Outnumbered (Vol. 1)

Act 4: Zoo Endurance

"That's definitely Denver, Colorado, down there," Ty stares.

"It's huge, even from here," Kassandra is in awe.

"My question is, how the hell we gon' get down there? It's pitch black out here!" Dwayne exclaims.

"Wait, what's that? I see lights over there, down the hill," Maria points out.

"Looks like a building. We should definitely go check it out," David insists. "If it has working power, it would be a great shelter for us."

"Yeah, traveling out here in the dark too much is going to get us killed," Kipp agrees with David.

"Right! I agree with Kipp," Kelly states, to which I roll my eyes at her, in response.

With that, we travel quietly and carefully downhill. It does not take but a few minutes to reach the building we saw from the top of the hill, and we do not face much interference either. The building appears to be for the usage of park rangers and officials. We do not bother to check the outside, for now, because it is too dark. Instead, we cautiously enter the small building through the unlocked, front door. The second we step in, many of us notice the corpses of park officials lying around, all over the place. The rest notice by the stench of the corpses first, not by sight.

"Yo, Lou, help me move these bodies outta here. There's only two. We can use our shirts to cover our hands. We'll just wash 'em in those sinks over there after we're done," Dwayne asks for help from Lou. They both begin to take off their shirts. Maria is checking out Lou through the entire process. Lou notices her staring, so after taking it off, he gives her a wink and a grin and flexes his muscles. She nearly melts for him. In return, Maria bites her lip, smiles, and then winks back.

With his shirt off, I can see a tattoo of a heart on his right shoulder that I never noticed before. Over the heart is a banner with the name of a friend of ours that was killed in an accident on it. That friend was killed during a drive-by shooting that was meant for Dwayne, so Dwayne has blamed himself for the death ever since.

Dwayne and Lou continue to the dead bodies lying about, cover up their hands with their shirts, and grab up the bodies. After lifting up the bodies a bit, from their places, Lou and Dwayne begin dragging them outside. Once finished, they find dish detergent by the sinks and use it and the water running from the sinks to wash their clothes. After cleaning his shirt, Dwayne conveniently finds a spray bottle of air freshener, under the sinks. He gives it to me, and I begin spraying around the room. Kelly is complaining that I am spraying too much, but I ignore her and continue. I spray most of it near her, just because she is getting on my nerves. When I am done, the building is rid of the smell of death. Then hours begin to pass, and we spend the rest of the night relaxing, waiting for the sun to rise.

It is sunrise, in the early morning, and Lou and Dwayne's shirts are both still damp, but they decide to wear them anyway. Before leaving, we all rinse off our faces, hair, arms, and legs in the sinks. Refreshed, we are now ready to try to make a trip, down the mountain and out of this park, for the city of Denver. Just as we have begun to move on, Ty notices small vehicles belonging to the officials of the park. Two were Side by Sides, or Utility Task Vehicles, which were small, 6-person, four-wheel drive, off-road vehicles, while the other two were small All-Terrain Vehicles, run by a motor, seating two people each and having four wheels with large tires.

"Check it out! They have some ATVs and UTVs here!" Ty points the vehicles out while hopping on to one of the Utility Task Vehicles. "We can use these babies to get us down to Denver!"

"Good point, Ty! These will get us down there quick and safe!" I also jump onto an All-Terrain Vehicle.

I'm very fond of All-Terrain Vehicles like these, so I'm more than ready to drive one down to the city.