12:15 a.m.

“This isn’t supposed to happen is it?"
"No...but...it is...and we have to make the best of it...."

The two boys clung to each other in the darkness, praying that the animalistic screams would stop at some point, that the constant shuffle of feet overhead would lull them to sleep. But every time they started to doze off, another scream would pierce the night.

"We have to find help."
"I don’t think we will."
"We should try."
"I know."

*****
7:30 am

Elsie opened her eyes to the morning sun and smiled. Her clothes had been set out and her medicines neatly laid on the tray next to her bed. things were in order, and it would be a good day. She sat up and took the pills, like every day for the last two years. One was for the voices, the other for the mood swings. As she swallowed the last, a little girl walked somberly into the room, her brow furrowed.

“What’s wrong lovely?”
“Mom, I think you should look outside”'
“Why? what’s going on?”
“I...I’m not so sure.”

One foot in front of the other Elsie walked to the wall, which was actually a large drape covering the largest window of the house. Elsie had an infatuation with natural lighting, so she designed the home with her room getting the most sunlight as the sun rose. She drew back the curtain with her eyes closed and paused a moment to take in the feel of warm sunshine, and as the little girl behind her gasped, she opened her eyes and her heart sank.

*****
7:56 am

"What do we do now?"
"Darien, seriously, we know how to handle this. We’ve seen enough movies. We’ve got this!"
"Do we? This is real Reagan. This is fucking real as it gets!”
“I know man, I know, but we have to try, or else all those years of boasting are wasted.”

Reagan and Darien had been friends for 15 years, since grade school. They worked flawlessly together and were always the go to people for the plan. But today, things were different. Things had gotten out of hand. Things were to real. Reagan ran into the back room of their home and began digging around, leaving Darien in deep thought in the living room.

“Call her!” Reagan screamed out from the back room. “Call her and make sure she is ok.”
“Why wouldn’t she be? She is geared for nuclear war. Im sure she is safe.”
“Call anyway...”
“Fine.”

Reagan continued his rattling and finally emerged from the back...“AH HA!”
“No I will not take you on! Did you find your cd?”
“No ass...this!” Reagan held up a set of keys.
“No..we are not taking the van...I can’t risk that thing getting torn up..its how I get to shows!”
“Seriously, after this, do you think you’ll ever have another?"
“We have to find my band....”
Reagan slapped Darien. He had never done it before, but this was special.
"As your friend and brother, I’m telling you, no, begging you. Snap out of it. We have to make it, if we see the others and they are alive, awesome, if not we fix the problem and put them out of their misery. This is how it is. Now, make that call!”

Darien picked up the phone and dialed the number. His eyes became glazed as he stared into the distance counting ring and thinking about the possible future. One, two, three, Darien began the worry, four, five, his heart sank, six, "Hello..." the voice was hollow and quiet.
"Are you ok?'
“Yes, we’re fine.”
“Have you been outside?”
“Before 10? Never, but I’ve seen...'
“So you know?”
“Are they?”
“That’s what we think."
"Really? Reagan? What’s he saying?'
"Same thing I’m saying. We need a place to stay that’s safe.”
“You know me. Mrs. Paranoia is locked up tight and snug.”
“Good, stay that way. How’s Mary?"
“She’s ok. I think she understands more than I think she does.”
“Good. Stay safe. Call the others. See who you can get. Who’s still alive.”
“Do we have a plan then?”
“Weapons, vehicle, people, in some order.”
Elsie sighed into the phone..."I’ll be waiting”
“We’ll be there soon.” Darien began to hang up the phone and stopped, and at the same time they both said, "Be careful. Aim for the head."

