Dark times ahead : A zombie Story [WIP]

[Gregah]

[b]Warning![/b] Wall of text ahead of you!

I got inspired by the other thread regarding this subject, and started writing something myself.
I'm always updating this post with all chapters while i'm also writing a new post for each chapter, so that you new guys who find this thread can read it all through here. :)
This is currently a WIP, any CC is gladly accepted.

[b]A beginning of the end.[/b]

Chapter one.

It was getting darker, and I still had atleast fifty kilometers left to my shelter.
I could see them still behind me, walking without knowing why, eating without hunger, living without being alive...
Noone really knew how this happened, and to be quite honest noone thought that it was actually possible.

But there they were, unholy ghouls feasting upon the living, swelling their ranks for each one of us who fell to their bites.

Getting to my shelter in time before night struck would prove to be impossible, being dead tired and in dire need of rest, I had to do the next best thing, and quickly entered an abandoned building.
It was dark and cold inside, but there were no windows at all and the door was easily barricaded. I knew I would be safe here tonight, but this would only be temporary and I had to leave tomorrow when the sun would have risen.

The smell of the place was damp, and you could tell that before all this had happened it was relying upon it's air conditioner to bring in fresh air.
I scouted the building but could not find anything of value to me, even though this was a small store before, it was completely scoured through and empty of everything, except for one room that had a small matress, some book about learning how to become successful and a couple of broken cds by Hannah Montana.

There was also a door probably leading out back, it seemed to be locked from the inside (thankfully) so in case I had to make a run for it, it would not be a problem at all, it was also quite sturdy, so the chances of anyone breaking through it would be highly unlikely.
But still I had to know if something, or someone lurked behind it. I knocked on the door, and then put my ear on the door.

Nothing.

This was good news indeed, since these things, ghouls of the night, would be hanging on the front door, clawing, bashing, and by any means possible trying to get in, even though they would have long forgotten why they were even doing what they were doing.
I checked through the building one more time making sure there was noone inside, and made sure that my barricade was sturdy enough to hold the ghouls out, if just for the night.
Suddenly, I heard a rattle from a small closet.

I quietly walked over to the closet, no movement from what I could see, and me, not knowing if I had just thought that I heard a sound or if it was just the wind playing tricks with my mind, I opened the closet.
Hanging inside were a lot of clothes, mostly womens clothes but also some shirts that were designed for men, both long-sleeved ones and t-shirts.
Having been in the same shirt for God knows how long I smiled and took one that looked like it could fit me, a long-sleeved shirt coloured in deep blue, but nothing else on it.
I tried it on and it fit perfectly, it was not too tight nor too big, almost like it was made for me.

Even though I checked thoroughly through the closet I was not able to find whatever had made the noise, so I closed the closet-door and made one last check on the barricade and then went to the matress, eyes towards the door and fell asleep.
The sleep did not last long however, as there was someone, or something banging hard on the back door.
[i]"HELP"[/i] someone screamed, [i]"ANYONE? LET ME IN!"[/i]
At first this startled me, and not knowing what would await me outside I waited.
[i]"HELP!"[/i] the screams continued, and realizing that if I would not help the one on the outside I would have a bigger problem fighting those outside the door, since his yells surely would have amassed a huge gathering of ghouls searching for whatever made this noise.

Quickly I ran to the door and opened it, the one banging on the door rushed inside and as I closed the door a ghoul managed to squeeze it's arm inside, but my fellow survivor had a machete and cut it off.
I made sure the door was closed, and just a few seconds after the banging and clawings on the door started.
I turned my head and saw that my friend was panting and seemed to be exhausted, he did not say a word but I could tell just by looking into his eyes that he was very grateful for saving him from certain death.
Seconds passed and the shock from seing another alive human being passed away, and I said

[i]"Hi."[/i]

[b]Newfound hope[/b]

Chapter two.

The man, who must've been in his mid thirties started breathing more normal and stretched himself and extended his arm to shake my hand.
[i]"God bless you, I surely would have died tonight if it were not for you!"[/i] the man said.
[i]"I'm equally glad to see another living, breathing human, mr?"[/i] I responded while trying to sound as polite as possible, not an easy task I might add given the fact that I was still in a slight shock of standing before someone not trying to eat me alive.
[i]"Oliver, Oliver Parker. And what is your name, if I may ask my saviour?"
"My name is Theodore Collins"[/i] I said.

[i]"Pleased to meet you Theodore, if you won't mind me asking but you do not have by any chance anything I could eat? I'm starving and have not had something to eat for god knows how long."
"Hmm, I should have some snickers in my backpack"[/i] I said, [i]"You're not allergic to nuts are you?"

"No sir i'm not, and to be honest with you Theodore, even if I were allergic to nuts I wouldn't be able to turn down such a friendly gift."[/i] Oliver said while smiling.
I quickly found one snickers and gave it to Oliver.
[i]"Thank you very much, the only thing I got with me is my machete who you saw, two small bottles of water and my house keys"[/i], Oliver said.
[i]"Not sure why I even keep the keys with me, my house is long gone and i'm far, far away from my home city but I guess they remind me of better times, before all this shit happened you know?"[/i]

I said nothing, and Oliver looked upon me with suspicion.

[i]"You allright friend?"
"Yeah, i'm just, I dont know, shocked I suppose"[/i] I said,[i]"you're the first breathing human I've seen in almost half a year."
"That is a long time my friend, but those days are over now, I'm here right?"[/i] He said while chuckling.
[i]"Excuse me if I seem rude, but this place, it's safe right? I'm really tired and there's nothing more I'd wish but to finally be able to sleep in a safe place."[/i]

[i]"It's safe for now yes, there are no windows at all in this place and the smell is quite poor, but the doors wont break open anytime soon and I'm not tired yet, so I can sit guard for now."[/i] I said to Oliver, who looked upon me, and then proceeded to smile.
[i]"Thank you friend, it's so good to hear another human being again."[/i] He said, and then looked around. [i]"Excuse me if I sound rude yet again,, but is there anything you can sleep on in this place?"

"Yeah, there's a matress you can crash on, not sure how clean it is but you can take out some clothes from the closet over there and use as a temporary bedsheets, I hardly doubt anyone is around to complain?"[/i] I said, and Oliver chuckled he then proceeded to scour through the closet, finally settling for a couple of shirts as his temporary bedsheet.
[i]"I'll keep the door open in case something happens, yeah?"[/i] He asked, I nodded and he smiled.
[i]"Goodnight then my friend"[/i] he said, and went to sleep on the old matress.
I found a small chair I could sit on and positioned it so that I could overlook both he frontdoor and the backdoor easily, and soon enough you could hear loud snores coming from the other room.

I smiled, Oliver seemed like a really nice guy and I had finally someone to talk to, someone who could watch my back and watch over me while I slept, a luxury I've not had for a very, very long time.

[b]Grim tidings[/b]

Chapter three.

After what felt like five or six hours I went and woke up Oliver, he was still quite sleepy but said that he felt more rested than he had ever before, and went to sit guard. It took some time for me to relax, I always had a hard time to fall asleep even though I knew I was safe, but finally I went to sleep.
I woke up later on by the sound from someone walking around, I heard the steps coming closer so I figured out it was Oliver who came to wake me up.
[i]"Hey"[/i], I heard him say. [i]"Wake up, it's probably morning outside now and perhaps we should think about leaving this place."[/i]

I slowly turned over and sat up. [i]"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. But it's going to be dangerous, were there many ghouls following you when you came to this place?"[/i] I said and yawned. [i]"Ghouls?"[/i]Oliver said, and I explained that is what I call these things out there.
[i]"Oh, you mean zombies! Not too many, I reckon there were about five or six of them, but we should be able to take care of them if we take it easy. You have a weapon right?"
"Yes ofcourse, I got a small crowbar right here"[/i] I said and picked it up. [i]"So, you ready to hit the road?"[/i]
He nodded and we quietly walked over to the door, and suddenly I noticed something.

There was no sound of clawings or bangings on the door at all.

[i]"This is strange, there doesn't seem to be any ghouls outside trying to get in."[/i] Oliver looked at me, and then looked confused.
[i]"That is strange indeed, maybe they walked away?"[/i] He said.
[i]"Maybe, but I think we should atleast knock and see if it creates any sort of response from the other side"[/i], I said and looked at Oliver.
He nodded, and I knocked on the door.
[i]"Nothing, I'll open the door then, but be cautious, there could still be ghouls outside."[/i]

I then opened the door, Oliver stood ready with his machete but oddly enough, nothing came through.
We looked at eachother, and I finally I got a good look at Oliver since the sun shone right on him.
When I opened the door last night and let im I had thought that he maybe were in his mid thirties, but now I saw that he must have been atleast fifty or something.
Funny how the dark can alter your appearance and make you look younger I thought to myself, but he seemed to be a quite fit man for his age, standing at the height of roughly 175-180cm and probably being around the weight of 70something kilograms.

But this was not the time for glaring at him and asking questions, we still were not sure how safe the nearby area were, even if there were no ghouls standing at our very doorstep. I asked Oliver if he could see anyone.
He leaned over to both sides of the door but there seemed to be nothing out there, and without a word he walked outside, and I followed.
We were standing in an alleyway, the sun shone brightly and I estimated the time to be around noon.
A light wind coming from what I pressumed were east stroke my chin, and somehow I felt uneasy about something..
[i]"I guess we should keep on walking forward, this doesn't seem to be a huge city at all."[/i] I said to Oliver, but I noticed that he looked concerned with something. [i]"What's wrong, Oliver?"

"Something's wrong, zombies never just walk away like this. Let's try and find a vantage point so we can check our surroundings.",[/i] he said, while looking around. [i]"Take that ladder over there"[/i] he said and pointed to a ladder next to the door we had just left through.
[i]"We should get on top of the roof, you know to check our surroundings before we walk into a trap."
"You got a point, should I go first?"[/i] I asked, and Oliver nodded. [i]"I'll come right after you,"[/i] he said.
I proceeded to climb up the ladder but for every step I took I felt more and more worried about something, but I couldn't really figure out why.
I got up the ladder, and that's when I came to a realization where my fear had came from.
Oliver soon came up after me, and all he could say was

[i]"Oh shit, is all that what I think it is?"
"Yes."[/i]

[b]Dark times ahead[/b]

Chapter four.

