CHAPTER 5:

LOS SANTOS

As they drove through the long, never ending countryside the sun began to rise, creating an orange sky above them, the clouds a slight purple. As they drove in the car, Alex had fallen asleep and was beginning to pale, probably through loss of blood from his arm. The car was silent inside as they drove slowly past trees and zombies that wandered the streets. CJ was now in the back and Steven was driving, so, CJ decided to ask some questions.

"You're a member of the police, right?" CJ asked Kevin.

"Yeah, what of it?" He replied.

"What do you know about all of this?" CJ asked.

"Apparently some crazy shit went down in the higher rankings of the government. In Area 69 they were experimenting on people for new viral weaponry." Kevin explained. "But there was an accident and the virus got out into the desert, eventually spreading throughout San Andreas."

CJ gritted his teeth thinking that it was his fault. He was the one that shot carelessly at the guards, missing and hitting god knows what. As he gritted his teeth Gavin turned to him, "What's done is done," He said. "Nothing can change that"

CJ nodded in reply as the car went silent yet again as they began to travel faster and faster through the countryside. Eventually they came to a turn of near Mount Chillad. They decided to take it so they could maybe find an Ammunation store. As they drove in there wasn't many zombies about, this was slightly surprising but nonetheless they stopped outside Ammunation and walked in, leaving Kevin with Alex in the car.

When they walked in they were greeted by a zombie of the owner who Steven killed easily with a kick to the neck. As they looked around they noticed that there were very few salvageable things in the store, but, making the best they could of it, they stocked up on all the ammo they needed for the rest of their journey. If they were heading to Los Santos it would take a lot of ammo to deal with a city full of these creatures. It would be a nightmare without guns or ammo. Hell, it was a nightmare even with guns; this was the worst of nightmares, and one of those you don't wake up from. They collected what they needed and made for the door and for the car, got in and drove off. The car went through several zombies and came out where they once were when they saw a motorbike heading up the mountain, a strange creature following it up at high speed. "That's Kendyl and Ceaser!" CJ shouted in surprise. "Help them!"

So they drove up the mountain, following the pair on the motorbike, Kendyl driving and Ceaser shooting the creature with a Desert Eagle to no effect. The car roared as they drove up the steep mountain, several hundred yards from where Ceaser and Kendyl were. The car began to stall as they climbed but it managed the climb and after several minutes they were at the top with Ceaser and Kendyl, the monster creeping up the side of the mountain. CJ got out of the car and was greeted by Kendyl and Ceaser who got ready for the monster to appear. Kevin, Steven and Gavin also came out and lined up with the others.

The creature came over the edge; it was a reddish colour and had large claws on all its feet, its six-foot long tongue whipped around in front of them in a menacing manner. The creature moved forward, slowly, making sure the greatest amount of fear emanated from it. Suddenly the creature pounced at them and was instantly blown to bits by several gunshots from the group. Blood leaked off the side of the mountain as the body laid there, the creature's fangs biting down on its own tongue, as it lay there dead.

"It's good to see you Carl" Ceaser said to CJ.

"Good to see you too homie." CJ replied. "I see you looked after Kendyl."

"Bullshit, she's been looking after me" Ceaser mused.

"Yeah, that's Kendyl" CJ said with a smirk.

Just then Alex came out of the car, very pale and promptly threw up on the ground in front of him, blood mixed with the sick. Everybody turned away but afterwards Alex appeared to feel a lot better, although he was still very pale and sweaty.

Suddenly a large black helicopter roared out of the sky and landed in front of them, dust flying into their eyes as the rotor blades stopped. A man in a dark suit got out of the helicopter and walked up to CJ, it was Toreno. Armed guards came up to everyone, preventing them from attacking as Toreno faced CJ.

"You were a useful asset to my work." He said cynically. "But I needed to see you in action."

CJ glared at Toreno with hate.

"And what a surprise you have been." Toreno finished, waving to the troops as they shoved everyone into a caravan near the edge of the cliff. CJ looked at this and turned back to Toreno who punched him to the ground, he then kicked CJ near to the edge and over. CJ was now hanging on the edge, only one hand holding on as Toreno signalled to the troops and the caravan was dropped over the edge to a sickening fall down the side of the mountain.

"All that power but no will to use it," Toreno said. "What a waste"

CJ growled in anger. "I'll kill you for this Toreno! Fuck you!"

"Goodbye Carl." Toreno said and stood on CJ's fingers, causing him to fall off the mountain.

CJ didn't remember the fall, he just remembered waking up in a tree, pain all over his body as he looked around, his vision blurred due to the pain. He slowly climbed out of the tree; surprisingly he still had all his weapons and had only lost a packet of ammo that could be replaced easily. Once he was out of the tree he began looking for the caravan and eventually found it in a crumpled, smoking mess of glass and metal. He looked inside quickly but nobody was there. Nearby there was a wooden hut concealed in some woodland, CJ made his way quietly over to the hut, not a sound but his feet on the marshy ground as he approached the door and opened it. CJ blinked in surprise as he stared into the barrel of a shotgun. "Ah, CJ, it's you" Came the sound of Kevin's voice from behind the gun. CJ smirked as he walked inside.

Kevin closed the door as CJ sat down on a wooden chair inside the hut and looked around. Ceaser and Kendyl were against the wall, leaning against each other in a loving way as Gavin and Steven spoke even more Spanish. CJ couldn't help but feel suspicious about those two; they were hiding something, why else would they speak in Spanish? CJ looked ahead of him where Kevin stood at the door; on guard. To CJ's right Alex lay in a bed of sorts, sweating heavily and panting with a raspy breath. Something was wrong with him as he continued to sweat and pant, CJ looked at his pale face, he looked absolutely terrible. "What's wrong with him?" CJ asked out to no one in particular.

