Ch. 2: Verlene Willis
"Hey, slowpoke, come on!" Simone Ravendark yelled, running ahead of Verlene and into Players in Paradise Plaza.
"Coming!" Verlene said, taking one last look around the plaza. The whole place seemed really empty. There were very few people in it and even most of the employees were gone. What worried her most though, was that she was supposed to meet Cheryl here an hour ago.
She rushed into Players and saw Simone already at the counter, paying for a CD.
"Hey, you finally arrived!" Simone said grabbing a bag a walking toward her. "If you want to look, hurry up the mall closes in half an hour."
"No, let's go," Verlene said.
They walked into Entrance Plaza and Verlene decided to go into Ladies Space.
"Hey, Simone, actually I do want to go into Ladies Space really fast, I saw a this really cute sweater in there yesterday," she said, heading toward the escalator.
"Okay. I'm gonna go so I'll see you tomorrow," Simone said, heading to the front doors.
"Alright, later," Verlene said waving to her.
She went into the store, bought the sweater and left. As she was walking past Robsaka Digital, she overheard the news caster say that there had been a small riot near the edge of town.
Verlene backtracked past the store, but the newscaster had moved on to another story. She walked into the store and asked the cashier if he knew anything about the riot.
"Yeah, It happened right down by the river. Apparently there were two groups of people fighting. They were both attacking each other, but one of them overtook the other. I heard there were almost ninety five deaths," he explained.
"Oh, thank you," she said her voice shaking. Her breathing got faster, and she was starting to sweat.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked coming out from behind the counter.
"My friend lives by the river, I need to call and see if she's okay!" Verlene said, thinking the worst had happened to Cheryl.
"Oh yeah, here," he said handing her the phone from behind the counter.
She dialed Cheryl's number and put the phone to her ear. The phone rang, and then Verlene got Cheryl's voice mail.
"Hey this is Cheryl! Leave a message! Oh, and if it's you Ray, go away and stop calling me!"
"Hey, Cher it me Verlene, I heard about the riot and was wondering if your okay. Call me back," Verlene said, her voice shaking badly and tears swelling in her eyes. She handed the phone back to the guy and ran out of the store. She ran to her car, started it up and drove off toward Cheryl's apartment.
She arrived ten minutes later and saw that the apartment buildings were completely torn up, as were the roads around them. Cars were piled up in the middle of the road, and a large food trucks delivering goods to Seon's Food and Stuff had crashed into a wall and was now burning.
The buildings, however looked worse. There were tons of broken windows, the front doors had been ripped off, there were bodies and blood all over the ground and splattered all over the buildings.
Verlene looked over all of this in horror. Before she knew what she was doing she was running into the nearest building and up the stairs. At every body she passed she stopped to look at it to make sure it wasn't Cheryl. She finally reached Cheryl's apartment on the top floor. The door was gone and had been thrown down the hall.
Verlene ran into the apartment and stared around it in horror. The couch was covered in blood, the carpet was torn up, the TV was in pieces. She ran into Cheryl's bedroom and saw the bed was also covered in blood and there was an empty handgun on it. The nightstand was a pile of splintered wood, and there were pieces of Cheryl's ceramic lamp all over. She walked into the bathroom and saw the bloody, shattered mirror, the window was also broken, and the toilet had a huge chunk missing from its side and water was covering the floor.
Verlene ran out and decide to look in the kitchen for any sign of her friend. She walked in and saw knives strewn all over the floor, and the refrigerator was on its side. Verlene saw a leg sticking out from under it, and thinking it was Cheryl, ran toward it. She tried everything she could to move the refrigerator, but nothing worked. After half an hour of pushing and pulling at the refrigerator, she finally gave up.
"Oh, Cheryl! I can't believe this!" she cried. She stared at the leg, remembering all the good times she and her had had together. All the times they'd gone shopping, their first double date, the time Cheryl had accidentally pushed Verlene into one of the moats in Paradise Plaza, and how Verlene had gotten her back by pushing her into the fountain in Al Fresca Plaza.
