A/N: So this is just a Glee Project story i'm trying out. I haven't got much motivation at the moment so I might not get it finished but I thought i'd post the first chapter anyhow :-)
So I'm pretty much just taking the names and faces of the Glee Project contestants and putting them into my story. Maybe a little bit of their personality also. I don't know depends how this turns out :-)
Damian.
The impossible is possible. Complete and utter irony. The man on the billboard knows nothing of the impossible. He knows nothing of running. He probably only had to run for 3 metres until the photographer got the money shot. I'm running for my life. I'm living the definition of trample the weak, hurdle the dead. I turn away from the billboard and scan the deserted road with a flick of my eyes. There are run down cars wrapped around telephone posts. The constant smell whiffed down the street, carried by the wind. Once I saw it was clear I streaked forward, head low. I listened for anything unusual; like the scraping of dead feet being dragged or the drip of blood splattering against the concrete ground. I flicked my eyes to my back occasionally as I ran. There's nothing there but I can't help but stay cautious. I dodged the fallen posts and jumped over the boots of cars my eyes locked on the empty alley before me. The loaves of bread are flopping around in my arms as I sprint down the side alley - my eyes search for the open door down the very end. I spot Cameron smiling at me in the doorway, nodding his head furiously. I smile back giving a sneaky wink. I trip over a little on the tipped over bins and empty cans sprayed out across the ground.
"Is that fruit bread?" Cameron called enthusiastically. I smiled and take the last glides towards him. I crashed into Cameron dropping half the load into his ready arms, my own stinging slightly from the weight.
"Just for you my man," I laugh. Cameron pats me on the back and turns to walk down the darkly lit corridor. He ruffles through the different food, giving a shout of appreciation. I shut the door behind me locking all three locks before pushing the chair in front of handle. I follow Cameron down the corridor shivering in my jumper. The corridor gets no light. There are no windows here, but it's safer that way.
"Damian, your the best," Cameron calls from in front of me. "Maybe we should send you on all the raids!" I laugh along with him, though I'm secretly hoping that he doesn't take the joke too seriously. He is probably right though. I am the fastest of us all and the most committed to carrying out a raid. But I can be blinded by my willingness to get the best for the others. I'm not known for taking appropriate risks. Luckily today I didn't come across many zombies, though. I have a knack for getting myself into trouble. If I stay low and keep quiet they usually don't notice me. I start to see the light at the end of the corridor and hear the quiet murmur of anxious voices. Cameron and I start to speed up a little. We're both excited to tell the others the good news. Fruit bread! We hardly ever get treats. Especially when the others go on the raids. Bryce gets the 'vitamins' and 'irons' and his precious protein shakes. Lindsay just gets in and gets out. And Cameron comes home with whatever he could grab in the ten minutes he's out. I think the others get excited when they know I'm coming home. Last time from my raid, we all had Raspberry Square. It was yum but probably wasn't worth the effort I put in to get it. I didn't tell the others this but I literally had the closest call, yet. It was three weeks ago and I was finished with the raid. I had all the essentials and was super surprised at how smoothly it had all run. I saw the square out of the corner of my eye. The temptation was too great. Without looking I sprinted to the end of the aisle and snatched up the tin. When I turned around three zombies had me corned. They smiled at me with their weird, crinkly dripping mouths. I completely freaked out and without thinking anything through, I threw tins of spaghetti at each of their faces. It momentarily stunned them and I skidded through their legs. I hoofed it all the way home without out stopping for a breather. I could out run any zombie, any day.
In front of me Cameron slid through the open door. I hear a huge sigh of relief followed by an uproar of cheers. I slide through the door after him grinning from ear to ear. A warm body slams up against me instantly. The boxes of food tumble out of my hands. I feel the slight shake of her body. I wrap my arms around her waist and lift her up in a hug. Her head of hair snuggles up against my head and I get a strong whiff of her strawberry shampoo (which I also made an effort to receive for her today). I pat the back of her head softly - giving her a squeeze before dropping her down and pulling her away from my body.
