Zombies Don't Ride Motorcycles

The sun finally broke over the horizon and a few birds were seen in the sky. It was a new day but the same old routine. The red light flashed 5:45 A.M. and the alarm rang loud enough to wake the dead. A young man rolled over in his bed and quickly shut it off. He stretched out all of his tightened muscles, still weary from yesterday’s shift. He popped himself out of his bed to make it, not wasting any time burning sunlight. He grabbed his uniform in his fists and headed for the shower, as per his usual routine.

Breakfast was quick and easy. Time was not his ally on the daylight side, so he kept to his staples: a bowl of plain oatmeal with a glass of milk. Placing the oatmeal container back into the pantry, he realized he was down to his last cylinder of oats, and at that, he was close to empty. He made a mental note to pick some more up in a day or so. Bottles of medication lined his counter, organized first by size, then the symptoms they subdued. Byron sighed. It had been a great few days and even though he was pleased with the results of the new medication, its process was still just as taxing as before. The muted voices forced their presence on his conscience again as the flashes of light he had come to know were centered on their tone. And that tone was not a happy one. No, if he was honest with himself, they were pissed off. In his peripheral, streaks of red and black danced violently with each pill he popped into mouth. Forcing them to behave yet again. Shut up Carlos, he spoke at the mirror.

After rinsing and placing his dishes in the sink, he grabbed his store keys and ventured out into the blinding sunshine. Like clockwork, his OCD kicked in, and the double-checking of all the windows and doors began, ensuring that each one was secured. Once outside, he sighed and began his two-block walk to work. Bryon was definitely not the driving type.

He did not seem to notice the deserted streets or the eerie silence that followed him. He gave it about as much attention as he did on most other days, slim to none. His focus was laser spot-on, mostly with his head down watching his feet. His pace, his gait, even the placement of his feet between the gaps in the sidewalk where they were divided was lining up measured with such fanatical precision. He was confident he had lined up with his footfalls from the day before and the day before that.

A few garbage cans laid on their sides, spilled over at the end of a neighbor’s driveway. Put a small pause in his obsessive routine. He quickly righted them and continued on his way without missing a beat. He half-sprinted, half-skipped, catching himself up to where he would have been if he had not stopped. Rounding the last corner, his destination loomed off in the distance, just across the silent street. Various newspaper and circulars flew across his path. He made a mental note to come hit the curbs around the restaurant with his broom and dustpan to get it back up to his level of acceptance.

He approached the door, keys in hand. His awareness kicked into high gear when he reached for the doorknob. The door had been left slightly ajar. He realized he must have done it himself. He was not an extremely forgetful person, but every sixth or seventh time he worked, he would forget to lock up the door behind him. It felt familiar to him, so he felt no trepidation when he reached to push the door open. He stopped only long enough to let it register, more likely to mentally kick himself to not do it again. He walked in secure in his belief that everything was status quo.

His entry was uneventful.

Byron headed to the time clock, and punched in, 6:30 A.M. on the dot. In the four years since his sixteenth birthday when he began working at Nana's Cafe, he has never once been late. Come rain, shine, snow or lightning. Somehow, he always adjusted and just trudged through it. Without fail he would cross the threshold, none the worse for wear.

He gathered up his cleaning supplies, and headed straight to work. If you got time to lean, you got time to clean. Nana used to chant. Byron eventually got sick of hearing it, so he filled every second of his shift on the clock doing his humdrum routine. He made little games out of it, always trying to get that one spot just one degree cleaner than last time or maybe he would work on how fast he did it. Instead of something taking ten minutes, he would push himself to do it in nine, and so on and so on. Bathrooms are always first and luckily, they were in fair shape. In fact, curiously enough, they were about as clean as he had left them last the night before. Hmmm…very lucky. As it turns out, he was almost never, ever, lucky.

He turned and headed to the dining area and noticed the disarray. He sighed to himself thinking that the night shift forgot to clean up before they left. Once that was done, he headed over to the main kitchen and finished getting the coffee pots ready, placing all the cups' handles facing to the right. They were lined up perfectly as if the very cups themselves were for sale.

