A/N: Oh no. BONUS for today! A reader request and our regular tale. Enjoy… Remember, the bonus feature is in an interview fashion, with italics being the interview, ala World War Z which I really recommend!

Heights Highschool
Corydon, Indiana

July 18th, 2014

[John Arbuckle lights up a cigarette, a near luxury after the war, and shakes his head at the ruins of his High School, which, as the interview is conducted, is being torn down by construction crews. This site, Iroquois Heights High School, is a sentimental place for John. This is where his war started.

So, this is it?

Yeah. Hell of a place to die, huh? If that's what you can call it, anyway. I didn't die, shit. Else I'd be moanin' and groanin' like one of them, obviously.

How did the zombies make it this far, anyway? Wasn't some kind of warning system in place? I thought the virus originated further south.

Are you joking? Look around you, man. This is Shitville. I guess the school had phones, sure, but remember, zombies were friggin moving, ya know? Hardly anyone knew, or we wouldn't even have been in school. It had to be the hospital just down the block[he gestures down the road, to a hospital that is no longer there since the…ghouls, were in those toga-things they make you wear, where your ass shows and the nurses giggle and you feel like a dumbass. You know, right?

I can't even imagine being the poor kid who first saw them. What would I have done, man? Musta thought they were, like, burn victims or some shit. I know I would have. That or they had been mauled or something. I feel like shit for saying this, but thank God it wasn't me. Yeah. Thank God, man… But can I even believe in God after this? Dunno man, dunno.

When did everyone realize what was going on, and how did they react?

Heh. You gotta be kidding. Shit, I dunno…when the "burn victims" started fucking eating people? But, uh, seriously, I guess…I remember some guy running past the class I was in – chemistry lab, we were combining some foul-smelling crap, but at least we got to play with fire – and he was just covered in blood, screaming his lungs out, "They ate him, for fuck's sake! They fucking ate him!"

One of the counselors walking through the halls, this buff black guy, about 5'10", real likeable, just tackles this kid and brings him right down, thinking this is some kind of sick prank or something. It'd almost be funny…almost. That is, if the kid wasn't being followed by like five fucking zombies.

You saw this happening?

Yeah. When I heard the screaming, I was coming out of the bathroom, and the kid was way at the other end of the hall, coming my way. Got intercepted halfway there, and I watched them coming, the first zombie I ever saw. Of course, at the time, I didn't know what to think, but, looking back on it, it's fucking terrifying.

Anyway, my first instinct is "Jesus fucking Christ, run!" And I guess that's why I lived. I know it's probably a horrible thing to say – maybe I should have tried to help, been some kind of a hero, or something – but if I'd done anything stupid, there wouldn't be much of anyone left to tell you this story.

So I run out of the school, since my class is right by the door that leads out to the parking lot, and my heart is pounding like God knows what. I guess that's what I get for not playing any sports or whatever, but I was in full-on survival mode, dude. And what really sticks out to me is that I had no idea why. To all appearances, my life wasn't in danger. I guess it's like dogs, you know? They have that zombie-sense or whatever; they can tell when Senor Zombie is in town, and start going apeshit. I ran like crazy until I got to my car – early-decade European coupe, my pride and joy – and only then did I look back. It was…hell. That's the only way I can describe it.

What was happening?

The things were pouring in. For him, it was lunchtime. Kids were pouring out, running and screaming. Some were trying to wrestle with some dead, and others, the hardcore kids, had knives that they were using to try to ward off ghouls. Lotta fuckin' good that did 'em. I must have zoned out, or something, because next thing I know, some zombies coming for me. Guess I made a pretty appetizing target in those years. Anyway, I realize I'm about a minute away from being lunchmeat, and start trying to get into my car. It was like in the fuckin' horror movies; had a case of the shakes so bad I had to guide the key into the lock with two fingers. Never bothered with those damned keyless unlock key chain whatever-the-hells. Anyway, I jump in, lock the doors, put the key in, turn her on, put my glasses on, and take off my shoe…

Why did you take off your shoe?