I smiled down at her. Her eyebrows are creased into a sharp line. "You always get so worried, Lindsay! How many times do I have to tell you; I always come back!"
Lindsay gives a shaky laugh, lets go of my hands, and bends down to pick the boxes off the ground. She takes them over to our kitchen (a tiny, dirty bench space) inspecting her shampoo with a smile. On the other side of our square room, sitting on the stained couch are Emily and Bryce looking through Cameron's lot.
"Fruit bread, Damian?" Emily comes over to give me a hug. "Your too good to us." Bryce thumps me on the back appreciatively. He pulls out a new set of shavers from a small blue box and gives me a wink.
"I need some of those!" Emily snatches the box of shavers out of her brother's hands. "This may be the end of the world and you boys are my last chance for a good time but a girls still got to look good, dammit." Emily crackles and flicks her hair. She pulls out two shavers from the box and dances her way over to Lindsay.
"Damian, did you get panadol?" Bryce asks. "I can't see it in here?"
"Over here, Bryce!" Lindsay calls from the kitchen. She throws over the small white box perfectly into Bryce's hands.
"I told you he never forgets anything," Cameron smiles at me. I smile back. My chest wells with joy. I like to lead. I like the feeling of satisfaction when the others admit they need me. I feel like I'm the leader of this group. I'm always keeping us in line and I prevent arguments between Emily and Cameron almost everyday.
"Yeah, yeah," Bryce moans with the tug of a smile in his voice. Cameron laughs and pulls out a dirty, old card pack from under the couch pillow. Bryce turns his attention to Cameron. I picked the pasta and cereal boxes and other kooky items off the couch that they'd finished looking at and took them over to Lindsay in the kitchen. I dropped the boxes into Lindsay's ready hands. She smiled at me but I can tell she's still a little shaken from before. She's too compassionate for her own good. She probably didn't sleep at all last night while I was away.
"Can I take your clothes now, Damian? Its starting to get late," Emily holds out her hand, smirking. "You too - Cameron, Bryce!"
"Have you got the slacks with you, then?"
Emily hands over the rusty, smelly clothes. We have one set of clothes each and they are clothes we were wearing when we ran away from home. We don't have time to find clothes on our raids. We just take the food and run. Lindsay, who is quite handy with her hands, cut out some slacks out of some dirty sheets and curtains. So that's what we change into while Emily washes our usual day clothes. There's no privacy in this house - there is only one room - so we all strip in front of each other. It did take a while to get used too. I'm quite confident with my body but Cameron - at first - refused to get changed.
The girls turn away in politeness as we take off our underwear. I pulled on the tight, little shorts with a stretch and tug the singlet over my head. Cameron and Bryce - already changed into their short-shorts - place their dirty clothes into Emily's hands. I drop my green jumper and blue jeans into Emily's arms also.
"Lindsay what about you?" Emily asks.
Lindsay looks down at her white pleated knee high skirt and blouse. "No, they have a few more days in them I think." Lindsay smiles thoughtfully. Emily nods and wanders out of the room. She's headed down the long corridor, which leads to the outside door. Doing the washing is the only time we can ever get Emily to go outside. I think she feels guilty about the little help she does, so she compensates with housework. It still works Cameron up all the time though. He doesn't think its fair. She's kind of been dead scared of the outside world ever since this apocalypse started. I don't know how Bryce ever dealt with her on his own. I love her but she's totally useless. Something must have happened to her to make her so frightened of zombies. Sure, they are disgusting, creepy and brain eating freaks but I would never put my fear in front of Cameron, Lindsay, Bryce, Emily and my own survival.
