Chaos

Climbing up the ladder I notice that Alexander was aiming his bow at me, I held my hands up to show that I'm at least human, alive I mean. At first he hesitated because of the way I was acting, the night sky was obscuring what I looked like and that is causing Alexander to be so paranoid. I decided to speak out to him, my voice was able to carry over to him and he lowered the bow. I advanced slowly until he recognized me, "You ok man? You seem a little, paranoid?" Alexander nodded and turn his back to me and said, "I'm fine, it's just, Gary man." He didn't finish what he was trying to say but I caught what he was saying. I walked towards him and placed my hand on his shoulder and said, "I know man, it looks like you are affected by this the worst way. You must've been close to him."

 

He turned around and I can barely see that his eyes were puffy, he has been crying recently. Gary's death really hit Alexander really, I recently joined the group before we departed. Compared to everyone else I was the "new" guy of the group but at the same time, I'm the one who stepped up when things got worse. I can fight, I can decently lead, and everyone looks up to me for something. It's stressing, but right now a member of my group is feeling down and as the new leader of the group I have to take charge.

 

I said, "If you ever need to talk about it now is the best time." Alexander thought about it for a second then game me the best, worst smile ever and said, "No, I'm good, I just need to be alone for now." I acknowledge what he said and I went down the ladder again and left Alexander to himself, I trust that he would be fine but now I need to focus on finding some sort of clue of who was around the store. I think it was time to look around outside. Before going out I told Matt that I was going outside and he handed me a flashlight, batteries supplies was whatever was left in the flashlight so I don't expect it to last long.

 

Opening the door to the outside I was at first afraid that the electronic bell would go off that then I realized that the store had no electricity left and that it probably won't again in a long time. Having made myself feel stupid I was glad I didn't ask Matt to come with me. The cool air was nice stepping out, the wind wasn't as strong as I expected but the weather was getting colder, though, then the question came into mind, what month is it or worse what day is it? Thinking about it winter is on its way and we are definitely not ready for it. We need to go to the city fast before the first flake falls.

 

I can't see the undead but I can hear them, I figure the louder they are the closer they are, I don't want to use the flashlight that Matt gave me because I'm worried that the light would attract them towards me and the group. Hugging the walls I sense that I'm being watched, maybe it was Alexander and didn't want to say anything, or maybe it was one of the living undead that want to tear me apart. Needless to say I figured it was Alexander, good for the sake of my mind. Almost making a complete circle around the store I hear a piece of glass shards cranking from the weight of someone's footwear. I turned to that direction and I see the shadow figure, it moved way too fast to be a zombie so I knew it was at least someone fresh. With my machete in my right and the flashlight in the other I risk a beam of light and caught the clothing of the shadow person. It wasn't undead, but it was also not friendly.

 

The shadow person ran and I dumbly chased after the person, you can't really blame me, I was just happy that we weren't the only people live. At least that's what I keep telling myself anyway. The person went around a wooden fence and I sprinted around to catch up and ended up getting closed lined by a metal object, the shock was over whelming that the blow to my neck caused me to fall on the ground, suffering without the ability to breath. The kid looking down on me was there pointing the same object at me, once I was able to properly breath functionally I tried to get up but the kid kicked me down again, this time my shoulder was going to be bruised, last I checked this was not the way to greet people.

 

Without thinking I pulled out my flashlight and turned it on to the kid's eyes and successfully disorienting him for a little bit. My martial artist teacher would've been proud of me, I was able to turn the tide by tripping him with my leg and before he fell to the ground I grabbed his weapon and toss it aside. The way he fell sounded like it hurt and part of me didn't care, dude got it easy compared to what happened to me. I pointed my machete at him and realizing what happened the kid put his hands up to surrender. I asked him, "Who are you and why the hell are you snooping around my group?" The kid covered his face in case I tired something funny to make him talk, once he figured out that I wasn't going to do anything the kid said, "I was only following orders, I heard about there being others here and I was supposed to recon their location and report back."

 

The kid's voice belongs to a little boy, the thing that caught me off guard was the fact that someone knew that they were here and if they wanted to know where we were, bad things could happen or not and honestly I don't want the group to know about this yet. I picked the kid up and brought him close, acting all ruthless I said, "You are going to take me to them and we are going to have a little chat." It was either the kid's face the reflection of the moon but I was able to see that he was pale as a ghost, it would seem that I'm good at scaring little kids, then I realized that he wasn't pale but was getting sick and I've realized that I pulled him close enough to me for him to smell the dried up blood and puss that was still on me. Before he puked on me I pushed him back and he used the fence as a way to support him from falling.

