Surviving the End
By Code and The Hat of Love

Chapter Two
The Outbreak +127 days

It seems impossible to believe that just six months ago the biggest worry our characters had was getting homework in on time. 
Today, they still don't know what caused this nightmare. Noone does, actually. Noone's thought to find out. They don't care. 
The problem now is just surviving.

Ezrab twisted the steering wheel to the right and pressed down on the brake. 
"Here looks good. We'll be able to see the zombies from a mile off. It's safe to stop."
"Good," Sinder said as they all clambered out, "I can't stand being stuck in this van with you lot. 
They sat down on a bank by the deserted road. Ezrab looked around him This time last year the fields would have been full of crops, birds eating the crops, farmers shooting the birds. Now it was just dirt. The infected weren't fussy eaters. They liked animals, obviously, humans if they could catch them, but they'd take what they could get. As the sun set, Ezrab wondered if he could ever get back to normal life. 
"Well, I need a piss," Code said, getting up and walking behind them. Talk about ruining the moment. 
For a few moments there was only the sound of Codes footsteps walking over the bare ground. It was getting dark all too quickly out here. 

Ezrab heard a sound behind him.
"Ezrab?" Code called. 
"What?"
"I found a hole."
Ezrab didn't really know how to reply to that. 
"Is it a deep hole?" Sinder asked. 
"Not really. It's not a very interesting hole."
There was silence for a moment. 
"I only mention it." Code said, "because it made a weird sound when I stood in it."
"What kind of sound?" Ezrab asked. 
"Oh, you know, sort of an 'aah' sound. 
Ez considered this for a moment. "Stand in it again and see what happens."
"Spoken like a true scientist," Hat said. 
There was another noise. "Yeah, it made the sound again," Code called
"Okay, I'll come and check it out." Ezrab stood up and went over to where Code was peering into a hole in the ground, about two feet across. Hat and Sinder followed. 
"That’s a nice hole you got there, Code," Hat said and prodded it with his foot. 
"Aah," the hole said. 
"Odd." 
Then the hole opened its eyes. 
"Also odd."
"Shit! It's alive!" screamed Sinder. Everyone took a step back.
"Is it infected?" Code muttered. 
"I don't think so," Ezrab said. "The eyes are still white. The zombies' eyes are black."
"Are you dead?" Hat asked the hole. 
The hole paused for a long moment, considering, then shook it's head. Then, it very, very slowly stood up and revealed itself to be not a hole but a man. He looked in his early twenties, long, unkempt hair and as though he'd been living in a hole for the past few months. Which, given the circumstances, was entirely possible. 
"Hi." Code said, as though this was just an ordinary situation. 
"Hi..." the man said. He had to think about it, as though he wasn't used to speaking. 
"How are you?"
"Yup, I’m fine..."
"So, why were you in a hole?" Sinder asked conversationally. 
"An excellent question," the Hole Man replied, regaining his powers of speech, "and one that I would be happy to answer once I eat something. Do you have food in there?" He walked towards the camper van. 
Ezrab, Hat, Sinder and Code exchanged glances and quickly found some food in the van.

"This is pretty good," the man from the hole said as he ate. "What did you call it?"
"It’s a biscuit," Hat said.
"What's your name?" Ezrab asked.
"I dunno," the man replied. "My brain forgot all the stuff it didn’t need any more. Like what my name was an what biscuits were called. I suppose you can call me Carnage though."
"Carnage?" Hat asked.
"Carnage," Carnage replied. "I think it suits me."
"How'd you end up in a hole?" Sinder asked. She really was very interested in it

"I was in the city when the news of the outbreak hit. Already too late for most people. I barely got out of my own street alive, the number of zombies that were swarming. I didn't know what to do so I just kept running. I ran (mostly) until I was in the country. I ate pretty much whatever the zombies ate, but without the human so much. 
"I haven't found many zombies in this area. And they couldn't find me so easily in my hole. I'm a big fan of holes. They're very versatile. And that's why I'm out here. I'm glad you guys found me. Were you going anywhere in particular?"
"Anywhere the zombies aren't," Ez said. 
"Even better, you could go where the food is. I know where the key to my house is. I left a lot of stuff behind. If we’re lucky, it might still be there."
"It’s in a city?" Code asked.
"Yeah, sort of. Not too far in. You'll probably be fine with this van."
"Probably?" Sinder asked, worried. 
"Probably," Carnage said. "I absolutely promise you that you'll probably be fine."

