Disclaimer - All rights belong to Teletoon, Cartoon Network, and the creators of TDI. No profit is being made in the making of the fanfiction. This alternate-universe episode of TDI contains stunts performed by written teens. Please don't try any of this at home.
The Kobold Necromancer's Notes - Please note that I have toned down the violence again, but it is hard. If you think it's still too violent, let me know and I'll go... \whimpers\... and... \swallows hard\... censor it! \cries and gnashes teeth at having to use the word\
Chapter 18 - Dawn and Dusk, Escape or Bust
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(McClean Stadium)
"I still don't get it," Katie admitted.
"Well, see," Harold said, "there are two campaigns going on. The Dawn's, at the hospital, and The Dusk's at the docks. Members of The Dawn appear as zombies in The Dusk's campaign, and vice versa."
"So," Katie tapped her lips, her brow furrowed with confusion, "so that's why a zombie of you killed me?"
"Yes. I apologize."
"Was that because Gwen killed you?"
"No, the zombie of me was already there."
"I get it all now," Katie said happily. "I sometimes worry that when I'm not near Sadie or Noah, I'm not so perceptive."
"It's quite all right, I was confused at first... too..."
Katie was staring intensively at Harold's face, squinting. She finally asked, "Are your eyes green, or is that just your glasses?"
Izzy, near them, was growling and making other random unhappy noises. Eva lost her patience and snapped, "For God's sake, you don't need to whine the entire time."
"Hey, at least you got a fitting death," Izzy snapped right back. "I saw you, you were awesome! DJ might live because of you, but no! I have to sit here, watching everyone else be cooler."
"You've been complaining about that for some time," said Trent. "Aren't you afraid you might build up a lot of negative energy when the game is finally over?"
"I plan to, lest I forget what my boyfriend did to me!"
"Dudette, you cannot hate Owen that much," Geoff remarked. "Look, the dude's trying his hardest, see?"
He pointed to the virtual reality screen, where Owen was beating zombies down with an oar. Izzy was proud of him until someone rounded the corner towards him, and her boyfriend brought the oar down on his head without looking. The large teenager was rather stunned to see Howard lying on the ground, and Joel crying, "Great gravy, what did you do?!"
"Ouch," Carol remarked, eating popcorn still. "That was a particularly nasty blow, wasn't it?"
(Janitor's Closet - Nasty blows cared for here.)
Izzy - "Am I building up too much anger over this? Well, put yourself in my shoes! If you were previously wanted by the RCMP over a napalm incident and had to hide with bears, and needed some excitement in your life because your doctor recommends you get excitement for your heart (or just to stop playing with the tongue depressors), you wouldn't want your boyfriend to keep you out of the zombie-killing mayhem!"
Trent - \wringing his hands\ "Gwen accidentally blew away Harold before she chewed him out. More and more, I'm thinking I might take that safety alliance with Valerie, or she might be voted off."
Katie - "I wish Sadie or Noah could be with me, but they're both doing so well! Carrying on after their partner died? I couldn't do that, that's why I love those two so much."
(The Dawn, In The Hospital)
"Zombies," DJ shrieked as he charged through the corridors of the hospital. He bolted upstairs, charged through hallways, ran in circles as he rode the elevator up, and dashed all the way up to the top.
Along the way, he almost bowled Clive down, without either boy knowing who it was. Zombies had been knocked down like bowling pins, and the emo was almost certain he heard that crash of pins along the way. Belinda helped him up and pulled him back into the room.
"What hit me?" Clive muttered as he rubbed his head.
"DJ, in a panic," Belinda replied simply, handing him his weapon (an IV stand) back to him. "Looks like he got a major scare, I'm guessing Eva was killed."
"If she couldn't survive this, what chance do we have?"
"Have some faith, bad luck can take anyone down," she commented, twirling her scissors around her finger. "Now c'mon, we'd better get-"
She stopped, her body tensing up. This had been their alarm for a zombie attack, something she seemed to easily sense. Sure enough, a zombie came stomping into the room.
Clive rushed up and bashed the zombie's head with his IV stand, huffing indignantly at the zombie. He turned around, only to see a zombie right outside the window, pulling its rotting hand back to punch through the glass at Belinda.
"Crap," he shouted. "Belinda, look-"
The shattering of glass cut him off, not to mention a few of the zombie's fingers. It still managed to hook onto her jacket's hood and pull back. She seemed almost prepared, as she stabbed at its hand with her scissors.
Clive panicked, and ran up to shove the zombie away. The ghoul, one that seemed rather determined since it had climbed up five floors on the outside, gripped Clive with its other, better hand; however, this caused it to lose its balance. It fell backwards, pulling Clive with it.
Belinda reached for him, and her grasp met air. The emo was pulled out the window, dropping his IV stand inside the building before leaving it, and plummeting five stories.
She stood there, taking deep breaths as she tried to piece together what happened. Crying out in frustration, she threw her scissors down and picked up the IV stand to head out.
She almost bashed in the first head she saw, but it turned out to be Bridgette. The surfer girl screamed and fell back, and Cody almost bashed in Belinda's head. An awkward silence followed, then Belinda sighed in relief and helped Bridgette up.
"Couldn't you have predicted it was us?" Cody asked, chuckling nervously.
"I'm not focused anymore," Belinda muttered, looking down at the ground. "Clive just died saving me."
(Janitor's Closet - What a noble emo.)
Belinda - "Clive can be such a great guy, I've always suspected there is so much more to him besides the emo shell he tries to bring up. I just wish it'd take a little less than a zombie apocalypse to bring the best out of him." \She sighs, then smiles at the camera.\ "I'm predicting it won't."
Clive - "Look, I knew I was going to die, but to be pulled from the fifth floor window? How the heck did the zombie know we were there, how'd it climb the building?!"
Chris Maclean - "Joel told me that a random feature for common zombies would be climbing up the sides of buildings. So that's how the emo got pulled out to his death, which was the second funniest thing in this challenge yet. First, of course, is Izzy being knocked down the stairs by Owen! I cannot get enough of the hose beast being knocked down like Raggedy Ann!"
\There is a knock on the door. Chris walks over and opens it, only for a jar of macadamia nuts to hit his head and knock him out.\
(The Dawn's Hospital)
Alfred and Hannah met up with Beth, who was near death with bites and scrapes. The short farm girl pleaded with them to go on without her, but they took some time out to find her first aid. Alfred was more than happy to bash more zombie heads in, defending the room that Hannah and Beth were in, the former bandaging the latter's wounds.
Gwen blasted zombies away with her shotguns as she headed upstairs, running into a fair amount of the dead heads along the way. She was rather repulsed by the zombies in hospital gowns. "I really," she muttered to herself, "did not ever need to see that!"
Anita stumbled up to the top of the hospital, where Ezekiel and Heather were guarding. Colin was staring over the side, enjoying the view, and anything that kept him away from her was fine.
"Did you see anyone else?" Heather asked Anita as the taller girl reloaded her gun.
"No, but," she muttered as she tapped her lips, "I think I saw Courtney, but I cannot be sure."
Courtney was in the hospital, only a few floors down. Arthur was very winded, because the CIT had insisted they take the stairs.
