Authors note: I changed the first chapter, it was flawed. And about the rating. I'm far to lazy to change it. And besides, I don't know how the ratings in USA work, I'm from Sweden. But as I see it everyone who reads Dawn of the Dead flicks can take a little gore. If you don't associate zombies with death, gore, headshots, bad language and apocalypses you're in my opinion a moron.
And while watching Viva la Bam (great tv-show) last night I noticed that there's a town in reality called Harrisburg. I didn't know this as I came up with the name so if you think that the town of Harrisburg in the story is based on reality you're wrong. That's all for now.
Chapter nine: Safety
Before they drove any further they rested for a while. Steve gave Martin the .22 rifle and Cassidy got Carl's revolver. The ones who were hungry ate, the thirsty drank and the tired ones slept. For a moment everything was like a picnic with guns. Mark was tired, thirsty and hungry. He ate and drank but didn't sleep. Too much adrenaline in his blood to let him. He just sat around and listened to Steve and the others trying to find the best way Charelstown. And when that was done after about two hours the caravan rolled out. Gerald somehow got his dirtbike inside the bus and rode in it with Cassidy who drove and the other new additions to the group. Jessica somehow managed to talk Steve into letting her ride with Alec and Mark.
The drive into Harrisburg had got them further away from Charelstown than they had before and Steve calculated that it would take about another hour if they sticking with the small roads, not that they had another option. Mark hadn't talked to Alec since he lashed out at him earlier and the mode in the pickup was tense. Jessica sat in the middle between Alec who drove and Mark who looked out the window. Mark actually was sorry for what he had said to Alec, but he was to stubborn to say that he was sorry. All of it was fucked up he concluded. He was tired and figured that trying to sleep wouldn't be too bad. He closed his eyes and tried to think of nothing. After a few minutes it kicked in.
Alec wasn't pissed. What Mark had said was right. But it wasn't nice to say something like that. He had thought that Mark was a little smarter than to say something like that. He didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything. He focused on driving. He was going to wait it out, that was what he was going to do. They would forget about it soon and then everything would be normal again. Or at least as normal as things could get in a world were the dead walked the earth.
Jessica didn't know anything about why the car was so quiet. Most times when she had talked to Mark and Alec they seemed to be best friends and always talkative. Now they didn't even look at each other. But as far as she figured it Mark was a little pissed at Alec for forgetting the keys and almost killing him. But from what she had heard from Mark before the Roy found them on the radio she had learnt that they were like brothers. And siblings got over everything in time. At least that what she believed. She didn't' know since she never had a brother or a sister except for Carl. She never ha a friend as close as Mark and Alec was. Back in school she had had a lot of friends, but none of them had been as close as a sister. When no one else talked she didn't feel for breaking the silence. She turned and looked at Mark. He was asleep. He had leaned back into the seat and had found a comfortable place leaning somewhere between the seat and the door. He had his sunglasses on and the sun shone in from the window and made him look cute. He hadn't shaved for a week and had got a little scruff in his face. He looked like if he hadn't got a care in the world when he was asleep. But still he had one hand on the shotgun. He always had the big shotgun close. A few days ago the picture of a sixteen year old boy sleeping in a car with his shotgun would have been a shock to anyone Jessica thought, now she wasn't the least bit surprised about sitting besides a guy with a shotgun in a car where the driver were packing a hunting rifle. She had her own revolver in one of her pockets and tried not to think about it. Or at least what it had been used for the last days. Before all of this she had shot with pistols a few times with Steve and Carl and became pretty skilled at it. Not as skilled as Steve or Carl, they had military training, but good enough to hit what she aimed at most times. And that was coming in handy now.
They stopped before they reached Charelstown. Since no one had seen more than a single zombie for the last few miles Steve choose to stop and sleep for the night at a lone house that stood by the road. As the caravan drove up to the house two zombies charged out of the house. An elderly couple so disfigured by their wounds that it took time to see which of them that was man and woman. Carl took down the first one with a load of buckshot in the torso that apparently destroyed its spine or something. It started twitching and wasn't a threat anymore. The Irishman got out of the bus first and faced the second ghoul with his revolver. His first shot hit the creature in the torso and stopped it long enough for Cassidy to put it down with another shot that completely demolished its face. Carl got out of his car and finished the twitcher. Then the two fighters dragged the corpses out of sight and burned them.
