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Right, well I've decided to post in chapters rather than at just random intervals... so here's chapter three...all of it...

Chap. 3.
Invoke a sense of well being.

#1
Cody woke up the next morning and continued the monotonous routine of following the stretch of grass. He was already feeling the pangs of hunger and the burning of thirst after about ten minutes.
The day dragged on and the hunger became Cody’s main concern. It still wasn’t bad enough to impede his progress much, but he knew that he had to find food soon.
Just as Cody was beginning to consider trying to eat some of the dried out, yellow grass for whatever scant nourishment it would provide, he saw a small dot on the horizon of the beach. His first thought was to run and find out what it was as fast as possible but he held himself back, considering the distance to it; he would just get too exhausted to run at about a quarter of the way there.
After he had walked for another hour and a half, he saw that the dot was square in shape and had a gray looking lump lying next to it. After another ten minutes he identified the lump as a humanoid shape and ran the rest of the way. It was still another three minutes before he made it close enough to identify the human shape as John and the square dot as a wooden crate. Thirty seconds after that, still running, he dropped to his knees in exhaustion and skidded to a stop in the sand.
“John!” Cody called out, still about twenty yards away from him.
“What?” John said, sounding irritated in the way that people aroused from sleep usually do. He must have realized where he was sleeping, however, because he pushed himself up quickly. He looked around with an astonished expression on his face before resting his gaze on Cody as he stood up. “What the hell is going on?”
“Apparently an experiment in ingenuity.” Cody, who had gotten up on shaky legs and walked over to John while he had been looking around, responded.
“What?”
“Check your pockets.”
John complied and found a similar note to Cody’s. The only immediately noticeable difference was that it mentioned the crate as a “gift from the management.”
“This is weird,” John said after reading the letter aloud.
“Yep. If the test is about survival, why give us the crate, right?”
“No, I mean before I woke up on the beach here.”
“What was weird about it?”
“Well, for one you were dead, and for another I was trapped in the car.”
“Wait, I was dead?” Cody asked, astonished.
“Well, it’s probably just what the notes mentioned about our loved ones thinking we were dead. It was probably just a set-up.” John paused to see if Cody was going to say anything more on the subject. “Right, well that’s not the point. The point is that just before I woke up here, I was trapped in the car, surrounded by zombies. The last thing that I remember before waking up here is that they had begun to dismantle the car to get to me.”
“So, you’re dead? Is that what you’re saying?” Cody asked flatly.
“What? No! The people behind this experiment probably saved me at the last moment.” John said, almost defensively
“Alright, that makes more sense.” Cody paused. “Anyway, wanna look inside the crate?”
John didn’t respond, but, in stead, stepped over to the crate and pulled off the lid. Inside was the eight-barreled gun that Cody had used. Lying next to this was what appeared to be two handguns conjoined at the handle and a pair of tinted goggles.
“Sweet!” Cody exclaimed and grabbed the eight-barreled gun. John didn’t say anything, but grabbed the two-barreled one and the goggles. He raised the gun in front of him to see if he could aim with such a strange weapon and found it difficult.
“What do you think these are for?” He asked Cody indicating the goggles.
“I dunno, try ‘em on.”
John paused, considering that they might be some sort of trap, before slipping them on and looking around. Other than the dark tint, nothing seemed different. He raised the two-barreled gun in experimentation and found the barrels to me pivoting slightly as the handle remained stationary. He tried to figure out what they were doing but couldn’t make any sense of it; their small quick movements didn’t make any sense to him.
“Here, see if you can make any sense of this.” He said as he slipped them off and handed them and the gun to Cody.
“Alright,” He said and put the goggles on. He took the gun, looked down at it, and then looked off into the horizon. He repeated this procedure of looking from the horizon to the gun about three times, the gun seemed to move a few degrees each time he looked up. “Cool.” He said as he began to look around randomly.
“What?”
“The guns point where you look. Here,” He slipped off the goggles and handed them and the gun back to John. “Just don’t look right at the gun, it starts to twitch and I don’t think that’s good for it.”
“Alright.” John, who had already put the goggles back on, replied. He experimented with it and found what Cody said to be true, they followed the movements of his eyes perfectly. “How did you know to look out there to figure that out?” He asked without looking at Cody.
“Oh, I thought I saw something out there.”
John looked but didn’t see anything.
