Welcome to Hell
The sound of silence couldn't have been anymore terrifying. We were in enemy territory and something was just waiting to come out of nowhere and kill us. With silence in the darkness, we didn't know where they were.
But the gear I kept close to my side gave me a sense of relief. I had a machete in my hand and two handguns holstered by the sides of my waist. My two friends, Matt and Jonathan, had their gear on as well. Matt was very athletic and had a strong build. He liked to use shotguns more so he had his pump action 12 gauge in hand. He also kept a handgun on his waist along with an empty backpack for our objective supplies. Jonathan was tough as well (not as much as Matt though) and preferred to use meele weapons. "They're way quieter" he always says but he still had an AK-47 by his side. He was holding a baseball bat in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
We were searching for food and supplies in an abandoned grocery store. The entire building was shrouded in darkness; nothing could be seen except for the light coming from Jonathan's flashlight and the moon light entering in through the windows. As we went through aisle to aisle in search of food and water, we stuck to a tight formation, sneaking swiftly and silently with Jonathan in the lead, I in the middle, and Matt in the rear.
We were just about to leave one aisle until Jonathan suddenly stopped. There was something was blocking our path. Jonathan pointed his flashlight towards it to see what it was. It was a zombie.
The rotting corpse was laying down on the floor with its head looking up. Once it noticed us, it started to move around, groaning and trying to get up in order to consume our flesh. It rolled over and started to lift itself up.
"Don't worry guys. I got this." Matt said as he aimed his shotgun at the infected creature.
"Are you fucking stupid?" asked Jonathan. "That blast is gonna attract every zombie outside the store."
"He's right. I'll take care of this." I said.
I walked towards the zombie as it was nearly all the way up and swung my blade from the side. The zombie's head rolled on the floor and the body collapsed. My machete was covered in blood.
"Holy shit Trent, nice one." Matt said excitedly.
"Thanks. I just love how they fall." I said.
We got back in our original formation and proceded to obtain our objective. We passed a few more aisles until we found canned goods. Soup, noodles, ramen, ect. we took whatever we could find. Matt took out his emty backpack and we filled it up with everything we needed. It was heavy, but not for Matt. That strength of his has helped us out a lot.
We left the aisle and proceeded to obtain water. It was just a few aisles away. We kept walking until I steped on something. I stopped to see what it was. I squinted my eyes in focus in order to observe it; hopfully the moon light would aid me. It was a box of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic gummy snacks. Oh did that take me back. Yes I am a brony. I always enjoyed watching the show before the whole world went to hell. I was made fun of a lot at my high school for it but I never let it bother me. I loved the ponies especially Fluttershy, she's my favorite. Her long beautiful, pink mane, her adorable voice, her kind and loving personality, I loved everything about her.
I must of been zoned out, thinking about ponies for a while because I heard my name being yelled by Jonathan.
"Trent? Trent! Dude, you okay?"
"Yeah." I responded. "Just got distracted! That's all."
"Well don't let it happen again. You don't wanna drop your gaurd."
"I know. I know."
I regrouped with them. We kept walking until we found bottled water. We took about six gallon jugs and gave it to Matt to hold. Matt was now full handed, but not defenseless, he had spent all four years of high school playing varsity football. I'll bet he can take down a whole group of zombies empty handed.
"Alright that's it." I said. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
Matt and Jonathan nodded their heads in agreement. We ran as fast as we could to the main entrance. Once we were outside, we saw a whole herd of 15 to 20 zombies in the parking lot.
"Fuck!" Matt yelled.
"Don't use your ammo! We can still get through them." Jonathan said.
I agreed with his statement and held on tight to my machete. Jonathan put his flashlight away in his pocket and grabbed his bat with both hands. Matt kept hold of the food and water; it was cleary obvious that he chose himself as his weapon.
We ran towards the undead like warriors on the battlefield, killing each zombie one after the other. Matt would through himself towards one and once it was lying down on the ground, he would stomp on its head, turing its brains to mush. Jonathan was hitting heads with his bat causing them either to be torn off the body or be turned into chuncks and pieces. I was stabbing and cutting off as many heads as I could. It took us about ten minutes to kill every last zombie. Once the violence ceased there was a silent moment between us. We laughed for a bit after the pause but we still had a job to do.