The sight was overwhelming, and finally I realized what I had smelled in that breeze. The sight was horrifying, thousands of ghouls beneath us, walking on the main street.
Where they were walking, I did not know. But I knew that we either had to wait for them to pass by which could take days, considering the amount of them down there, or make a daring escape on the rooftops, a quite dangerous task if there had been any fires within the houses who could've weakened the bearing columns inside.
But the risk of getting caught by zombies on the street were far more higher than falling down the roof on a house, so to me the choice were obvious, but now I had a companion with me.
[i]"How many zombies could there be down there?"[/i] Oliver said while making a disgusted facial expression, as if he were about to throw up. [i]"My guess would be something between twenty or thirty thousand of them, but I fear there could be atleast twice that number"[/i] I replied, while trying to look as calm as possible.

[i]"The way I see it, we can either try to wait them out or try to exit the city. Waiting them out could take alot of time though, especially if there are more of them up that road"[/i], I said while pointing at the road. [i]"We could however try to leave the city through the roofs, it's dangerous but I'd rather do that than trying to wait this out, especially with how few resources we have left."[/i]
We looked at eachother and then we looked at the crowd beneath us, a mindless wave of walking death just walking without a clue or any thought at all, still dead while being alive with only one goal. To consume the living.
[i]"I do not wish to stay around here any longer, even if it means to risk our lives to get out of here. Lead the way Theodore!"[/i]

I looked around, the houses in this part of the city were closely knit together and would easen the way out of here and hopefully wouldn't prove to be as risky as I first thought. "Let's go" I said, and waved at Oliver to follow.
Walking over the roofs proved to be not dangerous at all, and we finally came to the edge of town without being noticed by the ghouls, we checked our surroundings and then sat down in the grass to talk about our next move.

[i]"That road that they used should go east if I recall correctly, I came from the west and used that road before I found the shelter"[/i], I said to Oliver. [i]"And we are south now, I do not know how far it is to the next town. You don't happen to have a map with you?"
"I'm afraid not, when I had to ditch my last shelter there were one lying around but I can't read maps at all, so I chose not to bring it with me. Would've done wonders now but hindsight is 20/20 right?"[/i] He said and chuckled. I looked at him and smiled, he looked like a man who had been around the world and seen things but appearances can be decieveing it seemed, and started wondering what he thought about what person I were.
[i]"Maybe we should try to check the nearby houses? Chances are probably not so high for finding a map but I reckon we're in need of supplies."[/i] Oliver said and proceeded to stand up, looking onto the nearest house.

[i]"That's a good idea, I only got food for another day and water for two days"[/i], I said and stood up myself. [i]"One house each, we grab what we can take?"
"Sure, you take the green house over there"[/i], Oliver said and pointed on a small house that had seen better days.[i]"I'll take the one next to it, closest to us. Yell if you need help, meet me outside in ten ok?"[/i]
I nodded, and started jogging over to the door while Oliver did the same. The door was closed,so I checked the doorknob.
It wasnt locked, but there could probably be something inside so I knocked. No response there either, no shuffling sound, no human voice at all.

Quietly I opened up the door, it creaked slightly while I did so but stopped halfway. Something were blocking it's path.
Not wanting to risk the chance of being bitten by some half-torn ghoul lying in ambush I softly called out if anybody was there, but no response. Calmly I stuck my head in and checked what caused this. It was just a small brown bag, and judging from the size it was probably carrying books.
I took up my small crowbar and had it ready in case anything was inside, and squeezed through the door.
The inside was a small hall, clothrack on the left and a couple of shoes that stood neatly in line. I closed the door after me and stood still for a second to hear if there were any noise inside, but it was still quiet.

I turned around and picked up the bag, it was in fact quite heavy and there were in fact books inside. I opened the bag and there seemed to be alot of school books, some paper, some pencils and just the everyday stuff you would take with you to school.
The bag was pretty sturdy, and seemed to be able to carry alot of weight so I turned it upside down and spilled all the stuff outside.
This made some noise however, and I noticed something when all the stuff was lying on the ground. There were blood on some of the books.
I looked deeper inside the house, and noticed that there were some small drops of blood on the floor, leading away from the hall and away into what I pressumed were the living room.

That's when I heard it. The distinct moan of a ghoul, it was inside the house and if my guess were right it were most likely the one who had carried the bag with him or her.
It was coming closer, I stood in the hallway with my back towards the door, just waiting for the ghoul to come to me.
Seconds passed that felt like hours, the moaning became louder, and suddenly the ghoul was at the end of the hall.
It stood there, looking at me with it's lifeless eyes, a girl who could've not been older than thirteen years with short golden hair and a jonas brothers shirt. The ghoul looked at me for just a split second, and I started wondering how she was when she were alive, but I quickly shook those thoughts away, she was no longer alive and I could not let myself think of her as a human being, it would make me hesitate when I was in striking range and it was a matter of life and death now. It was either her undying life or my life.

I gripped my crowbar harder, she finally came within range of it and I struck it hard.

[b]Forgotten belongings[/b]

Chapter five.

There was a loud crack when the crowbar found it's target, and the ghoul fell down almost instantly. I stood over it and looked as a puddle of blood started forming.
I kicked it in the face, but no movements. I looked up and tried to hear if there was anyone else inside, but no sound at all.
This had all taken mere seconds but it felt like hours, even if I had killed a dozen of those ghouls it never became easier, and I shed a tear for the one I had just slain.
But I still had an objective, so thinking about this had to wait. I walked further inside the hall, and finally found the kitchen about three meters inside to the left.
It looked clean and neat, green tapestries covered the walls and some sort of fake marble on the floor. there were small drips of blood on the floor, no doubt had the girl gone into the kitchen at first to clean whatever wound she had sustained from a ghouls bite and then walk into her room or the living room.
I shook those thoughts away from my mind, I had to find food and water, preferably unopened bottles.

There was a refrigerator that was opened, and a pantry close by. Not wanting to waste any time I opened up the pantry, and looked through if they had any tin-cans with food, since those would last the longest and would not be contaminated unless you opened them up and exposed them from diseases or ghouls.
It was dark inside, the lights had long been gone so it took some time to adjust but I finally found what I had looked for.
Two cans of raviolo, two cans filled with some sort of soup and four cans with peaches.
God I hated peaches, but beggars can't be choosers and perhaps Oliver was a fan of this disgusting fruit.
There was not anything else of value inside the pantry, either it was already opened up or had long gone out, so I started to browse through the refrigerator.

The smell was disgusting, rotten fruit combined with moldy dairy products was something I would rank with the smell of a decaying ghoul, but the refrigerator had been open thankfully so it did not come at me in full force, something that usually happened when I scoured through refrigerators that was closed.
I was in luck however, this particular family seemed to be very fond of bottled water and there were seven half litre ones, all unopened.
I started unloading all the bottles into my newly acquired bag when I noticed that someone had stored a chocolate bar behind the bottles.
And to my luck, it was not opened either!

Joy filled my heart, I had craved for milk-chocolate for a very long time now and we had tin-cans that could last both me and Oliver for four days, and most importantly we had water.
I started thinking of what Oliver could've found, and if he had encountered any ghouls. I picked up my bags and started moving deeper into the house, it had probably taken about five minutes and I had five to spare, maybe I could find a map or medicine.
I soon entered what I pressumed was the living room, two big leather sofas was in an L formation around a TV, two bookshelves that didn't contain alot of books and a big table with six chairs, three on each side. There were also a couple of windows that looked out on what I pressumed was the back yard.
There wasn't much of notice here, the place were well lit even though the lights had like all electricity gone out for a long, long time.
I had to take a look at the bookshelves though, even if the chances of any maps being there were slim there were always a chance that there were one good book you could read atleast.

Even though I searched through all the books I could not find a map nor could I find any interesting books, in fact I cringed when I saw only cheap novels about vampires and some sort of super soldiers fighting for some sort of empire in big bulky power armours.
This got me thinking about this house, about the parents of this family and the kids. Did they have two, three kids? Was the girl the youngest of the bunch? Perhaps she was the older sister?
What confused me even more was that there had only been one family member inside, where were the parents? Alot of questions swirled through my mind, and I felt how tears started massing up in my eyes.
I had to sit down on one of the chairs, I dragged one out and sat down.I started crying. Maybe her parents were out there, in another city frightened and worrying about their baby girl, all alone.

Suddenly I heard a noise, it came from the front door. Someone was coming inside.

[b]Into the wild[/b]

Chapter six.

[i]"Hey Oliver"[/i] I shouted out, figuring that he was wondering what I was up to. But there were no response, except for an empty moan.
[i]"Shit, this is not good at all"[/i] I thought to myself, and stood up, readying my crowbar. I walked over to the hall and there it stood, a ghoul who must've been a man in his twenties before he died and returned. It was strange however, he did not have any clothes on him except for his underwear, and long scars covered his body, dried blood on his both arms.
He must've suffered significant damage from someone in a hurry, the only way you could kill these ghouls were by crushing the head. The turning must've happened just a couple of days ago however, the big gashing wound he suffered from some ghoul biting him in his neck were still leaking blood or what you would call it, and he had not yet started to rot.

He came closer, and I raised my crowbar, and when he was in distance I hit him, right on the frontal lobe. It did not crack, but he fell backwards. No signs of life, so I hurried out from the building not wanting to waste anymore seconds inside.
The sun hit my face as I exited the building, but dark clouds were closing in from the north. It looked like rain would hit us soon enough, maybe in mere hours. I looked around, and terror struck me as I saw a mob of ghouls closing in on our position.
[i]"This isn't good."[/i] I thought to myself and turned around to the house Oliver had went into. [i]"OLIVER, GET OUT HERE QUICK!"[/i] I yelled and started jogging to the door.
The door opened up and Oliver came out, it looked like he had blood on his shirt, a purple longsleeved shirt with a nike logo on it.
[i]"Hey, I could not find a map but I found some supplies, a couple of..."[/i]He looked beyond me and his face changed, terror was in his eyes and he looked at me.
[i]"Uh, we really should get a move on shouldn't we?"

