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(Warning - Contains Extreme Violence and Filthy, Unsettling Descriptions. Dosage: To Be Taken As Prescribed)
TMNT © Nickelodeon
Hunger © Turtlefreak121
Hunger
Chapter Ten: Arsonry
By the time we reached the Lair I felt like I had just turned the channel to a soap opera half an hour in. Mike had caught me up enough to where I felt as though I knew what was happening but it still felt foreign and strange.
Strangely enough, though, this was the most my family had acted like themselves in the longest time.
I could at least take comfort in the fact that I was, for once, not the only one finding the circumstances odd and surrealistic. Mike and I had only taken a few steps into the Lair and were suddenly frozen, caught watching the drama unfold.
Leo was perpetually cast in stone. He apparently had never recovered from the initial shock of the mantle of leader being handed over by Master Splinter himself. Rather than reacting to our entry, his face remained forward, staring hard at our father.
Raphael was somewhat better. After a few moments, he looked over his shoulder. When he saw only us, he looked back to our father and rubbed his temples. He was emotionally distraught, all these surfacing responses merged together to the point that even Raph wasn't sure how he was going to respond anymore.
My attention was mostly on Master Splinter. He didn't seem too moved one way or the other. It was much more like he was extremely tired, had just woke up for the first time. That was when I noticed something I hadn't before.
This was the first time that our father had intervened with us in the Apocalypse. It was as if he was bringing back the missing sanity that only I seemed to miss.
And I have to admit, I wasn't too fond of the methods.
"I still don't get it, Sensei!" Raphael finally exploded. He turned and faced our father more directly, shaking his head in utter confusion. "You're tellin' me that I get to be leader because of some stupid game we were playin'?"
Exactly.
Call me crazy, but that didn't seem logical to me at all. And judging by the expression on Master Splinter's face, he felt the same. But there was something else in our father's eyes that told me there was some other plan at work here.
I believe I thought for everyone when I questioned what exactly that plan could have been.
"How has this game worked for the family thus far?" Master questioned collectively. He turned his head to the side expectantly. I almost felt compelled to say that it had gotten us nowhere, but Raph responded long before I could.
"I haven't done nothin' with being a leader, Master Splinter," he said lowly. "I've just kept up what we've been doin' since the beginning. Go around and bash some zombie heads in. That's it!"
I looked to Leonardo who had at last closed his mouth. That only succeeded in showing that he was lightheaded, though. I watched as he swayed, still dizzy from the shock, and found himself flat footed balance again.
I felt compellingly sorry for our leader. The team had just gone de facto and Leo was still competent to lead. Again I had to question why Master Splinter was doing this. It was the first time I had seen Raph upset over getting one over Leo.
"You do not want the position, Raphael?" Master questioned. "You have all told me that we need to leave the city under our current situation. I will not allow our fates to be questioned unless we are being led. You have all so frivolously thrown around the position of leader until this point. I am confused."
"I don't want it this way, Master Splinter!" Raph responded quickly. "We were just pretending that we were, like, playing a game. Y'know, the ones that we always have on the Gamestation. We weren't doing it to be serious. Leo's still—"
"I have already spoken with Leonardo," Master Splinter interrupted. "From what I have uncovered, he has resigned his position as leader until after this Affliction has passed."
"That's not what I meant—" Leo attempted to explain only to be silenced once Master Splinter raised his hand, signaling silence.
I almost let out a groan as everything began to make sense. This was Master Splinter's way of proving a point. He was as upset as I was about how things had worked out in the Zombie Apocalypse, not to mention this could finally bury the hatchet between Leo and Raph.
I looked to Mike for the first time since we entered the Lair and he was wearing the same expression of epiphany that I was.
There was at least the assurance that I wasn't the only one upset with the muck we were stuck in. I only wished that I could have felt better about it. Instead of that content feeling of being surrounded by the family I had missed I was lost with the fact that no one knew what to do about it.
I looked to them all and sighed as Raphael finally nodded, accepting the fact that the weight Leo had carried for so long was now on his shoulders. He swallowed and looked to our father, frowning that this was the way he received the position that he had wanted for so long.
"Okay," he said lowly. "What do you want me to do?"
Master Splinter tilted his head to the other side and seemed to think over the question himself. It had been a long time since he had to counsel Leo on this subject. He finally smiled slightly and waved his hand at all of us, pushing Raph toward us. "Lead," he responded simply.
Raph looked at us and rubbed his head before turning around, allowing Splinter to sit down and observe his work.
"Okay, fine," he said quietly, looking to each of us as if he was expecting an uprising at the announcement. He got none, though. "We're going to do this Night of the Dead style, y'know what that means, right?"
The question, of course, was given to the token non-gamer of the group. As that token, I merely sighed and nodded, rolling my eyes at how little was always expected from me. I knew it wouldn't take long after this moment of sanity for everyone to return to the crazed state we had all grown so accustomed to.
"Mike, you and I saw that place topside, pawn shop, right? It had a lot of guns and ammo," Raph continued, this time focusing on Michelangelo.
"Yeah, it's abandoned now, though I don't know how much stuff woulda been left," Mike reasoned. "We don't know if the owners left while they could or went Zombie on us. Even if they didn't take the stuff, though, I couldn't imagine the Zombie Slayers letting the place sit for long."
"Pawn shops like that would always have the best equipment under lock and key, though," Leo finally spoke up, joining the group. I smiled at him. We still needed our master strategist after all. "Don could break into a place like that easily enough. Don't you think, Don?"
"Sure, especially since the police don't respond to break ins anymore," I added.
"What's your opinion then, Leo?" Raph asked.
