They Left Four Dying - Chapter 1

Stanley Marsh could feel his heartbeat in his eardrums. The sound of his pulsating heart, akin to that of a bass drum, was a sign that he was at death's door, a chilling warning to get help. It seemed that, despite his current relatively healthy physical condition, Stan's body was on high alert, the death's door metaphor brought forth by the horrifying sight of a commercial airline, their final ticket out of South Park, flying above their heads and escaping the infected redneck mountain town. The remaining survivors had snatched that final ticket and were hightailing it to some unknown country as they stood gaping at the sky.

They had missed that flight.

There was a moment of dreadful silence, before the most temperamental of their group of four let out a bellow of utter rage.

"God...fucking...DAMMIT!"

"My God, dude, seriously, shut the fuck up. Do you want to attract another horde of those creatures?"

Eric Cartman threw a scowl at his parka-clad friend, a look that was responded to with a menacing glare. Kenny McCormick, the most mild-mannered of their quartet, was finally nearing the limits of his temper. The other three had never seen their friend lose his cool before, but Stan couldn't help but feel that they were getting pretty damn close to that point.

"We're going to fucking die, Kenny. Don't you get it? The plane's gone. Sure, we might be below eighteen. Sure, these things only turn us into them when we're past that age, but we can't possibly sustain full on fights with endless waves of these monsters!"

"That's the attitude that'll kill us, Cartman. Not the zombies."

Kenny struggled to talk in forced whispers in an attempt to get Cartman to lower his voice, an attempt that was completely lost in Cartman's natural desire to overpower and overshadow anybody that he was with.

"What do you expect us to do now, Kenny? Huh? I suppose we could grow wings and fucking fly out of this place, but I need all my spare energy for fighting off the hordes of zombies that come at us every half hour! And would somebody please shut the jew up before I do it myself!"

Stan turned his head in the direction of his super best friend and sighed. The redhead had broken down into tears at the sight of the departing plane and was now cowering at a corner of the roof, hugging his knees for dear life and shaking gently. Kyle Broflovski, usually full of good advice and well-meaning, if somewhat obnoxious leadership, had so far proven to be next to useless in a zombie apocalypse, far too afraid to fire guns and far too emotional to kill the living dead, even after Stan had repeatedly explained to him that the zombies that they were trying to kill them were in fact not alive.

"Kyle? Are you alright?"

"Do I f-fucking look alright to y-you?"

Under ordinary circumstances, Stan would have been offended, but Kyle's rude response made him smile despite the shitfest that they seemed to be permanently trapped in. His jarring reply was at least evidence that there was still some fire left in the redhead.

"Give it a moment, man. This must be pretty overwhelming."

"Shit, Stan. I can't handle this."

Kyle's pupils looked unnaturally dilated, and when coupled with his shaking, told Stan that his friend was in the midst of a bad, though strangely mild, panic attack.

"Everything was fine just yesterday, Stan. Then all this shit happened. I can't...I can't deal with this."

"Bad shit happens all the time in this town, Kyle. You just have to-"

"WE'RE FUCKING GOING TO DIE, STAN! I CAN FEEL IT!"

Stan immediately grabbed Kyle's flailing arms and held them down tightly at his sides, clenching his teeth as he exerted sufficient force to ensure that his friend did not do anything stupid before his attack was over. Kyle stared up at his friend with wide, teary eyes, whimpering as his mind, once a jewel of caution, ran wild. The arguing pair standing a short distance away stopped their argument abruptly at the sound of Kyle's shouting, Kenny's face immediately scrunching up in concern and mild panic at the loud sound, and Cartman muttering curses under his breath.

"Stupid fucking ball-less jew…"

The glare that Stan threw him could have melted steel.

"We have one more option."

All eyes turned to Kenny, who had pushed aside his argument with their resident fatass in favor of looking past the array of buildings that were erected in front of their current location. Realising that everyone was hanging intently on his words, Kenny turned back to his friends with a look of determination in his eyes.

"It's a long shot, but it's our only route out of here. We need to make it to Denver via the expressway."

Cartman raised his eyebrows doubtfully.

"That's an awfully long way from this laboratory."

"Well we don't really have much of a choice, do we?"