"Yes."[/i]

We started jogging south, away from the city. There were no time to talk right now, we had to get out of sight as soon as possible.
[i]"How could they find us?"[/i] Oliver asked as we ran along the road. [i]"I do not know, I thought we were sneaky when we escaped through the rooftops, but I guess not."
"We need to distract them, or else we will just be chased by a mob of zombies forever"[/i] Oliver said, [i]"And it's a damn shame, that there is no music in this world."
"What do you mean?"[/i] I asked, looking curiously on Oliver who had a smile on his face.
[i]"Well, a benny hill theme sure would lighten my mood if we are chased."[/i] Oliver started laughing, and I just kept on jogging, being shocked by how easily Oliver seem to take all this.
[i]"What?"[/i] He said while looking on me, [i]"You can't be so uptight about everything Theodore, relax a bit, laugh. You have to laugh, it's one of the things that differs those things from us"[/i]. Oliver smiled, and thinking about it all, I started smiling too. [i]"There you go, it's not so hard now is it?"[/i]. He chuckled and kept on jogging.

After half an hour we looked back. There were no sign of any ghouls at all, and I looked at Oliver. He knew, you could outrun these things, but they will forever chase you.
The road had started going down hill, and the sight were quite breathtaking.
To our right there were a forest, stretching for as far as the eye could see, and to our left were plains, and a big lake. The road itself were empty, except for what seemed to be some sort of mini-van far, far away.
[i]"The view is breathtaking, and to think that I would never be able to see this if this... apocalypse or what you want to call it had not happened."[/i]
I looked at Oliver, he seemed to take this pretty well. It made me curious, maybe he were religious? I had to know, but this was probably the best time.
[i]"Yeah it is"[/i] I replied, and added [i]"And to think that God made all of this, in just one day."[/i] I waited for some sort of reply from Oliver, but he just stared into the distance.

No response at all. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Not that it mattered really, Oliver seemed to be a genuinely nice guy with an odd sense of humour, but I knew that I could rely on him atleast. It was very silent today, no birds around.
[i]"Oliver"[/i], I said. [i]"Do you see that car over there?"[/i] I pointed at the direction I had seen the mini-van. [i]"Hmm, I can see that there is something down there, but my sight is not what it used to be. You think we should investigate it?"
"I'm not sure to be honest, maybe it's a trap set up by someone?"[/i] I said and looked at Oliver.
[i]"Maybe, maybe not. in any case we are easily spotted here anyways so if it is they know we are coming anyways."
"Yeah you're probably right"[/i] I said and looked behind me. A silhouette in the far distance, meaning the ghouls would probably be where we are in an hour or two.

[i]"Right then, let's continue."[/i]

[b]Riding shotgun[/b]

Chapter seven

The sun was gazing upon as as we walked on the road, we were in no hurry yet even though a mob of ghouls were chasing us. I felt calm even if we still were in danger, but the hope of catching a ride had lightened up my mood. It was awfully silent however with the only sound produced were that of our boots stepping upon the asphalt.
But I didn't mind it at all, most of the time the only sound you would hear were the distinct sound of a ghoul moaning, or even worse ; a mob of ghouls moaning.
It was early september, or maybe it was late august? I could not quite remember what date it was, I had tried to keep track of time but it was hard doing so while being on the run, and not sleeping regulary had not made the task easier.

[i]"So, Theodore" [/i]Oliver said, breaking the silence. [i]"If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?"[/i] I started thinking of my hometown, a small town that wasn't even on the map. [i]"Up north, a small town you've probably never heard of."[/i] I responded and looked at Oliver. [i]"What about you?"[/i]
[i]"Manchester, a city north of Boston."[/i] Oliver replied. [i]"A really nice city, a real shame that some nut felt that burning it to the ground were a good idea."[/i] I noticed that his face had changed, he looked disgusted.
[i]"That... seems kind of drastic, what happened if you won't mind?"[/i] Oliver quickly changed his facial expression, he almost looked relieved. [i]"Sure, I won't mind, it's a pretty long story I suppose but if there's something we got plenty of is time"[/i] He said and smiled.
[i]"When all of this started, there were alot of people passing through from the northern cities to get to Boston, you maybe remember how the government told everyone to get to the big cities, because of how the army would be there and there would be enough supplies for everyone?"[/i] I nodded as a reply, and he continued. [i]"Well alot of people from Manchester left the city to go to Boston too, so there were alot of empty houses right? So the reports about these zombies became more and more frequent, and suddenly the TVs stopped working."[/i] He said, and looked around himself as if he expected ghouls to appear around us, but quickly continued on his story.

[i]"And maybe two or three weeks after that, alot of people appeared. All of them came from Boston, people who were scared, afraid, telling stories about the city had been overrun, no salvation and all that religious crap."[/i] Oliver looked at me as if he was wondering if it bored me, I looked at him and told him to continue his story. I guess he wasn't very religious at all then.
[i]"So we suddenly had more and more zombies coming from that city, not like it never had happened before, but it was mostly lone zombies that people in the city could take care of. Anyways, this was when things started to get out of hand. People started going crazy for real this time, people looting all the stores, people killing eachother for supplies. I were smart however"[/i] He said and started pointing to his head, smiling. [i]"I had prepared, I had bought enough food, water and all the other necessities to be able to survive for atleast half a year, and I had a friend over at my house too."[i] He stopped smiling, but kept on talking.

[i]"Even though we both knew that we had to get out from the safety of our house eventually we did not think it would happen the way it did..."[/i]
Oliver looked sad, I could only guess what happened to his friend but I feared the worst. [i]"You don't have to talk about it if you dont want to"[/i] I said to Oliver, but he shook his head. [i]"It's been a long time since it happened, and even if it saddens me it makes me feel alot better to talk about it"
"I guess you're right, talking about things that have happened makes it easier to handle."[/i]I said, he looked at me and smiled. [i]"Right, so me and my friend were holding up in my house, a two story house that I had barricaded as soon as I heard about it on the news. We were doing quite okay actually, most people had ran off and taken the zombies with them or holed up in their places just like me and my bud."[/i]
He stopped, looking around once again to make sure there were no ghouls nearby.
[i]"But then something happened. I guess it was a zombie horde from Boston, but the streets were flooding with them, and some of the remaining survivors decided that fire would be a good tool to use against them."
"I guess noone told them that there were no firefighters left to handle the fires they started"[/i] Oliver said and chuckled once again. I was amazed with how easily Oliver could laugh about it all, but I guess everyone handles thing differently. He cleared his throat, and continued.

[i]"So the fires started spreading all over the city, and me and my friend jeremy, that was his name"[/i] I looked at him, it looked as if tears started to form in his eyes but he quickly continued to talk.
[i]"We decided that it was a good time to leave if any, since relying on the rain to stop it all would be futile. We packed our bags and left our safe place. It was still early in the morning when we left, and we decided to move north. What we did not expect however, were the amount of zombies standing in our way. Jeremy was a big guy though, he used to play football and had been in the army, so dispatching a few zombies every now and then were no problem."
"Well, until Jeremy..."[/i] Oliver stopped talking, and I could guess what was coming next. I told Oliver that it was ok, and he nodded. [i]"Maybe another time, we should probably be more alert on our surroundings instead yeah?"[/i] He said, and scatched his forehead.
An unexpected cloud covered the sky, and I looked behind us. Still no sign of the ghouls chasing us. But dark clouds were coming closer, and it would be a pain in the ass to walk in the rain since neither of us had any clothes fit for that kind of weather.
We had now walked for about half an hour, and in front of us just about 50 metres or so were the mini-van.

[i]"Let's check it out"[/i] I said to Oliver. [i]"Who knows, maybe it's working?"[/i]

[b]On the road again[/b]

Chapter eight

We finally stood before it, a mini-van. But it was not any type of mini-van. No, it was a Toyota 1985.
[i]"Doesn't look to banged up"[/i], Oliver noted. I looked at the car, no external damages. But why would someone leave a perfectly good mini-van out in the open? What could've possibly happened to the former owner to just ditch it?
[i]"It's awfully quiet, maybe it is a trap?"[/i] I said to Oliver. We looked around, but nobody seemed to be nearby. Atleast noone who could be seen.
[i]"No idea, we should check the car anyways and see if there is anything inside it. And maybe if we're lucky, it might even be in running condition"[/i] Oliver said, and looked at me.
[i]"Check the surroundings first, could be ghouls nearby"[/i] I said and picked up the crowbar I had packed in my bag.
I jogged over to the car while Oliver looked around on the sides of the road, the car itself was in good shape, except for a few dents here and there and bloodstains.
Odd, it didn't seem like it had broken down by itself. I walked closer to the windows to look inside, when Oliver yelled at me. [i]"Theodore, come over here!"[/i] he yelled.
I walked over to Oliver, he held his hand in front of his mouth. I soon realized why.

[i]"Look at this"[/i] Oliver said and pointed on the corpse lying in the ditch. [i]"What do you think happened to the poor fella?"[/i] I looked at the corpse, it did not appear as if he had been bitten by any ghouls at all, but his corpse must've been lying here for a couple of weeks, maybe months.
[i]"No idea, his face is covered with something but I can't hear any snarling or anything at all. I think we should atleast drag him onto the road, so we can inspect closer what might've happened to him."[/i] Oliver looked at me, and nodded. We took a hold of one leg each, and started dragging. The leafs and broken sticks that had covered his face fell down on the ground and you could see a hole in his skull.

I turned around and felt like throwing up, even though I had been around death for a couple of months it still made me nauscious to look at grievious wounds such as this.
[i]"That's nasty"[/i] I said, [i]"but we should probably investigate it further."[/i] I wondered why I had said that, if I had been alone this would've caused me to stop caring about this man and continued my travel.
We dragged up the man on the road, and in his hand he held something.

A pistol, I did not know what type of pistol it was, but Oliver seemed to know. [i]"It's a Colt 1911. Looks like he could not take it anymore"[/i] He said and looked at me.
[i]"This might sound barbaric, but I really think we should take it, I can handle a gun, I owned one of these a long time ago actually."
"Yeah, I don't think it's no use to the former owner now anyways."[/i] I looked at the man, his face laid on the asphalt. [i]"What should we do about him?"[/i] I asked Oliver.
[i]"I don't know, if we had the time and the tools I would have proposed giving him a proper funeral, but we got neither time nor a spade to dig him a grave."[/i] He said, and looked at the hill we had come from.

[i]"How long time do you think we got before they are here?"[/i] He asked, it had gone probably fifty minutes or so since we stood on top of the hill.
[i]"My guess would be roughly two hours. Let's check out the car, it may still be driveable if the owner commited suicide."[/i] I went over to the car, and looked inside once again. I tried opening up the door, but it was locked. I called over Oliver and asked him if he could check through the pockets of the man if the keys were there.
Oliver walked over and looked through his pockets, while I tried to make out what could be inside the car. It seemed like the man had prepared, there was what looked like a fishing rod were inside, but most of the stuff was covered by some sort of sheet.
[i]"Found it!"[/i], I looked at Oliver and he had a couple of keys in his hand, he walked over and we tried a bunch of them.
A clicking noise, and we were able to open the doors. A foul odor hit us when we opened it, it smelled of rotten vegetables and moldy bread. A not too pleasant surprise.

