Handle with Care
Quick note: Man, has it been 10 years already since I had started this? I thought I'd update this as part of a 10-year anniversary thing. It's amazing to see how I have grown as a writer since I first started it.
Also, last time I checked, I said I would do some chapters on the Case Zero survivors. Here is one to start with. Enjoy!
It was another day in the outskirts of Nevada, just miles outside of Las Vegas where an outbreak had occurred, Jason Wong and Archie Eaton, a couple of motorcyclists, rode the open road.
The night before was a wild one in Las Vegas, with the outbreak starting at the Thomas and Mack Center where a motocross event took place and had well-known metal band Stygian Dreamz play for the crowd before the event began. What was crazy was that another outbreak occurred miles away in Coyote Springs, Nevada.
The sun rose as the day broke. Jason and Archie rode their bikes from a motel that was miles away. They were lucky to find one because the town they came across happened to be in the middle of nowhere. This town was called Still Creek, and to call it a "small town" would be accurate in many ways.
As soon as the duo rolled into town, they slowed down once they rode by the Brockett Gas Station.
"What the hell?" Jason said and slid up his goggles on his helmet.
"Holy shit," Archie said. "Do you see that, bro?"
"Yeah," Jason said.
Although this town was in the middle nowhere, with some small businesses that looked to be still going, as well as buildings with windows boarded up, one thing that drew the attentions of the two men was the area was swarming with what appeared to be the undead. Earlier that morning, when it was around 5 or 6 AM, as the two got ready to hit the road, Jason saw the news as it covered the story about what happened in Vegas, only 35 miles away from their motel. However, it looked as if Las Vegas and Coyote Springs weren't the only areas in Nevada that infected with zombies, as this little-known small town had fallen victim to that fate as well.
Without hesitation, Jason and Archie revved up their bikes to get out of Still Creek as quickly as possible.
Jason led himself and his friend to find any open areas where there were little, if no zombies present.
"This way, come on!" Jason yelled as loudly as he could. Archie heard Jason say that despite wearing motorcycle helmets.
The two rode through an alleyway to find any open areas so that they could get out of the town. Jason looked around and it seemed that there was a quarantine zone for anybody who was infected. But that didn't matter as they just wanted to continue riding the road to see if they could find any thrills to seek.
When they got out of the alleyway, they revved up the speed so they could get not only escape the town but also run down any zombies who would get in their way.
Jason looked around. The zombies weren't very smart as whenever the two passed by them, one would try to grab either Jason or Archie, but the positioning of their arms reaching out to try to grab them was timed badly with the two men quickly evading their attempts at being eaten. As he rode by, he continued to glance around, but in a quick second when he turned his attention elsewhere, a car with flat tires was in the middle of the road.
"JASON!" Archie yelled as he saw his friend closing in on the broken-down car.
Jason's attention shifted to what was in front of him.
"Oh shit!" Jason yelled.
Rather than risk crashing into the car, Jason quickly jumped from the pedals as his bike tipped over, as sparks flew from the bike scraping the pavement and then crashed right into the car.
Jason slowly got to his feet.
"You all right, bro?" Archie said.
"Yeah, that was some crazy shit, though," Jason said.
"Yeah, but not as crazy as what he see here," Archie said.
The two men saw that the zombies looked right at them. Jason saw that the handlebars on his bike broke a little loose. Not enough that they were busted, but got looser from the impact of the crash. Jason quickly ran to his bike and pulled the handlebars off.
"Come on, we got to find something for you," Jason said.
Jason used his handlebars as a weapon. The brass was hard enough that it would knock down any zombie that would come his way. Archie looked on the ground and couldn't see anything that he could use as a weapon, until Jason looked up.
"Hey, Archie, I found something," Jason said.
In front of them was a store called Uncle Bill's Department Store. The main doorway had a torn up ad poster for a band called Kinky Movement, along with other acts like Chewy & Jonah, and others. Jason gripped the door handle and it turned. They got inside. It appeared that the store didn't close because maybe the owner or the employee who was working there before forgot to lock up. No question as to why, though.
Archie continued to look around. Much to his surprise, he saw a baseball bat lying around. Archie quickly picked it up and swung it. A male zombie was closing in on him. Archie then swung the bat again and connected to the zombie's head. Blood drops sprinkled from the zombie's head as he dropped to the ground. Jason did the same thing with his handlebars. The handlebar pads were hard enough they could still hurt the undead, so those handlebars made for an effective weapon.
