Chapter eight: Lost

Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich justice of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

- Conan the Cimmerian

As the caravan drove down the road Mark tried to focus on the task at hand. He tried to force the memory of his conversation with Jessica out of his head. He hadn't had anyone to talk to about those thing even though he had wanted to tell Stan and Alec why he simply couldn't invite them in because his mom was to drunk. And now he talked about it with a girl he met a week ago. He liked her, he really did, but if he couldn't talk about it with his closest friends, the ones he thought of as the closest thing to family members he had, why tell her? Maybe it was as she said, that he talked to her because he didn't know her that good. And she had said that she liked him, but what did she mean by that? Did she think about him like he thought about her? Did she like him like a friend? Or like a brother? If it became something out of it, what would the others in the group say? What would Steve think about it? Fucking soap opera clichés. Too many questions. Focus. But then the questions came flooding.

Fuck it. Fuck all of it. At least for now. Focus on the task at hand.

He looked at his shotgun and checked it if it was reloaded for the second time. He had some shells in his pocket, about twenty of them. If everything went alright he wouldn't have to use too many of them. If it went perfect he wouldn't have to use any. But shit like this could go wrong. Except for the shotgun and the shells he had the leather jacket and one of the cigars. He remembered Will Smiths one liner in Independence Day 'when the fat lady sings' and had snatched the cigar in a hurry as he jumped into the car with the two others. Alec drove as usual and the fatman slept, as usual. Mark sat between them and everything was dead quiet except for the engine. The sun was on its way up now and the day seemed to be a beautiful one. Besides that the day wouldn't be a nice one. They where on their way into combat with the undead, and that wasn't something a nice dawn could mask. Strangely enough Mark wasn't scared. He didn't feel anything at all. He wondered what kind of people the others were. Maybe they were as good people as the ones he and Alec was travelling with now or maybe they were a bunch of dickheads and assholes. Probably only some huddled survivors not really knowing what was going on around them. But they were humans and they were alive, but they wouldn't be if they didn't save them. Was it worth it? Everyone else seemed to think so, but Mark wasn't sure about that. He and the others was about to risk everything for some people they didn't know and hadn't met before. But what if everyone reasoned like him? Then the world would have ended a lot earlier than it did. But that didn't matter now, the world had ended in a spectacular way and the things that had happened before didn't matter. Not much of it at least.

They neared Harrisburg. It was one of those towns that you drive through when you are going somewhere else. The only thing you might have done in one of those towns are taking a pause and eating some food at the diner where there always was one or two fat guys eating a hamburger and talking about news with the chef. But this time it was abandoned. Lonely. Nothing moved in the streets, no lights shone in the windows, no cars passed them.

They didn't see to many zombies on their way in, and the ones that saw them never kept up. There was signs that pointed to the school and after a while the group reached the first location. Brandon, Ryan and Terry didn't stop where they others stopped, they honked the horn and sped up to go be bait.

As the three young men drove away down the street the others got out of their cars. They didn't want to attract any ghouls with the sound of the cars. Everyone was on high alert and suspected every shadow for being a zombie. After a few minutes of walking they found a school bus. The good thing was that it was unlocked and in shape to drive. The bad thing was that the keys weren't in.

"We've got to hotwire it. Anyone else know how to do it?" Carl asked the group as he entered the bus.

"You're on your own. Didn't know that all the bad shit you were doing would pay off." Steve answered him and turned to the others. "Alec, stay here and cover him while we get back to the cars."

"Sure, it might take a few minutes though." Carl told them and started hotwiring the car.

"See you at the city hall." Steve said.

Little had they thought about the student in the school. When the first undead stumbled into the school grounds and bit someone the students in the school got killed and turned. When the whole building had turned into a tomb the ghouls didn't move on, they stayed inside and simply stood around waiting for the next meal to pass by. They lacked the intelligence to go outside and hunt prey, so they waited. The first creature picked up the scent of warm flesh and started to run at it. Soon all the others followed. The whole school was empty in a minute.

As the group was walking back to their cars the first zombie showed. It was a teacher and his face was covered in blood so that none of his features could be seen. He stood at the school entrance as a macabre guide waiting for his group to come by. Before anyone else could react or even see the creature Steve's battle hardened reflexes made him raise the gun and fire without really knowing it. The zombie was fifty meters away from the group and took the pellets in its torso. If it was a normal human he would have been killed, now it merely stopped the undead for a few seconds.

"Run!" Steve shouted and fired a second time, this time tagging the creature in the forehead.

The others started to sprint for the cars and soon there was thirty infected behind them. The thirty zombies turned into a hundred within seconds. But they where to far away to reach the survivors before they were safe and on their way in the cars. As soon as Mark jumped into the drivers seat he glanced over his shoulder to see the horde charging at them. Steve and Jessica had started their car and were on their way. Alex was a bit slower than Mark and had about five meters left until he got into the car. Then Mark realised something bad. The keys. He didn't have them and they weren't in the ignition. Alec had them. Steve and Jessica drove away down the street and had been joined by a school bus. He and the fatman where stranded.