[i]"Let's unpack and see what's in here"[/i] I said to Oliver. We started unpacking, the man had brought alot of perishables, and it was pretty nasty to handle all of it.
He had however brought plenty of water, I estimated it to be enough for both me and Oliver to last us two months.
What surprised us the most was the amount of clothes the man had brought with him, a large quantity of tuxedos and other fine clothes was packed neatly in brown boxes.
I started to think about the man, was he rich? If he was it would be strange that he had chosen an old car like the toyota mini-van, especially the 1985 one. Maybe he owned a clothing store, and didn't want anyone to steal and plunder his business while he ran away?

Or maybe he had in fact stolen all of the clothes, ran off in hopes of being able to sell it once the government had solved all this? This made me think about the government, how they told us to gather in the larger cities and be sitting ducks until they could solve this madness. But they couldn't keep this... disease, or whatever it was outside, and it spread like a wildfire in those camps they had set up near the larger cities. How dumb the government could be, thinking that they could herd up everyone and somehow cure it.

How could they be so foolish? I remember the first time I heard about it on the news, I think it was in... Washington DC, where it all started. Or atleast that's where the first case was reported, a couple of guys who had been out drinking had started mocking some hobo, and had attacked them, giving them near-fatal bite wounds. I remember the fuzz it started, people talking about how easily it could be contained, that the movies had taught us not how to respond.
But somehow it spread like a wildfire over the country, the government acting like it was not a problem at all, trying to calm the population in fear of widespread hysteria. And at first, it seemed as if they had succeeded.
[i]"Hey"[/i], I heard Oliver say as I snapped out of it. [i]"You ok?"[/i] I looked at him, and responded. [i]"Yeah, I was just thinking about this man."[/i] Oliver looked at me, first he was confused but a big grin soon covered his face. [i]"Come, take a Look at this"[/i] He said, and picked up a large box.

[i]"Look at this baby"[/i] he said, and showed me a rifle. [i]"It's a Remington Model 700, one of the finest rifles in the world."[/i] I looked at him, it seemed as if he were glowing with joy.

[b]Tiresome travels[/b]

Chapter nine

[i]"You seem to know alot about guns"[/i] I said to Oliver, who was still inspecting the rifle. [i]"Were you a hunter, or?"[/i] Oliver stopped looking at the rifle, and looked at me.
[i]"I used to hunt, yeah. But I've always had a fascination for weapons, guess it comes after my father."[/i] He turned around and looked at the hill, I did too. No ghouls yet, but I could almost feel in the air that soon enough you'd be able to see them.
We had unpacked everything from the car, and most of it had been garbage. But the previous owner had brought with him some good stuff too. Among that were a tent, made for two persons, an axe, fishing rod with the necessary accessories, plenty of water and to Olivers joy, a hunting rifle with about 200 rounds of ammunition.
What was unclear however, was if the car would still run. I turned to Oliver and told him to watch our surroundings, while I could check the car. [i]"Sure"[/i] he said, [i]"Would you mind if I tried shooting with the rifle if I saw any ghouls?"[/i]. I shook my head to show that I did not, and could see the joy in his face. It was like going with a kid to a candy store, except the candy was highly lethal and could kill.
Nevertheless, I took the car keys and tried starting it.

Nothing.

I went towards the front of the car, and popped the hood. I was thankful for my interest for once, countless of hours had been spent in my parents garage where I would just stand in front of the car, looking through the cars engine just to understand how it all worked. It had helped me through school too, when all the cool kids had their parents buy them a car. My parents werent rich enough, so I never had the chance to get one myself.
But it didn't matter, I could hang around with the other kids and their cars, fixing them up from time to time.
I quickly found out what was wrong, the car had been banged up from what I pressumed were the former owner trying to hit ghouls while escaping, and the car radiator had twisted.
It could probably be fixed, but it could take some time to twist it back. [i]"Oliver"[/i], I yelled. He was standing near a ditch, and turned around towards me. [i]"What?"[/i] He replied back. [i]"I can probably fix the car, but I fear it can take some time."
"How long?"[/i] He replied back, and then looked around himself as if he was afraid ghouls were nearby. [i]"My guess would be an hour or so, I could try to fix this or we could pack all the stuff we need and start walking."[/i] I said. Oliver looked at the hill, and then at me. [i]"Let's try to fix it up, I'll pack the bags with the stuff we found in case it does not work."

"Yeah, do that"[/i] I replied and started fixing with the car. Once again my mind slipped back into thinking about how all this could've happened. The ghouls were not fast nor could they do advanced manouvers, hell they couldn't even open a damn door, let alone watch where they were going.
It must've taken a week or so before there were rumors about these ghouls walking around in other cities besides Washington DC, or was it even shorter? I rarely had time to think about all this, but now that I was in familiar grounds with a car's engine in front of me there were nothing else I could think about.
Maybe it was our ignorance to the world around us that made all of this happen? Or maybe it was because of people thinking this was some sort of oral advertising for the new zombie flick that was coming up? Either way it made me angry, even if this was a whole new plague it still resembled the way George A Romero had described them.

Slow, mindless beasts with only one thing in mind. To consume the living.

The incubation time were much longer this time around however, it could take up to two weeks before the infected human would suddenly... Die, is probably the right word for it. The death would be as if someone had gotten a heart attack, and would rise again to feast upon the flesh of the living. It had proven to be far easier to kill though, a shot through the heart or the brain was enough to bring one down, but the ghouls didnt seem to register pain.
I started wondering if maybe ghouls had been around in the world since the dawn of time, it seemed plausible, but why did it spread so quickly now, why had it not happened before?

Either way, the sightings of ghouls in the beginning were sparse, and people must've believed it to be the cause of drugs or something else. But it started getting worse as soon as it hit New York. The news had faded on the ghouls after it had seemed to been taken care of, this must've been... two months or so after Washington, maybe it took that long for someone to walk that distance?
I started fixing with the engine and looked around. The weather had gone worse, dark clouds were hanging in the air and the wind had grown stronger, and gotten much colder. The clock must've been around three or four, and it had gotten darker.
Oliver was still packing all the necessary stuff into our bags, in case the engine was irrepairable.

I continued working on the engine, the radiator was in place but much had still to be done. I kept thinking of the beginning, the plague had found new life, or un-life after it had found it's way into New York, and soon you could hear reports about it even on the east coast. It was strange, how quick it would go. Then the news came that they wanted to herd everyone into camps around the major cities, not only would they be able to protect everyone from the ghouls, they would also provide healthcare for those who had gone sick.

So stupid, you could've thought they would know it wasn't cureable.
My friends however, felt that they could rely on the government to take care of all this, that by going to the camps they would be safe. I remember how furious they were when I told them that I wanted to stay home, and to ride out the wave. [i]"The goverment got weapons, they got helicopters and tanks!"[/i] they said, [i]"You'll be all alone here with noone to look after you, is that really what you want?".[/i]
But I had always enjoyed solitude, I felt the best when I were inside the stomach of a car, trying to solve the problem and make it feel better.
[i]"Theodore, look at that hill!"[/i] I heard Oliver yell, and I looked at the hill.

It was impossible to see how many they were, but the horde of ghouls that were after us stood all there, slowly walking downhills towards us.

[CourageDog]

It's good, but is this an opening? Are you leading on from the middle of the story?
It certainly raises lots of questions, which is good, but too many questions can put a weight on your story.

I got a little confused as you kept referring to the zombies as [b]ghouls[/b]? But then i realised what you meant and carried on.

I like it, you have some talent.

[Gregah]

[QUOTE=CourageDog;18715543]It's good, but is this an opening? Are you leading on from the middle of the story?
It certainly raises lots of questions, which is good, but too many questions can put a weight on your story.

I got a little confused as you kept referring to the zombies as [b]ghouls[/b]? But then i realised what you meant and carried on.

I like it, you have some talent.[/QUOTE]

Yeah this will be the opening of this story, the idea is that i'll continue the story when the survivors talk about themselves.
The idea at first would be the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, some minor events that would hint of things to come, and then escalate it all to a full-spread panic where the main character first have to cope with the panic (and with everything that comes with it, trying to understand the situation, getting resources while fighting of both zombies and other humans, and also trying to save both family members and friends) and then the aftermath.
But I felt that throwing the reader halfway into the story would be a better choice, but perhaps it wasn't?

I decided to call the zombies ghouls because I really like the word ghoul, but I suppose I could use both zombie and ghoul when the two companions tell their stories.
Should I re-write the text so that there are fewer questions?

Glad you liked it nonetheless :)

[johanz]

What I didn't like:
Shirt fit like a glove. It just sounds wrong. A piece of clothing fits like a piece of clothing.

Anyway, wasn't backdoor locked or something?

[Gregah]

[QUOTE=johanz;18716143]What I didn't like:
Shirt fit like a glove. It just sounds wrong. A piece of clothing fits like a piece of clothing.

Anyway, wasn't backdoor locked or something?[/QUOTE]

Good point, I'll have to think of a new way to describe how it fitted.

And that is a big miss by me, i'll have to rephrase that one too.

Thanks for pointing those things out :)

[mikhga]

I liked it, but since I love adjectives I think the end became a little thin.

[i]"Quickly I ran to the door and opened it, the one banging on the door rushed inside and as I closed the door a ghoul managed to squeeze it's arm inside, but my fellow survivor had a machete and cut it off.
The bangings on the door escalated, now I were besieged on two fronts but I had a companion now.
I looked at my newfound friend and said:

"Hi.""[/i]

I really would like to see an initial impression of the person standing behind the door, everything happens a little too quick in that particular part, but that's fine since it's still a WIP.

[Gregah]

Alright, I changed my words on the topics you mentioned in the first post, and wrote the second chapter.

[b]Newfound hope[/b]
Chapter two

The man, who must've been in his mid thirties started breathing more normal and stretched himself and extended his arm to shake my hand.
[i]"God bless you, I surely would have died tonight if it were not for you!"[/i] the man said.
[i]"I'm equally glad to see another living, breathing human, mr?"[/i] I responded while trying to sound as polite as possible, not an easy task I might add given the fact that I was still in a slight shock of standing before someone not trying to eat me alive.
[i]"Oliver, Oliver Parker. And what is your name, if I may ask my saviour?"
"My name is Theodore Collins"[/i] I said.

