A new chapter, and whats this a fast update time? Get used to it :)!
Twists this chapter, I can't wait to write 'em!
The walls were down, and the dead began to roam.
A scream pierced the air as a life was taken, and the rest of the camp began to wake.
"What was that?" Bridgette whispered, jolting up from her sleeping bag.
Shuie was already up and packing his stuff. "I don't know, it doesn't sound good, though. Pack your stuff, just in case."
Bridgette roused Izzy and Geoff and they began to pack things up. "Where's Harold?"
"He ran out to see what was up," Shuie answered, slinging his backpack across his shoulder.
Just then, Harold burst into the hut. "Zombies," he said calmly, "lots of them. It's chaos, we need to scram."
Everyone in the hut nodded. All were calm as all had survived enough now to be able to think clearly in a crisis. Besides, the only thing you'd get from panicking was a messy death.
They filed out the door and into the chaotic night. It was pitch black, the only light being from the occasional gunshot, but most were too terrified to shoot into the darkness for fear of hitting their friends.
The five crept along and slammed into someone. That someone latched its clammy hand onto Harold's arm and went for a bite, but Geoff shouldered the zombie off and stepped on its head.
Harold gave a nod of thanks and the five moved on.
A light to their left turned on and off rapidly.
"That's Morse Code," Harold whispered to them, "let's go," they ran to the light. The source was Devin, who had Carrie, Beardo and Rock with him.
"Ellody is down, so is Spud," Beardo was whispering to Devin, "we gotta get outta here, man."
Devin looked over and relaxed slightly at seeing the five veteran combatants. "Alright, let's do it."
"Where are we going? Do we have vehicles?" Harold rasped as the group began moving towards the wall thanks to Devin's flashlight.
"No vehicles, but Beardo grabbed most of the food. We should be fine for a while." Carrie whispered back.
They heard some running behind them and all turned around, weapons up.
"Easy," came a new voice. Into the light stepped and attractive, fit black woman with short hair and a shaved head.
Devin relaxed, "hey Stephanie, I'm glad you're okay."
Stephanie nodded firmly but said nothing, and the group kept moving. They reached the walls and located a broken portion.
Devin hesitated and looked back, the screams of the dying and the dead permeating the air as the people were slaughtered.
Carrie put a hand on his arm. "There's nothing we can do for them Devin, they'd want us to escape."
"You're right," Devin looked reassured by Carrie's words, and he smiled down at her. "Thanks, Carrie."
Carrie nodded and turned back to the group at large: Beardo, Rock, Devin, Harold, Bridgette, Geoff, Izzy, Shuie, Stephanie and herself. "Where should we go?" she asked.
"We could head back to the town where the hoard came from. We didn't get to check it because it was covered in zombies but most of them are probably here now." Izzy suggested. "We should be able to scrounge up some vehicles."
"I like the sound of that," Devin agreed, "lead the way Izzy."
Izzy nodded and took point, leading them through the dark forest, the screams of the dying plaguing their ears as they fled.
The trip through the forest was uneventful, fortunately for them. They made their way north to the small town where the scouting group had originally been ambushed by bandits and then zombies.
"The bandits should be gone, they took off south before us," Beardo said, rubbing at the bandage covering his empty eye-socket.
"You're a real trooper, dude," Geoff whistled. "How you feelin' after that zombie chomp?"
"Fine," Beardo reassured him, "I chopped the hand instantly, we're talkin' seconds after. I'll be good." He wiggled his right stump for emphasis. "Good thing I'm a lefty, haha."
The group located the largest house in the town and took residence there. They unpacked some canned beans and tunas and had a nice meal.
"That hit the spot," Rock sighed as he tossed his empty can out a broken window. It clattered noisily to the ground outside and everyone winced. "Sorry," the ex-rocker apologized, "my bad. Wasn't thinking."
Izzy glared at him and unrolled her sleeping bag, "be careful," she snapped, "I don't want another Brick incident."
"Hey," Rock protested, "that wasn't my fault and you know it."
