This is Chapter 2 of Life Will End, entitled Rough Start.
Chapter 2-Rough Start[]
Chapter 2
The group of five finally made it to the small building without too many distractions or encounters with the infected.
Mick gripped his revolver as he opened the door with his other hand, letting the others in slowly. They scanned the area, searching for anything that could be useful or any threats.
“I don’t see anything.” Vlad said. Mick nodded.
“So what now?” Melanie asked as she gripped her shotgun, loaded with 3 shells.
“Well, let’s search some more, then we should be on our way.” Mick replied. The group spread into teams. Mick was with Angie, Zach was by himself, and Melanie and Vlad were together. The group searched every corner of the building, desperate for anything. They were tired, hungry, and thirsty.
“So…how’re you doing?” Angie asked Mick. He just looked at her weirdly.
“Does it really matter?” Mick said, scratching his nose.
“I-I don’t know, I mean…Just trying to make conversation.” She replied looking down at the ground.
“I’m fine, let’s just focus though, okay?” He replied. He gave her a small smile, but she knew it was fake. He was always worrying about everything, but always tried not to show it. She had always wondered why he was like this, why he seemed to keep everything buried underneath him in some way. It ached her to see him like that, struggling all the time. But they all were struggling, struggling to survive.
“So besides your job, what’d you do in life?” Melanie asked as she searched around with Vlad.
“Hah, well I…Wait, Why are you so interested in all of this stuff?” He asked her. She gave him a smirk, and it told him to just answer without questions. This was the time when he could impress her.
“Well I went to high school, got a good education…..Wanted to become an athlete when I was a kid, wanted to be a track star.” He lowered his head and gave a chuckle.
“Why’s that so funny? That’s cool.” She said. He just shook his head again.
“It all went to shit though, had family problems and shit, never got to get my dream. Oh well.” He said. It really wasn’t a very big deal to him now. He had lost everything already anyway.
“Yeah, that sucks.” She said, her smile fading slowly. She always felt comfortable with Vlad, always had some sort of interest in talking to him.
Zach was at another corner of the building, not having any luck so far. That was until he discovered a rusty old door. He put his hand on the knob, tugging on it but to no avail. It looked as if it was forced shut by somebody. It seemed suspicious, he needed to find out where it lead to. He noticed that the walls around it were soft, and he noticed lines along them as if the brick of the wall was already cut opened and replaced by something else.
He started to press on the softer portion of the wall, eventually budging it open. It didn’t take much strength, but Zach didn’t even think about that. What he saw in the room was a joy indeed.
A stack of water bottles sat on a desk in the room, while crates of food where also in a pile in one corner of the room. He had hit the absolute jackpot, and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was about to rush back to the rest of the group to reveal his find.
That thought ended as it was replaced by fear. He felt something cold touch the back of his head.
“Don’t fucking say anything.” A man’s voice said behind him. His words were quiet but still fearful.
Zach followed the man’s instructions to walk to the corner of the room and sit down. In the corner of the room where the man had come from was a young woman with brown hair and blue eyes. She looked to be in her early 20s.
“We have to get them out of here.” The man whispered to her. She nodded. She stood up and looked at Zach. Zach noticed the worried look in her eyes when her gaze fell on him.
“Get up now.” The man said to Zach in a raspy voice. He wrapped his arm around Zach’s throat and pressed the gun to his neck, forcing him to walk forward out of the room.
The young girl in her 20s gave Jeff a worried expression.
“Don’t worry.” He said to her in response. Zach and Jeff were getting close to the rest of the group now, and Zach didn’t know what to do. One wrong move and this man would blow his brains out.
“Whoa, whoa!” Vlad shouted in shock as he spotted Jeff. Vlad looked at Mick, expecting him to do something. Mick took action after a moment to process it. He held his revolver up, trying to point it directly at the man’s head.
“Put him down.” Mick said in a voice that had the tone of an order, but only the volume of a soft talk.
“Get the hell out of here, leave us alone!” Jeff said as his eyes moved from the four people in the room that were now pointing their weapons at him.
“P-Please.” Zach managed to let out in a croak. Jeff swallowed hard before making his decision. He threw Zach with as much force as he could towards Mick. It distracted the group long enough for Jeff to star sprinting back upstairs to the room with the woman.
