"Why are we going inside?" Ashley questioned Chad eagerly as he was busy glancing nervously around the strech of road and neighborhood that the bus was currently situated in.
"Because Nick and Mike need help and Nick figured if we're all gonna have to leave the bus, we might as well get a few minutes rest," Chad responded, not taking his eyes off the streets.
Chad had listened very closly Nick's plan as he laid it out step by step. He had then passed the plan step by step to the three girls. None of them found leaving the bus to run across an open field to be very appealing proposition.
Neither had Chad, actually, but Nick told him that they would receive ample cover and Chad trusted his friend.
But he wondered what exactly 'ample cover' entailed.
Ashley didn't look convinced nor satisfied.
"Are you all sure this is the right move?" she sounded on the verge of losing it completely... Again. "I mean, what if..." she asked, trailing off as she got up slightly to help Chad in his search for the zombies.
Nick had told Chad to look around for any of those things to see if any had showed up. So far, nothing. It was one of those 'It's too quiet' kind of situations.
"Kay," Chad muttered to himself, still seeing nothing.
He reached over and snatched to bus keys out of the ignition, and stuffed them into his pocket. He then turned to see his best friend in a window in the second floor of Mike's house. Nick had a ready to go expression plastered on his face. Something Chad could tell even if his friend was over forty feet away and on the second floor. Chad gave his friend the thumbs up, and big nod.
Nick nodded back, and dissapeared from sight instantly after.
"Okay," Chad muttered. He turned to the girls. "You all ready? Got your bags?"
"Yeah," Tracy replied showing Chad her now-empty book bag which was slung over her shoulder.
Chad looked to Ashley.
"Yeah," she said, meeting his stare and nodding slightly.
Ali didn't wait for Chad to adress her. "Got it," She said quietly.
Turned out that Ali had had her backpack in the backseat of the bus with her earlier, and didn't remember it until Chad asked the girls to grab their empty bags, as Nick had requested of him to do. The backpack was a purplish color, and wasn't ridiculasly big.
Chad nodded once. The group was about as ready as they could be. They just waited for Mike and Nick to do their part.
They didn't have to wait long. The brown front door of Mike's house slowly opened, and Mike appeared in the doorway, holding a huge shotgun that Chad had never seen which was currently raised to his shoulder just waiting to be used.
Mike scanned the front walkway and the front yard with his weapon, and after a few moments stepped once to his right, and Nick appeared right behind him, holding the aging M1 .30 caliber carbine in a ready position as well, the much more modern M4 he had mentioned was slung over his shoulder, and he wore some kind of vest over his black sweatshirt that looked like it came out of some recently made cops and robbers movie.
Slowly, under Mike's gaurdian-like cover of his own yard, The vest-clad Nick began a quick trot, weapon raised, to the bus.
He was about twenty feet from it, when Chad looked at the girls.
"Okay, let's go," he whispered, as he reached to his left, and with his left hand, he pulled the lever that opened the bus door.
Nick was five feet from the door now, and he stood off to one side, still scanning for any of the crazed people, M1 still raised. Mike doing the exact same thing from his position near the door of his house
Chad was off the bus first; he walked the two quick steps to where Nick was.
"Hey, man," Nick said, "It's locked and loaded, extra clips are in the house." He handed Chad the M1, and whispered "Cover me," as he slung the M4 off his shoulder and into the ready position, an action which took all of four or five seconds.
It still felt like forever.
"You got the keys?" Nick asked as he pulled the M4's stock to his shoulder, securing the weapon to his shoulder.
"Yeah," Chad aknowledged, scanning around with the M1. He noted that Nick had taped two clips together for the M4.
"Alright, go."
Chad lowered his new weapon slightly, and he signaled for the girls to follow, with a flick of his left hand, before he brought it to his shoulder to stabalize it, and to continue looking for the creatures.
And come the girls did, one by one they quickly exited the bus and followed Chad, who had started a slow walk towards the house. Ashley came first, then Tracy, with Ali being the last one off.
Chad waited until Ashley had passed him as she jogged to the house, then he started moving faster to give cover to the group of unarmed girls.
It didn't take the four teens more then six or seven seconds to cross the forty or so feet from the bus to Mike's house, where they were greeted by Mike, who hadn't left his covering position.
Chad made sure the girls got inside, then he swung around and raised the wepon to cover Nick, as Mike was doing. The two were now standing only several feet apart.
By this time, Nick had almost finished his task of closing the bus door, which took a bit effort from the outside. Opening it from the outside is actually pretty easy, though. All you had to do was kick or hit it in the right place.
Nick had to sling his M4 again though to complete this job, which ment he was basically unarmed.