Chapter Three
The Outbreak +128 days

While the sun rose above the wasteland the group, now of five, moved on.
With Ezrab driving the van, Sinder staring bored out of the window and Code feeding Bill the ocelot it was a regular day in the zombie land.
“Don’t forget to give Bill some new water,” Hat said.
“Yeah, I will,” replied Code.
“Don’t forget to throw away the old food.” 
“Yes!” Code said, annoyed
“And Code?” 
“What?!” he shouted.
“Do it with love,” Hat said.
A call came from the front of the van. “Hey, guys,” Ezrab said, “look at this…”
As they slowed down and stopped the van, Code looked outside the left window to see the rotting corpses of three people, their backpacks lying next to them.
“Jackpot!” Hat cried. “Maybe.”

Sinder, Code and Bill jumped out of the van and watched Hat run over to see what he could find.
Ezrab was at the doorway. “You find this thing often?” Carnage asked him.
“No,” he replied, “usually the zombies have already eaten everything. Don’t know why this lot are still in one piece.”
“Urgh, that smells worse than you, Hat,” Sinder, said, holding her t-shirt before her nose.
Hat ignored her. “Look at this!” he said with an evil grin on his face. Reflecting the sunlight in his hand was a 9mm pistol. “And there’re a couple of boxes of ammo here.”
Code jogged over to another pack and pulled out a hatchet. “This is mine!” he announced.
Bill sniffed the last backpack and pawed it; fresh supplies fell out. “Mrrerowoaoeerrooorraohw,” he said. Because that’s the sound ocelots make when they find fresh supplies. In this case, a few bottles of water and tinned food.
Suddenly, the third corpse reached out a hand and grabbed Sinder’s ankle. Sinder screamed. Ezrab tried to run over and kick the zombie in the face. Carnage was inside eating a flapjack. Hat laughed because he’s a cold, heartless bastard, then shot the zombie in the face.
“This thing is awesome!” he said, admiring his pistol. “How’d I do?” he asked the others. They didn’t reply. Hat walked past them, back into the van, zombie blood on his face.

“Alright?” Carnage mumbled.
“Mhm.”
“Ezrab said the zombies usually ate the people they killed,” Carnage said, “Why do you think those people were still around for us to find them?”
“Dunno,” Hat said, half of Carnage’s flapjack in his mouth. “Didn’t see any bite marks. I think they were trying to make it out of the city. Might have just died of thirst. They still looked pretty fresh.”
“Why were they getting out of the city? Something bad happening?”
Hat stared at him. “Yeah. Zombies.”
The others stumbled into the van.
“Hat, are you mental?” Sinder said.
“You’re welcome. Flapjack?”
“Right, I want to get out of here,” Ezrab said and floored the accelerator.

“It’s right up here,” Carnage said as Ezrab drove slowly round the city. Shop windows around them were smashed, results of the rioting and looting when people saw the outbreak as a chance to break the rules. Various bones, picked clean by the infected, littered the road. For now, the zombies hadn’t made too much of an appearance.
“Here?”
“Yeah, you can park outside. Not as though we’re gonna get a ticket now.”

A minute later, they were outside a tall building, Hat with his pistol, Code with his hatchet, Sinder with her knife, Ezrab with Hat’s old iron rod and Carnage unarmed. He said that he’d do more damage to his surroundings than the zombies with a weapon.
“My apartment’s on the fourth floor. I’ll lead the way. Try not to shoot me, Hat.”
“I can’t promise anything.”
Carnage pushed open the door and motioned for the rest to follow. They crept down the corridor and followed Carnage up a set of stairs.
“Hey, Carnage, what’s in here?” Ezrab asked, opening a door and allowing two zombies to fall out onto him.
“Kill it! Kill it to death!” he screamed, holding them back with his iron bar.
“I can’t get a clear shot!” Hat said, which was because he’d fallen over. “Sinder, move!” Sinder couldn’t move either because she had also fallen over.
“I can’t hold off both of them! Do something, Code!”
Code had fallen over.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Carnage cried as he punched the zombies off Ezrab and onto everyone else. One fell onto Sinder’s knife, impaling itself with an ugly sound. The other crashed to the floor beside Code, teeth bared at him, black eyes intent. Ezrab’s iron bar fell down on its head, crushing the skull. All was quiet for a moment.
Hat picked himself up. “Okay, let’s move on. Don’t open any more doors.”