*****
8:15am

On the outskirts of town, all Adrian had was the news. No signs of the attackers, just horrendous accounts on the television. His heart was going to beat out of his chest. He began to frantically gather up a survival kit. He found his old hunting knife, his fathers shot gun, a handfull shells, an old aluminum bat and the joke check list Reagan and Elsie had made all their friends a few years back which included things like penicillin, C-4, and the T-virus vaccine.
"Ok. I’m ready. Bring it."
As he started for the door the phone rang. "Hello?"
"Adrian?"
"Elsie?"
"Yeah! Good, your ok! You are ok right?"
Adrian chuckled.."Yes dear. I’m fine.”
“Do you think you can get over here?"
"I should be able to. Is that the plan then?"
"Reagan and Darien are on their way with weapons and the others.”
“Maybe Reagan will get left behind if were lucky.”
“Adrian! Be nice. Please. We have to stick together.”
"Ok. I’ll be there in 30. Have the lift ready, I don’t want to have to interact with the fuckers anymore than I need to.”
“Honk when you get on the driveway and I’ll be ready.”
“Got it.” Adrian grabbed his keys and walked out to his car. He sighed as he looked around. It was a nice day. He actually was making plans to take Elsie and Mary out for the day. “Guess it’ll have to wait ‘till the worlds done ending. So much for that quality time.” He started the car and made his way into the city.

Elsie hung up and looked to her daughter. "Mary dear? Do you want to talk?"
"Are you sure we’re all locked up?"
Elsie dropped the phone and ran to her studio office. She frantically began checking cameras and security settings. Nothing seemed out of order. She’d had a brush with home invasion a year earlier and became the Mrs. Paranoia everyone credited her to being. She lived in a nice four story home, and had it designed so that the windows and doors leading outside on the first two floors had iron doors that shut every night at eight thirty. That’s when the help went home and everyone was in bed. The lift came straight from the garage to the third floor hall. That lift was also shut down at eight, but Elsie could override it before ten, which was when everything was supposed to unlock.

She fretted over the control panel for another forty five minutes reworking the security system and making sure the iron doors wouldn’t let up early, or at all. There wasn’t anything on the property yet, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be at some point. She made sure the iron gate was locked and that the property perimeters were safe and that nothing had gotten into the house while she made phone calls. As her mother checked the security system, Mary clicked her way through the news channels.
"Violent cannibalistic tendencies..."
click
"Unprovoked accounts of mutilation...”
click
"No signs of vulnerability...”
click
"Apocalypse..”
click
Mary turned of the television and looked out the window again. Outside the heavy iron fencing lay the roads of her hometown. The streets were filled with shuffling figures. Sometimes they would break into a run, but only if they had spotted another victim. Mary had a sense of dread. "We aren’t making it out of this alive." she whispered to herself.

*****
11:27am

Reagan pulled into the parking lot of the local pawn shop and look at Darien. “It’s time bro!”
“It’s now or never!”
As they broke into the shop they couldn’t help but laugh from time. Never had either of them done anything illegal in their lives, but today, today was an exception.

"Ok! So I’ll go for blunt force trauma and you go for guns and ammo." Reagan yelled as he walked over to a section of oversized wrenches and crowbars. "This is going to be too much fun!"

Darien started to yell back but stopped short on his words. The door to the office was opened and something was rattling around in the back. Darien tried to get Reagan’s attention without alarming what was hiding, but it didn’t work. As he tried to whisper, Reagan turned and threw a hammer to him screaming "CATCH!" and that’s all it took. The twisted form of what used to be the pawn shop owner flew from the office door and landed on the counter top. She turned her head to look back at Darien, her head swiveling unnaturally on her neck and screamed. Not a terror scream, the scream you hear from blood thirsty animals who haven’t eaten in days and have their first scent of fresh food. She turned and jumped toward him just as the hammer reached his hand. In one solid sweep he caught the hammer and brought it down on the pawnbrokers skull. One quick crack and she fell at his feet, wriggled once, and was still. They looked at each other and the full onset of what was going on hit them.

"Just...don’t use the zed word...." Reagan whispered...."please.."

