Life As We Know It

by Harper-Adams, Connor

  ***

  As luck would have it, the police station was only a 10-minute drive away. Unfortunately though, that was where their luck ran out. There were about 10 zombies at the Police Station. They were stumbling around, waiting for the next unfortunate victim to come across them and become zombie kibble.

  “We are going to need to do this carefully.” Said Charlie.

  “Your right Charlie, don’t mess about in there guys. We go, we execute the zombies, we take the guns, and we get the fuck out.” Jack said. “Have you ever been with Rory to the police station Charlie?”

  “All the time, I went there last week” Charlie replied.

  “Good. Rory, that gunshot will attract too much attention from zombies nearby. I will take Charlie in there with the sword, and that way others won’t swamp us.

  “Ok, sounds like a plan.” Rory said. “Good luck out there guys.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing. We will be back before you know it.” Charlie said, with a smile on his face.

  “Wait a second Charlie. You are going to need these.”

  Rory reached into his pocket and threw a set of keys into Charlie’s hand.

  The keys to the armoury.

  Charlie and Jack jumped put of the van and got to work. Jack had to admit it; Charlie was a lot more talented with a blade than he had ever been. He was like a Japanese Samurai the way he executed those things. In no time at all, the zombies were dead and they had entered the Police Station.

  The first thing they noticed when they went through the door was the smell. It was disgusting. It was unmistakable. It was rotting flesh. There were bodies strewn around the station. There had to be at least 15 corpses around the room. Charlie assumed they were mercy killings, to put an end to them before they turned. He tried not to think about them as he led Jack into the armoury.

  “Around this corner, and then we are there.” Charlie whispered to Jack.

  “Good. This place is making me feel bloody uncomfortable.” Jack replied.

  They turned the corner and spotted the armoury door. Charlie went over and unlocked it. “Get ready for this, Jack. We are about to hit pay dirt.”

  He swung the door open and peered in. There was just one problem.

  It was empty.

  Chapter 2: Heroes

  “Where the FUCK are all the guns?” Jack screamed, anger and frustration clear in his voice.

  “I don’t know; they must have already been cleared out before we got here” Charlie replied.

  “Aw, FUCK, Charlie, this is bad.” Jack whispered.

  “Let’s just get the hell out of here before we attract more of those things.” Charlie said.

  “Fine. But we have to find some more guns. There has to be some more somewhere.” Jack said, calming down.

  “True. Lets just go back to the van and we will take it from there” Charlie replied.

  Just to be sure, they checked all the corpses for any guns that may have been on them. There was absolutely nothing.

  As they walked out of the Police Station, a previously hidden zombie came lurching towards them

  “NOT a good time.” Charlie said, as he decapitated the zombie.

  Jack and Charlie sprinted up towards the van. They pounded on the door. Penny let them in. Once they were safely inside the van, Charlie and Rory began their story.

  “So your saying all of the guns had already been looted?” Rory exclaimed with disbelief.

  “Every single one was gone. There were about 15 corpses lying in the police station. We checked them all for guns but they had nothing.” Jack said.

  “Oh God. Does anyone know where any other guns could be?” Rory asked.

  No one spoke. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, Jack spoke up.

  “It’s a long shot, I know it is. But what about that ‘Guns ‘n’ Ammo’ store a couple of towns over? You remember when we saw that, Penny?”

  “Jesus, you’re right. Do you know the way to get there?” Penny replied, excitement clear in her voice.

  “I do. Lets just pray to God that no one has looted that store.”

  Jack turned on the ignition, and the big heavy van rumbled out of the Police Station parking lot.

  ***

  On the way to the gun store, Charlie sat down in the back of the van and gathered his thoughts. Jack seemed like a nice guy. He seemed a little unhinged, but Charlie figured that everyone would start to break down mentally in this new world. ‘New world.’ It seemed like such a cheesy term. It was the same thing as the word ‘Zombies.’ It sounded so stupid. But it was true. Whatever these things were, a zombie was definitely the right way to describe them.

  At the same time that Charlie was thinking about zombies, Rory was thinking about the world that was now gone. He wondered about the bodies Charlie had described earlier. He would have known them all. His colleagues, his friends, even some criminals that weren’t really bad people. None of them deserved to die that way. No one on the planet deserved to die that way. He remembered back to what the reporter in the HAZMAT suit had said. Over half the population had been infected. Half the population. Over 3 billion people had been turned into those shambling, decomposing creatures. But that number was surely rising every hour.

  Penny was sitting in the passenger seat next to Jack. She looked over at her husband. She was extremely worried about him. Penny had only seen him kill two or three zombies, but once he did, he had a glint in his eyes. It looked like he enjoyed it.