Now the horde was a lot closer. Luckily for Mark he didn't panic. He simply dashed out of the car and started to run. Alex didn't really get what was going on and got into the car only to realise the same thing as Mark. But it was too late for him. He panicked and froze with a stupid look on his face. Soon the ghouls reached him with their fangs and bites. The first of the zombies that reached him bit down and ripped a large chunk of flesh from his throat, the second did the same to his face and the third bit down on his arm. Then he passed out to never wake up again. Some of the zombies stopped in hope of getting a chunk of flesh while most of them continued for Mark and some for Steve and the others. Mark knew he couldn't outrun them and tried to think of a solution. He was getting tired now and soon his lungs burned as never before. He had got a some hundred meters down the street now but he hadn't got further away from the horde, but on the other hand they hadn't got any closer. He looked to his left and saw that the houses door was open. He ran to the house followed by the horde, now they where getting closer. When he got inside the zombies reached the porch. Lots of them fell over as they tripped on the two feet fence that stood around the house. As soon as he was inside he slammed the door shut behind him and locked it. He didn't know if the door was going to hold but didn't count on it so he kept running and looked for the backdoor. He grabbed his shotgun as he thought he heard something on the second floor. And right he was. A creature, a woman in her early thirties and kind of good looking, stumbled down and looked straight at him. He put the shotgun to his shoulder and fired. The heave recoil slammed into his shoulder as the zombie was knocked on its back. He pumped the shotgun again and fired again straight into its evil eyes. The head exploded and covered his jeans and leather jacket in gore. He pumped again and ran over the corpse and out through the back door. He didn't see any zombies in the backyard but knew that they where on the other side of the house. He jumped over the three foot fence and over to the next backyard. He kept running even though he didn't know if the horde of undead students followed him or not. Now he got some time to think about things. He was stranded in a town with a couple of thousand undead cannibals and the others surely thought he was dead. The only thing he could do was to get to the place outside the town where they had agreed to meet. It was about two miles outside the town and about three miles from where he was now. And everywhere around him was the undead. And they could get to the city hall and pick up those people really fast, faster than he could get to the location. He needed a vehicle.

He jogged through the house and over the street without any troublemaking undead seeing him. He saw three figures down the road but they didn't spot him. He looked at the houses but couldn't see a single car, it seemed as if everyone had went to their jobs before the plague hit. Too bad. This sucks, I should have told the others what I thought about all of this, he thought as he reloaded the shotgun and caught some breath. Then he slung it over his shoulder and sneaked forth on his way to his friends.

It didn't take too long before the three men acting decoy reached the city hall. The surroundings of the building was clogged with creatures, zombies. There where thousands of them crowding the streets and trying to get inside the building where their meals where. Brandon stared at the horde and didn't believe it. It felt strange to see so many people with the same objective. It was like the Metallica concert he and Ryan and some other dudes had been to a year ago. All those people only wanting to get as close to the stage/house as possible. So many minds bent on the same thing.

"That's a fuckload of zombies." Brandon mumbled.

Some of the zombies furthest away from the house turned and looked straight at their car. They started sprinting and it was as an avalanche. Soon almost all of the creatures where running straight at them. Ryan leaned his torso out through the window and raised his pistol into the air and fired three shots and gave the oncoming avalanche of zombies a pure wild west 'Yeeeha!' roar as Terry turned around and accelerated down the street followed by the throng of undead. Terry didn't drive to fast since the mission was to lead the zombies away from the building.

"Don't drive back for fucks sake!" Brandon shouted as he realised Terry was driving back.

Terry drove into another street as he too realised that he was leading them straight into the others way. The avalanche followed.

Alec noticed that he didn't see the pickup behind them as they followed Steve's car. That was bad and he hoped that nothing had happened to them. Or to Mark at least, he thought jokingly. They were probably taking another way to the city hall or something. He didn't know what to do if Mark died. Stan was dead and so was Kyle and that had scared him a lot. It had cut him off from his life before the Rising in some way. The only real friend he had left was Mark. And now if Mark was dead he really didn't know what to do. He held his glock in his hands and checked if it was full and if the two spare clips were in his pockets as earlier. When he realised that it was so he checked the winchester in the same way. It too was ready for fighting. Carl seemed to be focused on driving the car and trying to find his way to the city hall.

"Do you see them?" Carl asked him and Alec snapped back to reality.

"Only Steve and Jessica. Can't see Mark anywhere." He answered. "Hope nothing happened to them."

"Yeah, me too. To bad to lose them." Carl said and sounded really serious.