“Wait!” Mick called, but Jeff just kept running. Melanie started to ascend up the stairs as well.
“Come on!” She shouted as Mick followed her up. They ran all the way towards the room where the saw Jeff and the woman standing there, both pointing their pistols at Mick and Melanie.
“Please just leave us alone!” Jeff said. Mick was about to answer, but then get spotted the crates of food and supplies in another corner of the room. He swallowed and then chose his next words carefully.
“We can survive together, we’ll be safe together. I promise.” He said as he dropped his gun, kicking it to Jeff. He gestured for Melanie to do the same, so she did after a moment of hesitation.
“Fine, but if you try one fucking thing, you people are dead.” Jeff said, his tone shouting a dangerous threat that was true.
“Thank you.” Mick said as he took in a deep breath. He reached for his gun, but Jeff pulled it away from him.
“Nuh-uh, you don’t get these back yet.” Jeff said as he gave them to the woman.
“Be careful with these people Daisy.” Jeff said to the woman. Daisy nodded in response.
Melanie descended back down the stairs, telling the rest of the group what had happened. Meanwhile Mick was trying to gain more trust out of Jeff and Daisy.
“I understand you just being careful, but I am truly thankful for this.” Mick said as he nodded. Jeff just nodded back in response, that same worried look in his eyes. Mick thought to himself that these two people weren’t being very smart, just letting a random group of people letting them into their building. They were just lucky that they hadn’t just invited bandits into their little home.
Angie, Zach, and Melanie came up the stairs too, nodding to Jeff and Daisy as they came in.
After the group settled in, it was eventually nighttime.
“So, does living in this building actually work? Don’t you have infected coming in here?” Angie asked in curiosity to Daisy. Daisy just nodded in response, and Angie was curious to why Daisy hadn't said anything but nod.
Vlad nibbled on his small piece of bread that he had gotten from Jeff and Daisy’s supply crates. He was chatting with Zach about some random stuff.
Basically everybody were at least comfortable, but Jeff was in another room of the building, lining up all of the weapons on a dusty old table. These were the guns that he had forced the new group to give him. He didn’t trust these people, something seemed so off about them. He couldn’t quite put it, but he knew that they could be a real danger to him and Daisy.
The next morning, the group woke up with full stomachs after a good night of rest. They had all taken shifts over night on watch, but they were all pretty well rested nonetheless. Mick had expressed his idea to the group about going on a supply run into the city, since the supply crates weren’t going to last very long as it was.
“Any volunteers to come with me?” Mick asked. He was a bit annoyed when nobody raised their hand.
“What about you, Jeff? You big and strong like Mick, you two could make it in and out of the city just fine.” Angie said, but Jeff scoffed.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. I just met you people yesterday and I’m not going to just let myself turn by back so you can stab me, no thanks!” He said. Mick shook his head.
“Well, we’re gonna have to go in eventually.” He said, trying to think of another plan that they could use.
“I’ll go.” Melanie said after taking a deep breath. Mick nodded as Melanie started to load her shotgun with the shells that she had.
As Mick and Melanie got ready to go, Vlad came up to Mick.
“Hey man, please just…be careful, okay?” He said as Mick nodded. He knew that Vlad meant to keep Melanie safe, he knew that he cared about her.
“I will, I’ll be back soon.” Mick said as Melanie came up to them.
“Mick, I’m ready.” She said as she looked at Vlad and gave him a small smile.
“Okay good. Vlad, watch over the group.” Mick said, and then the two of them were out of the building in minutes.
Mick and Melanie walked for about a half an hour before actually getting anywhere. They checked any of the sheds or buildings that they could find, essentially finding some canned goods here and there. They tried to avoid as many infected as they could, they didn’t want to face any dangerous situations.
“We aren’t really finding anything…” Melanie said as she sat down on the floor, taking her backpack off and checking to see what she had. Some canned peaches and beans. Mick had the same luck as her, sadly.
“Damn it, with this stuff mixed with Jeff and Daisy’s stuff, we won’t be able to even last two weeks in that building.” Mick said as he shook his head.
“Yeah…Let’s just look a little bit more, then we can go back, it’s already getting dark.” Melanie said as they both got up. Mick agreed with her plan.