After a quick check of the time on his watch, 7:59 A.M., he walked over to the main window and flipped over the open sign. The small buzzing sound from his watch alerted him to the time. It was 8:00 A.M., he scanned outward to the barren streets wondering where his co-workers were. They were late.

A soft breeze picked up accented by some newspapers seen tumbling down the road. The faint outline of the heading was still visible Outbreak Spre-.

He took his breaks on time; he even made himself a small lunch not wanting too much to be taken out of his paycheck. The day was the slowest it has ever been in the history of the café.

No customers.

No one came into work.

No one was out on the streets of the town.

No cars passed by.

Not even the garbage truck, which was late for Tuesday's pick up as well.

He was alone.

His shift ended at 4:00 P.M.; he clocked out, remembering to keep his promise to himself to lock the door behind him and began his trek home. Deciding to stray away from the sidewalk for the first time, he kept to the center of the street, with his shadow cast behind him as he disappeared around the last corner to his home. His routine would not change the next day or even the next day after that. Despite several days of this, he failed to realize his routine remained the only meaning in his life he had left.

This is Byron.

This is his home town of Dodge City, Kansas.

Population: 1.

(April 13, 2015)

The air was cold and dry as the figure lurched painfully slow across the freshly blacktopped street. The soles of the boots it wore were scraped even to the ground, its foremost edge sculpted to a harsh, sharpened point. After weeks at this incredible angle, his ankle had worn through. Tendons and bits of gray flesh lay exposed as the splintered, frayed bone indelicately split the skin and had torturously stabbed outward into the open air. It was black and infected, exposed to the elements, as his unconventional sliding tattered the cuffs of his pants at the ends. The air surrounding the non-being was a miasma of putrid stench. Like month old rain water neglected to sit in the bottom of a trash can.

It had not fed in weeks. It was certainly starting to show. Ribs slid to and fro as he rasped in each breath, like serpents sliding beneath a blanket of loose gray skin. Its flannel hoodie was splayed open. The blue and black checkered design pronounced the only splashes of color that remained on his being.

The figure slowed his lurch to a standstill, nearly falling over. A conveniently placed stop sign interrupted his free-fall. It relaxed its remaining emaciated muscles and surveyed the scene before it.

It was a four-way stop. There were no lights to help corral cars to their destinations, nor were they needed. Its eyes blinked wearily. Each of his orbs looked like swollen black olives, with pimentos at their center. The ‘skin’ of both eyes were cracked and separated, looking much like broken colored glass submerged in water. The pupils behaved as couples in the throes of a divorce, separated and appeared to be free spinning beneath the jelly-like remains. The hunger in its emaciated frame forced it to take a deep breath, the first in so many hours.

The man pushed itself off the sign, grunted unintelligibly, and staggered through the intersection. It looked up at the power lines, but no birds made their perch there. Some birds craved the carrion stench these monsters produced, making them an easy prey when they drew down from their settlements on the wires. When the occasional group of vultures swoop in, you might as well call it a Thanksgiving feast. Its neck dropped southward, and its eyes scanned the ditch line for a possible meal. No dice.

No coherent thought rose into the monsters brain as it trudged forward in a somewhat straight line. Its hands shook uncontrollably, as if he had Parkinson’s disease. Occasionally he would swat at the mosquitoes that had swarmed around him. He would catch a handful, and slap them clumsily into his waiting mouth, squashing them against the roof of his palate with his swollen tongue. Hunger had invaded its mind and conquered it. Hunger was its dictator and hunger claimed dictatorship for eternity. The man stopped, and a hopeful grin peeked through the folds of empty skin on his face.

A hand rose up from the ditch line. It was attached to a much bloodied arm.

The hooded man quickened his pace, and the scrapes of its boots echoed across the street and reverberated between the tree lines. Only six feet away, the stench hit it. It was the same putrid rain-water-gone-bad stench. He had invaded another undead’s personal bubble.

