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Y'Know, all those post-apocalyptic novels, movies, and games aren't that far from the truth. Everything decays, right down to the stone and steel of the buildings. Though if you ever wanted free reign of a town or city, this is the time to do it. No one's around to tell you can't do this, or that. If you can find the materials, and enough open space that you won't fall down around, and you've got a game plan.
Oh, and if you have someone to play with, so much the better...well...so long as he isn't bothering you.
"Are you going to take the shot, Jen, or will I?" he asked. Wearing a black t-shirt underneath a pair of jeans and a denim jacket, he stood a bit behind me, with a golf-club and matching neon-blue ball in fingerless-gloved-hands. Our playing field was thus: Our tee-off box was on top of an old yellow school bus. We set up a pirate flag farther down the street on a bright orange hummer. I looked down at the little red ball of mine, sitting in front of a driver of similar colour, I saw the frayed edges of my black khaki shorts and black tee emblazoned with a pair of wings on the back. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Catching sight of the flag atop the florescent orange SUV, I brought the club back and up, keeping my arms straight. I swung it back down, with a very satisfying crack I might add, and that ball flew hard and true. "Suck on that Virgil!" I shouted to my partner as we watched the ball fly through the streets, bouncing across cars and rubble untill it cme to rest in the back window of a small japanese car about 20 feet from the flag. Virgil calmly came forward and placed his ball on the metal screw I used as a tee. Peering out towards the flag, he pulled out a pair of sunglasses, the kind with the perfectly circular lenses of a bright blue colour. Bring his club back and back down in a second's worth of time, the ball flew sky high and it landed with a crunch on the pavement, a bit past the flag.
Shaking his head, Virgil muttered something under his breath, I didn't quite catch it. We hopped off the bus and climbed into a restored 70's cadillac, and shifted it into gear and I nearly purred along with the engine as I pressed the gas pedal. We weaved through the street, dodging cars and debris alike, with me, of course, in the driver's seat. We pulled up to where that little car held my golf ball so tightly in that freaking window. Virgil moved over to my side as I vacated the car with a pitching wedge firmly in hand. He drove away as I stared at the little ball, wondering how I was going to attack the damn thing. Then I realized that, like all little asian cars, they all have pitiful plastic roofs. Taking a hunting knife from my belt, I cut away the roof, so that when I attacked the ball, it wouldn't just smack into the car. Sastisfied with my work, I rested my foot on the little strip I left so that the window wouldn't break, and lined up my shot. I went through the same procedure I went through with every shot. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale again. And hold it. Bring the club back, and swing it to. Without a roof in the way, the ball flew up, and right where it was supposed to go: Right into the hole we made into the hummer. Thought I was crazy? Maybe so, but I do have a method to my madness.
Anyways I watched as a bright blue ball followed my ball on the Hummer. "Haha, Virgil," I cat-called, "I made it first! I made it to the flag first!"
"Well excuse me if my ball landed in a crater three feet deep, and gained a huge-a** dent on the side." Came the bitchy reply from the youth grabbing the flag and both our balls. The golfing variety, you sick pervs. Finding our car intact, somehow, I climb back in the driver's seat, with Virgil affixing the flag to the back. Idiot. Looking up to the sky, I checked the sun's position in the sky, liking how it was at high noon. I put my foot down on the pedal and thought to myself: Hey, do we need anything?
So I asked said question aloud. My partner in survival put a finger to his head in that silly quizzical manner way some kids do. "I think we're good on food...we should be good on all that 'personal' stuff of yours...I think we're out of meds though."
s**t. That probably meant a hospital run. And hospitals mean bad news. Remember how I said those post-apocalyptic sutff are true? I'll explain further as things go.
"Well," he answers, "We're out of morphine since you used the last bit on me. We're out of bandages and gauze because you got your leg cut up. We're out of Ibuprofen and Advil because we downed a bottle of each on a dare. We're out of-"
"I get it." Cutting him off felt good, like the kind of relief you feel when things actually go quiet...well...as quiet as it could go with our Cadillac purring like the beautiful ride she is. Just as we pull up to the damned place, I realized it looked like a left over piece of crap. It's only been like, what, half a year since we got fully quarantined and walled in? Boards covering half the windows, brinks in the wall kicked out and missing, and moss covering a lot of the building.
