An Unexpected Development

Challenge 1- Zombie!Columbus

Fire: What would the gang do if they found out they couldn't kill an infected Columbus? Would they keep him? Would they leave him? Would they settle down? Would they keep him in the back of the truck? Would they feed him fresh meat or road kill? Is there a difference? Does he stay violent and vicious? Or does he mellow out over time? Does Columbus get better?

Randa: For this challenge we'd like to see those questions answered. In our heads it went that they kept him, fed him fresh meat, and that he gets better, but the writer that wants to take this on can do as they please..

Ice: We won't deny that we're slash fans, however none of our challenges will have set pairings.

Wonton: Although we wouldn't mind seeing more Tally/Columbus action in this section

Fire: And now, without further ado, here's how we would start this story off.


All of them were shocked. All of them were fixated on the wound oozing blood from Columbus' neck. It was hard to believe that the one who was the most careful was the first of their four to receive this death sentence. Columbus was turning white-though they couldn't tell if that was from blood loss or from fright or maybe a mixture of both. Tallahassee was a scrambled pot of anger and grief. Even Tallahassee himself couldn't tell if that anger he was feeling was for himself for not being able to do anything or Columbus for being careless enough to be bitten in the first place. Wichita was a dump of so many emotions that she was hard to decipher. Little Rock, however, was close to tears. Columbus was her brother; someone she knew wouldn't laugh if she went to him when she had a nightmare. He wouldn't look at her like she was stupid or blasphemous if she didn't know something from the world before. But when she saw Columbus' breaths starting to come in shorter and faster, she immediately whipped the butt of her riffle across his temple.

Both her sister and Tallahassee looked at her shocked as Columbus dropped to the ground. All she could do was shrug before she spoke. "He didn't need to hear that none of us could shoot him or even the beforehand that he needed to be shot at all." The young girl was entirely remorseless.

"That doesn't mean you had to belt him in the head." The older girl spoke up. Little Rock rolled her eyes.

"He was going to knock himself out anyway," She told them.

Tallahassee gave her a hard look, but said nothing about her actions. "Now we just gotta figure out who gonna do the deed."

Little Rock gave an exasperated sigh. "None of us are going to shoot him, stab him, or bury him alive." Tallahassee looked affronted at this, as if Little Rock was challenging his manliness. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not sayin' it like I wanna die to, cause I don't, but none of us has the balls to actually shoot him dead."

Both Wichita and Tallahassee looked majorly miffed at the young teen's words, but at the same time they knew that it was the truth. Even with all the effort Tallahassee put into keeping them all distant from each other, it was just wasted effort. Wichita even had to agree that the four of them were closer than family, Columbus was their oil in their shifting gears, and now the boy was as good as gone. Truthfully it had been him and all of his stupid rules that had kept them all alive this long—although they only listened to him about a quarter of the time.

"So what?" Wichita finally spoke out in a dry tone. "We just leave him here because we couldn't put him out of his misery?"

"Well we don't have any proof so far that they never get better." Little Rock's eyes were full of hope right now. "If we could keep his neck wound from getting infected and keep him from hurting himself even more, then maybe he'll get better."

Tallahassee heaved a large sigh, catching on to what Little Rock wanted. "We're gonna have a lotta in front of us if we're gonna keep the Spitfuck."

At that moment they were all in agreement. They didn't know if what they were going to do would be the best idea, or if it was even the most humane, but Little Rock had hope and her older companions couldn't take that away from her.


Fire: And that's what we're giving you.

Ice: If you want to use this, or start off on a completely new slate, we say go for it.

Wonton: The only thing we ask is that you drop us a line when you start it up.

Randa: Next up is Second Chances.