Izzy's face softened slightly, "yeah, you're right. Sorry."
"What happened?" Shuie asked, curious as to how his comrade met his demise.
"Bandits snuck up on us." Rock said gravely, "Ryan and I were on duty outside this house across town. I went inside to take a leak, when I got back Ryan was dead and I nearly was too. Good thing the dude across the street missed his shot. They stormed us. We killed a bunch, but Brick got hit in the leg, and then we lost him when the horde got us."
Harold shook his head with a sad look on his face. "Dang..."
The group was silent for a while, sitting around the kitchen table. They were startled out of their quiet spell by a loud thump outside the front door.
"Probably one of the dead ones," Stephanie sighed, getting up. "I'll go take care of it."
"I'll go with you, just in case." Carrie added, getting up as well. The two walked down the hall, and the others listened intently as the door opened.
A loud shriek pierced the air, followed by another thump.
Harold, the one with the quickest reflexes, drew his handgun and sprinted down the hall. He let out a loud gasp, and the sound of multiple pairs of footsteps could be heard coming back down the dark hall.
Devin and Rock had their pistols aimed at the doorway as Harold and Stephanie burst into the kitchen, holding a wounded person between them.
Jaws dropped.
"B-Brick?" Bridgette gasped, a smile forming on her face.
"Reporting for duty," the bloody cadet grinned, but the grin quickly became a wince and it was then that everyone noticed the bullet wound in his leg and the nasty gash across his face.
"Oh my god, dude! You're alive!" Geoff cheered, "what happened to you?! You look like hell!"
"I feel like hell," Brick agreed. Harold and Stephanie helped him to the kitchen table and he all but collapsed into a chair. "You ladies and gents have any meds for my leg? It's killing me."
"Yeah, we should have some antiseptic and bandages," Bridgette said, running to her pack and pulling out a wad of gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. "Is the bullet still in there?"
"Nah, I pried it out myself. Never experienced so much pain in my life." Brick said, hissing with pain as Bridgette applied the alcohol to the nasty hole in his leg. "I've done pretty good keeping it clean, but the gauze will help a lot."
Bridgette wrapped his muscly thigh in gauze and taped it off. "There, that should help. We don't have much to prevent infection so we'll just have to hope."
Brick nodded and relaxed into his chair. "Sounds good, boy am I glad I ran into you guys. I thought I might have been a goner, but I heard the tin can hit the floor from the house across the street and had to come check it out."
Rock smiled, "wow, how lucky was that?"
Brick was about to answer, but Bridgette put a finger to his lips and shook her head. "I need to look at your head wound, so hold still." She dabbed some more alcohol onto a clean cloth and pressed it against his head. "How'd you get this?"
"When I got dropped I had to make a run for it despite the hole in my leg." Brick said, wincing at both the alcohol and the memory, "I made it into the house but I passed out and hit my head."
Bridgette quickly wrapped a bandage around the cadets forehead and stepped back to examine her work. "Good enough," she decided, and gave him a big smile, "we're glad you're okay, Brick!"
Geoff walked up and clapped him on the shoulder. "What she said," he agreed.
Brick smiled at them both gratefully, but turned his attention to Izzy, who had been silent the whole time. She had a hand covering her mouth and wide eyes, looking directly at him.
Brick's face morphed into one of concern, "Hey, Izzy, are you okay? I'm fine so-" He was cut off as Izzy walked over to him and bent down, giving him a large hug. She buried her face in his chest and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
"I'm sorry I dropped you," her voice was muffled by his chest. "I thought I killed you."
A slightly red Brick returned the hug without hesitation, "Hey, it's not your fault." He said soothingly. When she didn't look at him, he pulled her gently off him so he could look at her face. "It's not, really," he said, "this isn't like you Izzy." He smiled at her, "I'm okay and thats all that matters."
Izzy blinked up at him and, seemingly reassured, released her hug and grinned at him. "Good!" she got up and bounced across the room to her sleeping bag, "Izzy would've felt just awful if you had died because of her."
