Authors note: I know it's been a long time since the last post but school has been really intense.

Chapter two

Before anything else could happen the electric door shattered in a blizzard of tiny pieces of glass when a strong fist was slammed against it. Everyone looked at the door and saw the figure standing there. At any normal occasion it would have been one of those people one saw and never remembered. It was a man wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, at least it had been. But on this one the t-shirt was splashed with blood and more red than white. His throat was wide open in a gruesome wound. Then Mark remembered something from all those movies he had watched through the years. Zombie. That thing wasn't a man anymore, it was a zombie. The zombie charged the closest man, which happened to be the white robber. With incredible speed the robber swung around and faced the zombie and fired the remaining shots into the monsters torso. It stopped the thing from coming any closer and made it stumble backwards, but it didn't kill it. The black man suddenly held a pistol in his hands and with a marksmans aim he fired a single bullet into the creatures forehead. Blood and brains showered the shelves behind it. The zombie stopped, fell to it's knees and then to the floor. It didn't get up again. But before anyone could think about what had happened two more corpses stormed in through the broken door. They looked like if they had belonged to the group of homeless people in Rockport. Both had wounds as horrible as the last one. The white robber knew he was out of ammo and started to run from the zombies. The two new corpses moaned and charged the black man who held his gun in both hands and calmly aimed at the closest zombie while slowly paced backwards. The seven eleven wasn't big and the corpses didn't have to run more than three meters to catch up with the black man. His first shot hit the closest hobo zombie in the shoulder and made it stagger to the left and smash into a rack of magazines. Both the rack and the zombie fell to the floor.

Then the man fired five shots in a row. The guns recoil made his aim a little worse and only two shots hit the second creature in the throat and severed it's head, which killed it. Or at least made the body stop moving, the head rolled away and it's eyes were locked on the black man. The first zombie started to crawl at the man. The man lowered his pistol and kept it trained at the crawling zombie and when it came real close he put the gun to the zombies temple and pulled the trigger. Click. He pulled the trigger again. Click. The zombie bit down hard at the man's leg, it's jaws went through the jeans and into his flesh. The man screamed and threw himself backwards while the white man stepped forward and ended the creatures misery with a shot from his revolver.

"You need to be carefull Morgan." The white man told his friend in a most educating tone.

Morgan grunted something and slid a new clip into the gun. Then he ripped a piece of cloth from his T-shirt and used it as home-made bandage. The white man turned to the four young men.

"You coming?" he asked. "It would be cruel to leave you four here to be eaten. Our car is out there."

Mark didn't know what to say and turned to his friends with a questioning look. They would be dead if they faced a zombie without a weapon, and these guys had guns and knew how to use them. For the moment it seemed wisest to team up with the two robbers. They didn't have to say a word to each other, they all knew what that the others thought something similar.

"We're coming." Mark answered the robber.

Mark and his friends introduced themselves and the group left the scene looking like a battlefield. When they got out they encountered the last zombie, but at that range he wasn't a problem at all. What they saw from the parking lot was ten times worse. Thick black smoke rose from somewhere to the left. Down the street which the three friends had come from a truck had crashed into a car and tipped over. Clusters of zombies were roaming in the streets and the sounds of sirens, screams and gunshots made a soundtrack of death in the background. The end was really fucking nigh. A humvee was parked close to the seven eleven's entrance. Then some of the zombies noticed them. All six of them hurried to the humvee and got in it without the cluster of zombies getting to close. But when the engine started it was as if every undead in the whole city reacted. They came pouring out from houses and from streets to heed their unstoppable hunger. It was Morgan who drove. The undead didn't even try to get out of the way and without mercy he ran them over. Mark couldn't think, every thought was interrupted by another one. Alec and Stan seemed to be in the same state of mind as himself. Stan looked straight forward and didn't say anything. Alec had his face burrowed in his hands and looked down. Kyle was shaking and looking at a city that seemed totally alien to him. Scenes like those on the TV was everywhere. The white man turned around and looked at the four friends in the back seat.

