It wasn't a particularly long ride, or at least that's not what it felt like. We were all pretty hungry, so we dipped into the food stock we had salvaged from the mall and conversed about how wild everything was at the moment, and even a little bit about ourselves so that we stopped being a bunch of strangers to each other.
Nick wasn't into the idea at all, so of course, he had to be the first one to talk. He didn't want to say much, but after a lot of prodding and teasing from the four of us we got him to tell us that he was thirty-five years old, an ex-con man, real good at Blackjack, and that he paid $3,000 for his suit. I also learned that he got cantankerous when you asked him what on God's green earth had possessed him into spending $3,000 on a damn suit.
Coach went up next. The first thing he told us was that he'd been a football lineman in college, but after gettin' hurt he couldn't play no more and instead took a teaching job at the local high school teaching health, and coaching the freshmen on the side. He also admitted to us that his real name wasn't actually Coach—it was Darnell, Darnell Coleman. I was a tiny bit relieved to hear that; I imagined it would've been real odd to have a coach whose name was Coach Coach. He was the oldest of us at the wise age of forty-four.
Once Coach had finished up, Ellis was real excited about the whole thing so we let him go next. He told us about anything and everything—he was a mechanic and had his own auto shop with some of his friends, the same ones that he played bass in a band with. Among them were Keith, his best friend in the whole world, and Dave, his other friend who sometimes acted like a tool but was overall a pretty good guy. His full name was Ellis McKinney, and he considered himself to be 'pretty young' at twenty-three. He was real excited to get to New Orleans on account of the fact that his ma and best friend had gotten on the evacuation helicopters—or whirly birds as he called 'em—the moment they got there. He'd decided to hang back and save his truck. It didn't work out too well.
Next up was Rochelle, or Ms. Aytes as she told Nick he could refer to her as from now on. She came from Cleveland, workin' to report about the Savannah evacuation center back when it still existed after everybody working above her got sick with the Green flu. She had been working on it with her boyfriend, but he'd gotten sick the day they were shooting so she was settin' up the cameras when everything—including the boyfriend—went to shit and she bailed outta there. She was twenty-nine.
After that there was nobody else to tip the hat to so I talked about myself for a little while. I started out with my name (Casey Summers), age (twenty-one), and what I was doin' in Georgia (born and raised there but brought back by CEDA from my college in New York). I explained that I was lookin' for my father as well as three friends—Jason, Cameron, and Natalie—in the meantime. I told them about how when the world wasn't zombie infested, I liked headin' out to the beach and watchin' movies and shit.
Sharing time turned out to be a decent way of killing about an hour of our road time, and after that we were all quiet, and before long Nick, Coach, and Rochelle had fallen asleep in the backseat. That just left me and Ellis for a little bit, and we spent another hour talking, but then he got real quiet so we sat in silence for about twenty minutes. I didn't know what to say to break it, but soon enough Coach woke up and insisted Ellis and I get some rest too, so we swapped spots with him and Nick. I didn't think I'd fall asleep, but pretty soon, I was out like a light.
When I woke up I realized I was pretty much lying on top of Ellis, my head on his chest and my right arm thrown around his waist. To my right, Rochelle was in nearly the same position, asleep while leaning on me.
Ellis had woken up a little bit before me, and he grinned at me once he realized I was up but then frowned a little bit and stared out the window instead. I got off him, embarrassed, and shook Rochelle awake once I'd realized we had stopped.
The three of us climbed out of the car and joined up with Coach and Nick in the night as they stared at a raised bridge ahead of us in disbelief. There was something strikingly familiar about the bridge, but being dazed from having just woken up, I couldn't figure out what.
"Aww, lord," Ellis sighed.
I stared down the bridge before looking around us wildly, trying to piece together where we were and I why I felt like I knew the place. "Can just one more goddamn thing go wrong?!" Rochelle complained to my left.
"Bullshit!" Nick cursed.
Coach let out a loud, heavy sigh. "Dear lord…" he mumbled, looking up into the dark sky filled with dark storm clouds, "why did I ever leave Savannah?"
And that's when I put it together.
"We're in Rayford!" I announced all of a sudden, excited. Man, if there was ever a place to be stranded, Rayford was it. I couldn't wait to start lookin' for my old man.