It was a two story house with a barn on the backyard. As soon as everyone got out of their cars the group choose guards by the classic shortest straw lottery. This time it fell on Carl and Cassidy to take the first shift, then Jessica and Martin and last of all Alec and Steve. While Carl and Cassidy took watch sitting on the roof of the bus the others ate dinner spread over the house. The power was still on in the house and the group tried to find the emergency broadcast. There wasn't anything else than static. While everyone else was searching the house for anything of value Mark snatched Alec to talk to him about earlier that day.
"Alec!" Mark said and his friend turned around.
"What?" Alec muttered.
"I want to apologise for what I said about Alex before. It wasn't you fault, everyone forget things. At least he didn't die for a bad thing, we rescued a lot of people that would have died if we hadn't saved them." Mark said. Alec looked at him for what seemed to be hours.
"I'm sorry too." Alec said.
"What for?" Mark wondered.
"Mark, I'm sorry." Then Mark got it and started laughing. Alec Joined in.
"It's sick to quote Shaun of the Dead in this situation you know. But still funny." Mark said.
"I know, but it felt so right." Alec answered.
"Friends?" Mark asked and reached out his hand.
"Friends." Alec answered and shook his hand. Then they started searching the house with the others. Mark finished the conversation with a simple fact.
"It's not worse than when I put your number on that gay site and four people called you is it?" Mark asked.
"No." Alec said and remembered the 'joke'.
When they had searched the whole house they hadn't found many useful things. Not much food, no weapons and no ammo. Mark looked through the books the old couple had and his eyes locked on a book called On the Road. He had heard about it somewhere and that it was the start of the beatnik movement, a subculture that he most likely had been a part of if he had been around in the sixties. He put it in his bag. When the scavenging was done the group sat around and talked about nothing in particular. They didn't sit in the kitchen as the all to normal coppery smell of blood as well as the pool of it in the room was to appealing.
Sitting around and talking was the most normal thing that had happened in the last week. Gerald talked about his adventures that he had filmed in his videos and how he got the ideas to it. Sometimes it was pure coincidence that he stumbled upon the gap between two roofs that looked crossable with a dirtbike. In other cases he thought it through first. Cassidy talked about his home on Ireland, a small village on the border between the British part and the "real" Ireland. He also showed his skill in languages as he talked in Italian, German, Irish, Spanish and two words of Russian. Martin and Steve walked away from the others and sat and talked about memories that wasn't for the others. Pretty much Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket with the effects of Saving Private Ryan. The group split up as Carl and Cassidy went outside to sit on the bus and take their shift. They had an old boombox that they had found in the house and played Credence Clearwater Revival loud enough to attract any undead in the area. It was better that they charged the two on the bus they couldn't reach than to stumble inside and kill the sleeping ones. Mark went to bed about half an hour later and started to read On the Road with a flashlight. He got to chapter four when Alec started complaining about the light from the flashlight. He slept the whole night and didn't wake up when Alec got out to take watch.
Mark woke up when Alec kicked him a little to hard on his right arm.
"Ouch! What time is it?" He asked.
"About nine in the morning. We're leaving now. Did we wake you up?" Alec said.
"Why would you do that? And no." Mark answered.
"Two zombies stumbled here on my shift. We didn't see them or hear them at all until a bloody hand with four fingers slammed on the bus. I almost crapped myself before I realised what was happening. Shot one of them with the pistol and Steve took care of the other. Damn you sleep hard. Two gunshots just outside and you sleep on." Alec said.
Mark got up and grabbed his things and followed Alec outside. It was a nice and sunny day with only a few white clouds on the sky. Where the two corpses they had burned the day before there was a new fire. It smelled horribly. The caravan drove away and this time Alec, Mark and Jessica got last. From here it didn't take long to reach Charelstown.
"What happened yesterday?" Jessica asked the two boys. "It almost seemed as if you were angry at each other."
"I'm probably saying this because of my total lack of social skills, but mind your own business." Mark told Jessica.
