The Hollow:12-16-08, Back in the Game

"What do you mean your'e not O.K., what's wrong?" Tony asked.
"They're dead," I whispered, barely making myself audible. "My grandparents are dead!" Now close to a shout.
The room fell silent from then on, excluding the sound of my own pitiful sobs. Right at that moment, I'm pretty sure I felt as close to worthless as anyone could ever feel. I felt as though, at that point, I had failed everyone, including myself.
Grandma, and Grandpa were dead. She had been bitten, and grandpa had shot her. For whatever reason he had shot himself as well. Probably couldn't handle the grief, much like I was right then. To make matters worse, my friends and I were stuck inside a house, possibly surrounded by half the reanimated population of the town! With possibly little to no chance of making it back to the hollow alive.
And even to say we do get back, what are our chances of staying alive back there? Food has been running drastically low, as well the power going completely out. With winter coming shorty it would be a freakin miracle if we'd made it!
Truth be told, these thoughts had been creeping around in the back of my head for quite some time now. I suppose with all the excitement going around, I had just seemed to push them from my mind. Though it was not until I'd come upon the corpses of my grandparents, had things really seem to snap into focus for me.
So there I sat, defeated, on my grandmother's kitchen floor in a feeble attempt of letting all of my feelings of grief and anguish pour out of me. I was like this for quite some time, without a word from the others. Jesus Christ, did I feel pathetic.
That was when something quite unexpected happened. While weeping like a beaten child, I felt a hand reach down and snatch me up by the shirt collar and pulled me to my feet. At first I grabbed his wrists, trying to resist. That is, until I looked up see Cory, of all the people in the world, Cory! The look in his eyes, I'm not sure I'd ever seen so much rage! I was so caught of guard, I let go of his wrists and let my arms fall to my sides.
"Listen you whiny little pussy," he spat in my face. "Who cares if your grandparents are dead!"
"I do damn it!" I cried trying to defend myself. "They're dead and there was nothing I,"
He cut me off, "Boo fuckin who, all of our grandparents are dead dipshit!" he yelled. "But that doesn't matter right now, because in case you haven't noticed we're kinda in the middle of a situation!" At that point there was no way I was going to get a word in edge wise. "So quit your crying and pull yourself together!" He shouted as he pushed me away, causing me to fall flat on my ass. "Now if your done with your little pity-party, you need to come up with a plan to get us the hell out of here!" He said before storming off past the others and down into the basement.
Holy shit, I thought, as I sat there, dumbfounded. I slowly looked up to my friends to see a blank look on all there faces. Surely they were all thinking the same thing I was. That was a side of Cory that none of us had ever seen before. So much rage, and anger coming from him, him of all people, was nothing less than a jaw dropper.
Still, everything he had said had been absolutely true. (To be honest, I'd probably wouldn't be alive to write this if not for Cory's outburst.) Now wasn't the time to be feeling sorry for myself, it's totally useless. We were in pretty deep, and unless someone comes up with a plan on how to get out of here, we're dead.
But that's just it, I thought. Making a full proof plan now, was that of nearly impossible. Even with the guns we'd recently acquired, it only rose our chances ever so slightly. Not only we were almost completely inexperienced. But we would have blast our way out of here, only to have to make a dead sprint across town with the whole zombie horde on our ass. Yea right! I'm sorry to say the odds of making it back with no casualties were not in our favor.
So many variables, so many things that could go wrong. It was nerve wracking. Damn it, I thought, if only there was some way to get there. Some way faster than on foot..., wait a sec. DUH! Holy hell, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of that.
My mind was ablaze with thought, as I pulled myself up off the kitchen floor. The others still had that look of confusion set upon their faces. Even more so when I strode over to them, as if nothing had happened. Can't say I blame them.
"So wait your all better now, just like that?" Cody sounded astonished.
"Yup, just like that." I said motioning them move. They hesitated at first, but then timidly parted to let me through the door.
When I'd reached the porch, I was relieved to find exactly what I was looking for. While keeping the others in the dark, I snatched it up and quickly jammed it in my pocket while heading down the stairs.
"Everybody down to the basement, now." I spoke sternly. Man looking back, I must have seemed so determined. That or I looked to way to crazy to mess with. There were no objections, as the others followed me back down into the gun shop.
Sure enough there was Cory, pistol in hand, leaning against the door frame to the shop as if he'd been expecting us.
"So, are you finally ready to get back in the game?" he questioned.
"Born ready," I said sarcastically. "Now shut the hell up so I can tell you how we're going to get out of this mess." He shrugged, and reluctantly took his place among the others.
"Alright," I spoke sternly, "So here's the plan. Now as you all might have noticed, we're a little bit out numbered. Now, I know that some of you want to go out of here guns a blazin, and make a mad dash back to the hollow."
"Well sure," Jacob said cutting me off. "We have the guns, why don't we go use them?" There were a few yea's among the rest of the guys.
"Because that will get us killed, that's why!" I shot back, causing everyone to go silent. "There's no way in hell with our minor experience with firearms, are we going to be able to make it through an entire horde and back to the hollow." I said now calming down.
"So what the heck do you expect us to do Robertson," Cory questioned. "We either stay here or go out there, we're not left with a whole lot of options."
"Well," I said, with a smile, "Why walk when you can drive?" pulling out the keys to my grandfather's old truck. The others staring in excitement at the keys dangling from my index finger. Finally, I had there full attention.
"Now, here's the deal," speaking more seriously. "First, we're going gather as much ammunition and weapons as possible. Then we're going to make our way out to the garage, and eventually to the truck. Where we'll load up, and get the hell up out of here!" I could see smiles on the others face, even Cory had a little grin. It was good feeling, on my part. "Now, are there any objections?" There were none. "Good," I said with a grin. "So let's get started."
For about the next half hour, we were preparing. Stuffing ammo and weapons into bags, collecting the remaining food, etc. Until finally we were ready to go.
When we'd reached the door, each of us was carrying what felt like a lifetimes worth of ammo. Well, that's quite the over exaggeration. Though it sure as hell seemed that way.
Ironically, the same Z I'd seen earlier was still at the door. Pointlessly clawing at the window, with no hope of making it through.
"Is everyone ready?" I asked the group. Everyone nodded. "Alrighty then," I said, putting my shotgun up to the door, "Now die," I mumbled pulling the trigger. BOOM, the Z was blown away, along with most of the door! Damn that felt good!, I thought.


~Dagan