CHAPTER 4

Encountering a few zombies a day was normal in the apocalypse, encountering a hundred a month was also normal and tolerable. But encountering over ah hundred a day and all in one place was terrifyingly rare - after all even the population of zombies had dropped in the years of the apocalypse. However at this moment, over a hundred zombies, swifts included were chasing a young girl. With a backpack strapped to her back, she could only run as fast as she could when she saw the numbers of the zombies. Luckily, she had a variety of supplies in her truck when her fuel ran out so she was able to take supplies to her liking that could fit in her backpack, so she had no worries for supplies and she still had weapons albeit a little lesser than she always carried. Naturally, the young girl or lady was Roosevelt and at the moment she could only blame her luck for her situation. The only reasons why she had survived for so long after abandoning her truck was because of the pistol and ammo she had salvaged but she still wasn’t save, her ammo was running out and she didn’t want to stay in the open for too long.

A cry of joy escaped from her mouth as she noticed a building about 1000 meters ahead. Feeling hope rising again within her, she increased her speed in the direction of the building. ‘At least I will be able to hide for a while, tend to my wounds and restore my energy’ she thought.

Slowly the distance reduced,

*1000 meters*

*900 meters*

*800 meters*

*700 meters*

* . . . *

And finally, she was there.

Without sparing a glance at the ordinary zombies at the front of the building which turned out to be a warehouse, she dashed for the door of the warehouse and entered. Finally feeling safe, she was just about to settle down when the groans of zombies began to sound around her. In the darkness, she could not see the zombies so fear began to grip her heart and a chill went down her spine. Casting aside her fear, she picked her pistol and loaded it with one of her last magazines before stepping forward and began to shoot in the directions of the sounds summoning them to her direction. Just then, the small warehouse was flooded with light as the door was directly blasted open to reveal a group of teenagers with heroic auras standing there.

Zombie corpses could be seen outside the warehouse and with out a waste of time, they set to action and began another round of slaughter on the zombies inside the warehouse.

After dealing with the zombies, Roosevelt turned to the teenagers and couldn’t help but exclaim, “you guys are the ones from my dream . . .”. She had not even finished speaking when she realised how weird it sounded so she immediately clasped her mouth shut while a red hue appeared on her cheek.

“Damn” she couldn’t help but curse and was about to explain when she saw the teenagers before her looking at her in surprise and exclaiming “it’s you ?”.

“Do you guys know me too ?” She asked still shocked by the revelation that the youths from her dream were real. In that moment however, silence took over. None of them was willing to break the ice and talk about a dream they were still suspicious was even real. After all there were not in a magical world or stuff like that.

The teenagers kept their distances from Roosevelt, choosing to hole up at a corner of the warehouse obviously wary of her while she on the other hand stayed at another corner of the warehouse equally watching them. Suddenly, the inactivity was broken by the guy she suspected to be the leader of the teenagers as he dashed in her direction. Surprised by the sudden action, Roosevelt could only shriek as the guy suddenly lounged for her. Placing her arms as shields over her head, she braced for impact which never came, save for a loud thud as the guy fell beside her and a groan escaped his mouth and he began to struggle with something. Then suddenly he screamed, “Ahhhhh” As the figure sunk its teeth into his wrist.

“ . . . ” The others.

*Gedeng gedeng*. Their heart beat accelerated.

*BANG!!!*. Recovering quickly, Larry shot the zombie in the head causing brain matter to splash every where.

                                  ********

Marvellous scrambled to his feet holding his bitten wrist in pain, he looked at Roosevelt and ran a quick scan over her with his eyes to make sure she was okay before he turned to his friends and for the first time let them see how he felt as his emotions became visible. Knowing he had to leave, he ran back to the RV and locked him self in his room. Considering his personality, he had wanted to leave but he knew he wouldn’t be able to go far before he turned and he didn’t want his friends going through the pains of having to kill him because he attacked them. ‘How long has it been?’ he reminisced, as memories of the times they had spent together from their tender ages to then. ‘Well this is still the best choice . . .’ he thought, ‘After all I won’t be able to cause trouble for them in here’.

Roosevelt watched the guy she remembered to be Marvellous run out of the warehouse to their RV, ‘Doesn’t he know that he is not supposed to stay around people as a bitten? Or does he intend to infect his friends?’ She thought.

As if sharing Roosevelt’s thought, their curiosity took over and they sprinted to the RV to take a look at what Marvellous was doing. Curious, Roosevelt tagged along to find out what was happening to him.

  Entering into the RV, she saw all the teens gathered in front of a room with helpless expressions on their faces, from the other side of the room painful groans were audible, clearly Marvellous was in pain.

“Come on open the door dude” Timothy shouted banging on the door.

“. . .” Roosevelt. ‘What does he mean open the door, that guy is turning into a freaking zombie’ she thought.

“So ?, what if he is ?” Someone suddenly roared in front of her. Raising her head she saw one of the girls staring furiously at her. At that moment she realised that she had actually spoken her thoughts aloud. “Oops”.

“He got bitten while trying to save you, is this how you want to repay his kindness ?” Another girl bellowed equally furious.

“Perhaps she expects us to cast him out ehn?” A cold voice drifted over as another girl spoke.

“I don’t understand why he even tried to save . . .” Another one was speaking when she was cut off by a pain filled shout. The teenagers turned their attentions to their friend at the other side of the door cursed to endure such skin crawling pains. Watching the way their emotions shifted swiftly from time to time and their morale was down, Roosevelt couldn’t help but feel for them.

                                  ********

Maxwell released a deep sigh as he sat, eyeing all the paperwork that needed his attention. His absence in the past few weeks would have been ignorable if he was just an ordinary member of the sanctuary for survivors, but he was the LEADER and the founder of the sanctuary and had responsibilities to attend to.

Shaking his head, he picked his pen and began to sort, sign and compile documents. ‘Perhaps I have to find someone else to handle the boring parts of this shit’ he thought. In his recent raid activities his deputy got turned and that was the reason for the abnormally large pile of documents he had to work on.

*Knock*

A knock on his door jolted him out of his thoughts, “Come in” he replied.

The door opened to reveal his best friend Anthonia, watching her enter and take her seat with any form of respect for his position as the sanctuary head, he could only sigh.

“Maxwell . . . Sigh . . . the members are complaining” she said causing a frown to appear on Maxwell’s face. “Mmmh ?, about what ?” he asked.

“They’re questioning the leadership of the sanctuary, they are worried about the lack of a deputy” she said, “There is no one in charge of the distribution of resources and the supplies in circulation are running low.”

Maxwell sighed, in all honesty he was also worried about the living conditions of people in the sanctuary and he knew he had to find a new deputy soon to ease his work. He could not be every where all the time and he needed an extra hand in managing the affairs of the sanctuary. It was just not so easy to find someone fit for the post of a deputy head, he needed someone he could trust to have his back. Besides they were saying the supplies in circulation was running low, ‘Damn those ingrates, we risk our lives to raid stores and places none of them would dare to go but they have the guts to suggest we bring out more supplies from the reserve ?. Where do they think they live in, the normal world ?’ he thought as he let out a sigh.

"Anthonia from this moment on, you assume the post of a deputy head” he said.