[i]"Pleased to meet you Theodore, if you won't mind me asking but you do not have by any chance anything I could eat? I'm starving and have not had something to eat for god knows how long."
"Hmm, I should have some snickers in my backpack"[/i] I said, [i]"You're not allergic to nuts are you?"

"No sir i'm not, and to be honest with you Theodore, even if I were allergic to nuts I wouldn't be able to turn down such a friendly gift."[/i] Oliver said while smiling.
I quickly found one snickers and gave it to Oliver.
[i]"Thank you very much, the only thing I got with me is my machete who you saw, two small bottles of water and my house keys"[/i], Oliver said.
[i]"Not sure why I even keep the keys with me, my house is long gone and i'm far, far away from my home city but I guess they remind me of better times, before all this shit happened you know?"[/i]

I said nothing, and Oliver looked upon me with suspicion.

[i]"You allright friend?"
"Yeah, i'm just, I dont know, shocked I suppose"[/i] I said,[i]"you're the first breathing human I've seen in almost half a year."
"That is a long time my friend, but those days are over now, I'm here right?"[/i] He said while chuckling.
[i]"Excuse me if I seem rude, but this place, it's safe right? I'm really tired and there's nothing more I'd wish but to finally be able to sleep in a safe place."[/i]

[i]"It's safe for now yes, there are no windows at all in this place and the smell is quite poor, but the doors wont break open anytime soon and I'm not tired yet, so I can sit guard for now."[/i] I said to Oliver, who looked upon me, and then proceeded to smile.
[i]"Thank you friend, it's so good to hear another human being again."[/i] He said, and then looked around. [i]"Excuse me if I sound rude yet again,, but is there anything you can sleep on in this place?"

"Yeah, there's a matress you can crash on, not sure how clean it is but you can take out some clothes from the closet over there and use as a temporary bedsheets, I hardly doubt anyone is around to complain?"[/i] I said, and Oliver chuckled he then proceeded to scour through the closet, finally settling for a couple of shirts as his temporary bedsheet.
[i]"I'll keep the door open in case something happens, yeah?"[/i] He asked, I nodded and he smiled.
[i]"Goodnight then my friend"[/i] he said, and went to sleep on the old matress.
I found a small chair I could sit on and positioned it so that I could overlook both he frontdoor and the backdoor easily, and soon enough you could hear loud snores coming from the other room.

I smiled, Oliver seemed like a really nice guy and I had finally someone to talk to, someone who could watch my back and watch over me while I slept, a luxury I've not had for a very, very long time.

Edit : Added this text to the OP.

[Gregah]

Wrote a new chapter a couple of minutes ago :

[b]Grim tidings[/b]
Chapter three

After what felt like five or six hours I went and woke up Oliver, he was still quite sleepy but said that he felt more rested than he had ever before, and went to sit guard. It took some time for me to relax, I always had a hard time to fall asleep even though I knew I was safe, but finally I went to sleep.
I woke up later on by the sound from someone walking around, I heard the steps coming closer so I figured out it was Oliver who came to wake me up.
[i]"Hey"[/i], I heard him say. [i]"Wake up, it's probably morning outside now and perhaps we should think about leaving this place."[/i]

I slowly turned over and sat up. [i]"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. But it's going to be dangerous, were there many ghouls following you when you came to this place?"[/i] I said and yawned. [i]"Ghouls?"[/i]Oliver said, and I explained that is what I call these things out there.
[i]"Oh, you mean zombies! Not too many, I reckon there were about five or six of them, but we should be able to take care of them if we take it easy. You have a weapon right?"
"Yes ofcourse, I got a small crowbar right here"[/i] I said and picked it up. [i]"So, you ready to hit the road?"[/i]
He nodded and we quietly walked over to the door, and suddenly I noticed something.

There was no sound of clawings or bangings on the door at all.

[i]"This is strange, there doesn't seem to be any ghouls outside trying to get in."[/i] Oliver looked at me, and then looked confused.
[i]"That is strange indeed, maybe they walked away?"[/i] He said.
[i]"Maybe, but I think we should atleast knock and see if it creates any sort of response from the other side"[/i], I said and looked at Oliver.
He nodded, and I knocked on the door.
[i]"Nothing, I'll open the door then, but be cautious, there could still be ghouls outside."[/i]

I then opened the door, Oliver stood ready with his machete but oddly enough, nothing came through.
We looked at eachother, and I finally I got a good look at Oliver since the sun shone right on him.
When I opened the door last night and let im I had thought that he maybe were in his mid thirties, but now I saw that he must have been atleast fifty or something.
Funny how the dark can alter your appearance and make you look younger I thought to myself, but he seemed to be a quite fit man for his age, standing at the height of roughly 175-180cm and probably being around the weight of 70something kilograms.

But this was not the time for glaring at him and asking questions, we still were not sure how safe the nearby area were, even if there were no ghouls standing at our very doorstep. I asked Oliver if he could see anyone.
He leaned over to both sides of the door but there seemed to be nothing out there, and without a word he walked outside, and I followed.
We were standing in an alleyway, the sun shone brightly and I estimated the time to be around noon.
A light wind coming from what I pressumed were east stroke my chin, and somehow I felt uneasy about something..
[i]"I guess we should keep on walking forward, this doesn't seem to be a huge city at all."[/i] I said to Oliver, but I noticed that he looked concerned with something. [i]"What's wrong, Oliver?"

"Something's wrong, zombies never just walk away like this. Let's try and find a vantage point so we can check our surroundings.",[/i] he said, while looking around. [i]"Take that ladder over there"[/i] he said and pointed to a ladder next to the door we had just left through.
[i]"We should get on top of the roof, you know to check our surroundings before we walk into a trap."
"You got a point, should I go first?"[/i] I asked, and Oliver nodded. [i]"I'll come right after you,"[/i] he said.
I proceeded to climb up the ladder but for every step I took I felt more and more worried about something, but I couldn't really figure out why.
I got up the ladder, and that's when I came to a realization where my fear had came from.
Oliver soon came up after me, and all he could say was

[i]"Oh shit, is all that what I think it is?"
"Yes."[/i]

Edit ; Added this text to op.

[SenorJose]

[QUOTE=Gregah;18738630]
"There is something wrong with this, zombies does not just walk away like this. I really think we should gain a vantage point to check our surroundings",[/i] he said, while looking around. [i]"Look, there's a ladder there,"[/i] he said and pointed to a ladder next to the door we had just left through.[/QUOTE]

The dialogue is too unnatural. e.g 'there is something wrong with this, zombies does not just walk away like this'

Try changing it to something like 'something's wrong, zombies never just walk away like this. Let's try and find a vantage point so we can check our surroundings. '

And.

'Take that ladder over there'

[Gregah]

Now that you mention it, it does sound unnatural.
I'll change what you mentioned, is there something else with the dialogue that needs a change?

[Gregah]

Wrote a new "chapter" now (no idea what it's called in these short stories actually) :

[b]Dark times ahead[/b]
Chapter four

The sight was overwhelming, and finally I realized what I had smelled in that breeze. The sight was horrifying, thousands of ghouls beneath us, walking on the main street.
Where they were walking, I did not know. But I knew that we either had to wait for them to pass by which could take days, considering the amount of them down there, or make a daring escape on the rooftops, a quite dangerous task if there had been any fires within the houses who could've weakened the bearing columns inside.
But the risk of getting caught by zombies on the street were far more higher than falling down the roof on a house, so to me the choice were obvious, but now I had a companion with me.
[i]"How many zombies could there be down there?"[/i] Oliver said while making a disgusted facial expression, as if he were about to throw up. [i]"My guess would be something between twenty or thirty thousand of them, but I fear there could be atleast twice that number"[/i] I replied, while trying to look as calm as possible.

[i]"The way I see it, we can either try to wait them out or try to exit the city. Waiting them out could take alot of time though, especially if there are more of them up that road"[/i], I said while pointing at the road. [i]"We could however try to leave the city through the roofs, it's dangerous but I'd rather do that than trying to wait this out, especially with how few resources we have left."[/i]
We looked at eachother and then we looked at the crowd beneath us, a mindless wave of walking death just walking without a clue or any thought at all, still dead while being alive with only one goal. To consume the living.
[i]"I do not wish to stay around here any longer, even if it means to risk our lives to get out of here. Lead the way Theodore!"[/i]

I looked around, the houses in this part of the city were closely knit together and would easen the way out of here and hopefully wouldn't prove to be as risky as I first thought. "Let's go" I said, and waved at Oliver to follow.
Walking over the roofs proved to be not dangerous at all, and we finally came to the edge of town without being noticed by the ghouls, we checked our surroundings and then sat down in the grass to talk about our next move.

[i]"That road that they used should go east if I recall correctly, I came from the west and used that road before I found the shelter"[/i], I said to Oliver. [i]"And we are south now, I do not know how far it is to the next town. You don't happen to have a map with you?"
"I'm afraid not, when I had to ditch my last shelter there were one lying around but I can't read maps at all, so I chose not to bring it with me. Would've done wonders now but hindsight is 20/20 right?"[/i] He said and chuckled. I looked at him and smiled, he looked like a man who had been around the world and seen things but appearances can be decieveing it seemed, and started wondering what he thought about what person I were.
[i]"Maybe we should try to check the nearby houses? Chances are probably not so high for finding a map but I reckon we're in need of supplies."[/i] Oliver said and proceeded to stand up, looking onto the nearest house.

[i]"That's a good idea, I only got food for another day and water for two days"[/i], I said and stood up myself. [i]"One house each, we grab what we can take?"
"Sure, you take the green house over there"[/i], Oliver said and pointed on a small house that had seen better days.[i]"I'll take the one next to it, closest to us. Yell if you need help, meet me outside in ten ok?"[/i]
I nodded, and started jogging over to the door while Oliver did the same. The door was closed,so I checked the doorknob.
It wasnt locked, but there could probably be something inside so I knocked. No response there either, no shuffling sound, no human voice at all.

