Black Life UPDATED NEW CHAPTER

“WE’VE GOT A RUNNER!”

A shrill cry sounds out into the night, echoing throughout the silent block of the city, followed soon after by eerie animalistic growls and cries.

“Shit you moron,” an angry voice growls. “You know they’re attracted to noise. So what do you do? Ya yell like a fuck nut?” The voice belonged to an elderly man, gray hair and a stiff beard marking his age. He panted breathlessly, running alongside a younger companion. The accomplice looked at least 20 or 30 years younger, and didn’t seem to have as much trouble in the escape. His body was fit, his muscles easily seen rolling under his thin t-shirt as he ran.

“S-Sorry old man,” the young accomplice stammered. “But we’ve got to let everyone know right?” He looked about nervously as they ran, as if hell were nipping at their heels.

Another loud cry, like the growls of an underworld animal, sounded at the backs of the runners. A sprinting, shadowed figure could be seen running behind them, slowly gaining ground on the fleeing duo. Whatever they were running from, it seemed as if, in a second, the figure would overtake them without opposition.

“Th-There,” the old man spluttered, gasping for air. “Right there. Turn right up at that alleyway, that’s where we were supposed to meet.” He glanced back at the figure chasing them before adding a bit more speed to his sprint. A few seconds later, the two men made a sharp turn into the alleyway and kept running. The figure shot around the corner a split second later, taking the turn in a burst of speed, kicking its feet off the opposite wall to avoid slamming into it from the side. Without missing a beat the figure continued its pursuit of the two men, a low snarl aimed at its prey.

In fear, the younger of the two glanced back at the figure. His eyes widened and a loud cry ripped through his throat, as the figure’s hand reached out to attempt to grasp the man by the back of his shirt.

“SOMEBODY HELP US!” he cried.

The sound of a high powered rifle could be heard. A split second later the head of the figure that had been pursuing the two men was blown apart, blood spraying from the mangled mess that could once have been called a head.

Frozen for a moment, the two men hunched over in relief, panting for breath, the young man dropping to his knees with his eyes wide in shock at what had just happened. He started in awe at their pursuer, now a dead body behind them oozed coagulated blood.

“T-They shouldn’t be that fast….they’re dead…why are they that fast…what the hell kind of…zombie is that fast...this is insane, this can’t be real right, right?” The young man babbled as he lifted his head up to stare at the old man, his eyes wide and anxiety rolling off of him at an almost palpable level.

The old man just stood there hunched over, not saying a word. He knew he had no clue about these monsters either. No one did. No one could explain why some of those things were so fast and strong, while others just had a mean bite. To him, they looked about the same in any case. So why was it that some were so damn fast and smart while others were slow and stupid?

“Oi, you two alright?” a man’s voice called down to them from atop the fire escape of one of the buildings that made up the alleyway. “Make sure none of that blood mixes in with your own or got in your mouths, otherwise you’re the next ones I’m going to put my cross hairs on”.

The two of them looked up at hearing the voice and a sigh of relief came from them both at seeing the man letting down the fire escape ladder before he slid down, his rifle secured to his back with a black strap that was affixed to on either side of the scope.
“Thank god you were here Vahn, you saved our asses,” the old man said, grinning widely. The man with the rifle, now known as Vahn, grinned back at him and gave him a thumbs up.

“No problem, Gramps. Gotta make sure our resident senior citizen and The Kid are alright. Besides, I hate that team,” he said with a chuckle, pointing over at the corpse of the one that had been chasing the two. Gramps and The Kid turned their heads to where he had been pointing and paused for a few moments before they slowly started to laugh at Vahn’s joke. The body was wearing a hoodie with the logo of a sports team, apparently one Vahn hated, printed on the front. If one were to take a closer look they would also notice the same logo was printed on the hood of the sweatshirt, with a bullet hole dead through the center of it. He’d used it as a marker for his shot.

“So Kid, come on get up. We’ve got to get the hell out of here now, that blood is going to attract them…not to mention your screaming from earlier couldn’t have helped,” Vahn said with a sigh. The Kid looked down at the ground, feeling ashamed that he’d been more of a problem to them than anything else. A moment later, Vahn chuckled lightly as he started back up the fire escape ladder.

“Thanks for the heads up though. I would have been sleeping if I hadn’t heard you yell and got my ass back up,” he said, turning his head to grin at The Kid. “You just helped me save your lives.” He began to make his way back up to the fire escape, Gramps and The Kid following after him a moment later, both smiling a bit to themselves.

After they all made it up, they pulled the ladder to the fire escape back up and locked in place so it wouldn’t fall back down and let any unwanted company up onto the rooftops. Once all three of them had made it to the roof they made their way inside from the building entrance, walking down a flight of stairs and turned right at the dead-end that had been boarded up. Vahn opened a door to their right and the trio made their way inside an apartment, only to be greeted by three other individuals.