"I was a little mad at Mark because he told me that I screwed up with the car keys. We got over it last night." Alec told her.
"Okay." Jessica said and they kept driving.
Steve was first in the caravan and when they came close enough to read the signs that said how close it was to Charelstown the radio started talking, or a man on another radio at least. It was Skip himself and he guided them to the safehouse from the dead. Of course no one in the other cars heard anything of Steve's conversation with Skip and simply followed Steve. As Alec drove over a hill Mark saw what the safe place was. It was gigantic mall. There were people on the roof and some of them ran downstairs to get others as they saw the caravan. More people joined them and soon a whole crowd stood and watched the group as the drove over the almost empty parking lot. They stopped in front of the entrance and got out. It was a double glass door and beyond it Mark saw that a group of men were approaching. At least twenty of them with all kinds of guns. Three of them had military uniforms and assault rifles. They reached the doors and unlocked them and let the group in. Some of the men inside kept their weapons trained on the new people.
"I'm Skip and I'm kind of the leader in this mall. The rules are as following: Don't play with the safety of people in the mall and don't fight inside the mall or we'll kick you out. That's as far as we've got in making rules here. Take whatever you want from the stores, we've got more than enough. And before I forget it, Welcome." One of the men in uniforms told Steve. He was young, maybe twenty five or a little older but seemed to be a good leader.
"Thanks." Was the only thing Steve said.
The mall was built as a big pentagon with three floors. It had one entrance at every side and the parking lot stretched around it. In the middle of the mall there was a 'town square' with a fountain in the middle. The newcomers walked through the mall and decided to make one of the shops their home. They chose one of the clothes shops and started to carry their things inside. The shop was fairly big and everyone in the whole group got their own place. Mark and Alec set up their things in one of the corners where most of the jeans were. Mark decided that when he was done carrying the things in he was going to get himself some new clothes and wash up, he smelled like a animal or worse. People looked at them as they walked past them. There were all kinds of people in the mall. All "races" and all kind of ages. Some were kids in Marks age, a few were senior citizens and everything in between. But as Mark and Alec made their last run and only carried the books and some of the food Mark heard a guy in his own age tell a not to attractive girl with big tits something that he didn't like.
"Those guys think they're so cool with they're guns and shit. Bet they never saw a single of the things as close as you and I." He said.
Mark and Alec both heard it and put their stuff down and walked up to the guy and the girl.
"What the fuck did you just say?" Mark asked in a calm tone that made it clear that he was thinking about beating the guy into a bloody pulp. The guy stood up and looked Mark in the eyes. He was shorter than Mark and Alec and had a hunting knife tucked in his pants.
"I said that you two think you're badasses just because you've got guns. I've got a knife and I'll do fine with that. I also said that you probably haven't been as close to the 'zombies' as I have." He said.
"Ok. So you've been closer than this?" Mark asked and pointed at his leg where the dried blood from the zombie in the house had painted the blue jeans rust red. "Can you guess what that is? It sure as hell isn't mud. It's a mix of brains and blood that came from one of those dead fucks that surprised me. And if you knew jack shit about them you should know that you've got to be fucking crazy to go up against one of the zombies with just a knife."
The boy just looked at Mark.
"I bet you killed a lot of them, that you're a real badass yourself." Alec started. "The first of the zombies that I killed was my best friends that got infected. Do you know how it feels to put down your friends like the rabid animals they turned into? I actually don't think you've seen any of them closer than from the roof of this mall. So until you have seen as much as we have, fuck off!"
Then Mark and Alec turned around and picked up their stuff and walked away.
"I think he learned something today." Mark said.
"Yup." Alec agreed.
When the two boys reached the shop that had turned into their home the others waited for them. Steve had borrowed enough beer from a liquor store in the mall and handled them out to the group.
"Cheers for a job well done group!" Steve told them. "Since this weird catastrophe started everyone in this group has done excellent. We are alive and in a safe place, that's as good as it gets in these times. I've seen trained marines do a lot worse in combat than you guys. And I can guess what most of you are going to do. When I go to talk to Skip and the others you guys are going to go down to that booze store and bring back as much as you can carry and then get as drunk as you can. I don't see what's wrong in that. I, Roy and Martin are going to see Skip about the situation in the mall so all I can say is that you don't fuck this up. We don't want to get kicked out of this mall because you get to drunk and fucks something up. So put the guns away without the ammo in them before you start drinking. We're safe in here."