Brick grinned and let out a large yawn. "Well I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm exhausted. Don't worry about a sleeping bag, just point me towards the nearest couch."
Geoff and Shuie helped Brick hobble to the couch in the living room and the cadet passed out, exhausted from his day's events.
The rest followed suit and set up their sleeping bags, ready to turn in for the night.
Geoff snuggled up to Bridgette in their sleeping bags. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face into her neck and she sighed happily.
"Hey Geoff," she murmured sleepily, "do me a favor."
He squeezed a little tighter. "Hm?"
"Never die on me."
He planted a kiss on her cheek, "never."
"Run, Kit, we can make it!" Emma hissed, skidding through a bush with her little sister hot on her tail.
The two ran through the same town the others had taken refuge in, but none knew of the others presence.
"Four cars we've checked, and all had no gas. What's up with that?" Kitty complained, turning around and kicking over a garbage can. About six zombies were behind them, staggering slowly. Several more were further behind.
"It's fine, we can keep away from them, but they're persistent and faster than your average zombies, so we need to get a car to lose them." Emma said calmly, taking a right down a side alley and vaulting over a dumpster. "Once we get to the next street check the cars."
Kitty nodded. "Got it."
The two made it to the next street and both picked a car: Emma a red Lexus and Kitty a brown Toyota.
Emma sucked her teeth and kicked the car. "I can't hot-wire this." she snapped.
"No gas in this one!" Kitty called from across the street.
"Damn it Kitty, can't you pick a good car?!" The older sister shouted in frustration, pulling her sidearm and blasting the head off the first zombie to get out of the alley.
"Hey, your car was a dud too!" Kitty snapped. She ran to the car next to it, a lime-green Nissan, and gasped. "The keys are in here!" she got in and twisted the key, and the engine whirred to life. "We're in business Emma, get in!"
Emma wasted no time in getting in the drivers seat. She pushed Kitty into the passenger and stepped on the gas.
"Hey, I wanted to drive!" Kitty sulked.
"Too bad," Emma said simply as they burned rubber out of the town. "We're going north."
The group in the house jolted awake at the noise of the single gunshot.
"Is everyone here?" Harold quickly called out into the blackness.
A chorus of "yes's" and "I'm here's" and "Brick McArthur, present and accounted for!" rang throughout the dark room and everyone relaxed slightly.
"Should we go out and check to see if its someone from the compound?" Carrie asked, worried.
"Nah," Beardo's raspy voice was heard from the corner, "could be one of those bandits. We can't risk it."
The room was in a general agreement on that, and they uneasily drifted off back to sleep, waiting for what morning would bring.
Dead: Owen, LeShawna, Staci, Sadie, B, Sam, Dakota, DJ, Lindsay, Chris, Cameron, Tyler, Scott, Anne Maria, Katie, Haley, Zoey, Dawn, Mike, Zekitrov, Cody, Eva, Mary, Ryan, Spud, Ellody.
Alive (Maine Summer Camp): Ezekiel, Noah, Justin, Beth, Courtney, Trent, Duncan, Heather, Gwen, Alejandro, Sierra, Lightning, Jo, Chef, Aidan, James, Rodney and Sky.
Alive (New Hampshire Town): Harold, Shuie, Geoff, Bridgette, Izzy, Carrie, Devin, Beardo, Rock, Brick.
Alive (Car Heading North): Emma, Kitty.
Welp, here's the chapter!
So Brick's not dead! And I'm also thinking about maybe doing Brick/Izzy, but I'm not sold on it yet...we'll see! I think it might be fun to see by-the-book Brick with spontaneous and zany Izzy kicking ass together.
Sorry to anyone who was hoping Ryan, Spud and the Geniuses were going to have a major role in this story, but no dice. There are so many characters now that some have to be fodder.
The next chapter will be back to the main Maine Summer Camp group. Hope you're all enjoying, please review/favorite/follow if you are!
Ciao!