Adrian drove quickly though he knew that traffic wouldn’t be bad. There were no cars until he hit downtown, where cars had stopped in the middle of the road. The way was blocked with abandoned vehicles and this was his only way through. "Fuck all!" He got out of the car to survey the damage and realized he was alone. "Not one? Not one zombie fucker coming after me? This is a bad joke." He walked along the line of abandoned cars and broken bodies and finally found a truck still running. After making sure the owner wasn’t still in it he jumped in and took off. "Thank gods for red necks. Thank you red necks for having obscenely large trucks. Thank you large trucks for being bigger than all these other little fucking cars." He drove the rest of the way to Elsie's, smashing through obstacles and over a few mutated as well.




*****
12:02 pm

As he reached the property line he honked frantically waiting for the gate to open. Since he wasn’t concerned with being quiet on the way there he had attracted a few followers along the way. Elsie looked out from the study window and smacked her forehead.
"Seriously! Why do you have to be center of attention."she cursed under her breath she opened the gates and readied the lift. Adrian drove straight to the garage and jumped out of the truck, shot gun in one hand and baseball bat in the other, his pack already on. Elsie came down the lift with her old cricket bat she had bought at a garage sale.
"Come on! I don’t feel like doing this yet! They broke the gate when they followed you in!"
"Did you have to bring that thing?" Adrian said as he got in the lift, indicating at the old cricket bat.
"Of course I did! This is why I bought thing in the first place!"
They laughed, though uneasily, as they lift went up to the third floor.
"Sorry I fucked up the gate...I had to get a new car though. The way was blocked off and that thing could get me here regardless."
“It’s ok. They would have done it eventually."
"Yeah. Are we going to be ok here?"
"The lift doors lock down tight. I think we will be. I just have to make sure that the others can get in safely."
"We could always use Reagan as a decoy." Adrian jeered, giving her an evil smile in spite of the situation. Elsie slapped his arm and he grabbed her up into a tight hug. "We will all get through this. I promise I wont intentionally sacrifice him." she smiled at the bad joke and he laughed. Just as the lift reached the top floor she could hear the phone ringing, and Mary screaming.

“Shit! MARY!"
"Mommy!! They’re in the yard!! They’re trying to climb up!!" Elsie ran to the window to see that Mary was right, somehow they had figured out that the iron door wouldn’t budge, and were trying to scale their way to the top.
"SHIT! That’s impossible! They aren’t supposed to be smart!"
"Sometimes things don’t go as planned dear." Adrian was next to her watching as they broke rotted fingers and joints off trying to scale the brick walls. "Maybe we should activate the rest of the security doors."
"Then we wont be able to see out."
"We can from the roof." The phone still rang in the office and Elsie ran to it.
"Hello?"
"Elsie! Elsie shit! Jesus Christ fuck all! What the HELL is going on?"
"Mike? Mike man, calm down. Here, talk to Adrian. You have to get over here. I have to lock things down." she handed the phone off and went to the security panel.
"Mike? It’s Adrian. You ok man?"
"Yeah, just, what the fuck man? How did this happen?"
"I don’t know man. I turned on the T.V. and there it was. Like, like a bad movie or something.”
“Tell me about it. Let me call the twins and we will be there. Have you heard from Reagan and Darien?"
"Yeah, supposedly they are on their way here." Just as Adrian finished the last word a horn version on hava nagila came from outside. "Never mind, they just showed up."
Elsie activated the lift and ran to it, as the doors shut she yelled, "Watch Mary, and the screens!"