The figure clicked its tongue, tasting the air, and leaned in to bring the ditch line into focus. A small sized Dodge pickup was on its side, mired in the muck of the last rain. The body of a dead man laid in front of the truck. It appeared to have taken a running leap and face-planted itself into the vehicle while it was bearing down on him. Bits of flesh and blood had landed and dried around the perimeter. All of the grass that was in or around the body was dead or dying. Being coated in infected blood did little for the exchange of nutrients it needed to survive. Even the nearby trees had grown dark, with black viscous sap oozing in thick waterfalls all over their trunks. Whatever leaves that remained untouched by whomever dragged itself from the wreckage onto its limbs, were now all dotted with dark dots and white splotches resembling bird feces. It seemed that no living cell would be able escape the greedy and relentless virus that was destined to overtake all.

A corpse remained sandwiched into the front of the truck, as it had wrapped itself around it. Despite the severity of the wreck, undead it remained. Using its one undamaged appendage, it swatted at the flies, gnats, and maggots that had made a home in the exposed back of its skull. Its brain pulsed with movement, not from any blood flow, but from insects and other creatures that had burrowed and were stirring within. The walker’s hunger turned to revulsion as he stood within the zombie sphere of stench. Zombie flesh served to do the opposite of living flesh. It turned most of the ‘walkers’, ‘crawlers’, and ‘runners’ into solo stalkers, only coming together in groups by coincidence, when the taint of fresh, living meat was in the air to drive them so. They never hunted communally. No coherent thought would ever bring them together collectively to catch their prey. Only the instincts to chase, to catch, to bite, tear, rend, to swallow and drink remained in the hollows of their brains. Reduced to the infinitesimal mentality of a baby.

The walker snorted hard at the mess in front of him, and attempted to pivot with its last good ankle. He spun himself into a completely random direction away from the crash. Hunger pangs again ripped through him. Its appetite for live meat gnawed at him, like delirium tremens for a junkie quitting his fix. Hunger declared war on the stench invading its nostrils. The clutches of his famine overpowered his sense of loathing, and he mindlessly spun around again and stomped back toward the front end of the truck. The raised hand gestured more urgently, spastically, as the footfalls of this new intruder reverberated up into the truck’s grill. The walker spat derisively. Hunger had won this battle.

It pitched forward and nose-dived into the back of its victim’s open cranium. It mercilessly bit and crunched through the already shattered skull. The swatting-arm seized on itself, pumping its fists open and closed. After several moments, its fingers splayed out, giving one final reach for the sky, and shook fiercely. The arm dropped heavy on the fender with a thud. The walker swallowed. Euphoria rushed in and displaced the hunger for just a moment. Ecstasy filled his body and he looked back into the shallows of the mutilated brain matter in realization. With renewed vigor, it dived back into its meal, slurping and crunching. It rose up from its ‘bowl’ satisfied. Finally sated!

The gourmand fell back onto its ass, dizzy and high from this repast. Small tremors began rippling through its body, starting from the bottom of its spine, spreading out in all directions. A dull throb started drumming from deep inside its own brain, and rose in crescendo into a full-blown migraine.

Owww! the walker said, gripping his head with both hands. It howled in pain as the tips of its fingers felt as if a thousand needles were piercing their way out of them. Then the needles caught fire, and spread all over its waking body. It screamed horribly, casting irrepressible swatches of saliva to fling from its agape mouth. It wasn’t enough. It screamed again, retching and wrenching its mouth open wide enough for its jaw to pop out of place. It felt that too. The monster gripped its face and curled into a ball. It rocked itself back and forth, failing to coax the pain away. Unable to maintain his position on the steep ditch, he rolled down into it, smacking his head on the cement outcrop of the drain. He screamed once more. The fiery needles came alive again, causing him to convulse. He vomited all over himself, but up came only black putrid bile. For several hours, he repeated this, until the fires in his nerve endings finally subsided. His screams melted down into sobs, his sobs trailing into hiccups, as he rocked himself between the ditch banks.

