Hey guys, I got this one out a bit quicker! Anywhore, I apologize for that cliff-hangar, but the opportunity was just too good. Well, here it is, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Highschool of the Dead.
"Da, quick! Get the hell outta there!"
"Seth, just keep going! I'll catch up!"
"No way in hell!" Seth replies over the gunfire both he and his friend are emitting. He pumps his KSG-12 once more and fires at a particularly dense group of zombies, all of them dropping like sacks of potatoes.
"Seth, what the hell are you doing!?" Da yells, not bothering to look up from the iron sights of her M16.
"Saving your ass, that's what!" Seth shouts as he slowly makes his way through the overwhelming numbers, every so often ramming the butt of his weapon into the skulls of the attacking undead.
"I told you to keep going!" Da reprimands, mowing down the horde all around her. She feels a hand on her shoulder and looks up to see the taller blonde look down at her. He nods towards a warehouse that seems mostly uninhabited and the two set of for it.
Once inside, the two block the entrance with some steel piping and some sheet metal, making a make-shift barrier between themselves and "them". They start searching for another way out, only to find that there isn't one. However, they do find something.
Well, someone, actually.
"Who're you?" Da asks as opens the door to a small maintenance closet, revealing a girl with long, tangled brown hair, and bright, blue eyes. She stares up at Da, not saying a word, her lips moving silently in fear.
"Hey, Seth, there's somebody here!" Da calls across the warehouse, causing the brunette to squeak and pull the closet door shut again. However, it is blocked by Da's foot, the redhead stepping in and forcing the door open again. "Hey, there's no need to be afraid. We're not going to hurt you."
"R-really?" the girl asks, looking nervous as Seth comes into view.
"Yes," Seth says shortly. "Who are you?"
"R-Rachel," the girl answers, standing up slowly. She steps out of the closet and presses against the wall, trying to shy away from the large man's gaze.
"Seth, you're staring," Da reprimands as she elbows him in the gut, knocking some of his breath loose.
"Da, what the hell was that for?" Seth complains, not bothering stand up from his newly adopted doubled over position.
"For making the poor girl nervous!"
"Well, sorry, I didn't mean to!"
"Umm… excuse me…"
"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to!"
"No, but you're the one who hit me!"
"Hello?"
"And!? What's your point!?"
"My point is that-"
"EXCUSE ME!" Rachel yells at the two, gathering their attention and rendering them speechless. Suddenly, the girl seems to get nervous again as she away once more. "Umm… sorry for interrupting… but you shouldn't be fighting here…" she mutters.
"She has a point. We'll finish this later," Da says, postponing the argument.
"Sure, but how are we going to get out of here?" Seth spits.
"Well, let's check inside here…" Da says, diving into the maintenance closet. She comes back out with a disappointed frown across her face. "Nothing, just some cleaning supplies and a rusty old broom handle," she concludes.
Seth, however, seems to get an idea. "Let me see that broom…"
"What are you planning?" Da asks as she hands the rusty instrument to Seth.
"Hmm… definitely iron… Hold on, I'll be right back…" Seth says, handing the broom back to Da and heading off to another part of the warehouse. He returns a while later holding an Etch-N-Sketch, a few buckets of Play-Doh and some sparklers. "Turns out this place stored children's toys," he says.
"Okay, great, what does that have to do with how we're going to get out of here?" Da asks, a bit annoyed at Seth's usual display of greater intelligence.
"Oh, you'll see… for now, just hand me the broom," the blonde instructs as he takes the broom. He then finds a small container, probably used as an ashtray of one point, wipes it out and starts to shave the rust off of the broom handle and into the small dish with his knife. Once done with this, he breaks the Etch-N-Sketch and taps the powder out of it and into the mixture. He stirs it up, presses it into the Play-Doh and walks over to the warehouse wall, examining the steel and determining how much more of his mixture he would need to make.
After making as much of the substance as he deems necessary, Da gets fed up with the silence. "Just what the hell are you doing, anyway!?" she interrogates.