“Well, I’m gonna see how accurate the gun is, so step back.” John said. Cody complied. John looked into the crate once more to check if they had missed anything, they hadn’t. He stepped back and looked at a knothole in the side of the wood. “Ready?” He asked Cody.
“Do I really need to be?”
“It’s probably gonna be loud.”
“Just shoot.”
John put his pointer finger in the left trigger loop and his little finger in the right, refocused his slightly wandering gaze back on the knothole and clenched his fist. There were two loud, simultaneous blasts, and the knothole widened about a half an inch. Along with the blast, two other holes blasted out of the other side of the crate and splinters littered the beach for about three feet behind them.
“Not bad eh?” John asked.
“Dude, they didn’t even hit the same spot, they-“
“Yeah, look.” John said, bending down and pointing to the, now rugged, edges of the knothole.
“Then what’re those?” Cody asked, pointing at the two holes in the back of it.
“The bullets crossed each other’s path. The crate didn’t stop them.”
“Oh, right.”
“Idiot.” John said as he lifted the goggles to his forehead.
“You wouldn’t even know how to use the gun if it wasn’t for me.” Cody said angrily.
“Meh, I’d have figured it out eventually.” John said, ignoring Cody’s anger. “Anyway, I’m hungry. Any idea what to do about food?”
“No idea. I’ve been out here since yesterday without anything to eat or drink.”
“Well, I guess we should go look for something, then.”
Cody agreed, despite how tired his legs were and told John which direction he had walked from and they started walking in the opposite one.

#2
My uncle and I were sitting in front of his television, watching a truly ominous news report.

In what is sure to be one of the most perplexing and disastrous events of our time; a team of scientists in southern California accidentally stumbled upon a chemical that induces zombification in human beings. The original scientists were infected by their creation and symptoms quickly spread across the state, where police officials from the surrounding states attempted to halt the outbreak. It would appear that they were unsuccessful, however, as there have been reports from all across the united states of zombified individuals.
Once introduced into the bloodstream this chemical deludes itself into the bodily fluids of the individual, both making them able to convert others and affecting their mental and biological functions to appear as if they were the living dead. These symptoms include a gray or pale skin tone, a blank look about the individual and a reduction of fine motor skills, resulting in slow, often clumsy, leg and arm movement. Other, less noticeable symptoms include a sharp decrease in skin temperature, either an unusually slow and weak pulse or no pulse at all, and an apparent lack of need for oxygen.
According to our sources, the symptoms take anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours to become apparent, as a result of this barriers are to be erected at the borders of all the major cities in the North American region. We are told that it’s become standard procedure to bar any and all individuals access either into or out of city limits.
We advise viewers to stay indoors if at all possible. Bar your windows and lock your doors, for individuals afflicted with the condition are aggressive and, with sufficient numbers, will employ group tactics. If you see an individual who appears to have symptoms of zombification avoid contact at all costs, contact your local authorities and report what you saw, and do not kill or injure them. I repeat, do not harm them in any way. A cure is well on its way to being developed and killing of these individuals will very possibly result in criminal charges in the aftermath of the crisis.

They began to reiterate earlier points to anyone just tuning in and giving tips on fortifying one’s house against the “zombie threat” as they began calling it.
“It’s some kind of joke right?” I asked my uncle, the waver of fear entering my voice. It wasn’t the news report itself that elicited fear; it was the clips they showed of people being attacked by groups of what were apparently zombies.
“I don’t know,” He said almost to himself before looking down at me and seeing how scared I was. “Yeah, probably.”
A loud knock on the door startled both of us. Upon opening it to see who it was, we found a harried looking man wearing a disheveled business suit. He had dark hair and a cut over his left eyebrow.
“You need to come with me,” He said immediately.
“This wouldn’t happen to be about the zombies we heard about on the news would it?” My uncle asked.
“Yeah, Joe said he had to come in early from the fields, something about a quarantine. The police have all the main roads out of town blocked off now; they won’t let anyone out.”
“So, this isn’t some kind of joke, then?” My uncle asked disconcertedly.
“Doesn’t look like it.” The dark haired man replied, “Who’s the kid?” He asked, looking at me.
“Oh, right. He’s my nephew.” My uncle said distractedly, with a thoughtful look on his face.
“Name’s Larry.” He said, now looking at me, as if sizing up how much of a burden I would be for whatever he had come to get my uncle..
“Tom,” I replied, trying not to sound as afraid as I felt. The images of those people being attacked were still flashing around inside my head.