By 4:37 in the evening, Patient Zero had rocked himself to sleep like a scorned child.

***

Groaning, he pushed himself off his palms and onto his knees. He sat on his ankles, allowing his arms to free fall and land with a muted thud behind him back into the mud. He stretched back and arched himself, feeling the muscles twinge and warm in response.

The man stretched back his neck, and rotated it around a bit, deeply enjoying the release of tension. He threw his head back and let out a moan. His fingers pushed down hard into the sand as he flexed out his arms, feeling the pressure subside in his joints. He felt his elbows and shoulders thank him.

Felt? The question echoed along the inside of his skull. This first coherent thought popped through, like the tiniest crack in a water dam. A stream of thoughts waited, poised to follow.

How do I feel? He felt the courage in his mind building as the thought dripped through.

He licked his dry lips...lips? They tasted coppery, like he was sucking on a dirty penny. He reached up slowly to touch them, reaffirming their presence. Yeah, they were there all right.

He turned and took in the scene. The truck remained on its side behind him, dried chunks of flesh and splashes of color marring the broken chrome grill. His mouth contorted into a letter ‘O’ with a dawning reality.

Did I drive this truck? He reached up and rubbed the top of his head. He felt the blood rushing to it now and it had started throbbing. He stifled a yawn and felt his jaw pop.

Damn it, he spat aloud.

The sound of his own voice surprised him. He had to be honest with himself. He had not heard a human voice, not even his own, for who knows how long.

But, how did I get here then, if I didn't drive?

He peered down at his clothes. The bottom hem of his pants appeared to have been trodden on for so long, that much of the fabric was missing. Long jagged tears ran upward, halfway past his leg. They almost could have passed for shorts if the ends were cut-off even just below his kneecaps.

What did I do? Get hit with gamma rays and become the Incredible Hulk?

He steadied himself against the side of the truck and pulled up his foot to get a better view of their bottoms. He found himself to be shoeless. At least an inch of hard dead calloused skin had built up on the outside of his heel and insole.

Suddenly the hunger pains attacked his stomach again with such a force that he began walking the desolate highway without a glance back. There was a faint smell in the breeze and it wafted towards him like a soft lover’s caress. It instantly made him forget the need for shoes or better clothing. Gesturing for him to come hither, and follow he did.

He tromped after that sweet taste in the air, not realizing his change in color. No longer quite the completely albino colored fellow, his cheeks and lips held only the palest shade of red. A tinge of heat now graced his thinly layered flesh.

(April 15, 2015)

The tattoo on the back of her neck spelled Lady, which clearly she was not. It was a blatant acting out against her parents who nicknamed her. Their logic lay geared toward inspiring her to be so. It epically failed. It was the first of many acting-outs she visited upon her parents. The ROTC plan meant to smooth out all of her rough edges, but only served to sharpen them. It made her stronger, true. Defiantly however, her attitude remained.

Charlie walked into the break-room. The tables lay turned over. The fronts of the drink machines were shattered and emptied. All that remained of organized civilization here were a sink and a full-length viewing mirror. She ran the water and gave herself what her mother once affectionately referred to it as a ‘whore’s bath’.

She pulled off her garments and then preceded the wipe herself clean with the paper towels she had found under the sink. She stopped and ran her fingers up the sides of her back. The texture of her tattoos felt smooth against her fingertips. She turned to view it in the mirror.

Black wings spread half-open to traverse the whole of her back. The only colors in her ink were the little red droplets trickling from the furthermost ends of her wing’s tips.

A low humming, gasping sound came from outside the break room. She ignored it. She raised her eyes back to their own reflection.

Well, there is no one to say who I will be now, huh?

A single tear bungeed down from her eye. She caught it in her hand and slammed it against the sink.

NO. Not now. We’ve got work to do, Lady. She dressed herself back into her black and pink sports bra and a green muscle tee.

Then, she looked down over to her equipment.

