The New Age

Chapter Two

The sun was beginning to set as Renee began to see the town. She was glad she had made the turn she did when she came to a crossroads a couple miles ago. The "Welcome to Buffalo, Wyoming" sign greeted her as she walked into the town limits. The town was small, said to have a population of less than 5 000 people. That's why they had picked it. Before the satellites when down she had made plans with her two closest friends to meet there. Renee looked down at her phone, which was now fully charged thanks to the solar power case, and turned off her music. It was playing an old song by Imagine Dragons. She smiled at that thought. That band was the reason that she had met Claire and Alex. Renee took her earbuds out and entered the town with caution. She hoped they were here. They said they were going to meet in an old museum the town had.

Thankfully, the town had signs that directed her in the right direction. The streets were quiet. The town looked long abandoned, like no one had lived here in years, not the month that it had been. As Renee walked she thought about what started all of this.

A radiation leak. At least that's what they told us. Down on the west coast. They say it all started in Los Angles. From what the news had reported was that they were trying some new radioactive treatment for some disease and it went wrong. Very, very wrong. It spread as quick as the wind blew. All the people that had been directly exposed to the patient being treated died. But then they came back. We quickly learnt that their bites is what spread it. But by the time that fact was learnt it was to late. One man had been bit and made it onto his flight to France. They say he turned once they landed. By the time it had reached Europe, North America had already fell.

Renee tried not to think about those first few days. The days she had lost everything. She pushed the thoughts to the back of her head and instead of thinking of her family, she thought about what she was going to say when she met her friends. They talked online for years. She had only ever met Claire once for one day in Disneyland. Renee smiled at that thought. That was one of her favorite days. That was a long time ago now. She hoped Claire had made it. She hoped that Alex was there, she had never met him in person but no Apocalypse was going to stop her now.

In front of her she saw the museum. Around the entrance lay bodies of the dead. There was one who was right up against the door, trying to get in. There was something inside that it wanted. Renee's eyes gleamed with hope, maybe it was her friends. She nearly ran up to the monster to kill it. She slammed her knife in as hard as she could into it's skull. Blood splattered her face and glasses, making it a little hard to see. Renee quickly cleaned them off and put her hand on the door knob.

++++

"This is the gas station?" Ben asked looking at the dump as the band walked up to it.

"Yuuup." Mac answered drawing out the word. "We're here for gas. Not a five-star hotel." Ben sighed.

"I just hope they have some Coco Puffs." Dan said trying to lighten the mood. He had been looking for his favorite cereal everywhere, but with no avail. Mac rolled his eyes. "What?" Dan laughed, "We do need more food!"

"If we don't find enough here we can stop at that town we saw at the crossroads. What was it called?"

"Moose?" Ben suggested. "No, wait. Buffalo!"

"That's the one." Mac said. They got closer to the gas station as the sun was falling. They could make out a body outside the gas station. As they reached it Platz knelt down to take a look. As he knelt down he took out his weapon of choice. He had taken two of his drumsticks and sharpened the ends points. The others laughed but he found them very effective of killing the undead. He looked at the body on the ground and sighed.

"He was shot." Platz informed the others. It looked as if the man had done it himself, but there was no gun in sight. "Someone probably took the gun." he mumbled to himself. He went over to Mac and Wayne who were setting up what they needed to siphon the gas while Dan and Ben went inside.

The glass crunched under their feet as they walked in. The sound it made as they walked frightened them. They didn't want to draw attention to themselves for anything else that might be in the store with them. Ben took out his axe which was made of an old Bass guitar and knocked it on the counter to see if anything in there. They waited in silence before Ben nodded to Dan. The store was getting darker as the sun dropped further into the sky. Dan went to grab some water while Ben looked for snacks. Across the store Dan could hear Ben recoil in disgust.

"Aww man. Come check this out!" he yelled over to Dan. Dan walked over to see what Ben was looking at. On the wall there was a zombie pinned to the wall by a knife in it's chest. However, the thing was pretty dead now.

"Why did you want to show me this?" Dan asked. Ben looked over to the body.

"No, I wanted to show you this!" He held out his hand so Dan could see. It was a box that read Coco Puffs.

"No way!" Dan said while grabbing the box. As he took it he opened the box and looked inside. He screamed and dropped it to the floor while Ben started laughing. As the box hit the ground the rat that was inside crawled out and ran across the floor. Ben picked up the box off the floor and shook out the remaining Coco Puffs.

"Still want some?"