"I'm Jimmy and my friend here is Morgan. What do you guys know about this shit?" He started.

"Nothing more than that it's everywhere." Mark answered. "What do you know?"

"That it's some really bad shit. We were waking up from one hell of a party and saw that some bad shit was happening on the TV. We decided to go stock up on some supplies, canned food and that kind of shit. But on our way we saw the real thing. People being eaten by other people, the chaos. So we decided to get our supplies and leave the city. Which we are doing right now." He sighed and looked older than he had looked before. Something was fishy, most people weren't packing heat when they went to parties. When Mark looked at the men they seemed more like professional criminals then party people.

"There's a squad car over there. They might have one of those 12 gauges and stuff." Morgan told Jimmy and pointed at a crashed police car. It looked as if the police car had crashed into the SUV ten meters in front of it. The police car had blood all over it's inside.

Morgan stopped the car and looked around at the street. No ghouls were to be seen on this street, but the ones that had followed them were on their tail.

"I'll go check it out. You coming Morg?" Jimmy asked.

"Nah. My leg doesn't feel to good." Morgan answered.

"Someone want to come?" Jimmy said and looked at the people in the back seat.

"I'll go." Mark volunteered. Morgan handed Mark his gun and instructed him in some of the basics.

The two of them exited the car and closed in on the car. When they came closer they heard moaning and sobs coming from the other side of the car. And swearing. Jimmy tapped Mark on the shoulder and made a hand signal to him that said that they should go around the car and check were the noise came from. The split up and closed in on the sobbing object from two sides. A crouched figure in police uniform sat with a shotgun in one hand and a handgun in the other. It was a woman, maybe in her early thirties. As soon as she noticed Mark and Jimmy she aimed her weapons at them. After a second or two she realised that the two people aiming guns at her wasn't zombies, she slowly lowered the guns. Mark noticed a corpse in uniform inside the car. The top of its head was missing. Mark and Jimmy stood and looked at the scene for a moment until the woman broke the silence.

"You gonna help me before the dead fucks coming back?" She asked Jimmy. "My leg is kind of bad since my late partner bit me." She pointed at the corpse with the pistol.

Mark could hear the sounds of the horde of dead behind them now. Jimmy walked up to the policewoman and grabbed her shotgun and threw it at Mark who caught it by reflex.

"Check the car for something useful." Jimmy ordered Mark.

While Jimmy helped the woman up and let her lean against him as they made their way to the humvee Mark slowly opened the door. The smell of blood almost made him throw up, but he leaned forward and reached for the holstered gun the corpse wore. He tried to be as quick as he could when he grabbed the gun and the extra clips. Then he saw a box of shotgun shells and grabbed them to. Then he hurried to the car were everybody was waiting. When everyone was inside the car Mark and they were on their way Mark turned around and saw the that that the zombies behind them were close now, only twenty meters behind. But as Morgan sped up they lost their pursuers in a couple of narrow turns.

"I'm Jenny if anyone wanted to know." The policewoman said. The others introduced themselves and told Jenny their story.

"What do you know about this crisis?" Jimmy asked her when the story was told.

"It started this morning. Reports on murders flooded the station. The things happened everywhere and soon there weren't enough cops to cover all the reports. We, me and Jason, were downtown when we saw the first of these things. A group of them were chasing down a normal guy and we saw them from our car. We tried to stop them but only got their attention. They didn't care about that our guns were trained on them and that we shouted to them to hold it. Jason shot one of them when it got to close. It didn't have any affect at all."

"We know, you have to shot them in the head." Jimmy interrupted.