 

After struggling to breathe properly he agreed to my terms and told me to follow him. I kept my guard up until I was confident enough to focus on those around me if he thought I smelled bad wait till he gets a whiff of the group that it came from fresher then what I had on me. I asked the kid what his name was and he replied with, "People call me Redraven before you ask, it was my gamer tag and at first I said that to people because I thought it would be cool to have a new identity, now that's all I am." I thought about and I only came up with one thing.

 

This kid is weird.

 

None the less I should be careful, who knows what he could do if I dropped my guard, but looking at the kid it was a funny thought. He looked to be at the age of 12 and was dressed as a magical dwarf with a cloak on those nerdy board games. His weapon was a makeshift spear with a pole that was sharpened to a point with a leather grip used to steady the spear when you stabbed one of the dead in the head.

 

Following I can see that the kid doesn't have any attention on using that spear on me but now my curiosity is intriguing me because the fact that there is another group in this small town is just convenient and maybe, just maybe, they will want to come with us to the city. I ask, "So Raven, who's in charge, or is it you?" He tired to hide his laugh but failed and said, "No I can't be the leader but that was a funny joke. Our leader is a girl named Rachel, but people close to her call her Ray." He looked back to see if I was listening and I nodded and ask, "So why were you around our group. I know you said why but why?" Raven understood what I meant and shrugged, "I was just doing what I was told, if you really want to know why, guess you'll just have to ask Rachel." As he said that he was pointing to a warehouse looking building.

 

Outside of the warehouse were kids my age, they looked like they were on guard duty. Compared the Raven, these boys were dressed in a different uniform, instead of a cloak these guys were wearing camo clothing. As we were approaching them one of the guys dressed in camo stopped us and said, "Raven, did you bring another one?" Raven shook his head, "I didn't no, I didn't even know there was one here. Who is it?" There's someone else here? In my group? Then the person came into mind, Jeremy! I interrupt their conversation, "Wait, you mean you took one of my friends?" Raven and his friends saw my anger and the two boys in camo pulled out their weapons, the one on my right wearing a camo bandana is wielding a hammer and the one on my left wearing a camo shirt was holding a pocket knife that boy scouts use for knife safety classes. Raven stood in the middle holding his hands up, "Whoa! Hang on guys!" He faced the boys now, "You know the rules, all decisions will be final by Rachel." Camo shirt pushed Raven back and spit at the ground in front of him, "Screw the rules can't you see this guy is dangerous?"

 

As the camos and Raven fought over my sake I hear a noise coming from the right of me and approaching me was one of the undead, and he wasn't alone. The more I look the more I see more of them coming towards us, it's like a group of them just walked into the town and were hungry. Ironically it reminded me of lunch hour and how at first it's quiet and then all of a sudden a mob of hungry people start crowding the area, some were angry while others were hungry and some were just both. Watching the mob coming here felt just that and so far I'm the only one who notices them. I was going to warn the rest to shut it but one of the undead crept up behind the one wearing the bandana and ambushed him, he wasn't ready.

 

The boy dropped his hammer and screamed as loud as he could, the one in the camo shirt just watched in horror that the boy he was talking to an hour ago was getting attacked by one of those things. The zed pushed his head away from his neck revealing a pale looking neck and seconds later the thing bit into it and tore out a chunk from the throat and the color changed from pale to warm blood red. The agony coming from the boy snapped me back to reality and I blinked and all I saw was Gary, the moment I thought about that the undead that was chomping on a new meal had a machete like a dent in his's head. The one in the camo shirt rushed over to his friend and an exchange of whispers was exchanged and just like Gary, the boy was pale and wasn't moving anymore.

 

There was no time for feelings because after that loud scream, all of the undead were surrounding us and we were in no position to mourn a fallen comrade. I tried to pick up the one in camo but he wouldn't budge, "Leave me" he said, Raven, who was next to me shook his head and yelled, are you crazy, your going to die." I held up a hand and proceeded to drag Raven away from the boy. He tried to fight back but I was stronger than he was and he tried to not be cooperative and I snapped and said, "He made his decision, now do you want to go back for him and die like him or help your people by warning about this." I waved my hand around the mob that was getting closer and Raven looked around in awe and turned back to me and nodded and ran towards the door that the two boys were guarding. Raven banged on the door but no one was opening the door, I stepped him aside and, like they did in the movies, I kicked open the door. Now wasn't the time to celebrate because there were some fast undead and pushed me inside.