Coach looked to me, nodding as if he was confused. He seemed to remember that this was my hometown real quick, though. "That we are," he agreed. "And it looks like we're gonna be here for a while…" he added, looking to the bridge and frowning.
"Y'know, this reminds me—my buddy Keith and I were once on a bridge just like this, man. Well, kinda, I mean, I was on the bridge and Keith was sure he could jump the river without the bridge, so I raised the bridge, and, well… Did you know cars can float? I mean, for a little while at least…"
My gaze snapped to him immediately. "That was you?" I shot out, thinking back to a big local news story from a couple years ago. There'd been a lot of talk about it, and I could still remember when one of the bar regulars told me and my daddy while laughing hysterically, about the two idiots who'd sunk a car in the river.
Ellis grinned sheepishly back at me and rubbed the back of his neck, nodding, before looking away real quickly and making a weird face I didn't understand. I shrugged it off, though—I'd long ago realized that men could be real strange.
Coach wasn't quite as amused. He shook his head, looking to Ellis. "Boy, you are wearin' me out."
Our chatter was interrupted by a voice none of us knew from the top of the bridge.
"Hello down there!"
Up at the bridge, on a railed ledge, stood a girl with dark hair tied back and a pink jacket, waving at us like wild.
We all let out a collective group sigh of relief at the exact same moment. "Hey," Coach screamed back at her, "hello there. You wanna let the bridge down for us?" he asked, and we all looked back to the girl, hopeful.
The next two words outta her mouth broke my heart, and I didn't know if I wanted to cry or climb up there and fight. "Sorry, can't," she replied, shaking her head. "We got wounded up here. Nice car, though."
I slumped a little, disappointed. How the hell was I supposed to go and find my father and take him back to New Orleans with me if the only way out of Rayford was up thirty feet in the air? Damn builders, decidin' to build a damn bridge that up and raised itself.
The four of us waited for Ellis to answer about the car, but he remained in silence. When I looked to him, he looked like he was deep in thought, thinking about something real hard. It made all of us feel a little bit uneasy. It wasn't like Ellis to be quiet for too long.
"Ellis… are you gonna answer her?" Rochelle questioned, nudging him lightly. But he didn't answer.
Coach stepped forward, raising his eyebrows. "Ellis," he insisted.
"Hey, Cletus!" Nick snapped.
"Hey, hee-haw!" Rochelle added.
"Oh, stop it," I snapped at both of them, shooting each of them an equally irritated glare for teasing him.
Still, Ellis said nothing and instead turned back to face me. He gave me another weird look, this time dead in the eyes, and kinda let out a sigh before turning back around and being quiet for a couple more seconds.
"Well, hello!" he called up and then seemed to reconsider. He let out an uncomfortable chuckle. "Hello," he said in a voice that by my guess was an attempt at sounding a little bit smoother. Still, it didn't sound quite right to him. "H-Howdy, uh… beautiful weather, huh?"
She glanced up, and even from way down on the street I could tell she was confused. Made enough sense; there were storm clouds lining the skies thicker than bear fur. And trust me; bear fur is real thick.
Ellis rubbed the back of his neck, clearly getting increasingly distressed by the second. "We're havin' a uh…" he trailed off before sighing and looking at the ground, mumbling to himself. The only part I caught was 'one of you better do this'.
It did not strike a good chord with me.
"You've been killin' zombies for the better part of two days, boy, you can talk to a girl," Coach commanded, patting him on the back, his voice serious.
But Ellis just shook his head. "No, I can't," he insisted. "Look at her."
Alright, that really didn't strike a good chord with me at all. I couldn't help but to feel a pang of jealousy, and suddenly I didn't feel too warmly towards the girl on the ledge anymore.
Etiquette and good manners won, though, and I pushed the feeling away and stepped up from the car to get a look at her. "Can you bring the bridge down?" I asked. "We gotta get across the river so we can head to New Orleans."
"Sorry, I can't lower the bridge!" she insisted. I took a sharp intake of breath, glancing at all of the others, frustrated. Now, it bothered me enough that Ellis was actin' all strange towards this girl, but if there was one thing I wouldn't stand for it was an outsider tellin' me she wouldn't raise the bridge of my hometown for me to get across.