Hah, funny you mention it. My friends gave me shit about it, actually. I took off my shoe because I couldn't feel the pedals otherwise. I'd only been driving for about two months, mind you, and I was cautious. Been rear-ended once already, and didn't want to return the favor or anything. Now that you bring that up, I guess it's funny I remembered. In the middle of that huge shitstorm, I remembered that. Hah. Hell of a kid, I was.

Where was I, again?

Taking off your shoe, car started, glasses, et cetera.

Ah, right, right. Yeah. I throw her in reverse just as the radio comes on, and it's "Shortest Straw", by Metallica. The good old days, man. I was maybe, like, two, when the album came out. It was destiny, I guess. The song fit what everyone else was going through.

I turn around and back her out at like 30 miles an hour, slam the brakes, put her in drive, and just fuckin' book it. I tear ass for about a mile and a half, when I pass my neighborhood. Nice, affluent, upscale neighborhood. Cold, though. Neighbors didn't wave much, and their fuckin' kids would just stand out in the middle of the street, for no fuckin' reason at all.

[John goes quiet for a moment; his eyes lose focus. He talks quietly now.

I guess…I guess I shouldn't talk about 'em like that. Just kids, man. Enjoying life, and all that. And now…gone. Damn. Whatever – not worth being upset over. Not my fault.

[John takes another drag from his cigarette, and regains his confidence.

Where was I? Ah, right – the neighborhood. Positively swarming with Zs. I turn in anyway, and just floor it. I try to avoid them, but it's just not possible, since they're coming right for me. Eventually, it stops mattering, when I've got enough momentum built up. Ever seen a zombie hit by a car at 60 miles an hour?

[I shake my head.

Tears 'em in half. At this point, though, I'm beyond caring. I've got my parents and my sister to worry about. I pull up in my driveway, and my house is on fucking fire. Even to this day, I've got no idea why. I don't stay long, except to open the garage and see that the car isn't there. That's all I need to know. I run to the fridge we've got in the garage and start chucking stuff into my backpack – it was empty, since the school year was almost over – which makes it clear now that I wasn't thinking straight.

What do you mean? You've gotta have serious presence of mind to collect supplies when you know ghouls are about, and you're not even armed…

Who the hell said anything about supplies? I was stuffing frozen food, wine, mineral water, energy drinks, whatever, into that backpack. Of course, that's all we kept in the outside fridge, but still. It's not much.

So anyway, I throw the backpack into the car, hop in, and get moving again. I'm halfway down the driveway when I hear barking. I look over and see my dog, like five feet away from some Zombie. It's one of my neighbors. Nice enough lady, I guess, but like most middle-class suburban housewives, she was already sort of a zombie. Damn, now I feel bad. Fuck it. You know the type, dude. Boring-ass life, slave to fashion, played tennis. Just waiting to die, I guess. Or maybe travel the world, and then die. Depends on how their mutual funds turned out, or whatever.

Whatever. I guess that sorta lost coherence, but you know what I mean. That's how I thought; that's who I was, back in high school. I hated that, that nine-to-five lifestyle, not giving a fuck about anyone else's problems, just living for yourself, pretending to be Christian, all that shit.

Wow, did I just go on another huge tangent? Let's see…useless housewife, zombie…my house…ah, right – my dog. I hit the brakes, and open the door and just shout some gibberish: "Ayyyy! Heeyyy!" Dog runs right in.

I lock the doors, back out, put 'er in drive, and once again, we're in business. Dog is going nuts, though, in the back, running around and shit. I guess I didn't notice that much – I just hauled ass toward the city.

Wait, the city? That's where there would be more people, and thus more ghouls…

You think I considered that? If you did, you're wrong. All I knew was, my dad worked at the hospital downtown, and he didn't have a car.

But wasn't your family rather, you know, affluent?

He was disabled. Couldn't drive.

[The reason for John's fierce determination to save his father becomes clear to me.

Yeah. Anyway, I'm absolutely shredding ass down this normally crowded highway, and all I see is a few other cars hauling ass just the same – in the other direction. That's when I got that maybe, maybe this was all coming from the city. So I finally remember that I have a cell phone. I pull it out, still doing about 70, and look – no bars. What the fuck happened to the cell tower? Why would Zombies go for the fucking cell stations? They weren't that smart. Or at least it didn't seem to me. Still doesn't make sense, but what the hell. Then I see it gets one bar. Then that disappears.

