Day 18
They desperately plea to change his mind. He asks where the others are and Garrick shrugs off his questions. However, in a shocking twist, Kevin is brought into the room and placed next to Aiello and Atticus. Kevin tells the two convicts that Evan and his family are being treated with kindness and no harm has come to them. With Evan and his family, a military sergeant named Ramez plans on setting the family of four free, until Evan pleads with Ramez to release Aiello, Atticus, and Kevin with them. This seems to enrage Ramez, who grabs Evan by the shoulder and throws him into the incinerator. The three survivors then take action.
Day 4,612
The Molotov landed near Jeremy's leg and it shattered upon impact, spreading fires. His leg caught fire and he backed away into the others, desperate to get the fires out.
Aiello threw his knife at Andrew just as he was about to throw the Molotov. The bottle broke in his hands and he caught fire and burned to death.
The others climbed up just to see Aiello start battling the six robbers. They climbed through the open elevator door and took cover.
Aiello takes out his Beretta 92FS and shoots Sal in the head, killing her instantly. The four robbers open fired at Aiello while Jeremy focused on putting out the fire on his left pant leg.
Aiello took cover behind a soda machine as bullets flew his way. Tai steps up and shoots Chris in the stomach, wounding him before he took cover again. Aiello waits to hear the sound of a gun click from any of the robbers' gun before he jumps out of cover and lands on his back. It was like in slow motion. He aims his gun at Christ and finishes him off with a gunshot to the head.
The four robbers ran for the stairs they were guarding. Instead of running down, they run upwards.
Aiello successfully shot Hiro in the back just as he disappeared up the stairs. His body went tumbling down the stairs.
"Let's go get them!" Tai shouted.
"No, we came up here for Luis. We die, then all of this is for nothing," Aiello persuaded, "You guys go find him while I go find out the rest of these robbers and stop them from killing us."
"Are you sure?" Abby asked.
"The man seems capable enough of taking care of himself," Vincent argued for Aiello.
"Vince, man, he's not a man, he's a kid like us," Oliver told. "He may be of age but he still has the mentality of a risky teenager."
"You see the way he took out those robbers? He doesn't need us."
"We need him though," Sadie said, "We need him if we want to escape the city with our lives."
"Just go, I'll catch up with you guys." Aiello walked forward, "Go save your friend and I will save all of us." Before any of the survivors could answer, he jogged up the stairs.
"Wait, Aiello, your knife." Sadie removed his knife from the wall. He turns and catches it as Sadie throws it at him. "Good luck."
He unshoulders his Ruger 30 and aims down the hallway of the ninth floor. The last three robbers were hiding, and they wouldn't be hiding for very long. Aiello had amazingly keen senses that always saved his life.
Jeremy was hiding underneath a bed with a shotgun beside him. James hid in a closet while crouched down. He held a Desert Eagle up to his head and waited for Aiello to strike. The only one who was not in the deserted room was Lee, who stood outside and hiding behind an overturned couch.
Aiello fired a bullet from his Ruger 30 into the overturned couch. Blood splattered against the wall and a hand dropped into sight along with the loud sound of a thump. He sensed one of the robbers hiding behind the couch and he did not want to give the robber a chance to strike first.
Just as he took a step forward, Jame came charging out of one of the rooms and at Aiello. He chambers his rifle and shoots James in the chest, but he did not go down. He chambers his gun again and prepares to shoot, but James threw a punch at Aiello. He jerks his head back in time and strikes James in the jaw with the barrel of the rifle. He then ended James's life by striking him as hard as he could in the throat with his fist, crushing his windpipe.
He falls for the last time.
A bullet almost hit Aiello in the head, but it missed by an inch. Aiello looks to see Jeremy at the end of the hallway with his gun empty. He rushed Aiello. He fired, but his rifle jammed on him.
Jeremy tackled Aiello to the ground and knocked his gun away.
A zombie came out from one of the rooms and snarled as it walked towards the two wrestlers.
Aiello grabs Jeremy's jaw and begins squeezing the life out of him. Jeremy pulled out a knife and plunged it towards Aiello. He catches it with his free hand and pushes it away.
The zombie falls upon Jeremy and takes a chunk out the back of his neck. He yelps in pain before being kicked off by Aiello and landing on his back. He reaches for his Ruger 30, pulls the bolt back, unjamming the gun before he aims it at Jeremy's head. Before Jeremy could see the barrel, a bullet lodged into his skull.
The zombie drops to his knees and makes a satisfying meal out of Jeremy's corpse.
With only one bullet left, Aiello decides not to waste it on the zombie. He walks down the stairs and lets the zombie be.
"I may have taken out these robbers, but the city is still filled with them." When he was down the stairs, the fires had started spreading up the wall, but he ignored them. "This building can burn for all I care."
He avoided the fire and burning corpse. When he walked down the hallway that he knew that Tai and his group followed, he saw them nowhere in sight. He did see a shadow on the wall at the far end of the hallway. It was a human and given by his silhouette, he was armed with a gun.
Aiello aims his pistol and prepares to fire. The first robber that walked into the crosshairs, he shot in the skull. He heard someone shouting before another robber ran out and open fired at Aiello. This proved to be vain because he got shot in the chest and collapsed in a puddle of his blood.
Aiello ran forward as he heard several footsteps behind him. He knew they weren't human, they were infected because of the growling he vaguely heard. Aiello turned down the right of the hallway, stepping over the two robbers' corpses and he crashed into another robber and they both fell to the ground.
Aiello kicks the robber in the skull before he gets up and runs away. The zombies tumbled down onto the robber.
