Last Dawn of a Horde

Chapter Eight: The Cure ~1 James

~James~

            I was terrified to see John stop dead. Not literally, but he looked like he wasn’t breathing anymore. I opened the door, and set foot on ground. I looked on where John was looking, and I let out a gasp.

            Our Literary Arts teacher, Mr. Riggins, whom I thought was already dead, was with an old man wearing a classic button shirt that had bristling mustache. They were carrying a shotgun each, and a proud smile as they approach us.

            “Principal Guns?” I murmured.

            The old man smiled and cocked his gun. “Missed us?”

            I can’t help but shake John to life. He was staring at them, and his smile was infinite. Mr. Riggins and Principal Guns sat beside the truck. I was watching them, and the two men gathered something from the guard house—one good tire and a tool box.

            John and I were still observing them, and they gave their guns to Bridge, who was befuddled at the moment, not knowing who these people were. They didn’t know it, but I felt some sort of relief to see them again. While working out on the blown-up tire, Mr. Riggins was talking at us from below the truck.

            “How’s life, Stan?” he asked me.

            “Totally…challenging, sir,” I say.

            He groaned. “Not only the tire was damaged,” he said. “Something down here got burned and turned down.”

            Wanting to shift the topic, I ask, “Are there any more zombies going here?”

            Just as I sigh, I hear John yell, “Here they come!”

            Bridge and Jimmy went off the truck, and so do the others to keep the weight low. Jimmy discarded his bow and arrows for a while, and got Mr. Riggins’ shotgun. Principal Guns stood with them three, his gun ready to fire.

            I wanted to cheer my Literary Arts teacher to go faster, but I realized he may bark at me since he was doing his best to repair as fast as he can.

            “I’ll help them, sir,” I tell him.

            Without having to hear his response, I marched to help John, Principal Guns, Jimmy, and Bridge.

            Jules went to help as well, his bombs ready on his belt. Lined up on teamwork, the onslaught started. Principal Guns shot two preschoolers just as I made another deafening explosion. I was about to go for a second shot, but Principal Guns stopped my hand.

            “No, please don’t use it so often,” he pleads. “It will make us deaf, and it shakes this place’s foundations. Where did you get that?”

            Bridge looked at me in concern. Of course I wouldn’t say I got this from a terrorist base.

            “I-I found it, sir,” I lied. “Somewhere.”

            He looked at me dejectedly, as if he didn’t believe. Jimmy handed me his bow and arrows, and when I made my first shoot, I sucked on it—it hit no zombie.

            “Let’s exchange,” Jimmy said, offering Mr. Riggins’ shotgun. It was rusty, and the handle was a bit rough like sandpaper. It was a bit heavy, but when I cocked it and tried to shoot, I got one zombie on the head. The recoil force got me step back a bit, but it’s cool. Jimmy takes a shoot, and he’s really good—getting that arrow straight to the zombie’s head.

            John was making inferno; I know it should have been hard for him to use that weapon, but at some points, I see zombies catching fire. They flail around, and drop dead, burning. The smell of burning corpses itches my eyes, but after the onslaught of bloodthirsty zombies, Mutated ones driven mad shortly followed. I warned John about it a while ago, and they weren’t as stupid as the other zombies; I even wonder if they still deserve the term.

            About three janitors were holding rusty, garden rakes. They were pulling it on the cemented car park, making an irritating metal screeching sound. At the end of the rakes were dripping blood—a similar scene I’ve seen in one movie last week.

            They attacked. They swung the rakes, and John and Bridge avoided possible death. The circular momentum slowed the janitors, and one of them got shot in the head. Jimmy launched two arrows, and hit one zombie on its head and its heart.

            The last one got John’s fury. With the Scythe of Fire, he taunted the zombie. It growled, and went quicker on swatting his rake like John was a fly. And when John got its neck twisted with his scythe, smoke came from a sizzling sound that came on the janitor’s severed headless neck.

            “Go inside! Quickly!” Principal Guns said, beckoning me and John with him and Mr. Riggins.

            The front seats can only hold about five people, and it was barely. I squeezed in with my teacher and the principal with John on the steering wheel. Bridge can still fit, so he sat on the other window. The engine revved to life, and we burst out of the low iron gates.

            The road was unbelievably…what do you call it, apocalyptic? Cars with shattered windows and windshields are on the sides of the streets; trees are uprooted and splinters of boughs are everywhere; the sky was tinted gray like it will rain hard; and fire was everywhere.

            Principal Guns didn’t look so happy. Despite our escape, he seemed so troubled. He held his shotgun so tight, and I had a bad memory of us getting into his office to loot some of his vintage guns. Was he named such because of that? I didn’t mind any more.

            “This is so bad,” says Mr. Riggins, “you kids shouldn’t have survived this far.”

            John frowned. “What do you mean, sir?”

            “You’re all about to suffer the most painful way to death,” says Principal Guns, his fingers bristling his gray mustache nervously. “The government will have the last option to end this plague before this gets worldwide.”

            Mr. Riggins continued, “They’ll incinerate the whole city, then the whole country without warning.”

            I felt like my throat fell to my stomach, and I can’t breathe anymore. John shifts weight nervously, and Bridge sighed.

            Faber City, the town where we grew, is where we also found friends, our own selves, and where our dreams started to form…now in the danger of being burned to ashes. It may seem so avoidable, but the word incineration wouldn’t mean that it only involves fire at hundred degrees.

            It means that Faber City may no longer exist on the world map. It was a dreadful thought.