REWRITTEN 1/18/16

Going to Get Shit

Samik, Zeus, and I woke up early the next morning. After a quick breakfast of fruit and bread, we hit the streets, dodging past shambling munchers and stalled cars. We'd decided not to take the police car, not wanting to waste gas we didn't have. My house was probably a thirty-minute walk from downtown, Zeus was maybe twenty minutes away from me, and Onyx's house was another half hour away. I hoped we would only be gone for a few hours.

We made good time through the desolate city. Samik and I moved at a light job while Zeus soared above us in her hawk form. The undead were all around us, trapped in cars or banging on the windows of the houses. There were a few in the streets, shambling after us and tripping over the rubble.

"Hey," Samik said suddenly as we turned a corner, about halfway to my house. "Did you know that tonight is Christmas Eve?"

"Really?" I doubted anyone still alive would feel much like celebrating. They probably wouldn't even remember that the holiday was upon them. I wished there was some way to remind them. Give them some hope…

Wait.

Idea in progress.

Please stand-by.

Would it be possible to string together a bunch of speakers throughout the city? Maybe high-jack the radio towers then connect them all to microphones on the roof of the library? We could sing carols, and Zeus, Onyx, Minka, and I all played instruments. Yes, we would attract the attention of every single muncher in Iowa City, but if we could bring the living hope, even a little, I felt like it would be totally worth it.

I quickly explained my idea to Samik, and he nodded slowly. "That could work. And we could send out the message that we're here to help anyone who needs it."

I scratched at the back of my head, warming to the idea. Samik lashed out with his katana and took out a muncher that strayed too close. "We'd need a car, though," I continued. "We can probably get one at my house."

I squinted into the bright winter sky and waved at Zeus, calling her name to get her attention. The hawk circled once before tucking into a steep dive, sun glinting off her silver feathers. She transformed into a girl and landed neatly on the ground, a foot from a frozen pool of blood.

Her face lit up when I explained the plan to her. "Yeah! I can get my cello, you your violin, and Onyx her trumpet or viola! Everyone else can sing! It'll be great!"

"Hopefully they're good singers," I joked, smirking at Samik.

He grinned back, and we turned the final corner onto my street. I turned forward eagerly and instantly froze, the smile draining all the way down my spine like ice as I stared at the carnage in front of me.

The bodies of my neighbors lay strewn across the ground, in pieces and gnawed upon, almost unrecognizable. The remains of the next door neighbor's dog lay scattered, its head on one side of the street and its back paws on the other. Blood coated its muzzle. More blood was splashed on the houses, great waves like an abstract painting, and bullet holes pock-marked their walls. Muncher corpses with their heads caved in lay slumped over partially eaten bodies. There were a couple of cars crashed through fences or into houses, some with their occupants still trapped inside.

I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, hot, red waves coursing through my limbs and making me tremble. Samik saw the rage forming every line in my body and came over to place his hand on my shoulder. "Enia…"

I shook him off stiffly. "I'm fine. Let's go."

I kept my eyes fixed firmly on the skyline until we turned onto my ice slick alley. There was only one car left in the driveway. The bright blue minivan was gone, but the white Honda remained. I led the way up the wooden deck that my dad had built himself and tried the door. It didn't budge, and I smacked the wood in frustration.

Luckily, I was very good at breaking into my own house.

I dragged a chair from the deck down to the driveway and placed it below one of the kitchen windows. I climbed up and popped the screen out, tossing it to the side then shoving the unlocked window open. I paused long enough to give Samik a thumbs-up and then slithered into the house.

I didn't let my friends in right away. I glanced around the room, goose bumps forming beneath my sleeves. Everything was the same as I remembered it, neat and orderly. No looters had come. No munchers had broken in. Everyone was gone, and the whole house was silent. It was eerie.

Shaking the shivers away, I unlocked the back door and let Samik and Zeus in. They wiped their shoes on the mat as they looked around, as surprised as I'd been. "No one's touched it," Zeus whispered. It felt like we were at a funeral.