They didn't say anything for the rest of the drive. The town was dead. Doors were open and flapping in the wind, some windows where smashed, they had to evade crashed cars every now and then. A couple of weeks before the D-day Alec had done something he usually didn't. He had read a book called The Stand written by Stephen King. He imagined that the barren streets from the book looked similar to this. Another piece of media came to his mind, End of the world as we know it by REM. He was scared, nervous and eager to get out of the car at the same time. He tried to put the thoughts about Mark and Alex out of his head by lighting a Lucky Strike. He had become pretty used to the strong cigarettes now and didn't even cough. It felt comfortable to smoke now, not that he was addicted yet, but still it was nice. So much had happened the last days. Did life have a meaning now? He was going to die some day sooner than before all of this, he didn't need to get an education to get a good job since there wasn't any jobs left, the only thing he had to graduate in was survival. He snapped back to reality a second time when Carl slowed in. He looked at the big building in front of the bus. It was the city hall.

"We're here." Carl said. This was it Alec thought and grabbed the winchester rifle and got on his feet.

Mark had jogged a few blocks in the direction he thought was the right one, he wasn't sure but trusted his male pathfinding skills. He had lost a couple of zombies by some quick turns in and out of a couple of houses two blocks away and only fired three shots. The bad thing was that the sound might alert other ghouls in the area. He reloaded the shotgun as he ran. A figure standing in the doorway of one of the houses to his right side saw him and started to sprint at him. As soon as Mark saw the creature he stopped jogging and raised his shotgun. He stopped breathing to get a better aim and fired at the creature when it was only five meters away from him. The shot impacted into it's skull and totally demolished it and sprayed the air behind it with a crimson mist. The creature took another step and fell down and leaked the rest of its brains onto the street. A week ago something like this would have been shocking, scary and disgusting, but now it was all to normal. It was weird how things changed so fast. He started to run a little faster now as the gunshot drew far more attention than what was needed. The horde from the school hadn't showed yet, it was most likely that they had lost his scent or whatever they used to track him down. But two other creatures cane sprinting out of their houses to investigate the gunshot. They where far from him now but closing in quickly. Mark pumped the shotgun and the spent shell flew out of the gun to be replaced by a new one. He took aim on the closest one, a bald male with vulture like features only strengthened by all the blood on him. Mark pulled the trigger and felt the recoil slam into his shoulder like all the times before. The time the pellets spread out a little and destroyed the everything from the neck to the forehead. Mark didn't give it another look and turned to the second one. This one was, or at least had been, a middle aged overweight woman. She looked like one of those people that could be real mean and angry at everything for no apparent reason. Like his mom. He pumped the shotgun again and fired almost a nano second after the fresh shell had been put in place. Since the zombie wasn't as close as the other one Mark hit a little low, in the kneecap of the creature. It fell down and tried to get up only to fall down again. It tried again with the same result. Mark didn't shoot it, it was a waste of ammo when he could run away from it. He ran and reloaded the shotgun. He ran another block and stopped to catch his breath. He was soaked in sweat now and really regretted skipping all those gym classes he had skipped through out the years as a slacker. A new group of undead snapped him back to the very moment. It was four, maybe five, of them and they where running straight at him. Not panicking but thinking as clear as any other day made him realise that he couldn't fight them all. So turned around and ran the other way, trying to outrun them by jumping some fences and running through some houses as he had done a couple of times earlier. As he turned around he saw that that wasn't an option, another group, this one with about ten or fifteen flesheaters in it, was charging him from the other way. There was no way out of this that included him alive and unharmed. Last stand, my Alamo, he thought as he raised the gun to prepare for his last fight. He fired three shots and they impacted into the small group slamming two of them to the ground only to see them get up again and one to the ground to never get up again. He fired three more shots and dropped two of the creatures which only left two. I'm one lucky SOB, Mark thought as he realised that there was a small chance, if even big enough to call it small, that he could get away from the creatures. He fired another shot and slammed one of the creatures to the asphalt. Now the last one was a meter away from him and lunged at him. Mark dodged the creature and slammed the butt of the shotgun into its throat. It stopped its move and it was as if it's feet was swept away from the ground. It slammed into the ground hard but managed to grab his jeans as he tried to run away from it. He struggled to get his leg away from the creature's iron grip and finally managed after what seemed to have been hours, ironical as it was it was the slippery gore from the zombie in the house that made this ones grip slide away. He gave it a kick and felt how the zombies nose was crushed under his sneaker. He started to run and glanced over his shoulder to see that the zombies behind him was about twelve meters behind him and gaining on him.

He ran left and jumped clumsily over another fence. The zombies didn't seem to care about the fence and tripped on it as the others had done earlier. But as soon as they where on the ground they got up on their feet again. But by then Mark was on the other side of the house and jumping over the fence again.