Inside the men found two woman. One looked to be in her mid-thirties. The other in her late teens or early twenties. There was also a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. The older woman sat behind a desk, cleaning her glasses with a small cloth and speaking with the other two. She stopped once she noticed the trio that had entered and stood up.

“So did you two complete the mission I gave you? Was there any food left there,” she asked, her stern, cold voice making Gramps and The Kid flinch slightly. Gramps gave a nod of his head to her.

“We were able to scope the place out, and there is food still inside the store…but the area’s got a pretty high population of those dead things walking around,” Gramps said with a grave tone, pausing briefly to sigh before he continued. “And to make things even worse…there were a ton of those damn Runners there, it’s like some sort of damn colony, or maybe the Runners are somehow rallying the others there since they know humans still need food. They are about as smart as humans. Hell, we’ve all heard them talk before,” he said, sighing deeply before sitting down in a chair, the exhaustion from earlier finally catching up with him.

The woman stood there for a few moments, simply contemplating the old man’s words before she let out a heavy sigh and sat back down in her chair. The two she had been speaking to before the trio entered looked solemn and did not speak a word.

“So that’s it….we’re out of food and the only place around here that’s still got anything to take is surrounded by them,” she said with a sigh. “It looks like we’re going to have to just go in and take what we can get.” She could see the shock shoot through everyone in the room, but noticed her proposal hadn’t Vahn. For some reason he seemed perfectly fine with the idea.

“Now wait just a second, you can’t be serious. Sure, it wouldn’t be that hard if it was only regulars, but if there’s a whole colony of those damn Runners then it’s not going to be easy to get in or out of there.” The man who had been talking with the older women before spoke as he stood, obviously not liking the idea of going into a proverbial nest of the undead. The younger women, who had stayed silent up until now, stood up and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. She looked at the elder woman and gave a nod of her head.

“She’s right, I hate to say it but it’s either risk our lives to get food from there or we starve to death here,” she said, earning a glare from the man for a moment before he sighed and gave a nod of his head. The Kid and Gramps just sighed deeply and slumped down into empty chairs. They stared at the ceiling, obviously not enjoying the idea of having to go out there.

“So Scar, Boss, Honey, we all agreed on having to go and do this,” Vahn said, first looking at the man followed by the older woman, and finally the younger woman as he shouldered his rifle. He earned a reluctant nod from each of the three of them. He glanced at Gramps and The Kid who gave the same response.

“Haha, well then it looks like we’re all in agreement. We’ll head out later after we’ve all gotten some rest, yes?” he asked with a smile on his face as if he were not talking about sending them all into mortal danger.

“Well..yes. We’ll take this time to rest and prepare before we head out. Meet back here in an hour to discuss the strategy on how we’re going to pull this off,” Boss said to them before she walked off to an adjacent room, getting nods from the others before Vahn exited the apartment and went back up to the roof. Scar, Honey, Gramps, and The Kid however stayed behind and started talking once Vahn had left.

“Does anyone really know anything about that guy,” Scar asked heatedly. “I mean the guy just comes in here out of nowhere with that rifle, and it’s no damn hunting rifle. I mean he was the only one who knew how to even fire a damn gun until about a month ago.” Scar looked at the group iirritation. It was common knowledge within the group that the man did not like Vahn but no one really knew why. Whenever asked, Scar would just reply by saying that they were just two people that could not get along no matter what and left it at that.

“Well he said he’d found a downed S.W.A.T sniper or something like that,” Honey offered. “As to how he knew how to fire the thing properly and be so accurate, I don’t know at all. It’s unnerving, isn’t it? That he’s the only one we know nothing about, not even what he was before the world went to shit, or anything.” Everyone in the group had their doubts about Vahn at one point or another, but he’d saved each of them at some point from being killed and eaten by those things so those feelings had come and gone. But doubts still lingered about the man they knew nothing about but had to trust with their lives.

“Enough talking about that already, got it? He’s a part of this group and we need him, or would one of you crack shots want to try being the support for this little mission?” Boss called from the other room, making the others cringe visibly. They all knew they weren’t the greatest shot, not good enough to accurately cover an entire team of people like Vahn could and had in the past been able to cover an entire operation from one spot, keeping them all safe even with Runners in the area. On something like this they would definitely need him in the roof with his rifle rather than in the field trying to smuggle out provisions.

“We understand Ma’am….sorry about the trouble Boss” Gramps said from his spot, having just spoken up for the first time since their discussion about the store they had scoped out.

