They saw our party, called out and ran towards us. There were two of them, a man and a woman. I speculated that they were probably students of the local college. The woman was tall, about six feet, and blonde. The man was almost a foot shorter and rather portly. Immediately the man's arm stood out to me; it has heavily bandaged. This didn't bother me, however. In that same arm he was holding a bloodied baseball bat with no noticeable discomfort. Attached to his belt was a hunting knife. Perhaps he had slipped up and cut himself with that. But even if we was bitten, he would give us ample warning before proving himself to be dangerous. The woman carried a crowbar.

She spoke up. "Hi, I'm Joanna, and this is Rob."

"Hello", said Rob in a distinct English accent. Dad greeted them. "It's really nice to see some other people."

Rob's gaze went to my Dad's shotguns. "Hell, it's nice to see some firearms."

Dad chuckled. "Do you know how to use one?"

"Well, although I admit my prey was usually smaller and a bit less bitey, I do have some experience."

"Well then, have at it." I was surprised that Dad would hand over his shotgun so readily, but I suppose it was always good to have an extra gunner. I began to get a bit paranoid, and took a peak over my shoulder. Surely enough it was not unfounded, and a zombie was approaching in this distance. Nonchalantly I raised the rifle and shot it through the head, causing everyone behind me to jump. Dad exhaled audibly. "Justin, warn me next time."

Rob's face lit up, while Joanna didn't seem quite as impressed. "Nice one! That really dropped the bugger, didn't it? With these bludgeons you usually gotta smack 'em once or twice while they're down, but that was fantastic!"

Joanna looked over at him disapprovingly. "Ron, don't you think you're being a bit morbid?"

"Oh, of course not... well, are you chaps headed towards the mall?"

We then heard the gunshots ring out over the hill. We had heard their echoes traveling across the landscape earlier, but they had just now grown to be more than white noise. We were approaching the mall.

"We are, but we can't stay for long," said Dad.

"Why's that?" We started to walk, as my friends and I listened to their conversation.

"Well, after we pick up this guy's family" he pointed to Alex. "We're going to see some family in Mississauga."

"You're going to walk to Mississauga?"

"Yup."

He paused for a second. "Well, all the power to ya. Oy! Watch it!" I tried to shoot the zombie that had just emerged from behind a car on the road, but was immediately forced to throw my hands over my ringing ears as Rob and Dad blasted it into bits. It was thrown backwards over the hood of the car, its head decimated by the pellets. "Crikey Moses this thing's got some kick to it!"

"Shit! Warn me next time!"

"Okay, how about we do it this way," said Xiran. "If anybody sees a zombie they yell 'Mine'."

We came closer to the top of the hill, and I jogged forward and looked over its summit. "Well... I guess it looks kinda like Christmas Eve."

"What's it like up there?" asked Rob.

"Come and see for yourself."

"Just a second. Mine!" He turned 180 degrees and shot behind him. "You know, I'm starting to like this thing more and more."

"Oh shit," said Alex as he reached the top.

The mall seemed to be the central hub of all the world's chaos. It was large and sprawling, with the second floor at ground level in parts. The ground floor could be reached either by the underground parking lot, or on the side facing the highway where the landscape dropped closer to sea level. All the main entranceways were sealed off, by their sliding cages as well as various barricades. I wasn't sure how they were getting people in, but unless the occupants of all those cars were dead, they were doing a good job of it.

The cars had poured down the ramp into the lower level, which undoubtedly led to a mass of immobile metal and rubber. The large aboveground parking lot was no better, with cars positioned haphazardly all over the landscape. The roads leading into it were completely stopped as well. Those who were lucky enough the have the opportunity to drive, if even for a while, had driven as close to their safe haven as possible before abandoning their cars and moving under their security blanket of sniper fire.

Among the cars were several army trucks, with soldiers sitting on their roofs. Among them was the odd machinegun, which were largely abandoned for their assault rifles. On the roof lay several snipers. While I couldn't really tell from that distance, they mostly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Zombies fell from the snipers disturbingly close to us. Sporadic assault rifle fire took out anything that rose from the mass of cars, as worried people and families covered their heads, running to safety. And then came the message over the loudspeakers that they had probably uttered countless times before; "Head for the lower level. We'll let you in through the truck loading bays."

And so we traveled onward, hoping for the best.

Sorry about taking so long, this is an indication of my extreme laziness and short attention span. I would give up on it, but I've put in too much work to do that. I hope people still follow it.