They continued up to the fourth floor. Bill the ocelot was already waiting for them outside the door. “This is my place,” Carnage said. “It’s been a while.” He picked up a key from under the door mat and let himself in.
“Don’t move!” shouted a new voice from inside.
“Hey, sit down. We were just playing Monopoly,” said a quite different voice, with a slight Australian accent.

“I wanna be the hat!” Sinder said.
“Ok, I’ll be the boat,” Hat said.
“Two separate conversations are going on here and I don’t want to be in either of them,” Carnage observed.
“Devase, seriously?” said the first voice, which was coming from a man pointing a gun at them. “Kind of ruined the moment for me.”
“They’re alright, look. “I’m always the boat,” he said to Hat. “You can be the shoe.”
“Oh, hey, there’re people in our house!” There was a new voice, this one from the left. He had just walked in from another room. “Put the gun down, Phoenix.”
“I never get to use the gun,” Phoenix said, sitting down and folding his arms.
“Hi,” said the guy. “I’m Bagels. I’m the dog. This is Phoenix. He’s the iron.
“Only because Bagels always takes the dog!” Phoenix protested.
“And that’s Devase. He’s always the boat.”
“Always,” said Devase.
“Glad to meet you,” Bagels said. “Welcome to our fortress!”

Chapter Four
The Outbreak +131 days
“Hat, are there any noodles in this place?”
“Why would I know, Sinder?” Hat replied. “Not my house. Ask Bagels.”
They’d been living in Bagels’ apartment for three days. Technically it was Carnage’s apartment but it had been ‘commandeered’ by Bagels, Phoenix and Devase and company was good in case of an attack.
“Bagels, are there any noodles here?”
“I don’t know. Ask Carnage or someone.”
Sinder walked to the cupboard and picked up her knife. “We should go supply hunting,” she said. “We at least need noodles.”
“Check the window,” Phoenix called, “There might be a lot of zombies outside.” He eagerly picked up his gun.
“My turn with the gun, Phoenix,” Devase said, holding his hand out. Phoenix handed it over, crestfallen.

“OMG,” Sinder screamed, looking out of the window.
“Really, Sinder?” Hat said. “It’s real life, you can just say ‘oh my -‘”
“OMG,” she screamed again. Ezrab and Carnage ran over to see what was wrong.
“Are those people down there?” Carnage gasped.
“Yeah!” Ezrab cried, “And millions of zombies!”
Sinder could see two people sprinting away from a horde of zombies, hundreds of them. The people could outrun the zombies. But not forever. Faint calls came from the street four stories below. “Jeckle, get back!”
Sinder opened the window. “HEY!” she shouted. The two men outside looked up. “Get in the building!”
“Sinder, no!” Bagels shouted. “The zombies will follow them!”
“Oops.”
“Too late for that!” Hat said.
Code was already running out of the door. “Come on!” he called.

Sinder sprinted down the stairs after Code and Bill the ocelot with Ezrab, Bagels, Phoenix and Devase behind her. Hat tried to do a ninja thing and Carnage had to carry him for the last few flights.
In the entrance hall, one man was pointing a gun vaguely in the direction of the mass of zombies that were just making their way over the threshold of the building.
“Help!” one shouted. “Do you happen to have any 5.56 NATO rounds for an M16?”
“No, sorry, we’re just out!” Bagels shouted back over the sound of zombies trying to crawl through glass panes.
“Better start running then! Come on, Exile!”
They started running back up the stairs. The zombies rushed forwards, filling the foyer. 
“Hey, you!” the one called Exile shouted, “Use that gun!”
Hat fired a few shots in the zombies’ direction. But it was no use. Three fell; three hundred more were still attacking. They poured forwards while the group sprinted upstairs. They stopped on the second landing, the assailants a floor below them.

