The end

Chapter 1

I ran around a corner, my pursuers getting closer. I tripped on the curb and fell, ripping my shirt on the building and scraping my shoulder on the cracked pavement. I pushed myself up and kept running. I could hear snarls and growls coming from my pursuers, they were closer. I saw four figures run out of an alleyway in front of me as I ran. They stopped running and waved me on towards them. I looked over my shoulder and saw a mass of rotting, diseased bodies running around the corner, hungry for live flesh. I caught up to the four figures and they started running beside me. "Where did you guys go?!" I asked. "Sorry, we got cut off from you back there and we just popped out of that alleyway in time to see you running from those zombies" Mitch smith panted. There were three figures on the road in front of us. They stood hunched over and stooping to the side. I drew my two knives from my belt and kept running. I liked my two knives. They were both identical with a blade as long as my forearm and leather grips. I swung my knives a couple of times to loosen my wrists. The three figures looked up as they heard us coming, and with a few slashes, punches and smacks they fell, never to raise again. I looked over at Baptist and Simon, they looked pretty tired, we all looked tired. We had been on a scavenging party, supposed to come back yesterday, but we had been caught out in a tornado. We had to seek shelter for the night and return the next day, but then we found a massive hoard of zombies that had chased us, and they still are chasing us. We hadn't slept the night before and we were all exhausted. Baptist looked like he could fall asleep while running. I looked at my shoulder as we ran. It was bleeding and the top layer of skin had been ripped off. There were also bits of concrete lodged in my skin. "Lachie!" Jono yelled. I stopped running just in time. There was a huge hole spanning the length of the road. It looked like a collapsed underground train line. I looked back the way we had come. The seething mass of hungry rotten bodies was running and getting closer. The drop into the hole was about one and a half stories deep. That option seemed more inviting. I looked at the others, grabbed the side of the hole with one hand and one of my knifes with the other and dropped into the hole. I quickly drew my other knife, ready for any zombies to come running from the darkness of the tunnel. The others followed me down after I yelled up it was all clear. "Do we go up or follow the tunnel?" Jono asked "up I think, the zombies can't get up, so we'll be safe from them if they jump into the hole". I shrugged my bag of and pulled out my grappling hook I had made, just for situations like this. I threw it up the side of the hole and it coughs on the top. "Go go go!" I yelled. I estimated we had 20 seconds before we were swarmed by zombies. Jono went first, then Mitch, then Simon. Baptist went next. I could tell he was too tired to climb up by himself. I pushed him up enough for me to grab the rope. I clung on and helped him up some more, then climbed up some more, and so on. Baptist got to the top and climbed over and literally fell asleep on the spot. I was almost up when the zombies came flooding over the lip of the hole. I pulled myself up enough so they couldn't reach me. I reached up and Mitch and Jono helped me up. I lay on my back, panting and exhausted. Once I caught my breath I sat up and pulled the grappling hook out of the hole and stashed it safely back in my bag. Our hideout was not far from here, but to five tired teenagers it felt like a lot more. "What do we do with Bsptist?" Mitch asked. "We make a stretcher and carry him" I replied. There was a camping store with only two walls and no roof on the side of the road. We walked in and rigged up a quick stretcher made of tent poles and a sleeping bag. We walked back outside to see some of the zombies cresting the lip of the hole, and some already out. I thought quickly, "Jono, you and I will get baptist into the stretcher and carry him. Mitch and Simon, buy us as much time as you can" I said. Mitch and Simon drew their weapons and ran off. I ran to Baptist with Jono beside me. I crouched down next to him and helped him get Baptist into the stretcher. We got him in and stood up. "Simon, Mitch, we're good, c'mon!" I yelled. They abandoned they're small battle and ran after us. Not all the zombies could get up, about half of the original horde, but still way too many to fight. I twisted the tent poles at my end together so I could hold it with one hand. I gripped the stretcher and with my free hand I drew one of my knives. I turned around to see Mitch and Simon fighting the zombies again. I saw three zombies run at Jono and I from a building and swapped hands with my knife and the stretcher. I cut the first two down, but the third zombie was faster than I had thought, and knocked me over, dropping the knife and the stretcher. Jono turned around at the jerking motion and picked up my knife and quickly killed the zombie. We picked up the stretcher again and tried running, but we could only manage a brisk walk. Mitch and Simon came running around the corner bloody and tired. They looked a like they had just fought they're way through hell, and they probably had. Suddenly the ground started shaking, buildings started wobbling and the road twisted in front of us. "Earthquake!" I yelled. We saw a skyscraper tipping in front of us. Jono and I ran, as awkward as it was, and Mitch and Simon ran along side us. We passed under the falling skyscraper just in time. As we ran I heard an almighty crash and saw the skyscraper lying horizontal on the road, blocking the way behind us. We were safe from the zombies, for now. The earthquake continued, but the buildings still standing were all meant to survive earthquakes, evidently the ones on the ground were not. "You want me to take the stretcher?" Mitch asked. "Oh, yes please" I replied. We tiredly trudged along the shaking road. The first few earthquakes were terrifying, but we were used to them now and barley paid them any attention. We swapped roles between protecting the stretcher from zombies and carrying the stretcher. Occasionally we would get zombies running at us from the darkness of buildings. There were only two or three zombies each time, but each time we were more and more tired, so it became increasingly difficult to defend the stretcher. I caught Jono asleep while walking and quickly woke him up again. We turned around a corner, the last corner, and saw what we had been wanting to see hours ago: our hideout. It was made of two large modern houses connected by a dodgy bridge we had made. One house was for sleeping, the other for other stuff like a kitchen, training room etc. I looked up at the lookout tower and waved at the person inside. The lookout tower was a modified chimney with a ladder going down to the fireplace. They waved back and yelled something down the chimney. Soon after three figures burst out the door and came running for us. As they got closer I could see they were Lachie Higgins, Daniel Watkins and Jim Arthurs. "What happened to Baptist" Jim asked. "He's ok" I reassured him, "he passed out from exhaustion, and we're not far off" I wearily replied. "What happened?" Daniel asked. "We were caught out in a tornado last night, and we couldn't sleep, then this morning we were chased by a massive hoard of zombies. They're getting smarter" Jono said. "They climbed out of a two and a half meter hole!" I yelled, "they know the more of them there are its harder to fight them! They're running faster now, they're becoming flipping geniuses!". I looked at my friends, slowly taking what I had said. "They climbed out of a hole twice they're size?" Lachie H asked. "Yeah" I replied, "but can we talk about this latter? I need some sleep" I asked. We all walked back to the hideout and crashed on the couches and slept, after being greeted by everyone.