The two went through the backdoor of the shop and saw that a yellow car was parked.
"So what should we do?" Archie said.
"We could take your bike," Jason said.
"Ah, damn," Archie said.
"What?"
"It's low on gas, at least last time I checked."
"Are you kidding me?"
"I wish I was."
Jason saw the car. "Well, we could take that car."
"How will we start it?" Archie said. The two saw there was a corpse lying right beside the car. Unlike the walking corpses they saw, it was clear that it was a man and his flesh was ripped off as his face was ripped off to the point where his skull was almost visible, as well as organs coming out of his torso, such as his lungs and intestines. Neither Jason nor Archie wanted to risk touching that dead body for car keys.
The only viable option was to fight off the zombies while looking for gas to use on the bike. Archie's bike had some and the nearest gas station was close by. However, zombies started to come from opposite ends of the back lot. The only thing they could do was fight them off.
Archie clocked as many zombies as he could. He had played baseball when he was younger, but his true passion was motocross and other X-games sports. Jason swung his handlebars as hard as he could to any zombie who went their way.
Out of the blue, a blond-haired man with a red baseball shirt and blue jeans came out and started helping out the two friends. Both men saw him and were surprised at who this man was.
"Whoa, Archie! Check it out! Isn't that the motocross star Chuck Greene?" Jason said.
"It totally is!" Archie said and addressed Chuck. "Dude, can you help us out with these nasty zombies?"
"Sure," Chuck said and went to town with a baseball bat with nails on it as the two friends saw this well-known motocross star take them down with his bat.
Chuck then turned to Jason. "Hey, I'm trying to fix up a bike and I need some handlebars. Think I could have the one you got there?"
"This thing makes a killer weapon, bro," Jason said. "I'm going to need a better weapon if I'm going to give this up. Get me a sword. I bet that hunting store would have one."
Chuck opened the backdoor to the store. Much to Jason's surprise, he saw that there were swords on display.
"Shit, why didn't I see these before?" Jason quickly picked one up. "You can have the handlebars, man."
"Thank you, listen, I know a safe place," Chuck said. "Let's go."
Jason and Archie followed Chuck a few blocks. Given that both men have effective weapons now, Jason slashed his way to the Brockett Gas Station, while Archie swung the bat he had. Once Chuck opened the door, the two men went inside. They saw that the gas station had a junkyard right by it with no zombies able to come in.
"Hey, man," Jason said to Chuck. "Thanks for saving us back there."
"No problem," Chuck said.
"Listen, we are big fans of yours, do you think we could have your autograph at some point? Or get a picture?" Jason said. "Archie has a camera we could use."
"I'll get back to you," Chuck said.
"Okay, cool," Jason said.
What an adventure Jason and Archie went on. First they stumbled upon a zombie outbreak, and then they met an idol of theirs while trying to fight off zombies. This was something they would never forget.
Author's note: And that was it. I know I had talked about doing this a while back, but I had gotten into other stories. There aren't a lot of Case Zero survivors, so this shouldn't be too hard. I also wanted to update this as part of my 10-year anniversary. I also want to thank everyone who had kept up with this story over the years. I see that it still gets hits often. I think I should also return to my Dead Rising 1 survivor anthology, and maybe start one on the Dead Rising 3 survivors.
I also must note that I had toyed with the ideas of doing adaptations on the three games (I'm not thinking about doing DR4, unless it's a complete retelling). I also had said that I wanted to do a spinoff sequel to A Dead Getaway. I may get to that, but let me at least finish my Dead to Rights story first because I'm close to done with that one.
Just a little note, but I maintained the use of the Thomas and Mack Center as the setting for the arena for the Vegas outbreak. The only other option would be the MGM Grand Garden Arena, but I had said in a past chapter that it was the Thomas and Mack Center, which is the arena used for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Also, it couldn't be the T-Mobile Arena as that wasn't built until the mid-2010s, 2016 to be exact. Although it's weird how in the "Road to Fortune" comic series that the arena Chuck competed in looked like the T-Mobile Arena, but the comics came out in the early-2010s like 2011 to 2012. Oh, and the band Stygian Dreamz were shown in some pages of the comics as well.
I hope you all enjoyed this one. I may do another Case Zero one soon. Not sure about Case West survivors, though.