“Okay guys, you know the rules.” Penny said. “‘No wandering off’ is the major one, because if any of us get lost here, we will never make it back to The house. Secondly, watch out for the zombies.”
“Wait a minute.” Rory said, looking thoroughly confused. “We are supposed to be avoiding the zombies? I wish somebody had told me that, I have been trying to play with the bastards for the past year now.”
“Zip it, smartass.” Penny laughed.
“Has everybody got weapons?” Charlie asked.
Everybody replied yes.
“Actually, that reminds me. I put some extra ammo in the van; I want everybody to get some more and top up your guns. If Charlie hadn’t have been there when I ran out, I would be dead by now.”
After the survivors had stocked up on ammunition, they walked over towards the old, decaying town.
It would have been a very pretty town back when the world had still functioned. It was exactly the type of small, quaint community that Jack loved. Jack actually giggled when he saw an old bookshop. He ran over to the store and jiggled the handle. It was locked. Jack’s face dropped as he realised he wasn’t able to enter the store. He turned around and looked at Charlie, disappointment etched into his face.
“It’s locked.” He said.
“When has that ever stopped us?” Charlie said, holding a rather large looking rock in his hand. He hauled the rock through the glass door, which shattered immediately underneath the weight of the stone.
“Yes!” Jack whispered. He bolted into the store, and the others followed suit.
Despite the small town, the bookstore was actually quite large. Unlike supermarkets or army surplus stores, not many people had decided to raid bookstores, so almost all of the books still lay on the shelves. Jack ran over to the new release section. He chuckled to himself when he realised that even the newest books on the new release shelf were at least 13 months old. Regardless, he grabbed one of each book on the new release shelf, simply because he could. He also walked around the older books, picking up a copy of Treasure Island, one of his favourite childhood books, as well as 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. He walked around the store, piling books into the remaining 8 survivors arms. Once everyone was carrying at least 10 books each, they finally exited the store. They each put their pile of books into the armoured van and took another walk around the small town.
“Oh, look!” Charlie said suddenly. “Look at that!” He continued, pointing to a small store with the sign ‘General Store’ painted on it.
“Yeah, what about it?” Santa said, looking confused.
“I thought ‘General Stores’ only existed in movies, or in the 50’s.” Charlie said, clearly excited.
“You are so stupid.” Megan said, looking at Charlie.
“Yeah, I know.” He said, with mock glumness in his voice.
“Still.” He said, all sadness gone from his voice. “We have to go check it out!”
“Of course we do.” Jack said.
“Screw you, Jack. We just spent 40 minutes doing your thing, now we are doing mine.”
He walked over to another big rock, even bigger than the one he threw into the bookstore door and hurled it through the general store front door. Yet again, it immediately shattered when it came into contact with the rock. Jack walked over to the door handle and jiggled it. It opened easily.
He turned around to Charlie.
“You know that door was actually unlocked, right?”
“I don’t care, that was a lot of fun. You should try it!” Charlie replied with a laugh.
The survivors walked through the door, carefully avoiding the broken glass as they passed it.
Regardless, Walt still managed to slip on it.
They passed the front counter. A store clerk was sitting at the desk. He had a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Someone had been here before.
“Shit.” Charlie muttered as he passed.
He looked at the stationary stand. As silly as it sounded, Charlie really wanted some pencils and some paper. He had always liked drawing, and a great deal of people had told him how talented he was, which had always encouraged him.
Charlie saw the newspaper stand in the corner, and gasped. That newspaper would be the last newspaper that was ever printed before the apocalypse started. The headline, even though they had been living it for well more than a year, still hit Charlie like a punch in the guts.
Strange plague rips through America: Will humanity survive?
The dead are walking the Earth. What can only be described as ‘zombies’ have been seen roaming throughout the streets of Atlanta, and more have been sighted across the United States, China, Australia, Germany and parts of Russia. It has been theorised that this is a worldwide pandemic. Little is known about these creatures, but reports have stated that they were once normal human beings. One thing in particular, however, is known about these creatures, and that is that they eat human flesh. They have been seen biting into people’s arms, necks, legs or any other body parts. With at least one quarter of the population already turned into zombies, with no cure or even cause of the pandemic in sight, where will humanity turn now, and will it even survive?
Charlie read that last sentence over and over again. Where will humanity turn, and will it even survive? It doesn’t, Charlie thought sadly. Jack walked over to Charlie and read the article over his shoulder. Seeing the saddened look on Charlie’s face, he tugged it out of Charlie’s grip and went to throw it out.
“No.” Charlie said, startling Jack. “I want to keep it.”
“Are you sure?” Jack said, eyeing Charlie.