To my surprise, I found solace by lookin' at Nick, begging him to help me out with my eyes. He looked back at me, equally pissed as if agreeing with me. At least I wasn't the only one in a shitty mood.
Ellis kept trying to talk. "Do we, uh… we need to know some sort of… a password or somethin'?"
Everyone shot him a confused look. "Uh… no…? The generator is out of gas," the girl explained. "If you get over to the other side and fill it up, we can cover you," she suggested. Alright, that made enough sense; that damn generator sucked up gas like a vacuum. I was still feeling a little bit sour, but her saying that eased me out a little bit.
The same couldn't be said for Nick. He stepped up, completely fed up with her by that point. "That's terrific, cupcake," he called up, his voice venomous, "look, is there a man up there that maybe we can talk to?"
That pissed her off real well, and I couldn't blame her. When Nick wanted to push buttons, he knew exactly which to press. "Oh, I don't know what to do!" she squealed back, her voice higher than a second ago. "Go to Hell, Colonel Sanders," she spat, her voice cold.
Heh. Colonel Sanders.
Nick scoffed, irritated. "Hey, lighten up!" he commanded. "Man, nobody can take a joke anymore," he mumbled under his breath, causing Rochelle to facepalm and shake her head real slowly.
"Oh Nick," she muttered, "charming is not a word I'd use to describe you…"
Nick only had a split second to glare at her for saying that, before we were all distracted by yet another new voice coming from where the girl was standing. "You down there!"
We looked up to see some biker type of dude whose arms were full of tattoos looking down at us. It reminded me of Jason. "Be calm!" he instructed. "We're cops!"
"Y'all ain't cops!" I called back automatically. My father had spent years in the police academy before he traded in the badge for barstools. I could tell who was a cop and who wasn't just fine.
"What?" Nick asked, equally as incredulous as I was.
Coach shook his head, letting out a real loud sigh as if he was just about done with this bullshit. "Tell me this boy ain't for real," he mumbled.
"You guys aren't cops," Nick agreed with me, furrowing his eyebrows.
But the biker only shook his head, turning to eye Nick and myself seriously. "No, no, no…" he replied, his voice patronizing. "I am a cop." Behind him, the girl nodded.
"Are any of you vampires?" Biker asked.
I was already growing impatient as time went by, seeing as every minute wasted on trying to reason with these people was another minute lost that I could've spent headin' down to the bar and finding my old man. But I held my tongue, mainly for the others' sake as they'd want to get going soon. That question, though… that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Taking a deep breath I looked to Coach and nudged him, not trusting myself to open my mouth and answer without sassing off and pissing them off enough for them to decide we weren't worth helping. He looked back at me and shook his head, aggravated.
"Tell me this boy ain't for real," he repeated to me before glancing back to the biker and the girl. "Yes, we are vampires," he said in monotone, rolling his eyes.
Rochelle nodded at that. "All of us are vampires," she agreed.
The biker grinned and turned back, saying something that none of us heard to somebody none of us could see. I could hear another voice, just barely, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. It sounded a teensy bit like an argument.
"Can we talk to that other guy?" Rochelle requested, slumping a little bit. I could tell she was weary at this point.
The biker looked back at us surprised as if he'd forgotten we were there, before breaking out into an angry frown. "I'm not talking to any goddamn vampires," he shot back. I shut my eyes and took a deep, frustrated breath.
It was Ellis who spoke first. "Oh man, I know!" he piped up all of a sudden, and I could tell he'd come up with something that could help us just from the way his eyes were sparkling, just like they had in the elevator when he thought of the car idea. "That's what I've been sayin'! If there are zombies, there has got to be vampires, wolfmen, mummies, aliens… all that shit, man, it just makes sense!"
Biker was real pleased with that. "Yeah!" he agreed, before turning to the girl still pointing at Ellis. "That's what I've been saying."
Ellis chuckled and grinned back, nodding his head enthusiastically. "So… you go ahead and lower that bridge for us then?"
"Nope. No way in Hell."
God damn it.
"Listen to me, jackass!" Nick screamed up, bursting before any one of us had a chance to. "Lower the goddamn bridge so we can drive our goddamn car across!"
But the two just shook their heads. "Is there any one of you five who isn't an asshole?" Biker asked.
Nick wasn't having any of it. "I'm telling you for the last goddamn time—lower the goddamn bridge! You greasy, vest-wearing monkey!"