"Not only do you never take the elevator in an emergency," she had lectured him, very much annoying him, "but you don't know all the horrible things that might happen if you take the elevator. Zombies falling in, the elevator getting stuck, or worst of all, it plummets to the basement and we both die."
"It's a zombie invasion, not Final Destination where every stupid way of dying is gonna happen!"
"It's Chris Maclean's campaign, anything is possible," Courtney said. She shook her frying pan at him and said, "Don't ever put anything behind that man."
"But he didn't design this campaign, the designers did."
"Yes, and thus..."
She never finished that sentence, because there was someone standing in a room nearby. Courtney recognized the green mohawk and black clothing, and she gasped. "Duncan?"
"What?" Arthur exclaimed, looking at the person too. "How's that possible?"
"I don't know! Duncan, what are you doing here?" Courtney shouted at her boyfriend. When he didn't answer, she got mad. "Hey, don't you dare ignore me!"
She stormed up to her boyfriend, and repeated, "What... are you doing here? Did you sneak into the game too? Is sneaking into the stadium not good enough?"
Arthur watched this, scratching the side of his head. "Hey Courtney, didn't Chris say that those voted off were..."
"Duncan, I'm talking to you," Courtney shouted, and spun her boyfriend around. The zombie that was her boyfriend moaned and lurched for her neck...
Arthur's eyes widened in horror, then looked away as his partner had her throat ripped out.
(Janitor's Closet - What a way to go.)
Courtney - \face-palming\ "I cannot believe I chewed out a zombie... then it chewed me out."
Arthur - "Yeah, I did look away when it happened, because, well, even a gore fan like me cannot always bear to see it right in his face. But still... the way she bit it..." \he bursts out laughing\ "... now that was the greatest death I have ever seen!"
(The Dusk's Docks)
"How many fingers am I holding up?" Joel asked Howard, holding three fingers (they weren't his own, they were from a zombie).
"Fifty-three thousand, five hundred and ninety five," Howard babbled.
Joel groaned, then frowned at Owen. "This concussion simulation will take a while to wear off. Could be from five minutes to an hour."
"I didn't hit him that hard," Owen feebly protested.
"Owen, I wasn't even hear, but I heard you hit him," Sadie remarked.
The three conscious survivors looked at each other, and then the larger BFFF sighed. "Well, what do we do?" she asked.
"Should we light the flare?" Owen asked.
"No, we should wait until a few more of our people get here, at least half of the teams," Joel said. "If we light it too soon, the zombies will coming swarming, and the chances of those in the city still will diminish."
"Why?"
"Imagine every house having zombies coming out of it, every existing zombie heading towards the flare. If you're out there, the zombies will be heading out, and you'll be in the middle of their parade."
Owen nodded, getting that. His attention wandered, and he saw something that looked like a bazooka. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at it.
"Bazooka," Joel commented. "Or grenade launcher, whichever you want to call it."
"Wow," Sadie marveled it. "That's rather unusual for a harbor to have."
"It's one of the random gifts the game could give us. Imagine the last survivors left it here for us, or the evacuation team left it here so that survivors would have a good way of fighting off the zombies."
The three survivors (and one loopy Howard) waited for others to come, picking off any zombies that wandered their way. Sebastian and Sakaki both made it, covered with zombie blood but still alive. Valerie made it next, panting and desperately needing to catch her breath. Zachary came a couple minutes after her, looking zonked and frustrated.
"Damn racist zombies," he complained. "They're all hunting the black man!"
"Zombies are kind of, well, dead," Sadie remarked. "I don't think they care what your skin color is."
"Well then, if it's really about appetite, it's a wonder why you haven't been eaten," Zachary said, looking at Sadie's hips and stomach. "You'd make quite the white meat buffet."
Sadie winced and walked away, hurt. Some of the others glared at Zachary, but Owen was busy gripping his stomach. "I'd make a really big feast, wouldn't I?" he said, proudly.
"Yeah, you would," Zachary said, high-fiving the larger teen. "I have to admit, I am impressed you made it this far."
The two looked around, trying to decide what to do next. Joel was talking to Sadie, Sebastian and Sakaki were studying the docks, and Valerie was sitting down, gasping for air.
"Should we launch the flare?" Zachary asked Owen.
"Joel said we should wait until half the teams make it here."
"Half the teams? That's," Zachary started counting on his fingers, then signed. "Crap, man, math ain't my thing. What's half of whatever we started off with?"
"I think we had twenty people, so half of that would be... half-twenty?"
Zachary nodded, then looked around at the others. "Sebastian, Valerie, Sakaki, you, me, Sadie, Howard, Joel... is that ten?"
Owen scratched his head. "How many is ten?"
"Hell if I know, math ain't my thing, I told you that. Let's just start it up!"
The two approached the flare box, and pushed the red button labeled, "PRESS BUTTON TO LAUNCH FLARE!" The red rocket shot up into the air, leaving off a particular glare, then blasted with a bright-crimson flair. The others all looked up in horror at this.
"What... what... what...," Joel stammered.
"Oh that's nice," Valerie growled. "You just set off the..."
"YOU FOOLS," all the others shouted at Zachary and Owen at the same time.
Zachary and Owen stared back like moose in the headlights (moose, because Owen is certainly not a deer). There was silence for a few seconds, then the world seemed to shatter as the moans of every zombie pierced the sound barrier.
The two responsible exchanged looks, then Zachary smiled. "Hey dude, want to join an alliance?"
Owen laughed. "Sure, dude!"
(Janitor's Closet - Can we join too?)
Zachary - "For the record, we used an intelligent decision that included math, thought, and planning. Wasn't our fault that eight wasn't half of twenty."
Joel - \staring at the camera with a slightly irked look\ "One thing my friends and I thought of when we made the zombie campaign is that we wanted to put safety features to prevent morons from doing things that'd doom the other players. Sadly, it seems no matter how hard you try, like life and water and junk mail, idioticy finds a way."
(The Dusk, Mandy)
The cultist girl looked around for the biker, searching around the rubble. She had to stab a few zombies with her pickax in her search, as some had miraculously survived the onslaught. When she felt her arms grow heavy from swinging, she sighed heavily. "Sorry, Xander," she said. "Old Gods watch over you... or just see you after the challenge is over."
The sky turned bright red, and she thought for a moment that Shub-Niggurath had heard her prayer. Then she realized it was the flare, and she remembered the instructions from the beginning of the game.
"Oh, Gods damn it all, I'm not even there yet," she cursed. "Couldn't they have waited a little longer? Jerks!"
The air was filled with the wails of excited zombies, and they were soon coming out of the buildings. Mandy's eyes widened in fear as four of them already were heading for her. Baring her teeth, she snarled at them and said, "You all are blocking my way to the dock, and I'm not letting you inferior undead get in my way!"
One of the zombies stopped walking. Mandy thought she had impressed even the ghoul, but then blood leaked out of its forehead and it fell down dead (again, if you count its zombification). Behind the zombies were Leshawna, holding her hammer, and Rodney, holding a smoking pistol. The kid cocked it, and blew away another zombie from behind.
"Nice job, sugar," Leshawna complimented him before walking forward and hammering the third zombie's head. Mandy made fast work of the final zombie.
"Nice job, you two," she complimented.
