Story Saturday: Part Two of the Zompocalypse

This is part two of the Zompocalyse. If you haven't read part one, it's the previous post.

It had been four days since the rag-tag team of plucky survivors had come together and had fled from O’Malley’s dilapidated house. For four days they had been on the run, pursued by hordes of the undead. The group had taken refuge in an abandoned Starbucks but they were running low on ammunition and it wouldn’t be long before their defences gave way.

Penguins guarded the window while Pieman kept watch over the front entrance. Donut had found his way onto the roof through a hole in the ceiling and had positioned himself as sniper and look out. O’Malley took residence in the centre of the store, diligently preparing Molotov Cocktails for when they would make their escape. Tom and Lara Lou had gone out for supplies hours earlier and were yet to return.

Donut’s voice drifted down to the others through the ceiling “Well, we're standing by here at Zombie-Watch '11 headquarters, and we've had some pretty big developments - ,”

“Shut up, Donut.” Pieman interrupted. He was getting sick of Donut’s constant commentary on the situation.

“The Zombie Alert Level has been raised from yellow to orange,” Donut continued, “indicating an 'elevated' chance of zombie-related incidents - ,”

“Shut UP, Donut.” Penguins spoke in unison with Pieman.

“...and we've just gone to ZombieCon 2, the second highest level of zombie preparedness. The atmosphere is tense and highly charged as we all anxiously await word - ,”

“SHUT UP, DONUT!” O’Malley shouted in harmony with Pieman and Penguins.

For a few moments Donut was silent, but it didn’t last long. “There’s someone approaching!” he yelled down to his friends, “I think its Tom and Lara! But they’re being pursued.”

Lara stumbled and fell. The box of supplies she was carrying spilt onto the ground. Tom stopped and ran back for her. “Come on, Lara, we’ve got to hurry! The zombies are after us.” He grabbed her hand and tried to hurl her to her feet.

“My ankle…” Lara clung to Tom’s arm as he helped her towards their hideout as quickly as he could manage. “I’m sorry.” Lara collapsed as they reached the door to the building. “I can’t. I’ll slow you all down.”

“No! It’ll be fine.” Tom protested, “If we just get you inside…”

“And then what?” She argued, “The zombies will break in eventually and I’ll end up getting you all killed. No. You’ve got to go. Get everyone away from here.”

Tom tried to object but Lara tore open the door and pushed Tom inside, slamming it behind him. “I’m sorry, everyone.” She wiped her eyes and drew her pistol. “We’ll meet again when this is all over. I swear.”

She fired several shots towards the zombie hordes. “Come on Zombies! Follow me!” Lara hobbled away from the building hiding her friends leading the zombies with her. It was obvious that she didn’t have enough bullets, her aim wasn’t good enough, and that she was moving too slow…

“Guys, we’ve got to go.” Tom recovered from Lara’s heroics in time to take command.

“Okay.” Pieman nodded, “Penguins, clear that back window. We’ll go out through there.” Pieman glanced between Tom and the empty space beside him. “Where’s Lara?”

“I… I…” Tom bit his lip. “I couldn’t convince her to come. She… She’s buying us time…”

“I’m sure you did everything you could.” Pieman comforted him, “Lets not let her effort be in vain.”

“Yes, you‘re right.” Tom nodded. “O’Malley? Are those Molotov Cocktails ready yet?”

“What?” O’Malley seemed defensive, “I’m not sharing my cocktails with you.”

“O’Malley, if we’re going to get out of this we need to work together.” Tom grabbed one of the cocktails away from O’Malley. “Wait a minute… this is empty?” Tom grabbed the other cocktails and looked in them. “They’re all empty! What have you been doing?” O’Malley burped loudly. “Oh my God! Did you drink these?” Tom couldn’t believe he knew someone so dumb.

“We’ll just have to do without explosives.” Pieman dragged Tom towards the back window before he could murder O’Malley. Penguins and Donut were already waiting outside. “Come on, we’ve got to run.” Tom urged his friends forward, “we can’t let Lara’s sacrifice be in vain.”

“Wait a minute…” Donut stopped. “Where’s O’Malley?”