“Right, well Todd, me and some of the guys at work are gonna try and evacuate. I’ve heard talk that outbreaks have already started. You remember Smith, from the hospital?” He paused and my uncle nodded. “He said that they were tied up with people who came in with bite marks.”
“Christ,” My uncle said worriedly.
“What?”
“His brother’s at the hospital right now,” He said tilting his head in my direction to indicate whom he was talking about.
Larry paused for a moment, in thought. “Well, we can’t just leave him there. Lord knows how many people have been turned by now.”
“How many people have you told about the evacuation, anyway?” My uncle asked as we walked towards his jeep.
“We were planning on going door to door, but it doesn’t look like it’s necessary. Most of the people left unturned are at the roadblocks trying to get out. I was just out there, got pistol whipped for even trying to reason with the policemen out there.”
“Damn, how’d you get here then?” My uncle asked as he looked around for a car that Larry might’ve driven.
“Mike brought me in his families van.”
“Where is he now?”
“He went to go and take care of his wife and youngest girl. They were both bitten.” Larry said sadly.
Seven minutes, twelve blocks, and a religious fanatic screaming about the end being near later, we were at the hospital.
“Stay in the car,” My uncle said to me as he got out. “Don’t unlock the doors for anyone.”
“Alright,” I said and he closed the door.
The two of them disappeared into the hospital doors and everything seemed to get deathly quiet. I watched the doors, waiting for them to come back out, until I got bored and turned to the opposite window to see what was over there. There was a woman standing in what appeared to be a nightgown in the parking lot of the pharmaceutical building. She was moving very slowly towards the building and didn’t appear to have any particular motivation to be moving in that direction; she was staring slightly upward with a blank look in her eyes.
I jumped in my seat when I heard the back door being unlocked. I looked over at my brother, who was climbing into the seat beside me. The opposite door than the one that my brother had come through opened and a man wearing a doctor’s uniform got in. I moved over to make room for him, and my uncle and Larry got into the driver’s seat and front passenger seat respectively.
“Are there really zombies?” My brother asked me with a strange combination of depression and fascination in his voice.
“I guess so, I haven’t seen any. Just her.” I pointed out the window and my brother leaned forward to see what I was talking about. She was still standing there, just a little closer to the building.
“That’s one of ‘em, alright”. The Doctor said.
“Well, we’d better get out of there, then.” My uncle said as he started to drive.
#3
A lone spire was visible on the horizon, almost completely invisible because of the dust in the air. Cody had noticed it an hour ago and the two of them had been walking towards it since, but it didn’t feel like they were getting closer.
Night had fallen and still the tower didn’t seem any closer, the only evidence of its existence in the nighttime sky was a small patch where no stars were visible. Cody marveled at the sight of the stars without any sort of light pollution to make their numbers seem to diminish.
The next afternoon, the tower showed the faintest signs of getting larger in their field of vision, but Cody was dehydrated, hungry, and tired. John was holding up all right, but it didn’t seem as if either of them would be able to make the journey.
Long after their lack of food and water should have ended both of their lives, they finally reached the base of the tower. Weeks had passed since they first spotted it and they both should be dead, in stead they were in indescribable amount of pain.
John somehow found the strength to pull himself up and open the door to the massive structure. Its circumference alone seemed to be large enough to hold the Manhattan Island within it. It was so tall that, when standing at its foot, one couldn’t see the top.
He pushed open the door and collapsed in its interior, his now skeletal frame shattering in the process. He tried to scream at the pain but his vocal cords had dried out and were stuck to the inside of his throat.
John found himself in a room filled with bright light, somehow restored to his prior self. He looked down at his hands and was overjoyed to see that they were no longer shriveled claws, but regular human fingers.
“Congratulations.” Said a booming but somehow soft voice. The White light grew brighter and John was thrown down to a stone floor. He heard the sounds of people falling around him and looked around. People dressed in strange clothes were filling the room around him. He pushed himself up and found that he was dressed in similarly strange attire.
“Alright, people, let’s move to make room for others to come through.” A high-pitched voice called out. John got up and looked around. The room that they were in had a domed roof that was supported by eight intricately carved pillars, each depicting specific person committing either heroic acts or evil deeds. The one that caught John’s eye was a large man in a thick looking suit of medieval armor. The activity that he was shown doing seemed to be impaling babies. “Hey, sharp stuff, let’s go.” The same high-pitched voice called to him specifically.