"Little tyke turned out to be a sharpshooter," Leshawna said, grinning and patting Rodney's helmet. The kid, who had his helmet's goggles down over his eyes, blushed.
"It's just practice from using the Wii," he modestly said. "Plus, I think this gun uses really big bullets."
"Now's not the time to discuss weapons and video games, we gotta get out of this zombie invasion simulation," Mandy remarked. "I'm sure you saw that they set off the flare?"
"All we gotta do is follow it to the dock," Leshawna pointed out.
Rodney nodded, then looked around. "Where's Xander, Mandy?"
The cultist girl shook her head sadly. Rodney hung his head in sorrow, but when he looked up, his eyes widened in fear. He pointed behind Mandy, and she turned to see a zombie with a gaping mouth lunging for her neck...
There was a spray of blood, a crunching noise, and a scream.
Rodney and Leshawna clung to each other as the zombie sank to the ground with a crushed head. Xander stood over it, holding a bloody chunk of debris that used to be part of the street. Mandy stared at her savior for a second before she asked a very important question.
"Where's your shirt?"
Xander looked down at his bare chest. Missing his jacket and shirt, he brushed off some of the grit from the scratches he had mysteriously gained. "Zombies tore it off," he remarked.
"Right," she replied with humorous sarcasm. "Zombies reached forward, tore off your shirt to reveal your masculine chest to the world. That kind of stuff only happens in crappy B-movies."
"If you don't believe me, that's fine," Xander said, smirking right back at her. "Shall we head towards the docks before the zombies overwhelm us?"
"Lead the way, handsome," Leshawna said. Rodney nodded enthusiastically, and the biker pat his head too. As he walked off, the three noticed a large amount of scars on his back.
"How'd zombies do that to do you?" Mandy asked.
"Those weren't by zombies, Mandy, let's go."
(Janitor's Closet - We didn't give him those, we swear.)
Mandy - "Xander's a bizarre mystery, handsome and quiet. I wonder where he got all those injuries... my, he'd be a fine cultist if I could convert him. He's one of the few who I would put money on to survive the Old Gods' coming to this world, and help repopulate the world when They leave to ruin another world."
Xander - \wearing his jacket and shirt\ "Zombies really did tear my jacket and shirt off in that game. You all actually think I would throw away my leather jacket just to look tough?" \sarcastic\ "Yeah, because you don't want anything thick and leathery on you when zombies are trying to bite your arms off!"
(The Dawn, Hospital Roof)
"Did you see anyone else on your way up?" Bridgette asked Arthur.
He shook his head. "Nope. After I dispatched Duncan, and Courtney after she became a zombie, I made a beeline for the elevator. Made it most of the way up, then onto the roof."
"Okay, as long as you made it, that's fine," she replied with a sigh. "Poor Courtney, I was really hoping she'd make it."
"Well, no sense in mourning her, since she's not really dead," Arthur said, then he looked around. "Is this everyone?"
"So far, it's you, me, Ezekiel, Heather, DJ, Colin, Anita, Cody, Belinda, and Gwen made it up here just before you did," Bridgette listed. "It's been okay so far, very few zombies apart from the small pack that followed DJ up."
Arthur nodded, and lifted the frying pan he had taken from his dead teammate. "So, how long has it been since the flare went up?"
"I don't know, Colin set it off some time ago. I wonder what's taking the helicopter pilot."
"Isn't there a radio around here?"
"Yah dude, but no luck in contacting the pilot," Cody said as he walked by them, holding his wrench on his shoulder, blood still dripping from it. "Looks like we just have to hold out for as long as it takes."
"Great," Arthur muttered. "Probably a random event where the helicopter pilot lost his keys."
Bridgette couldn't help but smile at the joke, then she was distracted by Gwen pacing around. She walked over to her friend and put a hand on her shoulder. "Gwen," she said, "you're making me nervous."
"I hate waiting," the goth grumbled.
"You need to relax a bit, we have all the ways up here covered," Bridgette whispered to her, lowering her voice and looking over at Alfred and Arthur. "Ezekiel and Heather are at one corner, DJ and Anita are guarding the second, and Belinda has her eye on the third; thanks for letting her use one of your shotguns, by the way."
"Bridgette," Gwen started to say, then took a deep breath, "I should be guarding one of those ways up."
"You need to relax before you accidentally squeeze the trigger and blow one of us away."
Bridgette had meant it as a joke, and Gwen's furious glare startled her. "That's not funny, it was an accident," she snapped.
"What... what?" her surfer friend stammered.
Gwen remembered that Bridgette could not have known, and she let out a deep sigh. "I accidentally killed Harold on the way here. Zombie knocked me over and my shot went wild."
"Oh," Bridgette replied, biting her knuckles. She nervously shifted her mallet from hand to hand, then asked, "But it was an accident, so no harm done, right?"
"I'm sure Harold will see it that way," she replied with bitter sarcasm, "or Leshawna. Hell, I know Chris will enjoy showing that clip."
She sighed and sat down. "Bridgette, I'll sit down and relax, but leave me be for now. I just want to-"
"Incoming," Belinda shouted from her corner, and started walking backwards to her teammates. For a few seconds, no zombies started coming up, and the others wondered if she was mistaken, but sure enough, zombies began shuffling up onto the roof. Belinda raised her shotgun and blew two away with the spray.
Cody, Gwen, Bridgette, and Arthur were the only ones available, so they headed over to help. As the zombies continued to walk up onto the roof, the Dawn members noticed some of the special zombies.
"Sorry, Katie," Cody cried out as he bashed the BFFF zombie with his wrench.
"Ugh, he's not so pretty when undead," Arthur remarked as he smashed Zombie Justin.
Bridgette hammered the Sebastian Zombie with her mallet, and whimpered, "Oh no, I really made a mess of his dreadlocks, he'd be so upset."
Belinda narrowed her eyes as Zombie Howard came towards her, and blew his head off with a single blast. The body still carried forward, hands extending. She took a step back, and the undead fingers came inches from touching her breasts.
"Fresh even in death," she remarked, sighing. "Shame, he had so much potential."
Gwen grimaced as she held up her shotgun at Zombie Leshawna. She couldn't look as she blew away the zombie of her closest friend. Then she saw her boyfriend as a zombie coming after her, and she let out a scream of frustration.
"Why," she snarled as she hit the zombie in the forehead with her shotgun's hand. "Why?! WHY?!"
She blew it away, closer than she meant to, and blood splattered on her face and chest. The others looked at her, and saw tears streaming down her face. Bridgette walked over her and put her hand on the goth's shoulder, but she pushed it away.
"How's it going, Cody?" Anita called from her corner. "Need help?"
"No, we got them all," Cody called to her. "Keep watch in case another wave comes up there."
"Roger!"
"So how many did you guys kill?" Some of the survivors winced as Colin approached them. The bully noted the headless corpses of Leshawna and Trent, and Gwen's condition, and burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" Belinda asked, though she knew pretty much what.
"Goth girl had to waste her friend and her boyfriend," Colin cackled. "That's priceless."
"Really now," Cody grumbled, looking away.
"It's not funny," Bridgette snapped, glaring at Colin.
"Nah, I beg to differ, it's very funny," Colin said with a mean-spirited grin. "It's very..."