I nodded and stared at the floor, not trusting my voice to remain steady. Samik took my hand and squeezed it while Zeus moved over to the dark, wood dining table and ran her finger over the newspapers strewn across it. Her hand came to rest on a folded piece of lined paper, "Enia," she said quietly. "It has your name on it."

"Huh?" I looked up, pulling myself from my stupor. She was holding the piece of paper out to me. I took it hesitantly and slowly unfolded it. My mother's handwriting covered most of the page.

Enia,

We have no idea if you'll find this, but we hope that you do. We hope that you're safe and unharmed. I don't know why you decided to jump out that window or what you were hoping to accomplish. You're just a child. You don't know what you're doing. I hope it's nothing stupid.

I wanted to leave you a note in case you come back. We've decided to leave. We've heard rumors of a place safe from all this. They say the military set it up. It's far outside of town at an old warehouse near the river. If you ever read this, I hope you will decide to join us.

Enia, you can't fight this by yourself. You may think that you can make a difference, but you can't. You're just a child. You'll only end up getting yourself hurt or killed. So please don't try, for our sake if not your own. Come and find us. We'll be waiting.

Love, Mom, Dad, and Zach.

I clenched my fist angrily, the paper disappearing into it. Abruptly, I threw the note down on the table and stalked out of the kitchen, heading towards my room and grabbing a backpack along the way. Samik caught up with me quickly but didn't try and touch me. "What was that all about?"

"Nothing," I answered shortly, taking the stairs two at a time. "They're safe."

When we reached the second floor, he finally caught my arm and spun me around. "That wasn't nothing."

I sighed, refusing to meet his eyes. I stared at the polished floor instead. "They've never believed in me. Never. They don't think I can do anything. They don't think I'll every do anything useful. They're telling me not to even try. To sit back and accept what's happened." I realized there were tears streaming down my cheeks, dripping onto my leather jacket. "That's what they're doing. They're letting someone else solve all their problems." I tore my hand away from his and punched the wall, pain stabbing through my knuckles. "Well, that's not what I'm going to do. I'm going to fight this thing as hard as I can. I'm going to fight, and nobody can stop me."

Samik grabbed my hand again and gently kissed the raw, red scrapes. "I'm not going to stop you," he promised. "I'm going to fight with you."

"Me too!" Zeus yelled, and I jumped. I hadn't realized she'd been coming up the stairs behind us.

I grinned at them, shoving most of the rage back down where it belonged. "Let's do it then."

I ran into my room, trying not to look around too much. I grabbed a few of my notebooks and stuffed them into the backpack. Then I scanned my bookshelf until I found the Zombie Survival Guide and the Zombie Combat Manual. I shoved my baby blanket and an old, stuffed panda into my backpack as well. Call me sentimental, but I felt better with them. I also rooted around in my drawers until I found some extra clothes to take. Samik emerged from my brother's room with a pack full of clothing, and then we headed downstairs together.

We went into the guest bedroom. I checked for the laptop, but it was gone; my parents had taken it. Instead, I pulled my dark blue violin case from the corner and slid some of my music into the zip pocket. My violin was named Vio, not because it was a violin but after Purple Link in Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. I was that much of a nerd.

We filled the rest of the space in the backpacks with whatever food my parents had left behind. I hunted around for the Honda's keys and found them where the note had been. I locked up after we left. Samik and Zeus immediately headed for the car, but I paused on the porch and stared at the house where I'd spend my whole life. It was strange to think I might never see it again. That it might be destroyed the next time I came back.

I could put a ward around it and protect it from harm until we could safely return. Keep it pristine. But we wouldn't be coming back. I had to accept that. I had a new life now, and it was a better life.

I jumped down the steps and opened the driver's door, sliding onto the leather seat. "What was that about?" Samik asked as I started the car.

"Nothing," I answered. "Everything's great." I smiled at him sincerely, and he grinned back.

The car slid on the ice as we left the driveway, but the wheels soon caught on the cement of the street. I drove carefully through the streets, trying to avoid running over any of the bodies. "You drive like a grandma," Samik grumbled, slumping in the shotgun seat.