I've always wondered how the others survived so long on their own. We have never really got the chance or wanted the chance to talk about our past lives to each other. I've known Cameron ever since I was little, of course. Our mothers were best friends and they kind of pushed us on each other. Though, I've never felt closer to him than I do now. I had to lose my family and his own and the rest of humanity to really appreciate Cameron. This whole apocalypse has been so much worse for him than for me. The night this mess started I was home alone - my parents had gone away on vacation to California (I was never that close to them) - I was bored and a little depressed. I didn't really live the fun life before this. I was bullied because of my accent and my only friend was Cameron. I wasn't sure why we were friends. Was it because our mums said so? Or did he really consider me friend? We didn't hang out much. He was a lot different to me. I was an outcast. He was a nerd. I had no luck with the girls. Cameron had countless different girlfriends hanging off his arms almost every week. He chose me that night, though. When he had nothing left, he came to me. He came to my door with tears streaked down his face.
"Damian?" Cameron smashed into me, hugging me tightly. "Your fine, right? Let me see your skin!" Cameron pulled and tugged on my arms and legs searching my body.
I tried to pull away, pushing against Cameron's chest. I wasn't comfortable with him touching me. "What's going on? Have you been crying?"
Cameron didn't answer right away. He pushed away from me, turned to the door and bolted it shut. He ran straight into my living room checking all the windows - shutting the open ones and locking them all. I ran to him, grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him still.
"Cameron! Talk to me! What's going on?" Cameron dropped to the ground like a rag doll. I slid down beside him slowly.
He dropped his head into his hands and murmured, "Its crazy. I w-was s-singing in my r-room -" his voice cracked and tears dropped to the floor. It was weird to see him cry. I rubbed him on the back encouragingly. Waiting for him to go on.
"M-mum walked in to my r-room - she was like, dragging her feet or s-something? - I was s-scared. S-she just r-ran at m-me, full t-throttle, her m-mouth dripping w-with - w-what looked like b-b-b-blood!"
Cameron's mother had eaten his father and then came to finish Cameron off. Cameron managed to escape and left his mum dripping with blood - feeding on his father. Cameron came straight to Damian. Out of all his friends and all his girlfriends, he chose Damian. And the rest was history. They survived six weeks on their own together but things became tiresome. Then they met Bryce and Emily. They first saw them creeping out of the dark alley. The way they moved seemed human like but they couldn't be sure. It was an awkward meeting at first - neither could be sure if the others were zombies or had gone blood lust crazy (like some other people they'd came across). Once they established their agreement to join forces both teams were overwhelmed with joy. I think we both had been craving new human contact badly. I was a little excited to see another girl, also. I'm not interested in Emily that way at all but just to see a beautiful girl kind of cooled my tension. Emily and Bryce showed us this hideout and we have lived here ever since. A few weeks after we united Cameron came back from a raid with another new girl. She was short with black hair and beautiful blue eyes. Lindsay was alone in a foursquare supermarket when Cameron found her. A fat zombie that blocked off any chance of escape had Lindsay cornered. Cameron killed him from behind by chopping its head off with an axe (we don't have many weapons here). Apparently she burst into tears. She was eternally grateful and insisted Cameron take her back with him.
All of us have been together for about 2 months now. We do try to keep up to date with the days. I feel it's important - keep something from our old humanity.
"Want to help me Damian?" Lindsay's question brought me back to the present. She was kneading dough together with her fists. I smiled and moved around the counter so I was beside her.
"What would you like?" I asked.
"Can you get some flour? It's over there - nope not there, fourth row - yep, thanks."
I watched her hands while she kneaded the dough. She flattened it out and rolled it back together, pushing down with her fists and revolving the dough around with her fingertips. She sprinkled the flour over the bench.
"Your pretty good at that," I noticed.
"Good at what?" She asked, keeping her eyes on the dough.
"Cooking, baking. Anything to do with your hands."
She laughed lightly. "I've had a bit of practice from back home."
She'd never mentioned anything about her home life before. Cautiously I said, "Oh yeah. What sort of stuff?"
She didn't say anything for a moment and continued to knead away. I started to hope she might jump into a big speech about her family. "Are you saying you've never cooked before, Mr. McGinty?" She said in a light tone back, smiling a little.