He drifted off when a very small moan lifted up from the stairway. Zombie Rodney, still wearing his helmet, was climbing up the stairs, looking at them with hungry eyes. Colin aimed his pistol and fired. The shot hit the zombie child in the helmet and bounced off, but caused Zombie Rodney to lose balance.
Bouncing down the stairs, Zombie Rodney tumbled until he eventually rolled off the side of the hospital. Colin burst out laughing, and clutched his sides. Most of the others looked at him disapprovingly, while Cody walked away, looking sick to his stomach.
"That wasn't funny either," Bridgette growled.
"No, that was funny! Man, where's your sense of humor, you-"
He stopped when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Seeing three more zombies heading up the stairs, he aimed and fired his pistol at one of them, getting it square in the forehead.
Only these three weren't zombies at all.
"Hannah," Alfred shrieked as he watched his teammate fall back. Blood streamed from her wound, and she was dead before she hit the ground. That didn't stop Alfred from kneeling over her and shaking her shoulders. "Oh no no no, this is not happening!"
"What... what...," Beth gasped, looking down at her dead teammate and up at the five standing up at the top of the stair way. "You killed her!"
"You," Gwen snarled at Colin. Bridgette covered her mouth in horror, Belinda stared in disbelief, and Arthur looked shocked with his jaw hanging open. "You son of a-"
"Hey wait a minute," Colin shouted, glaring right back at Gwen. "That was an accident! They ran up here without any warning!"
"You were just shooting wildly, and you killed Hannah!"
"So what, she's Christian, that means she wants to die," Colin remarked as he put his hands on his hips. "I didn't do it on purpose, it was an accident."
"Oh, you probably did, you thought it would be so funny," Gwen snarled.
"No, it wasn't funny."
Colin pointed his gun at Beth and fired. The bullet hit home and the short farm girl fell down dead next to Hannah.
Alfred and Bridgette screamed. Arthur and Belinda just stared in disbelief as Colin looked back at Gwen.
"Now that was intentional," Colin stated, "and that was funny."
He burst out laughing. Colin was clutching his sides and cackling when he heard a shotgun cock. Opening his eyes, he saw Gwen pointing the deadly firearm at him.
Colin's body was blown off the roof of the hospital by the blast of the shotgun. Gwen made no wise crack, just blew the smoke away from her shotgun and walked away.
(Janitor's Closet - Team killing is no laughing matter.)
Colin - "Oh c'mon! It was funny! It was very, very funny! I killed the religious girl by accident, then to prove it wasn't intention, I killed someone else intentionally! That's irony, and irony is funny!"
Gwen - "I wish Harold was still here. He would know the right term for justifiable homicide in a video game would be called."
Hannah and Beth - Beth - "When people do things like that to you, what do you do, Hannah?"
Hannah - "I pray for God to watch over them and help them through troubles that are beyond our mortal help."
Beth - "But what if they're hurting other people?"
Hannah - \smiling and clasping her hands\ "You friendly-fire team kill them until they leave the game."
Beth - "Wow, that's deep! I wish I was more religious like you, then I'd know awesome quotes like that from the Bible!"
Hannah - "Well, um... it's not exactly from the Bible, sweetheart..."
(The Dawn, Hospital Rooftop)
"What happened, what happened?" DJ was asking all the survivors grouped up in the center of the hospital. "We heard shooting and screaming!"
"Trigger happy Colin killed both Hannah and Beth," Belinda said, "then Gwen killed him."
Anita and DJ gasped in horror. Cody bit his knuckles, and Ezekiel sank to his knees. Only Heather didn't look that shocked, and she looked over at Gwen. "Why'd you kill him?" she asked. "We still could have used the points for him surviving."
"He was freaking killing people as a joke," Gwen shrieked, startling Heather. "Did you think I was going to let him live after he blew away Beth for a punch line? Is winning all you care about, damn it?"
"Okay okay okay, forget I asked, sheesh," Heather exclaimed, holding up her hands in defense. "No reason to bite my head off!"
"Oh please don't use that metaphor," DJ whimpered. "We're all gonna die!"
"Don't lose faith yet, DJ," Arthur said. "We still have half our team, and since we now what what happened to the others, we just have to wait and shoot at anything that isn't us."
"Good plan," Alfred said. He was still white in the face, and the others could hear the tremble in his voice. Anita placed her hand on his shoulder and gave it a light squeeze.
"You gonna be okay, hon?" she asked.
"I just have to tell myself this is a game," he replied, shrugging lightly. "That they're really not dead."
"It must have been horrible, but-"
A loud burst of static came from the small room. "Hello?" a static-filled voice called out. "Survivors of Chrisville, Maclean Hospital, do you copy?"
Ezekiel ran into the room, and picked up the microphone. "Hello! Hello, we're here, eh!"
"That's incredible news! This is the evacuation helicopter pilot speaking!"
"Boy, are we glad to hear from you, eh! When can you get here?"
"I estimate about fifteen minutes, so keep tight! Arm yourselves, and take care of any zombies that might be on that rooftop! We don't want to get swamped."
"Yessir," Ezekiel replied, saluting as well. "You just get your helicopter here, we got half 'oor team alive, and we'd like to keep it that way, eh!"
"Gotcha! Be there soon!"
Ezekiel sighed happily as he put down the microphone and walked back to the other survivors. "Oo'kay guys, the copter pilot said it'd be a'boot fifteen minutes until he gets h-"
Moans from all over the city and in the hospital erupted, rising up to the skies and into the eardrums of the ten survivors up high too. They all shook in fear, though DJ was hiding behind Gwen and shaking.
"What the heck was that?" he cried out.
"Sounds like every zombie in Chrisville realized the only brains left to eat," Arthur said, grimly looking out at the city, "are up here."
"Rather perceptive of them," Belinda said, raising an eyebrow. "Only in a video game could the undead be that knowledgeable."
"We're in for a hell of a fight," Gwen remarked, cocking her shotgun. "Let's not get left for dead up here, fellow survivors."
"This is one evil residence," Alfred noted.
(Janitor's Closet - Are we being left for dead too?)
DJ - "Is it... wrong that I really like girls like Gwen and Eva when they get aggressive? It makes me feel secure, because I have the security that they want to kill someone else, and not me."
Heather - "Gwen's been really crabby ever since this season started, and I know about being crabby because I'm a little crabby. ... Okay, maybe more than a little, but still! What's her problem? Just because she doesn't want to be on the show doesn't mean she can be Little Miss Grouchy Goth!"
(The Dusk, The Docks)
"I still cannot believe you did that," Valerie hissed at Zachary. Her secret alliance member shrugged.
"Meh, we'll be fine. Don't worry your head over it."
Valerie sighed and headed over to Joel. "What are we going to do?" she asked him.
"We have the left side, which is the widest," Joel pointed. "The far right side, and the two gaps in-between the large warehouses."
"We only have eight people. Who's defending what?"
"You and Sadie on the right, Sebastian and Sakaki and myself on the left. Zachary and Owen can watch Howard."
Valerie nodded, and went to stand nearby Sadie. The girl had found a crowbar, and was holding it in a shaky grasp.
"I hope Yoshi makes it," Sadie whimpered.