Carl drove up to the city halls entrance and managed to run down a few of the zombies that for some reason hadn't followed Terry and the others. All in all there was about five of them dangerously close and another fifteen further away. All of them were charging straight at Carl and Alec. The smashed glass doors to the city hall where barricaded with lots of tables chairs, enough to keep the undead out. Alec raised the rifle and saw the zombies ugly face in the scope. This one was a bald and fat male. Its face was stretched in a grim look of determination. Determination to get to Alec and eat him. Alec hesitated a second before he pulled the trigger. The bullet went into the zombies forehead and exited through the back of its head in a gory display of brains and blood. It had been the only one within life threatening range. He took aim to the next one. This time he didn't even care about what it looked like, he only saw the head in the scope and pulled the trigger. Click. Click? Alec thought. Then he remembered that it was a winchester rifle like in the western movies and pulled the lever and saw the casing fly out. Then he aimed again and fired. The zombies brain was destroyed and it died. This city hall was a big two story building with lots of windows. It seemed new. All windows on the first floor was barricaded with tables, doors and shelves. It seemed to big to be a city hall in a small town as this. And it seemed new too, to new to be in a town like this.

"Get inside!" Steve ordered and Alec turned around to see that the barricades had been taken away and that a middle aged man in a red tweed jacket standing at entrance and signalling to them to get inside. This, Alec decided, had to be Roy.

Carl stopped at the entrance and waited for Alec to run inside. Carl fired two shots at the closest zombies as Alec ran past him as he covered for Steve and Jessica to get inside. Alec ran inside and saw five people standing and looking at them with eyes glimmering with hope to be rescued. A man and a woman in their thirties holding each other as any man and wife would to for support in times as troubled as these, and he could see rings on their fingers. Then there was a man with a pair of sunglasses and a dirty jeans vest with a worried look on his face. He was holding the neck of a broken whiskey bottle as a primitive weapon. Next to him stood Roy, if it was him. And last of all there was an elderly black man dressed as a priest. He turned around to see Steve and Jessica stumble in. As soon as Carl joined the group the others stopped staring and started to grab all the tables, chairs and other things they had used to block the entrance with.

"What the hell are you doing?" Steve roared with a furious look on his face. He was a big man and his mighty words made everyone except for the man with the sunglasses step back. "We might have lost two good guys by trying to rescue you people. We're not getting stuck here with you."

"But they are outside!" The woman begged. "It's too dangerous to go out now, even with your guns!"

"Where are the others?" Steve asked in a more normal tone and didn't even care about what the woman had said and scanned the group. "You said there where twelve in here, and kids." He added as the people who now had stopped barricading the entrance. "Martin?"

The black man nodded.

"They're in there." The Roy figure interrupted and pointed down a corridor. "They're bitten and really delirious so we quarantined them. One of the creatures had hid inside the building and he attacked last night. Cassidy managed to push him out of the window on the second floor."

"BITTEN!" Steve roared even louder. "They're dead and not delirious. Let's get going."

"I fucking told you so!" The vest man burst out and looked at the woman and man with what might have been a Irish accent. Alec couldn't tell since he talked to fast, something that was very characteristic for the Irish accent. "Now lets get going."

"You Irish fuck!" The woman cried out. "My children are coming with us! You wanted to kill them you sick fuck." The woman lashed out. She didn't look like the kind of person to use such a language often.

"Let's get going now!" Steve roared. He turned to Alec. "Alec, give me the rifle." He said.

Alec threw the Winchester to Steve who grabbed it and gave Carl a look. Then he threw the shotgun to Martin and turned around and aimed at the closest zombie and fired. He kept firing and seemed to hit with every shot fired. The woman did something odd as she dashed away from her man and started to run down the corridor where Roy had pointed. The Irishman ran after but didn't catch up with her. The woman reached the door and opened it.

"Beth!" The husband screamed.

As soon as the door was opened a pair of hands reached out and grabbed the woman. Everything went chaotic. A body moving with the characteristic twitches of a zombie followed the arms. Another zombie joined the first in feasting on Beth. Two more came through the door and started to run at the Irishman who stopped and turned around in one swift move. He cursed something that only another Irishman could have understood and started to run back. More zombie came through the door, two of them were children. From there everything seemed to be happening in a blur. The husband started to run to his wife's rescue but was stopped as Martin jumped at him and slammed him to the ground and held him back. Carl joined Steve with keeping the zombies outside away from the house. Jessica drew her gun and aimed it into the group but didn't fire since she was to scared to hit the Irishman. Alec himself also drew his gun and aimed it into the corridor, he too was afraid to hit the Irishman. The zombie closest to the Irishman got closer and the Irishman turned around and stabbed the creature with the bottle in its throat. It pushed it back but nothing more. The Irishman turned around and ran away from the zombies with renewed speed and therefore out of Alec's and Jessica's aim. Alec was too freaked to aim his shots and simply fired the whole clip into the zombies. The stabbed zombie was tagged in its head and fell down and some of them behind him was stopped for a few seconds. The Irishman ran up to Jessica.