"I'm trying not to hit any of the bodies," I retorted.

"You still drive like a grandma," he repeated, half to himself but meaning for me to hear.

As soon as we hit a long stretch of open road, I slammed on the accelerator. The car leapt forward, and Samik smacked his skull on the headrest. He yelped in surprise. Then I suddenly stomped on the brakes, and he bashed his head on the dash. I grinned evilly as he rubbed his forehead and gave me a wounded look.

Zeus tapped on the back of my head. "Hey, I'm here too."

"Sorry," I laughed.

"I promise never to diss your driving again," Samik groaned.

"Good boy."

Normally, it would only take about five minutes to drive to Zeus's house, but the stalled cars and wandering corpses stretched that time out to fifteen minutes. And also because I managed to get us lost about five times, even with Zeus directing me. Samik fiddled with the radio but couldn't get anything except static.

"You suck at this, Enia," Zeus grumbled when I finally pulled onto her street.

"Do you want to drive?" I demanded, turning the car off.

"Not really."

"Then shut up."

We left the car and looked around the silent street. There didn't seem to be any munchers nearby, but it didn't hurt to check. In an uneven line, we darted up the driveway, and Zeus eased the door open. The house was dark. She slipped inside, and we followed, listening for movement in the quiet rooms.

First, Zeus ran upstairs to get her cello. Samik and I headed into the kitchen to load up on more food. Zeus came back down with a backpack on her shoulders a minute later, dragging her purple cello case behind her. "Anything else?" I asked.

She shook her head, looking sad.

I walked over and wrapped her into a tight hug, wrapping my fingers into her hair. Slowly, her arms linked behind my back. I could feel her shaking, and I leaned down to murmur in her ear. "I'm sure they're fine, Zeus. In fact, they're probably with my parents at the military refuge."

I didn't mention that those camps always ended in death.

Zeus broke the hug and silently led the way to the front door. I popped the trunk of the car, and Zeus slid her cello inside. She smiled at me. "Thanks, Enia."

I slammed the door and reached over to ruffle her hair. "Of course."

She got in the car without looking back.

The Honda rolled smoothly out of her driveway and was silent as we cruised down the street. Fortunately, I knew how to get to Onyx's house, though the streets looked so different from the destruction that I took a few wrong turns. On one such turn, we found ourselves on a narrow side street, and suddenly, Samik yelled for me to stop the car.

I slammed on the brakes, once again sending his head flying into the dashboard. "What?" I demanded, my minor heart attack making me sound angrier than I was.

He pointed out the window at two large, heavy-duty crates, rubbing his head with his other hand. "What are those?"

I shrugged, and the three of us stepped out of the car, our curiosity winning out over common sense. I checked the area for munchers as Samik approached the crates and cautiously prodded one with his toe. Zeus and I joined him, and together, we examined the boxes. They were made of a thick, industrial-looking wood and were nailed shut. One side read in white block letters, "Fragile. Do not tip."

My eyes gleamed. "I wonder if they hold weapons, or explosives, or liquid nitrogen!" I exclaimed, thinking of the brilliant idea I'd had after seeing Arin flash-freeze a muncher's head.

"Let's take them with us," Samik suggested.

"Okay."

Samik and I each hefted a crate into the air and began to stagger back to the car. Inside the boxes, something clinked. I realized suddenly that I'd put the keys in my pocket, out of easy reach. "Crap," I muttered as I slid the crate onto the hood of the car. I fished around in all my pockets for the keys, but they weren't there. I pulled on the door. It was locked. Finally, I peered through the window, and, lo and behold, there were the keys.

In the ignition.

"Crap," I repeated.

"What?" Samik demanded, joining me at the window. I pointed at the keys, and he banged his head against the car, groaning in exasperation.

Behind us, Zeus sighed. "What did you do now?"

"Erm…I kind of locked the keys in the car," I replied sheepishly.

Silence. I figured she was shaking her head and wondering how I was still alive. That was about when the first moans, drifting gracelessly on the wind, reached us. "Shit," Samik and I said in unison.

Zeus edged closer to us. "Enia…"

"I know."

