Light... Not sunlight... Artificial light... But... There's no power anymore... That can't be... I must be dead... It's cool so I can't be in hell... I must be in heaven... It feels like air conditioning all around me... It's been so long since I've been out of the heat... Someone's calling me... Is it all of my dead friends?... So many of my friends have died... Maybe Carlos is up here too... If not then he'll probably be here soon... Anthony... Alexandria... Connor... Will I finally get to meet them again?...
Carlos watched Allan as he stared at the flourscent light on the ceiling mumbling nonsense under his breathe. He watched as the anesthetic from Allan's operation slowly wore off and Allan came to. It was just the 2 of them now. The only 2 with the memories of what happened to the passengers of flight 731. The only 12 collected people taken off the plane by the flight attendant who later was killed by the very people she saved. Carlos hasn't thought about that plane in a while, the very last moments of sanity before the world erupted into chaos. He wondered if anyone else from that flight survived, if they're out there anywhere. He didn't think that it was possible. They did find one person outside of the 12 from the flight and she ended up being a walker (Anthony's sister, nonetheless). And all of that screaming they heard as they were getting off the plane... No one survived... No one will survive...
3 weeks later:
It's now been almost 2 and a half months since the epidemic began and Allan and Carlos have comfertably settled in with their new life at the hospital. The top floor of the hospital kept them away from any walkers or even people that may want to intrude anywhere (The walkers on the ground floor is what mainly keeps living people out). The group was actually friendlier than the previous group they were in (Allan said it was the lack of a psycho killer hotel maid) and they were resourceful as well. It was difficult for Carlos and Allan to grasp their group's extermination when they first came to the hospital but eventually they adjusted. It was the fact that each other were still alive that kept them sane and going every day. The hospital group had people die now and again but any group with over a dozen people is going to have people die every once and a while, that would happen even without the zombie apocalypse (Not nearly as often though). And occasionally some more friendly people would come into town and replace those that had been lost but Allan and Carlos went nowhere. They actually became 2 of the most valued members of the group, their leader personalities made it to where they couldn't go for very long after joining without implenting their own ideas from past experiences. Nothing was great in a world like this but Carlos thought that it was as optimistic as it could be...
1 week later:
One of the group's recent food runs was run by Carlos while Allan stayed behind. Allan was actually flirting with one of the new girls that had arrived with a broken group when the food group came back and Allan saw what he had feared every time Carlos went out without him. He had been shot. He was rushed into the emergency room to be operated on and the door slammed shut before Allan could even get over to the other end of the hallway. He asked one of the guys from the group what happened and the guy said that a group has taken over the supermarket and they opened fire on them as soon as they walked in. A bunch of people from the food group died immediately and while the survivors retreated one teenage kid got shot and Carlos went back to save him. He got barraged by bullets and the kid got his head blown off while Carlos just suffered a hit to the shoulder. They didn't orginally think it was too bad but the bullet was still lodged in his shoulder and while they were running back to the hospital the bullet shifted and tore an artery. Carlos was losing a lot of blood. The guy thought that they had gotten him back just in time to be operated on but it was close.
4 hours later:
Allan sat in the emergency room and talked to Carlos as he sat on his bed recovering. The operation had gone smoothly but they didn't have any time to give Carlos anesthesia so the whole operation was done with Carlos awake. Carlos told Allan that it was strange because he didn't actually end up feeling as much pain as he thought he would. Carlos thought that maybe he had just gone numb or passed out a little bit. Just then Stanley came through the door like a bullet and told Allan to get his gun and come with him. Carlos asked Stanley what was going on and Stanley said "We're under attack". Their group had fatally wounded a guy from the supermarket group who died even after the group tried to save him. The supermarket group wasn't very happy about this. They stood on the ground outside the hospital screaming and shooting out all of the windows. One of the guys said it wasn't too big of a deal because eventually all of their noise would attract walkers and they'd have to leave and take the walkers back to their supermarket. But the supermarket group wasn't willing to leave it at that. Allan looked out through a window that had been boarded up and made a peephole and saw one guy holding a flaming bottle. It was a molotov. Allan tried to shoot the guy before he could throw it but he missed every shot and the guy from the ground chucked the flaming bottle as hard as possible right into Carlos' window. Allan flew out into the hallway and saw that Carlos' room was already ablaze. Carlos was dead. The fire kept spreading incredibly quickly and people began to panic. Allan got caught in a mob of people running downstairs trying to get away from the fire. Stanley pulled Allan and as many other people as possible aside at the bottom floor and told them that the front door would be suicide and watched as the group of people foolish enough to run out the front door were slaughtered by the supermarket group. Stanley told them that they were going to flank around the side of the building out the back door and kill every member of the supermarket group they could see. Stanley led the charge out the back door and Allan watched as the ambush group hiding behind the building slaughtered Stanley and everyone that followed him. Allan saw it coming, he tried to say something but no one would listen. Everyone was to afraid and angry. Everyone from his group was dead but him and a guy under the reception desk who was crying and calling for his mom. Just then the front of the building collapsed from the fire and killed that guy. Allan ran into the bathroom on the side of the building that the fire started on. None of the supermarket group expected anyone to come out on the side of the building that had the fire started on it. Allan jumped out that window and sneaked around the side of the building. He peeked around to the front of the building and saw that he didn't need to worry too much about the supermarket group anymore. That guy from the hospital group was right, the supermarket group's shooting would attract walkers. A lot of walkers. The largest group of walkers that Allan had ever seen. One guy from the supermarket group from the back spotted Allan and even handed him a gun and asked him to help kill the walkers, the group had become desperate. Allan considered blowing the guys head off but where would that get him? Everyone that Allan knew was dead but Allan wasn't completely sure whether he was suicidal just yet.