"Go to Hell, suit," Biker snapped.
In that moment, I guess Rochelle had had just about enough. "Hey, boys!" she interrupted. "Okay. If we get to the other side, can you help us lower it?"
Biker smiled at her, leaning on the railing as if he really liked that idea. "Hell yeah!" he agreed, grinning. "I'll help you!"
Rochelle grinned smugly, looking over at Nick. "See Nick? You should try being nice sometime," she said, before turning her attention back to the two on the ledge. "Thank you very much!" she called up.
Coach let out a long sigh, eyeing each of us before looking back to the two. "Y'all can't climb down there and save us a trip?" he proposed.
But the girl just shook her head again. "Sorry, can't," she replied. "...We lost a guy, and… another's injured… if you can find another way over, we can help you get the bridge down."
I reached up and rubbed my eyes, smudging even further the already ruined eyeliner that sat on my face. The exhaustion of running around shooting guns was getting to me. "You know it's gonna be bad if they wouldn't risk it," Rochelle mumbled to us.
"Okay, well… I guess we'll take it…" Ellis called to them, shrugging. "See ya." He headed to the car's trunk to get our weapons.
"Ten-four!" Biker replied, saluting us.
They headed off, and my group made our way over to the trunk of the car to retrieve our weapons, backups, and health packs.
"Should I… maybe stay here and guard the car?" Ellis suggested, glancing back. I felt another pang of jealousy at that, and I tried to push it away. Not the best time to worry about jealousy and a boy's attention during a zombie apocalypse, I rationalized.
Nick sauntered by, rolling his eyes. "Nope," he replied dryly. I looked to Ellis, but he avoided my gaze entirely as I passed by him. He walked behind me instead of beside me.
We grouped up again a little ways down the road, enough to be out of earshot of the people on the ledge. "Do we have to team up with these assholes?" Nick demanded as we formed a small circle. "Can't we just drive around?"
I shook my head. "Road cuts out about halfway there," I explained. "They were redoin' one of the main roads 'cause it was too full of potholes and such. So bad that no cars could drive on it anyway. They dug it up maybe a week before the outbreak, and then it got flooded with that storm a couple weeks back. Walkin'll be the only way."
Nick groaned in frustration, but Coach stared at me as if in deep thought. "Sounds like you know the way, Casey," he observed. "How about you take the lead for once?"
I smiled back at him and nodded, a little excited about leadin' the group. We formed back into a line, this time with me walkin' up front alongside Coach. The other plus to all of this was if I wasn't walking right by Ellis, I could forget about crushes and jealousy and just focus on the things that really mattered. Finding my dad, and staying alive long enough to do it.
The traffic on the main road was bad, so bad that there wasn't any point in trying to walk down it. "We're gonna have to cut through the park a little bit," I called back, and we jumped down into it. We had to be careful; the light rain was makin' the bricks a little bit slippery.
"Ellis, I really think the car's gonna be okay on its own," I heard Rochelle say further down the line.
We trekked through the park, keeping our eyes peeled for any zombies wandering around in the rain. I was anxious this time, though; I knew the locals in Rayford pretty well, so seeing them in zombified versions wasn't something I was exactly looking forward to, and I was especially not looking forward to having to put a bullet in them.
"I'll tell you something, that guy is no cop," Nick muttered from behind Coach and me, and I rolled my eyes. That much was real obvious.
"And you were a con-man?" Rochelle shot back, skepticism in her voice. "I can't believe you used to be a con artist."
I would've jumped into their argument, but I was absorbed in keeping my wits about me. I knew I had to make sure I saw any oncoming zombies, but at the same time, I wanted to look at anything but. The unspeakable thought that I'd see my father among the walking dead terrified me to no end.
The main road cleared up a bit further down, so we climbed back up to it and found ourselves looking at the shops. Surprisingly enough, the power was still on in almost all of them. Maybe that was a good sign.
"This way," I murmured, nodding to Coach. We continued on.
"I ever tell you about the time me and Keith filled up water balloons with our own—"
We didn't get to hear exactly what Ellis and Keith had put into the water balloons, as Nick interrupted Ellis before he could say much of anything else with a stern 'Ellis… is now the best time?'.