"We don't know, but his bite has become infected in a way." Kevin replied.

CJ nodded in comprehension and looked out the window at the bleak woodland when Kevin spoke up.

"So, who was the guy in the suit?" He asked.

"His name's Mike Toreno." CJ replied with a sigh. "He works for the government, I had to work for him, I thought we were friends."

"Doesn't look like that's the case anymore" Kevin replied, also looking out the window.

The hut went silent except for Alex's pants of pained sickness.

"Necesito algo para comer." Gavin said to Steven, this time heard.

"Necesito dormir" Kevin replied to him, causing Steven to turn sharply.

"You speak Spanish?" He asked Kevin.

"Sí." Kevin replied to him.

"What the fuck you all sayin'?" CJ asked impatiently.

Kevin smirked. "Gavin is hungry and I need to sleep." He explained. "Steven, do you mind taking over."

"Sure" Steven replied walking to the door. "Check the fridge, there should be something edible in there."

Gavin nodded and checked and sure enough there was food, edible food too.

Two hours later everybody was sleeping, except for CJ who was now on patrol at the door. He stared out of the window thoughtfully, it was a nice warm day and they were all sleeping in fear because life wasn't as nice as the weather, albeit life never was as nice as the weather. As he pondered about what the future would hold he heard loud coughing, it was coming from Alex, he was throwing up blood on the floor. CJ rushed to him, waking everyone up. CJ got him a bowl to be sick into which quickly overflowed as they had him sitting up until he collapsed back onto the bed. He went completely silent and closed his eyes. Kevin checked for a pulse but there wasn't one, he was dead. As everyone mourned his death silently Steven pulled the blanket over his face, covering him up from the world.

Kevin, being hit the hardest, found it hard to speak. "I thought he would live"

"So did a lot of us" Gavin replied monotonously.

As they grieved for a new friend's quick death they heard a raspy breathing again, they all turned round to see the blanket rise into a sitting position, it then dropped down to reveal Alex, his eyes an icy blank, he had no expression on his face as he stared blankly at the group and got off the bed and walked towards CJ, knocking him down drunkenly, trying to bite him. Steven came over and kicked him off CJ, as he raised up Kevin shot him in the head and he dropped to the ground dead. Everybody was gasping in horror at seeing their friend rise from the dead as a zombie and try to kill them.

"That's how they spread so fast," Kevin said aloud.

Everybody nodded and eventually made the decision to get back down the mountain to the car park at the bottom of the mountain and take a car to get them to Los Santos.

They had been walking down the mountain for the best part of an hour and hadn't been attacked thank god. Once they got to the bottom they had a choice of several cars. There was a seven-seater family car so they took that one, saying how there were six in the group now. They got in, buckled up and drove off and along the motorway towards Los Santos, knowing it was a long drive away most of them slept as Gavin drove, swerving to avoid burning cars and zombies. As they drove however, Steven got talking with Kevin.

"So, you got any relatives in Los Santos?" He asked.

"No" Kevin replied. "All my family is dead."

Steven looked down solemnly, "I'm sorry about that"

"It's okay, natural now" Kevin said, remembering his team being decimated by that weapon wielding monster.

They drove silently for most of the way until they came to the intersection just outside of Los Santos, Gavin gasped in horror and nudged Steven.

"What is it?" He asked and Gavin pointed in front of them. The creature from earlier was standing on the motorway, the rocket launcher ready. CJ noticed the monster as soon as he woke up; it triggered a flashback from when he was shot while escaping with Toreno.

CJ was put on a table that was made of cold metal, wires were attached to him painfully and he was drugged, he moved his head weakly to the side to see someone in green clothes on the other table, the men were doing some terrible things to the guy, injecting him with god knows what and, even though he was drugged, CJ recalled seeing the person in the tank when he killed the scientist. After that there was a flash of light and everything went blank.

Gavin put his foot on the accelerator and sped towards the creature as it growled and fired a rocket at them, Gavin swerved out the way and continued to drive towards the large and ugly creature. The creature continued to growl at them with malice as the car came towards it, when the car was fifteen feet in front of it the creature got ready to hit the car with its raw fist, when the car was only five feet away Gavin swerved and started shooting out the window at the fooled creature, although it didn't do much it got them away from the creature at a rather fast speed as the practically flew over the bridge and into Los Santos. The creature growled in failure and followed the car at a walking pace into the city.

After a while the car stopped outside of Burger Shot and they all got in, they needed food and probably enough to take away into the derelict city of the dead that they were now in. When they walked in they found six zombies in the restaurant, the two employees and four customers, CJ shot them all quickly in the head, killing them as they took food from behind the counter. They quickly walked out and back into the car and drove off through the rampaging city of zombies. After a couple hours they came into Grove Street and pulled up in front of Sweet's House. CJ rushed in to find Sweet, calling his name once in the house but nobody was in the house but the zombie of a Grove St Gang Member who CJ shot mercilessly and came back out and led everyone in the car into his house. They all sat in the living room where it all started for CJ and this hellish week. As they all sat down there was banging on the windows and doors, the house was surrounded by zombies for no apparent reason but that they were in the house now, they quickly barricaded the doors and windows and went upstairs into CJ's room to hide from the zombies of the ground floor. They still had a lot to do before this all stopped, there was just two thoughts in CJ's head, where was Sweet? And why did Toreno double cross him?

Longest chap yet, hope you're happy Kevin, R/R