I park the car, and pop open the trunk to reveal our portable armory. You know what? I feel like packing a couple of 9mm pistols today. I picked them up, and checked them over to make sure they worked as intended. Always a good think to make sure your chosen weapons work. I placed a flashlight underneath both, to give off a softer red glow, and fix them both to a belt holster, and checked to make sure Virgil wasn't shooting himself in the foot. Yeah, that happened before. To my minor amazement, he's picking up an automatic shotgun with safety and ease. SPAS-12 to be exact, beauty of a thing. Satisfied with our armaments, we walk up the steps to the horrible place, and kick down the doors to try and scare any hostiles. Instead of such, we found the entrance way in the same state as the rest of the building, with a healthy amount of blood around tossed in for kicks. We've gotten used to it by now, of course. Seeing it often does that to ya. Seeing the lights were turned off, surprise surprise, I turned on both of my guns' flashlights, and Virgil pulls one out as well, with the same soft glow. We moved on in, scanning each room for both materials and creepies before moving farther down the hall. I wasn't creeped out by the blood, nor was I disturbed by it, (both I was used to, remember?) but I was put on a real edge because it was so damned quiet. I could barely hear my own footsteps. Not that I'd want to, but still. How the hell am I supposed to know when something's coming up behind me if he doesn't make a sound?
And I get that really creepy, eerie feeling somebody's watching us as we went in deeper. And that's when we found the really big find. Not only did we find a veritable supply chest with everything we need and more, but there was a working computer terminal. Why the Infected haven't torn it to shreds is beyond me. The faint light it gave off, with a blue login screen welcomed me. That and the fact that beside one of the login names there was a little message saying "1 program running" made me click it.
And when it logged me in, there was a text editor up. Lucky, lucky. But wait, it gets better. I begin reading, as Virgil begins to secure our treasure trove of medical supplies.
Day 42 : 17:42
The infected seem to be increasing their numbers...however, what I have come to see more of is nothing even close to resembling a human. These new horrors are more gruesome, bigger, and more terrifying than even I could've imagined. Can the infected evolve into these things? Or are they the result of mutation of some other poor animal?
It has been two weeks now, since I've seen another uninfected human being. Mind you, I've only been able to travel several blocks through the city since then. Never before had I realized how huge this place was...is this happening outside the city? There was no way to know...before the infection was even really known about, all of the power was cut out throughout the city--no radio, television...nothing.
I made my way to what was once a highly-guarded government building. The security took a long time to breach, but I managed. Down in the basement, I made an extremely unsettling find: the whole pandemic (or epidemic, for all I know) was planned. I hacked into what seemed to be the central computer and also found that they had made predictions that some of us, such as myself, would display alternative mutations. They included a wide variety of supernatural powers...they were labeled as such:
"BLUE: the ability mimic others' physical strength, agility, etc.
RED: the ability to summon the entities"
"YELLOW: the ability to change physical shape
GREEN: the ability to send out a variety of mental signals"
"PURPLE: the ability to produce non-elemental explosions
BLACK: the ability to control the elements
WHITE: the ability to heal
GREY: the ability to modify the amount and type of light in an area"
As disturbed and betrayed as this all makes me feel, it gives me hope...is there anyone else out there who survived?"
~ D'ara Iden
This D'ara...I wonder if she's around anywhere. I pulled out a USB drive, and copied the info down onto it. This is just as Virgil taps me on the shoulder. I turn around, and I see he's got no less than five fanny packs, all quite stuffed, onto his belt. I look at him with one of those funny looks you give people when you're like, 'WTF Mate?' And you look like that emoticon people use...what was it? Oh yeah, σ.σ
"What the hell is that look for? I just saw you playing solitaire for god's sake!" He asks. Loudly too. Taking two of the packs from him, I look outside. Dipshit here probably woke up a beast. Or two. Or four. Shining the flashlight down the hall, I see a bit of movement right outside my vision. And it comes full in, along with a few pals. A few looked pretty roughed up, as if they were fighting. I nodded to Virgil, and motioned for him to get out. Which he does, sprinting out as if that'd make him get out faster. Only caused more noise of course. Seeing no other solution myself, I emptied both clips of the gun into all of the infected coming into the hall. I'm a pretty good shot going akimbo, and I got most in the legs. Happy that they'd all be slowed down enough, I followed Virgil, taking off immediately, not even caring that my guns were now completely empty of ammo. I saw him up ahead at the entrance, shooting one of the infected in the face with his shotgun. Funny how they were chancing actually being in sunlight.