Everyone drank beer, complimented each other on the good job they had done and was all around happy. When that was done the group split up. Roy, Martin and Steve went to Skip while the others, except for Michael, decided to celebrate the safety. First the whole group walked to the liquor store and asked the two people who lived in it if they could take some of the booze. The man said that it was okay and the youngsters grabbed as much booze they could carry. Mark settled with six Corona (Mexican beer) and a bottle of tequila, he was going to be shitfaced tonight. Alec took a bottle of tequila and one bottle of vodka, more than enough. Ryan, Brandon, Gerald and Terry grabbed so much beer they could carry, and that was a lot. Carl and Jessica decided to share a bottle of bourbon. Actually it wasn't deciding as much as Carl not letting Jessica drink to much, half a bottle of bourbon was still a lot but probably not as much as she would drink if he didn't stop her. He wasn't intending on letting her drink half the bottle either, she wasn't that big or used to drink. Cassiddy found some very dark beer and a bottle of whiskey. Together they walked back to the clothes shop and settled down. Michael was gone. And then the drinking started.
Mark started with a little tequila and a beer. Alec opened the vodka and shared a little with Terry, Ryan and Brandon. Jessica drank a little bourbon under Carl's watching eye. Gerald finished the first beer in a single sweep and started his second. Cassidy watched Gerald finish the beer and challenged him on a drinking contest. After half an hour everyone was drunk, more or less. Mostly more.
"Dude! We need some music!" Alec shouted. "Mark, come with me and get a boom box that works!"
"Whatever." The semi-drunk Mark said and got up. He still hadn't changed pants or washed up.
When Alec stood at the entrance to the store he turned around.
"Any suggestions of music?" Alec asked the group.
"Credence." Carl said.
"Sex Pistols!" Cassidy shouted.
"Guttermouth!" Brandon shouted
"Hell yeah!" Ryan agreed.
"Metallica it is." Mark said and dragged Alec out of the store.
The two boys stumbled through the mall and realised that most people had went to bed. At least they weren't to be seen. Mark drank some tequila and Alec realised that he had had enough vodka and drank some more. After about fifteen minutes they finished what should have been a five minute walk to the other side of the mall and the electronic store. It was open and seemed abandoned. The two boys started searching for a cdplayer with decent sound. But then the lights were turned on and five people looked at the two drunken boys.
"What the hell are you doing here?" A really big guy asked them. He had a baseball bat in his hands and seemed to be a little older than Mark.
"We're looking for a Cdplayer, that's all." Alec said.
"Over there." The big guy pointed.
Alec went to get it while Mark scavenged some CD's. Metallica, Sublime and Andrew WK among others. When he had filled his pockets with the CD's he turned and looked at the five people watching him. First there was the boy Alec had told to fuck off, then the girl with big tits, then the big guy, another girl that was semi-attractive and last of all another guy that looked a lot like a monkey. He drank some more tequila and looked at the group.
"Want to come to our party?" He asked.
"I'll stay here." Fuck off boy said. He looked at Mark and Alec with a not to nice look in his eyes.
"Me too." Tit girl said.
The others said sure. They introduced themselves as Tim (big guy), Maria (the girl) and Chris (monkey boy). Alec returned with what he thought of as a decent Cdplayer. The bigger group walked back and Tim had to insist that Mark and Alec shouldn't sing Bad Moon Rising even if it was the ultimate drunken song (A/N: I know that from experience.). Back home Cassidy was entertaining the group with songs and stores from his beloved Ireland. Everyone was relived when
Mark started some Andrew WK and introduced the guests. Then he drank more beer and tequila.
"Steve was here. He told us to be a little more quiet and not to cause any trouble. Then he left." Gerald told them.