Soon they were in an area that looked as if it was being constructed and built before the apocalypse started. It looked even crappier than what it had looked like before, and they also had to watch out for any infected more closely.
Mick was soon alone, wandering around the place. He and Melanie had split up so they could get it over with faster.
Mick soon came to a room with a bunch of building tools and such. When he stepped in, his shoe splashed into a puddle of fresh blood.
“What the hell?” He said as he looked at the blood. He noticed that there was a trail of it, and the trail seemed to end in a dark corner in the room far from him. He slowly followed the trail, trying to suppress the sound of his breathing as it got darker. He had a knife in one hand, his precious revolver in the other.
He seemed to be hearing something now, something like a quickening dribble, and also what it sounded like when someone violently gobbled down their food.
Right as he realized what it was, an infected jumped out at him, making a sound that sounded like a loud groan. It walked on all fours, and it had teeth so sharp that it could rip out a throat in one bite and tug.
“Shit!” Mick yelled as he ran as fast as he could back out of the corner, but the infected caught up to him. He blind fired behind his back, trying to slow it down. When he heard it slowing, he turned around swiftly and shot again. He missed due to the shaking of his hands, but then shot once more and hit the infected in the head as it fell to the ground, what was left of its head hitting the floor hard.
He checked his revolver, finally started to calm himself down. He cursed under his breath when he saw that he had no bullets left. As he walked out of the room, he started to speed walk, eventually jogging around.
“Melanie?!” He shouted as he got a reply after a couple of seconds.
“Yeah, over here!” Melanie shouted as he found her. She was standing in front of a large metal door, the ones that people used as storage closets.
“Whoa.” Mick said as he walked up to it.
“I found it here, I think there could be supplies there too.” She said, giving a small smile.
“Great, I’ll lift, just help me a little.” Mick replied as he grabbed the bottom of it. She did too, and they both pulled with all of their strength. They eventually got it open, but it made a lot of noise from the rust. On the other side of it was shadowy, but they could see some boxes aligned near the wall.
“We should check those-“ Mick said, but as soon as he finished, he saw about ten of those special infected on all fours running towards them.
“Fuck! Pull it closed!” He said in a panic as she screamed. They got into the room, pushing down with all of their might to close it back up.
They made some progress, but it stopped closing when their was only a crack left open. It was impossible to close it, but it was too small for any of the infected to crawl through.
They both heard the infected reach the entrance, banging on the metal as Mick and Melanie took some deep breaths. Now they were in the darkness with nothing but some of their weapons, some boxes, and ten of those very dangerous infected pounding on the entrance, and they could stay in the forever.
They were going to die in there eventually if the infected didn’t get to them first.
Zach sits on the dusty ground of the building, his legs straight in front of him, but the things going through his head were much more intense than his casual appearance.
‘I am useless.’ He thinks to himself sadly as he shakes his head.
Jeff then noticed the look on the face. “What’s the matter with you?” He asked in a mean way. Zach looked up at him.
“Go away.” He replied sharply.
Jeff walked away with a stern look on his face, then he looked at Daisy to make sure she was okay. Eventually Angie came up to Zach.
“What’s the matter?” She asked as he sighed.
“I-I’m just a loser, I just put us all in danger all the time.” He says as he puts his head down in despair.
“We all make mistakes.” She replied, trying to comfort him.
“Not like the one’s I make, I just fuck everything up every time.” He said. She then opened her mouth to say something, but then realized that it was no use, so she walked away and left him to his thought.
“This isn’t fucking good” Mick said as he and Melanie desperately searched for anything useful in the boxes lined up against the wall of the dark room. The metal door seemed to be giving away already to the strong and fast infected pounding on it from the outside.
“There isn’t anything!” Melanie said as she started to panic.
“We’ll find something.” Mick replied, but he wasn’t sure that what he was saying was exactly true, but he knew that he had to protect Melanie at all costs while getting himself out of this alive. He didn’t want any problems with Vlad later, and he also had to keep his promise to his wife that he would survive. “Mick?! Mick?!” Melanie yelled as Mick was pulled away from his personal zone. “What do we do?!”
“Um, well, we have to find any other place that we can get out of here.” He replied as he started to check for anything suspicious in the walls.