"You said he was injured and surrounded, he's most likely dead," Valerie grumbled, holding up her fireman's ax. "Focus, Sadie, focus. Kill anything that moves?"
"Including them?" Sadie asked, pointing at some approaching figures.
Valerie looked to see Mandy, Leshawna, Rodney, and a bare-chested Xander approaching. One look at the last one, and she got a serious nosebleed. Sadie didn't notice this, because she was too busy hugging Leshawna.
"Thank goodness you're alright, all of you!"
"Good to see you all made it, but no time for celebration. We got all of this stupid city's undead population on our asses," Leshawna remarked. "So focus."
"Right, Valerie just told me to do that."
"Why's she got blood coming from her nose?" Mandy asked as she looked at the girl. "She get hit or something?"
As the four arriving survivors talked with Sadie and Valerie to get details, Owen and Zachary were getting rather bored with watching a dazed Howard. Both of them kept looking at the bazooka.
"You think we should use it?" Zachary asked.
"I think we want to, but we shouldn't," Owen admitted.
"But if we use it right, those zombies won't stand a chance."
"True."
"Also, when are you gonna get to use a bazooka again?"
"Also true," Owen clapped his hands together. "Oh man, now I know how Izzy feels."
"Now I know why you'd date her, she'd let you get away with fun stuff like this."
"But we need a good excuse."
"Right, dude."
They looked around, and saw a fair amount of zombies approaching from the right, the ones who followed the four survivors who had just arrived. Owen and Zachary exchanged a glance.
"You first?" Owen offered.
"You're too kind," Zachary said, beaming at the big teenager. He approached the bazooka, loaded it up, and fired at the zombie horde approaching, shouting, "Incoming explosive!"
Everyone looked around to see the explosive flying through the air, and they all noticed how bad Zachary's aim had been for his first time using a grenade launcher. As it arched in the air, it started to come down over the survivors on the right.
Screaming and panicking, they ran off in separate directions. Leshawna wasn't fast enough, and the grenade exploded on her, utterly obliterating her.
Zachary blinked and muttered, "Whoops."
"Doh," Owen added.
"You stupid," Xander shouted at them from afar, using words that cannot be repeated here. "Watch where you're shooting, you wiped out Leshawna!"
"Let me try, dude," Owen said, taking the bazooka from Zachary. He looked at the approaching horde on the right, then noticed some zombies coming up on the left. "Here, I'll try shooting at the left."
He fired, but his shot was not high and arching like it should have been. An almost horizontal shot rocketed right at Sebastian, and erraticated the philosopher.
"Whoopsie-daisy," Owen whimpered. He watched as Sakaki ran away, shrieking in terror.
"You're killing all the black people," Zachary shouted. "Give me that!"
He yanked the bazooka from Owen, firing it in the process. The grenade exploded right in front of Sakaki, who turned and fled in the opposite direction.
"You're the one who killed Leshawna," Owen remarked, trying to pull the bazooka back and firing another shot. It exploded right where Sakaki was trying to head, and she turned around again, screaming and covering her head.
"Look buddy, I only got one shot, and there's more zombies on the right!"
"C'mon, I didn't even get a good shot!"
"Give!"
"No, you give!"
They struggled until one more shot was fired, and Sakaki saw it coming down on her. She only had time to let out a little whimper before she was wiped out in a violent explosion.
(Janitor's Closet - It's the team killing moment of the story.)
Leshawna - "Why those stupid, moronic..."
Sebastian - "... incompetent, childish-"
Sakaki - "... not very nice..."
Leshawna - "... idiotic, brain dead..."
Sebastian - "... buffoonish, irresponsible..."
Sakaki - "... well, it wasn't like I was doing that well..."
Leshawna - "... I'm gonna give them a kick in the pants!"
Sebastian - "... I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind!"
Sakaki - "... I'm just glad I'm not in the zombie world anymore."
(The Dusk, The Docks)
Mandy ripped the grenade launcher away from Zachary and Owen, and threw it into the water. "Morons," she shouted at them, glaring in particular at Owen. "You know, Izzy's my friend, I expect better from her boyfriend, mister!"
Owen looked down with shame as Zachary shrugged. "Well, let's just defend until that boat gets here."
"Three teammates wiped out in only a few seconds," Mandy continued to rant, shaking her head. "You two really have made things difficult."
"I'll say," Joel exclaimed, as he ran over there. "You should have let me use it, I've used those things before!"
"You've used a grenade launcher?" Mandy asked, sounding impressed.
"Beta testing," Joel admitted. "But you two were supposed to be watching Howard! Where is he?"
Owen and Zachary looked at where they left Howard. Zombies had climbed up onto the dock, and the soaking wet ghouls were tearing him apart.
"Hey, no," Owen cried out, smacking at the zombies with his oar. "No, bad zombies, don't eat him!"
The damage was done, and Howard was dead and coming back from it. Joel had to finish off his dead teammate and the other zombies. He glared at the two guys and spat, "In the name of high school big shots, you just let him die!"
"Accident," Owen whimpered.
"You were supposed to watch over him! How was it a-"
"No, I, um, I think I just had an accident."
Joel seethed, then heard screaming from the others. Sadie, Valerie, and Rodney were running away from zombies screaming, and Xander was starting to get swarmed. The biker managed to push away and run, and now the zombies were closing in on their dock.
The sound of a fog horn echoed off in the distance. Joel looked out across the ocean, and said, "That's the sound of the boat, it's close to coming. I'm guessing we have about ten more minutes!"
"Should I pray to Nyarlathotep to help us?" Mandy asked him.
"We're gonna need a lot of help," he replied. "Girl, it's time to chop until you drop. And if any of us drop, chop us up a lot."
Joel charged forward, and started beating the zombies with his wrench. Mandy shrieked as she charged forward, slicing and stabbing with her pickax. Xander picked up an anchor that was resting on the dock shore and tossed it at zombies, knocking them over.
Rodney swallowed hard and was taking extra-special aim with his gun. This hesitation caused the zombies to swarm up on him, and one fell down on top of him.
"No! Get him off me, help," Rodney screamed, feebly trying to push the zombie away. The creature was gnawing on his helmet, trying to get to his little brain.
Sadie screamed and tried to get to him, but zombies blocked her path. Her chopping ax was cleaving zombies, but she wasn't going to get there in time. Eventually, the zombie knocked the helmet off the boy.
"Rodney," Sadie screamed, shoving more zombies away. She watched as the zombie leaned down...
Something came slamming down on the zombie's head, banging its forehead against Rodney's. Dazed, the kid crawled away as the zombie suffered more bashes to the head.
Sadie finally made her way to the kid, dropping her ax and picking him up. "Are you okay?"
"Oh wow, my life flashed before my life, and I haven't lived long enough to see much," Rodney whimpered. "Who saved me, was it you?"
"No, it was...," Sadie looked around to see who the savior was.
Tyler stood there, bloodstained and heaving. The jock looked at them, taking deep, ragged breaths. "Damn zombies," he cursed. "You two okay?"
"You're alive," Sadie cried out. "Oh thank goodness, we thought everyone who wasn't here was dead."
"Well, I'm alive too, if you care."
Noah walked out from behind Tyler, and bashed another zombie's head in with a stepladder. Sadie and Rodney looked at the two, and noticed how tired, bloody, and injured the two were.