“Where am I?” He asked the owner of the voice, who was a floating man in a white toga. The man was next to him in an instant and dragging him out of the way with superhuman strength.
“I swear, you new people are retarded.” He said as he threw John into the crowd that he had arrived with.
“Alright, now that everyone is here, I’ll begin my explanation.” A deeper voice said. John got up and looked around to see who it was that was speaking. A man wearing faded jeans and a plaid shirt was addressing the crowd. “You are all dead, this is the city of the dead. You might have noticed that your clothed have changed, maybe even your appearance as a whole. This is normal. Enjoy your life, the information center is across the street.” He said as quickly as possible before turning towards a new crowd of people that had just arrived and repeating himself.
John went with his crowd of arrivals towards the aforementioned information center. After much shouting from both the crowd, wanting to know what was going on, and the man behind the counter telling everyone to only take one of each pamphlet, the crowd walked off to the side to read what was up.
The first pamphlet that John read described the relationship between people who had arrived in the same crowd and how, like it or not, most of their destinies in their “new life after death” would be intertwined. John didn’t believe in destiny, so he skipped over most of this pamphlet.
The second on detailed the function of the change in their clothing and possible appearance. One of the pages on it was composed entirely of a reflective surface so that they could look at themselves. John did so and saw that he was wearing a gold and black suit of armor that apparently had no weight at all, because he hadn’t known that it was there beforehand. The only piece missing from the suit was a helmet, though John didn’t mind because he would rather have gone without one anyway.
The described function of the change was that it reflected a person’s “true heart”, also described as a soul or a person’s Karma accumulated throughout their life. However the person wanted to look at it, it was supposedly a reflection of the person.
“Hey, John. Nice armor.” A familiar voice said. He looked up from the pamphlet and at first didn’t recognize the person that had addressed him. After staring blankly for a moment, he realized that it was Cody, wearing a maroon bandanna around that covered the lower portion of his face and reflective glasses that covered his eyes. He was wearing a wide brimmed, black hat, a black button-up shirt, and black, slightly baggy pants.
“Nice…whatever it is you’re wearing.” John replied. “Any Idea what’s going on here?”
“Well, I looked through the papers and found one describing what we went through before this, apparently everyone gets their own personal hell and people who survive their come here.” Cody replied.
John paused, mulling over the news. He would normally have been disturbed by the news that he had literally gone through hell, but he was filled with a strange euphoria that prevented him from feeling any negative emotion, at least for the time being. “Ok, well why were me in you in a hell together then?” He asked.
“I dunno, I didn’t read the whole thing. You can check it on your own paper some time, for now I’m starved.” Cody said, pulling his stack of pamphlets out of his back pocket and looking for a map to a place to eat.
John looked down at his armor for some place to store his similar stack of paper and found on singly pouch hanging from his waist. He rolled them up, slipped them into the little drawstring bag and him and Cody started walking in the direction of the place that he found on his map.
“So, the City of the Dead, huh?” John said mostly to himself. The euphoria still hadn’t worn off. Something about the place just made him happy.
“That’s what they said.” Cody said as he was adjusting the makeshift facemask.
“So this means that every religion was wrong doesn’t it?” He said, once again, mostly to himself.
“I could’ve told you that before we even died.” Cody said nonchalantly.
They made it to the restaurant on the map and ordered, while waiting for the food to arrive, something occurred to John.
“What kind of money do they use here?” He asked Cody, hoping that he knew.
“I have no idea.” Cody said. “I didn’t find anything like money in my pockets.”
A waitress who had been passing by overheard what they were saying, she stopped and looked at the two of them.
“No need to worry about it, we serve new their first meal for free. We’re set up so close to the entry portal that they wander in here penniless all the time, so we just serve ‘em for free. It’s less hassle.” She said with a smile.
“Thanks,” John said and smiled back at her.
Their food arrived a few minutes later and a gray robed person came to sit at the table while they were wolfing it down.
“I saw you guys talking to each other, back at the entrance.” She said as they stopped eating. “You looked friendly enough, so I followed you in here.”
“Why?” Cody asked, his mouth still full with mashed potatoes.
“Because everyone else seemed to be dividing into groups and you two looked like the smallest one, so I decided to join you.”
“Name’s John,” John said as he reached out to shake her hand. Cody noticed that her right hand had a black glove on it, while the left one had a white one.
“Cody,” he said as he shook her hand as well.