I try anyway. I get him on the line, and my heart leaps into my throat. It's real choppy, and I can only make out bits and pieces. I don't remember exactly what I heard, but it was something to the effect of "Shut up and listen. We're going west. Get in your car and head towards Arkansas. We love you very much. We're all safe."

Hell of a lot for a conversation that was all chopped up.

Yeah – mind you, I didn't hear all that, word for word, but that's basically what I got.

Right. You filled in the blanks.

Exactly. So anyway, I realize that I'm heading the wrong way. I do a U-turn and start tearing ass in the other direction, following the flow of what little traffic there is. I check my gas, and thank God that I filled it up just the night before. My nerves start to calm a little from that panicked state, but they're still buzzing. I know I'm going to pass my neighborhood again, not to mention my school. I just sort of keep my eyes on the road, and accelerate a little more. I did my best to ignore the fact that I had to swerve to avoid my "classmates". A lot of them, I didn't manage to avoid. I think that will always stay with me.

I'm sorry…

Don't be. By that time, they were reanimated. I shouldn't feel bad, but it's hard to dehumanize them. I guess that's kinda ironic. We try to "put a human face on something so distinctly inhuman", as the president put it. But whatever. I survived, they didn't because they were- No, actually. They weren't stupid. They were just… Unlucky? I was lucky and they weren't. Hell, humanity was lucky to even make it through this hellstorm.

I didn't know exactly what the hell was happening. Really, I wasn't too concerned about anything but killing the zombies that were slowly progressing up the roof. I mean, between the sporadic bursts of Sheen's shotgun, the groans of the zombies and me killing them, I hardly heard the explosion from the huge bomb thingy, (Funny, never asked Jimmy what the thing was…) and only noticed that we were being lifted upwards until, well, I was being upwards!

Did I mention what I was doing? Yeah, I was doing damned fine. I was up on the roof above Jimmy's window, using the rifle. I think Jimmy was standing in front of the window, using the carbine. Libby and Carl were, surprisingly, standing right there next to Sheen shooting! They were supposed to be the wink links, y'know? But after what happened to Carl, you know… Anyways, well Sheen was doing what Sheen was born to do. I wouldn't doubt that we had, at least, eighty bodies sitting there. In a period of maybe fifteen minutes, that's pretty good!

It's like it was all just friggin taken from us, you know? We had literally just gotten back, maybe a day, from stealing that food. We had worked hard! Not just hard, like working on a paper, but risking our lives, nearly losing them on several occasions! For what now? I guarantee you that somewhere out there, you're going to find a can of soup or something sitting out there on that burnt little whisper of a town. That was us, the people who survived.

But I digress. I first noticed something was happening when a zombie, sweet little girl I knew who always showed me her dollies, was in my sights. I was feeling like a murderous son-err, daughter of a bitch, killing little girls, you know? That was before I saw her lunge for Sheen and the meat she was chewing on. Don't judge a book by its cover, etcetera, etcetera. Right when I was about to pull the trigger and end her unlife, she just… Whipped away, like she had been caught by some invisible roller coaster. I glanced behind her, and that's when I saw this, big, beautiful, fireball. The sky was all red and polluted, y'know? As if God was doing a horror set, with the tint and all. Shit, with all the fires and crap, it was like looking at the town through hell colored glasses.

I was just thrown backwards, dropping my gun in the process. I hastily grabbed onto my stolen satchel which contained most of my personal possessions, along with a lot of my survival crap. I had a good length of rope, a few cans of water and soup that I didn't show anyone else – I mean, I liked everybody and all, even loved Jimmy, but I wanted to live. You might say that's coldhearted, but that's just the way I am.- and a knife. Not much, I know, but it was all I could scrounge up. I distinctly remember the cans falling out, probably because of the satisfying thunk that I heard in the middle of a flip. Did I mention I was flipping like crazy? I never was much for thrills, and I felt like I was about to vomit and crap my pants at the same time.