“Yes.” Charlie replied. “It’s good to keep this sort of stuff. I want to remember. Besides,” He said, all sadness gone from his voice. “I haven’t read any comics in ages.”
Charlie, Jack, Penny and the other group members milled around the store for a good 40 minutes, finding little, other than a multitude of bags of lollies that were still edible, which made Charlie very happy indeed.
The group of 9 walked out of the general store and surveyed the other shops. There were a couple of other stores, including a lovely little café and a DVD rental store. They decided to wander into the café and have a look inside. Almost as soon as they walked through the open front doors, they were knocked back by an overwhelming stench.
“Holy shit!” Audrey exclaimed. “What the hell is that smell?”
“Oh, God.” Santa said. “I have no idea.”
“I think I may have an idea.” Charlie said, pointing to the plexiglass sneeze guard that covered the daily specials. It was black with decay. Charlie ventured over to the sneeze guard. Sure enough, the smell from the plexiglass case caused Charlie to double up and gag.
“Oh, yeah!” He said, coughing. “That’s it! Someone must have forgotten to take out the food the day the world went to shit!”
They stumbled out of the café.
“Well, that ruined my day.” Charlie said.
“Nonsense!” Penny said. “We had a good day. No one died, no one got bit, and Jack got some books. That means a good day.”
“I almost threw up.” Charlie responded. “That constitutes a bad day.”
“You are just sour.” Penny said, poking her tongue at Charlie.
“I’m sour, am I?” Charlie said. “We had a crap day. Rory, back me up here?”
There was no response.
“Rory?” Charlie said, spinning around.
Rory wasn’t there.
Chapter 13: Old Friends
It was the year 1995. It was raining bitterly as 15-year-old Charlie Gilroy walked to school alone, as usual. As he walked, he thought about the weather. Its shit was all he could manage to come up with. He wasn’t even a smooth talker in his own mind. He could pretty much forget about entertaining pretty girls and being the popular kid if he couldn’t even impress himself. He hoisted his extremely heavy bag over his shoulder and tried to shelter himself from the heavy downpour.
; His parents were never well off financially. They couldn’t afford the finer things in life; they always used to tell him.
Does an umbrella count as one of the finer things in life? Charlie thought bitterly as he struggled through the heavy rain.
After almost 20 minutes of walking through the rain, Charlie arrived at the school gates. The heavy iron gates creaked and groaned as he opened them and closed them behind him.
He arrived to class just as the loud bell tolled, signalling homeroom. His teacher, Mr. Tolan, was a bastard. He was a mean, vindictive old bastard who specifically went out of the way to make Charlie’s life a living hell.
“Gilroy!” He barked, flecks of spittle flying out of his mouth as he spoke. “You are late. Again!”
“No, I’m not, sir.” Charlie answered truthfully. “I’m right on time.”
“Everyone else is sitting down Gilroy, and you are just coming in now.”
That simply wasn’t true. At least 6 other people hadn’t even shown up yet, and yet Charlie was still the one who was always getting in trouble.
He suffered through another barrage of insults and put-downs by Tolan.
“You are an absolute disgrace! You come in here late with your sloppy demeanour and tattered clothing every day! What do you have to say for yourself?”
Charlie stared at the ground.
“Well?” Tolan yelled.
“Nothing, sir.” Charlie said, tears welling in his eyes.
“Go sit down, Gilroy.” He said, clearly disgusted by Charlie’s emotional state.
Charlie wiped the tears from his eyes and sat at his desk.
Sitting across the room, with clear and obvious concern for Charlie was a young Scottish boy by the name of Rory MacArthur.
***
Rory knew what it was like to be constantly abused and screamed at. His father was a heartless man, who had constantly beaten him and his mother. Finally, after almost 20 years of abuse, Rory’s mother had left her abusive husband and her homeland; Scotland, and moved to America with her 15 year old son. Today was Rory’s first day of school in America, and he was already finding it difficult. He knew no one and was being ignored by absolutely everyone.
Rory sat alone at his desk, listening intently to the teacher.
***
Charlie suffered through the classes of the day, longing for them to end. He got into trouble for not completing his homework, even though Charlie had insisted to the point of tears that he had completed it, and simply left it at home. Regardless, he still got into a load of trouble.
At snack time, he ate his apple and sat alone outside of the class. As usual, no one wanted to talk to him. He spent the 30 minutes sitting in silence, waiting to go back to class.
Again, he walked slowly and solemnly back to class, waiting to return to the hell he was forced to go through every day.
During periods 3 and 4, he had science. He had never been good at science. He had failed almost every test he had ever had, which was most likely due to the fact that Mr. Tolan taught it. Again, Tolan took the opportunity to be as awful as possible to poor Charlie.