The hour passed and finally the group was assembled to talk about what they would have to do. It was decided that Vahn would spill some blood from his rooftop overlooking the store to draw the attention of the Runners. They were as smart as humans, but when a Runner smelled blood they went into some sort of feeding frenzy and lost their ability to think clearly. At the same time Scar, Honey, and The Kid would try going in through the back of the store while Boss and Gramps would cross over from a neighboring building to the roof of the store and head inside, on the off chance that the back door was locked.

Vahn pointed out that splitting into smaller teams would make it easier to help one another and attack from different angles, and also keep them from drawing much attention. Once they had enough food to last them a while the groups would converge before exiting through the roof of the building and they would regroup with Vahn later, before heading back to the apartment complex. If something went wrong they had designated buildings as safe houses that could be used to wait it out until they could regroup when it was safe. It was essential for them all to remain in radio contact via the headsets that Vahn had brought. another thing that had the group wondering just exactly what it was he used to do before the world got so fucked up.

About half an hour later the group had moved to their locations. Vahn was stationed on the roof of a building across from the store with a sealed bucket of blood. Gramps hadn’t liked the idea of draining a human corpse for the blood, but Vahn insisted the blood needed to come from a human.

The other two groups had taken their positions, Boss and Gramps on the roof of the building, while Scar, Honey, and The Kid all waited downstairs inside for their cue to move out into the alleyway that ran behind the store and to the building.

A click of static came over their headsets, a voice signaling “Operation start.” A loud shot rang out in the air and the head of one of the undead standing around outside the store split open as the sniper round pierced its skull. Now that the attention of the standard slow zombies was done, Vahn proceeded to take the lid off the bucket and dumped its contents off the front of the roof. Blood splattered all over the ground and side of the building as loud animalistic screeches sounded, a signal of the feeding frenzy. A group of Runners came flying out from the masses of undead walking corpses to the building.

“Go” Vahn’s voice crackled over the headsets once more before both teams took action. The sound of gunfire could be heard from outside as Boss and Gramps made their way across the rooftop, using rope to tie off a line on a chimney to safely cross over onto the store’s roof one at a time.

“You sure this guy’s going to be able to handle all that? That building doesn’t have any doors left. They can just flood up the steps to him if they get the chance,” Gramps said. They had all wondered why Vahn had picked that one, but he assured them he could slip away if needed and it provided the best vantage point for the job.

“I don’t know but let’s hope he keeps them off our asses long enough to get this job done and over with,” Boss muttered as she landed on the roof. They both walked towards the center to break a window and hung another line in to gain access.

“Hey, are you two dusty old farts inside yet? The door’s locked back here,” Scars voice came through on the headset. Both Gramps and Boss muttered at the youth’s rudeness. At least Boss was still sort of young Gramps however….not so much.

“Two minutes you damned brat,” Gramps said back over the headset as he and Boss descended into the store, glancing around inside. They God that the mass of walking corpses was still heading across the street to the building Vahn was located at, and the shots were still being fired. After locating the rear door they unlocked it and let the others in.

Suddenly, noise pierced the quiet store as alarms sounded. “Fuck,” Boss hissed. “That door was locked for a reason. Hurry up, we don’t have time. Grab what we can and be quick about it. It won’t take long for them to come back this way. We’ve got two minutes tops so just grab what we can to eat and get the fuck out,” She scrambled to grab what was available and edible as the others joined in. It wasn’t until about a minute later that over the headset they could hear “Roo..ops…ov…un…out, get out!” from Vahn that they noticed the shots from his rifle were not longer ringing out in the night.

It was a mad scramble to get out through the back door, but as soon as it was opened it was clear that the store was surrounded. Scar had run to the door to get out quickly, and now was grabbed up and pulled outside by the undead mass. He swung the metal bat at the walking dead before the others pulled the door closed, cursing madly and scrambling towards the rope hanging from the ceiling to get out. The mass of zombies that had once been on the other side of the street were now stumbling through the broken glass doors, groaning and growling in animalistic hunger at the fresh meat that had so generously been placed almost in their laps.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK, get the fuck out of here! I’ll try and hold them off,” Gramps exclaimed as he rushed forward to fend off the growling zombified citizens of the city before anyone could attempt to stop him. Taking the opportunity, Honey started climbing the rope to get out. She stopped half way up when she heard a cry from above her. She looked up, horrified to see that a Runner had made it to the roof. She stayed frozen for a moment or two before she was tackled from off of the rope by the Runner and slammed harshly into the cold floor of the store. She cried out in pain for a moment before her cries turned to garbled noises as the Runner sank it’s teeth into her neck and tore out her throat, leaving her a bloodied mess as blood bubbled from her mouth and neck as she struggled to breath.

The Kid stood there shocked and sickened at what was happening. He finally snapped out of it as he removed the hand gun from behind his back to take aim at the Runner that was devouring Honey. He pulled the trigger twice, but instead of two shots ringing out nothing happened.