"I know that now, but back then we didn't. Jason shot him again. It didn't stop it either, the creature bit him but he pushed it away and pressed his gun against its temple and fired. Then it died. But the others were close to and we retreated to our car. More of them joined up and we figured it would be best to get back to the station before we did anything else. But on our way we hit that SUV you saw back there and the next thing I know is that I wake up and Jason is chewing on my thigh. I shot him in the head and crawled out of the wreck and sat there until you came along. The leg hurts as hell, do you have any first aid kits in here?"

"No we don't. Just so you know we are getting out of the town. Are you coming with us or should we drop you of here?" Morgan answered in a very sarcastic tone.

"I'll tag along with you, if it's as bad as you say we better hurry." Jenny answered.

They spent the rest of the journey in silence, all remembering the horrors that they had witnessed in the last hours. Soon a sign told them that You're leaving Rockport, we'll miss you! Mark felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I might survive another day of this mess, he thought as he looked at the beautiful Californian scenery. Everyone else was silent, except for Jenny who swore a little as she bandaged her wound with the same kind of makeshift bandages as Morgan.

After a while Morgan pulled over at one of those stops that swarmed the country. It was a little building, a small shop and a even smaller restaurant serving the usual hamburgers and stuff. There were no car at the parking lot and the whole place seemed deserted.

Everyone got out of the car. Morgan's leg was worse and he leaned at Jimmy. Jenny leaned against Kyle. When they got closer they saw that there was a note on the door.

I guess you know about what's happening.

I figured it would be nicer to spend my

last hours with my family. Take what you

want from here The end is nigh.

-Vic

The door was unlocked. When they entered they saw that the TV and radio was on. Vic seemed to have left in a hurry. Everyone sat down and watched the TV for a while. The situation had become worse since last time they checked. All major cities was down, the military couldn't do jack shit about anything since they were scattered, martial law had been declared throughout the whole country and CNN was going to shut down within a couple of hours and let an emergency broadcast take over. They saw a few live feeds from different places. One of them looked like that scene in Resident Evil 2 were all the cops are surrounded and shots at zombies everywhere, Mark thought. Another was from a helicopter and showed Broadway. Thousands of the creatures were down there. It looked as if the ground was moving. Then they raided the small shop for something to eat. What they took weren't directly the best food, but Coca-Cola and candy bars filled their stomachs for the moment. They talked when they ate, about what had happened and what they were going to do. Everyone tried to call their families from the phone at the disk, but they lines seemed to be out.

"What the hell do we do now?" Mark asked no one in specific.

"I think we should stay here for a day or two, we've got everything we need here. Food, water and shelter. If we stay here for some time we might see if the military cleans this up and then we can all return to normal." Joe answered. "Besides, Morgan's and Jenny's wounds doesn't look to good."

He was right in everything he said. It seemed best to stay here and check out what happened for a day or two while the wounded were treated. Their medical supplies weren't to good though, they had found a first aid kit in the shop but that was about it. And both Morgan and Jenny seemed to get worse.

"You're right." Stan agreed. Alec and Kyle grunted something that sounded like yes.

The day proceeded and everyone tried to do as much as possible. Morgan and Jenny weren't to mobile and therefore invented their armoury which was made up by Morgan's automatic (a colt .45), Jimmy's revolver (a .38), Jenny's and Jason's guns (both glock 17) and the 12 gauge shotgun. The others searched the one story building for anything that could come to use. They found some sharp knives in the kitchen, some non-perishable food in the shop and some other things of necessity like a road map and some basic hiking gear. They gathered everything on two tables in the middle of the room. Then they turned to the TV again just in time to see that CNN shut down and the emergency broadcast take over. The newscaster was a young woman that looked stressed. She reported the situation to everyone. As if anyone hasn't realised that there's zombies running around, Mark thought. The situation itself seemed to be as before. The zombies were everywhere, nobody could do anything about it and the world was going to end. The usual.

Later on, in the evening, Jenny passed out. She had a fever and was getting worse. None of the men knew what to do and couldn't do anything else than to watch and hope for the best.