I sighed inwardly. "Me?" I laughed. "Cook? Do you not know me? I think this might be the first time I've ever touched flour." I slid my finger through the flour and cupped it in my hand. I smirked and looked up at Lindsay. She was shaking her head moving away. A giggle escaped her lips.
"Don't you dare-" she coughed out as I splattered the flour in her face. "Damian, don't-" I took her into tight hug and wrapped my arm around her head so she was forced to kneel over. I loved to do this to Lindsay. She gets so adorably agitated. As I was about to let her go when a big spray of flour flew into my face. I coughed out and backed away spluttering. I looked up to see a huge grin spread across Lindsay's face. She had a fist full of flour and was walking towards me slowly, menacingly.
"Lindsay - I'm sorry. Don't, please!" She attempted to pour the flour down my tight singlet but my soccer agility from ten years of hardcore training had me on edge. I grabbed her arm and spun around, underneath her shoulder, forcing her arm up her back. She squirmed uncomfortably.
"Game over, Damian," she whispered, trying to turn her heads towards me. I spun her body around fast so we were face to face. She was smiling slightly with amusement. Her nose was covered in flour. She huffed loudly looking up to me with her brilliant blue eyes. She looked up at me expectantly. I stared back a little confused. I was suddenly conscious that Bryce and Cameron had gone quiet.
I turned away with a snap and walked away from her backwards. "Get that bread done. Your letting yourself get distracted." I laughed. She looked back at me like she'd just being dropped off a 20m building. The corner of her lips turned down. I backed into the couch and sat down beside Cameron. He was busy playing Last Card against Bryce. Though when he felt me sit down beside him he dropped his cards and turned around to face me. Bryce moaned and rolled over to play his own game.
"You can sleep on my mattress if you want, Damian. You definitely deserve sleep after that raid." I nodded my appreciation at Cameron and strolled over to his mattress. I collapsed down on it. It was hard on my back. I squirmed uncomfortably under the thin, smelly sheets. The smell didn't bother me much though. I was completely used to it now. I looked around at my new home. Concrete walls and concrete floor. It was usually fucking freezing at nights here, but I think my body has built up a resistance to the cold. Bryce laughs out loud as Cameron swears loudly, interrupting my thoughts. The good thing about this place; it's pretty much as zombie-proof as it gets. We are so far in nobody would ever here us. There's no windows and it's quite unlikely that a zombie would just happen to knock down the bolted door and walk for ten minutes down to our lair. We think this place used to be a private room for newly invented science experiments or something. There is an emergency shower in the corner with a picture of a little man on fire. It's an ugly room. There's no way somebody actually lived here.
Lindsay and Emily have done there best to beautify the den, though. Emily has hung drawings and paintings on the walls with dried out chewing gum (I grabbed her a paint set recently from one of my raids - she was ecstatic). Lindsay hung old curtains from run down cafes in the area across the walls. It was mess of clashing colours but subconsciously I think it lifted everyone's spirits.
I watch Lindsay in the kitchen. That's her spot. She's the cook. Emily offers all the time to help but Lindsay blatantly says no. According to Bryce it's a good thing. Emily is a terrible cook. He said when we first met, "I started to think it wasn't the zombies that were gonna kill me! She gave them a good run for their money." I liked Bryce. He was a good mix of cheerfulness and maturity. Next to me, he was the best on the raids. He got the necessaries. I think he'd keep this group going if something ever happened to me. Overall I'm rather happy with my little group. Its bad to think this way, but I feel like they are the closest thing I've ever had to family. Apart from the zombies, I could live this way forever. Smiling happily to myself I roll over and fall to sleep.
Cameron.