As the lift door opened all Elsie could see was the van side doors. She began to panic and think she was to late, but then Darien threw them open and began tossing bags into the lift with Elsie.
"Where’s Reagan??" Darien didn’t stop but all the sudden Elsie heard him.
“SUCK IT BITCH! BACK OFF! YOU WONT HAVE THESE BRAINS!! HAHAHA!!" Reagan was bashing heads and laughing maniacally.
"Is he going crazy?"
"I think so." Darien said as he got the van emptied and jumped into the lift. Elsie began to worry. She couldn’t’ hear Reagan yelling anymore.
"REAGAN!!"
"I’m here. What?" somehow he has gotten over the van and was coming around the back into the lift. "Can we go now? I have red on me and would like to wash up."
"You’re an ass." Elsie sighed as she started the lift back up.
"You know they are trying to scale your house right?" Darien said quietly as they rode up.
"Yes. I’m going to shut the rest of the doors."
"Then how will we see?"
"The roof." They were silent as the lift doors opened and the silence continued as they unloaded the bags of weapons and congregated in the living room.

"DAYCARE!"
"GRASS FACE!" Reagan and Mary screamed at each other when Mary finally came away from the window.
"Daycare. I’m scared!"
"Its ok Mary. Lets go make lunch for everyone. We will all feel better after some sandwiches a nice cup of tea!"
"You’re a liar, but ok." as they left the mood seemed to lighten up.
"I’m glad they find solace at a time like this." Adrian said as he came back out of the office. Mike and the twins are coming. So are Ethan, Daniel, and Brice. I couldn’t get anyone else...so I’m assuming the worst.”
"That’s ok. I didn’t expect us all to be here." Darien said quietly. He hung his head and shivered a little. Elsie shuddered and walked into the office to watch the view screens. The mutated were wondering in the yard, though not aimlessly. The seemed to be waiting, searching, sniffing things out. Every now and then, above the shuffling sounds, Elsie almost swore she heard them talking.
"This is going to be a long day."

*****
1:30pm
Mike sat alone in his house for the first time in years. It was going on 2 in the afternoon and someone should have been home by now. He knew what he should be doing, but he couldn’t gain the courage to walk out the front door.
"Come on Michael. Come on you spineless piece of shit. Please. Come on!" He finally pried himself on the couch and walked to his closet, grabbed his baseball bat, and reached for the front door.
"Maybe I should call first, but they are only three houses down. Im sure they are ok. If I’m ok they are, right?"
He peered outside before stepping out, there was nothing. no wind, no people, no zombies.
"Ok man. Just, run!"
He broke into a full sprint the whole block and a half to the twins house. The door was open and his heart sank.
"Shit..."
Mike walked inside quietly, waiting for the onset of teeth and screeching, but nothing. It was all quiet. The entry way was picture perfect, but once he hit the living room he wretched. His friend’s parents were obviously dead, though there were no bodies, or at least no whole bodies. Blood and bits littered the room, and he thought he saw a hand on the coffee table. After emptying his nervous stomach behind the couch he continued walking room to room. Most was undisturbed but what would zombies want to steal anyway.
"Alex!! Avery!!" He stopped and listened. Somewhere beneath him he could hear light sobbing.
"ALEX!! AVERY!!"
"We’re down here!!! In the basement!!"
"WHAT! I didn’t even know you guys had a basement!"
"Are they still here?"
"Who?" As if on que the twins mother came shuffling out of the kitchen into the hallway with Mike. She stared him in the eye, or at least as much as she could, and sniffed the air. She reminded Mike of a dog, trying to catch the scent of a wild animal or escaped convict. He was rooted with fear as she stood there, wavering on her unsteady legs, side to side while sniffing like crazy. He took a sharp breath in and readied himself, waiting for her to attack, but instead she turned and shuffled back the way she came. he followed her cautiously to see why she hadn’t attacked him and realized she had other prey. He out post was on top of the basement door. She would duck down low to it and scratch away at the wood, trying to get to her own terrified children, growling and drooling. Mike wretched again at the thought of her devouring her own offspring and ran back out the front door. He knew if there was a basement there had to be more than one way in.