"What happened?" Rodney asked them.
"We ran into every damn zombie along the way," Tyler spluttered as he pushed a zombie away with the handle of his hockey stick. "They were coming out from every building, even the sewers."
"I failed miserably," Noah muttered.
Sadie looked between the two boys. "Wait... where's Lindsay? Where's Katie?!"
Tyler heaved a very heavy sigh as he kicked a zombie. "She... she didn't make it. I fought off zombies forever, I still don't know how I made it, but she... didn't."
"Katie died," Noah muttered, shoving a zombie away with his stepladder. "I failed to protect her, and-"
Sadie let out a horrible scream, hugging Rodney so tight that the prodigy child turned slightly blue. She fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically.
This continued until Noah snapped out of his own funk. He walked over and tugged on Sadie's pigtail slightly. "Sadie! It's a game! You'll see her afterwards!"
Sadie hiccuped, then looked up at Noah. "But... but what can we do?"
Noah placed the stepladder on the ground. "Rodney, stand up on this and shoot at them from a better angle! Tyler, you go help the left side! Sadie, pick your ax up."
She stood up.
"No, no, no! Your chopping ax!"
"Oh! Oh, of course," she replied, blushing slightly. She started for her weapon, but Xander had already picked it up and was cleaving away.
"Go find another weapon," Noah ordered her. "In fact, I gotta find one too!"
Noah and Sadie hurried across the dock, trying to find anything that could be used for bludgeoning or stabbing or cleaving. Another of their teammates was overwhelmed by zombies, throat ripped out and torn apart slowly.
(Janitor's Closet - The boys are back on the dock!)
Rodney - "Noah's an awesome leader! He really can take control, and I thought he'd be too upset over losing his girlfriend!"
Noah - "Score one for me, Rodney couldn't lead but I could! Still... I guess since I lost my girlfriend when I was with her, I mentally feel that I've lost. But don't tell anyone who's taking score."
Howard - "Man, eaten when in a daze, what a way to go!"
Lindsay and Tyler - \making out heavily\
Tyler - \taking a breather\ "Sorry I couldn't save, babe!"
Lindsay - "It's okay! It was just a swarm of hungry monsters, just like being at high school!" \They go back to making out again.\
(The Dawn, Hospital Roof)
The survivors of the Dawn were being attacked from all sides. Gwen and Belinda ran out of ammo soon, and were using their shotguns for beating zombies back. Arthur was using Colin's gun, the second one lost when Gwen shot him off the roof.
"They're swarming," Cody shouted, swinging desperately. One zombie reached out and struck him in the chest with its arm, knocking the boyish geek back. He collided with Anita, and fell on top of her.
Belinda looked down at the two, and noted how Cody had fallen into Anita's cleavage. She couldn't help but smirk, and decided to leave the two be for now. She went back to bashing zombies.
DJ was snapped at by zombies, and when it was too close for comfort, he turned and ran. He plowed through zombies on the other side, like a bulldozer through a field. Bridgette raised an eyebrow at this, and, for a few seconds, wondered just how good of a football player he really was when he wasn't scared.
Arthur was being backed up to the edge of the roof, pistol whipping zombies away. He took to grabbing zombies and throwing them over the side. Heather was behind Ezekiel, hacking at zombies who dared get too close to her boyfriend. The prairie boy himself was shooting the ghouls and sometimes stabbing them with the arrows.
"Yeah, ever since I saw that in Lord of the Rings," he was saying to Heather, "I've always wanted to do that, eh!"
"Hon, not now," Heather barked. "Less talking, more hacking!"
She hacked down the Zombie Yoshi, who had his katana blade still its scabbard. She pulled it out and dual-wielded the hatchet and the katana blade.
Ezekiel saw this, and had to calm down his excitement; nerd arousal was hard to overcome, even during dangerous situations. The queen bee carved a small path through the undead with both her bladed weapons.
Alfred also saw this and wolf-whistled. "I love this game," he shouted as he swung underhand and decapitated another zombie.
As the zombies continued, Arthur was grabbed by the zombies. He was strong enough to keep them from biting him, but their force tipped him over. Arthur fell over the side of the building, bringing three zombies down all those stories with him.
"Damn, no no no," Bridgette shouted when she saw this. "Oh, when's that helicopter going to get here?"
(Janitor's Closet - Maybe it stopped at a drive-thru?)
Cody - \a little red in the face\ "Wow... Anita's boobs are really soft, even in the virtual reality challenge... but no! No, I won't think about that, I need to think about her, as a person! And she's very nice, she didn't slap me or knee me in the groin for accidentally falling on her."
Anita - \blushing a little too\ "I really like Cody, and he was a gentleman when he accidentally fell on me. He apologized and helped me up, unlike the last few guys who pushed themselves up by putting their hands on my boobs." \She rolls her eyes.\
Carol - "Watching the show was fun, but watching Arthur plummet all those stories with zombies clinging to him? That was, like, the best death ever!"
(The Dusk, Docks)
Noah growled as he picked up a crate and smashed it over a zombie's head. He picked up one of the broken planks and beat another zombie with it. "When's that damn boat going to get here?" he hollered.
"If it's not here soon, we're sunk," Tyler exclaimed as he beat down more zombies with his hockey stick. "Gosh dang, these zombies are everywhere!"
Sadie suffered a bit to her shoulder, but she managed to shove the zombie away. "I cannot take much more," she wailed as she bashed the zombie with a metal pipe. "I'm gonna die if this keeps up."
Rodney's gun clicked empty. He whimpered as he ran away from the zombies approaching. He tripped over a crowbar that had been left near the warehouse, and he suddenly remembered what Alfred had taught him. Picking up the crowbar, he dashed into the swarm of zombies and hooked the weapon around one of their ankles.
The zombies were tripped and fell down, their heads being smashed on impact. Rodney weaved in-between zombie legs and tripped more.
Owen was being attacked by zombies, but they kept bouncing off his stomach. When he turned, he knocked them around. Some of them were knocked off the dock, into the water. Though he and Zachary couldn't see it, something was churning in the water, shredding some of the zombies that had fallen in.
Zachary swung a plank of wood, knocking more zombies back. "Damn, these freaks aren't stopping," he cried out. "Owen man, keep using that stomach of yours!"
"Sure thing, Zach! I'll throw my weight around, and... whoa! Ahh!"
Owen's own weight was used against him when he stepped too near the end of the dock. Falling off and splashing water all over the place, drenching Zachary and zombies around, he surfaced to the top.
"I'm okay," he called out. "I'm fine, I'm dandy, just pull me up!"
"Dude," Zachary looked down at Owen, "there's no way I can pull you up."
"It's all baby fat, dude. Now please...," he suddenly froze. "Something brushed against my leg!"
"What? Dude, is it a zombie?"
"I dunno, but the water is getting warmer!"
Zachary blinked, then groaned. "Dude, please tell me you didn't wet yourself."
"Ehehe... I think I did."
He continued to laugh nervously, then the water churned around him. A giant, rotting shark surfaced right under him, catching the large teen in its large mouth. Owen could only call out, "Holy bigger boats-" before the shark fell back into the water, prey in its mouth.
"Holy crap," Zachary shouted, then he let out a nervous laugh. He looked over the side and down into the water. "Did anyone else see that?"