Mike and I looked to one another. We knew what was happening even if Raph and Leo didn't. Raph was calling the shots but in the end he needed Leo's counsel like we always did. In a way, things weren't changing so much as our group was moving from a system directed by one leader to more of an oligarchy.
This could make things interesting to say the least.
"Mike and I can position ourselves just outside the shop and keep anything outside from getting in. You and Don could get in, Don unlocks the safes, and you choose the weapons you think we'll need. We could take the Battle Shell to make sure we do it as quick as possible and take everything we want."
"Then we can talk to April and Casey about getting out of the city soon," Raph nodded. "Okay, let's do this. Don, get the van."
I groaned and did as told. I should have known better. In an oligarchy the productive members of society got to vote on what the leader should do but the lowly lay people, such as myself, who couldn't be productive were left with the grunt work. Ordered around. Pushed about.
Oh, well. I supposed I sealed my fate by choosing to keep my humanity over senseless slaughter. My bad.
There wasn't too much to complain about anyway. I got the Battle Shell ready and within minutes my brothers had joined me, Raph taking the wheel so as to run over some zombies. I couldn't ever get over the feeling of running over bodies so I couldn't do that job, let alone get us there efficiently. After eight the zombies were getting harder to avoid.
Instead I was left with my thoughts in the back when the van came to a stop. It wasn't a long drive making me question once more why the hell we took the van in the first place.
"Okay, let's move!" Raph announced as our seatbelts simultaneously began to click.
My earlier analysis that the Apocalypse's scenario had become ever more present in the fact that everyone and their grandmother was suddenly a zombie became strikingly apparent. We leaped out of the Battle Shell to find that despite my newly ordained brother's homicidal driving the van was already surrounded by a horde.
In proper response, a chorus of the alarmed calling of "shit" passed through the mouths of all four of us.
"We'll help ya out some," Raph growled as he produced his Sai, true to form, and attempted to take up Leo's left side.
As per usual this left me with the horrendous task of taking up the right phalanx which, under non-Apocalyptic scenarios, would have been okay. At that time, however, it merely left me surrounded by zombies drooling around me while I lovingly referred to them in my thoughts as poor Sheeple who couldn't help their cannibalistic nature brought on by a raging Affliction of Swine Flu.
Fortunately, where Raph seemed to falter in leadership, Leo regained some of his old sensibility and shook his head. He pointed toward the pawn shop's door.
"No, stick with the plan. Mike and I can hold off these guys," Leo stated in the remnants of his authoritative state. It was enough for Raph and, to be honest, was enough for me to start moving toward the store.
Leo and Mike took care of the rotting animated corpses and I would have been more impressed had it not been that they were numb from the neck up and moving at the pace of a newborn sloth. I digress, though. They were risking their lives after all.
"Woulja look at this?" Raph chuckled as he looked around. "It really is like a damn video game. Everything's left in perfect condition, right in the open, and all ya need to do to get to it is bust open some glass. Who woulda thunk it?"
Certainly not me, though, the constant reminders of video game cliché continued to bother me. If this world was becoming so much like a video game, when would the unsatisfactory ending come into play? Or the tragic decision to leave a man behind because he was one of them?
Why couldn't this have been more like a certain music video about zombies rather than actual horrific experiences with them? I think I could have settled for that more than I could have this ammoral world of violence and gore.
Without much more incentive, Raph began to burst open the glass cases of the gun racks and ammunition stocks. It, of course, triggered a multitude of alarms but, hey, it's not like we were knocking to be nice anyway.
On and on he went, bashing and smashing for his weapons while I gathered some other useful supplies. Some of this was jewelry and what not so that, through April and Casey, we could barter later on for other needed items. Flashlights and other random assorted goods were also added to my pile when Raph came over and grinned at me.
"You found the safe?" I said expectantly.
"Oh, hell yeah."
"Need help getting it open?"
"Hell yes."
I sighed and looked to him. I couldn't help but relate the expression on his face to that of our old, childhood innocence and excitement. Well, at least I would if it wasn't for the fact he was holding two assault rifles in his arms which gave the expression a much more psychotic look than anything else.
"Fine, take me to it," I grimaced before following him to a back room which looked much more like the walk-in refrigerator in April's old apartment than it did anything else. There was a simple padlock on it and I shook my head. "That's it?"
"Yeah, what of it?" he said in cold response to my sarcasm. "Can you open it or not, egg head?"
"Anyone can open it!" I snapped before pointing to the padlock. "It's not an actual safe lock. I bet you it's no more related to the lock on that door than it is to you or me. You could shoot it off and get the same result—"
I should have known better than to even mention it.
That instant his rifle was cocked, aimed, and fired right before my face and the electronic device burst open with a spew of sparks. I blinked a few times and he grinned at me.
"Thanks for the suggestion," he said before swinging the weapon over his shoulder. "I knew I brought you along for a reason."
Rolling my eyes, I muttered how senseless this was to myself again and waited as Raph entered and laughed. "What kinda back room deals was this place running? There's more machine guns and big ammo in here than I know what to do with."
Sighing, I figured he and Mike would figure out something or another to do with it all considering they'd be the only ones using them. Changed as he might have been, Leo wasn't goingg to be using a gun any time soon though he might encourage us to do so. I wasn't going to get any more involved with this nonsense than I already was so I was out of the question.
Yet, as usual, we were goin to all maintain ourselves and survive. I knew that much at least.
We packed up what was left in the store and made our way back outside where our awaiting brothers and a few surrounding piles of finally resting corpses surrounded us. They helped us load up and hop in and I began to feel strangely sick to my stomach.
It was not because I was sick or saddened by the sight of so much death but rather I found myself thinking something I never thought I would.
I thought to myself, About time someone put these bastards to rest.
…
A/N: PLOT POINTS
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