*****
2:45pm

"What’s taking them so long?" Darien was beginning to pace
"Who?" Elsie had forgotten they were expecting more. She became focused on the security screens.
"Mike and the twins? Mike is Mr. Punctual. Something is wrong."
"Should we go look for them." Elsie spoke before the thought.
"FUCK NO!" Adrian came out of the bedroom, his face red. The stress was getting to him and his asthma was going to as well, "This is every man for himself. We had to get here on our own, so does he. No one came looking for me, no one came looking for you and Reagan. Mike is a big boy, he will be fine. And Alex and Avery are fucking black belts, seriously, why risk it?"
"He has a point." Elsie muttered, "They will be here, and if not, then there wasn’t anything we could do."
"I know. It’s just, so surreal" Darien went back to looking out the window at the undead trying to climb. It seemed that they were working out a system. One almost looked as if it were inspecting the handy work of the iron drop door. Like it was searching for a weakness in the design. The thought that these things may be intelligent gave him chills.

Reagan and Mary came out of the kitchen with tea and sandwiches. "How’s this for a slice of fried gold?" Reagan was beaming.
"And how long have you been waiting to use that line?" Elsie said sarcastically.
"Long years baby, loooong years. Eat up. We all need strength, and to relax. This will be ok. We are safe here for the next 20 years. Elsie has enough shit stored back. We will be fine."
"Im with Reagan for once," Adrian said, "lets just chill out and wait, then we will see what needs to happen next."

*****
3:15pm

"Ok Gents! Lets get this show on the road!" Brice had his fathers old sawed off shotgun and a bandolier of shells across his chest. Oddly enough all he could think to himself was how much he felt like a real man.
"Fucks yeah!" Daniel was shoving homemade explosives into a gym bag and balancing an unsteady cigarette in his mouth.
"I’m not sure you should smoke around all that home made C-4 man!" Ethan was spinning his truck keys around his pointer finger while watching the other two gather up things. "That may be detrimental to our whole process here."
"Yeah yeah! Quite bitchin’ nigga and get in the truck. Misses wont be happy if we keep her worried, and I don’t want a lecture on punctuality again." Brice was heading out the front door as he spoke and Ethan started to laugh.
"Do you think we should get her something? Wine or something? To say thank you?" Daniel sounded sincere which made Ethan laugh harder.
"Man. This ain’t like were going over for dinner! This is survival! She ain’t gonna care if we bring her wine! She just cares that we show up alive!" The boys jumped into the truck and cranked it.
"So, here is the plan. We drive fast, I’m gonna lean my skinny ass out this window, and while were goin’ down the road, I’m gonna bash a few niggas head in for practice!" Brice already had his hands steady on a tire iron he grabbed out of the back of the truck and was leaning halfway out the window with a childish grin on his face. Ethan shook his head and Daniel sat in back, knees folded up to his chest and silently prayed.

*****
3:45pm

After an hour of slowly walking around the house Mike found the little window that led to the basement, as he looked in he could see the twins sitting in a corner. Alex was weeping and Avery was holding his brother and staring up the stairs to where his mother would be clawing at the floor wanting nothing more than to render his flesh from bone. Mike smashed in the window and Alex screamed. This excited his undead mother who began to tear at the door with a new fervor.
"COME ON!! You can fit through here right?"
"Yes! We’ve done it several times!" Alex was lifted first, he was to scared to manage it on his own. After Mike hauled him through he reached down for Avery, who jumped to reach the windows ledge and Mike’s outstretched hands. Just as he began to haul himself up, the zombie mother had broken though the door, breaking a hand off in the process. She ran at her son, screaming and spitting up a mixture of blood and dry mouth foam. Avery screamed and tried frantically to haul himself up quicker, but his belt got caught on the clasp of the window and he couldnt wriggle free.
"IM STUCK!"
Mike tugged at his friend but he wouldn’t budge, half in and half out, stuck on his trade mark girl belt, with his own mother bearing down on him. She grabbed a leg that was flailing and bit into his ankle. The pain made him jerk enough to loosen himself and writhe out of the window. Mike grabbed him and the three of them ran out into the street to get away. The scent of the blood traveled quickly, and more undead began filling into the streets with them..like sharks at feeding time.
“Boys...its been fun.”

