The Rest Of Them

Traversing The Horror

Nate walked through the streets he knew well. They were tainted though, tainted by the blood and screams of their former occupants.

If only Canada had the right to bear arms. He would have a gun right about now, ready to shoot whatever came his way.

Needless to say, this was unsettling. He had grown up in this neighborhood and now it was empty. Reduced to ash, rubble, and worst of all. Corpses.

"We gotta try and get through here quick, ok buddy? Patrick is probably waiting for us." He said to his cat. The lazy thing wasn't panicking like a normal cat would with all this movement. Melvin was just sleeping peacefully.

Nate kept on walking down the road, keeping an eye out and staying vigilant was all he could do. It was still about another 10 minutes until he reached their meeting spot. Among all the honking cars and everything else going off in the distance, his footsteps were awfully quiet upon the paved road. One would think that he's crazy, he's walking amidst this chaos and not running. But Nate knew, running would just draw attention. That was part of why he was sticking to the side street for as long as he could.

It was a typical city environment. Houses, apartment buildings and such. He was meeting Patrick at the mall nearby. Going to a populated place was a terrible idea, but they needed to make sure they had supplies. It's just a smaller mall. Not overflowing with people by any means, but he was certain he was going to find at least a few zombies there, in groups even.

He can't just head in there blind. He needed to get a good look at the mall first. Thankfully for him, there was a house just a few meters away from him that was a safe distance from the mall and would provide a good lookout position from the roof. He jogged on over and jumped up, grabbing onto the rim of the houses roof. He gritted his teeth, struggling to maintain his grip. Mustering all his strength, he managed to pull one of his legs onto the roof. Making it much easier to pull the rest of himself up.

Once he got up, he was on his hands and knees, panting heavily.

"Holy shit... I'm out of shape..." He mumbled. Making a mental note to work out as soon as he got the chance, he got up and started to slowly and lightly make his way up the roof.

The shingles were still slippery from the previous day, when it had rained. With this in mind, Nate treaded carefully up the roof. It wouldn't be great if he slipped up here because him and the shingles landing together would make a pretty loud impact. That would be the exact opposite of pleasant.

Fortunately, he made it up without a sound. Before he started to scout out the mall. It occurred to him that the sirens and other loud sounds of the city were dying out, leaving nothing but the sound of the crackling flame in the street in front of him.

"Gonna have to make this quick. God, I hope you're there Patrick." Peering through his binoculars, not much was to be seen. All the lights were out and the parking lot looked like a disaster zone. There were a few of the infected but they seem pretty easy to get by. All in all, getting in seemed easy. He was more worried about what would be waiting for him inside.

That is a problem he'll have to deal with later rather than now. He hopped off the roof and landed like a frog. The impact wasn't taken very lightly by his cat, who started flailing inside the bag.

"I'm gonna have to find a new material to stitch in or you're gonna tear that bag to shreds." Nate whispered. He stood straight up and dusted off his kness quickly. Without a moment of rest, he started jogging off towards the parking lot. The sprint was only about 30 meters, so it only took Nate around 15 seconds to jog over there while trying to make the minimal amount of noise.

He took cover behind the underside of a turned over car. He wasn't fortunate enough to not have a visitor though, beside him was a severed arm. The stench of blood and decomposition came with it.

While remaining crouched down, he peered around the side of the vehicle. In total there were three of them. They were disturbing to watch, they cried and screamed as if they were in pain. They would twitch and growl as they paced around. One of them even covered their face and screamed as they flailed their body around.

As much as it hurt to watch, Nate couldn't do anything for them. He did however, figure something out for his own good. He noticed the uniform on the arm next to him, even though it was soaked in blood, he was able to decipher that it was a police uniform. Hopefully it was a car sent to deal with the outbreak, rather than a patrol that got caught in the middle of it. If it was more than a patrol, it would have some pretty hefty firepower.

He would have to go around the other side of the vehicle though, and there was no telling if someone else already did what he was about to try. It was worth a shot though, not much he can do if all he has is a knife.

With that thought in mind he leaned around the vehicle and looked at the three infected people. None of them were looking his way, making his task a bit easier. His slow walk to the back window began, carefully and quietly he went around, all the while keeping his eye on the infected people thar could run up on him at any time. Even though it was only five or so seconds, it felt like a very long time.

The good news was that it was indeed a cruiser with some weaponry. There was even the decomposing corpse of the officer, owner of that same arm. There was even a handgun next to his body. The bad news is that there is in fact a shotgun, but it's stuck behind the cracked glass of the passenger side window that's stuck right against the ground. He would have to get to the top of the car and break through the other window, which would probably trigger an alarm.

It wasn't too bad, he could make do. A handgun was better than no gun. He picked up the firearm, and finally his knowledge about them was gonna come in handy. This was a Beretta 90-two handgun. A pretty damn good firearm with a balance in every aspect of a gun.

"Enough admiring it..." He mouthed to himself. Now that he was geared up it was time to head into the shopping mall.

Now that he was armed it was a little safer to pick up the pace. He walked over to the entrance of the mall, remaining as far from the infected as he could. This was almost too easy, he had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't going to remain that way though.

Nate got to the doors and took a deep breath. He already knew what to expect. When he tried to pull the doors open, he wasn't shocked when they wouldn't budge more than an inch. Thankfully, he never left home without his pick in his pocket. He wasn't really a delinquent, just knew it was a skill that would come in handy. And it did now, and the many times his lock for his locker at school wouldn't open. He kneeled down and went to work.

In just a few moments, he was able to get the lock to budge enough for him to open the door. Took a lot longer than he expected, locks on doors and actual locks are pretty different it seemed. Before just blindly heading in, he checked through the window to see what it was like inside.

It would seem that luck was on his side, the place was empty. At least along the path he had to go. The mall is in the shape of the letter T. He was going in on the right side, infected were roaming the left side, and the grocery store is at the bottom.

Nate slowly pushed the glass door open and entered, as someone who worked part time security for a few weeks, he was thankful they didn't end up accepting his request to fix the alarm system.

He strolled down the hall slowly, even still the sound of his steps reverberated throughout the mall. If he were moving any quicker, surely the infected on the other side would have heard him. His new gun was readied in his hand, even if it's his last resort, it was his best chance and better safe than sorry.

He finally reached the middle of the mall. Now came the hard part. Crouching down now, Nate slowly walked behind a bench. All was going well. Of course, it didn't stay that way.

Simply through the small holes of the bench, he was seen. He glanced over in terror as the infected man screamed and others came pouring over like a tsunami. Nate only had one option now.

RUN.