"Give me the fucking shooter!" He shouted and grabbed yanked the gun out of Jessica's nervous grip.

As soon as he held the gun he aimed it at the closest zombie and fired his first shot. It hit the creature in the heart but didn't do anything more than a hole in its chest. By that time Alec had emptied his clip and was now reloading when he saw what the Irishman was doing.

"Shoot them in the head!" He shouted to the man over the sounds of battle around him.

The Irishman got away one more shot before he understood Alec. And then he started aiming his shots . Alec got the next clip into his pistol and was now a little more calm than before. Calm enough to aim. But the ghouls where only a few meters away. He aimed his shots and together he and the Irishman killed three of the zombies. Now only the eating zombie and the two children. Alec didn't have the guts to kill children and fired the last bullet at the eating zombie. It hit it in the neck and it started twitching. The Irishman on the other hand was out of bullets too, but that didn't stop him. The closest child zombie was the older boy. He ran straight at the Irishman and got a kick in the head by a boot as price. It fell to the ground and the Irishman stepped on the zombies chest, making it unable to do anything at all except for flailing with his arms and scream. It sounded as if something inside it cracked, possibly a rib. The next shot didn't come from Alec or the Irishman, it was Steve who had turned around and fired Alec's rifle. The slug hit the running child in its left eye and it died.

"Watch the door Carl. Get the radio. We're moving out now." Steve said. Everyone obeyed his orders.

"Beth!" The husband screamed and ran over to Beth's corpse now ravaged by bites and with chunks of flesh missing.

"Get the fuck away from her!" Alec screamed and ran up to the man. On his way to the man he put a bullet in the child under the Irishman's boot. Then he ended the twitter. The man looked at him with a questioning and scared look.

"Why!" He asked. He was crying and Alec could understand him. But he didn't want to jeopardise everyone's safety. He aimed the glock at the dead Beth's head and fired. The man screamed something.

"She was going to turn into one of those things if I hadn't done that." He explained. "I'm sorry for your loss but we've got to get back to the bus."

Together the saddened group exited the building. The husband, who introduced himself as Michael, was to shocked to do anything else than to walk like a empty shell looking down into the ground. Steve, Jessica, Alec and maybe Carl was sad over that they had lost Mark and Alec and the others over the loss of Beth and the others. No one said anything as they drove out of the town to the meeting point.

Mark hadn't got very far. He had to hide from what he believed to be the horde Terry and the others had lured away. He hid in one of the houses while the thousands passed by him in the street. But now he knew that he was running out of time and that he had to get a vehicle to get there in time. Where there were cars they were either crashed or without keys. He didn't have too much ammo left and there was a chance that he wouldn't reach the others in time and therefore be on his own, so he had to save some. He didn't want to think about it now, but it was a possibility.

He looked out from his hideout and didn't see any of the zombies in the street and decided to get moving. He got out into the street and looked again, still not seeing any creatures. He jogged in what he believed to be the right way some more and kept looking for possible threats. And after two blocks he ran into two zombies. It was like in one of those western movies where the opponents looked each other in the eyes before a draw. Then the zombies started running at him. It was a long way for them to run and he was sure he had time to take down both of them. He raised the gun and prepared to fire but was interrupted by something weird.

A tall figure dressed in black biker clothes, leather jacket and pants and a dirtbike helmet entered the scene. And he wasn't unarmed, he held something as weird as a katana long sword. It was a man, Mark could see that by the body, the movement and the body language. It looked like a male version of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. He stepped out between Mark and the two zombies and turned to face the zombies. They ran right at him and he didn't flinch, he only raised his sword and pointed it to the two zombies. Who the fuck is that stupid fuck? Mark thought as looked at the swordfighter and the two zombies.

"Get down and I'll shoot them!" He screamed to the man. The man didn't answer or do anything else.

Mark didn't want to hit the crazy man and couldn't get a clear shot of the ghouls. The two of them came closer, one of them was two meters ahead of the last one. As it reached the man he side-stepped and slashed with the sword in a blurry move. The blade hit the zombies scalp and separated a part its head from the rest. It fell down and leaked some grey brains onto the street. The other zombie reached the man and tackled him to the ground. He dropped the sword in the fall and it bounced away from him. But somehow the man managed to grab a hold of the creatures neck and held the face, or more importantly the mouth, away from him. He had to use both hands to keep the creature away. Mark ran closer to the man and the zombie. The unknown man and the undead creature had reached a draw as the man couldn't get away from the zombie and the zombie couldn't get any closer. When Mark was two meters away from the fighters he aimed the shotgun and fired. The zombie was hit in the shoulder and thrown backwards away from the creature and spraying the unknown man with thick black blood. It started twitching, the pellets apparently destroyed the spine or something. The man was up on his feet in seconds and retrieved the sword. He walked over to the twitching zombie and stabbed the blade into its forehead. Then he turned around and took of his helmet. It revealed a red haired man with a weeks beard and the strong-chinned features that most people associate with a comic book hero. He looked to be nineteen or twenty and had a wondering look on his face.