“Wh-What the hell? Why? Why isn’t this damn thing firing, is it jammed or something?” he cried out in a panic, repeatedly slapping the gun to try and fix it. The cries of Gramps could be heard, and the Kid turned to see his companion brought down, being torn to pieces by a group of the undead as the rest moved towards Boss and The Kid.

“You god damn dunce, did you forget what Vahn said? Always check to make sure whether the safety is on or off, you idiot,” Boss snarled angrily as she tore the pistol away from him, taking the safety off and firing at the back of the head of the Runner. Brains flew out the front of its head and sprayed onto the bloodied corpse of Honey. She turned and pushed The Kid towards the rope, firing at the approaching hoard the whole time.

“Get the hell out of here Kid. Someone needs to live through this at least,” she shouted at him, glancing back at him with a look on her face that clearly said “Don’t talk back” before turning back to fend off the advancing zombie hoard. The Kid stood there for a few moments, frozen in fear and indecision before nodding his head solemnly and starting up the rope. As he neared the roof, he closed his eyes tightly at the screams from below, hearing Boss as she called out her last words before she died. “Stay alive!”

Kid hung there for a time, a moment, a second, a minute he couldn’t tell. But after that time he finally started climbing again and reached the roof and lifted himself up and outside. He rose his head to look up and his eyes widened seeing a figure standing before him.

“Hey there Kiddo, bet ya thought I was dead didn’t ya?” Vahn said with a laugh and the same smile he had last time, like nothing was wrong. A moment later Vahn rose his rifle, the barrel pressing against The Kid’s forehead as his eyes widened. Before he could say a word, the trigger was pulled and The Kid’s lifeless body fell from the broken window opening, flying past the rope and down into the writing mass of flesh hungry zombies that filled the store.

Vahn stared through the broken skylight coldly, his eyes meeting the hungry hoards of ravenous zombies that moved about below. He scowled as he glared down at the masses of rotting flesh before he uttered a single phrase.

“Fucking BlackLife.”

Solid footsteps resounded off the concrete rooftop, the crunching of glass from a broken window accompanying the sound of booted feet as they walked. The footsteps stopped at the opening in the roof that was once covered by glass to form a window, now shattered as the young man down below hung between the man above and the hoard of ravenous undead corpses clawing and growling as they attempted to reach the young on above them. The man that stood above the younger stood silently, not moving as the sound of the younger climbing below him panted, his breath drowning out the noise of the ravenous zombies below. The young man’s hand reached the top of the roof before looking up and freezing as he stared up at the other man, his eyes turning a deep red just like those of the zombies below before a rifle was placed at his head. Boom.

“AHHHHHHHHHH” Vahn yelled as he shot up in bed, drenched in sweat and panting breathlessly before putting a hand up to cover his face as he slowly regained his ability to breath normally. “Fuck…why the hell…damn it” he muttered forlornly, cursing himself once again. It was the same every single night recently, that boy’s face kept appearing in his mind at night, replaying how he had to end his life again and again, it was always the same at night. He turned and slowly set his feet on the ground, looking out the window as moonlight filtered in through the unblocked window illuminating his form as he slowly stood up, bare from the waist up and wearing a simple pair of pants. “I told him to make sure to wipe off any of the blood….why the hell didn’t he listen” Vahn yelled before punching the wall hard, growling angrily and resting his forehead against the cool glass of the window.

It played over in his mind again, The Kid and Gramps running down the alleyway being chased by the Runner, aiming his shot and squeezing the trigger before blowing the thing away followed by the spray of blood. It had seemed like everything was alright, but Kid…he hadn’t cleaned off the blood like he said and it had gotten into his system from a scratch. A scratch of all things had been enough for him to be infected, and Vahn hadn’t noticed until it was to late, until he was scrambling up the rope get out of the store. “Fucking Black Life” he muttered again, smacking his forehead against the window lightly and closed his eyes.

After standing there for a few minutes Vahn finally moved away from the window, it was still early, way to early to have to be up yet but he wouldn’t be able to sleep after that dream. It had been going on for the last three weeks since the incident with the group he’d been with but he still every night couldn’t forget about it. Once again his carelessness had come back to bite someone else in the ass, and he was left to live at the end, he was tired of never being able to save them. He looked out for himself first and foremost, like everyone in this damned world did but if he could help it, he did what he could to save his companions. He just hadn’t been able to lately.