Then I realized how low the sun was getting. Not good. "Virgil! We gotta get the hell back home!" I yelled to him as I ran past him. Not needing me to tell him again, he rushed out behind me. Climbing into the car, I put in gear, again, and floor the pedal. We speeded out of the death trap, and I went straight back home. So you know what home is, I'll explain as we're getting there. It's a small mall, one floor high, one city block big. It's a got a few shops in it, and more importantly, it's got a surplus store of the army variety, with a small food court too! We've brought in a crapload of rubble from around, barricading all of the ways in and out of the mall except one. That one, we barricade only at night from the inside. I'll show you how later.
Anyways, we pulled up to the mall about seven or eight and...I wish I could have said to the cabbie "Yo homes smell ya later!", but this ain't Bel-Air. Virgil got out of the car, and opened the double doors wide so that I could drive the car through, and closed it up on his way in. Figuring we weren't going outside after that, he put down the metal grate on the other side of the door, and brought the half-foot thick walls of steel that we installed across the doors. I put the car right up to the door, and we figured that the thing was safe enough for now.
We looked at each other in a mental stare down of will. Not out of any liking for each other...but to see who made dinner, and who made the evening rounds of making sure the place wasn't infected or anything bad like that. I narrowed my gaze, and looked real mean and all that jazz, and he eventually gave up. As I cheerfully went to go make us dinner, he went into our made-up power station.
Looking at the pitiful food court, we took the golden arches, and duct taped a piece of cardboard over the "Donald's" and put over it "Zed's" with a cartoon zombie with a paper hat and a hamburger.
Wait? You're more interested in how we supply power to this place? Alright, on the roof tops of a third of the stores, are little power stations we rigged of a bunch of windmills and solar panels. And we figured that the infected were going to tear them off eventually, e made a system of pulleys to hoist them up and down...kinda like what you see in those Dr. Frankenstein cartoons. As Virgil would bring them down, he'd bring over another door of solid steel over the hole. We thought these things through when we found this place, don't worry. Oh, and all the power we collect as the day goes on is stored in big battery things. I got the idea from the lamps mom used to have in her lawn.
So, back to me with the paper hat. I tossed a few burgers onto the grill, and put some fries in the little greasy boiler thing. I hear the gears turning of the actions I just described to you as Virgil gets everything settled in. Just for the hell of it, as I'm waiting for the food to cook (Hey, this isn't McD's any more. We, at McZed's only give out the best the city can offer.), I start making a half-decent blizzard-rip-off-thing. Starting with chocolate ice cream, the one thing I was glad survived the infection, I start to add in more chocolaty goodness, throwing in bits or Oreos and Smarties, etc. etc. until the thing looked like a brown mass. Flipping the burgers over with my left hand, I dip a spoon into the mass of ice-cream-thing with my right. Ambidexterity rules by the way, and I didn't need any mutation to learn why.
So Virgil comes in, and he tells me, "I've gotten all the power generators down inside. What's cookin'?"
To which I reply, putting on my best angsty mouse voice on, "Same thing it is every night Pinky. Something I made and that you're gonna eat!"
He looks at me like he isn't amused. Neither am I. I looked, and noticed that the burgers were done, so I put them on a bun, and took the fries out. Figuring out a secondary reason why burger joints over-salt their fries was to get the grease all soaked out, so I pour a salt-shaker over 'em. Setting them up, I put the food onto a tray, and brought it out. "Hey, Virgil, could you go get us some drinks? I'll take my usual." I ask him as I brought our tray of food to one of three booths we left standing. The rest we hacked at until they came out and were added to the blockage piles. Virgil came back, and he passes me my drink, and he quotes Will Smith of all things, saying, "Just the way you like it. Disgusting." So he references I like swamp water. Jeez.
We eat in peace, with no talking, no bantering. I was focused on what I found today on that computer. This infection, no this pandemic that we're in the middle of, has two possible results. One, we've seen in multitudes outside. Two...is us? We develop powers similar to that T.V. show Heroes? I haven't developed anything...at least, as far as I know. For all I know, I could get bitten tomorrow, and become one of the infected! But, I have the feeling I've gotten one of those powers. I'd have to take another look at it again a bit later, though.
"You think you've got powers too, don't you?" Virgil asks me, out of nowhere. How the hell did he know what I was thinking? "I know what you're thinking, because I can read your mind." He says to me. Seeing my bewildered, and slightly angered face, he quickly adds, "I didn't mean to! It just happened. I won't pry into your mind or anything!"