“There’s nothing here, Mick!” Melanie shouted as she was in a full blown panic attack now.
“Hmph…Whoa.” He replied as he looked up and saw a vent above them. “We can get out through their.” He said as he pointed to it.
“Good!” It’s too high though, give me a boost.” Melanie said as Mick accepted, placing his hands underneath her feet and hoisting her up to the vent. She gave the bars a strong tug before almost falling.
“Damn it, it’s too high for me to break through.” She said sadly as Mick thought fast, knowing now that they had very little time.
“Start lining these boxes up, maybe we can get up to it more from their.” Mick replied as he and Melanie got to work. A shiver went down Melanie’s spine as she saw that the infected were now beginning to understand how to open the metal door. Now it was only a matter of time.
Soon they were done stacking up the boxes, so Melanie stood on them, trying to balance herself slowly. She reached up to the vent and tugged on the bars again, and soon heard it starting to come off.
“Hurry!” Mick shouted as the infected started to lift up the door.
“Got it!” Melanie shouted as she pulled the bars away, but the force of it knocked her off of the boxes, sending her on her back. The wind was knocked out of her as one of the infected’s hands grasped onto her leg.
“Help!!!” She yelled in fear as she tried to reach for her shotgun. Mick looked at the open vent waiting for him, Melanie, and the door that was being lifted open. Without help, Melanie would be devoured, but if he helped her he would have to risk getting bit or scratched. He had to make a decision now.
Mick was in his truck, his wife sitting next to him in the passenger seat. His 14 year old daughter sat in the back, looking at all of the armed men running through the streets. Mick sighed when he saw that the road was blocked off.
“Dammit.” He said as he clasped the wheel angrily.
“What now?” His wife asked him. He shook his head.
“They won’t let us out, we’ll have to just go somewhere else.” Mick replied.
“Mick, where would we go?!” The wife said, anxiety filled her voice.
“I don’t know, Regina! I’m working on it.” Mick said, the stress and fear overcoming him. He wasn’t having a very good start of the day considering what had happened. When he woke up, he saw chaos outside, people running around and stealing whatever they could find. He watched the news and found out about this strange virus. He ordered his family to pack their bags. It wasn’t safe there anymore.
“Daddy, are we going to be okay?” His daughter, Holly, said from the backseat. She barely ever called him daddy until now, by this he could tell she was terrified.
“We’ll be okay, just hold on.” He said, trying to give her a smile. He backed up the truck, deciding to go through a different route.
Mick started to talk to Regina about what his plan was.
“Look out!” She screamed as he looked at the road and saw the wall fo infectyed that were running towards the car. He tried to turn, but he ended up swerving in a circle, hitting a nearby tree.
“Holly?! Are you okay?!” Mick yelled as he looked in the backseat.
“Y-Yeah.” She said. He saw a big bruise on her forehead from the impact.
“Oh my god, Mick!” Regina yelled as she looked at the infected coming towards the car.
“Don’t worry!” Mick yelled. He wasn’t going to let those fuckers get to his family.
The infected slammed their palms on the windows of the car as Regina screamed. Mick struggled to get his loaded shotgun.
When he was finished, he unrolled the window a tad bit and shot one of the infected in the head, almost throwing up at it’s brains and blood exploding on his face.
He slammed open the door, running out and shooting some of the other infected before letting Regina and Holly out.
“Come on!” Mick yelled, but then Holly fainted. She seemed to have a bad concussion.
“Oh god!” Regina screamed as she ran to pick up Holly.
“Regina!!!!!” Mick yelled as an infected came and bit Regina on the shoulder as she screamed.
Mick grabbed her hand and pulled her out of there as she saw Holly getting devoured on the ground.
Regina was shocked as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“M-M-Mick just….Stay alive.” She said as an infected caught up to her and bit into her neck, ripping her flesh out afterwards.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
Mick made a decision in that one second. He grabbed onto Melanie’s hand, but the infected was too fast. It suck it’s teeth into her leg as he pulled with all his might. She soon came loose as he pushed her up to the vent. He saw her crying hopelessly, but she pulled herself up through the vent. Mick did the same, but one of the infected got inside and started to pull him back down.