Quietly I opened up the door, it creaked slightly while I did so but stopped halfway. Something were blocking it's path.
Not wanting to risk the chance of being bitten by some half-torn ghoul lying in ambush I softly called out if anybody was there, but no response. Calmly I stuck my head in and checked what caused this. It was just a small brown bag, and judging from the size it was probably carrying books.
I took up my small crowbar and had it ready in case anything was inside, and squeezed through the door.
The inside was a small hall, clothrack on the left and a couple of shoes that stood neatly in line. I closed the door after me and stood still for a second to hear if there were any noise inside, but it was still quiet.

I turned around and picked up the bag, it was in fact quite heavy and there were in fact books inside. I opened the bag and there seemed to be alot of school books, some paper, some pencils and just the everyday stuff you would take with you to school.
The bag was pretty sturdy, and seemed to be able to carry alot of weight so I turned it upside down and spilled all the stuff outside.
This made some noise however, and I noticed something when all the stuff was lying on the ground. There were blood on some of the books.
I looked deeper inside the house, and noticed that there were some small drops of blood on the floor, leading away from the hall and away into what I pressumed were the living room.

That's when I heard it. The distinct moan of a ghoul, it was inside the house and if my guess were right it were most likely the one who had carried the bag with him or her.
It was coming closer, I stood in the hallway with my back towards the door, just waiting for the ghoul to come to me.
Seconds passed that felt like hours, the moaning became louder, and suddenly the ghoul was at the end of the hall.
It stood there, looking at me with it's lifeless eyes, a girl who could've not been older than thirteen years with short golden hair and a jonas brothers shirt. The ghoul looked at me for just a split second, and I started wondering how she was when she were alive, but I quickly shook those thoughts away, she was no longer alive and I could not let myself think of her as a human being, it would make me hesitate when I was in striking range and it was a matter of life and death now. It was either her undying life or my life.

I gripped my crowbar harder, she finally came within range of it and I struck it hard.

[Tyanet]

It has a very diary like feel...

I like it.

[Gregah]

[QUOTE=tyanet;18777273]It has a very diary like feel...

I like it.[/QUOTE]

Glad you like it :)

[quote=FlameCow]
I fixed a few parts of Chapter 1, they're shown in bold. Hopefully you don't mind.
[/quote]
No not at all, thank you for taking your time helping me :)

[Gregah]

Wrote a new one today, not too fond about how it went but I'll let you be the judges on this one. :)

[b]Forgotten belongings[/b]

Chapter five

There was a loud crack when the crowbar found it's target, and the ghoul fell down almost instantly. I stood over it and looked as a puddle of blood started forming.
I kicked it in the face, but no movements. I looked up and tried to hear if there was anyone else inside, but no sound at all.
This had all taken mere seconds but it felt like hours, even if I had killed a dozen of those ghouls it never became easier, and I shed a tear for the one I had just slain.
But I still had an objective, so thinking about this had to wait. I walked further inside the hall, and finally found the kitchen about three meters inside to the left.
It looked clean and neat, green tapestries covered the walls and some sort of fake marble on the floor. there were small drips of blood on the floor, no doubt had the girl gone into the kitchen at first to clean whatever wound she had sustained from a ghouls bite and then walk into her room or the living room.
I shook those thoughts away from my mind, I had to find food and water, preferably unopened bottles.

There was a refrigerator that was opened, and a pantry close by. Not wanting to waste any time I opened up the pantry, and looked through if they had any tin-cans with food, since those would last the longest and would not be contaminated unless you opened them up and exposed them from diseases or ghouls.
It was dark inside, the lights had long been gone so it took some time to adjust but I finally found what I had looked for.
Two cans of raviolo, two cans filled with some sort of soup and four cans with peaches.
God I hated peaches, but beggars can't be choosers and perhaps Oliver was a fan of this disgusting fruit.
There was not anything else of value inside the pantry, either it was already opened up or had long gone out, so I started to browse through the refrigerator.

The smell was disgusting, rotten fruit combined with moldy dairy products was something I would rank with the smell of a decaying ghoul, but the refrigerator had been open thankfully so it did not come at me in full force, something that usually happened when I scoured through refrigerators that was closed.
I was in luck however, this particular family seemed to be very fond of bottled water and there were seven half litre ones, all unopened.
I started unloading all the bottles into my newly acquired bag when I noticed that someone had stored a chocolate bar behind the bottles.
And to my luck, it was not opened either!

Joy filled my heart, I had craved for milk-chocolate for a very long time now and we had tin-cans that could last both me and Oliver for four days, and most importantly we had water.
I started thinking of what Oliver could've found, and if he had encountered any ghouls. I picked up my bags and started moving deeper into the house, it had probably taken about five minutes and I had five to spare, maybe I could find a map or medicine.
I soon entered what I pressumed was the living room, two big leather sofas was in an L formation around a TV, two bookshelves that didn't contain alot of books and a big table with six chairs, three on each side. There were also a couple of windows that looked out on what I pressumed was the back yard.
There wasn't much of notice here, the place were well lit even though the lights had like all electricity gone out for a long, long time.
I had to take a look at the bookshelves though, even if the chances of any maps being there were slim there were always a chance that there were one good book you could read atleast.

Even though I searched through all the books I could not find a map nor could I find any interesting books, in fact I cringed when I saw only cheap novels about vampires and some sort of super soldiers fighting for some sort of empire in big bulky power armours.
This got me thinking about this house, about the parents of this family and the kids. Did they have two, three kids? Was the girl the youngest of the bunch? Perhaps she was the older sister?
What confused me even more was that there had only been one family member inside, where were the parents? Alot of questions swirled through my mind, and I felt how tears started massing up in my eyes.
I had to sit down on one of the chairs, I dragged one out and sat down.I started crying. Maybe her parents were out there, in another city frightened and worrying about their baby girl, all alone.

Suddenly I heard a noise, it came from the front door. Someone was coming inside.

[Gregah]

Wrote a new one, here it is :

Into the wild

Chapter six

[i]"Hey Oliver"[/i] I shouted out, figuring that he was wondering what I was up to. But there were no response, except for an empty moan.
[i]"Shit, this is not good at all"[/i] I thought to myself, and stood up, readying my crowbar. I walked over to the hall and there it stood, a ghoul who must've been a man in his twenties before he died and returned. It was strange however, he did not have any clothes on him except for his underwear, and long scars covered his body, dried blood on his both arms.
He must've suffered significant damage from someone in a hurry, the only way you could kill these ghouls were by crushing the head. The turning must've happened just a couple of days ago however, the big gashing wound he suffered from some ghoul biting him in his neck were still leaking blood or what you would call it, and he had not yet started to rot.

He came closer, and I raised my crowbar, and when he was in distance I hit him, right on the frontal lobe. It did not crack, but he fell backwards. No signs of life, so I hurried out from the building not wanting to waste anymore seconds inside.
The sun hit my face as I exited the building, but dark clouds were closing in from the north. It looked like rain would hit us soon enough, maybe in mere hours. I looked around, and terror struck me as I saw a mob of ghouls closing in on our position.
[i]"This isn't good."[/i] I thought to myself and turned around to the house Oliver had went into. [i]"OLIVER, GET OUT HERE QUICK!"[/i] I yelled and started jogging to the door.
The door opened up and Oliver came out, it looked like he had blood on his shirt, a purple longsleeved shirt with a nike logo on it.
[i]"Hey, I could not find a map but I found some supplies, a couple of..."[/i]He looked beyond me and his face changed, terror was in his eyes and he looked at me.
[i]"Uh, we really should get a move on shouldn't we?"

"Yes."[/i]

We started jogging south, away from the city. There were no time to talk right now, we had to get out of sight as soon as possible.
[i]"How could they find us?"[/i] Oliver asked as we ran along the road. [i]"I do not know, I thought we were sneaky when we escaped through the rooftops, but I guess not."
"We need to distract them, or else we will just be chased by a mob of zombies forever"[/i] Oliver said, [i]"And it's a damn shame, that there is no music in this world."
"What do you mean?"[/i] I asked, looking curiously on Oliver who had a smile on his face.
[i]"Well, a benny hill theme sure would lighten my mood if we are chased."[/i] Oliver started laughing, and I just kept on jogging, being shocked by how easily Oliver seem to take all this.
[i]"What?"[/i] He said while looking on me, [i]"You can't be so uptight about everything Theodore, relax a bit, laugh. You have to laugh, it's one of the things that differs those things from us"[/i]. Oliver smiled, and thinking about it all, I started smiling too. [i]"There you go, it's not so hard now is it?"[/i]. He chuckled and kept on jogging.

After half an hour we looked back. There were no sign of any ghouls at all, and I looked at Oliver. He knew, you could outrun these things, but they will forever chase you.
The road had started going down hill, and the sight were quite breathtaking.
To our right there were a forest, stretching for as far as the eye could see, and to our left were plains, and a big lake. The road itself were empty, except for what seemed to be some sort of mini-van far, far away.
[i]"The view is breathtaking, and to think that I would never be able to see this if this... apocalypse or what you want to call it had not happened."[/i]
I looked at Oliver, he seemed to take this pretty well. It made me curious, maybe he were religious? I had to know, but this was probably the best time.
[i]"Yeah it is"[/i] I replied, and added [i]"And to think that God made all of this, in just one day."[/i] I waited for some sort of reply from Oliver, but he just stared into the distance.

No response at all. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Not that it mattered really, Oliver seemed to be a genuinely nice guy with an odd sense of humour, but I knew that I could rely on him atleast. It was very silent today, no birds around.
[i]"Oliver"[/i], I said. [i]"Do you see that car over there?"[/i] I pointed at the direction I had seen the mini-van. [i]"Hmm, I can see that there is something down there, but my sight is not what it used to be. You think we should investigate it?"
"I'm not sure to be honest, maybe it's a trap set up by someone?"[/i] I said and looked at Oliver.
[i]"Maybe, maybe not. in any case we are easily spotted here anyways so if it is they know we are coming anyways."
"Yeah you're probably right"[/i] I said and looked behind me. A silhouette in the far distance, meaning the ghouls would probably be where we are in an hour or two.

[i]"Right then, let's continue."[/i]

edit ; Added chapter five to the OP, figuring that it was good enough since noone commented it.

[suttles]

Really nice work. When you finish it, make it one big thread.

[JesusMan]

Love it! Just one question, these are "walking zombies" right? Since Theodore and Oliver managed to jog away from them.

[Gregah]

[QUOTE=Suttles;18825387]Really nice work. When you finish it, make it one big thread.[/QUOTE]

Thanks :)

[quote=JesusMan]
Love it! Just one question, these are "walking zombies" right? Since Theodore and Oliver managed to jog away from them.
[/quote]
Yeah they are.