"Hang on…" Stan looked away from his trembling friend for a second to direct a question to the arguably most composed person in the area. "Can't we just contact someone from outside the town to come in and get us? I mean, we have phones. Wouldn't that be a lot safer than walking out in the open streets like free meat?"

"That would have been a great idea about five minutes ago, Stan." Kenny shook his dirty blond hair out of his eyes as he looked at his friend in morbid amusement. "But if you just look past these few buildings in front of us, you'll see our local telecommunications center ablaze. I'll give you one guess as to what has just conspired there."

Stan felt his blood run colder than before, if that was even possible.

"He's right." Cartman reluctantly muttered out an agreement as he tapped ferociously on his smartphone. "I'm not getting any reception."

"We can either cautiously make our way towards Denver, where this zombie problem is unlikely to have spread to yet, or we could just sit on this rooftop and stew in the mess of zombie bile and guts that we've made and blissfully wait for someone to assume there are survivors left to come looking for us. Your call, Stan."

Stan frowned.

"Alright, alright, I get your point. There's no need to get so passive aggressive on me."

"Sorry." Kenny shrugged apologetically and scratched his head. "Force of habit."

Stan released his grip on Kyle's arms as he felt his jewish friend calming down.

"We need proper weapons if we're going to make such a long trip, though. Actual guns. I mean, I like the crowbars and pistols that we've stolen from the house next to this god forsaken place that we've used thus far as much as the next guy, but if we're going to face hundreds of these monsters we're going to need some real firepower."

Stan tried his best to ignore the twinkle in Cartman's eyes the moment he brought up the topic of firearms.

"Jimbo's guns isn't far from here, and its on the way to Denver anyway. Until then, we could search this place. Mephesto's a psychopath, I won't be surprised if he's kept some guns stashed in here."

"Sounds like a plan. Lets get off this roof."

"Wait!" Kyle got to his feet shakily as the effects of his panic attack started to wear off. "We should search for notes about Mephesto's experiments."

"What the fuck, Jew." Cartman scrunched up his nose in displeasure. "Only you could think about looking for reading material in the midst of a fucking zombie apocalypse."

"That's not the reason, fatass." Kyle glared fiercely at his archenemy. "His notes could tell us more about what we're going up against."

"Seriously, jew, what else do we possibly need to know? They're zombies, plain and simple."

"Mephesto was psychotic enough to think that giving the dead life was a good idea."

Kyle looked at his three friends with eyes filled with trepidation.

"I won't be surprised if he's tried something much worse with them."


"For a mild-mannered, albeit insane scientist, Mephesto did have a lot of guns."

The four boys stared in shock and awe at the array of weaponry that was neatly laid out on the shelves in front of them. After searching for half an hour, Kyle had stumbled upon a switch that turned a main wall in the laboratory, exposing a hidden stash of guns, ammunition, and a meth lab.

"Mephesto was into meth, huh?" Cartman chuckled. "Does it make you feel more at home here, Kenny?"

"One more word, asshole, and you'll be eating my fist. Well, you eat everything anyway, you fat tub of lard."

As the boys combed and perused the shelves for weapons of choice, Kyle shuffled through the notes that he had just printed out from the scientist's computer. As he speed-read and tossed aside useless information, he stumbled upon a set of pages that immediately perked his interest. The other three continued to browse the shelves, oblivious to their friend's sudden silence.

"Seriously, dudes. This whackjob actually spent his free time customising weapons. We were living in a town with someone who could have gone on a shooting spree and we had no idea. Holy fuck did he strap a grenade launcher to that rifle?"

Kenny looked away from the handsome array of handguns that he had been admiring and perused the weapon that Cartman was salivating over.

"That's an M203. Single-shot grenade launcher. Looks like this one's strapped onto an ordinary M16. I don't recommend you take that, dude. It's way too slow to reload and fire to be effective, plus you could kill all of us if you miss. And that extra attachment encumbers you, not that any additional weight would make a difference to the overall mass that makes you the massive turd that we know and love."

"EY!"

"You're right. I take the 'love' part back."

Under an ordinary situation, Cartman would not have hesitated to tackle Kenny to the ground and attempt to beat him senseless. The sight of the revolver that the economically-challenged teenager was spinning absent-mindedly in his hand, however, held him back. The gun looked so natural in Kenny's hands that he couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of fear.

"Seriously, fatass. If you want an assault rifle, take one of those M16s over there without the grenade launchers on them."

