll be okay." John said as he took off the top of the bottle.

He poured it on the wound and Kendo jumped.

"Hey, be careful will ya." Kendo said as he turned his head to see John out of the corner of his eye.

"Listen, I'm not going to baby you. It's not that bad, be thankful it wasn't worse." John quickly replied.

"Yeah, well it still hurts." Kendo said.

John tore into the package of gauze and ripped it midway.

"Here, hold this for a second." He said as he handed the gauze to Kendo.

He wrapped it tightly around Kendo's arm and took two of the band-aids and tape it to Kendo's skin. He did the same for the other arm but Kendo seemed more receptive when John poured the alcohol on the other wound.

"Okay, it's done put your shirt back on." John said when he was finished and stowed away the rest of the supplies.

Kendo put his shirt back on and slipped his suspenders back on. He followed John down to the creature's corpse and looked at it. It was brown but it looked like it's skin was ripping was it's muscles bulged out. It also had really fine hairs on it's body and another one of it's features was it had a total of six limbs, four arms and two legs.

"What the hell is it?" Kendo asked as he looked down on the creature.

"Hmm, well it looks like some sort of insect, maybe a flea of some sort." John said as he was crouched down over the creature.

"What makes you think that it's a flea?" Kendo asked as he walked over to the creature's body.

"Well, look here. See how the bottom legs are the thickest? A flea uses it's bottom legs to jump as high as it does, so it's untelling how high and far one of these can jump. It's also got these really fine hairs all over it's body. The biggest change is these large mandibles and these claws on the arms which look like it would allow it to catch much bigger prey, you for instance." John explained.

"I've never seen any kind of flea like that before." Kendo said as he walked over to get his shotgun and ball bat.

"Neither have I." John said.

"Could it be biological warfare?" John asked himself silently.

"Hey, look at what I found." Kendo said trying to get his attention.

John looked up and saw Kendo's metal ball bat.

"Hey, I see you found one. Good job. Did it help you out any?" John asked.

"Yeah. It helped out a lot actually." Kendo said rubbing the back of the head in embarrassment.

"See I told you it helps." John said.

Then they heard another clicking sound in the ceiling.

"Great, It's another one of those things." Kendo said as he readied himself to run.

"Wait." John said as he stopped Kendo.

This one was more bold than it's brother as it jumped down out of one the holes furthest away from them.

John aimed his gun and fired at the creature. It jumped out of the way but John already had it in his sights again. This shot hit and the monster lied on the ground, writhing in pain. John opened the compartment on the front of his belt for grenades and pulled out a little purple vial. He threw it near the creature and the vial busted, exploding and finishing off the creature.

"What was that stuff?" Kendo asked John with jaw dropped down.

"It's just a little mixture of chemicals. Just trust it can kill almost anything in our way." John said.

"How in the hell do you know all of this stuff?" Kendo asked.

"I read, a lot." John said.

"So you learned how to shoot a gun, swing that sword and make explosives all from books?" Kendo asking with a doubting look on his face.

"Yep, I learned the basics then switched to actual practice." John replied.

"Okay, whatever." Kendo said.

"Believe whatever you choose let's head to the office." John said.

"Why?" Kendo asked as he started following John.

"Why? Because we need a relatively safe place to come up with a strategy before anymore of those things show up, so let's move it." John said as he headed down the hall.

"I don't think there are anymore. We would have seen them by now, besides I think they might be afraid of you." Kendo said.

"I think not. If they are related to fleas then there are more because fleas live in packs and rarely ever do you see one without there being more. I also don't think they really care if I have explosives or not because we run into ten or more that's it." John said without missing a beat.

"Do you have to ruin every compliment?" Kendo said as he swallowed the lump in his throat.

"Sorry, I just try to think realistically." John said as he turned to face Kendo.

They made their way to the office without encounter. After making it inside of the office John took the map out of his back pocket and started to examine it.

"Okay, we can't head back down Ennerdale because of the horde and some may have followed us here. We have been extremely lucky to not have used many rounds so far, so I say we take the long way around and go down Fox and then west on Parade and then north on Ema back to Ennerdale and it's just a short distance from there to the stadium." John explained.

"Okay, I just hope we get to the chopper in time." Kendo said.

"We might be able to." John said as he folded up the map and put it back in his pocket.

As they headed out of the office, there was another clicking noise. This one was a bit different than the previous ones as it sounded more calculated.

John and Kendo stood outside the office watching as one ceiling tile was jiggling around, then a couple of tiles forward popped out and with a creature that resembled the others but was different. It had muscles bulging like the others but this one had parts of an exoskeleton as well. The arms and it color were the same but it lacked the fine hairs of it's cousins. The head was also different as it had to heads and the large mandibles were replaced by tentacles coming out of both of it's heads.

"What the fuck?" Kendo stood there in a horrid amazement at the sight in front of him.

The creature reared up of it's back legs and started to sound like it was trying to clear it's throat. Out of one of it's mouths came spewing forth a big green ball of goo headed in Kendo's direction. Kendo still stood there speechless even the goo was flying closer. Just as it was about to hit the man in the face Kendo felt someone tackle him and they fell into the office. Kendo came to his senses and saw that it was John who tackled him.

John got up off Kendo and peeked out of the door to see the creature still standing there. It started to clear it's throat again and he quickly ducked his head back inside. The spit flew into the office and the goo hit the secretary's desk. It started to sizzle and slowly started to melt away. John looked back out to see it again and fired a couple of shots, of which both missed. The creature fell back to the ground and leaped to the front of the office and started to look down on John. He brought up his magnum to fire but the monster promptly knocked it out of his hands.

John made a sneer ready to tackle the creature and try to stun it but as he readied himself to do so the creature's head exploded. John looked back and saw Kendo with his shotgun aimed at where the creature's head used to be.

"Glad to see you join us." John said.

"Sorry, I just blanked out." Kendo said as he lowered his gun.

"You need to start paying more attention. Neither one of us wants to die just yet. John said as he walked over to get his gun.

"It's just I never expected things like these to exist." Kendo said.

"Neither did I but we have to adjust and think on the fly because these things won't allow us to think before we make our next move." John said as he holstered his gun.

"Alright, I will pay more attention." Kendo said apologetically.

"Come on, let's get out of here and head to the stadium." John said as he opened the door to go outside.