After the most terrifying few seconds of my life, I remember nearly falling of a roof again, but being stopped by something, something fleshly. I blacked out for at least ten minutes, before sleepily opening my eyes. I don't know if it was from the force of hitting the roof or just being tired, but I sure as hell did faint. I should mention that I hadn't slept in a while, what, with the threat of zombie apocalypse (Which we had been referring to as zombieclypse, thanks to Sheen for his amazing mind.) on our doorstep. Yeah, I actually felt kinda good after the little nap. Then I saw it.

It was a grotesque body- no, skeleton- that was leaning over a gun, pistol to be exact. The flesh was just beginning to peel off, and I could definitely see the hole, and hell, through it. It was wearing old blue jeans, leather jacket, seemed like a pretty tough guy. All around him was exactly what we didn't have and needed. Food, weapons, water and tons of it! And yet…

I about shot it, thinking it was a zombie, but then I saw the hole. I thought, and I do to this day no matter how macabre it is, that this guy was a nutjob! I mean think- We were five kids, hardly any supplies, but we fought on. This guy had everything, could have easily survived! Yet he didn't have that one thing- That one thing that sets us apart from your run of the mill ghoul- A will to live, to survive, to keep on! We should have been the ones with the holes in our heads, goddamnit. But we wanted to live.

Anyways, enough of my social commentary. Back to the action packed plot that I know you want. I swallowed down the vomit, which had sadly returned after seeing this, and reached into my satchel to see what I had left. The rope, the knife and bottle of water. I downed about half of the water, and ate a piece of bread from the guys bag. I also grabbed the pistol, a .22 caliber, and a few clips for it. I left the big guns there; I mean I was trying to run here! But anyways, I grabbed a knife from his kit and cut down the TV antenna. My plan was pretty simple- I was going to tie it to one end of the rope and use it as a sort of grappling hook and jump roofs until I got to a car or something, maybe even the woods. I didn't know what I was thinking with either of those. I learned pretty quick that cars were a bad idea later on, and the woods… Well, I wouldn't like being chased through a forest. Imagine breaking a leg, or getting stuck at a river or lake. That would be the worst way to die, slowly being enveloped by zombies walking towards you while you can't do a thing.

Well, I tried. I quickly tied up the rope on the antenna, on the straight part. Before I did anything, I tucked a knife between my teeth like some crazy pirate and holstered the pistol. I couldn't help but think that this was going to be another 'raid the house by crossing an electric wire' type thing. With a huge heave, I threw the thing onto a house, diagonally across from the roof I was on, into a drainpipe. I pulled it a bit, to make sure it was secure, and it was. Oh how deluded I was. I used another one of the guy's knifes (Not a hunting knife. He brought silverware to a roof. SILVERWARE!) to fasten it to the roof, so I could use the rope as a type of zip line.

Grabbing onto the rope, I slowly advanced, slowly but surely.

Snap.

I jerked my head to the drainpipe. It had fallen downwards because of my weight. Suddenly, I just began sliding downwards, my hands burning like hell. I quickly shifted my weight, stopping my descent before I fell down. I was in a pretty bad position here, man. I realized my feet were hanging down, and then I felt a bristle of a head against them. These damn things surrounded me, and I was right above them! I tried my best to get my feet onto the rope, but it was pretty hard when combined with fear and weight, you know? I managed it, however, but I was tiring quickly. That's what the zombies got on you. They don't feel pain, so they don't feel fatigue. They keep on going and going until their legs are gone, and then they'll drag themselves with their hands, until finally they're just a limb free stump, still trying to get to you.

But then I heard the greatest sound ever. The roar of an engine. I didn't care who it was, even if they wanted me in there, I was ready to drop onto the hood of the car just to get away. Then I heard the crackle of a gun, blasting away at the horde below me. I realized it had to be a friend; I was positive that we were the only ones left! I managed a look, and it was a Humvee, big, brown, and goddamn beautiful. In the windshield I saw the face of Sheen. I'll be damned if it wasn't a hell of a Dues Ex Machina, but it was my Dues Ex Machina! He honked, which I realized was my signal. I dropped in, shut the hatch, and sat down. I didn't notice the dead bodies and didn't even acknowledge Libby, but I sure was relieved. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride, for what it was worth.

Sorry for the wait, but I hope the reader request is okay! Please leave reviews, they make me feel very special. :P