"Through this store," I instructed.
I was halted by a hand gripping my elbow. "Hold on," Nick replied. "I'm gonna go back and shoot that jackass."
Ellis stared back at him, stunned. "Naw, man, he seemed like a good guy."
"Besides, we don't have time for that," I pointed out.
Rochelle let out a loud sigh. "After spending all that time in the car with you guys, it's nice to hear some new voices," she said.
I thought back to one particular point in the car ride in which Nick and Coach had started arguin' over Nick teasing Coach's love of food that got so bad that they stopped the car and woke Rochelle to try and get her to switch seats with one of them. It only led to a fifteen-minute long argument, and by the end, both men had had to make up and just deal with it.
We headed on up to the upstairs area, home to the shop owners and a couple of extra offices from which the managers used. It was Coach's ideas to search these rooms, and everybody else was on board. I didn't argue.
It was a good call that we did. Nick popped open a trunk where we found ammo, another one of those puke jars, and a spare shotgun that Ellis claimed on account that he'd lost his grenade launcher at the mall while tryin' to take down the zombie we'd started calling a tank after tuning into a broadcast from New Orleans advising caution from tanks. We figured they must've meant the big pink ones. We continued on and passed through a bar room that reminded me too much of my dad's bar. I led them outta there pretty fast and we wound up exiting to a back alley.
Five steps into the alley and we heard that coughing that came from the smoking assholes. The aptly named Smokers. We stopped and looked around, but nobody could find it. We walked a little faster after that.
"Sounds like one of them Smoker bitches," Coach grunted.
"Hey Rochelle," I heard Ellis mumble, and I listened in despite what I'd told myself. "And don't spare my feelin's none. You think I got any shot with that girl?"
I whipped around that second, making the group come to an abrupt stop and causing Nick to nearly crash into me, but I ignored his angry glare and looked straight to Ellis.
"I don't think you should be worryin' about impressin' some girl who let us go on this suicide mission at night, in the rain, durin' a zombie apocalypse," I scolded, my voice serious and cold. He stared back at me, absolutely speechless. In fact, they all looked at me pretty surprised. Uncomfortable and jealous as all Hell, I turned back around and kept walking.
Soft footsteps signaled to me that they kept following. I heard Rochelle answer in a real soft voice, so soft I barely heard her. "Ellis, ask yourself, what would Keith do?"
Coach turned back to face her. "Girl, what are you doin'?" he asked.
The awkwardness from a couple moments ago had faded and Ellis replied enthusiastically. "Man, that reminds me of this—"
Rochelle groaned before he could get any further on with his story. "I wasn't thinking!"
Coach stopped, letting out a long sigh. I stopped walking too, looking to him, confused. "Look," he said to Ellis, "if you let your guard down for one minute, we all pay the price." He finished it off by looking to each of us individually, a serious look on his face. I nodded.
"Lead the way, Casey," he said.
"This way," I replied quietly.
We headed towards the nearby apartment complex, a place I'd frequented often and had even lived in the first five years of my life. "Into the apartments," Nick announced.
Just as he finished saying that, a clear growl swept through the night as if somebody were strangling a pig. I looked to Ellis on reflex to see him reaching his hand out towards me, his eyes wide and fearful. But the sound stopped and we heard footsteps away from us, so I looked away from him.
"Let's search these rooms," Rochelle suggested, and we piled into the apartment real quick and shut the door on the rain, and took a moment to shake ourselves off.
I screamed the second I saw what was inside. Standing in front of me was no stranger—one of my daddy's oldest friends, from back when he was on the police force and not a bartender, owned this apartment with his wife. I'd grown up knowing them as Uncle Garrett and Aunt Cole, but at that moment, all I saw left of them was two zombies.
They didn't stand a chance against Nick's pistols. He shot them both down before they could move two steps, and turned to give me an odd look.
"I'm sorry, I…" I tried to say, but I couldn't get much out. Lookin' at the two of them made me want to cry, and it suddenly felt far too hot and stuffy in the apartment.
I felt somebody shift and I saw Ellis had moved towards me, but Rochelle had beaten him to the punch and stood beside me with her hand on my shoulder. "Did you know them, Casey?" she asked softly.