“Mick!” Melanie yelled as she tried to pull him up, but in her state, the infected was the winner of this battle of strength.
Mick felt like he was in some sort of void as his fingers started to slip from the vent.
He wasn’t going to just give up like this so easily. Suddenly he felt something, something like the soul of his wife and child. He had to keep going, only for them.
The strength he mustered out of determination was incredible at that point as he hoisted himself up the vent with Melanie, kicking the infected off of his leg.
“Come on!” He shouted quickly as he helped her walk. They had to make it back to the rest of the group before it got dark, or they would in trouble.
Especially Melanie with her bite.
Back at the building with the rest of the group, Vlad was staring outside. It was dark out, and he couldn’t help but feel worried for Melanie and Mick.
Angie walked over to him, noticing the anxious look on his face.
“What’s up?” she said as he looked up at her.
“I’m just worried about them.” He said. She nodded.
“Yeah me too. Well Jeff told me something about Daisy a second ago…” She said slowly after a pause.
“What is it?” He asked curiously as she was putting him in suspense.
“Well, you know how she doesn’t even really talk?” She asked. He nodded. “Well, she’s um…A mute.”
“Oh…” Vlad said as he was speechless. ‘Poor girl’ He thought to himself. Then Angie put her head in her hands and sighed.
“We’ve gotta just do something, you know. Carrying her around, it’ll be harder for us.” Vlad said. She agreed with him.
“We’ll just have to try.” She replied as she walked back into the warmth of the building, wanting to get away from the cold night outside.
“Mick, I c-can’t do this.” Melanie said as Mick sat her down, scanning for anything useful around them. They were almost at the exit of the construction site.
Then he spotted a large saw in the corner of the room. It was a bit rusty, but it would do. He picked it up and moved back to her.
“What are y-you doing?” She said in fear, but she already knew the answer.
“Listen, this is the only way you’ll make it.” Mick said as he looked at her leg sadly. She was now sobbing. She remembered one of her past apocalypse friend’s getting their leg cut off, it wasn’t a very good experience. She sucked in her breath and exhaled.
“O-okay.” She said, fear etched in her voice, but she still sounded brave and determined to get out of there alive.
Mick pushed the saw in slowly, eventually moving it hard against her leg. She screamed as she started to bleed. She had her hand squeezed around his.
When Mick finally saw the bone appearing from her flesh, he started to bang his long knife down on the saw to make it go faster. She was screaming and crying at this point, and also making sounds that would be dubbed as inhumane.
Eventually with one more push, her bloody leg was sawed off, leaving a bloody mess under her. She had now passed out from the blood loss.
Blood was all over Mick’s face, and he had a stern look as he picked her up with all of his strength that he had left. ‘Fuck this world’ He thought to himself as he ran out the exit with her in his arms. He had to get back to the building fast before she bled out. He also had to keep pressure on her stump as he did this. Eventually he had to stop in the middle of nowhere to apply bandages to the stump.
“Just stay with me, Melanie, just stay with me.” He said as he took deep breaths.
The apocalypse started on a very hard morning for him, and tonight was very difficult.
“Um, hi.” Vlad said as he looked at Daisy. She nodded at him. He gave her an awkward smile back, but Jeff saw him.
“Just back off.” Jeff said as he came over to Vlad.
“What? Why?” Vlad asked as Jeff gave him a shove.
“Just don’t talk to her, leave her alone.” Jeff said angrily.
“Man, why are you so protective of her.” Vlad asked, but then Jeff’s temper kicked in.
“None of your fucking business.” He replied, but then Angie walked over to them.
“Come on guys, stop!” She yelled. Jeff gave Vlad a mean look and then walked away.
“Asshole.” Vlad stated as he shook his head. Zach had a worried look on his face due to the short fight.
“Just don’t talk to him, Vlad.” Angie said as she went to go back to where she was before, but then she noticed something.
She saw Mick running outside in the night. She was confused to why Melanie was in his arms.
“Whoa, Mick!” Vlad yelled as he ran downstairs to help Mick.
Angie squinted closer to to see Mick, and then it hit her.
He had failed to protect Melanie, and in the process she got bit and might die now.
This wasn’t going to go down well between Mick and Vlad.
End of Chapter 2