Fixed a minor error in the text in the sixth chapter, and wrote a new one last night :

[b]Riding shotgun[/b]

Chapter seven

The sun was gazing upon as as we walked on the road, we were in no hurry yet even though a mob of ghouls were chasing us. I felt calm even if we still were in danger, but the hope of catching a ride had lightened up my mood. It was awfully silent however with the only sound produced were that of our boots stepping upon the asphalt.
But I didn't mind it at all, most of the time the only sound you would hear were the distinct sound of a ghoul moaning, or even worse ; a mob of ghouls moaning.
It was early september, or maybe it was late august? I could not quite remember what date it was, I had tried to keep track of time but it was hard doing so while being on the run, and not sleeping regulary had not made the task easier.

[i]"So, Theodore" [/i]Oliver said, breaking the silence. [i]"If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?"[/i] I started thinking of my hometown, a small town that wasn't even on the map. [i]"Up north, a small town you've probably never heard of."[/i] I responded and looked at Oliver. [i]"What about you?"[/i]
[i]"Manchester, a city north of Boston."[/i] Oliver replied. [i]"A really nice city, a real shame that some nut felt that burning it to the ground were a good idea."[/i] I noticed that his face had changed, he looked disgusted.
[i]"That... seems kind of drastic, what happened if you won't mind?"[/i] Oliver quickly changed his facial expression, he almost looked relieved. [i]"Sure, I won't mind, it's a pretty long story I suppose but if there's something we got plenty of is time"[/i] He said and smiled.
[i]"When all of this started, there were alot of people passing through from the northern cities to get to Boston, you maybe remember how the government told everyone to get to the big cities, because of how the army would be there and there would be enough supplies for everyone?"[/i] I nodded as a reply, and he continued. [i]"Well alot of people from Manchester left the city to go to Boston too, so there were alot of empty houses right? So the reports about these zombies became more and more frequent, and suddenly the TVs stopped working."[/i] He said, and looked around himself as if he expected ghouls to appear around us, but quickly continued on his story.

[i]"And maybe two or three weeks after that, alot of people appeared. All of them came from Boston, people who were scared, afraid, telling stories about the city had been overrun, no salvation and all that religious crap."[/i] Oliver looked at me as if he was wondering if it bored me, I looked at him and told him to continue his story. I guess he wasn't very religious at all then.
[i]"So we suddenly had more and more zombies coming from that city, not like it never had happened before, but it was mostly lone zombies that people in the city could take care of. Anyways, this was when things started to get out of hand. People started going crazy for real this time, people looting all the stores, people killing eachother for supplies. I were smart however"[/i] He said and started pointing to his head, smiling. [i]"I had prepared, I had bought enough food, water and all the other necessities to be able to survive for atleast half a year, and I had a friend over at my house too."[i] He stopped smiling, but kept on talking.

[i]"Even though we both knew that we had to get out from the safety of our house eventually we did not think it would happen the way it did..."[/i]
Oliver looked sad, I could only guess what happened to his friend but I feared the worst. [i]"You don't have to talk about it if you dont want to"[/i] I said to Oliver, but he shook his head. [i]"It's been a long time since it happened, and even if it saddens me it makes me feel alot better to talk about it"
"I guess you're right, talking about things that have happened makes it easier to handle."[/i]I said, he looked at me and smiled. [i]"Right, so me and my friend were holding up in my house, a two story house that I had barricaded as soon as I heard about it on the news. We were doing quite okay actually, most people had ran off and taken the zombies with them or holed up in their places just like me and my bud."[/i]
He stopped, looking around once again to make sure there were no ghouls nearby.
[i]"But then something happened. I guess it was a zombie horde from Boston, but the streets were flooding with them, and some of the remaining survivors decided that fire would be a good tool to use against them."
"I guess noone told them that there were no firefighters left to handle the fires they started"[/i] Oliver said and chuckled once again. I was amazed with how easily Oliver could laugh about it all, but I guess everyone handles thing differently. He cleared his throat, and continued.

[i]"So the fires started spreading all over the city, and me and my friend jeremy, that was his name"[/i] I looked at him, it looked as if tears started to form in his eyes but he quickly continued to talk.
[i]"We decided that it was a good time to leave if any, since relying on the rain to stop it all would be futile. We packed our bags and left our safe place. It was still early in the morning when we left, and we decided to move north. What we did not expect however, were the amount of zombies standing in our way. Jeremy was a big guy though, he used to play football and had been in the army, so dispatching a few zombies every now and then were no problem."
"Well, until Jeremy..."[/i] Oliver stopped talking, and I could guess what was coming next. I told Oliver that it was ok, and he nodded. [i]"Maybe another time, we should probably be more alert on our surroundings instead yeah?"[/i] He said, and scatched his forehead.
An unexpected cloud covered the sky, and I looked behind us. Still no sign of the ghouls chasing us. But dark clouds were coming closer, and it would be a pain in the ass to walk in the rain since neither of us had any clothes fit for that kind of weather.
We had now walked for about half an hour, and in front of us just about 50 metres or so were the mini-van.

[i]"Let's check it out"[/i] I said to Oliver. [i]"Who knows, maybe it's working?"[/i]

[Gregah]

Wrote a new one, i'll add chapter seven to the OP.

[b]On the road again[/b]

Chapter eight

We finally stood before it, a mini-van. But it was not any type of mini-van. No, it was a Toyota 1985.
[i]"Doesn't look to banged up"[/i], Oliver noted. I looked at the car, no external damages. But why would someone leave a perfectly good mini-van out in the open? What could've possibly happened to the former owner to just ditch it?
[i]"It's awfully quiet, maybe it is a trap?"[/i] I said to Oliver. We looked around, but nobody seemed to be nearby. Atleast noone who could be seen.
[i]"No idea, we should check the car anyways and see if there is anything inside it. And maybe if we're lucky, it might even be in running condition"[/i] Oliver said, and looked at me.
[i]"Check the surroundings first, could be ghouls nearby"[/i] I said and picked up the crowbar I had packed in my bag.
I jogged over to the car while Oliver looked around on the sides of the road, the car itself was in good shape, except for a few dents here and there and bloodstains.
Odd, it didn't seem like it had broken down by itself. I walked closer to the windows to look inside, when Oliver yelled at me. [i]"Theodore, come over here!"[/i] he yelled.
I walked over to Oliver, he held his hand in front of his mouth. I soon realized why.

[i]"Look at this"[/i] Oliver said and pointed on the corpse lying in the ditch. [i]"What do you think happened to the poor fella?"[/i] I looked at the corpse, it did not appear as if he had been bitten by any ghouls at all, but his corpse must've been lying here for a couple of weeks, maybe months.
[i]"No idea, his face is covered with something but I can't hear any snarling or anything at all. I think we should atleast drag him onto the road, so we can inspect closer what might've happened to him."[/i] Oliver looked at me, and nodded. We took a hold of one leg each, and started dragging. The leafs and broken sticks that had covered his face fell down on the ground and you could see a hole in his skull.

I turned around and felt like throwing up, even though I had been around death for a couple of months it still made me nauscious to look at grievious wounds such as this.
[i]"That's nasty"[/i] I said, [i]"but we should probably investigate it further."[/i] I wondered why I had said that, if I had been alone this would've caused me to stop caring about this man and continued my travel.
We dragged up the man on the road, and in his hand he held something.

A pistol, I did not know what type of pistol it was, but Oliver seemed to know. [i]"It's a Colt 1911. Looks like he could not take it anymore"[/i] He said and looked at me.
[i]"This might sound barbaric, but I really think we should take it, I can handle a gun, I owned one of these a long time ago actually."
"Yeah, I don't think it's no use to the former owner now anyways."[/i] I looked at the man, his face laid on the asphalt. [i]"What should we do about him?"[/i] I asked Oliver.
[i]"I don't know, if we had the time and the tools I would have proposed giving him a proper funeral, but we got neither time nor a spade to dig him a grave."[/i] He said, and looked at the hill we had come from.

[i]"How long time do you think we got before they are here?"[/i] He asked, it had gone probably fifty minutes or so since we stood on top of the hill.
[i]"My guess would be roughly two hours. Let's check out the car, it may still be driveable if the owner commited suicide."[/i] I went over to the car, and looked inside once again. I tried opening up the door, but it was locked. I called over Oliver and asked him if he could check through the pockets of the man if the keys were there.
Oliver walked over and looked through his pockets, while I tried to make out what could be inside the car. It seemed like the man had prepared, there was what looked like a fishing rod were inside, but most of the stuff was covered by some sort of sheet.
[i]"Found it!"[/i], I looked at Oliver and he had a couple of keys in his hand, he walked over and we tried a bunch of them.
A clicking noise, and we were able to open the doors. A foul odor hit us when we opened it, it smelled of rotten vegetables and moldy bread. A not too pleasant surprise.

[i]"Let's unpack and see what's in here"[/i] I said to Oliver. We started unpacking, the man had brought alot of perishables, and it was pretty nasty to handle all of it.
He had however brought plenty of water, I estimated it to be enough for both me and Oliver to last us two months.
What surprised us the most was the amount of clothes the man had brought with him, a large quantity of tuxedos and other fine clothes was packed neatly in brown boxes.
I started to think about the man, was he rich? If he was it would be strange that he had chosen an old car like the toyota mini-van, especially the 1985 one. Maybe he owned a clothing store, and didn't want anyone to steal and plunder his business while he ran away?

Or maybe he had in fact stolen all of the clothes, ran off in hopes of being able to sell it once the government had solved all this? This made me think about the government, how they told us to gather in the larger cities and be sitting ducks until they could solve this madness. But they couldn't keep this... disease, or whatever it was outside, and it spread like a wildfire in those camps they had set up near the larger cities. How dumb the government could be, thinking that they could herd up everyone and somehow cure it.

How could they be so foolish? I remember the first time I heard about it on the news, I think it was in... Washington DC, where it all started. Or atleast that's where the first case was reported, a couple of guys who had been out drinking had started mocking some hobo, and had attacked them, giving them near-fatal bite wounds. I remember the fuzz it started, people talking about how easily it could be contained, that the movies had taught us not how to respond.
But somehow it spread like a wildfire over the country, the government acting like it was not a problem at all, trying to calm the population in fear of widespread hysteria. And at first, it seemed as if they had succeeded.
[i]"Hey"[/i], I heard Oliver say as I snapped out of it. [i]"You ok?"[/i] I looked at him, and responded. [i]"Yeah, I was just thinking about this man."[/i] Oliver looked at me, first he was confused but a big grin soon covered his face. [i]"Come, take a Look at this"[/i] He said, and picked up a large box.