She checked her weapons; each of them carried a rouge lipstick mark around each handle, around each grip. Finding them not smeared or removed, she took stock. She removed the lipstick marks one at a time, and began strapping various throwing knives on her body. She did not like sleeping without her weapons. When she felt she had to, she marked the ones she did not keep on her person to show any tampering.

Two were placed in each boot and several around her belt.

A couple of tiny ones she quickly tucked into her bra. She nicknamed these ‘Dinky one and Dinky two.’

Two sharpened machetes sheathed at each hip.

Two holsters slapped against the fronts of both thighs, one for each of her Desert Eagles.

A samurai sword that was a display model and of course stolen. Sharpened and adopted for use into real physical service.

Lastly, a backpack for all her ammo and any spare food she could find.

The gasp swallowed into a choking cough and then settled back into a gasp. Charlie walked around the corner opening of the break room and looked to the floor. About six feet away laid the writhing body of a butcher. Probably from this location, she surmised. He was still wearing his uniform, soaked in blood, and without his apron. Charlie was convinced the blood was human. She could picture his final day before becoming one of the teeming undead. He probably began feeling sick that one morning. It was not something that even registered as a good enough reason to call out. People get sick and go to work anyway all the time. The pressure from bosses to call out is everywhere. Yes. This man did not dare to not show up for work.

Charlie imagined he was in the middle of prepping his equipment. The nauseating pains built up to a crescendo and off to the bathroom he went to deal with it. That is where he probably died, only to awake again with the hunger of flesh in his eyes. The patrons and employees that remained never stood a chance. This man was burly. It was obvious he had the girth to overpower, and perhaps even outrun anything still roaming the store. Well, everyone except Charlie.

Her eyes met the butcher’s eyes. They were wide and ready, almost consuming in all directions. She was certain, that if they could, they would jump right out of their own sockets to get at her.

She knelt beside the creature and observed his predicament. An eight-inch KA-Bar protruded from his throat, pinning him straight to the wooden pallet on which he was lying.

Like a pushpin to a poster.

She slowly stretched out her grimace into a cold smile. She looked into his eyes one last time. Your kind killed my parents. I may have hated them, but they were still mine. And no one touches what’s mine.

She grabbed the KA-Bar and ripped it the rest of the way through the zombie's throat, spraying blood all over her knees and legs. She stood up, not content, and kicked the rest of the butcher’s head off. She stopped and looked down at herself.

Great, now I’m gonna need more than just a whore’s bath, she said and headed back to the bathroom.

***

She walked briskly out of the commissary, taking time to survey her surroundings in all directions, even up. If there had been any casual observers left, they would have thought her insane with phobias, stricken with some fear of invisible things floating in the air that only she could see. She was certain that she had cleared out the majority of the base. Ninety percent of the zombies have moved on as most of the personnel had been deployed to battle infestations elsewhere.

A small platoon that had returned from Afghanistan, were already beginning to feel the fevers and the body aches of the virus, even before setting up the flight that brought them back. Charlie vaguely remembered her father mentioning a group coming back sick, but didn’t give it much thought at the time. She remained entangled in her own personal schedule. She was oblivious to what was going on around her. She failed to read the papers when the outbreak started, ignored the news on the TV, and disbelieved the flow of information that was pouring out all over the internet.

She avoided her parents, frequently ducking out to attend Kenpo Karate classes and romps at the shooting range. The younger marines thought she was hot, and to get in her good graces, offered up their weapons and ammo to her willingly. Easily. She never had to walk in with a gun or ammo box and they all knew her by name. She was not your typical girl.

She stopped in the middle of an empty parking lot and closed her eyes. This base used to be her small personal city, her sanctuary, and now that city was empty.

She vaguely pieced together the fragments of her parents’ last days. She had been ignoring them mostly. They had cancelled her trip to a mixed-martial arts tournament. She had first asked her father to buy the tickets. As he had done so many times before, he shut her down. What was left was the road that had always remained. She went behind her daddy’s back and had her mom sign off on it. Only this time he was ahead of her game and on to her. He ripped the tickets up right in front of her. Shut up in her room, she swore she would never speak to them again.