We sprinted to our red pickup truck. Once there, Jonathan took the driver's seat, I sat in the passenger seat and Matt placed the food and water in the trunk and then sat there with them. Our mission was complete. We drove back to our base camp, back to our fellow survivors.
I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Trent. I am 17 years old and my friends and I have spent the past two months surving in a zombie apocalypse.
***********
The skies were perfectly clear tonight. Ever since Day 1 of this shit there hasn't been as much light pollution so I could see more stars then before. It was beautiful.
I was completely drawn in by the amazing beauty of the night sky when Jonathan spoke up, "So how you feelin' ?"
"Okay I guess. Why?"
"It's just, you've been really quiet lately. "
"Sorry, guess I got drawn into the sky. There're so much stars out and..."
"That's not what I ment." He interrupteded. "Ever since shit hit the fan you've been keeping to yourself more. You don't talk as much as you used to."
It's true, I have been acting quiet lately and I know it. This whole ordeal that we've had to endure for two months and counting has brought a lot to my mind. I can't stop thinking about what will or could happen to all of us. It's been putting me on edge and keeps me up at night.
"Yeah I know. I've just been thinking about a lot of stuff, that's all." I responded.
"You wanna talk about it?"
"No thanks. I'm good."
"Look Trent, I know you went through a lot of crazy, fucked up shit, hell, we all did. I understand that you feel like you've got a bigger responsibility than us what with your little brothers. I can respect the fact that you don't wanna talk about it, but just know that if you do wanna talk, I'm here."
"Thanks man."
Jonathan's words gave me a sense of relief. When he said that I could talk to him, I trusted him. He and I grew up together, we met at age five, we went to the same schools for 12 years, and we shared the same experiences. He was almost like a brother to me.
Jonathan kept driving for a few more minutes until we finally arrived back to base camp. It was actually my family's house before the zombies showed up. Since it was the only one of our group's houses that was big enough to accommodate all of us, we turned it into our base. We have no power or heating or running water. We just make due with what we have.
Jonathan pulled into the diveway, next to our white mini van. Once we got out, Matt and Jonathan grabbed the food and water and I lifted the garage door, manually. We would have used the front door but we barricaded it from the inside. We ran in fast since the sound of the garage door lifting up could possibly attract zombies. All three of ran in quickly. I shut the garage door closed. We were glad to finally be back home. I opened the door and we entered into the kitchen.
It was there that we were welcomed back by our weapons expert, JP, who was sitting at the counter cleaning his M4 rifle. We were lucky to have JP on our team. His dad was in the army and tought JP everything he knew about guns. If JP died on Day 1 and didn't get us the weapons and ammo from his family's gun safe, we would all be walking, undead corpses right now. We owe a lot to him.
"Oh hey guys. I take it the scouting mission went well?" He said.
Matt replied "Yup. We got enough food and water to keep us going for a while. We ran into a few zombie fucks, but everything still went better than expected."
"Awesome. Just set them over here and I'll take inventory when I'm done with this."
Matt placed the gathered supplies on the counter along with his gear. JP liked to keep track of all the firearms we used. Jonathan and I gave him our guns and ammo but we kept the meele weapons. I kept my machete in its sheath by my side. Feeling tired from our late-night mission, Matt and Jonathan decided to go upstairs to turn in, but I stayed awake for while longer.
I walked toward the family room where I heard the sound laughter and crackling fire. The rest of the team was sitting on the couch, or any other chairs, talking and telling jokes and stories. To keep our morale levels high we try to entertain ourselves in anyway possible; story telling and playing musical instruments is by far the best way.
As I walked in, I was greeted by my fellow survivors.
Sitting on one of the chairs was Ben and sitting on his lap was his blonde girlfriend Erin. Ben was our hunting guy and cook. He had dreams of going to culinary school and learning more about gourmet. He also has a lot of experience with hunting and he sometimes brings fresh meat to the table.