Swallowing down a sob I nodded, looking away. "Y'all can search the apartment," I replied, struggling to keep my voice cool and collected like how Nick and Coach's always sounded, "there's a second floor to this complex. Somebody should probably go and check it out."
Before anybody could protest or question my sanity, I shot outta that room as if it were on fire and climbed up the stairs two at a time, desperate to get up to get some air. There were piles and piles of corpses on the floor, but I didn't stop once to get a look at their faces. Instead, I headed into a big room where they'd been doin' some construction and leaned up against one of the metal support beams they'd set up, taking a second to lay down my rifle and just breathe.
Garrett and Colette Warren were some of the toughest people I knew. Garrett had breezed by the police academy without a sweat even at the times even my own daddy had struggled, as he was used to the demanding parts of training after spending a couple years in the military. His wife, Colette, not only made the meanest pot roast in the whole damn town but was also ten times tougher than he was. She was one of the police academy instructors, and she managed to put even Garrett through the wringer on occasion.
Now, my daddy was no weakling, but he wasn't quite as tough as either Garrett or Colette. Yeah, he'd done his fair share as a cop, but the fact was that he'd left 'cause he wanted to slow down and be able to enjoy his jelly doughnuts and french pastries without worryin' about keepin' fast so as to catch any runners. He wasn't at the fittest point in his life. If Garrett and Cole hadn't made it, I was a real shithead for thinkin' my daddy would stand any more of a chance.
"Hey."
I looked up, a tiny bit surprised to see Ellis standing barely two feet away from me. I shifted away, self-conscious about the tears that had formed in my eyes. "Hey," I said quietly.
He edged a little closer, keeping his eyes locked on me as if he were testing the waters. "I'm real sorry you had to see that," he sighed finally.
"It's different when it's someone you know," I confessed, trying to get the blasted image out of my head. "Then it's like, everything's suddenly so real. We're not just runnin' 'round tryin' to find the government, suddenly it's like… we're really just all alone, hoping everybody we care about is okay when chances are they just ain't."
With that, I was pushed over the edge and in a blink of an eye, I was standing there in front of Ellis bawling like a damn baby.
"Aw, c'mon," he urged, wrapping his strong arms around me and hugging me real close into his chest, "don't cry, Case. I'm sure your old man's just fine if he's even a lick like you. Don't cry, darlin'."
But I kept crying, and then I remembered that even though his arms were around me he still had a big ol' crush on that other girl, and though there wasn't any real logical reason to cry over the affections of a boy you'd just met two days ago it still made me feel rotten so I just cried even harder.
Fortunately, it didn't last too long, and soon enough the tears dried up and I was left wipin' at my face. His shirt was all stained with tear marks and the remnants of the last stubborn bits of eyeliner that had persisted on my face this long even after the majority had gotten wiped off, but he didn't seem to mind.
"There's my girl," he smiled, leaning down a little and wiping a stray tear from my cheek with his
I gave him a teensy smile back before a figure at the exit door caught my eye. I looked to it and saw a zombie that was heavily armored and carrying, of all things, a health pack.
Ellis looked too, and his reaction was instant. "Hey, stop that zombie!" he screamed, and it ran off. He tore off after it.
A second later, I heard a dull clunk as if Ellis had thrown his crowbar at it, followed by a wet smushing sound. Right after, I heard Ellis scream bloody murder.
"Ellis!" I shrieked, and shot out of the room.
I ran down the path to find Ellis hanging over the edge of the apartment building,a Smoker standing at the roof with his tongue wrapped around and choking Ellis.
"Smoker's got me!" Ellis managed to cough out as he struggled against the Smoker's tongue.
"I'm comin'!" I cried as I ran closer to get a clearer shot, but Ellis was unable to reply as the Smoker constricted its muscular tongue around him, choking the breath out of him even further. Terrified by the sounds Ellis was making as he struggled to breathe, I raised my rifle, got the Smoker right on the cross of the scope, and shot it dead.
Ellis fell to the ground with a heavy thud, and I made my way over to help him up. He stood, stumbling a little as if he were drunk, before raising the health pack and giving me a big grin.
The others joined us outside, and by the looks of it, they were clearly not happy. If anything, Coach was fuming. I could see steam coming out of that man's ears. Last time I'd seen that was when I was sixteen years old and had put a dent in my daddy's brand new Jeep.