After a while of sitting in the ruined kitchen, Verlene decided she had to get home, in case the rioters came back.
She got in her car, and had turned it on when she saw a man slowly walking toward her. At first she thought he had survived, then as she got out of her car to walk to him, she saw he had glowing red eyes, and his right arm was missing.
"Oh my god," she whispered as she backed toward her car. He lunged forward as she stumbled into her car. She started it, took one last look at him and the surrounding area, and drove away as fast as she could.
But during her last look at the buildings and the creature, she failed to notice a small, but most important detail, Cheryl's purse was hanging from the mirror of her car, with a little white paper sticking out of it. That paper had Verlene's name on it, and had she noticed it, she would have known exactly where Cheryl was.
As Verlene drove from the scene of the riot, her mind was racing. She couldn't stop thinking about Cheryl, or that the riot might have moved to another part of town. And what would happen to Simone?
She was so deep in thought, she didn't notice the flashing red light signaling her car was out of gas until it slowed down and stopped.
"Damn it!" she yelled.
She got out of the car. She was about to call someone to pick her up when she heard a loud moaning noise and the sound of many shuffling feet behind her. She turned around and saw many of the same creature with glowing red eyes she had seen at Cheryl's apartment.
"Zombies," she whispered, finally realizing what they were.
One of them lunged at her, making her fall into the front seat of her car. They all shuffled toward and started squeezing themselves into the small car, hoping to be the first to get a bite of this delicious looking young woman.
She scrambled over the front seat and onto the passenger side, where she opened the door and ran out.
She fled down the street, frantically looking for a place to hide. There was nowhere she could go. The zombies were pouring out of shops, houses, cars, and even the sewers. She ran around in a blind panic, looking for anywhere she could go, anything she could use as a weapon.
She was about to give up when she saw something at the end of the road. Zombies were falling over. As she looked further, she saw the hood of a cherry red convertible coming her way.
She ran to the nearest car, an overturned blue van and got on top of it and started waving her arms.
"Help! Help! I'm over here!" she yelled, her arms flailing madly.
The car came closer and she saw it was being driven by a man about her age. He stopped next to the van and looked up at her, and got out. He took out a baseball bat and started hitting away the approaching zombies.
"Get something out of the backseat of my car and start killing," he ordered.
She jumped down and ran to the convertible. She reached in and grabbed a 2x4 and started whacking away zombies.
Half an hour later, there were massive piles of dead zombies around the car.
"Thank you for coming over here to get me," she said, wiping sweat off her forehead.
"No problem," he said, wiping blood off his hands.
"Well, we better get going before more come," he said pointing to more slowly approaching from around the dead ones.
They got into the car and started driving. It looked like they weren't going anywhere in particular, just driving a running zombies over in the process.
"I'm Mark Quemada," he said, as a zombie hit the windshield and flew over the car.
"I'm Verlene Willis," she said.
"So, how did you manage to get stuck in this hell hole?" he asked.
"I heard there were riots by the river and my friend lives down there. I went to check on her, but she's dead. Then my car died. I'd be dead if you hadn't come along," she said. Then she added, "I should have just stayed in the mall."
"That's a great idea!" Mark exclaimed.
"What is?" she asked.
"Go to the mall," he said. "We can hide out there until this all blows over."
He turned out onto the nearest street and headed toward the mall.
After a while of driving a great big stone wall loomed up ahead of them.
"Right, they closed off the parking lot to Leisure Park," he said.
He was about to back up and turn around when he saw a sturdy looking board leaning against the wall. Instead he backed up a little, then slammed his foot on the gas. They sped toward the board.
"Mark, what are you doing?" she asked.
He didn't answer, but kept speeding toward the board.
"Mark! Mark! Stop! Your gonna kill us!" she screamed.
As soon as her sentence was finished, they were in the air, sailing above the parking lot.
Verlene screamed. The only thought going through her head was I don't want to die here!
The car hit the ground hard, sending both her and Mark flying up out of their seats. Verlene unbuckled and got out of the car. She stood next to the car door and puked.
"Are you okay?" Mark asked, running toward her.