Another hour and everyone was too damn drunk. Even Jessica. Alec had thrown himself over Maria and was clearly and badly hitting on her. It wasn't going too good, he was too drunk to pronounce most words. Mark spent some time speaking to Gerald about his adventures, some time with Ryan and Brandon talking about good pot and a lot of time with Jessica talking about nothing important. Carl went to sleep when he was too drunk. After a while of hitting on Maria Alec went to Brandon and Ryan for some advice.
"What should I do now?" Alec asked the two young men.
"Put your hand on the tits and she's yours. It has worked for me on a lot of girls." Brandon said with a smirk on his face.
"Ok." Alec said and walked back to Maria.
"You think he's gonna do it?" Ryan asked Brandon.
"I think he is, and I don't think she'll like it." Brandon answered. "Two beers on that he's gonna do it and that she wont like it."
"I'll take that bet. But I bet on that she's drunk enough to like it. It's almost unbelievable how many times that trick works." Ryan said.
"It never works, that's what's so fun." Brandon asked.
"It does work. At least for me." Ryan said.
"No way!" Brandon shouted. "In that case, go do it to Jessica and se how good your trick is."
"Fuck no! First off Steve, Carl and loverboy Mark would kill me. Second, she's too young. I'm not a friggin ped you know." Ryan almost screamed. Actually he did, the music was pretty loud.
"I always thought you were. And if you don't dare that, then do it to the next girl in our age without homicidal father/cousins/soon-to-be-boyfriends." Brandon told him.
"Ok. The bet is on." Ryan said and the two men shook hands.
Cassidy and Gerald talked a lot about common interests. They seemed to like the same things, drinking, smoking and sleeping. A few times Terry added in on the conversation every now and then.
Alec never got the opportunity to follow up Brandon's advice. When he got back to where Maria had been she had disappeared. A little saddened he walked out from the shop and sat down at the fountain outside the shop. It was one of those feet deep fountains with lights in it and it was calming. He knew that he was drunk, what he didn't know was how drunk he was. Mark stopped talking with Jessica and walked up to his oldest friend and sat down besides him at the fountain.
"Are you any drunk Alec?" He asked.
"A little, I think. How About you?" Said Alec.
"I'm drunk, that much I know." Mark said. "How did it go with that girl?"
"They left. I didn't have time to do as Brandon said." Alec said.
"What did he tell you to do?" Mark asked.
"To feel her boobs or something. He said it would work." Alec said.
Mark laughed a little at him. "It wouldn't have worked, I think." He said. "And besides, did you want to get together with her?"
"No, of course not. Why the hell do you think I almost touched her tits?" Said Alec.
"You wont say that tomorrow. Then you'll see what a mistake you almost made." Mark told his friend.
"Fuck you man!" Alec said and pushed Mark a little. Mark lost balance and fell into the fountain, but not before he grabbed Alec's shirt and dragged him with him into the cold water. They wrestled for a while before getting up and sitting down at the same places as before.
"So, how did it go with Jessica?" Alec asked after a while.
"Good, got inside her top." Mark answered.
"Really?" Alec doubted.
"No" Mark answered.
"You wished you did though." Alec said.
"Yup." Mark said.
They laughed for a while before starting to walk inside. Inside the music had stopped and the ones who had found their sleeping places had done that, the others had fallen asleep where they sat. Gerald was lying on the counter and snored. Brandon was lying on the floor. Jessica leaned against the counter and looked at the wall while she drank the last of the bourbon she had. Of course she hadn't drunk all of it. She had offered everyone that passed to have some, but she was pretty drunk after all.
"I'm going to bed, if I find it." Alec said and stumbled at the direction of his "bed".
"You drunk?" Mark asked Jessica.
"Yup." She answered. "You?"
"Yup." He said.
Mark took another step and stepped on an empty can of beer and fell down. He was drunk enough to block out the pain and simply laughed as he hit the floor. Then he fell asleep. It was nice to sleep.
A/N: And here it comes, the classic mall. As I started writing this I promised myself to never have a mall scene, but it was inevitable. The malls are as important for a zombie story as the zombies and the headshots. At least the headshots, zombies are like the base of the zombie flicks. I hope no one gets pissed on for me using this cliché. Wrote this whole chapter over a night. Started at 22.15 and finished 04.15. All thanks to coffee.