"Oh, nothing, just making some thermite," Seth says nonchalantly, to which Da gapes.
"You're making WHAT!?"
"Thermite. You know, 8 grams of iron oxide, 3 grams of aluminum. Very hot substance. Very difficult to light, however. That's what these are for," Seth explains off-handedly, waving the sparklers around. "Magnesium burns with enough heat to light thermite."
"I know what thermite is, I was just wondering where the hell you had the idea to make it," Da says, allowing a small smile at Seth's genius to cross her face.
"Thanks," Seth says, understanding the compliment. He moves to one of the walls, puts his ear up to it to check for any shuffling or groaning from the other side and creates an outline on the steel. He sticks a sparkler in it and pulls a lighter from his pocket. "You guys might want to stand back," Seth warns, preparing himself to do the same. He lights the sparkler and runs behind a wall that the other two are located at. "Don't look at it!" he yells at Rachel, who had been trying to get a better look.
After a while, Seth pops his head around the edge. He watches as the makeshift thermite starts to burn out, leaving a large piece of the wall to fall to the floor. "Let's make a run for it," he says, grabbing his shotgun and jumping through the hole.
END FLASHBACK
"That's how we met Rachel," Seth says. "I was a bit less… compassionate back then. I just did what needed doing and only really spoke to Da unless I needed to talk to somebody else."
"What happened?" Saeko asks, entranced by the man's story. However, she knows how it ends, for the most part; there is no Rachel with them.
"Well, you see…"
FLASHBACK
"Da, Rachel, get your asses moving!" Seth yells as the two girls stand in the middle of the street, frozen. They are looking at what seems to be a battlefield; cars are burning, bodies piled everywhere, both rotten and fresh. This means that some of the men didn't even turn; they just got killed. All of the windows on the street are shattered, bullet holes pepper the walls and store fronts on both sides, revealing that there was gunfire from two groups, and that they were firing at each other.
However, they don't have long to ogle as they are pulled by the collars by their large companion, who promptly reminds them that "In case you've forgotten, there's a crowd of undead flesh-addicts that are in some SERIOUS withdrawal!"
The group takes off down the body-littered street, jumping between the gaps of non-occupied pavement as they make their way away from the horde of ghouls. They turn at the corner, only to find more blood-shed and something else that makes all three of them freeze, Seth included. However, the tall blonde is first to regain his senses.
"IS THAT A FRIGGIN' TANK!?" he yells in disbelief, dragging his friends along to the giant machine. He pops the hatch open and checks for any signs of life (or unlife). He regretfully pulls the still very dead body out of the tank and lays it down carefully on the ground, making sure the soldier's eyes are closed. He does this with another soldier that is inside the vehicle. Apologizing one last time, he turns to the tank and climbs inside. Most of the controls are covered in blood, as is the rest of the cabin, and the stench of slightly decaying flesh hangs in it, nearly making Seth hurl. He goes to start the tank and finds out that there is no fuel, curses, climbs out and says that the group needs to find some sort of gas.
"It's an M1A1 Abrams, so regular gas will do," he says as they walk quietly down the street, the zombies still after them.
"Over there," Rachel says, pointing to a gas station.
"Great, but how will we carry it?" Da asks.
"I'll go in and look for some gas cans, you two stay here and see if you can get the gas to start," Seth says before walking through the doors of the small convenience store. He spots some cans instantly and takes them back out to the girls, rushing as quietly as possible due to the still surging waves of the undead. They know the general direction in which to travel, but if they get an exact location, they'll be on them before they can fill a single can.
"We can pay by card," Rachel says, pulling out her wallet.
"You still carry one of those around?" Da asks incredulously.
"What? I like to keep a little sense of normality," Rachel defends.
"Yeah, yeah, just put the card in. Quickly, please!" Seth interjects, pulling the nozzle off the hook and positioning it to fill the can. The gas starts to fill its container, the group impatiently waiting for one of the three cans to be full.
"C'mon, C'mon," Da mutters as she sees a couple of zombies stumble onto the parking lot.