The group looked around, puzzled. Far behind them they saw O’Malley standing mere feet away from the approaching zombie hordes, drunk and completely oblivious. Penguins screamed, trying to grab his attention while Donut tried to run back for him but Pieman restrained him. When O’Malley finally did look over at them he only gave them a drunken wave.

Donut broke free of Pieman’s hold and ran towards him friend. “No! Donut, don’t!” Pieman pursued the boy.

As the first zombie reached O’Malley tears began to roll down Penguins face. O’Malley didn’t even react when the zombie grasp him shoulder, responding with a polite “hello” and withdrawing a cigar which he drunkenly lit. Being pulled into the midst of the zombie horde, he pressed the cigar to his mouth and took a deep breath in.

The cigar sparked and one spark was drawn down O’Malley’s windpipe where it meet some of the cocktail O’Malley had consumed only moments before; the Molotov cocktail made of petrol.

O’Malley instantly exploded in violent (yet epic) slow motion. The explosion ripped through nearby zombies and ignited a conveniently located petrol station with the resulting explosion knocking down buildings, blocking the zombies’ path.

Pieman grabbed Donut and threw him to the ground, using his own body as a shield to protect Donut. As the explosion ripped through Pieman’s body one thing was certain: O’Malley was dead and Pieman’s life also stood in the balance.

“Pieman! Are you alright?” Penguins ran towards her friend. Pieman was bleeding badly and covered in server burns.

“I… I can’t go on.”

“No, Pieman! Pull yourself together man!” Tom was helping Donut to his feet.

“I can’t.” Pieman said weakly. “My legs have been blown right off.”

“Oh…” Tom winced. “Uh. Why don’t you, uh… You wait here.” He awkwardly patted Pieman on the top of the head and began to walk away, leading Penguins and Donut with him.

“Wait a minute!” Pieman called after them, “You can’t just leave me here! I’m still alive, you know!”

“You’ll just slow us down!” Tom picked up a rock and threw it behind him.

“Ah! My face! O’Malley was right when he called you the jerk!” Tom picked up another rock and lopped it towards Pieman. “Ha! You missed!” Pieman called.

“Wait here.” Tom told Donut and Penguins before heading back towards Pieman. There was a loud thump, crunching of bone. Tom returned covered in blood.

“Sweet merciful crap! What the Hell did you just do?” Penguins freaked.

“It was for the good of the group.” Tom told her.

“For the good of the group?! You just killed Pieman!”

“He would have slowed us down, then we would all be dead.”

“What makes you think you get to make that decision? Who made you the leader?” Penguins stuck out her chin, defiantly. “Maybe I should make my own group. I’d lead it properly.”

“Your own group? Huh!” Tom had never heard anything more ridiculous.

Days ago you didn’t even know there was a zombie apocalypse going on! Throughout this whole ordeal have you once done anything constructive? In fact, have you ever, in your whole entire life, done anything worth doing?” Tom turned to Donut. “Now, if you want a level headed, logical leader who will help us survive, follow me. Otherwise, you can go with this fool here and piss off!”

“Right-o.” Donut turned and walked away.

“Well?” Tom turned back to Penguins.

“Well what?”

“Are you going to leave already?” Tom asked her with frustration.

“No... I want the logical, surviving leader option. I’m staying with you!”

“Ugh!” Tom facepalmed.

Somehow Tom and Penguins had found their way to a military encampment. Although now abandoned, the place was loaded with weapons and ammunition. It was a good thing too, as the duo had just become engaged in the greatest battle of their lives.

Millions of zombies surrounded the defenses and were climbing over the barricades but Tom and Penguins were armed to the teeth.

“Die zombies!” Tom screamed, firing rounds into the zombies. “I am not your worst nightmare. I am your EVERY nightmare.”

“Do you really think zombies dream?” Penguins frowned.

“Uh…” Tom decided to ignore the question, “Quick, fall back to the next perimeter! I’ll man the MG. Get the flamethrower.

The two fell back, leaping over a waist high concrete barrier. After emptying the clip, Tom threw his useless rifle into the zombie and manned a machine gun. Penguins suited up in flame thrower gear and started laying into the zombies, spewing fire into the zombie ranks, demolishing them but on the heroes flank, a wire fence is pushed down and zombies began to spill into this area of the fortifications.