"What?" Mandy called out, wiping blood away from her forehead.
"Some killer zombie shark just snatched Owen," Zachary called out. "That was the greatest death I've ever seen-"
A second zombie shark leapt out of the water, snatching Zachary by his torso, and pulled him back into the water.
Mandy stared at the dock, now empty except for zombies. The cultist girl was greatly started when something wet splashed on her face, and she quickly recognized it as blood. Someone had been killed next to her, and blood had sprayed all over her.
"Old Gods damn it all," she shrieked as she back away from the zombies and her dead teammate. "Is there any end to this? Where's the damn boat?!"
A blare of a foghorn alerted all of the living, and the Dusk members looked to see a boat pulling up at the end of the dock. Mandy gaped, then screamed, "Get to the boat! Hurry, hurry, hurry, RUN!"
She bolted for the boat, swinging at any zombie foolish enough to get near her. Noah was nearby, swatting at the zombies too. Both climbed into the boat, where Noah threw his plank at the closest zombie, knocking it off the dock.
"Run your stinking legs off," Mandy shrieked.
The other teammates hurried over, the zombies closing in. Mandy and Noah couldn't tell who was making it, for the zombies were getting so close that the struggling survivors in the horde were almost invisible. Someone short ran in-between leg and leapt onto the boat, where Noah caught him.
"Take my hand, but not in marriage, you know," the cultist girl said, trying to clear up any loopholes. She yanked another survivor onto the boat, another survivor climbing in shortly afterwards.
Tyler came barreling through the zombies, several feet from the boat when a zombie grabbed his headband. His legs went forward but his body didn't, and they were attached, he fell right on his back. The zombies descended, mouths gaping for flesh and brains.
Noah acted fast, grabbing the harpoon gun. He fired it at the zombies, the force so powerful that it knocked several zombies away from Tyler. The bookworm leapt from the boat with another harpoon in his hands, and drove it into the nearest zombie's head. Grabbing the jock, he pulled him towards the boat.
"I am not gonna carry you, Tyler, now get up," he shouted.
"Oh wow," Tyler muttered, still dazed from his fall, "saved by a bookworm!"
"Yeah, my fellow nerds will never forgive me for rescuing a jock, now hurry!"
Tyler kicked at the zombies grasping at his feet, and manage to help pull himself into the boat. Noah gripped him, adrenaline surging through him.
"Is that everyone?" he asked the others.
"I'm pretty sure, Old Gods watch their souls or something like that," Mandy remarked, impaling a zombie that tried to get on the boat. "Let's head off!
The boat pulled away from the dock, zombies falling off and into the water to get to it. Zombie sharks jumped along the side, but couldn't snatch any more survivors. Noah took a deep breath, and let out a cry of victory.
The survivors of The Dusk had escaped.
(The Dawn, Hospital Roof)
"There it is," Ezekiel shouted, pointing to the west. "There's the helicopter!"
"Run," Alfred exclaimed in-between head bashings. "Get to da choppa'!"
The survivors headed to the side, fighting off zombies in the process. As they made their way, Bridgette looked around. "Is this everyone? Did we lose anyone?"
"I think we did, but keep going, eh," Ezekiel exclaimed. "We cannot stop noo'!"
The helicopter hovered on the side of the building, and the survivors started to climb in. Bridgette and Alfred helped the others on, but Ezekiel hesitated.
"Heather?" he called out, notching his last arrow. "Heather, where are you?"
He looked, and finally saw his girlfriend being surrounded by zombies. He fired his last arrow, managing to kill a zombie behind her; however, another took her place and grabbed her hair.
Heather could barely hear him screaming her name, she was too busy wildly swinging her katana and hatchet. Teeth sank into her arms, neck, head, and torso. Still she fought, and it was only when she couldn't feel her body anymore, that nothing would move, that she realized it was too late. Ezekiel was shoving zombies away from her, and the last thing she saw was him trying to pull her away.
"You're gonna be oo'kay," he repeated over and over. "You're gonna be oo'kay, Heather! You're gonna... gonna... Heather?"
She wasn't moving anymore. Ezekiel saw her mauled body, and let out a cry of anguish. Sorrow dominated his mind for a few seconds before anger settled in. He reached down and pried the katana blade from the death grip, and stared down the approaching zombies.
"Helloo'," he hissed at the zombies. "My name is Ezekiel Miller. You killed my girlfriend. Prepare to die, eh!"
He cleaved into the zombies, decapitating the ghouls or giving them very deep scalpings. He heard Bridgette calling him, but he didn't stop.
"Go a'heed with'oot me, eh," he shouted back to them. "I'm gonna kill every last one of these monsters for Heather!"
He continued to slice and dice the undead legion until he heard Bridgette's voice getting closer. She gripped his hood and pulled him back, startling him. The surfer girl spun him around and gripped his shoulders.
"Ezekiel," she shouted into his face. "It's a game, remember? Game! She's not dead!"
The prairie boy stared at her for a few seconds, then reality sank in about the virtual reality. His face went dark red with embarrassment, and he muttered, "Oh."
"Care to escape now?"
"Yeah. Thanks," he muttered as they ran for the helicopter. "Thanks for coming back to for me, eh!"
"Hey, that's what friends are for," she replied, smiling back at him.
They both climbed into the helicopter, Alfred helping pull them both in. The American gonzo stuck his tongue out at the zombies that unsuccessfully tried to grasp the flying ride.
"That's right, baby," he exclaimed, raising his fists in the air as the helicopter did the same. "We survived the zombie apocalypse! Thank you, Max Brooks!"
The helicopter rose up, far away from the helicopter as the doors on the side closed and kept the teenagers inside from falling out (mostly Alfred). It flew away from the hospital, and out of the infected city.
The survivors of The Dawn had escaped.
(Maclean Stadium)
"Now those were two epic finishers," Chris Maclean declared as all of the contestants were released from the game and brought back into reality. "Congratulations to those who survived the zombie apocalypse!"
The teenagers all stood and stretched as their teammates approached them. Chef Hatchet was mumbling, "Sorry it took so long to bring the poor fools who died before the rescues arrived, I was kind of busy watching."
"That was so much fun," Alfred exclaimed, and he hugged the nearest person.
"It sure was, what a wild challenge," Mandy agreed.
The two hugged each other tight, then realized who they were embracing. They exchanged looks, blushed, and parted. "Well then," he said, smiling at her and arching an eyebrow, "what you think about zombies now, vampire girl?"
"They're fine, they're fine," she muttered, crossing her arms. "Though I'd have more fun with a pickax soaked in holy water against vampires."
"That sounds like fun! I'll have to try it," he gleefully said, patting her shoulder. She smiled despite herself.
Owen high-fived Zachary. "We did pretty well, didn't we?" Owen asked his new friend.
"Sure was! You're one badass dude!"
"Thanks! After that, I feel like I could take on anything!"
"OWEN!!!"
The large teenager turned to see Izzy stomp towards him. She had her hands on her hips, and The Other Look on her face, more powerful that he'd ever seen.
"Oh crap," he whimpered, then took off running. She charged after him, hands extended with fingers curled.
"Get back here," she screamed, chasing him all over the stadium. "You made me miss out on the most awesome challenge I had to watch!"