"Okay, we're good," Seth says after the last can fills, putting the nozzle back on the hook and screwing the cap on. He grabs two of the cans and starts moving away from the zombies and back to the gas station. "C'mon, there's no way we can get back to the tank yet. We'll just wait until all of them are gone."
"Rachel, I'll grab the other can, you go and find the circuit breakers. Turn off the power to the door after we get inside. Don't want one of those uglies walking in on us," Da instructs. Each of them perform their tasks and meet up at the cash register. The inside of the store looks almost as bad as the world outside; some of the aisles are toppled over, a couple of bodies are lying about.
"What the hell happened here?" Da wonders aloud.
"I don't know, but I think I'm going to be sick," Rachel comments.
"Either way, let's get out of sight. Don't want whoever did this to come back and do it to us," Seth says.
"What do you mean?" Rachel asks.
"Look at some of the bodies. They aren't zombies that somebody happened to stroll by and shoot. These were men, and other men killed them," Seth explains. This information causes Rachel to actually get sick. She runs to find the bathroom and emits sounds that make the others' stomachs turn as well. However, they manage to keep their lunch, whenever the last one was.
"While we're here, we may as well get supplies," Seth says, picking up a back of some sort of spicy chips and popping them open.
"How the hell can you eat right now?" Da asks, not fully surprised by Seth's mannerisms anymore.
"Just don't think about it," Seth replies, sitting against a clean part of the wall and closing his eyes. He leans his head back and eats more chips, not bothering to explain himself again when Rachel rejoins them and asks a very similar question to Da's. He thinks about what life used to be like, what the world was like before everything went to hell. A smile threatens to break across his face, but he stops it; he needs to remain the cold one. It lets the Da and Rachel be as hot-headed or kind as they want, respectively. I need to stay strong, for them.
Suddenly, the blonde feels a sharp pain in the side of his head and his eyes snap open. He must have fallen asleep; the zombies are gone and a new group of people have inhabited the small shop. Da and Rachel are being held at gun point, and Seth soon joins them. There are five guys in total, each one with weapons that seem to be taken off of dead police officers or military soldiers. The man who seems to be their leader is wearing a bandana around his mouth, revealing only his bloodshot eyes and shaggy brown hair.
"Listen, I'm gonna make this real simple: you give us the gas and the guns, we let you live. If not, we'll kill you after having our way with your girls there," the man says, his goons sneering and cheering.
"YOU WON'T LAY A HAND ON THEM!" Seth yells, reaching for his knives before being prodded in the back with an assault rifle.
"Wouldn't do that if I were you," the guy behind him warns. Seth curses again and calms himself, letting his shoulders slump in defeat.
"You want our stuff? Fine. Take it. Take it and leave," he says shortly.
"Oh, don't worry, we will," the leader says. Just as he is leaving he makes on final order: "Take the brunette."
Two thugs start dragging Rachel away while the others stay behind and point their rifles at Seth and Da. "No!" Rachel cries as she is being taken, surely to have horrible things done to her.
"YOU BASTARDS! YOU LET HER GO RIGHT NOW!" Da and Seth both yell in some similar manner. They both launch themselves at the men, grabbing hold of the barrels of the guns, stepping into their respective enemy's body and allowing the human meat-shields to be pump full of led. However, this is not an action movie, so the guns run out of ammo shortly and the duo take down the remaining goons quickly and easily. They grab their weapons and run after Rachel, seeing her being loaded into a car and taken away. They don't shoot at the car for fear of hitting Rachel, but they do run after them. And after turning one corner, they are both horrified and relieved to see that the car had been driven into the newly forming zombie horde, most likely brought about by the recent gunfire.
The pair sees the larger group shoot out the windows of their car, clearing paths outwards so that they can exit the vehicle. Once they do, one man drags Rachel by the hair while the other two continue making a way for them.
Seth and Da's view is blocked by the overwhelming numbers of the undead, their friend lost from sight, and they start shooting their way through. They hear men's screams and assume that at least two of the enemies have fallen.