Him, for not letting her go.

Her, for not playing her part.

In her fury, she blacked out the whole room. She stole a piece of plywood from the garage. It was a leftover from an old science fair project. A triangle had been cut off the corner, but she did not care. She did not even bother trimming off the excess. This would be her last act of defiance she bestowed upon them. She threw the plywood up there haphazardly and hammered it down. She locked the door, slumped into the corner and listened to her mp3 player for hours.

Occasionally, she would pry out one of her ear buds and catch her parents going at it. They were like this all too often. She had programmed herself to tune out most of it. She hated the fact that they would argue back and forth over her. She hated the fact that she never had her say. Now, she hated herself that she did not even get the chance to say goodbye.

Hours ticked by. The strain of the darkness and the onslaught of boredom forced her to jerk both of her ear buds at once. Instantly she regretted it; her ears popped and began to ring painfully. She rubbed her ears and the ringing subsided. Leaning in, she could make out her father talking in a muted voice through the door. She guesstimated that they were in the kitchen and her father was on the phone. She daydreamed that he was calling in a favor and had finally decided to send her to some stuck-up private girl school.

Yeah, very likely, Charlie had thought to herself. I will barricade this room up so tight, they will have to send the S.W.A.T. to come get me out.

Their tones were different, she realized. Something did not sound right. The pacing was much dissimilar. She leaned in ever so closer to the door. Gone were the arguments and sharp insults. It almost sounded like the calm before a tornado strikes and rends whole communities apart. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prick up, and a chill up and down her arms. She knew that was not possible. She had packed all the vents with T-shirts and her last wet towel under the door. She did not want them to have the satisfaction of hearing her bustling about in her own room.

She was dead to them.

Fuck ‘em.

She strained to listen, but there were no raised voices. She vaguely made out the concern in her father’s voice, if not any of his words. A sharp beep and the slamming of the phone into its cradle ended the call. She heard quick footfalls running throughout the house. The noises became indistinct. Charlie let out her air.

Who knows what they are up to, she thought.

She reached up to place her ear buds back in to her ear. That was all the attention they would be getting from her tonight. She settled back into her corner and reached down to push ‘play’.

Then she heard her mother’s blood curdling scream.

Charlie shook her head and blinked away her reverie. She had been walking for miles she realized, distracted by the nightmare replaying repeatedly in her head. She had chosen to walk since she was in no particular hurry to get anywhere. Moreover, most of the vehicles she had crossed paths with had been vandalized, or crashed in some way, rendering them useless. She took out a bottle of lukewarm water out of her insulated pack, and started munching on a pack of cheese crackers.

What the fuck is that? she said aloud to herself. A humming noise snuck in from ahead of her. She could scarcely remember any sounds from anything on her walk here so far, so the noise genuinely caught her off guard.

Is that a…motorcycle?

She stood her ground and reached for her machete at her left hip and her Desert Eagle at her right. Her hands at the ready, she waited a few moments. The sound never rose in volume, like a car coming from a little ways ahead. It stayed steady, like a pulse. She waited, expecting a bike to come puttering along. Yet the noise never increased like the approach of an oncoming vehicle would make. Yet, its wash still rebounded off the trees into her ears.

Charlie shook her head.

What the hell was I thinking? Zombies don’t ride motorcycles.

Shaking her head at the silly thought, I’m sure it will present itself when I get close enough. Just need to stay on my guard. With that she stepped forward and resumed her stride into the next town.

(April 18, 2015)

Cross

Christian ‘Cross’ Davidson awoke from his drunken slumber to find himself strewn across a couch with a beautiful girl lying beside him. He yawned, licked his lips, and noticed a metallic taste lingering in the air. Even in his inebriated state, he knew something was seriously wrong. Trying to shake the drunkenness away, Cross stood up from the couch and leaned over the girl next to him to check to see if she was still breathing. He felt his heart seize as the girls eyes and mouth both shot open.