This wasn’t the first time that he was the only one left in a group by the end, he always did what he could but something always seemed to go wrong. A deep sigh escaped his mouth as he walked into the bathroom and flipped on a light, closing the door and stripped down to take a shower. He was still thankful that somehow water and electricity were still available in the nation, he had expected everything to just go down after the outbreak but somehow everything was still working…there were just no people anywhere. He had assumed that the remaining survivors had somehow been able to section off parts of cities that had to do with utilities and power, but he’d never gotten the chance to check on that theory. Twenty minutes later he emerged from the bathroom toweling off his navy blue hair and another wrapped around his waist, his lean muscled body illuminated in the moonlight. “Time to get moving, I need to pick up the pace she’s not going to wait forever” he muttered to himself as he went about getting dressed, slinging a duffel bag over his shoulder after putting on a pair of brown steel toed boots, black cargo pants, red t-shirt, and a beige trench coat. Shouldering his sniper rifle he turned and left the small apartment building he had been staying in for the last few days to relax for a bit, he’d been traveling for way to long.

“Alright, gotta keep heading west” he muttered as he made it to the roof of the building. He’d already traveled over a few cities since the incident three weeks ago, he had to travel relatively slow since it was almost impossible to find transportation that was safe enough to go out on the roads in, and he constantly had to lay low in order to avoid being swarmed. There was a severe lack of survivors lately, something he was getting worried about. The further out he got from the initial outbreak area the higher the chances that there would be survivors, he was almost all the way to the coast now so the chances should be very high. So why is it in the last four months he had only ever run into one group of survivors? Things weren’t looking good, he still had radio contact from his destination, he’d just talked with them yesterday so he knew things were still perfectly alright there, but if things kept up this way then he was pretty sure he would be arriving alone.

Vahn stuck to the rooftops like he always did, it wasn’t the easiest way to get around but it was by far the safest….in terms of avoiding the walking corpses that had infested so much of the world that is. Rooftops generally had doors that needed to be opened to access them, zombies were to stupid to open them on their own and didn’t need to break through them unless there was something to eat on the other side, so more often than not the roof tops of buildings were safer ways to go. It just became increasingly difficult to travel when you got closer to suburbs and less densely packed areas of the cities, gaps between buildings tended to grow when you went from a factory to a regular house. Hoping from one roof to another, pacing himself to a moderate jogging speed he was making good time and kept going for hours. At least until the sun came up, by that time he had slowed down to take a break and also to lay low for a bit, he’d never tested his theory about zombies having bad eyesight but he knew for a fact Runners would be able to notice him if he was still going at that speedy pace.

After the last few weeks he’d had, he honestly couldn’t say that he wanted to run into any more of those damned things, hell he was starting to run low on ammunition as it was. He had his rifle, a side arm and a few other weapons stowed away in his bag but he didn’t want to resort to using up everything he had, at least not when he had no clue when he could find more ammunition. If it came down to it he’d have to make a stop to a mall and hope there was a sporting goods store where he could salvage some hunting supplies, it would at least help him to conserve the remaining ammo he had left. Not to mention he might even find some new companions to travel with, people still hung out in malls these days right? It was as that thought crossed his mind that he stood up, having heard something nearby. It didn’t seem like it was coming towards him, but a commotion in one spot. “Has to be survivors” he said as he shouldered his rifle, set down his pack and took off, hopping across to the next roof and made his way to search for the source of the commotion, what he found made him….well, curious.

“You’ve got to be kidding me” Vahn muttered under his breath. He’d seen many crazy things in his days, what he did for work before the outbreak was a testament to that, but this took the cake by far. Down below him a young spiky black haired man was fighting off a hoard of infected with an old katana, samurai sword, tanto, wakizashi, whatever it was. He didn’t know jack about swords. That wasn’t entirely strange, he’d seen people try it before. Of course the swords usually broke after one or two successful kills being cheap replicas or the user just swung it around randomly and hit a wall or something. No, the surprising thing was that the young man was winning against a whole swarm, one the size of which he’d seen take down novices with firearms before. Raising his rifle and using the ledge of the roof, he rested the barrel on it and took aim to watch the show, his finger on the trigger just in case.

A spray of blood showered the concrete as the head of another zombie fell to the ground, a moment before another flash of steel led to yet another beheading. The youth leapt backwards away from his latest kill, panting breathlessly as he stared down the remaining group, a total of six of them were left. Three slowly approaching in a straight line in front of him, one on his left and right, and a final one in the back that strangely seemed to be watching the proceeding. He was drained and tired from fighting off his attackers, the adrenaline was probably the only thing keeping him up at this point but he knew if he stopped to rest for too long his body wouldn’t get moving again, even without six extra reasons around him. Panting lightly he closed his eyes for a moment to slow his heart rate and calm himself before opening his eyes once more and shot forward with speed that did not make sense given his current physical state. The groans and animalistic sounds coming from the remaining undead intensified as he drew near, his blade slung back on his left across his body as the young man shot towards the three in the center.

