2020: The Pandemic - Zombie Edition

3: The First Mob

"Every single person is a fool, insane, a failure, or a bad person to at least ten people."
-  Mokokoma Mokhonoana

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The boys couldn't have been older than 18, but they still were intimidating. Covered in tattoos and two of them even wore brass knuckles.

"Sup Earls." The taller of the lot smirked. All three simultaneously gulped.

"Listen up Roger." Beau took a step towards the leader; "We just want to ge-" he continued, but vomited halfway through the sentence onto the shoes of the juveniles. They all scrunched up their noses in disgust and rolled up their sleeves. Before they made any further advances, Charmaine acted quickly and kneed Roger between his legs. He instantly bent over in pain. She proceeded to grab onto her brother and Ace's sleeves and ran towards their door before anyone could react. Her action shocked everyone, except for her brother of course, and it worked because they made it into their apartment in the matter of seconds.

She forgot to lock the door before going to the protest and knew that they would make it. But her brother didn't need to know that piece of information.

Charmaine locked the door behind them just in seconds before the juveniles finally awoke of their shocked state and came for them. They started to hammer at the door with their firsts, started to kick at it. The door, fortunately, didn't budge under the impact.

"Used to be a nice neighborhood, but a few years ago it attracted the wrong crowd." Beau spoke to Ace, who took a seat on the nearest couch. Ace seemed surprisingly calm, but it didn't surprise them as he did manage to take out an "infected" man. He nodded and took the nearest picture frame on the coffee table.

"So, your surname is Earl?" Ace asked the siblings, who were busy finding objects to block the door with, in case the unfortunate did happen.

"Yep." Beau answered, pushing a bookshelf, by himself, in front of the door. "Yours?"

"Uchiha." Ace smirked.

"Yeah right." Charmaine called from the kitchen.

"Fine, it's Sato. My parents are from Japan." He sulked and put the picture frame of the family back on the coffee table. "You got an older sister?" he asked, addressing the picture.

"Yeah, she's studying virology." Charmaine handed Ace a mug with cold chocolate milk. A proud gleam in her eyes.

"How fitting don't you think? With the entire pandemic?"

"Yeah, no. Viruses have always been around." Beau sat down in front of him and cleaned his glasses that were smudged from the rain. Charmaine also sat down, turning on the TV in attempt of drowning the sound of the juveniles outside. They'll leave after they get bored. She thought to herself but was still alerted and kept her guard.

"Sorry, Mr. Buzzkill." Ace mocked with a grimace. Beau finally managed to crack a small smile on his ice-cold face but went back to vomiting into a given bucket. Charmaine was starting to worry about him and noticed his eyes becoming teary red. She gave him a soothing hug and went over to the window to check out why the ruckus ceased.

"Uhh... boys?" Charmaine spoke with a shaky voice.

"Yeah." They both spoke up.

"We have a problem."

All three glanced out the window. Not seeing a single figure. Not even a single sound came from outside. It was almost too quiet.

Then they saw them. Ten figures were attacking the group of juveniles. Though it was hard to tell what those people looked like, they still had some visible aspect to them. Blood smeared on the front of their shirts and abnormal movements. The gang tried to fight back at first but when one of the teens went down, all ten of the figures jumped on him. The sight was truly frightening, animalistic even. One could barely see the scene unfold due to the darkness, but the streetlights made some of it visible to them.

The three teens, who had tried to break in, weren't gone as they had thought. They were still outside of their apartment, yelling at the mob to stop. The juvenile downstairs started to run away, which surprised the three upstairs. Then they noticed some of the infected running up staircase on all fours and started to panic. Not a minute went by and the juveniles started to knock on their door, begging to be let in.

Charmaine started to remove the bookshelf, but Beau stopped her. "If we open this door, those sickos will notice us."

"Are we just going to let them die?!" Charmaine countered back. Her hands firmly grasping on the shelf, not budging. Beau was about to respond when an ear-piercing scream silenced them. It hadn't been any of the gang members. It was too ghastly, hollow even. As if the shriek hurt the vocals of its host.

The newly arrived "infected" woman jumped upon the three juveniles. The surprise knocked them right off their feet and their screams were almost haunting. Their screams didn't portray their tough reputation, they sounded like small boys calling for their mothers. True fear was present in their cries.

One of the juveniles stood out, however. He had immediately jumped right back onto his feet and started to fight the infected off of his friends.

He must have been a street fighter or some sort of it, because he hauled one after the other off of his friends. There was anger, instead of fear, in his hazel eyes and he roared at them with foreign profanity. He managed to grab the last of the infected off of Roger, the leader, when Roger all of the sudden kicked his savior in the stomach and took off.

All three of the teens peering out the window gasped as they witnessed two of the gang members leaving behind the one that saved them. They used him as bait.

Beau couldn't watch any further as the boy was fighting the infected on his back. Swinging and probably pumped with adrenaline. Beau pushed the shelf off within seconds, opened the door and started to swing with Ace's baseball bat. Both Charmaine and Ace aided Beau. They took his flanks, covering him, while he grabbed the fallen teen by his arm and hauled him out of the mob.

Ace had to kick a young infected woman to open the door and Beau towed the juvie into the apartment. Beau threw him onto the carpet and assisted the others with the mob. Their growls irked Charmaine, it didn't sound like anything she had heard before. It had a wet and strangled cough sound. Their breath didn't do them any favor either.

"What the hell cabron?" the juvenile cursed and stood up. Beau locked the door and turned towards the gang member. Beau wasn't having any of it and shoved the juvenile right back onto his behind. The tension in the apartment was louder than the scratching coming from outside their apartment.

Charmaine calculated the next moves of the new guy, seeing malice in his hazel eyes and held Beau back from advancing.

"We just saved your ass." Beau almost growled.

"I could've handled it myself."

"You couldn't, my dude. Unless you're John Cena." Ace gave him a cheeky smile from the couch.

"Shut up! You don't know me."

"You're right. We don't. What's your name?" Charmaine butted in, peering into his eyes.

"None of your business, puta." He cursed at her. Beau immediately threw a punch, but the guy was fast, he dodged the punch with ease.

"I think it is. Unless you want to know what's going on out there." Charmaine added, hiding her surprise and pushed herself in front of her brother. Beau chest was rising with anger, his breathing was rapid.

"Besides, you afraid or something?" Ace added fuel to the fire. He almost expected the guy to blow up in his face but didn't expect what he said next.

"Arturo. Now tell me what the fuck is going on." 

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