“My name’s Alicia, You can call me Alice if you want.” She said and smiled.
Cody finished eating, retied the bandanna around his face, and went back to looking over the pamphlets, while John and Alice talked to each other.
The pamphlet that he had picked at random from the pile was entitled “Ability Evaluation.” It said that a person’s appearance upon entering the city usually reflected some sort of ability or abilities that they had and that said abilities could be determined at the location indicated on the city map. Cody found where it was talking about and told the others what he was thinking. They agreed to try it and the trio headed out, thanking the waitress and promising to pay her back once they got some money.
A few minutes later, during most of which John and Alice continued to talk, they arrived at the “Evaluation Building” as it was called. There was a crowd of new people like themselves standing outside it and talking amongst each other.
“How long are we going to have to wait?” John asked upon seeing the crowd.
“I dunno, but it should be worth it.” Cody said, trying to justify his interest in the matter.
John left the matter alone after that, and continued to talk with Alice the full two hours that they were in line. Finally, however, it was their turn, with Cody going first since it had been his idea.
He walked through the curtains that were a strange, dark shade of blue, and was confronted with a person, who was wearing a long robe of the same color and sitting in a chair, so slouched that one might think that he was bored out of his mind.
The most striking thing about him, however, was not the robes, but the helmet that covered his head and shoulders. It was made from dull silver in a pattern that were intended to look like smooth tentacles that were tightly tangled into each other, starting at the shoulders and coming to a point at the top. They extended into shoulder pads with patternized stray ones leading halfway down his chest. The most striking aspect of the helmet, however, was a very large, blue, polished crystal that occupied the space where the man’s face should have been visible.
“Well well, aren’t we the interesting one?” The helmeted man said as he leaned forward. His slightly muffled voice sounded genuinely intrigued. “Oh, screw it.” He said as he leaned back again. “I’m supposed to tell all the new people that they are ‘intriguing’. It’s supposed to help them feel better after having such rapid changes happen, but there have been so many today; I hope you won’t mind if I dispense with the formalities.” He said.
“I’m alright with that.” Cody said, confused.
“Good, now lets get this over with.” He said, and suddenly Cody felt strangely naked. He looked down to make sure that his clothes were still on, they were. “Relax, that’s just the feeling of having the illusion of privacy stripped away. It’ll wear off once you leave.” The helmeted man said. “Well, any form of eye augmentation, such as the glasses that you are wearing, would suggest a seer, or prophet, whatever you feel like calling us, but you don’t seem the type to be satisfied with that job. The bandanna around your nose and mouth is common amongst people with secrets, but your mind doesn’t appear to have anything to hide. Last but not least, your dark clothes are typical of selfish people but you appear just about as selfless as they come.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“It means that you are a walking contradiction. I would suggest a career in politics.”
Cody stared at him silently for a moment.
“It’s a joke.” The helmeted figure said.
“Oh,”
“Right, well seeing as how you lack a sense of humor, I’ll just give you the real deal. The glasses are actually indicative of someone with high qualifications for a job like mine, the bandanna seems like it’s more of a status symbol to you than anything else; like hiding your face lets you isolate yourself from, and hopefully surpass, your peers. The dark clothes speak of dark intentions. After looking into your mind I have to say that you are one of the most power hungry people I have seen all week. You might want to watch that. Any questions?”
Cody thought for a moment.
“What about the hat?”
“I dunno, it’s a hat, kid. Not everything has a deeper meaning.”
“Oh, well thanks, then.” Cody said and turned to walk out.
“No problem, how many people were behind you in line?”
“About ten, maybe fifteen.”
“Crap I’m gonna be here all night.” The helmeted figure said as he leaned forward and rested the helmet against his hand. At this point Cody noticed that his hands and feet had the same silver as his helmet. He walked out of the building and instantly felt a sense of relief that he speculated was his “illusion of privacy” returning.
“Well, how was it?” John asked when Cody came out.
“See for yourself.” He said and pushed John through the curtain.
The same sense of nakedness swept over John as he entered the room and his first urge was to go back out.
“Hold it. Like I told your friend out there, the feeling is normal. It goes away once you leave.” The helmeted man said.
“Umm, alright.”
“Now, lets see here.” There was a slight pause. “You look like your ready to pick a fight in that getup. More space between the joints for flexibility, it’s pretty light to isn’t it. Something catch your eye when you first got here? It wouldn’t happen to have been Gregorio the baby killer would it?”