"Seth! Help me!" The cries are getting louder. He was getting closer. Just a little farther…
"Da, clear a path to get us out of here, I'll get Rachel!" Seth yells.
"No! I won't leave you!" Da protests.
"Then don't! Make sure we can all leave in one piece!"
After a moment's hesitation, Da surrenders. "Fine!" she shouts as she starts mowing down the zombies methodically to the side of the street and towards the many buildings.
"Rachel!" Seth yells as he spots his friend over the countless heads of the undead.
"Seth!" the short brunette responds, her voice scared and panicky.
"Rachel! Just hold on! I'm going to get you out of there!" Seth yells, trying to keep his friend in sight. His shotgun runs out of ammo, however, and he is forced to draw his knives. He launches into the crowd and starts killing all of them in his path, bodies dropping left and right, a clear path forming throw the wall of the dead.
Eventually, he makes it to the other side and slides his knives back into their homes on his belt. He grabs Rachel's hand and attempts to pull her back through the hole he had created, but her arms is pulled free from his grasp; fearing the worst, he pulls his knives again and turns to Rachel, prepared to strike. However, instead of a zombie pulling her away from him, Seth sees Rachel looking at him in total fear.
"S-stay away from me…" she starts, moving backwards.
"Rachel, c'mon, we have to go!"
"JUST STAY AWAY FROM ME!" Rachel screams suddenly, still backing up.
"Rachel?" Seth says confusedly.
"Just stay away from me you… you freak!" Rachel yells at him, not stopping her movement. "You… you just… killed them all… so easily… you did it naturally! Even if they're already dead, how can you just kill them so easily like that!?" she screams again, he voice portraying her fear.
"Rachel, please, I'm sorry you had to see that, but we have to go-"
"I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE WITH YOU!" Rachel screams one last time before turning around to run away and landing right in one of "their" grasp.
END FLASHBACK
"Then she… she…" Seth chokes on the words, tears starting to build up in his eyes. He can still remember her scream perfectly, her fear, her death. He just wants it all to go away.
"It's alright," Saeko says softly, now sitting beside Seth, her hand on his shoulder. "You don't have to say anymore."
"Thanks," Seth replies, trying to calm himself. He doesn't want to cry, doesn't want to show his weakness.
"It's okay, you can cry," Saeko says as Seth starts shuddering. Then, as if reading his mind, she adds, "If you show me your weakness, I'll show you mine."
That sets Seth off. He starts crying, softly at first and quickly building in intensity. He keeps his cries low, however, as not to wake up anybody else. After a few moments, he manages to stop the downpour of tears and he raises his head to look at Saeko.
"Thanks. I mean it; this means a lot to me. Now, as promised," Seth's slight smile turns devilish, "It's your turn."
"Very well," Saeko starts before going into her own past. After she is done, she looks at Seth, not knowing what to expect. Once upon a time, she would've expected fear or hatred, but from what she's seen and heard, she isn't sure that Seth is all that different from herself. However, she is pleasantly surprised to see Seth smiling in understanding, his eyes just as wide with excitement as hers had just been.
"So you really are like me," he says, his voice just as filled with joy as his expression.
"Yes, it seems so," Saeko replies, her refined words holding no meaning of formality due to her excited tones.
"This is unbelievable! I mean, I've met others who like to just kill zombies, or have turned into murderers because of them, but you're the only other person I know besides myself that's a natural born killer!" Seth exclaims quietly, hugging Saeko. However, he soon releases the girl, embarrassment etched into his features. "Sorry," he mutters as he looks at his lap.
"No, it's fine," Saeko assures him. This seems to restore some of his excitement.
"You know what this means, right?" he asks her.
"What?" Saeko responds curiously.
"We're going to have to spar soon!" Seth says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
Saeko smiles. "Sure, but for now, we should probably go to bed," she says, indicating a nearby clock.
"Right, well, night," Seth says as he moves towards the guy's bunks.
"Good night."