“Pull back Penguins! I’ll cover you!” Tom swings the machine gun to face the zombies and begins to fire into them, the machine gun jams. “Penguins! You gotta pull back! My guns jammed! They’re coming!” but Penguins couldn’t hear her friend’s urgent calls.

Tom tried to leap over the sandbags in front of his Machine Gun to get to Penguins, but tripped over an ammunition belt. As he pulled himself up he was in time to see the zombies close in around Penguins.

A zombie reached out to bite her but its head exploded in a shower of blood and bone. The other zombies around her quickly suffered the same fate leaving Penguins amidst the debris, her face painted with shock.

Tom looked about to see who or what had saved Penguins. A figure stepped through the smoke wielding a Tesla cannon.

“Pieman?” Penguins asked.

“Don’t worry, Penguins. I’ll get you out of this mess.” Pieman nodded to the Damsel in Distress.

“Pieman?!” Tom couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Pieman turned to look at him. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Pieman! Ha!” Tom cheered. “The old gang is getting back together again! We might just get through this yet, Penguins!”

“What do you mean by ’we’?” Pieman replied spitefully. “You left me to die in the cold. Bleeding to death. You threw a rock at me. You stamped on my throat. There is no we.”

“Ha, ha...” Tom chuckled nervously “That was in the past though, we need each other... you know that, safety in numbers... I have stacks of food and ammunition. When that thing-“ he pointed to Pieman’s Tesla cannon, “runs out of power you’ll need me.”

Pieman scoffed. “The Tesla cannon is powered by epicness. It runs itself.” He stepped forward and wrapped his arm around Penguins waist, “Much like my jetpack.”

His jetpack bursts to life and flies him and Penguins away, leaving Tom all by himself.

“Oh, Pieman!” Penguins swooned. “Have my babies!”

“I can’t believe it’s going to end like this.” Tom cried “All alone. No one around me.” He checked his clip. One bullet left. The zombies had closed in around him and he couldn’t reach the mass supplies of ammunition, only metres away. He collapsed to the ground, sobbing, and pressed the gun beneath his chin.

Somewhere, a distant beeping started up and grew louder and louder. Tom lifted his head to see that every single zombie had stopped being zombie-ish and were checking their watches.

“What?” Tom wasn’t sure what was going on. The zombies started milling around and talking to each other. Sharing pats on the back and hi fiving each. “What?!” The zombies continued to congratulated themselves and one of them walked over to Tom, it was his old friend, Laura.

“Ha ha! You should have seen the look on your face!” She laughed, obviously no longer a zombie.

“What?!”

“Flash mob, dude.” Laura told him. “Didn’t you get the memo?”

“What?!”

“Um... you know a flashmob. Where people do something suddenly. We all pretended to be zombies...”

“What?” Tom was still confused “But zombies, they took over the Earth...”

“Oh no, see, that was just the Flash Mob. It’s all pretend see.”

“Pretend? But I’ve been travelling for months, living off rats,blowing zombies to bits with guns.”

“No no, you weren’t really shooting zombies. It’s pretend you see.”

“But I shot real guns at real zombies! People died! My friends, they really died!”

“Uh, no. Pretend. Seriously, what doesn’t this guy get?” Laura shook her head.

O’Malley walked up beside Laura, “Oh, hi Tom. Enjoying the fla-“

“What!?” Tom screamed “You exploded! Into millions of pieces. I saw it with my own eyes.”

O’Malley looked confused. “Don’t worry O’Malley, he just doesn’t understand that this was all pretend.” Laura informed him.

“But-“

“Hey guys.” Penguins and Pieman walked over, followed by Lara, her limp miraculously cured. Tom was lost for words. “That was awesome.” Pieman hi fived O’Malley.”

“Bu- but the horrors…” Tom stuttered. “The things I’ve been through. Why?! Why?! Why do this to me? Why!?”

Pieman shook his head. “Sometimes, my friend, for the lulz is a perfectly valid reason.

Featured in this is Lara Lou, Tom, Pieman, Donut, O'Malley and Laura

Next week's will be delayed for a few days as I'll be out of town for Lara Lou's birthday but according to the poll it looks like it's going to have a Superhero Choose-your-way Adventure. This means it's going to go over a few weeks and you get to pick your actions at the ending of each segment. Alternatively, I'll do shorter segments and do one a day. Tell me what you think.