“They’ll just follow us up to the top!” Bagels yelled. “What do we do?”
“We could jump off the roof!” Ezrab suggested.
“No, guys,” Exile’s companion said quietly, “They need a sacrifice. They’ll stop attacking then.” There was a pause.
“Jeckle, no!” Exile shouted as he realised what his comrade was about to do. “You can’t!”
“It’s me or all of us.” Jeckle said, shaking Exile off. He looked straight at Exile and gave a sad smile. “Bye, mate.” Then he turned around to face the zombies. Bill pawed his leg and looked up at him. Jeckle brushed him away. “Run!” he shouted. He choked. “Hide!”
Carnage, Bagels and Devase grabbed the rest by the shirt and pulled them upstairs. They made it to Carnage’s flat and slammed the door shut. The zombies didn’t follow. Jeckle’s sacrifice had not been in vain.
“Exile?” Code asked. Exile was standing, his face white.
Phoenix gestured towards the Monopoly board. “You can be the dog if you want…”
Exile turned away and walked towards the bedrooms.
The rest were silent.

Chapter Five
The Outbreak +134 days
Three days had passed since Jeckle’s noble sacrifice. The mood was still dark but at least Exile had tried speaking once or twice. Right now he was in the corner, reading one of Ezrab’s magazines. The other eight were playing Monopoly, as usual. Outside dusk was falling.
Code threw the dice and rolled a five.
“Connecticut Avenue. Whose is that?”
“Mine,” Bagels said. “Three hundred dollars.”
“Er, would you take the electric company and… fifteen dollars?” Code offered.
Bagels stared at him.
“Okay,” Code said, “I’m out.” He got up and walked out.
“Cool, I get his stuff,” Bagels said. “Your turn, Ez.”
“Carnage, would you take two hundred dollars for States Avenue?” Ezrab said, holding out the money.
“I don’t know, make it three hundred and fifty and you’ve got a deal.”
“Three hundred, no-“
“Hey, where’d Code go?” Sinder asked suddenly.
Silence.

Phoenix stood up and walked out of the door. “Code?” he called.
“SHIIIIIIIT!” came the reply from four floors below.
“Code!” Phoenix shouted and ran down the stairs. “Hold on!”
“What’s happening?” Hat shouted as the group rushed to the stairwell.
“Zombies,” Carnage said. “Look.” Below, chasing Code up, was a sizeable horde of zombies, baying for blood. Phoenix rushed towards Code, who suddenly paused outside an apartment on the second floor. 
“Phoenix, tell the others to get out!” he shouted, the zombies mere feet behind him. “I have an idea!” Before Phoenix could stop him, Code darted into the apartment and slammed shut the door. The horde’s weight pressed against the door as he held it from the other side.

Inside, Code shifted a table against the door and propped it up with a chair. That would hold the zombies for a minute. He hoped that this place still had a gas supply. He scrambled about the kitchen until he found a book of matches. Taking them over to the cooker, he turned a knob, praying that the gas was working as well as it was upstairs. A hiss confirmed that it was. Code struck the match and threw it at the gas ring. A zombie punched a hole in the door, its rotten hand reaching towards Code. It would be seconds before they broke through.
He took his hatchet from his belt and swung it at the kitchen cupboard; it wouldn’t be needed any more. A shard of wood splintered off. He hurriedly doused it in a bottle of cooking oil from the work surface and held it over the burning gas ring. He now had a flaming torch. Code picked up the rest of the oil and splashed it around the room, throwing the last at the door, which was now almost demolished. The table broke. The zombies pushed forwards.
“Fuck!” Code said. He’d hoped he’d left more time than this. He lit the room, then threw his torch at the zombies. The oil caught. The zombies burned. But now they were just inches away.

“Guys!” Phoenix gasped.
“Phoenix, what happened?” Bagels cried. “Where’s Code?”
“He’s still on the second floor! I couldn’t stop him; he just said to get out of the building.”
“What?” Hat said, which pretty much summed the situation up.
And before anyone knew it, Ezrab had sprinted down the stairs. 
Code had led the zombies into one apartment. Ezrab could see the open door from across the stairwell. There was Code. Ezrab could see him, throwing a burning stick of wood at fifty or so zombies, all trying to cram into one room. There were the flames, catching the wooden furniture around him. There was the horde. The first sank its teeth into Code’s neck, his blood doing nothing to stop the inferno.
Code looked up, anguish in his eyes. He saw Ezrab, horrified, outside the room. His last thought was the hope that his plan would be worth it. Then he fell under the mass of zombies, out of Ezrab’s sight.