John nodded.
“Christ, I remember that guy. He was just like you. His armor and mentality were a little darker but other than that the resemblance is uncanny; both in mind and body. It wasn’t long before he traded in his first suit of armor for one with more protection. Sacrificing flexibility for protection, that’s what he did. Seems like the kind of thing you might do.”
“Will you stop comparing me to a baby killer?” John asked angrily.
“Fair enough. Anyway, careers that I’d recommend; uh a guard I guess. Or an “adventurer”; those guys crack me up.”
“Alright, thanks.” John said, still angry, and walked out.
“What’d he say?” Alice asked when he walked out.
“Uh, not much. You sure you want to do this, he isn’t very helpful.”
“Hey, you guys got to go, plus I waited two hours in line for this.” Alice said agitatedly.
“Alright, just don’t expect too much.” He said, trying to sound like he didn’t care.
Alice walked through the curtain to find the helmeted figure standing.
“You’re the last one for tonight. I gotta get home.” He said.
“Alright.” She said politely.
“Now, let’s see here.” He paused. “Could you hold out your hands for me please?” He asked. She obliged. “Now that is strange.” He said.
“What?”
“Well, it’s just that I couldn’t sense that you had any. It seemed like you just ended at the wrists, you know.” He let out a weak laugh.
“Umm, Ok.” She said, worried at what that might mean.
“Tell, me; what are you feeling right now?”
“Worried at what you not being able to tell if I had hands or not means.”
“No no, I mean, do you feel any sort um, how to put this, nakedness?” He asked, knowing what an awkward question it would be.
“What?” She sounded slightly offended this time.
“Like do you feel like someone knows everything about you?”
She paused, thinking over it. “No, should I?”
“As a matter of fact,” He paused, thinking on what to say. “Do me a favor, lift up your hood.” She obliged. “That is amazing.” He said, mostly to himself.
“What is?”
“Oh, nothing, it’s like you disappeared from my senses. Not many people can do that.”
“Well, what does that mean?”
“That you either really hate being seen, or you have quite a lot to hide. My vote is for the latter.”
“Well, I-“ She fainted.
“Aw crap!” He said and waited for her to come to.
“What happened? “ She asked as she was getting up.
“My fault, I was agitated that I couldn’t sense you and I pushed your mind a little to hard trying to get in.”
She stared, dumbfounded.
“Put stealth like that to good use. Any questions?”
“Yes, quite a few in fact.”
“Well, come back tomorrow and ask them, I’m beat.” And with that, he beckoned her out the entrance. He followed her out and pulled shut some sliding doors, there was a click and they locked. “Attention everyone; we are closed for the night. Thee is a new people’s shelter around the corner for those of you that don’t have a place to sleep yet. That’ll be all of you.
There was an audible sigh of frustration and the crowd began to disband. Once they were all gone, he headed for his house, which was a good six blocks away.
“You were in there for awhile, what happened?” John asked as they walked away.
“He told me to put my stealth to good use.” Alice said, to herself.
“What does that mean?”
“No idea.”
John looked at Cody to see if he had an answer, but Cody shrugged and looked away.
The shelter was a lot like a multistory parking structure, save with beds as opposed to cars. The bed that Cody was assigned was on the third floor, John’s was on the fifth, and Alice’s was second to the top. Cody was lying next to a very jittery person who seemed incapable of ceasing his speech.
“I mean, this is pretty awesome eh?” He asked Cody.
“Oh, yeah. It’s great.” Cody said flatly
“So, how did you die?” He asked as if the question were as mundane as asking for the time.
“I was eaten,” Cody rolled over onto his side, facing away from the person he was talking to. “By zombies.” He finished.
“Oh that must’ve sucked.”
“Not really, I was apparently unconscious at the time.” Cody had spent a good deal of the time waiting in line trying to piece together what had happened.
“Oh; the zombies invaded my town also. I was trying to blend in with them until I could find a way to escape, but someone in a blue car ran over the crowd that I was in.”
Cody’s eyes widened but he kept his tone calm.
“Oh, that must’ve sucked.”
“Yeah, broke moth my legs and one of my arms. I probably could’ve made if I could’ve stopped myself from screaming from the pain, that’s what tipped off the real zombies that I wasn’t one of them. I’m just lucky that they finished me off quickly, it could’ve been a lot worse.”
“Well, there’s optimism for ya.” Cody said. “Listen I gotta get some rest; got stuff to do tomorrow.”