"Ellis! What did I tell you about runnin' off?!" he demanded.
Ellis stared back at a loss for words, but I stepped up. "We were chasin' after a zombie, Coach," I explained, "ain't his fault the Smoker got him. He just wanted to get a health pack the zombie had."
Coach raised an eyebrow to me, but I could tell he trusted in my word. He shot one final, unsure look at Ellis before nodding.
"Alright, Casey. Lead the way."
I nodded back and ignored Ellis' smile, instead focusing on the path ahead of us. I'd gotten a little overwhelmed at seeing Garrett and Colette turned, but I knew I had to keep business if I was gonna find my old man.
"Into the park," I instructed.
We trekked slowly into the Rayford park, the grass damp and muddy as a result of the thunderstorm. We crept around an infected woman dressed up in a real fancy dress, but she noticed us at the last moment. Luckily for us, Rochelle smacked her down with her paddle and shut her up before she even had a chance to complain.
Up ahead I could hear a distorted version of the Wedding March, and I just knew we was walking into something real bad. Last I'd spoken to my dad, he was goin' on and on about how dumb the 'once great folk of Rayford' had gotten and most of all how Becky Jonas, a local woman who was always blamin' my old man for the drunks in town, was havin' her shotgun wedding in the park despite the Green flu outbreak. The only comfort I had in any of this was that given that she didn't like my daddy, he wasn't invited and probably wouldn't be there, even if he had been.
As we got closer to the central wooden gazebo, we could hear a woman weeping.
"Sounds like a witch," Nick mumbled, and I shuddered. I did not wanna see another one of them. I needed another witch encounter like I needed a nail in the eye.
"Careful," Rochelle warned.
Sure enough, the gazebo was set up for the perfect Rayford wedding, and right in the center of all of it was a bride sobbing her eyes out. Even if I hadn't known Becky was the bride, I would've ben able to tell by the platinum blonde hair. We didn't have many platinum blondes in Rayford.
"Holy shit, a wedding!" Nick exclaimed, eyes wide, voice full of surprise.
Rochelle chuckled, her eyes equally wide and focused on the bride-witch that up until prior notice had been known as Rebecca Louise Jonas. "Something old, something new, something about to rip your guts out…" she mumbled morbidly, getting a laugh outta Nick.
"Damn…" Coach muttered, "this here wedding didn't end well."
I blew a strand of my dark hair outta my face. "Do they ever?" Rochelle and I asked at the exact same moment.
Nick rubbed his face with his hands, shaking his head. "Oh Christ," he muttered, "this is more depressing than the zombies."
I nodded, choosing not to mention the fact that I knew that this poor woman was with child. Nobody needed to get even more bad news this week than they'd already had, I figured.
"Aw man," Ellis whispered, "d'you think she's crying 'cause she got left at the altar?"
"Well, this isn't the worst wedding I've ever attended," Rochelle replied before Coach shushed everybody real loudly, a stern look on his face.
"Does anybody see the wedding cake?" he whispered urgently. Nick and I rolled our eyes. I was becoming alarmed at how easily I was beginning to understand Nick.
Ellis chuckled. "Coach, no time for cake," he replied lightly.
I laughed, patting a clearly distraught Coach on the shoulder. "Don't you worry, Coach. Once we're outta this mess I'll bake you a big ol' chocolate cake, just for you."
Coach grinned back at me, and we had a real sweet moment of grinning at each other before Ellis interrupted it by piping up.
"Y'know what?" he asked suddenly, determination filling his eyes. "This got me thinkin'... I should totally marry that girl."
And just like that any thawing I'd gone through earlier in the apartments was gone, and I was back to feeling icy over Ellis again.
"That's the stupidest thing I've heard you say all day," I muttered bitterly, narrowing my eyes as I stared off at the witch. I didn't check to see if anybody was giving me any weird looks. I didn't care if they were.
"Marrying her is the last thing you should do," Nick added, turning to glare at Ellis and earning a confused 'what' in reply.
They broke out into an argument, and I could hear the witch start growling real angry. She began to stand, moving her hands away from her face and focusing her glowing red eyes on Nick and Ellis.
"Would you guys shut up?!" Rochelle hissed, elbowing Nick in the ribs sharply. Up at the gazebo, I saw Becky relax and return to her previous position of sitting and sobbing. We let out a collective sigh of relief as the dust settled a little bit.