"You better not!" I answer back hotly. Suddenly losing my appetite, I leave my fries and burger on the table, and storm off to go find my laptop. Myself and Virgil each claimed a store as our own, and modeled it to suit our needs. Mine wasn't finished yet, but I had taken everything out of the small store. In one corner, I had my 'bedroom', which was basically a spartan bed, a dresser, and a screen around it all. In another, I had set up a rather large L-shaped desk with a battery-powered lamp, a black laptop, and a currently opened notebook I had been using to keep a diary. Turing on the laptop, and I sat around to the book. "May 26th, 2010." I wrote, and began to jot down the list of things that happened today. I logged onto the laptop, using the respite to gather more of my thoughts and how to express them, and plugged the USB stick in. Copying D'ara's journal entry onto the laptop, I finished my own diary entry. I opened the text file of D'ara's entry, and re-read the text. I have to admit, I was slightly scared. There was no way that these were but the only two outcomes to this infection, and who knows if the two wouldn't merge somehow...or that a third style of mutation might occur. Then a fourth. Then maybe a fifth.
[{UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 05}]
I woke up the next morning to a strange sizzling sound. Half-Asleep, I pull on my dark-blue and heavily-oversized housecoat on, and peer outside my room. Pulling a stray strand of my red hair out of my eyes, I saw Virgil dressed, showered, and cooking some eggs and bacon.
The hell? It's not like it's our birthday or something special. We haven't had this nice a breakfast since...well, since we found this place.
"Er...I thought I'd celebrate some optimism today," he blurbs, as if he's apologizing in advance, and as if he read my mind. Again. Very slowly getting more and more awake, I look at him with a bewildered look that told him, 'hurry the hell up and get to the bloody point, or shut up because I gave up caring.' "Found your notes before I tried to wake you up...about the possibility of survivors."
That jolted me fully awake and on alert. And not only were we all surviving, beyond me and Virgil, but we all had powers. Some obviously manifest faster in some than in others, if Virgil was anything to go by. From the notes, Virgil was obviously a green, due to his obvious mental reading...
...but the bugs me to ask two more questions: One, what other 'mental signals' could he send and receive? And two: What could I do?
I ate my bacon solemnly when it was passed to me, leaving the sunny-side up eggs untouched...for the moment. I admit it, I was totally savouring the first pieces of decently cooked bacon I had eaten in a very long time. Even in my melancholic mood, I had to enjoy the bacon. Seriously.
"So...are we going to search for these other survivors?" Virgil asks me. Oh yeah, I usually come up the the plans.
So I thought for a second, then began to tell out my plans: "First of all, we're going to get this place served up for more than just us. That involves things like getting more furniture, and making sure that people find the place, and find it well. We'll take turns on it. The other person off this duty can do the second, which will be two-fold. He, or she, is going to look for both survivors, and extra supplies like food, water, and such. Good?"
Virgil nods. "I love it. Rock, paper scissors to see who begins to spruce the place up?" he asks as he holds up a fist with a shrug. I take his challenge and I lose. Ah well. We both get up from the booth, and nod to each other once to signify we knew what we were doing.
"Be careful out there," I tell him as he leaves out the only door, "I'm not out there to guard your back." Someone's gotta remind him. No else is around yet, so I guess it fell to me. He gives me a thumbs up, and heads out. For myself, I head to my room really, discarding my robe to my bed. I look in my procured full length mirror at myself, and wonder about what I should wear. It's just something that keeps me sane here, really.
Trying to make a cut somewhere between stylish, comfortable, and durable, I started out with my dark forest-green 'pair' of pants that I created out of spare pant parts in my spare time. On one leg, it was super baggy, and the patchwork was threaded across a giant gap by the knee with the kind of rope military lanyards are made of. The other leg was cut short about mid thigh by rather sharp claws, and I kept it like that because I rather liked the look of it. Keeping the green-power theme, I put on a 'dress' that barely went down past the hip that had the shoulders missing, and the remaining sleeve was like those bell-bottom things. I finished it by wearing a black-denim vest, and my fingerless gloves with a humongous white bracelet on each to secure them.
I head out and get to work. I see that Virgil had left me my pistols that I used yesterday in case of an Infected attack. Six magazines were left behind as well a a full one in each of the pistols. Putting them both through my belt, I go and get the power collectors up and running outside again. While I'm doing this, I start to wonder to myself about how I should go about making this place noticeable first.
Then it hit me. Grabbing some spray cans from storage, as well as a facial mask that immediately over my mouth and nose, I headed outside. I smiled at my sheer luck of finding the area around the doors were clean. Picking a red can first, I began to outline a giant arrow that pointed to the door. Crude, but effective, if anyone found the place. I took the black can next, and filled the arrow with the word, "Sanctuary". I think the Infected lost the ability to read when they lost their ability to think coherently, and sanctuary's a pretty big word. Happy with my work, I go back inside to go search for more stuff to use. A doorbell would be nice, and I just began to wonder why we didn't have one already. I searched the place for anything that could possibly make a loud noise, or signal something else.