"Eh, rifles are boring." Cartman forced himself to let Kenny's disrespect for his authority slide as he turned back to the shelves. "I want something with a little more power."

"I saw a bunch of shotguns near the back of the room, if you're into those. Just make sure you choose one that doesn't need a pump after each shot."

"What?"

Kenny rolled his eyes.

"Just bring a bunch to me and I'll help you pick one out."

As Cartman scuttled over to the other end of the room like a child in a free-for-all toy store, Stan placed a rifle back onto its shelf before looking at Kenny in mild concern.

"Ken…"

"Yeah, Stan?"

"How do you know so much about guns?"

"Long story, really." Kenny spoke in a casual, unassuming tone. "My beloved parents, as they are, dealt in more than just meth labs and weed. Once in a while my dad would quietly dabble in black market arms dealing, but of course any extra money he got from the transfer and sale of the arms would go towards funding my beloved parents', as they are, drug habits."

Stan nervously bit the skin on the inside of his cheek, unsure of what to say.

"Once in a while he would show me the guns and teach me how use them. As horrifying as it sounds, I actually got quite into the craftsmanship of these things, though before today I've only skeet-shooted a few stolen dinner plates."

As the two friends conversed about Kenny's cringe-worthy home life, the tiniest of the quartet frantically scanned the pages in his hand, his gut sinking lower with each word that he read.

"Holy shit...Stan?"

"Yeah?"

At the very moment, Cartman had gathered as many varieties of shotguns as he could carry. Resting them on both his arms, he turned to walk back to where his friends were waiting, only to be distracted by a guttural growl from behind him.

What in the...

"You won't believe this shit, Stan. Mephesto experimented on the zombies that he created. He's made mutants out of the zombies, and from the looks of these notes, they're more dangerous than anything we've seen before.

Stan felt the familiar chill running down his spine.

"What do you mean?"

"Take this mutant, for instance." Kyle frantically shuffled through his pages to find the notes that he had previously browsed. "Special infected species: Hunter. Infinitely agile due to hyper-developed leg muscles, these zombies behave in a similar manner to cats, crouching down before springing forwards to lunge for their prey. They can be distinguished by a unique-"

His monologue was then interrupted by the sound of a blood-chilling shriek that filled their eardrums. Kyle dropped the pages in his hand in shock, while Stan spun instinctively and backed Kyle into a nearby wall to protect him from incoming attacks. Kenny snatched a magnum pistol/revolver hybrid from the shelf in front of him before popping a cartridge of fresh rounds into it without hesitation, the 'click' sound of the cartridge snapping into place echoing loudly throughout the laboratory.

"FUCK!"

The sound of Cartman's yell sent the three friends racing towards the back of the laboratory. Their sprint, however, was cut short by the sight in front of them, one that horrified and baffled them.

"What the...the fuck is that thing?!"

A zombie, blackened by death and its legs bent in a frog-like position, was straddling Cartman, sitting tightly on his torso and restricting his movement, Cartman's selection of shotguns lying strewn harmlessly around him. The zombie stared down mindlessly at the teenager under him, slashing at him with his fingers relentlessly.

"FUCK! HE'S TEARING ME TO PIECES!"

Cartman wail for help snapped the trio out of their bewildered trance. Stan scanned the area for a weapon that he could use against the monster, only to observe Kenny dashing towards their helpless friend in his peripheral vision. Without missing a beat, Kenny raced towards Cartman and, in one swift motion, kicked the zombie in the ribs.

The zombie, stunned, stumbled off a bleeding Cartman.

Rapidly cocking the handgun in his right hand, Kenny raised his weapon before the zombie could spring toward him and fired three successive shots at its blackened figure. The first two shots penetrated its torso, whilst the third burrowed itself into the zombie's skull, the sheer force propelling the bullet driving it straight through the back of its head, its brains splattering messily on the back wall of the laboratory. The zombie's body fell uselessly with a thud onto the ground.

Kenny breathed heavily as adrenaline from the encounter flooded out of his veins. On the floor behind him, Cartman groaned in pain as the thin lines tracing his face and torso started to leak blood.

"A...a little help would be nice..."


"You know way too much about guns, Kenny."