"No, look."

My eyes followed her pointing finger. Munchers were pouring out of every available opening and shambling towards us. We were surrounded. "Double shit," I breathed and yanked viciously on the door handle. "Openopenopenopen!"

Samik placed his hand over mind. "That's not going to work."

"Yeah, well, you got a better idea?" I demanded and answered my own question before he could. "Oh. Magic."

I snapped my fingers and pointed at the lock. "Barrock!"

Something in the car whirred and clicked, and the next time I yanked on the handle, the door popped open easily. I checked up on the approaching horde, finding that they were far too close for comfort. "In, in, in!" I shrieked.

Zeus and Samik flung themselves inside, Samik haphazardly tossing his crate in as well. I threw mine in after them and jumped into the driver's seat, slamming the door behind me. I turned the car on and put it in drive, slamming my foot down on the accelerator. The wheels spun, but we didn't move. I banged on the steering wheel with both hands, took my foot off the pedal, and brought it down again, yelling, "Work, damnit!"

"Enia?" Samik asked nervously. The first munchers were only a few feet from the car, their gray faces drooping and empty as they leered through the windows at us.

"Not now," I growled, putting the car in reverse and hoping that would convince it to move. The car whined at me in protest and stubbornly sat on its wheels. The first fist thudded against the window, the apathetic sound ringing around us. More munchers quickly joined the first, and before long, the car was shuddering violently from the constant hammering. Somehow, a muncher climbed up onto the windshield and pressed its face against the glass, its mangled mouth smearing blood across the car. I scrunched up my nose and stuck my tongue out at it, eyes squinting, and in the back, in sounded like Zeus was hyperventilating.

Calmly, almost yawning, Samik reached across me and pressed the button to open the sunroof. "What the hell are you doing?" I demanded.

"Try and get the car started." He stood up on his seat and poked his head out of the hole, katana unsheathed and in his hand.

I turned the car off and restarted it as Samik began to hack and slash and the munchers mobbing the car, fending them off from every direction. The engine spluttered slowly to life, hacking and coughing like a tired old man. I smashed my foot down on the accelerator again. The wheels spun, and I could hear them whining as they fought for purchase, but we didn't move. I couldn't tell if it was the car's fault or if it was because of the giant, seething mass of undead bodies pressed around it. They were beginning to creep up the sides of the car, closer and closer to Samik. I banged on the dash and let out a long string of Elvish curses.

"I'm guessing I don't want to know what you just said," Zeus laughed shakily from the back.

"Probably not," I replied, wracking my brains for a solution.

"Enia?" Samik called, his voice even. "I can't keep them off for much longer."

I punched the steering wheel with all my strength, bruising my knuckles and splitting the skin. Another long string of very profane, Elvish swearwords flew from my mouth.

Suddenly, the car lurched forward, spilling some of the munchers off the hood so that they could be crushed by the tires. "Huh," I muttered. It appeared that swearing and threatening to kill inanimate objects really did make them work better. Good to know

I floored the gas pedal, and we inched forward, crawling our way past the munchers, bumping over their bodies so that their insides squirted out all across the road. The corpses snarled at us and pawed at the windows, leaving behind putrid brown smears. Before long, their ranks began to thin, and the car leapt into the open space, and we began to pick up speed. Samik slid back down into his seat with a sigh of relief, his katana leaving drips of blood all across the car mat.

I unrolled my window and stuck my head back, swiveling so that I could look behind us. "Ha! Take that, ya fuckers!" Laughing like a mad man, I pulled my head back into the car and sped off to Onyx's house.

As it turned out, we weren't very far away from our destination. Pretty soon, we were rolling past the silent and empty cemetery, its dead long buried and unmoving. I took the turn onto Onyx's driveway way too fast and had to slam onto the brakes to stop the car before it hit the house. I quickly climbed out and searched the town behind us for any signs of the horde. I could the very faint but very distinct sound of distant moaning. We didn't have much time.

Zeus tried the door, but the knob simply rattled in her hand. I leaned around her and knocked, hoping Onyx's parents were home. "Move aside," Samik ordered after three heartbeats of silence.