1 hour later:
Just more death. Most of the supermarket group is dead at this point. The entire town is filled with walkers. The hospital burned to the ground but the fire is still going. Allan took refuge inside the supermarket with the remaining supermarket group. How ironic. There are 12 of them.
2 hours later:
It's dark outside, very dark. None of the stars are showing because of the light pollution from the still raging fire and the smoke caused by it. The supermarket burned down. A couple guys commited suicide. One guy died in the building collapse. Most of the rest got eaten. There were a couple people left alive that were headed to leave the city but Allan just kind of wandered away from them. The guys wrote him off as crazy and headed out of the city, they never made it. Allan was just kind of walking through the wreckage, the debris. Anything that wasn't on fire or infested with walkers. He didn't feel like running anymore. He barely felt like walking. The smoke made him not want to breathe. The loss of everyone he loved made him not want to live. He watched as one lone walker made his way towards him. Allan wondered what his story was. Had he lost everyone too? Had he killed himself? Or did he want to live and never get the chance? Allan walked towards him as he thought about everyone from his past. He thought about how he'd never have a future. He held out his arm to the walker and giggled as he imagined that waving his arm was like waving a dinner bell for this walker. Bite. It hurt. Allan always imagined how painful it must be for a human to bite you but he never imagined it as this painful. It was the most painful thing he had ever experienced. The fell over with his head blown off and Allan looked to his right. There was Carlos. Carlos had gotten up and looked out his window before the man from the supermarket group had thrown the molotov and seen what was about to happen. He ran down the side of the stairs that no one could go down because of the fire and sneaked away while it all happened. He thought that the whole hospital group had died including Allan and was considering killing himself at the time that he saw Allan. Allan looked at what he had let the zombie do to him and couldn't believe what he had done. He was bitten. Damned. There was no fixing this. Allan was a dead man walking. He had reunited with Carlos only to realize that he was going to have to leave him again. They both cried. They couldn't stop crying. So much pain. Allan told Carlos that he would finish himself off so that Carlos didn't have to do it, he didn't want Carlos to have to do this. Carlos insisted that he do this. He didn't want Allan commiting suicide. It couldn't happen. Carlos closed his eyes. The last words he heard out of Allan's mouth were "Why did this have to happen?". The next time Carlos opened his eyes Allan was dead. Everyone was dead. Walkers and fire surrounded him as he stood over his dead friend and there was nothing he could do about it. Carlos was alone.
Carlos is awake. Carlos sat up on his couch and saw that it was morning. He was late for work! The sheriff would have his ass for this one. He grabbed his wallet and went downstairs to get his uniform. In his basement he saw his uniform on his desk. And 11 corpses hanging from the wall. He still remembered all of there names. Zach, Jaylen, Connor, Alexandria, Lynette, Beth, Noah, Anthony, Jemima, Joyce, and Allan. Carlos was quite satisfied that he had gotten to watch them all die again in his dream. But he didn't have time to daydream, he was going to be late. He wasn't too worked up about it though. Being a little late woulnd't be the end of the world....
I couldn't think of a non-cliche way to end a zombie series. So many ways have been done over and over again before. I know that the dream thing has been done a lot too but I added a twist to it with all the characters from the dream being dead anyways so I was satisfied with it.
I like this ending, DeathGrip. But that was one long dream indeed. XD
I would have liked it if this was a hypnotised session where Carlos had recurring dreams and a psychologist was trying to piece it together or something.
But well done, this was one impressive story. Also, I'll be looking for the sequel - Jemima's Revenge. ;)