Aiello was now being chased by more zombies. He performs parkour skills to jump over furniture, debris, and anything that slowed him down. After jumping over a couch, a herd of zombies appears at the end of the hallway. Instead of retreating, he charges into all of them like a football player and they tumble down to the ground like dominos.
"Aiello, over here!" Tai shouted at the end of the hallway. "In here!"
Aiello sprinted just as the zombies were on him. Tai runs through a door and closes it as soon as Aiello was in the room. He does not bend down to catch his breath. "Tai, Abby, Oliver, Sadie, Vincent, and I assume you are Luis." He shakes hands with a Latino teenager. "I'm Aiello, I'm the leader of the Moral Ones, a group of survivors whose main goal is to keep the morality within people."
"Never heard of the Moral Ones," Luis said, "Tai, you sure we can trust this guy?"
"Yes, he saved us from robbers. He saved Vincent from being blasted. How many people can be trusted nowadays?"
Aiello walked in between Luis and Tai. "I have a group, you guys will be safe with us because Moral Ones never leave people to die, if they can help it."
"We'll join your Moral One's group. All of us. Right, Luis?"
"Right."
"All right then, but before we go, we have to find a way out this building and fast because-" A pound on the door silenced Aiello. "There are zombies outside the door and the building has caught fire."
"If we move across the rooftops, then we can get our bearings and be less likely to be spotted by the robbers down below," Oliver suggested. "Before we got here, Luis discovered a fire escape that leads to the roof and there are always emergency hatches on the roof."
The pounding on the door and growling increased rapidly.
"That's a chance we are going to have to take." Aiello headed for the nearest window. He shatters the window with his fist and looks outside. "Don't look down."
He climbed through the window and out onto the fire escape. It wobbled under his feet, but it did not fall. Luckily for him, Aiello had good balance. "It's safe, but let's take this one at a time."
Aiello climbed to the top of the rooftop before telling the others to climb up one at a time.
When they were on the roof and the ground was fifteen stories below, they gazed at the amazing view in the distant.
"See that ladies and gents? That is an amazing view." He leaned against the railing, relaxing. In the distance, he saw a skyline of some kind. "It is impossible to not love that view."
"Yeah," Tai agreed, "We can hardly see something like this. Even though we are staring at a wasteland, we still have a good view."
Aiello looked below him and saw the herd of zombies in the street from earlier. They looked like little ants from this height. He then to see the entrances and exits into the city. Every single one in the distance had half a dozen guards but the most heavily guarded one was the main entrance.
An idea popped into Aiello's head. If they capture a robber as a hostage, then they could negotiate on getting a car and getting out of the city with their lives. "If we want to get out of this hellhole, then we're going to need a robber and a gun to his head. And a car."
"Why?"
"Tai, we are going to use a robber as a hostage. It would be better if we caught a sergeant or high ranking member. Surely these guys have to have some kind of leader."
Aiello stepped away from the railing and looked to his right. There was a ladder that leads down and into another alley. Aiello climbs down first and waits for the others to get down before they start moving.
"Before we move any further, I have to do something." Aiello took out his sharpie and wrote Moral Ones on the nearest wall. "I do this to symbolize that the Moral Ones have been everywhere. All I have to do is write this on at least one wall. Morality is everywhere, there is still some morality within all of us."
"Boss, look what I found," a robber called out as he walked into view. Aiello saw two robbers before they saw them. He charges just before the two robbers could get a proper look at them.
The young one was punched in the nose and knocked out instantly. The other one looked to be older and he pulled his gun. Aiello grabbed his wrist and twisted it, forcing him to drop the pistol and enabling him to put him in a chokehold. "Where you going, we need a robber?"
"Fuck you, man," the robber spat. "I ain't going to give you any satisfaction. My men will wonder where I am and they will kill you."
"Why, you the leader of the robbers or something?" Aiello asked half-sarcastic. Tai and his group aimed their guns at the robber.
"Yes, my name is Jonathan. I am the leader of the robbers. You should be afraid of me trespasser."
"My name is Aiello, and I may be a trespasser, but I am also a husband and a father. You are going to help me get out of this city so I can see my wife and son. Understand? Refusal to cooperate will not end well for you." He was not going to kill him in cold blood, but he was going to instill fear in the lead robber.
Even if Jonathan refused, his men would not risk shooting their leader. Their boss must have some loyalty and respect for his men.
"Aiello, what do we do about the robber you knocked out?"
"Take him as well. He can be used as leverage. A hostage for a car and a hostage for guaranteed safety. Remember, it's either them or us. And these guys won't hesitate to kill innocent people. You should have seen the people these three robbers slaughtered in cold blood."
"We slaughter people to survive," Jonathan justified, "I'm sure you've killed people to survive. You must have given the way you are talking to me."
"I've killed to survive, but I've never slaughtered innocent people."
Tai ran up to Jonathan and smacked him in the forehead with his handgun, knocking the man unconscious.
"Thank you. I could have done that though." Aiello relaxed his grip on Jonathan's throat, allowing him to breathe. "Let's go make a trade. Grab his buddy."
Day 18
Tanya, Ryan, and Mila shove Ramez into the wall before throwing him into the incinerator. In the other rooms, Aiello strikes Garrick in the leg and attacks him brutally. Atticus and Kevin were then allowed to attack the other soldiers in the room and kill them before they killed them. However, in the ensuing battle, Kevin is shot in the stomach and wounded badly. Atticus argues that Kevin should be left behind, but Aiello strongly believes that they should save him and get him as far away as they could from the military base. Atticus complies and helps Aiello carry him out. They reunite with the family and save the others and escape.