 

I fell in front inside of the warehouse and struggled to get the fat undead off of me, he was a big trucker looking guy and was currently trying to chew my face off. At first, the undead was alive and trying to eat me, then in the next, i hear a loud popping noise and the undead was lifeless. I looked towards my left and I see the person that saved me.

 

It was Jeremy!

 

What was he doing here?

 

He to looked shocked to see me but we didn't have time to exchange stories, the door was open and there were more of them coming in. I quickly looked around and I see that there were not a group of the undead but a mixture of ages of kids standing around me, the gunshot that Jeremy fired made everyone remember that we are alive but alive and might soon end up looking like the creatures outside. There were two battles going on, Jeremy, and a girl who looked like she got a half off sale with her hair was helping me fight off the undead while another girl constantly banging on a pedestal, trying to keep the peace, she was failing and causing more noise. When I kicked open the door I must've sent a guard down because I see a boy with his head bleeding, he was one of the camo boys, he had a military camo cap still on but was getting stained with his blood. He was unconscious.

 

To think every camo person I meet ends up on the ground, the odds of one of them to help me was very low. There were two different sources of noise going on, in front of me there were the moans and shrieks of the undead trying to get in on the potential buffet that was waiting for them, and the other source was the crying and screaming of the kids behind me. The girl that was banging on the pedestal was coming over to us with a spear, I knew it wasn't hers because she looked like she was struggling to hold it properly, it was better than Raven's. Wait a minute, Raven! I risked looking around the area and besides the people looking back at me, I couldn't find Raven staring back at me. The little boy was gone, he had to be.

 

Trying to make the tears to not block my vision was another battle but every battle won will determine the outcome of the war and we will win this battle so help me. If I was a religious boy I would've prayed for help but we didn't have time to kneel down and hope that a guy up above us would step on the undead outside, we had to do it ourselves and right now we were struggling. The girl with the spear told Jeremy, "If we make it through this, you have a deal." I didn't know what the hell she was talking about but that seemed to encourage Jeremy more and after that brief conversation we started hacking and stabbing and poking those that expose their stupid heads. Piles of bodies started to form but more kept climbing up it and falling on the other side towards us which kept us backing up slowly and spreading out, if this keeps up we will be too far away and something worse will happen.

 

All of our bodies had to be screaming in pain, I know mine were, every time I swing my arms threaten to give out, every huff of air that everyone takes in struggle to breathe properly because of the stink of the rotten corpses and the exertion that this whole thing is causing. Jeremy's eyes were being attacked by his sweat while the girl with her spear was struggling with hitting the head, the only person besides me who was struggling with the pain was the girl with the similar outfit as Jeremy, she had two knives and was swiping and stabbing and piercing the heads that Jeremy or the girl had stagger. We were able to push the dead back and we struggled trying to find a thing to block the door with. After a long minute trying to struggle with our multitasking a girl with glasses appeared with a closet, she was with more people with weapons and others carrying the closet, with one more push back we disperse and rashly placed the closet in front of the door way.

 

The girl with the glasses whispered to another girl and pointed at the boy unconscious and the other girl nodded and tried to pick him up but with his outfit, he was weighted down with weights around his body, it probably acted as armor for the boy but because of the weights it might also be the death of him. I remembered a thing that my mother was talking about to another patient at the hospital in my town, she was describing the way blood flows and that sometimes the body needs to pump blood throughout the blood to heal it and the weights on the boy's body was causing the blood to slow down. I approached the boy and the girl despite that I need to sit down. The girl looked up at me and with a new coat of blood on me she was pale and I saw the horror in her eyes. Ignored her and removed the weights around the boy, he had weights around his arms and his legs and was wearing gloves that were also weighted, all of that removed the boy should be lighter, I was able to pick the boy up and I looked at the girl and asked her, "Where do you need him?" At first she was still horrified and once she realized I was helping her she signaled her finger and said "Follow me, we need to get him to see Abigail. She'll help him. Thank you." I nodded and followed her carrying the boy on my back, without the weights he still felt heavy and my body was still screaming in agony. I nodded towards Jeremy, hoping what ever he was planning earlier works out.