When everyone was relaxed again, Nick thought it alright to speak again. "Wedding music and a crying woman left at the altar. This is bringing back some bad memories," he mumbled.
"Nick… you scare me." Rochelle answered. I laughed a little bit, more nervous than amused.
"Rest your ass for a sec," Coach commanded.
None of us had noticed that Ellis had wandered off until all of a sudden the Wedding March ceased and the park was instead filled with the sound of the Midnight Riders' newest song, Save Me Some Sugar. He'd leaned on the stereo and accidentally switched the song.
"Aw shit!" he screamed.
"Ellis, what did you just do?!" Nick called back, furious.
"No! No, thank you!" Ellis yelled at nobody in particular, frantically hitting every button on the stereo in an attempt at shutting it off but only turning the bass up so high that the ground shook.
Meanwhile back at the gazebo, Becky was getting mighty pissed. She was standing and screeching, her arms spread out as if ready to shred Ellis with her sharp fingers. She let out one climactic scream and shot off after him, screeching hysterically as she ran.
Ellis bolted off instantly, running away from her. "Oh man, I changed my mind! I do not wanna get married!" he screamed as he ran past us.
Lucky enough for him, Coach intercepted and shot the witch with his shotgun, knocking her flat on the ground. He smiled, proud of himself, as Nick went over to make sure she was really dead and not just pretending to get the best of us.
She wasn't, and she raised her head up, teeth bared as Nick stood over her.
"Honeymoon's over, bitch," Nick spat, and shot her right in the forehead with his pistol. I gotta admit, sure Nick was a stick in the mud, but it had been badass as Hell.
Ellis rejoined the group, breathing heavily. But the moment of serenity was cut brief, and a howl let us know that a horde was aware of our location and was headed straight for us.
"They're comin'!" Ellis warned, and I pulled my katana up to start slashing at the oncoming masses, focusing on anything but their faces, as the others fired their pistols and shotguns or—in Rochelle and Ellis' cases—smacked with their paddles and crowbars.
In the midst of all of the chaos, we heard the same pig-like squeal from earlier again, and all of a sudden a zombie with one huge arm bowled through us and launched me to the ground. Its' eyes were only set for Coach, though, and it singled him out. With it's' one colossal arm, it took grasp of Coach and began smashing him into the ground.
"CHARGER GOT ME!" Coach screamed as Nick strode right up to it and started shooting into its big, green back. He helped Coach up and I stood, making my way over to them as a Boomer snuck up on Nick. But Nick was just too good and shot it without so much as a glance.
I retrieved Coach's shotgun and held it out to him, rubbing my back from where I'd hit the ground.
"Now that's a shotgun wedding," Coach joked as he accepted it.
"That's a good one, Coach," Nick laughed.
We looked to Becky, and I shifted uncomfortably. "That's a waste of a good dress," Rochelle mumbled, eyeing the dress that Becky wore longingly, before sighing. "Well, let's just get out of here."
I nodded, more than ready to leave. We left the gazebo as fast as we could go.
"There's got to be a cake around here somewhere," Coach muttered under his breath as we approached some baby-blue colored tents.
"Check the tents," Rochelle commanded, ignoring Coach.
We followed after her and found most of them empty save for one that had an assortment of weapons that by the weight of them, had a lot more ammo than ours did. Relieved, I swapped my rifle for a fully loaded one and got Nick to add the laser sight to it.
"They even have guns at weddings?" Rochelle murmured.
"And no cake," Coach seconded.
"Check the tents," Rochelle instructed, ignoring Coach.
Once we were all equipped with freshly loaded weapons and healed up a little bit, we left the park and exited out onto an empty street.
"Safe room back here!" Coach announced as soon as we got a glimpse of the familiar red door. I could've cried from joy; the rain was soaking through my clothes, and I was cold.
From the back of the line, Ellis laughed joyfully. "Okay, as far as weddin's go, that was the most excitin'!"
"Heh," Coach replied, smiling faintly, "yeah. That shit was creepin' me out."
We made our ways up the steps to the safe room and piled in, relishing in the warm air and adequate lighting. Nick pulled the door shut, before grinning at each of us.
"I'm startin' to like you guys!"