Inside the Armory

We climbed down two sets of stairs, following Sterling who didn't say a word the entire time. We walked down a long hall with about four rooms all with windows. Sterling didn't even glance at the windows as he passed, but James and I couldn't help but look. Some of the windows had bloody hand prints, or just smudged blood on them. One was covered in what looked like the green goo, the Brett zombie had tried puking on us. I squinted against the goo trying to see what was in the room. I could make out a large figure, it had its back towards me. I tried looking closer to see what it was, I had an idea, but I didn't want it to be true. "Is that?" James started, but as he spoke the figure turned revealing the puss covered face of a zombie. "Hey Sterling?" I called stepping away from the glass and hurrying along the hallway after him. He turned slowly at the end of the hallway, looking down he took a deep breath as if preparing himself for a hard explanation, "The woman in that room, was human four hours ago. Those rooms, were our patient rooms. I thought I could set up a refugee camp." He looked up with tears in his eyes, "But, most of the survivors were bitten, or scratched. The woman in that room had been vomited on by something that looked like she does now." I heard a sharp intake of breath, as James stepped back to peer into another patient room. This room had a beheaded zombie strapped to a hospital bed. There was blood everywhere as if who ever had removed the head, used a chainsaw, or something like that. I felt a scream get stuck in my throat, as I saw on the floor the still moving head of the zombie body. "Is it?" I started, but Sterling had unlocked the door at the end of the hallway and held it open for us. His eyes had turned cold and grey again. "There's about 12 of us left." He said as we entered into a large basketball court. Sleeping bags littered the floor of this room, and there were small groups of people all looking at us. "It's not safe here kids, we been trying to get a rescue party to help us, but I don't think anyone is coming." A little old man wearing a set of blue overalls that had blood splattered all over the front. He was smoking out of a wooden pipe, something that smelt like stale tobacco. He was sitting with a group of about three old men all in overalls, they were passing the pipe around. "I think we should wait till daybreak to leave here, we will be able to see whats coming better." I turned to James and Sterling, "Will this place hold for another couple of hours?" He looked doubtful and then looked back towards the hallway with the undead petting zoo. "I don't think their rooms will hold till tomorrow, we have a transport vehicle all loaded up with supplies, but I can't convince some of the people here to leave." He nodded towards the three smoking buddies. I nodded and headed towards them.
"Do you mind if I smoke with you?" I asked sitting on the floor next to their camping chairs. "There isn't enough!" The man who had spoken to us first said as he held his pipe away from me like a small child with a toy. "Well thats ok." I said pulling my pipe off my keyring and setting it up for a good hit. I loaded it with the last of my thunderphuk. The sweet savory smell of the herb filled the area and engulfed us. The old man sniffed the air, and looked sadly at his own stale pipe tobacco. I took a hit holding it in for a moment, allowing the smoke to fold over the three. The other two were watching my pipe as I offered it to the greedy old man. He looked at me dumbstruck "Girl, I thought the world had forgotten how to share, and had forgotten how to be civil to one another." He gingerly held my pipe and took a little puff. He exhaled loudly as a look of happiness spread across his wrinkly old face. He handed it back to me "Thank you." I passed it to the other two older men, holding my hand out to the man I said "I'm Amber, I am here to rescue you."
After I had successfully doped up the three unwilling passengers, we headed for the hallway to take care of the zombies that had been locked up there. I attempted to open one of the doors, but the zombie threw itself against it so hard I thought it had ripped the hinges right off the wall. I retreated back to the basketball court, where Sterling and James were catching up."So what happened to Joe?" Sterling was saying, but quickly stopped as I walked up. I sat down next to them and in a low voice, so the others wouldn't hear me "We are going to have to find another way out, or figure out how to sneak past them." I looked between them, hoping one of them would come up with a solution. James stood up and stretched his neck, he popped his knuckles, grabbed his machetti, and headed towards the door. I looked back into Sterlings cold grey eyes, he looked hopeless. I smiled at him as I got up to follow James, "Come help us kill some zombies." I winked at him as I grabbed my hatchet from my belt. He looked at me with frowning eyes, then got up and followed us. As I entered the room James was picking his zombie of choice. He paced back and forth in between a zombie wearing a military uniform, and the room covered in green goo. He had decided on the green room when I stopped him saying "Wait, last time I killed one of those ones, it exploded, and alerted the horde, leave this one for last." He nodded and entered the room with the dead soldier in it. Sterling and I watched through the blood splattered window. The zombie turned slowly, and began to frenzy itself. It growled through blood covered teeth, it seemed the monster was drooling blood, it ran down it's chin and onto the floor. James took up a defensive stance against the charging zombie. He stepped out of the way running his blade along the zombies stomach. He had sharpened it so that as the zombies weight pressed against the blade it cut the flesh like butter, the zombies stomach fell to the floor with a wet plop. It turned its angry eyes to James and attempted to charge again, but it tripped on its intestine and fell on its face. James took his chance and embedded his blade in the monsters dome. It twitched a little as it died, this time never to get back up. He pulled the machetti out of the dead soldiers head and wiped it on the zombies already bloodstained