[i]"Look at this baby"[/i] he said, and showed me a rifle. [i]"It's a Remington Model 700, one of the finest rifles in the world."[/i] I looked at him, it seemed as if he were glowing with joy.

[Gregah]

Bump, wrote a new chapter today.

[b]Tiresome travels[/b]

Chapter nine

[i]"You seem to know alot about guns"[/i] I said to Oliver, who was still inspecting the rifle. [i]"Were you a hunter, or?"[/i] Oliver stopped looking at the rifle, and looked at me.
[i]"I used to hunt, yeah. But I've always had a fascination for weapons, guess it comes after my father."[/i] He turned around and looked at the hill, I did too. No ghouls yet, but I could almost feel in the air that soon enough you'd be able to see them.
We had unpacked everything from the car, and most of it had been garbage. But the previous owner had brought with him some good stuff too. Among that were a tent, made for two persons, an axe, fishing rod with the necessary accessories, plenty of water and to Olivers joy, a hunting rifle with about 200 rounds of ammunition.
What was unclear however, was if the car would still run. I turned to Oliver and told him to watch our surroundings, while I could check the car. [i]"Sure"[/i] he said, [i]"Would you mind if I tried shooting with the rifle if I saw any ghouls?"[/i]. I shook my head to show that I did not, and could see the joy in his face. It was like going with a kid to a candy store, except the candy was highly lethal and could kill.
Nevertheless, I took the car keys and tried starting it.

Nothing.

I went towards the front of the car, and popped the hood. I was thankful for my interest for once, countless of hours had been spent in my parents garage where I would just stand in front of the car, looking through the cars engine just to understand how it all worked. It had helped me through school too, when all the cool kids had their parents buy them a car. My parents werent rich enough, so I never had the chance to get one myself.
But it didn't matter, I could hang around with the other kids and their cars, fixing them up from time to time.
I quickly found out what was wrong, the car had been banged up from what I pressumed were the former owner trying to hit ghouls while escaping, and the car radiator had twisted.
It could probably be fixed, but it could take some time to twist it back. [i]"Oliver"[/i], I yelled. He was standing near a ditch, and turned around towards me. [i]"What?"[/i] He replied back. [i]"I can probably fix the car, but I fear it can take some time."
"How long?"[/i] He replied back, and then looked around himself as if he was afraid ghouls were nearby. [i]"My guess would be an hour or so, I could try to fix this or we could pack all the stuff we need and start walking."[/i] I said. Oliver looked at the hill, and then at me. [i]"Let's try to fix it up, I'll pack the bags with the stuff we found in case it does not work."

"Yeah, do that"[/i] I replied and started fixing with the car. Once again my mind slipped back into thinking about how all this could've happened. The ghouls were not fast nor could they do advanced manouvers, hell they couldn't even open a damn door, let alone watch where they were going.
It must've taken a week or so before there were rumors about these ghouls walking around in other cities besides Washington DC, or was it even shorter? I rarely had time to think about all this, but now that I was in familiar grounds with a car's engine in front of me there were nothing else I could think about.
Maybe it was our ignorance to the world around us that made all of this happen? Or maybe it was because of people thinking this was some sort of oral advertising for the new zombie flick that was coming up? Either way it made me angry, even if this was a whole new plague it still resembled the way George A Romero had described them.

Slow, mindless beasts with only one thing in mind. To consume the living.

The incubation time were much longer this time around however, it could take up to two weeks before the infected human would suddenly... Die, is probably the right word for it. The death would be as if someone had gotten a heart attack, and would rise again to feast upon the flesh of the living. It had proven to be far easier to kill though, a shot through the heart or the brain was enough to bring one down, but the ghouls didnt seem to register pain.
I started wondering if maybe ghouls had been around in the world since the dawn of time, it seemed plausible, but why did it spread so quickly now, why had it not happened before?

Either way, the sightings of ghouls in the beginning were sparse, and people must've believed it to be the cause of drugs or something else. But it started getting worse as soon as it hit New York. The news had faded on the ghouls after it had seemed to been taken care of, this must've been... two months or so after Washington, maybe it took that long for someone to walk that distance?
I started fixing with the engine and looked around. The weather had gone worse, dark clouds were hanging in the air and the wind had grown stronger, and gotten much colder. The clock must've been around three or four, and it had gotten darker.
Oliver was still packing all the necessary stuff into our bags, in case the engine was irrepairable.

I continued working on the engine, the radiator was in place but much had still to be done. I kept thinking of the beginning, the plague had found new life, or un-life after it had found it's way into New York, and soon you could hear reports about it even on the east coast. It was strange, how quick it would go. Then the news came that they wanted to herd everyone into camps around the major cities, not only would they be able to protect everyone from the ghouls, they would also provide healthcare for those who had gone sick.

So stupid, you could've thought they would know it wasn't cureable.
My friends however, felt that they could rely on the government to take care of all this, that by going to the camps they would be safe. I remember how furious they were when I told them that I wanted to stay home, and to ride out the wave. [i]"The goverment got weapons, they got helicopters and tanks!"[/i] they said, [i]"You'll be all alone here with noone to look after you, is that really what you want?".[/i]
But I had always enjoyed solitude, I felt the best when I were inside the stomach of a car, trying to solve the problem and make it feel better.
[i]"Theodore, look at that hill!"[/i] I heard Oliver yell, and I looked at the hill.

It was impossible to see how many they were, but the horde of ghouls that were after us stood all there, slowly walking downhills towards us.

[jgerm529]

I like it alot and I think you should continue. I thought it was a funny coincidence my name is Jeremy, to bad I died in your story lol. I am an avid hunter and firearms enthusiest so don't go and say something stupid like "he opened up full auto with the Remington 700" or some bullshit like that. But so far it's a good story. Also "It had proven to be far easier to kill though, a shot through the heart or the brain was enough to bring one down, but the ghouls didnt seem to register pain." you don't have to shoot them in the head? That's blasphemy

[Negrul1]

[i]"Why do you write dialogue like this, in italics?"[/i] inquired Negrul1, curiously.

[Gregah]

[QUOTE=jgerm529;18972432]I like it alot and I think you should continue. I thought it was a funny coincidence my name is Jeremy, to bad I died in your story lol. I am an avid hunter and firearms enthusiest so don't go and say something stupid like "he opened up full auto with the Remington 700" or some bullshit like that. But so far it's a good story. Also "It had proven to be far easier to kill though, a shot through the heart or the brain was enough to bring one down, but the ghouls didnt seem to register pain." you don't have to shoot them in the head? That's blasphemy[/QUOTE]

Haha, funny coincidence indeed :) I picked the remington 700 because my father had one himself, so I knew something about it atleast.
I made the zombies easier to kill to somewhat make it more realistic, if that's even possible :P

Glad you liked it though, it's always nice to know that someone appreciates your work :)

[quote=Negrul1]
[i]"Why do you write dialogue like this, in italics?"[/i] inquired Negrul1, curiously.
[/quote]
No idea actually, I thought it would make it easier to know when they talked and when they didn't.
Should I remove that?

[jgerm529]

I forgot to add I'm also rather large, I'm an offrnsive and defensive line-man. Right Tackle to be exact

[Gregah]

[QUOTE=jgerm529;18972844]I forgot to add I'm also rather large, I'm an offrnsive and defensive line-man. Right Tackle to be exact[/QUOTE]

Alright, the Jeremy in this story is the opposite ^^
Anyways, wrote a new chapter today, pretty short though but I hope it's good.
I think i'm going to remove italics though.

[b]Bad weather[/b]

Chapter ten

The dark skies were closing in on us, and soon enough there would be rain. My mood sank, if I could not get the car working we would have to walk while the sky unleashed both thunder and rain upon me and Oliver.
"You really think it's going to work?" Oliver asked me, I was not sure if I could get it to work, but even so we still had some time left to make it work. I replied "I'm not sure, give me fifteen more. If it doesn't work by then we'll ditch the car and start walking." He nodded and walked away, probably making sure the bags were ready.
I started to think about my shelter I was running to before I had to lock myself into that store. The vast amount of ghouls that had showed up from where I ran confused me, where had they come from?

Nevertheless it was just a minor problem for me right now, it would be extremely stupid to try and get there now and we had been lucky. Not only had we found eachother, we had found enough food to last us some time and we had found a car with alot of supplies, even if half of it had been useless.
Maybe I should tell Oliver about it? I started to reconsider it, but it would probably be to no use, we couldn't get there now anyways and with the horde of ghouls walking east it would just make us shut down in the house I had found and made my own.
I looked over at Oliver, he looked nervous walking around in a circle. I should probably ask him for what he thinks, I were no longer alone and might as well try to calm him down by talking to him.
"Oliver, if we get this thing started, what do you think we should do?" He stopped walking around, and looked at the hill. "Get as far away from those zombies as possible" He replied.
"Yeah ofcourse, but besides that?" He looked at me and shrugged. Looks like I had to make a decision then. I finished up with the engine, it had probably gone fifteen minutes by now and it was time to see how well I had done.

I called over Oliver and asked him for the keys, he gave them to me and I tried to ignite the engine.
It started roaring, it seemed to work!

"Wow, I was almost sure we would have to start walk" Oliver said, "you're quite the wizard with cars arent ya?" He said and smiled. I smiled back, and asked if Oliver wanted to drive. "I never learned how to drive" Oliver said with a hint of shame. "I never went out of town, and work was just five minutes or so from where I used to live, so I never felt it would be necessary for me to learn how to. Besides, cars cost money, well nowadays they don't but before." He chuckled for a bit.
I told Oliver to pack in the bags while I took a seat in the car. The drivers seat were rather worn out, and had definiatly seen better days. But it would do for now, I check how much gas it had left.
Half a tank, I had no knowledge at all on how far it was to the next town so chances were that we maybe had to start walk again later. Oliver soon joined the seat next to me, and asked me what was wrong. "Nothing" I replied, "It's such an odd feeling though, driving again." Oliver smiled, "Sure beats walking though!". I smiled back, and noticed it had started raining.

"Not a moment too soon" I said to Oliver, and started driving.