“Code!” he called. But there was nothing he could do. For a moment he stood there. Then he unfroze. The zombies wouldn’t be distracted forever. He had to tell the others. And the building they were in was on fire. He sprinted up the stairs. Carnage met him halfway.
“Code?” he said. “Ezrab, where’s Code?” The look in Ezrab’s eyes was all he needed for an answer.
“We need to get out. Code’s torched the place.”
“What?”
“The building’s on fire!”
“But we’re in the building!”
“I KNOW!” Ezrab shouted. “Let’s just go and jump off the fucking roof!”
They couldn’t go down. Up was as good as any way. They ran back up the stairs. The rest were still waiting on the fourth floor.
“Up!” Carnage yelled as he passed.
The smoke was already drifting towards them. They didn’t need encouraging.

They scaled two more flights of stairs and emerged in the evening air. There were no clouds, just smoke rolling up from below them.
“Is there a fire escape?” Hat shouted.
“Yeah,” Exile said, peering over the edge. “It’s on fire.”
“Typical!”
“Well facking do something!” Sinder screamed.
“The other building,” Bagels said. “Can we jump to it?”
The next tower block was only a few yards away and one story lower. But it was a six story drop if they missed. Devase decided to test the jump first. He landed on the other tower block, rolling. 
“Come on!” he shouted up. One by one, they ran up and took the jump. Exile was last to go. Just as he was ready to jump, a burning zombie stumbled out of the door behind him and grabbed Exile’s shoulder. He screamed. The zombie was ready to strike. And then its head exploded.
“Yes!” Phoenix shouted. “I’ve always wanted to use the gun!”
More zombies were pouring out of the door onto the rooftop. Wasting no time, Exile sprinted towards the gap and jumped with all his strength, almost landing on Hat on the other building. The group rushed down the fire escape. 
“The van’s still outside our block,” Ezrab called over the sound of the block in question melting.
“I’ve still got the keys,” Carnage said. “Wait here!” He sprinted round the corner.
“Everyone okay?” Devase asked. A general nodding of heads and mumbling confirmed that they were. “We’re one short. Where’s Code?”
“No…,” Ezrab said, looking down. “He… he didn’t make it.”

Carnage found himself at the front of the building. To add to the drama, zombies, attracted by the light, were milling around the street, one right in the way of the van. Carnage ran over, threw it on the ground, jumped in the driver’s seat and started the engine. Twisting the wheel, he turned the camper van around and dashed through the alley between the blocks.
“Jump in!” he called to the others. They rushed into the van. The door was barely closed when he floored the accelerator and headed towards the sun, just above the horizon.

They had lost two members of their team in just four days.
Behind them, their home for the last week crumbled and began to fall.
And now it was time to search for another.

Chapter Six
The Outbreak +149 days

“Gas station on the left, Carnage.” Bagels was pointing to a small collection of petrol pumps and a shop to the side of the road. “We might be able to get a bit.”
Carnage pulled over. The fuel needle was dangerously close to the red. He turned off the engine. No-one moved.
They’d been on the road now for two weeks. It was a return to the time before they met Carnage but with twice as many people to find food, water and other supplies for. They hadn’t washed in days. It was almost spring and the weather was unseasonably warm. And it hadn't been long since lost Code.
On the plus side, Exile had mostly moved on from his friend Jeckle’s death. The memories still hung over the van though. 
Eventually Carnage peeled himself off the driver’s seat to help Bagels try to siphon some gas from the petrol pumps.
Phoenix was talking to Hat. “See, this is a Glock,” he said, holding out his pistol, “I think. What’s yours?”
“Well, it’s a gun.” Hat still had his eyes closed, while absent-mindedly stroking Bill the ocelot. “You shoot stuff with it.”
“Ah, yeah!” Phoenix said, “I’ve shot plenty with my gun!”
“Well,” Devase broke in, “you haven’t and it’s not your gun but apart from that, yeah.”
Phoenix stopped talking. “I’ll go and sit over there.”