“Ok, yeah sure. Night.” About two minutes passed, and just as Cody was halfway between waking and sleep, the guy started talking again. “So, what was your hell like?”
Cody jumped and was pulled back into wakefulness. “Uh, listen, ask me tomorrow and I’ll tell you anything you want to know, k?”
“Yeah, alright.” He said, this time he must’ve gone to sleep because he didn’t talk again, and Cody was able to fall asleep.

#4
The hallucinations stopped while I was in the hospital. I can’t explain why, but they did. It was just a little while after that that I started to hear noises. I don’t mean normal hospital noises; I mean other things.
The first one that really caught my attention was the sound of someone screaming somewhere far off in the building. After that nothing happened for a long time, just the sound of people hurrying by, some of them were crying.
I was just beginning to doze off when I heard a thud against the door to my room. I waited for it to happen again, but nothing did.
About ten minutes after that, my uncle, some other guy, and a Doctor rushed into the room looking worried.
“Come on.” My uncle said as he lifted me out of the bed and set me, none to gently, on my feet.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
After that, they rushed me out of the hospital, covering my eyes when we went down certain halls, mentioning something about zombies. The next thing I knew, we were outside where the only car in the parking lot was a jeep.
Once my uncle unlocked the doors, I climbed inside to find my brother waiting there.
“Are there really zombies?” I asked him, knowing that he would be more inclined to reveal the full extent of the situation than any of the adults.
“I guess so, I haven’t seen any. Just her.” He said and pointed out the window to a dazed looking woman, as the doctor was getting in.
“That’s one of ‘em, alright”. The Doctor said, looking where my brother was pointing.
“Well, we’d better get out of there, then.” My uncle said as he started to drive.
After a short drive, we found ourselves at city limits, where a blockade was set up.
“We’ve got a rendezvous point at the old dams,” Larry said, looking at the police officers manning the blockade. “If we can just get past these guys…”
“Floor it,” I suggested, thinking about movies I had seen where people always jumped out of the way.
“What?” All three adults asked in unison.
“Just drive, they’ll move.” I repeated.
“They have guns,” My uncle pointed out.
There was a long silence before that doctor joined the conversation.
“Do you think that they’ll even waste and bullets on us?”
“I’d rather not take that chance.” Larry said.
“Wait, no. Think about it, they are manning the blockade so chances are that they have seen some zombies already, they won’t shoot at us, knowing what they really need their ammo for.” The doctor said.
“I dunno,” Larry said.
The, without any warning whatsoever, my uncle floored the gas and went straight through the barricade. I didn’t see if we hit anyone, but I didn’t feel any bumps so I can only assume that they got out of the way.
“Are you crazy?” Larry shouted at my uncle. “They could’ve shot us!”
“But they didn’t.” He replied.
The rest of the drive to the dams was uneventful; the only thing of interest was that we saw a zombie wandering along the side of the road. Other than that, nothing noteworthy happened.
Once we arrived at the dams, we found a small group of about seven people with whom my uncle and Larry were apparently friends. They took the man who identified himself as doctor smith and introduced him to the group while me and my brother stood off to the side.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“I don’t know,”
“Want to go play on the dams?” I asked. It had occurred to most people that it made no sense to call it the dams, since it was only one dam. The river that it used to hold back had long since dried up as well, so it was really just a big piece of concrete sitting outside of town, where the high school kids came to smoke pot and have premarital sex, and parents sometimes took their children to play.
“This is no time to play,” My brother replied angrily. “There is a serious problem going on.”
I was about to respond when we heard another vehicle approaching. We turned to see who it was, and an off white van pulled up. An overweight black man stepped out, followed by a girl about my brother’s age. He had tears in his eyes, and she was outright crying.
“You alright, Mike?” One of the men said as he walked over to him.
“They turned right in front of my eyes.” He said with a deep voice. “At first I thought that they were dead, but then they started moving again. Molly bit me.” He said, on the verge of crying. He held up a bandaged hand that was soaked with blood. “Take care of her,” He said, meaning his daughter. He then pulled a gun from his pocket, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The girl screamed, and I saw Larry begin to run in her direction. Mike’s body seemed as if it were falling in slow motion; I had time to look at my brother and see that he was looking at the body fall as well, before looking back in time to see him actually hit the ground. Larry made it over to the girl, turned her around and tried to comfort her. From where I was standing it looked as if he had slammed her head into his shoulder, because she had buried her face there and was crying.