Damian shakes me awake. He places a chipped bowl of rices into my hands. He smiles cheerfully and walks back to Lindsay in the kitchen. I sit up on the couch and push the dirty sheets off me. My tummy grumbles from hunger, so I dig away at my cereal. On a cushion at my feet Emily sits nibbling away on a fresh piece of oven bread. I grit my teeth at the sight. I can't help it. Emily takes everything for granted. She didn't cook that bread, she didn't get any ingredients for the bread but she'll probably eat it all to herself. I kick her in the back with my foot.
"Oops, sorry Emily," I yawn and pretend I'd just had a big stretch. She eyes me suspiciously but goes back to eating her bread. I scoff down my cereal and take it over to our dirty dishes tray. It's not really a tray. It's more like a hole in the wall. Lindsay stacks everyone's dishes together from breakfast as I walk over; I was the last to wake up. I notice Damian and Bryce is sitting together at the small round table with glasses of water each. I wandered over to join them and just caught the end of Damian's comment.
"...think she'll do it though? We could leave her as look out?"
"What are we talking about?" I ask taking a seat between them.
Damian smiles and offers me his water. "We were hopping we'd all go out today. See if we can pick ourselves up toaster or microwave? Bryce and I went out early this morning to grab any random electrical appliance closest to home. We got the lamp over there," he points to a small white lamp side in the kitchen. "We plugged it into the socket-"
"And electricity still runs here!" Bryce grins. "I guess it's an emergency supply that only runs to specific quarters through out town?"
Damian nodded enthusiastically, "I can taste the toast now. Are you keen to venture out?"
Emily took a bit of convincing but Bryce managed to cool her down and we all eventually agreed to allow her to be lookout while the rest of us ran into the shop, JB Hi-Fi. Again, we end up taking the risks for her sake. I tried not to take my frustration out on her but it keeps building up with each new excuse.
Outside, on the raid Damian's in the lead, like always, searching the roads for zombies before assisting us all across two at a time. He runs Lindsay and Emily over, while Bryce and I tag along behind them. We keep low and run on our toes. Damian's taught us heaps of tricks about keeping quiet and secrete. Sometimes I wonder if he's been organising for this his whole life. With Damian's help the mission runs pretty smoothly. Bryce has had to take out the odd zombie with the axe on the way but ultimately it was almost too good to be true. No zombie ever got into a 5-metre radius of us. Damian didn't have to use his stubby little knife once. Bryce being the strongest carried the flash microwave and Lindsay, the toaster. We left Emily as a 'lookout' by a green garbage bin at the end of the street. As we slid out of the revolving door I could see Emily crouched over waving her hand furiously at us to hurry. Bryce gave her a quick wave to indicate that we were coming. We all looked up at Damian expectantly for him to take the lead. He told us to wait for his signal and he ran out to check if the roads were clear. A few seconds later we heard him shout out in pain.
"ARGH!" Damian's shout was more like a screech that cut me in half. Without thinking I jumped out from behind the building walls and spotted Damian on the ground with a zombie trying to snap at him from above. I ran forward and kicked the zombie in the stomach with all my strength sending him flying back a few metres. I snatched up Damian's hand and pulled him back from the three advancing zombies. If Lindsay hadn't attempted to also save Damian we may have got away unscathed. But Lindsay being Lindsay jumped out from the hiding place as soon as she heard Damian's scream. Bryce came out to re-join with Damian and I, eyes wide, looking straight past us. I turned to see a zombie slowly cornering Lindsay against an old broken down blue Chevy. It was smiling creepily. It had caught its diner. The other two advanced on us crunching on the forgotten axe as they slumped across the ground. I pulled out the mini knife and threw it into the back of the zombie near Lindsay. It groaned, but ultimately had no effect. Lindsay was crying out, shaking up against the Chevy. Damian, Bryce and I had no chance of ever getting to her. This was the end. For me at least. I prayed a silent prayer for Damian and the others to carry on and stepped out as a distraction to the zombies. They looked at me with their quizzical, munched up little faces before their face went completely blank. Three loud gun shoots went off and shook the surroundings around us. The little birds that were here flew away, frightened. All three zombies dropped to the ground dead.