  Jack sat in the driver’s seat of his armoured van. Every couple of meters he would pass a couple of zombies, and once or twice, he passed a whole group of them. He was prepared for this world. He didn’t like it, not one bit, but he was prepared for it. He thought about his new passengers. Charlie Gilroy and Rory MacArthur. They seemed like nice enough people, and once they were trained up a bit more with the weapons, they would be very valuable assets.

  “So what’s your deal, guys?” Charlie said. “How did you spend your days before the world went to shit?”

  Jack had the answer.

  “Well, Penny here was a hairdresser in North Carolina from where I saved you guys. I was a lawyer up there as well. We saved up a bit of money and bought a house down here. It was a lovely house. We, er, we had to abandon it as soon as this whole ‘zombie apocalypse’ shit went down.

  He looked at Penny for a bit after this, but Charlie thought nothing of it. He did, however become a little bit suspicious when Jack immediately changed the subject.

  “Guys, we are going to be in this car for at LEAST the next 3 hours, so try and get as much sleep as you can. We are going into the city, so there WILL be zombies. Rory, they are going to be coming at us thick and fast anyway, so bring the gun and remember, ONLY GO FOR HEADSHOTS. That is the only thing that will down them. Charlie, if there are a lot of them coming for you, don’t bother decapitating them, because you will just have to expose your neck and back to them while trying to finish the zombie off. Slice through the head, or shove the sword through its eyes, directly into its brain. Penny, you stay here. When we get you a gun, I will get Rory to teach you how to really use one. Not just the shitty lessons I paid for. Real, good training. OK? Now get some sleep.”

  ***

  About 3 hours later, the van pulled up outside the store. Luckily for Charlie Rory and Penny, they had gotten about 2 and half hours of sleep. Jack didn’t, and he was not very happy about it.

  “Right. Lets just get the fucking guns, and then get out. You mark my bloody words, when we get back; I’m going STRAIGHT to sleep. If any of you wake me up, you will regret it.”

  ***

  Charlie grabbed a bag to put the guns in, and the three got ready to fight.

  They opened the door to the van. At least 25 zombies were already heading for them. Rory was not going to make the same mistake as last time. He fired a bullet at the first zombie. It fell back in a heap. Charlie swung his sword through the air. It hit the second zombie and sliced its head i
n half. The second zombie crumpled to a lifeless heap in the ground. Jack grabbed a third zombie by the hair and brought his knee up to its skull. It made a hideous cracking sound as the zombie’s skull was crushed.

  They continued like this until Charlie brought his sword down on the last zombie’s head and it parted from the rest of its body. They stealthily moved towards the gun store. Once they reached it, Rory kicked the door down, and to their great joy, discovered the gun store was FULL of guns! There had to be hundreds of different styles of guns. However, their joy was cut short when a stumbling zombie came lurching towards them. It was the shop clerk. Or it used to be the shop clerk. Now it was a shambling mess. Jack tripped the zombie over and Charlie stabbed it through the ear.

  “Right. We’d better get to work.” Rory said. They walked over towards the guns and started putting them in the bags.

  Jack even put 2 sniper rifles in the bag, just in case.

  “Only take what we need.” Jack said. “Other survivors might need guns too.”

  Charlie walked over to a bunch of guns. He didn’t mind guns. He didn’t like the senseless violence that came with them, but he did think that sometimes, violence was necessary. Especially in situations like this. He picked up one gun from the stand. It was a beautiful gun. One Charlie had wanted all his life. The gun was a Colt Diamondback with a 6” Barrel. He grabbed a holster and put it on. He slipped the gun into it. It felt right. He thought that everyone should have a secondary weapon. This was now his.

  He grabbed three knives from behind the counter of the store and handed them to Jack.

  “Everyone carries knives as well as guns from now on.” He said.

  They headed out of the gun store and stealthily made their way back to the van. Charlie banged on the door and Penny let them in. Jack reached into the bag and pulled out a revolver and handed it to her.

  “Rory?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “I want you to teach Penny how to use a gun properly. Once we stop, I will gather some zombies up and you can practise on them.”

  “OK. Deal.”

  It was then that Charlie piped up with an issue that had been bugging him ever since he left his house.

  “We need to find a place to hole up, you know? Find a place to actually stay. Instead of sleeping in a van, we should at least try and find a nice bed to stay in.” He said.

  Jack and Penny looked at each other.

  “We may not have been completely honest with you…” Jack said.

  ***

  “Holy HELL!” Rory exclaimed.

  It turned out that Jack and Penny had not abandoned their house as they said they said. Their reason for lying was simple: They had still viewed Charlie and Rory as potentially dangerous strangers, and thought it was not the best idea to tell these people where they lived.

  Penny was the first to leave the van. A zombie from across the street started to walk towards them.

  “Oh dear. That’s Mrs. Barnes from across the road.” She said.