Zeus and I quickly backed away, wondering what his plan was. Samik frowned thoughtfully at the door, fell into an an offensive stance, then snapped his leg out as hard and as fast as he could. Shrieking, the door flew inwards and banged against the wall.

"That works," I said, finding myself incredibly attracted to Samik at that moment. If Zeus hadn't been with us, there definitely would have been a hard core make-out session inside the house as the muncher horde swarmed the outside.

We entered carefully, ready for anything. I was fully expecting something to fall on top of me or leap out of a closet as I passed, but the house remained dark and quiet. Without saying a word, we split up. I packed up Onyx's viola, named Lucius, and her trumpet, then darted upstairs to find her Swiss army knife as Samik and Zeus raided her kitchen.

The instant I stepped off the staircase, Samik chucked another set of keys at me, almost hitting me in the face. "I figure we could use another car."

"Okay. Who's going to drive?"

"I can," he said, slinging a backpack strap over one shoulder. "I sort of know how from being inside your head while you were learning."

"Alright. Why don't you take this car?" I tossed the keys back to him, "And follow behind Zeus and me?"

He caught them much more easily than I had. "Got it."

We left the house and carefully wedged the door back into place. I waved goodbye to Samik as Zeus and I got in the Honda and he unlocked Onyx's battered, green Subaru. I led the way as we returned to the streets. Munchers staggered past us, arms reaching, unable to catch the car. Zeus stared back at them with wide eyes.

"Enia?"

"Ya?" I swerved to avoid a car with a smashed windshield, and a muncher ran into the corner of our vehicle, leaving behind a smear of blood.

"When you kill them, the zombies, do you feel bad? Do you feel guilty? Are their faces there when you close your eyes at night?"

"No." I wrenched on the wheel and dodged a tipped truck by a quarter of an inch.

"Why not?"

"Because I feel like it's my job to protect the living."

"But they were alive once, too."

I shot a glance at Zeus and reached over to rub her shoulder. "True, but the way I see it is that there are two sides to every war. And this is a war. I choose to side with the living, and therefore, the dead are my enemies. And besides, maybe we're doing the munchers a favor by killing them. We don't know if there's anything left in their minds. Maybe there's some part of them left that still remembers who they were, and they're watching what their bodies are doing with horror, unable to do anything about it. In my eyes, we're freeing them."

Zeus nodded thoughtfully, staring out at the undead streaming by our windows. "Yeah. Thanks, Enia."

"No problem. I know this must be pretty tough for you."

"You don't seem to be bothered by it."

A dark expression flitted across my face, but I made sure to hide it, keeping my voice light and joking. "That's because I bury those feelings as deep as I can and don't talk about them with other people."

She stared at me, searching my face, but my mask had no cracks in it. "That may not be the smartest idea, Enia."

I shrugged. "I know, but it's the way I am"

"Promise me you'll talk to me if you need to?"

"Of course," I lied, smiling at her. "Thanks, Zeus."

I steered the conversation towards lighter topics for the rest of the drive. Zeus made fun of my driving skills, so I proved exactly why you shouldn't antagonize the driving by almost crashing us into a light pole. After that, she decided to make Samik her target, and we laughed at him as he lurched along awkwardly behind us.

We parked the new vehicles beside the stolen police car, and I stared up at the library in shock. There was light blasting from every window, churning in time to heavy rock music. I glanced over at Zeus, worried. "What the hell are they doing?"

Enia: I have great news for you all! Onyx is writing the next chapter from her POV!

Most everyone (myself included): Hooray!"

A Select Few: Uh oh…

Onyx: (growls viciously and attacks the Select Few, tearing them to pieces) Want to rephrase that?

The Select Few: (painfully) Yay…

Onyx: That's better.

Enia: O.O I'm glad I wasn't in that group.

Teemo: Why didn't you leave me in charge? Onyx is no more responsible than I am!

Enia: I promised Onyx I'd leave her in charge.

Teemo: Humph.

Enia: Okay. By everyone! R&R?