Although his body moved towards the three, his eyes were on the zombie to his right, the closer of the two singles that had been approaching from his sides. The muscles tensed in his arms in preparation to behead the three that stood just a bit too close to one another for their own good, his blade making a wide arc and beheading the three with ease. Or it would have been easy if he had been in top form, but as it was his tired and fatigued muscles could only cut through two of the three, as the third hell spawn had an arm raised as it stumbled towards it’s prey, the blade becoming lodged in its arm as the youth’s head swiveled away from his next target back to the ones he thought he could kill instantly, his eyes widening. He began to panic as soon as he saw it start moving in to try and take a bite out of him, his eyes shooting back and forth between the two as they advanced almost in slow motion, believing that his life would end in a matter of moments.

A sudden yell ripped itself from his lungs as he released the hilt of his sword with his left hand, rearing it back before ramming it into the back of the blade near the hilt with amazing speed, the force of the palm strike being enough to drive the blade through the rest of the attacker he’d tried to kill previously. Having slain his initial target his head turned so fast he was afraid his neck might snap to see his next target within range as he took one step back to get enough time to reposition himself.

A moment after his feet planted from stepping back, his body lurched forward, blade raised and rammed the tip of his weapon up underneath the undead attackers chin causing the blade to cut clean through and pierce it’s skull from below, the upper portion of the blade sticking out from the now slain zombies head. A moment or two passed before the young man pulled downward, removing the blade with some difficulty and turned his head to see the one that had been coming at him from the left, only much closer than he had anticipated. His right arm suddenly swung out blade grasped tightly within, his knuckles white from the pressure as he drove the blade into the side of it’s neck. He made a pained grunt as his sword became stuck just after thankfully severing the spinal cord as he let go of the blade and the final zombie fell to the ground now dead, his sword stuck within it’s neck that barely kept the head connected.

He dropped to his knees breathing deeply, wincing and groaning in pain as he brought his left arm around to grasp his right. No matter how sharp a blade it still required force to cut, and despite popular movie beliefs it wasn’t as easy to behead something as one might think. It DID take some force to sever the spinal cord as well as remove a head, and since he was using a weapon and constantly forced to move around his arms had been tired enough to the point he had pulled a muscle in his right arm, and could not use it to fight even if he needed to.

That was the very problem, he’d forgotten about the single enemy that hung back away from the others, that is until he heard clapping of all things and his head snapped up, his left eye going wide open as he realized his mistake while his right had been closed in an attempt to block out a bit of the pain and fatigue he felt.

“Nice, nice but now you’re gonna die Kaien” the final enemy said with a raspy voice, holding immense hostility and animosity for the now named and what appeared to be completely screwed young man. The zombie immediately stopped clapping and suddenly rushed forward, much faster than the young man named Kaien had done before during the fight, jumping into the air not far from him as it neared. The next few moments went in slow motion for the young man, watching as the man he used to know leapt towards him with the soul purpose of ending his life, before the sound of gunfire could be heard. Less than millisecond after the gunshot the Runner’s head whipped to the side and it’s body tossed a bit, landing in a heap a foot or two from the downed young sword fighter.

“I take it that was a friend of yours if he knew your name and had enough sense left in him to let the slower older ones try and weaken you first before he came at ya” a blue haired man called down from his spot atop the roof of the building before he made his way down using the fire escape, sliding down the ladder into the alleyway that all of the action had taken place in. Kaien for his part stayed there stunned, not having any clue as to what to say or even what happened, one second he was fighting for his life and seeing his end coming at him at intense speeds. And then the next that “end” was laying on the ground in a heap with the side of it’s head blown out all over the wall and this guy in a trench coat with some….Call of Duty rife slung over his shoulder. What the hell was going on?

“You know it ain’t every day ya see a blade like this, at first I thought ya were some dorky Otaku with a thing for collectible swords or something but I gotta say, you got one fine blade here….ya ain’t a chubby guy with no clue how to use a sword either” he said with a chuckle and turned his head with a goofy grin on his face to look at Kaien, his boot moving underneath the blade before hiking his leg up to kick the blade up as he caught it in his left hand, his right holding his rifle up against his shoulder. “So you gonna say anything or should I just let ya sit there, Mr. Samurai?” he said with the same grin on his face as he walked over, spinning the blade by it’s hilt once to grasp it closer to the guard and held it out towards the downed and still apparently stunned man.

Kaien for his part was wondering who exactly this guy was that he owed his life to now as he slowly looked from the man down to his sword before nodding his head lightly and grabbed a hold of the hilt and stood back up, his right arm hanging at his side. It wasn’t that he couldn’t move it, he just didn’t want to since it still hurt a bit. “Thank you…um”

“Vahn, just Vahn. And you’re Kaien according to ol Mr. Runner over there, yes?” Vahn said interrupting, seeing that the young man wasn’t exactly sure what to call him so he decided to introduce himself in an admittedly rude way. But no one ever said Vahn wasn’t rude.