  “Well I’m afraid she’s gone now, and we are going to have to act on it.” Charlie said.

  “Ok Penny. This is the perfect time for you to start to learn.” Rory said. “Take out your gun.”

  She did so.

  “Time for a crash course in shooting. See that switch there? That’s the safety. Flick that up, aim and shoot.”

  Penny took the safety off, aimed and shot at the approaching zombie. The bullet hit the zombie in the shoulder.

  “Aim at the head. Remember, that is the only way we know how to kill it.”

  Penny aimed again. This time her bullet hit the mark. The zombie flipped backwards and hit the ground.

  They all stared at the corpse on the ground. After 30 seconds of sombre silence, Jack spoke.

  “I always hated that bitch.” He said.

  ***

  Inside the house, Jack gave everyone a drink.

  “To be honest, I didn’t think you two would ever make it this far.” He said.

  “But when you took down those zombies. Man oh man! I knew we had a couple of keepers!”

  “Anyway, to the survival of the Human Race!” He finished, toasting the other three.

  “To the survival of the Human Race!” They echoed.

  Rory sat on the couch in Jack and Penny’s living room. It was nice to be able to sit down and not worry about being devoured by horrific undead monsters.

  “Guys, we have two spare bedrooms, you’re welcome to take them if you want.” Penny said from the T.V room.

  Charlie thought that sleeping in a nice comfortable bed after the day he had had didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  “I think I’m going to try and get a good nights sleep.” He said.

  He said his goodnights to everyone and padded up to the bedroom. He slid into the bed and felt his eyelids start to grow heavy…

  He dreamt he was walking outside with the others. He was walking alongside Rory when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. It was a zombie. Before he could yell out, the zombie grabbed Penny and bit into her arm. She gave a hideous scream, and the zombie bit her again, this time in the throat. Blood spilled out of her neck and she fell to the floor, dead.

  The zombie grabbed Rory next and he bit into the top of Rory’s head. Rory bellowed as the zombie tore out his throat. He too, dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap. By this time, Jack and Charlie had regained their senses, and as the zombie made a beeline for Jack, Charlie aimed his Colt at the zombie and fired, but the gun jammed. The zombie scratched at Jacks face, leaving long gouges in his cheeks. Jack howled and dropped to the ground. As the zombie turned around to face Charlie, he saw the bloodlust in its eyes. All Charlie could do was scream as the zombie bit into his neck and feasted upon his flesh…

  Charlie awoke with a start. That was a nightmare he was not likely to forget. He needed to remember to never underestimate these dumb dead bastards. They were dangerous. And they were killers.

  Charlie looked at his watch. It was 8:38 AM. Thanks to that bloody dream, he had had an awful nights sleep. He got up and walked into the kitchen.

  “Did you have a good nights sleep?” Penny asked.

  “Oh, it was alright.” Charlie lied.

  “Where are Jack and Rory?” he asked.

  “They went out to collect some more zombies for me to practise on.”

  Charlie had a simple breakfast, just a bowl of muesli and a glass of apple juice. He milled around reading for a bit, but he found that he just couldn’t stay still. He didn’t want to admit it, but was actually enjoying being out there, slaughtering the zombies and protecting himself. When Rory and Jack got back, he practically jumped out of his seat to meet them.

  There were 6 or 7 zombies chained together.

  Jack took Penny outside and gave her the gun, and then he looked at Rory.

  “Teach her well.” He said.

  Rory looked at Penny and began his speech.

  “Guns are deadly weapons. Treat them as such. When you pull that trigger there is NO turning back. When you pull that trigger you need to mean it. These things will not hesitate to rip you to shreds and eat your rotting remains. You need to take your time, aim carefully and nail it in the head.

  Penny nodded at him, and took her gun from its holster. She aimed the gun at one of the trapped zombies heads, and pulled the trigger. There was a loud SHPLAT as the zombie’s head exploded. Blood and brains showered the other trapped zombies.

  “That was very good. Now, I’m going to let one of them free. It is going to make a beeline for you, and you may panic. Just remember, we are all here, and we all have weapons. OK?” Rory asked.

  “All good.” Penny said.

  Rory unlocked one of the zombies from the pile and it got to its feet. It looked at Penny with its disgusting bloodshot eyes, and it started to growl. It made its way towards Penny. Penny held her gun up and pointed it at the oncoming zombie. She didn’t do anything until the zombie walked close enough
for her to touch it. The zombie halted barely a centimetre away from the barrel of the gun. Penny looked at it.

  And pulled the trigger.

  The zombies head exploded as the bullet blasted through its weak skull. Blood and gore showered back, covering the ground in disgusting zombie entrails.

  “That felt kind of good.” She admitted.

  “Are you ready to take them all on?” Rory asked.

  “I have to be, don’t I?” Penny said, resolve clear on her face.