"Who're you?" He asked.

"I'm Mark and who the hell are you?" Mark asked back. Something about the man made Mark think that he had seen him before. He just couldn't place it.

"The name's Gerald. I thought I was the only living guy in this state. What are you doing here packing that big shotgun like if you were G.I Joe himself. You can't be more than seventeen."

"I'm only sixteen actually. Where have I seen you before?" Mark said.

"You've seen me before? In the Daredevil stunts on the net maybe?" He said and something clicked in Mark.

"That's where I saw you. You're one of those crazy dudes in those videos on the net!" He almost shouted. "I've seen a lot of your stuff. The pit fighting, the GTA's and all that other stuff."

"You're like the first person I've ever met in real life who knows about that. Cool. But I think there's more important stuff right now than to talk about my former hobbies. Let's get inside." Said Gerald.

The two of them walked into the small house to the left. It looked as abandoned as all the others but the attic was stuffed with canned food, bottles of various liquids and some clothes. As well as all the other things that dwells in all attics, boxes of old stuff and things like that. In the middle there was and open space where a pillow and a blanket. As soon as both of them got up there Mark told Gerald the story about how he had ended up where Gerald stepped in.

"Dude, that's some story." Gerald said as Mark finished.

"The thing is that I need to get back to my friends before they leave." Mark told Gerald. "Do you have a car we can use."

"What do you mean with 'we'? And no. I've got something else though." Gerald said.

"I don't think you want to be sitting here until the ghouls see you are here and sieges the place. And besides, it would be nice to have someone like you in our group, a celebrity." Said Mark.

"Got that right. Let's pack and get out of here then. Chop chop." He said and started to pack.

The packing didn't take long, Gerald simply put the rest of the canned food, some of the water and some other things in a backpack and they were done. The two survivors went downstairs and looked for any sign of a zombie. The street was empty except for the two corpses and a spent shell. They continued on to the garage. It clearly wasn't Gerald's house, it was his parents and he had been on a visit when the shit hit the fan. The parents had been working when all of it happened and when Gerald woke up around noon he turned on the TV and saw what was happening. Then he did two things, put all useful items in the attic and retrieved the samurai sword from his room. For some reason it had been sharpened in the past and was like a razor. In the garage the 'something else' turned out to be a new dirtbike.

"This baby is getting us out of here." Gerald said. "Take the backpack, it's easier if you have it. The bad thing however is that I don't have another helmet. Tough luck."

Mark slung the backpack and the shotgun over his shoulder.

"Since I hope you're not planning on crashing I don't think I'll need a helmet." Mark told him.

"Take these at least, it's a bitch to get something in your eye at that speed." Gerald said and handled him a pair of sunglasses.

"I've seen you drive before, that stolen MC in one of your videos." Mark said and remembered the video where Gerald got a stolen MC to make almost 200 Mph hunted by the cops on a highway.

"You mean when I stole that bike?" Mark nodded. "That was mighty cool you know."

"Whatever." Said Mark and almost jumped a feet as Gerald kicked the bike to life. Hearing the engine for a whole ten seconds almost gave Mark a headache. Mark got behind Gerald and the two drove away in what Mark believed to be the right direction.

The bus was quiet until the Irishman broke the silence.

"So, since I take it that we're going to travel together for a while an introduction wouldn't be out of place. I'm Cassidy." He said.

"I'm Alec and the guy driving is Carl. The two others you saw was Steve and his daughter Jessica." Alec answered the Irishman.

"The priest over there is Martin." He said and pointed at the priest who didn't even look up. "The man over there is Michael and the other man is Roy." Roy was the only one to look up as his name was called.

"So, what's your story, how did you end up in the city hall?" Alec asked. He needed to talk to forget about what might and most possibly had happened to Mark, his oldest friend.

"How I ended up in the city hall? I was on my way through the town when my car broke down. I slept the night at the hotel only to wake up by screams and gunfire. I looked out the window and saw what was happening. First I thought it was some kind of riot, like the ones in Belfast in the seventies. The strange thing however was that the rioters were running around eating and killing anyone they saw. No throwing stones at policemen at all. I flipped on the radio and heard that people from everywhere was going crazy and killed people. So I figured that some others, police and such, where there and ready to protect the citizens of this great nation." The last words were smothered in sarcasm. "As soon as we saw that the things ran rampage in the streets we barricaded ourselves and figured that some military or other survivors were going to save us. Then we waited. That's about it. What about you guys, you work as an paramilitary survivalist team or something."