Kenny ignored Kyle's comment in favor of focusing on the task at hand. After expertly detaching the telescopic scope off the body of one of Mephesto's sniper rifles, he had begun the complex task of fastening the weapon part onto a FN SCAR with a handyman's kit they had found in the corner of the room.

"Why exactly do you have to do that, Kenny?"

"Sniper rifles aren't ideal in this situation." Kenny mumbled to himself as he continued his work. "The SCAR is a great as an assault rifle, but it works even better for long ranges with an adjustable scope."

"...Right. I'll take your word for it."

Kenny looked up from calibrating the sight at his Jewish friend and took in the slightly nauseous expression on his face.

"How's that Desert Eagle treating you?"

Kyle ran his finger across the exterior of the intimidating handgun that Kenny had slipped into his hand and shuddered.

"It's...I don't like it. It feels...unnatural somehow."

"It is unnatural, Kyley-B." Kenny grinned as he poked fun at his friend's Jersey nickname. "The entire concept of firearms is unnatural. This method of instantaneous killing...it really distinguishes us as a species, and I can understand if you're feeling a little tense about having to practice it. But the fact remains that we're in an exceedingly dangerous setting, and there might come a time where one of us is in a life-threatening situation. A situation where we cannot defend ourselves properly. I'm hoping that you'd be able to step up and protect us when the time comes."

Kyle, despite overwhelming doubt that he would be able to pull any sort of trigger, nodded.

Sitting in the corner of the room was a very subdued Cartman, whom even after an impromptu fixing up job, still looked worse for wear despite the fact that his injuries turned out to be minute. His silence, so unnatural to his obnoxious personality, stood out so significantly that everyone else was starting to get worried.

"You okay, Cartman?"

Cartman didn't immediately respond to Kenny's question. For a short moment, it appeared that the earlier attack by the zombie had stunned him into submission, which was strange, but not impossible to deduce. The other three had always known that Cartman was timid in dangerous situations despite his bullish and arrogant exterior. However, before any of them could say anything else, Cartman stood from where he had been sitting abruptly before picking up one of his new shotguns and throwing Kenny a strange look, one that Kenny couldn't quite decipher. He appeared grateful, apprehensive and yet determined at the same time.

"Thanks for the help, Kenny. We should get moving if we want to get to the bridge."

Kenny appeared to consider saying something, but merely shook his head before snapping the final parts to his improvised assault rifle into place and slinging it onto his back, thinking a moment before snatching up a Desert Eagle similar to the one Kyle was still trying to get used to.

"You're right. We should at least get to another safe spot before the sun goes down. Let's go."

It was a very strange thing, being in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. There was just something about the danger and the hypnagogic nature of their settings that brought about a heightened sense of solidarity that the four, despite being friends, wouldn't have been able to feel on an ordinary day. They knew it was a long way to the bridge, and they knew there was a huge chance that something terrible might happen along the way. But none of them could help feeling that if shit did decide to go down, there'd be three other people capable and willing to help in any way they could. Anything seemed possible when the four troublemakers, South Park's infamous team of perpetually scheming adolescents, worked together. In the end, Kenny might have been right. It was the attitude of impending doom that would kill them, not the zombies.

As the four snatched up whatever provisions and weapons they could carry without becoming severely encumbered by their load, they reached for the door to the demented scientist's laboratory.

It was time for the Hunger Games to start. Only this time, there was actual hunger in play.


Author's Note - I'm going to throw this out here first now that I've actually decided (after much consideration...one year into publishing the preview! Good grief) to start the story. The concept of a zombie apocalypse is an overly done fictional idea, attempted by so many writers and film producers that it's sometimes honestly a drag for me to think about it. While it might seem contradictory for me to write this note at the end of the first paragraph of a zombie fic, let me just say that I'm mainly doing this fic as a way for me to subvent my need (and weakness) of writing action scenes. A zombie apocalypse would be rife with action, after all, and what better way to overcome my weakness by occasionally practicing and getting reviews?

I'll try my very best to make my writing palatable for you all, and I apologise in advance if updating for this fic becomes somewhat sporadic. I have a tendency to do that with my writing, and it seems that this might become an even greater problem with this story, since it really is tough for me to put action scenes in my head down into words.

Reviews greatly appreciated (especially so in the fic, cause I actively want to improve), and for the handful of you who have given your blessing to the continuation of the story, I thank you all. This chapter is dedicated to you guys.

~SUITELIFEFAN