Everyone else just stood there, shocked at what they had seen, until someone from the group ran over to the van, searched around inside for a short while, gave up, and pulled off a seat cover to cover Mike’s face with.
A few hours later, we had a small fire going and were sitting around it, with the adults discussing what to do. The girl, who’s name I gathered from the conversation to be Sally, had stopped crying but still wouldn’t talk to anyone. The adults said that the cities were the least safe places to be, because that’s where the highest concentrations of people were. Their plan was to stay hidden in the countryside until the entire thing blew over, to make as few trips back into the city as possible, and to only do it when it was absolutely necessary. I got bored when they started talking about what constituted a necessary trip and what didn’t, so I got up to go find my brother, who hadn’t sat down in front of the fire when it was made.
I found him on top of the staircase leading up to the dam, he as sitting just below the top step and looking towards the city.
“Go away.” Was the first thing that he said as soon as I was within earshot.
“Why?”
“Because I said so,” He seemed distant and not set on making me leave, so I decided to gamble and not listen to him.
“You aren’t the boss of me.” I said and sat down on the step above him.
“Whatever; I don’t care.” He said and turned back towards the city.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” He said angrily. I paused, debating weather or not to pursue the matter any further.
“You have been up here too long to be looking at nothing.” He didn’t respond. “Hey,” I pushed his shoulder to make sure he was paying attention.
“I’m looking at the town, alright.” He said, pushing my hand away.
“Why?”
He made a sighing noise and paused before he finally answered me. “You remember when Mom would bring us out here to play?” I nodded. “Remember, a few times we stayed out here past dark and when we looked at the town there was like a dome of light over it?”
“Yeah, she called it light pollution.”
“Right, well what don’t you see looking at the city now?”
I looked at it and saw that the space above the city was just as dark as the rest of the sky, and dotted with a few more stars than could normally be seen.
“Light pollution.” I answered.
“Yeah, and no lights means no people.”
“So what?” I asked, confused about what he was getting at.
“So what? Don’t you get it? Everyone that we knew is either dead or gone!” He ended this statement considerably louder than was necessary. “What are we supposed to do now? We missed Mom’s funeral, dad is dead, all of our friends are gone, and nothing is ever going to be the same again!” He shouted at me.
It was at this moment that the reality of the situation truly hit me. I tried to think of any way to refute what he was saying but nothing came to mind. I tried to stop myself from crying when he brought up Mom and Dad’s deaths, but to no avail. I was soon sobbing uncontrollably, which only served to perturb my brother further. He didn’t say anything, but got up and walked across the dam to the other side.
A few minutes later, the tears had stopped, but I was still sad. I looked out towards the city that my brother had pointed out was no longer inhabited and got up to go back to the campfire.
“Where’d you go?” My uncle asked as I sat down. I lazily pointed a finger up at the dam. “What’s wrong?”
I proceeded to explain the situation to the best of my ability..
“I see, well How bout I go talk to your brother?” I shrugged and looked at the fire. My uncle got up and walked off.

#5
I stood, leaning on the railing of the stairs and thinking about what I had said to my brother. I probably shouldn’t have shouted at him, but I hadn’t known what else to say. The situation was so bleak, yet he had been so naively content with it that I had somehow reasoned that shouting was the only way to show him the way things really were.
I heard footsteps on the stairs and looked over to see Uncle Todd walking up them.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing; just came up for the view.”
“This is about Scott isn’t it?”
“No, but you know you upset him pretty badly.” He said as he looked out towards the city.
“You shouldn’t lie. He told and now you’re here to lecture me, right?”
“Why would I lecture you?”
I took my eyes off of the depressing sight of the city to look at him; he didn’t look back.
“Lots of things have been changing recently, it’s understandable that you’d be upset. Just don’t take it out on your brother.” With that he started to walk away. This surprised me, because from my parents, I usually got at the very least, a half hour lecture.
“So, you aren’t going to punish me?”
“You think I should?” He asked; I wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical or not.
“No.”
“Well, alright then. Come down with me, we’re going to put the campfire out in a few minutes and some rest. We have to go back into the city tomorrow to get some things that we forgot.”
I followed him, and found that one of the people who made up the small party of survivors had thought to bring a large number of sleeping bags, enough so that only three people did without. Dirt was poured onto the fire, and soon I dozed off to sleep.