Erin was the only girl in the group which made all of us jealous of Ben. She tends to be very motherly towards us as in being bossy. I guess being surrounded by boys must make her want to have some type of dominance. Sometimes she complains about our "messed up lifestyles" and always wishes for another girl to join our team. I can relate to the latter.
Our black guy, Alex, was sitting in another chair and was holding a handgun. Alex was our best gun slinger. His aim and accuracy left us all breathless. That skill of his has gotten us out of some tough situations. He always kept a gun by his side, he says it makes him feel more comfortable.
The two people sitting on the couch were my 15 year old brother Andrew and my 9 year old brother Logan who had fallen asleep and was resting his head on Andrew's shoulder.
Seeing my friend's faces reminded me of the good old days. We all met back in middle school except for Erin, who we met in high school. Matt and JP were some of the first people Jonathan and I met during 6th grade. We instantly became friends. We were like a group of main characters in a sitcom show. A while later, we met Ben and Alex who joined our circle of social interaction. Once high school started, I met Erin who I introduced to the gang. It took him till junior year for Ben to ask her out and here they are now, still in love when the world has gone to hell. We all had good times, got in trouble a lot, got physically hurt a lot, but they were great memories I would never give up.
My brother Andrew and I were the only bronies in the group. We used to have a sibling rivaly between us but as we grew up, it went away, especially when we started to watch Friendship is Magic. I discovered it when season 2 was out and then showed it to Andrew. We both fell in love with it. We became closer the more we watched it. We tried to introduce it to Logan but he didn't like it.
"Hey Trent." they all said one after the other.
"Did you guys get anything good?" Alex questioned.
"Just some food and water."
"Zombie problems?" asked Ben.
"Yeah. We ran into a group of them but we killed 'em all."
"Nice." he responded.
After wondering how long my littlest brother had been asleep, I addressed the subject to Andrew.
"Hey, how long has Logan been asleep?"
"Oh, he fell asleep about an hour ago." He responded
"He had a pretty hard day." Erin said. "I don't blame him."
"And you didn't bother to take him upstairs?" I asked.
"He looks so peaceful. I didn't wanna wake him." Andrew said.
"You lazy piece of shit." Alex said jokingly.
"Here, I got him." I said.
I picked Logan up ever so gently to avoid awaking him. Holding my youngest brother in my arms, I took him to his room upstairs. As I went up the flight of stairs with Logan in my arms, I couldn't stop worrying about him. I wondered what this apocalypse has done to him, to his innocence, to his childhood. We lost our parents, everyone in the group did, and how did that effect him? I thought about it everyday.
When I got to his room I put him in bed and tucked him in. I was just about to leave when I heard his voice in a very tired and sleepy tone.
"Trent? Is that you?"
Crap, I woke him.
"Yeah buddy, it's me."
"How was getting food?" he asked
"It went good. We found some zombies but we killed 'em all."
"Okay. I was scared that they got you."
"Well aren't you glad they didn't?"
"Yeah."
I walked over to him and patted his head to comfort him.
"Now I want you to get some rest okay? We gotta keep our strength up to fight off all the zombies."
"Okay. Good night Trent."
"Good night bud."
I exited the room and closed the door behind me. As I was walking down the stairs, I was approached by Andrew.
"Hey bro." he greeted.
"Oh hey Andrew."
"Quick question, are you planning on going scouting again tomorrow?"
"Yeah, sometime in the morning with JP. Why? You wanna come?"
I was against him going on scouting missions on a regular basis. We already lost our mom and dad, and he and Logan were the only family I had left. I didn't want to risk losing him.
He answered, "It's just, I don't get to go scouting as much as you guys do, and you may say it's because I'm younger, but I'm 15, I can handle it."
A part of me wanted to let him come with us but another part of me wanted him to stay. I understood his need and desire to go see the outside world and what dangers it held. He was always the adventurous type.
I let out a sigh and told him my decision.
"Alright you can come with us."
He responded with a "Yes!" filled with glee and happiness.
"But..." I continued.
"Oh here it comes." He said in an annoyed tone.
"You gotta get up early or we're leaving without you."
"That's it? No problem."
"Alright sounds good. Now let's get back to the group."
"Hells yeah!"