Alec chuckled at the remark and told the Irishman his story.

"That's some story. Quite an adventure actually. This is a new world order you know." Cassidy said.

"Yeah, before all of this dead people killing living people wasn't normal, it is now." Alec said.

"Maybe it's Armageddon. The end of the world. I remember something from the bible about the dead walking at Armageddon and punishing the sinners, which seems to be pretty much everyone. What do you think father?" Cassidy said.

"I don't believe in god any more. If god existed he never would have punished man with something like this, and if he exits I say fuck him cause he's a sadistic son of a bitch." Martin said.

The harsh words from the priest stopped the conversation and everyone sat quiet the rest of the way.

Terry, Ryan and Brandon arrived to the assembly point first. They had lost the group of zombies behind them long ago and now didn't have anything to worry about. All of them hoped that the others were all right and that there hadn't been any trouble with the new people. It had been scary back then when about two and a half thousand undead cannibals chased them, but it was over now. As soon as Terry turned of the engine all three men got out to stretch their legs. Then they simply sat down, ate some of the food they had in the car (most of the food was in the pickup) and tried to flush the adrenaline out of their systems. It took some time but after a while the thrill was over.

"What kind of people do you think we're rescuing?" Brandon asked Ryan while Terry was away taking a piss.

"It's that Roy dude and hopefully a lot of hot chicks. But I don't think so, you've seen a fair amount of slashers through the years and you know as well as I that hot chicks dies first in the movies and right now I wouldn't be to surprised by something like that." Ryan answered.

"So you're saying that we've ended up in some b-horror flick?" Brandon said. "Like if we're going to die in agony until there's only one or two left of us and then the end credits are going to roll down the screen? "

"No, not that we've been sucked into a b-movie like in another bad b-movie. I'm only saying that everything has turned out like in one of those bad zombie movies. Only that the real ones run." Ryan answered. It sounded as if this was something he had thought through the last days.

"That's some weedy shit you know. Let's talk about something else." Brandon said.

"Like what? At least one could talk about TV in the old days. And god do I miss weed." Ryan said.

"You already talk about 'the old days' as if it was an lost era. It wasn't more than a week ago you know." Brandon said.

"But a lot of things has happened. Life has changed a lot-"

"And nothing is normal anymore." Brandon cut him of.

"That's wrong you know. One can't say that nothing is normal anymore, it's only that normal has changed into this. This is what ordinary life is now." Said Ryan.

"You've got a point there." Brandon said and was quiet.

The two men were quiet when Terry returned and then they continued being quiet. Everything was quiet. The wind blew through the leaves of the tree that gave the car and three men shade. The wind wasn't as chilling as they usually were at this time of year, it was nice. Everything was nice and for a moment all three of them managed to forget about the new 'normal' life. Until the faint sound of an engine was to be heard. It wasn't a car engine, that they were sure of. It wasn't weaker or louder, just different from a car.

"What the hell is that?" Terry asked.

"Don't know, sounds like a dirtbike or something." Brandon answered.

"Get your guns ready, this guy might be unfriendly." Terry said and drew his gun.

All three got their guns out, checked them and prepared for whatever was coming at them. The sound grew louder, closer. The men got more tense, preparing for the worst case scenario. It might be one of those gangs the note from Skip had told them about. They waited for the possible threat to show. And it did show. And it wasn't what the three men had thought it was going to be.

First off it wasn't a single man. It was two persons. The first was wearing black leather pants and jacket with a helmet that didn't show his face. He had a sword on his back for some reason. The second one was a guy, a broad shouldered guy, wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses. Around the leather jacket he had two strips of clothing. Like Mark. Mark.

"It's Mark for gods sake!" Brandon shouted as soon as he recognised the young man.

"What the hell is he doing on a dirtbike? Where's the pickup? And where's the others?" Terry said.

"We'll get answers to that soon enough." Brandon said.

Mark and the unknown driver had seen the car and the three men and drove up to them and stopped. Mark got of the bike first and said hi to his friends.

"What happened? Where are the others?" Terry asked.

"I don't know where anyone else is, except for Alexander. And he's dead." Mark answered.

"What happened?" Ryan asked.

"There where infected in the school, lots of them. Carl and Alec stayed in the school bus and hot-wired it while we got back to the cars. The zombies saw us and started chasing us. Steve and Jessica got into their car and drove away while I had to wait for the fat... Alexander. Then I realised that Alec still had the keys and it was a little late to run back and ask for the keys. Alex was run down by the zombies and I hid in one of the houses before moving on. After running a few blocks I met up with this guy." He pointed at Gerald. "And we took his dirtbike to meet with you guys here."

"So you don't know what happened to the others?" Ryan asked and Mark shook his head.

