Through a Filter

by Omegapony

Prologue: Just Another Day At School

Prologue: Just Another Day At School

Mr. Benns never had a real talent for teaching yet he still teaches Physics Honors at our highschool.
"God, Physics can be so boring." Thought Kaio. He leans over to his friend since fifth grade, Matt. "Why does he just go on and on about the same shit we've already covered months ago?"

"Because finals week is next week and he thinks we're retarded, even though we're in Honors." Matt responds.

The school bell rings signaling the end of class and the beginning of lunch. Mr. Benns tries to talk over the bell. "And remember, finals is next week so get good nights of rest and study!" No one listens to him while they're rushing out of the door. Kaio and Matt rush to their respective lockers to put their books away and find each other outside to start the walk to Matt's car.

"Well, at least we only have one class left after lunch and our free period." Matt says.

"Yeah, but it's math." Kaio responds.

"And? It's not that bad." Matt says as he drives up to Kaio's house. They say goodbye to each other and Matt drives up to his house. Nearly two hours later, after lunch and the free period are over, Matt drives himself and Kaio back to the high school.

"Alright, well, I'll see you after class." Matt says to Kaio. He goes to his math class on the third floor after getting the required books.

After about half an hour, toward the end of class, Kaio is looking out of the window on the ground floor and sees a person aimlessly wandering around the track and field. This person looked as if they were dangerously sick. Some people, who ended school early, went over to the sick person to make sure he is alright.

"Kaio, what is so interesting outside that you're completely ignoring me?" Mrs. Fennello asks.

"Sorry, I was just looking at-"

Kaio's response is interrupted by a couple of screams from outside. Everyone (the teacher included) looks outside in horror as they see someone being attacked by a sick person. One of the girls in the class screams as she sees a spurt of blood erupt from the victim. Someone screams something about zombies and runs out of the door.

"Where are you going?" Asks Mrs. Fennello.

"Getting the hell out of here!" The jock yells back. A couple of other people run out as well, leaving Kaio and a couple of others looking out to the field. The 'zombie' is struck off of it's victim by one of the coaches with a broom. The sick man takes no notice of the pain and is only more enraged by the interruption of its feeding. He pounces onto the coach who punches the man. Right after the coach is bitten on his arm, one of the football players kicks the zombie off.

A police car pulls into the small driveway of the highschool. An officer runs out of his car and into the field pulling out a stun gun. The police officer warns the sick man who doesn't heed to his warning and charges the officer. He shoots the sick man with the stun gun and shocks him. The man is only stunned slightly by the police officer and begins to charge again.

Another officer shoots the sick man with his glock eliciting a couple of screams and then silence. The bell rings a couple of moments after the gunshot startling everyone. Kaio jogs out of the classroom into the hallway. He goes to his locker and sees Matt at his, which is at the other end of the hall. After the two get their backpacks, Matt walks over to Kaio.

"What happened? I heard a gunshot and everyone is going crazy." Matt asks.

"Some dude bit one of the coaches and the cops showed up and shot him." Kaio told him.

"So like a zombie?" Matt asks as they start out to the school's larger lot where Matt's car was parked.

"Yeah."

When outside, Matt and Kaio see a bunch of cops and ambulances. The two get into Matt's car and take the other road to their block since the other road was blocked by police. Kaio saw a couple paramedics trying to hold the coach from before so that they can help him but he refused.

"I don't need your damn help!"

"Sir, please remain calm. We're trying to help here." One of the paramedics told the man. The coach struck a paramedic causing a police officer to restrain him.

"Shit" muttered Kaio to himself looking out the window of Matt's car.

Once the two got to their street, Kaio got out of the car and told Matt,

"I'm going to grab some shit from my house and I'll be back."

"Wait dude should I wait here?!"

"Sure."

Kaio opened his doors and went to his room grabbing his acoustic guitar, he would have taken his electric but you don't need an amp for an acoustic. He also took his mp3 player and a charger for it. Kaio proceeded to go to his kitchen and take the knifes he had in there including a machete, survival knifes, and pocket knifes. He took his backpack and loaded it up with as much canned food as he could and went back outside.

Kaio ran to the car and Matt pushed the passenger door open. Matt was bewildered at the sight of all the supplies his friend was carrying.

"Why are you bringing so much shit?" Matt asks.

"Well, I don't know. Maybe it's because some guy got eaten in front of the school."

"True." Matt decided he couldn't argue at that and pulled up to his house which was only a few houses up the street. They both went into Matt's house and turned on the news. There was nothing about the incident yet. Matt and Kaio just hung out until it got dark. At that point, Matt let Kaio sleep at his house in his brother's room because he was deployed at the Korean DMZ.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Halfway throughout the night, Matt was woken up by police sirens. He walked over to his window and saw a police car down the block, speeding off. 'I wonder what that's about.' He thought. Matt thought nothing of it and went back to sleep.

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" a scream rang out through the morning air.

What the fuck? Though Kaio waking up from his dreamless sleep. He swung his legs over to the side of the bed, did a quick stretch and got up. Still wary from the scream he grabbed a pocket knife from the counter and opened the door to the room. At that point Matt started down the stairs with his 9in knife and went to the window moving the shades very slightly and peeking out.

"What's happening out there?" Inquired Kaio.

"Nothing I can see, that scream was freaky as fuck though." said Matt retreating from the window.

"Agreed" Kaio said before folding up the pocket knife and putting it in his pocket.

"So Reese's Puffs?" Asked Matt.

"Yup." said Kaio

They then proceeded to eat breakfast and watch the news.