“Guys, a little help out here!” Carnage called from outside. “We haven’t got any weapons.” They rushed out of the van. A small group of zombies, attracted by movement and sound, were staggering out of the petrol station.
“Carnage, catch!” Sinder said and threw him her knife.
“Shit, Sinder, just throw knives at me, why not?” Carnage said as he dodged aside.
“Sorry!”
Ezrab threw an iron bar at one zombie, burying it in its chest. It stumbled but kept crawling on. Bill pounced on it, keeping it pinned. “Anyone got a gun?”
“Step aside,” Exile said and aimed a pistol at head height. One, two, three, four shots and the bodies lay still like bodies were supposed to.
“Where’d you get that?” Bagels asked Exile.
“Used to be Jeckle’s. I found it on the stairs after he… after he died.” He stared at the gun.
“So, as a group, we’re well armed but we still went out to get supplies with no weapons. We need to be better organised.”
“We need to find a way to stop all this.”

Everyone stared at Exile. “What do you mean?” Ezrab asked.
“This outbreak, the zombies. We should find out what caused all this. Then we can find a way to stop it.”
Bagels almost laughed. “Exile, we have trouble surviving as it is! We can’t afford to go looking for clues or something.”
Hat nodded. “Not dying is the key to living.”
“Look at these zombies!” Exile said, his voice rising. “A group of four! What do you think they were to begin with? They were like us! People on the move, trying their best to get away from the chaos of the city. And somehow they were ambushed, they died, they turned. This could be us! Don’t you see? That,” he said, pointing at the dead undead, “is what Code and Jeckle are now. And we can either carry on like this until all of us are like that or we can find a way to stop it. I’d rather die doing something to help than die on the run, hiding like we do. It’s pathetic! This could be the end of the world; don’t you want to make the most of it?”
Silence followed Exile’s outburst.
“If this is the end,” Hat said, “I want to survive it.”
“Exile, I’d like to know what caused this too,” Carnage said carefully, “but, like Bagels said, it’s hard just to carry on as it is.” The tension in the air was almost unbearable. Then it snapped.

“World’s still beautiful, eh?” came a voice from behind them.
Sinder turned round. “OMG WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?”
Leaning at the door to the van was someone who wasn’t part of their group. He stood calmly, tapping an ugly looking Uzi against his leg in the way a man might twiddle his fingers. On his jacket was the distorted plus sign of the Swastika, the universal symbol of the Nazis.
“I’m an exile,” the man said, “but I’m also a survivor. And I can help you.
“People call me Ice.”

Chapter Seven
The Outbreak +149 days

“I’m an exile,” the man said, “but I’m also a survivor. And I can help you.
“People call me Ice.”

Silence.
“Not a talkative bunch?,” Ice said. “That’s fine.” He nodded at Exile. “You want to know what caused this? I like your thinking. If only we knew what caused this, we could stop it. Good thing I know what caused it.”
“You… you do?” Exile gasped.
“Indeed I do.”
“Why, how very coincidental!” Hat exclaimed.
“But in a moment of dramatic suspense, I will be requiring some food first. The scrappers don’t serve as good meals.” Ice entered the van and started rummaging for supplies. “You lot carry on.”


It’s plain that this story is not the only one being played out in this wasteland. For example, a few miles away, Skyline and Tulip were fighting for their lives against a horde of zombies that outnumbered them a hundred to one; another group of five, ZShadow, Pie, Althor, Habu and Allie, were camping out on a hill with a week’s food and another week’s sniper rounds; Dancer, Grosbebe and Nobody were shooting Bane in the head (long story).
Two of these stories were about to coincide. Hilarity ensues.