“Thank you Vahn…but what are you doing around here, I thought that the city was pretty much empty, I haven’t seen anyone for weeks. Last person I saw was….” Kaien muttered, casting a glance over at the Runner that had tried to kill him minutes ago. “I knew they were smart right after turning….but I never knew they could talk and plan stuff out like this” he muttered under his breath before blinking and looking back to Vahn after hearing a mirthful laugh.

“Trust me man, you’re lucky that it wasn’t smart enough to bring more Runners, they usually travel in packs unless they knew each other and hated one another in life. They’re smart, but the main weakness is that they still retain some of their humanity and mind after turning, they just keep the insatiable hunger….plus the blood frenzy thing but thankfully you weren’t cut” Vahn said with a smile on his face, something that was beginning to unnerve Kaien just a little bit. Who in their right mind could smile so much about something like this or after seeing the death and destruction that this outbreak had caused. But he would admit, the man with the gun was correct he had been lucky. If he had been cut or started to bleed from anything it would have probably set off the Runner sooner and attacked him, making it less likely for him to have been saved by Vahn. He had known the Runner in life, they weren’t friends in any sense of the word, hell in fact he was a bit annoyed that HE wasn’t the one that had been able to kill the asshole turned zombie. But he figured dead was dead…as long as it stayed that way of course.

“We should get moving, that gunshot probably will draw some unwanted attention.” Vahn said, ending the conversation before Kaien could as much as speak a word or ask any of the questions that were swirling around inside of his head. Turning away from the young swordsman, Vahn reached up to grab the fire escape ladder and pulled it down to make it easier for Kaien to make it up to the roof with his arm injured in the way that it was. Making it up the ladder, Vahn turned to help the other young man up, but he was surprised to see Kaien already climbing up the ladder with his one good arm and his sword sheathed at his side. Seemed that while Vahn had his back turned Kaien had grabbed the sheath of his sword, wiped away the coagulated blood of his slain victims and put his blade back in it’s place.

“The hell is this guy made of?” Vahn thought off handedly, but shrugged it off. Guy must just be in great shape. Once both of the men made it up the ladder, they made their way up to the roof, Kaien collapsing to rest against the ledge of the building and let out a heavy sigh. Vahn grabbed his bag from earlier and then gave the young man a once over, sizing him up if you will. Dark spiky ruffled hair, black eyes, black t-shirt, camo pants and….combat boots? Guy in the army or something? “Probably just likes the look” Vahn thought to himself with a slight chuckle. The man seemed to be pretty fit, slim yet muscular, and Vahn had already seen himself that he could hold his own in a fight. Well then, it seemed this Kaien fellow wouldn’t be slowing him down any, that was good. Kaien for his part had been doing the same, seeing what the guy really looked like. Somewhat messy blue hair, amber eyes, red shirt, beige trench coat, black cargo pants and black boots. All in all, Kaien had to say...the guy looked like some video game character for god’s sake. But aside from his clothes the man seemed like he was in decent shape, lithe muscles, he was a decent height, seemed like he might have had the body of a runner or something like that. Maybe a track runner or something? Kaien shook his head and sighed lightly, didn’t matter.

“This is a long fuckin day” he muttered to himself, being a bit surprised when a moment later Vahn let out a loud hearty laugh as if he’d just heard a really funny joke. He turned to face the downed man, a smile ever present on his face as he looked at the spikey black haired youth.

“It’s the end of the world, every day is a long fuckin day” Vahn said with a chuckle and his trade mark wide grin as he shouldered his rifle. He walked over and sat down on the ledge next to Kaien, setting his rifle down and glanced down at the man before looking up at the sky and leaning back. “So tell me about yourself, if we’re gonna be traveling together it’d be nice to know a bit more about ya” he said, shocking Kaien a little bit, who said they were traveling anywhere together? Shrugging it off, he decided it was probably a good idea, he wasn’t to sure if he’d be able to make it out of another situation like that if it came down to it. At least not in the next few days while his arm was healing back up, he’d decide sooner or later if he should stick with this guy or not. If he proved reliable then he would, if not they would split up and go separate their ways.

“Well, the outbreak hit here about a year ago. I was with my family at the time and my mother and father ended up dying, leaving me and my big sister alone to fend for ourselves in this. We’re both old enough to take care of ourselves of course but…it’s kinda hard out her with no support ya know?” Kaien said, the sadness in his voice when he spoke of his parents being clear that he was effected by their deaths. If he was close to them or not, Vahn couldn’t tell but it was clear that he understood the loss. “My sister and I stuck together up until about a week or two ago, we’re supposed to meet back up on the outskirts of town in about a week to try and start moving further out away from the initial outbreak” he continued, filling in some of the gaps that Vahn had been curious about.