"We're here at Deymond Highschool where one of the employees was attacked by a still unidentified man who had also moments before killed student Marcas Jones. Police arrived at the scene and were attacked by the man who was then shot and killed. It is believed that the man had been using some sort of hallucinogen. The police have yet to publish a full report on the incident." That seemed to be the only thing that the news channel had to say about the 'zombie'.

After watching the news and finishing their late breakfast they played Dead Space 3 for about 4 hours and decided to replay Metro: Last Light for another 4 in an attempt to get the good ending. Finally it was 6:00PM and the two had gotten tired of sitting around doing nothing.

Kaio suggested the idea of looking around the town because they saw all of the police cars and ambulances driving around.

"Why not?" Matt said as he took some stuff including a backpack with his knife in there out to the car. Matt drove a little slow due to the fog. They drove around their small town for a bit until they found the police station. They opened the door and walked in.

"May I help you?" asked the man at the counter.

"Uh yeah, we just wanted to know what was going on. First, a guy gets killed at our school, the-" Kaio is interrupted by the receptionist's desk phone ringing.

"Hold on a second. Deymond Police department, how may I help you?" Said the man.

"There's a man outside my house and he's trying to break in!" said a woman over the line.

"Ma'm I'm going to need you to calm down. Now, what does he look like?" asked the officer.

"He looks like he's covered in blood and he's trying to break down the window!" sobbed the woman

"Alright ma'm just tell me where you live and we'll dispatch some officers over there."

"13 Lindenel Avenue, come quickly please!" said the woman.

He pulled the radio that was on his chest and said. "Can a few officers in the area check out a 10-33 potential breaking and entering at 13 Lindenel Ave."

"So is there anything else I can help you two boys out with?" said the officer looking up.

"No thanks anyway." said Matt leaving the building with Kaio.

"Did you notice the way he avoided the question?" asked Kaio.

"Well he kind of did get a call." Matt responded.

"Yeah but even so, you wouldn't forget the question."

"Yeah, I guess" Said Matt going to the car. "I wanna check out the market, see if there's anything good."

Kaio had no objection and they both drove to Stop N' Shop. They got a few food items including beans and cereals. After they loaded everything into the car, they decided to look at S-4 Military Surplus and Supplies before they went home. On the drive to the store, they both saw a group of people walking around in the middle of a street that they passed.

Matt drove off faster despite the fog because he was worried about the fact that there were so many people acting strange. He saw that the highway was filled with traffic and almost couldn't even get off of the ramp. Matt drove into the parking lot of S-4 with his eyes on the only spot left. They entered S-4 to find that there were quite bit more customers in the military surplus store than usual. A lot more in fact.

While Matt was browsing some of the survival knives that they had, Kaio was looking around at other things. He went over to Matt with two gasmasks and a box of filters for them.

"Gasmasks? Why would we need them?" Matt asked.

"You never know. We might need them if there is some kind of gas leak. Plus, they look pretty boss."

"Fine." Matt sighs. "Is there anything else that you think we need?"

"Nope."

Matt walks up to the line to the cashier with Kaio following suit. Matt had to admit, they did look pretty cool.

What it looks like

He paid for the gasmasks and the filters. Luckily, they weren't too expensive. Matt and Kaio walked to the car, deciding that taking side roads back would be much faster than the highway.

Unfortunately, their idea of taking the side roads wasn't at all original.

"Why the fuck is everyone in their damn cars? Just 'cause one guy got his face eaten doesn't mean that there is a zombie apocalypse going on! It happened in Florida didn't it? No one there seemed to have given enough fucks to evacuate the fucking state!" Matt was infuriated because he wanted to at least move a couple of inches in his car but the oncoming traffic isn't letting him go.

"Don't get so pissed off. We don't know if there actually has been an infection or something. Actually..." Kaio turns on the radio to try and listen if there was an evacuation. A female voice of a newscaster came on mid-sentence.

"-are warning citizens in Bergen County to evacuate. The police has not released any further information on the incident in the hospital other than advice for citizens to pack their belongings and evacuate the county."

"Holy shit. I wonder what happened at the hospital." Matt said as he managed to turn around and found another route to his house.

"Yeah. If it's enough to evacuate our entire county then it must be pretty big." Kaio replies. "Let's head back to your house and get our shit then try and head over the bridge."

"Sure but that's going to take a while thanks to these fuckers!" Matt said honking the horn at some truck in front of him.

Eventually the two finally made it to Matts house and started organizing all their survival gear into several bags.

"Kaio, I'm going to get my dad's Ruger!" Matt shouted to Kaio from the basement.

"Yeah, sure just hurry up bro, we gotta go soon!" replied Kaio.

Matt gets the key from up on the rafters and opens the gun cabinet. There were a couple BB guns and .22 rifles in the small cabinet. On the top shelf of it, there was a small case that held a 9mm Ruger P89. Matt grabbed all of the 9mm ammo that was there and went back upstairs.

Kaio had just finished grabbing a bunch of food that would last a while and put it into a backpack when he realized that they need a portable stove so they could cook the food. Matt told Kaio to the M18 Tomahawk and the Fiskars hatchet from his brother's room while he gets the portable stove and some propane tanks from the unfinished storage room upstairs.

After the two believed to have gotten everything that they needed they loaded the packs into Matt's car.

"Can you go start the car, I gotta do something first." Matt requested. He began to write in a Sharpy pen on a blank piece of paper:

"Dear whomever may reside in this house while I'm away,

Get the fuck out of my house.

Unless of course you're a friend of my family or you are my family. And to the latter, I have a message. Me and Kaio took my car as soon as we heard about the Bergen County evacuation. If a long amount of time has passed and we're still not back, we've probably fucking died perished or this place became a shithole was too dangerous. Please call me or Kaio because we have our phones and will try to come back if you want us to. Love you.

Goodbye for now I guess,

Matthew"

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[That One Hunter]