"I'm fine," she said wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
"I'm sorry we had to do that, but it was the only way in," he said, patting her back as she started coughing.
Once she was sure she had finished coughing and puking, Verlene suggested they head inside.
"Good idea," Mark agreed.
Together they walked toward the doors to Paradise Plaza.
They entered through the front doors and Verlene looked around the familiar plaza.
"I'm gonna go get some weapons," he said to Verlene. "You get material to make a barricade with.
He headed toward SporTrance. Verlene headed down the plaza to get some benches. She noticed Players and walked into the same store Simone had dragged her into not 8 hours ago. Suddenly she heard a noise, like people talking.
"Mark!" she called. "Mark come quick!"
"What is it? Are you okay?" he asked looking over the railings of Columbian Roastmasters.
"Yeah, I'm fine, but I think there are other people here!" she yelled.
He appeared a moment later holding a baseball bat.
"Come on," he said beckoning for her to follow.
They walked into Entrance Plaza and sure enough there were three men talking loudly, and a woman huddled in a corner sleeping.
"Hey!" Mark yelled as he and Verlene ran toward them.
One man pointed a shot gun at him and yelled, "Stop right there. Todd, go check them out."
The other man, Todd ran over to Mark and started checking him over. After a minute of doing so he yelled, "He's clear!"
Then he came over to Verlene and started looking her over. It might have been her but it seemed as though he stared at chest a little too long.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Oh, just looking for bites," he said lamely. "She's clean too."
Everyone's face softened. The man with the shotgun came over and shook their hands. "I'm Brian Reynolds," he said. "This is Todd Mendel," he said pointing to Todd. "That's Ryan LaRosa," he said pointing to a man fussing with the barricade. "And that, is Dana Simms," he said pointing to the girl who had woken up and was now crying. "Looks like you boyfriend here woke her up. She's been hysterical since she got here. We can't shut her up."
"Leave it to me," Verlene said walking toward Dana. She kneeled down to look at her. Her eyes were puffy and red.
"There there sweetie," Verlene said giving the girl a friendly hug. Dana hugged back, crying into Verlene's shoulder, thankful to have someone to hold onto again.
"What happened?" Verlene asked as Dana finally let go.
Dana explained the party, how it was her fault Mindy was dead. How she hadn't even tried to help her. After she had finished telling it, she burst into a new round of tears.
"Shhh. Everything will be alright," Verlene said, trying to comfort her.
"No it won't, all my friends are dead!" Dana sobbed.
"No they aren't," Verlene said.
"What do you mean?" Dana asked lifting her head up.
"Well, I'm not dead am I?"
Dana smiled and hugged her new best friend. Together they sat there, talking about the invasion, their friends, and what they were going to do when the attack ended. Every time a survivor entered the mall, Dana and Verlene looked up eagerly to see if it was anyone they knew.
After hours of comforting Dana, Verlene was starting to get tired. She wanted to sleep badly, but feared Dana might go back to square one with all the crying and screaming.
At about noon a man came out into the plaza from the security entrance. Verlene and Dana looked up at him. He spoke to Ryan and then came over to them. He took a picture and continued on.
"That was weird," Verlene said.
"Yeah," Dana agreed.
Suddenly, they heard that lady, Lindsay screaming her dogs name.
"Here she goes again," Verlene heard Mark mutter.
As she looked at Lindsay, she saw she was destroying the barricade and pushing people away.
Suddenly the doors were open and zombies were streaming in. Verlene heard a man yelling from the floor above, but couldn't make out what he was saying.
She got up, took Dana by the hand, and started running.
Suddenly, a zombie lunged at Dana knocking her down and causing her to let go.
They pushed Verlene away as they tried to get to the defenseless girl.
Verlene saw the zombies overtake her. Then she heard Dana scream. A blood curling scream of pain and terror.
Verlene backed up against the opposite wall. Some zombies stayed to feast on Dana, but most were closing in around her. Suddenly, they were on her. They chewed on her, clawed at her, and in her last moment of life, she knew exactly what Dana had felt. She screamed herself, took one last attempt to escape, and died.