“Pack up!” MasterA shouted. “We’ve got to get on the move again.”
Huggy nodded at the rest of the group that he and Master led. “We haven’t found fresh supplies in days.”
They were an odd bunch, their team; from the resilient Sakura to the fearless DrkInferno; from Slowbro, one of the youngest to survive the zombie apocalypse, to Shade, one of the strangest. Take that which way you like.
Boxhead and Dudeman shoved their ammo box into the back of their Ford Transit van. Dudeman climbed into the driver’s seat. “Supply wagon ready when you are!” he called.
The rest got into the people carrier that they used to carry the people. 
“Hey! You two,” Sakura said, pointing to Saviour and Raptor in the seats behind her, “no bickering or I’ll turn this van around and no-one’s going to Disneyland!”
“But-“
“Okay, let’s go!” Huggy called.

Two miles down the road MasterA nudged Sakura. “Kitty, pull over here.”
“What, supplies?”
“No, unless these zombies I think I see are carrying some.
“Could we plough through them?” Raptor said, leaning over the front seats.
“We’re low on some stuff, we should check them out.”
The can ground to a halt.
“Shade, cover us with the sniper,” Huggy commanded.
“Aye, aye.”
“What have we stopped for?” Dudeman asked, stepping out of the Transit.
“Master reckons we might be able to get some stuff off these zombies,” Boxhead said.
“Dark, Saviour, Raptor, Kitty, come on, we’ll take them out.” MasterA beckoned them forward.


Not far away…
“Hey, what’s that?” Ezrab asked. “Look, on the horizon. Something moving.”
“Zombies?” Sinder suggested.
“Let’s take them out,” Carnage said. “Phoenix, you cover us with the pistol; Exile, Devase, Hat, Sinder, let’s check this out.”


“Shit, do they have guns?” Inferno said.
“Don’t be stupid,” Saviour said. “Zombies don’t have guns.”


“Guys,” Devase said, “It looks like they’re armed.”
“Armed?” Sinder said, “Nah, they wouldn’t be.
“They look very organised for zombies…” Exile observed.
“Oh, shit, a new super-strain!” Hat screamed. “We’re doomed!”
“No, Hat,” Carnage said, stowing his gun. “They’re not a new strain. They’re just normal people. We’ve found more survivors!”


“Guys, I don’t think they are zombies!” Sakura said.
“Hello?” MasterA called out.
“Hello!” Carnage called back.
“Good to see some life out here!”
“Same! Why don’t you come hang out at our place?”

Now, with nineteen of them, they were probably the largest human gathering in the county. They would never have enough Monopoly pieces now. 
Right now they were still at the petrol station where they had met the most mysterious character yet.
“Ice, you said you could help us?” Bagels said.
“Hm, what I like is to share knowledge. It gives us all the same advantage which is fair enough, seeing as we’re fighting the same thing.
“This outbreak was caused by us, by humans; mostly by one human. He’s called Coke and he’s a complete bastard. He’s the mastermind behind all of this. If we could take him out then we might have a chance.”

“So… couldn’t we just take him out?” Sinder asked.
Ice sighed. “If only it were that simple. No-one knows where his hideout is. Well, no, that’s a lie. I know some people who do. I used to call them my companions.” Ice gazed up at the sky, over the setting sun that was painting the sky a light orange. “They abandoned me. We were defending our base from the scrappers-“
“The what?”
“The scrappers. That’s what we call them. We were defending our base from the scrappers and, well, one of my so-called teammates, Herodui, had an idea. He spread the ground with gas and lit it. I was trapped. He didn’t bother trying to save me. I managed to escape; like I said, I’m a survivor. Herodui, thankfully, had what was coming to him; he got overwhelmed by the zombies. But of course, once I got back to the team, they assumed I’d killed Herodui. That’s the kind of people they are: wouldn’t trust their own team member! They said I should have saved him. Of course I would have if I could have! But it was his own fault! They exiled me, threatened to kill me if they ever saw me again.

“So, anyway, these people have met up with another, more organised group. They’ve got a huge military base. I’m sure they know where Coke is.”
“If they know where he is, why haven’t they already killed him?” Dudeman asked.
“Who knows? Probably too power hungry. They like being in command and once the apocalypse ends, they’ll have to let go of the control.
“Of course, if we had enough force and we were to happen across their base and should accidentally take it over and steal the secret of Coke’s location… Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“Woah, you want us to attack humans?!” Hat said.
“Do you know where the base is?” asked Huggy.
“Yes and yes,” Ice said, “And if you want to meet them, all you have to do is listen to me. It’s time to go to Raz’s base.”