Then, I thought I had figured it out. Then realized there was nothing like a Radioshack in our mall-let. So I went back outside, and of course I locked the doors behind me. I looked around real quick for the store I was looking for. I wasn't really wanting to go too far, even in the daylight. Who knows when the Infected were going to conquer their daylight deficiencies? Seeing close to what I wanted across the street, I cross over quickly. Drawing both guns, I kick the both of the windows open, and the door to enter the latter.
Even with the light pouring in from the windows and door, seeing the stripped down store kinda bugged me. I don't like silence, remember? Making my way to the back of the store, since the front was obviously ransacked, I broke down the back door and shined a light down and around the floor. What I found was a live Infected, and he didn't like it...
So, of course, he leaped to attack it.
Side stepping beyond the door way, I let the Infected-person-thing leap by me, screaming like a dying animal. Which he was, or was going to be, really. I fired two shots from one gun to his head to land him, then moved up and pistol-whipped it's head. Yes, it's an it. I don't check genders of the living often, let alone infected and dead. I went back to the back room to continue my search. The infected thing I just killed was probably the store owner or something. There was a bit of normal meat, and items strewn everywhere and...
"YOU GOT MAIL!"
That scared me more than the infected. But then, a thought clicked in and, I realized I had a speaker for the doorbell. Finally, a use for AOL. Sorry, that doesn't include the CDs. Finding wiring was easy enough. This used to be an electronics store, right? Having found what I came here for, I went back to home base to set it all up. Picking a spot about midway between everything, I attached the speaker to the wall, and rolled the wire out to the front, outside where I attached a red button to it. Big shiny and red. Yay. I stand back a bit, to see if there was anything wrong. Not finding anything, I went back inside.
[{UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 28}] {previous word count: 4544}
All of a sudden, it screams at me, "You've got mail!" So it works. That's good. I though Virgil was back already, so I went to open the door. Outside, instead of him, I found a small...er...kid. And it was wearing what appeared to be a white one piece with a black jersey over it, with a mop of brown hair on its head. And yes, it has no discernible gender, considering it was probably younger than twelve. "Hey there little one," I said, putting up the 'nice girl' act. Okay, it wasn't an act, the kid had all but melted my heart. I'm a sucker for little kids. So I brought in....him? her? I didn't know, so I had to ask. All I got back in reply was a shrug. "Great," I groaned aloud. Another it. "Alright, If you're hungry, grab a chair to a table, and I'll fix you something to eat," I told the 'it'. Myself, I walked in behind the counter again, donned another paper hat, and began to cook a number of the little chicken nuggets and fries. I looked out at the kid, and I saw two big green eyes looking at me, then at the McZed's sign, and back again, repeating. I asked, "Curious about our sign?" Nod. I chuckled, mute responses being cute and all, and explained, "Virgil, who's a blue haired guy you'll see later on, didn't like the idea his food came from McD's, so he got the idea one day, and went with it. What you see is the result of his handiwork." I heard a car engine running in the background, and I thought immediately of Virgil. The engine was killed, and I heard, again, a voice emanating from a speaker, "You've got mail!"
That probably meant Virgil was back. I passed the food off to the mute, who began to wolf it down, as I went to open the door. I open it, and I see Virgil standing there with five other people. Wait a minute...FIVE? "Hey everyone," I greeted, trying to make a good first impression. "I just started cooking for another visitor, you're welcome to join in, if you like." And I walked back in to check on the mute. Virgil said behind me, "Come on in guys," and they followed him in. Already behind the counter, I asked them all, "Can I take your order?"
Eh, may as well describe them all as I take their orders, and Virgil went in behind himself to start working himself. The first order came from a guy with some odd hairstyle; he had this mop of black hair with both a ponytail, and a rattail, he wore a black t-shirt flanked by a vibrant, blood-red vest that seemed to end about chest level. He asked in a beautiful tenor sing-song voice, "Whatever tastes good, I'll take it." I'm not gonna lie, I loved it. I shouted back to Virgil, "Double Angus, cheesy and all that!"
Second comer was a girl, and she was my age less a foot. Covered in utilitarian black clothing, something in the back of my mind was glad I had changed my clothes. "Just a coffee," she says, so I put on coffee for her, and for anyone else who wants some java.
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