The color had gone from her once bronzed skin leaving it pasty and gray. Her lips were cracked badly. As she opened her mouth, new splits began to form, ruining the lips that just a few hours before were attached to him. Her eyes were no longer the bright blue he remembered but now resembled blood stained shattered glass with a black hole for a center. A gut wrenching scream escaped as her lips parted hard back over her teeth; her tiny hands sprang upward and latched onto his collar. She jerked down hard and brought them face to face. Those lips that had tasted his flesh seemed ravenous for it in a new way.

***

Rhyce

Jolting up right out of his sleep as the scream finally reached his ears, Rhyce Evans rubbed at his eyes. With his eyes focusing on his surroundings, he carefully maneuvered around the garbage that lay at his feet, only to trip on the decapitated head of one of his fellow teammates and come face to face with a pool of gelatinous blood.

What the fuck!

He jerked back onto his knees and attempted to wipe the blood away from his hands. Failing he switched to rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with the ball of his wrist. The scene woke him up faster than any energy drink had ever done. He pulled himself up onto his shaky legs and screamed out in frustration.

CROSS!!! Where the hell are you? And what the fuck is going on man?

Thump….Thump….Thump……

Running from the bedroom in search of the noise, he finally came across his friend standing in the living room. A bloody bat in his hand, staring down at the girl that was just last night trying to seduce them both.

"She wasn’t breathing and then….then Jesus…she fucking tried to bite me..." Cross screams out as he turns and faces the only other person that seemed to survive the night along with him.

A few seconds passed and the boys finally took a glance around the old condemned house. The house the citizens of Junction City believed to be haunted. It was the only place where the local cops didn’t want to look for under-age drinking. Beer cans and red plastic cups littered the floor by the once makeshift ‘bar table.’ It laid broken on its side smeared in blood and what was left of last night’s pizza.

Without another word spoken between the two of them, they quickly grabbed their things and headed towards the open door. Stepping outside, reality crashed back down and they realized two things. First was who would have been with them last night and the second was that the same bloodbath they just left had spilled into the streets.

(Flashback 48 hours)

Are you guys sure you don’t want to come Friday night? asked Rhyce.

Being the twins that they are, they answered simultaneously Yep. Their eyes never wavering from the scenes playing out on a pair of plasma TV’s in the center of the room.

Looking around, Rhyce and Cross took note of what was going on in the ‘dungeon’ as Mr. and Mrs. Richards liked to call it. Full thirty-two ounce energy drink cans covered the entire surface of the coffee table in the center of the room. Empty pizza boxes and Pringles cans were for once not all over the floor but stacked in a corner in a make shift fort; which was most likely done by the resident trash artist of the group, Tren. Two boys around eighteen years of age were perched on the edge of their own chairs in the center of the room. Each boy was facing his own TV, which was back to back with the other. Both had on identical Turtle Beach gaming headsets that would drown out all possible sounds from their parents upstairs and the brand new state of the art wireless game controllers in their hands. Not once in the fifteen minutes since their friends had entered the basement did their eyes leave the screens. Their concentration never once broke.

Halo Binge, Cross and Rhyce recited together while shaking their heads. My God, you two are slobs and are going to die virgins if you don’t ever clean up and get out once in a while. Cross said quickly before the laughter began between the four of them.

Whatever man, you know we ain’t virgins anymore, Callen fired back at his friend.

When we said you guys needed hobbies, we didn’t mean another video game. Anyways guys we’re outta here. We still on for Sunday right? With a simple nod from the twins, the other two left but not before asking if they were to lock the door again behind them. Their famous yep response was present yet again, but with a popping of the ‘p’ at the end.

Rhyce leaned in and whispered to Cross. Are you sure we can’t go whore them out and make our own double mint commercial. It’s comic gold bro! Cross just rolled his eyes and shook his head and tugged the brute up the stairs.

They left the boys to their games and soon the minutes turned into hours. As Callen and Tren fought for their lives on