shirt. Exiting the room he dipped his head towards me as if to say, your turn. I turned to a very angry girl zombie, she looked to be about 15 or 16, same age as Artesia. I felt a twinge of fear almost as I entered the room and readied my hatchet. The girl turned to look at me with glazed over eyes. As I looked into those sad dead eyes, I wondered if Artesia was still alive or not. I turned the blade part of the hatchet away from the teen zombie, she bared her teeth at me revealing braces with little pieces of flesh dangling in them. She took her first step towards me, I raised the blunt end of the hatchet and brought it crashing down on her head as she stumbled towards me with outstretched arms. As the hatchet fell I felt her skull give way and the hatchet sink into her brain. Her eyes rolled up into her head as she fell. All the air whooshed out of her as she did. I threw up. I didn't expect her head to just crush so easily. I was shaking as I exited the room. I pulled my pipe out and smoked the last bit of blackened spice. Exhaling I tried stopping my hands from shaking I sat against the wall across from my zombies window. I sunk to the floor still shaking slightly. "This  is our rescue crew? She can't even kill a zombie hardly!" Sterling was looking at James with angry eyes, James shrugged "she is better with guns" He offered his machetti to Sterling, but he refused it popped his knuckles loosened up a little and entered a room with another soldier zombie. As he entered the room and before the zombie could even turn to look at him he punched it in the lower part of the zombies head. The zombie fell to its knees with an angry groan. Sterling looked surprised, that it hadn't knocked the zombie out, he kicked the zombie to the ground, and with his combat boot stomped the back of the monsters head. The skull gave way, almost too easily and the zombie stopped moving. Sterling wiped as much of the blood off his boot as he could. Stepping out of the room he looked at me with his cold eyes and said "THAT is how you kill a zombie." James laughed and handed me his boot pistol, it was a small revolver. I checked to make sure it was loaded took it off safety and tapped the green window. The monster hurled itself through the window with a loud crash. James and Sterling  stepped back towards the door, James had his Machetti at the ready for in case I couldn't kill the beast. I jumped back towards the stair well, I raised the gun, at the monster that had started making its way towards me. "Cover your ears." I said as I pulled the trigger. The zombie exploded with an earth shattering BOOM. Sterling's mouth fell open in shock, and James whooped. The door behind them yanked open to reveal the startled eyes of a few of the other survivors. We heard the electric fence start to zap lifeless bodies as the horde attempted to push their way through. "We need to go...NOW" James jumped towards the stairs turning long enough to catch the keys for the transport vehicle out in the yard. I ran back for our weapons and to gather the rest of the survivors. Sterling and I herded them out to the roof, where James had backed the transporter up to the ladder. I took aim at a few of the zombies who had started to climb their dead comrades to get in. I handed Sterling Jame's rifle, and he started shooting the oncoming army of the undead as well. "I have an idea" I jumped from the roof to the roof of the transporter, then to the roof of the van, climbing in the passenger side I honked at James to let him know I was going to lead them away. He shook his head at me, but I pushed my foot to the floor, and drove through the now dead electric fence dragging the bodies of the fried dead with me, the zombies turned to follow me, and I thought I would be able to get their attention, when the barbed wire from the fence wrapped itself around my front tires and popped both of them. The van lurched forward as the anti lock breaks set in. I was going to fast to keep control of the vehicle and it rolled onto its side. I of course hadn't put my seat belt on in the heat of the moment. I lay there for a moment wondering if I had died, but then I heard the roar of the transporters engine, and the blasting of guns. At least I had saved them.
After a moment my side started to ache, where I had hit into the shattered window, and road. I realized I was alive, but not for long if I didn't get the hell out of this van. I could smell gas leaking and a small electric wire sparked lighting the back seats on fire. I began kicking at the shattered windshield frantically. This van was going to explode if I didn't get out. The window fell to reveal the grinning faces of the zombies I had chasing me. the tried clawing their way into the van, I heard gun shots and the zombies went stiff and fell revealing bullet holes in their foreheads. I crawled out of the van, cutting my hands on the glass, and twisted metal. I felt James's grab the back of my shirt as he heaved me up to my feet. I felt blood trickle down the side of my face from where I had hit my head on the window. "Thanks" I said meekly as he dragged me back towards a waiting hummer. "Where are the others?" I asked trying to turn around to see if they had gotten away." He hoisted me up into the passenger side without saying anything. He pulled himself into the drivers side and shifted the vehicle into first gear. It jumped to life making me dizzy with how quickly it moved. I looked at James, studying him for a moment. He looked pissed. His usually twinkling eyes, were cold and set on the road in front of us. The van exploded behind us in a ball of flames. I flinched at the sound. After about 10 minutes of silence, James cleared his throat, the sound startled me, I turned to look at him. Tears were flowing down his cheeks now. "James?" I asked as I leaned over and wiped a few of his tears from his face. He sighed looking away from me. "Amber, there are some things about my past, that people would probably not like if they found out about it." He rubbed his eyes, and turned to look at me with sad eyes. "Sterling knows about some of it, but I don't want him to turn them against me because of it." I studied him trying to decide, what it was that he was going to tell me. He looked miserably at me, and said "Amber I'm gay."