Vahn had wondered briefly if his sister had been killed as well since she wasn’t with him at the time, it was a bit relieving to know that she wasn’t, but at the same time a bit troubling. That would probably mean they would have to search and delay his timetable even further but if it would help to gain more survivors to come along with him he wasn’t about to complain about it. “So how is she, think she can survive around here like this like you? Is she good with a sword like you or something?” Vahn asked, getting a bit of a laugh from Kaien.

“In all the years I’ve been practicing swordsmanship under my father, I’ve never once beaten my sister. So yes, I would say that she’s probably thriving in all this mess, she always did like competition….and stabbing things” Kaien said with a little shiver, probably remembering a less than fun experience he may have had with his own flesh and blood. “Anyway, pretty much all you would want to know or need to know, is that I’ve been doing this whole sword training thing since I was four years old, my sister since she was three. And as for that Runner that wanted me dead….well he was just a guy from the neighborhood that was a douche, so don’t call him my friend again got it?” Kaien said wanting to end the little trip down memory lane, it was hard enough dealing with everyday life in this hell without having to think about the past. “So what’s your story?” he asked.

Vahn just simply laughed it off and waved his hand. “Alright alright I won’t ask for more than that, as for my story….well I don’t really want to go into it right now” he said, seeing Kaien open his mouth to protest he quickly continued “Just take it as payment for saving your life alright, I’ll give you bits of information about myself sooner or later” finished without room for rebuttal. Thankfully it seemed that Kaien was alright with that answer because he simply gave a nod without seeming to be annoyed or anything like that for whatever reason.



Kaien stood hunched over, panting like he had run a marathon, his hands on his knees as sweat dripped down his forehead. He just couldn’t keep up with Vahn. (NOT LIKE THAT YOU YAOI PERVS) They’d been running all morning and most of the week after Kaien’s arm had healed for that matter, and one thing Kaien had learned one major thing about Vahn. His middle name was stamina. Kaien himself was in great shape, hell he could say he was the stronger and faster of the two men, but Vahn just never stopped moving, he had some ideas that Vahn had some crazy conditioning to have kept up this pace for so long. Over the course of the week the two had gotten to know one another a bit, they weren’t best friends but the two knew a bit more about the personality of one another. Vahn knew a bit about Kaien’s past, but had clammed up when Kaien had asked about his own.

After the last incident Vahn had experienced with his last group, and the fresh batch of nightmares, Vahn had decided he should be a bit less secretive. He had always decided to do what he could to assist those that he traveled with, but went by the unwritten rule of this dead world. Look out for yourself first. But after the last incident he just couldn’t bring himself to do it anymore. He couldn’t put his own survival above others like the rest of the surviving human race did. Or at least he thought it did, at least until the last group he was with was killed. It became clear when they tried helping each other over getting out on their own. He would do anything he could to keep his companions alive now. Vahn wouldn’t allow himself to be dead inside any longer. It was time for the survivors in this world to rejoin the human race, to work together to make tomorrow brighter.

That being said, he couldn’t tell people EVERYTHING at first. So when Kaien said “At least tell me what you did before the outbreak” Vahn simply answered “I worked in security, what else?”



“Yes, yes…yes…goooooood YESSSS” a female voice cried out in ecstasy, her cry sounding out in unison with the sound of liquid splashing onto the ground. In an old store room near the edge of the city sunlight shown through a lone window illuminating two figures, one on top of the other inside of the warehouse. A woman in her early twenties knelt over the body of a man, her hands on his shoulders and her legs on either side of his hips as she slowly pushed herself up on wobbly legs. Her head lulled backward as she reached her full standing height, far off look on her face as the beam of sunlight showed off her face. Her blue-green eyes seemed unfocused and hazy, taking a few moments to refocus and come back to life as she raised a hand to run through her short black hair.

Licking the small drool trail from the side of her lips, she looked down at the man that lay motionless between her legs. “That was fun, to bad we can’t do it again sometime” she said with a sweet voice and smile on her face before she turned and skipped away into the darkness of the warehouse, the sound of metal scraping against concrete echoing throughout the warehouse. The sound continued for a few moments before it all stopped, a few seconds later there was a loud slam as the door to the warehouse was kicked open, flooding the inside of the warehouse with light. Scattered all throughout the warehouse were corpses of zombies, hacked to bits with a bladed weapon, the sword the woman held in her hand. Each and every one of the zombies was missing more than just it’s head, some even seemed to have been hacked to pieces after they’d already been killed. This was supported by the fact that many of the bodies were laying over areas that had large gashes in the floor but the heads were a long way away from the bodies.

“Haaaah, I do so love this time of year, plenty of sunlight and it’s got such a nice breeze for after you work up a nice sweat” the woman said happily before she flicked her wrist, blood spraying off of her blade before she sheathed it and continued skipping on her way, the door to the warehouse slamming shut as she left, locking the twice dead bodies within it’s confines for good.