The car ride wasn’t so bad. There was virtually no traffic, and what little actually was there wasn’t moving vehicles, and Brice had long since had his fill of head smashing and had resorted to singing Reggie and the Full Effect at the top of his lungs. Just as they thought the ride was going to get boring, they saw a crowd of the mutated gathering in the street.
"Hello My Pretties!" Brice yelled as he grabbed his tire iron up again.
"Wait..what are they gathered around?" Ethan slowed down. In the middle of the undead there was obvious commotion. Mike, Alex, and Avery were beating there way out of the crowd, and doing surprisingly well.
"Holy shit! We have to help them!" Before Brice could make a plan, Daniel was already climbing out into the bed of the truck.
"GUYS! Hold em back! Were coming to help! Gas it Ethan!!" Ethan revved the truck to plow through the dead and intercept. Brice climbed out into the back as well and was helping Daniel beat back the ones trying to climb in. Mike, Alex, and Avery jumped into the back and Ethan took off. The five boys just sat in the back looking at each other.
“Intense isn’t it?" Brice yelled over the wind, still bearing his childish grin.
"That’s the understatement of the day!" Alex yelled. They laughed, but rode the rest of the way in silence. Avery took his bandana he always wore around his wrist and tied it around his ankle to stop the blood. He prayed for two things and two things only. That the movies were wrong, and he wouldn’t turn while still alive, and that his friends wouldn’t notice his bandana was missing. They would ask, and he couldn’t lie, and then they would kill him, and who would watch Alex.

As the truck pulled in Ethan laid on the horn the whole way to the garage. Elsie was already in the lift coming down, she had seen then coming before they hit the property.
"GODDAMN IT REAGAN!! Other people have to park here too!!" The van had been left, no one had even thought about needing to move it. As Elsie and Darien came down the lift Ethan was sliding into the back of the van sideways to knock it out of the way.
"Not my fucking van!!" But Darien had no choice. The tail end was smashed, but repairable, and the side of Ethan’s truck was imprinted with the vans back half and license plate. Mike, Brice, Daniel, Alex and Avery all climbed out of the truck and ran to the lift while Ethan grabbed the bag and sauntered over with a smile.
"Hello love! Miss me? I brought gifts!"
"Just get in here!" Elsie screamed, "This is no time for cute!" Ethan got in as a wave of undead came after the lift. Elsie and Alex screamed, though it was hard to tell who's was who's. More than half the wave began to claw their way into the lift and were beaten back by Elsie, Darien, and Ethan. After the lift doors were shut tight they all collapsed to the floor and a series of hugs and short pleasantries were exchanged.
"I wanted to bring you wine, but they said no." Daniel all but whispered in the silence. Elsie smiled.
"Thank you love, but I don’t think it would have helped." She kissed his forehead and smiled. "I do like your haircut though. Maybe if we all survive I’ll get some pictures."

*****
4:40 pm

The lift door opened for what they all hoped was the last time. After it was unloaded Elsie closed and locked them tight. While the others were talking and exchanging stories, she went to lock up the rest of the house. Adrian was in the study watching the screens. He had wet rag over his face and cold sweat on his brow. The intercom system was flooding with screaming, growling, and shuffling, occasionally you could hear something breaking, like body parts falling off, or the crash on door where they were throwing themselves into it.
"Ready for the lock down?" Elsie looked at Adrian, noticing he was becoming significantly paler.
"Ready when you are dear." He smiled and took her hand in his. Together they threw the switch and watched as the outside world disappeared behind cold iron and steel. "We should be safe now. Things will be ok."
"I hope your right." Elsie looked Adrian in the eyes, searching for a hint of fear, and finding none, removed hers as well. If he believed it, she would too. Things would be ok.

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