He stumbled out of science class, happy to have survived.
Lunchtime started with Charlie being alone, as usual. As he ate his sandwich, he stared at his watch. Every single day at about 1:30, Matthew Jacobson, the school’s resident bully, and his two cronies, would come and try and steal any money he had on him. He never did. When the bullies realised Charlie didn’t bring any money, they started mentally abusing him, calling him names and insulting his family members. It was 1:23 now. The cold, hard bench he was sitting on was very uncomfortable. He had wanted to move over to one of the comparatively comfortable benches, but there was no way the ‘cool kids’ had let them sit with them.
At 1:32, by Charlie’s watch, Matthew Jacobson and his two cronies turned up.
“Hey Charlie!” He said menacingly. Charlie stood up to leave. “Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think your going?”
“Well, Matthew.” He said, rolling his name around inside his mouth like it was a bad taste, “It appears I’m going nowhere.”
“Damned straight you are going nowhere.” Jacobson said. “Sit down.”
Charlie had long ago realised that it would be easier if he just complied.
“So, how is your whore mother going?” He said, sneering. “And your poor, penniless dad? What’s he up to?”
This continued on for the rest of lunchtime. When the 5th period bell rang, Charlie was farewelled with the usual “We will see you tomorrow, Gilroy.”
After an average period 5 and 6, the bell that signalled the end of the day finally rang out. Charlie was first out of his seat, and out the door, as usual.
Charlie was forced to walk home every single day. He used to take the bus home from school, but a nasty incident, which involved Charlie’s books being thrown from the bus by asshole bullies had meant that Charlie walked home.
As he was walking home, Matthew Jacobson and his cronies appeared out of nowhere.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Charlie said with as much contempt as he could muster.
“Language, young man.” Jacobson smirked. “I know this isn’t my usual route, but I thought, what the hell, there aren’t any teachers around, and there is no one to squeal on me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Charlie said.
“I’ve tried stealing from you, insulting you, insulting your family, calling you names, and none of it seems to really hurt you, so I figured I would step it up, I’m going to actually hurt you know.” He said, pounding his fists menacingly.
“Bullshit.” Charlie scoffed. “You wouldn’t actually hurt me.”
Matthew didn’t even say a word. He just launched on Charlie, kicking, punching, biting and scratching any body parts that he could find.
“OW!” Charlie screamed, shocked by the surprise attack. “GET OFF ME!”
Still, despite Charlie’s begging, Matthew still attacked him.
“GET THE FUCK OFF HIM.” A deep, Scottish voice yelled from the distance.
Matthew stopped long enough to look to see who dared challenging him. It was the new kid, the Scottish one. Rory.
“Just walk away, kid.” Matthew said.
“No, get away from him, and don’t EVER touch him again.”
Matthew was starting to get angry.
“Leave now, kid, or I am going to do the same to you.”
“I’d like to see you try!” Rory laughed. At the age of 15, he was already 6 foot, and he was only going to grow.
Matthew looked at him. Then he punched Charlie in the jaw, hard.
Rory flew at Matthew, like a bullet from a gun. He grabbed Matthew by the front of the shirt and threw him to the ground.
“If you touch him again, I’ll make you swallow your teeth.” Rory said.
Matthew nodded, and he and his friends bolted.
Rory ran over to Charlie.
“Shit, are you alright?” He asked him.
“Yeah, never better.” Charlie grimaced, nursing a cut lip. A black eye was already beginning to bloom.
Rory pulled him up and shook his hand.
“Rory MacArthur.” He said.
“Charlie Gilroy.” Charlie replied, taking Rory’s hand. “You know what?” He continued. “I think we are going to be good friends.”
***
Life improved substantially for Charlie after that. It turned out that all of the students had only been mean to Charlie because Matthew had commanded it. After news had spread that Rory had taken Matthew down a couple of pegs, people were actually starting to be kind to Charlie. While Mr Tolan never treated him any differently, it didn’t matter anymore, because at least now, Charlie had friends.
Chapter 14: Searching
Back in the present, Charlie was worrying.
“Shit.” Charlie said. “Where is Rory?”
“I don’t know.” Jack replied. “I was speaking to him 15 minutes ago.
/> “Alright, who spoke to him last?” Santa said calmly.
“Well, that would have been me.” Charlie said. “I spoke to him 10 minutes ago.”
“OK, he can’t have gone far.” Audrey said. “Lets split up and look for him throughout the stores we were in earlier.”
“No.” Jack interjected. “We are not splitting up. I can’t risk losing any of you as well.”
Life As We Know It Page 12