He finished closing the bus door, and didn't wait for anything else. He turned and sprinted back to Mike's house, unslinging the M4 as he went. He was noticably slower with all the new gear, especially the vest which looked like it contained numerous extra mags for the M4, though it still didn't take him too much time to cross the yard and get to the door. He had just finished unslinging his weapon when he reached the door. He didn't stop or pause, he just ran inside, and slung the M4 over his shoulder again, and he got into position waiting to close the large front door.
"Go, man," Mike said to Chad.
Chad didn't repond, he just backed inside, and waited for Mike, who, moments later, backed inside as well. Once Mike had completely cleared the door, Nick closed it with a small 'snap' and bolted in instantly.
There was silence except for the heaving breathing of all six teens.
Chad lowered his weapon, then smiled. "How you boys doin'" he asked putting on his best redneck stereotyped voice.
Nick and Mike just stared, and finally split grins of there own.
"Not bad," Nick said as he walked over and gave Chad the pair's normal greeting, which was clasping hands in midair. Kind of like an arm-wrestling match without the wrestling.
He smiled. "Yourself?"
"I'm alright, thanks. All those stupid war games payed off I guess." Chad said.
Nick figured out what Chad ment instantly, as he watched Mike sling his 870 on his back.
In the boys youth, they had played a game they called "War games" with any of the neighborhood friends who wanted to play as well. Each player would pick some sort of gun. Sometimes they were plastic, and sometimes they were just sticks that kind of looked like guns. A player would see someone on the opposing side, and "shoot" at him, and call "You're dead!" or something along those lines. This caused much argument, because no one who was 'shot' actually beileved they were hit, that the player that 'shot' them had missed. The guys used to practice, and pretend they were soldiers, trying to emulate what they had seen in movies and on T.V. specials about the training process of marines and the like.
What they had just pulled, from the time the house door had opened to the time it had closed had taken fifty to sixty seconds total time. It was pretty unprofessionally done, and probably wouldn't had made much of a difference if they were attacked.
The group had a long way to go before they could move around in hostile, un-secured territory safely and effectivly. The had a lot of practice to fo before they could even call themselves ready.
"I doubt that, my friend," Nick said, releasing his grip. "That was ages ago, and we didn't know what the fuck we were doing."
"Sounds kinda like now." Chad said.
"Don't be so negative." Nick smiled wider and turned to the three girls who were just joining the guys by the door. "Are you all okay?"
His smile faded a bit.
"Yeah, we're fine," Ashley said simply, as Tracy nodded, and Ali gave no response at all.
"Alright," Nick began. "We called Molly," he said nodding to Mike. "She's still okay, though she says her part of the neighborhood's a real mess. She's kinda freaked out. Never a good sign."
"Fuckin' A, I'm freaking out too, man. I don't fucking blame her," Chad said. "Oh, nice vest, by the way.."
"Thanks," Nick muttered. "Anyway, she says that every once in a while she'll spot one or more of those things."
"Makes sense, she's closer to the city. More people and all," Chad added.
"So when do we go get her?" Mike asked, visibly anxious. Not really in the mood for small talk.
"Well, first we need to pack up the rest of the guns," Nick turned to Chad. He paused for a moment, thinking logically through what do do next "I haven't actually seen them all yet." Nick glanced at the three girls. "We select weapons for you three before we pack the rest of them up." He puased again. "Then I guess we take some lessons on proper weapons handling from Mike. I've never held an M4 before today much less fired one. And I really don't want to get accidentally shot by one of you lot... Then we pack up any other gear we'll need in the backpacks and other bags that we've got, or we find here."
Nick paused once again, thinking of something that seemed like a godo idea. "Then we watch some news, I think. and take a few minute break. I wanna know what the fuck is going on. I'm sure someone on the airwaves has something to say about this."
"Fuckin' A," Chad said, nodding once.
"How long did it take you to think of all that?" Tracy asked. She still clutched her cell phone, like if it left her hand, it would explode, or something if she let it go. Her bookbag was still slung over her shoulder and at this point she may have forgotten about its preseance entirely.
"Uh...I'm just kinda making it up as I go," Nick admitted. "Seems like the right things to do, though."
"Oh," Tracy said, looking down.
"I don't want to take too long. I wanna get Molly real fuckin' soon, here," Mike said.
"We will. She's in no immidiate danger from what we can tell and she's pretty much not going anywhere. We have to fucking take care of ourselves before we leave this fuckin' house. We gotta be absolutly fucking ready," Chad said, like it was the most obvious thing ever.
"Yeah, first thing's first," Ashley spoke up, suprising everyone.
She turned to Mike, and in a tone of voice and manner that she hadn't displayed at all recently, she asked.
"Mike, where's the T.V.?"