"Guess we'll have to wait then." Brandon said.

Gerald took of the helmet and both Brandon and Ryan recognised him directly.

"You're that guy on the Daredevil videos on the net. You're fucking crazy!" Brandon shouted. The words 'fucking crazy' wasn't meant as an insult and wasn't taken as such. Gerald smiled.

"Thanks. In one hour I've meet more people that recognise my videos than in the last six months." He said.

"What about that dirtbike, how good is it?" Brandon asked.

And Gerald and Brandon engaged in an discussion about dirtbikes, motorcycles and almost everything that could transport someone from A to B with and engine. Except for tanks which they knew very little about. The others were eager to hear Marks story with more details. And then Mark remembered the cigar. He searched his pockets and found it. While he told the others about his adventures he lit the cigar and shared with the others. The mission was completed and everyone was alive and kicking, not counting Alex. And within half an hour the sound of an engine, bigger than a car, was to be heard. As it came closer a car engine was heard too. And in a few minutes both Steve's car and a school bus entered the meeting place. And from the bus Carl, Alec and four other men came. Steve and Jessica was alright too. And everyone was shocked when they saw Mark standing besides the others smoking his cigar and smiling at the shocked faces of the others. Mark started to talk before anyone else said anything.

"You forgot to give me the keys fuckface." He said and looked with blame in his eyes at Alec.

Both boys looked at each other for almost a minute before they started laughing as crazy men. Then they shared a hug, a manly one, and kept laughing. The others looked at them and thought that they had lost it.

"Where's Alex?" Alec asked when the laughing had stopped.

"They ran him down. He didn't make it." Mark said to his friend.

Alec didn't answer, this was all his fault. He felt in his pocket for the keys and retrieved them. His forgetfulness had cost them the life of a man. Steve walked up to him.

"Forget it. He's gone. Don't think about it." He told Alec. "We got four-"

"Five, and I chose to go with you." Gerald interrupted jokingly.

"Five people today. It's always bad when someone dies, but at least something good happened today. Try not to thing about it." Steve continued.

"The pickup is back in Harrisburg. Most of the food is in the pickup. And a lot of ammo too. We need that pickup." Mark said.

"I know. But how do we get it?" Steve said.

"What if we do this all over again? But skips forgetting the keys of course?" Brandon said.

"You mean a decoy?" Steve asked. "You wanna go again?" He asked the three men.

"Sure." Brandon asked before Ryan or Terry could interrupt him. They didn't look like if they were going to.

Steve turned around and looked at the new group members and Carl and Jessica.

"You guys stay here while we go get the pickup." Steve said. "Mark, Alec, get into my car. Brandon, Terry, Ryan, go be decoy." It sounded as if he was used to give orders.

"Seems you haven't lost your touch." The priest remarked. He got a glance from Steve but nothing was said.

The three men drove away first and five minutes later Steve, Mark and Alec got into Steve's SUV and drove off from the others. The drive was quiet. Until Alec broke the silence.

"How do you know the priest?" Alec asked Steve.

"I haven't met him in a long time. Last time was in the last days of the war." Steve answered. He wasn't to glad to talk about that Mark noted.

"What war? Nam?" Alec asked.

Steve nodded. "Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure, just curious."

The silence ruled the rest of the drive. The city of Harrisburg was as dead as before. On their way to the school they didn't see a single zombie. Terry and the others had done a good job. The arrived to the school and Steve drove up to the pickup who stood where they had left it. A few meters away from it Mark could see a pool of blood and some flesh that only in some way resembled of a human. It's head seemed to work and as soon as it saw the two boys it started to hiss at them.

"That's Alex." Mark told Alec.

"That's fucking disgusting!" Alec almost shouted as he saw the hissing remains of his former companion.

"Get the car started. I've got to do something." Mark told Alec who got into the car and started it.

Mark walked up to the pile of flesh that was Alex. He looked at 'it' one last time before raising his shotgun and aiming at the bloody forehead. The face hadn't been damaged much. It still looked like Alex but with a loot of blood in his face. But he looked at the rest of the battered body and didn't see any resemblance of the man he once knew, except for the clothes. He pulled the trigger and saw the face disappear in a crimson fog. When the fog disappeared there wasn't much left of the head. But Mark slung the shotgun over his shoulder and leaned down to rip a piece of Alex shirt. It wasn't hard since all that remained of it was shreds. He tied it around his arm, below Kyle and Stan's. All three were deep red and looked like primitive bandages on his jacket. But they were memories. He picked up the .22 rifle and returned to the pickup and got in.

"You're morbid, do you know that?" Alec told his friend jokingly.

"Shut the fuck up. If you didn't forget the keys this wouldn't have happened. Just follow Steve." Mark lashed out at Alec who got quiet, really quiet.

They didn't say anything else on their way back.