Anita and Cody were high-fiving in victory when Eva approached. She didn't look happy, but she seemed to be containing it. She nodded at Anita, then smiled (her best attempt at a smile when irked) at Cody. "You weren't bad out there."
"Guess I have a knack for zombie killing," Cody said sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "All those movies really pays off."
"A regular Ash Williams," Anita said, beaming at him.
Chris tapped his foot as he waited for the talk to die down. He realized that he'd never get Izzy to stop chasing Owen, so he cleared his throat and pulled out his bullhorn.
"Okay, survivors and zombie food," he announced. "Time to see which team had the most survivors. And I gotta say, the amount of casualties at the end happened so fast, we missed some of them, but the computer got them all!
"Let's see how many of the Dawn survived!"
The screens lit up, and pictures of the surviving Dawn members holding their main weapon throughout the campaign appeared: Ezekiel, DJ, Anita, Gwen, Bridgette, Cody, Alfred, and Belinda.
"Eight survivors, not bad at all," Chris declared, clapping his hands. "So on the Dusk, we have the following survivors..."
The screens lit up, and pictures of the surviving Dusk members appeared one by one: Noah, Sadie, Mandy, Rodney, Tyler, and Xander.
"Only six survivors," the host remarked, raising an eyebrow. "Not bad, but not good enough. So I have to announce that the winning team is... THE DAWN!"
The Dawn members let out wild cheers and hugged, high-fived, and jumped for joy. The Dusk all groaned and shook their heads, the survivors looking the most disappointed.
"Damn it," Noah grumbled. "I failed this team. Looks like Rodney and I are officially tied."
"In what?" Rodney asked, looking confused.
Before Noah could reply, Chris cleared his throat again. "So before we get to immunity and voting, I want to show everyone here, and all the contestants who were too busy being somewhere else in the VR campaign, some of my favorite bits, then the top three best bits!"
The screens came to life again, and a collage of events took place. All of them were really embarrassing and/or revealing: Colin shoving Geoff into zombies, Cody falling into Anita's cleavage, Carol blowing herself up, Sakaki and Leshawna and Sebastian being obliterated by grenades, Zachary snatched by a zombie shark, Gwen shooting Harold accidentally, and Courtney being killed by Zombie Duncan.
Third best moment was Ezekiel at the end, being pulled away by Bridgette from killing zombies to avenge his girlfriend. The second moment surprised everyone:
(The Dusk, Xander)
The bombardment of missiles from the jets had knocked Xander and Mandy apart, and he slammed against the ground. When there was a lapse in the explosions, he woozily stood up.
"Of all the streets they had to bomb," he started to say, then he was grabbed from behind. A zombie tried to bite his neck, but got a mouthful of leather jacket. Xander bashed the zombie's head with the back of his, and elbowed the ghoul frantically. The zombie fell back, but at the price of a major rip in the jacket.
Xander looked at his ruined jacket, and snarled at the zombie. He tried to put the jacket back on him, but it was far too ruined. Angry beyond words, he took it off and wrapped it around the zombie's head, then bashed it against the floor until the zombie stopped fighting.
"Jerk," he exclaimed. "That was my favorite-"
He was interrupted when the jets rocketed back, and shot more missiles at the street. Xander shielded his eyes from flying pebbles, then noticed something flying right at him. The flying object struck him in the chest and knocked him down.
The biker looked up in a daze and saw that it was a zombie's upper body. He cried out in horror, and the zombie moaned back, tightening its grip on Xander's shirt, cutting through the fabric and scratching his chest.
Xander pushed up on its jaw, trying to keep those fatal teeth away from his body. Eventually, the zombie lost the struggle, but its grip on Xander's shirt tore it off as he pushed it away
"Damn it all to freaking," Xander swore as he stood up and stomped on the zombie's head, crushing its skull. Sighing heavily, he traced his facial scar.
"Well, they're never going to believe me when I say zombies tore my clothes off," he muttered. "Worse than fan girls."
Shots rang out down the street. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he saw a zombie sneaking up on Mandy. He picked up a chunk of street and ran over, holding the rock up as a weapon...
"See?" Xander said to Mandy, smirking and straightening his jacket. "Told you they tore my clothes off."
"That's kind of hot," Sadie said with a giggle.
"Wow, you looked good without your shirt," Carol gushed. "Can you take it off now?"
"Nope."
"Take it off," she began to chant. "Take it off, woo woo woo"
Chris chuckled, then said, "There will be plenty of time for male strippers later! But for our number one hilarious clip..."
It was Owen pushing Izzy down the stairs in fright. The redhead in real life watched this, and it made her all the more furious. With a fierce cry, she chased after him, going into the stadium.
"Someone let them know the results of this, since they were both on the losing team," Chris remarked. "Now we discuss, out of the twenty of you, which ten are getting immunity...
"Right after this break!"
(Janitor's Closet - See you soon!)
Harold - "Um... what are we breaking for?"
Alfred - \grinning happily\ "I love this show!"
Bridgette - \scowling\ "Colin pushed Geoff into the zombies! What a cretin! If only our team had lost, we could have voted him off!"
Owen - "Maybe I'm safe in here-"
\There is loud pounding at the door, then it is broken down and Izzy comes in.\
Izzy - "You cannot hide from the wrath that is Izzy Connelly! Get your butt out here!"
\Owen runs screaming out of the janitor's closest, trampling Izzy in the process. The redhead, disheveled and dirty, picks herself off, dusts herself off, and starts the chase over again.\
Geoff - "Whoa... dude! Who broke the door off of the confessional?!"
Joel - "Was kind of embarrassing that I was eaten in my own VR campaign, but hey, I'm an inventor. Still, we might have done better if those two morons didn't obliterate part of the team!"
Justin - "If that jerk Zachary doesn't get immunity, he is going down!"
Yoshi - "I hated that I died from those zombies on top of the warehouse, but there was little I could do. And I know who is to blame for our epic failure..."
Sadie - "I hope Katie saw me, I was awesome! I really stood up for myself, and fought the zombies! But even after all that, we, like, so crashed and burned!"
Valerie - "Yeah, it was embarrassing that right before the boat pulled up, I got torn to pieces by the zombies. But I am a politician, I don't fight the shambling public, I just tell them what's best for them."
\She clears her throat and continues, more quietly since the door is gone.\ "If I am unfortunate not to get immunity, I have a plan on who to vote off. And Zachary's new accomplice, though I really don't like Owen, will be more than glad to help, I'm sure."
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Who is going to get immunity for the Dusk? Who will be voted off? Find out soon!
The Final Results:
The Dawn
Alive - Ezekiel, DJ, Anita, Gwen, Bridgette, Cody, Alfred, Belinda.
Dead - Eva, Geoff, Crystal, Harold, Carol, Clive, Courtney, Hannah, Beth, Colin, Arthur, Heather.
The Dusk
Alive - Noah, Sadie, Mandy, Rodney, Tyler, Xander.
Dead - Izzy, Katie, Justin, Trent, Yoshi, Lindsay, Leshawna, Sebastian, Sakaki, Howard, Joel, Owen, Zachary, Valerie.
Next Time - Sorrow, letdowns, and the fifth elimination. Fun!