Part 5!

It's been three weeks now, since I intially discovered the infection.

Still I, the drained, exhausted and injured boys and the, of course, clinically sane owner of the gun shop, who had finally come to tell us his name, Sam. A rather unfitting and calm name, for someone so bedraggled and lacking of sane logic, I thought.

None the less, the four of us had survived for weeks now, on canned goods and a now completely drained tank of fuel in our combined vehicles, my 4x4, and Sam's ute, quite fitting of his, if anything, messy, personality.

Though still usure, of wether to be scared more of my.. friends, Sam and the boys or the seemingly endless horde of zombies lining up stupidly to our trigger-happy onslaught of violence. I thought to myself countless times of wether what we were doing was right, or simply undeniably wrong. I was never sure of the others, I knew Sam was well-adjusted to the situation and would still be alive, even if we were not beside him, blood and brains caking us, but the boys still seemed fidgety and worried, I didn't hold this against them of course, as we had fought alongside each other for a while now, and they have saved my life just as many times as I their's...

Though.. their father's death still hung over me.. on top of everything else.

Some time after we realised our fuel was running dry we pulled into a suburban petrol station, it's sign destroyed and a huge oil tanker on it's side, destroying half of the ".. ool.. orths" building that once served as the exchange for the now blood-thirsty buyers of the now non-existant petrol.

We seemed to sigh in unison, looking at the destruction, wondering if we'd manage to get anything from the place at all, as it seemed most of the shopping mart area of the petrol station had been completely demolished, crushed and mostly burnt to nothing.

The engine rumbled and finally let out it's last rev of life as we pulled up towards the shop, thinking it best to look for provisions either way.

Sam run into the shop, crawling under the contorted metal of the tanker, into the smoke filled destruction and debris of the tanker and the shop itself. He yelled something out to us, but he was too deep within the shop for us to make his words out properly, we figured he could handle himself, and there wasn't really any distress in his voice, so we went to see how the tanker had crashed in the first place.

As we neared the driver seat we saw that only one of the people in the wreck seemed to have been infected, and simply attacked the driver, sending him straight into the station, probably on a routine delivery.. I looked at his badge, rubbing the crusted and ashy blood off it.. ""Karrl..." I read.. pocketing the badge, feeling more remorse then what I thought seemed healthy.

I sighed and turned around, only the older of the boys was with me, and he was just as stupidly unaware as I was that his brother had simply run off, probably in search of Sam, as they seemed to have bonded, probably in the worst kinda way.. through all this bloodshed.. We shared mumbled, angry murmers with each other and run off shouting after Sam and the young boy.

We couldn't find where Sam had clambered through the tanker, but continued calling out for him. Some time passed and finally we heard him yelling, screaming for our help! He violently chopped and smashed through the twisted metal of the tanker and debris and threw me a bolt-action rifle, and the boy a scoped sub machine gun from his side, we looked at him with confusion and he just simply pointed over his shoulder...

At the young boy being chased by a seemingly countless ammount of zombies down the road towards us, confused and scattering around the road after him, slashing at the air. They were still a fair distance behind him, but he just ran blindly, screaming innaudible yelps of fear towards us, disregarding the fact that he just caused this.

Sam ran off towards the kid, firing his two handguns towards the zombies, blindly into the crowd. The older brother and I were stunned, motionless, momentarily until reality snapped us back and we roared in unison running and firing towards the horde.

Sam had reached and picked up the boy, flinging him easily over his shoulder, turning around and still madly firing into the crowd, now with his handguns pocket and his two-barreled, sawn-off shotgun that he seemed to have become very fond of firing into the zombies, each buckshot tearing through their soft, dying flesh, they all fell, but as their body parts flew and their rotten sinews splattered onto us, they just kept coming, stupidly tripping over the other, twitching, dismembered, bloody corpses off their.. how to say, friends?

The younger boy sat in the corner of the dark, scattered debris covered station as Sam, the older boy and myself fought the zombies, whimpering to himself, trying to say sorry, but his tears blocking his voice.. turning it into soft, sad whimpers.

We cared for him, but knew stopping for a moment would mean our throats torn out, or worse, though it hard to see how there could be a worse outcome, there sadly, was.

Sam seemed so relentless, his shotgun he constantly had to reload did not hinder him at all, he simply fired a shot amongst the growing hordes, splattered the thick skulls of the zombies able to get close enough with the iron butt of his gun, and fired the second shot towards the crowd after, keeping them back long enough for him to reload, and us to cover his brazen, blood-thristy arse.

My handguns were red hot, smoking from the sides and not only the buisness end, they needed time to cool down, I thought, seemingly childish, as it was a killing machine, not just a toy that needs it's batteries rechared.. I laughed to myself, The boy and even Sam giving me a worried look.

I ran quickly back to where the younger boy was hiding and madly ran around, scavenging through the wreckage for a blunt or sharp object to do some pummeling with. I found the firebox, a tightly wrapped firehose in it.. alongside a glorius, sharp, almost glistening fireaxe.

I must've been a sight I thought, drenched in guts and blood and muck, my clothes rags of what they once were, none of their original colour left in them, just blood and sweat, dripping off me, flying off me as I slashed through the zombies bodies, bullets of my comrades flying over me, tearing apart the skulls of the same zombies I'd cut apart with the already blunting axe I clutched madly in my hands.

We fought, cut, slashed and shot our way out of the stupid kid's little "hide and seek chasey" friends for another short while, before their roars and screams finally seemed to cease.. Once again, we had to gather their limbs and other bits into a large, still twitching, horrible smelling pile and burn them to ash.

As they burnt, though, some of the zombies body parts seemed to bubble, twist and contort in some strange way. I only took small notice of it, and thought nothing of it.

I decided to help Sam, as he were already covering what entrance was left of the building, whilst we did this the older brother consoled the younger boy, asking why he had run off in the first place, I wanted answers too, but I needed to watch the bodies burn and we needed some sort of protection, as the destroyed building was too open for comfort..