After a while Jenny stopped shaking from the fever. She lay still on the improvised bed they had made. No one did anything for a minute, they only looked at Jenny as if she was going to wake up and be alright. Then Stan leaned forward to check her pulse. He didn't seem to find the pulse anywhere and put his hand an inch over her mouth to check for breath. After a while he turned to the others and said:

"She's not breathing."

Then something unexpected happened. Jenny opened her eyes and locked them on Stan's hand. Then she bit hard. The skin on Stan's hand was ripped away as zombie-Jenny took a bite of his hand. He jumped away from the zombie and screamed in pain as blood sprayed from his palm and severed pinkie finger. He started to crab walk away from her.

"Get away from it." Jimmy shouted and ran for the guns.

Kyle showed a hidden skill for acrobatics as he dove down behind a table. Mark and Alec ran into the kitchen and hid there. Zombie-Jenny realised that Stan was to far away to concentrate on and that there was easier prey. She lunged at Morgan who sat next to her. Everything happened in a second and Morgan's eyes hadn't sent the information of Jenny biting Stan's hand to his cerebral-cortex yet. She got on top of the bigger man and when they wrestled it almost looked as if they were making out or something, Mark thought as he looked at the brawling from the window in the door. Then Jenny leaned down at Morgan's face as if she was going to kiss him, but instead of giving Morgan a kiss she bit down in his lower lip and ripped it off. Morgan screamed in pain and tried to push her away, but the zombie was to strong. Then the zombie bit down again, into Moorage's throat.

He tried to scream but the wound to his throat made his scream became a hissing. Blood flowed into his throat and choked him. When the zombie realised that Morgan was dead it started to search for a new prey, which happened to be Jimmy. By this time Jimmy had almost reached the duffel bag with the guns in it. He reached down and grabbed his revolver and swung around to meet the zombie coming at him. Jenny's forehead was two inches from the barrel of the revolver when he pulled the trigger. Her head resolved into a cloud of brains and bone that sprayed the wall behind her. Then everything went silent for a moment.

"Stay here, I'll go check what's happening." Mark told Alec.

He peeked through the window so that the zombie really was dead, he saw Jimmy standing over Jenny's corpse with his revolver. Then Morgan started to move. He stood up and lunged at Kyle who still was hiding behind the table. Mark didn't see anything because everything happened behind the table, but he heard Kyle scream in pain and then become silent. Then zombie-Morgan stood up as a proof of what had happened. Jimmy aimed his gun at him, but he didn't shot.

"Morgan, can you hear me?" He asked the zombie. "Buddy?"

The only thing that happened was that he got the zombies attention.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but if you don't stop I'll shot you!" He screamed as the zombie started to run at him.

He never shot. To Jimmy it still was his friend he was aiming at, to the zombie it was another victim. The zombie-Morgan bit Jimmy in the shoulder and by reflex he pulled the trigger. The shot was way off and impacted into a bag of chips. The zombie bit again, and again. The pair tumbled to the floor and the zombie kept gnawing and ripping in what once had been his friend. Then Kyle stood up from behind the table and looked at Stan. Stan was on the ground and when zombie-Kyle charged him he only put up his bloody hands as a try to stop the creature that once had been his brother. Mark realised that if he was going to survive he needed the guns. He ran across the room and dodged as zombie-Morgan lashed out at him on top of the dead Jimmy. He grabbed the bag with the guns in it and slung the shotgun over his shoulder and ran back to Alec in the kitchen. Then he realised that he hadn't taken any food and no hiking stuff. But it was to late to change now. He grabbed Alec and tried to drag him to the kitchens fire exit.

"What about the others?" Alec said with tears in his eyes.

"They're dead." Mark answered and sounded as emotionless as a machine.

Mark kicked the door open. The night air was cool and damp. The two friends ran.

Cliffhanger, again. This time it's not going to take as long as last time. And if Ahharu reads this I have to say something, UPDATE GODDAMN YOU! That goes for SubOrbital to.