Damn, that's the best friggin BBS story i've ever read, dude!!!
*bows down to LinkSilvermane & the rest of da story crew*

At 7/4/08 07:11 AM, zubara1 wrote: Damn, that's the best friggin BBS story i've ever read, dude!!!

You've obviously been missing out on a whole LOT of BBS stories.

They're banned from the General forum now, so it's technically possible for you to read 'em all without having to keep yourself updated on any new ones.

I've had the pleasure of reading a few of the better ones...look up stuff made by Monocrom and Jade. You'll thank me later.

At 4/2/08 11:43 PM, Trunks wrote: ... and this would make a sick book.

I'd get pretty sick reading it, yes :D but thanks anyhow. Hope you've finally managed to convince your parents to stop grounding you so much.

At 3/28/08 05:27 AM, Gagsy wrote:

Also, are the diary type enteries you started doing at the beginning of the story dead and gone? =[

All shall be explained, in due time. I'm not promising an awesome explanation, but there shall be one indeed.

At 6/27/08 01:06 PM, iateamexican wrote: is this going anywhere, i mean its been what.. almost 4 months since the last chapter was posted?
Is anything going on, behind scenes?

If being blindsided by a series of Exams gone horribly wrong, having friendships broken and lost, and quite simply being a fairly crappy writer to begin with can be construed as "something going on behind the scenes", then...yeah. A whole shitload of stuff is indeed going on, behind them scenes thar :D

Anyhoo, let's get on with the next chapter...just to see if anyone even remembers this story after all this time, if nothing else.

Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm not apologizing for being so absurdly late...let's just say that there's a point after which you kinda hate yourself for even trying, after letting your readers down so damned much.

So, on with the show.

Chapter Thirteen: Looks Can Kill

part one

"Not exactly the best time for you to go soft on me, hun" said Jade, as she gently helped the man she loved (with the help of several other former prisoners) to his feet. "There's a bit of an all-you-can-eat buffet for the undead here, and we're it."

"Damned straight Jade, I'm pretty sure I can hear an awful lot of hungry customers coming our way" said Bobby, not taking her eyes off the barely dressed blonde.

Trunks seemed a tad puzzled by this. "Wait...how do you know Jade? You've been locked up in a cell for months. "

Bobby shrugged, as she fetched a pistol from one of the unconscious soldiers on the floor. "Heard the big man shouting her name, guessed it kinda had to be her when she started smooching him."

Trunks glanced at Jade, and it seemed for the barest of instants that her eyes had narrowed in anger as she looked upon the latest survivor to join their ranks. But half a second later, her face was a mask of doubt and slight suspicion, as though she too were merely asking herself where this girl was from, and what her intentions could be.

Jen simply nodded her head, satisfied by the explanation and sensing the need to move things along as quicly as possible. "Alright then. Bobby, Jade and Sarai. Jade and Sarai, Bobby. Bobby, Jade, Sarai, and anyone else that isn't interested in being feasted upon: let's grab our gear and get the hell out of here, fast."

"Sounds good to me" said Gagsy, who had also retrieved a few weapons from the remaining fallen soldiers that littered the pavement and passed them around her companions. "Did you two ladies happen to see anything looking remotely like a way out?"

Sarai nodded. "There's a northern exit somewhere past the medical supplies area. But it won't be easy getting there, nor getting out. But yes, we should get a move on, before we're closed in entirely and forced to try going out the way we came in."

"Why exactly would that be a problem?" asked Link, who was probably the keenest on getting back to the surface and out of the cramped, insidious tunnels.

Jade spoke up, as everyone started moving down the hallway that the two hospitalized ladies had been through just a few days earlier: "Well, mostly because that's where all the soldiers in black spandex are retreating, and we don't really stand much of a chance against the whole lot of 'em. They're heading to a secondary base of sorts, if what I heard them shout as they were tripping over themselves running for their dear lives is any indication, which is back that-a-way. And trust me, they've stopped asking questions and taking prisoners...they shoot to kill, now. Me and ninja-wannabe here were actually pretty damned lucky to be in a bit of a secluded area...we only had medical personnel to worry about."

Sarai snorted. "Speak for yourself, woman. I had three very, very experienced soldiers on me at all times."

Link snorted derisively, no doubt at a sick joke he'd formulated in his equally sick mind. As expected, he was soundly slapped in the back of the head for it by Gagsy, ever looking for a reason to shut him up and focused.

"Right, about that..." said Jen "...what the hell happened to you, anyways? Why'd they take so long to stitch you up?"

Sarai winced as she thought of the events of the past few days. "I was being interrogated, pure and simple. About a step down from outright torture, actually. They seemed to be keen on finding out why a harmless band of survivors had attempted to storm their secret base. Of course, there really wasn't much I could actually tell them, besides <<Because we're THAT fucking stupid>>, so they got fed up with me quick. After the third day, they were planning on switching me with one of you guys, I think. But that's right about when the outbreak happened."

"Outbreak?" piped up Trunks.

"Yes. They were studying the nature of the undead creatures...the few ones that remained, at least. To test them, to see how long they could last without food. To understand how they could keep from just breaking apart, how they could still walk when their brain functions were almost completely null. They had about 50 of 'em in here, well-guarded and locked up."

Jade shook her head, recalling what little she knew of what had transpired just a few minutes ago. "But they didn't understand the strength of these things, even though they're technically dead. In order to test how they interacted with each other, they put a whole bunch of 'em together in one room, and tried to study them a bit closer up. They chained 'em to the wall, and let a few experts in to observe the lot...after they'd let that same bunch of creatures starve for a while, to test a few other things out as well."

"...ah. Not too smart of 'em" mused Gagsy. "So I'm guessing the sight of a fresh meal kinda spurred 'em to break free, huh?"

At a far end of one of the adjacent hallways they saw, a man ran as fast as his legs could carry him, undead monsters in pursuit. He crossed the hallway in half a second...and then screamed as he ran into yet another mob of cannibals, who promptly tore the flesh off his still-living bones.

"You could say that" offered Sarai, as they all picked up the pace considerably. It wouldn't be long until the monsters caught their collective scent as well.

"Trouble was, oddly enough, one of the scientists didn't feel like facing a rather painful demise...so he punched in the code to get OUT of the room, opening a heavy-duty armored door to get the hell out of there. The very same door, coincidentally, that kept all the undead hordes neatly locked IN. After that, all hell broke loose. My guards decided that their lives weren't quite worth whatever information I might have been keeping from them, and ran for it. Leaving the door conveniently open, I might add."

end of part one

(part two)

She glanced at Jade. "This little firecracker seemed to be one step ahead of me, oddly enough. I found her with three guns and four very, very dead guards in a hospital bed...which she was still strapped to, I might add."

Jade just shrugged. "I'm pregnant, I'm infected, and I'd been poked and prodded in places you don't even wanna know about for days. I was fucking merciful. I used their infection-phobia against 'em. I played nice for a while, got their guard down just enough to be able to surprise those idiots...by biting one of them on the arm. The dude freaked out like he had a lynx down his pants...enough to smack into one of the armed guards with itchy fingers. The room lit up like a fireworks display after that, giving me enough time to slip off one of the straps I'd been working on for a while, and distracting enough people for me to grab a side-arm. Two seconds and four bullets later, I was a free woman. Sarai came in and got me back on my feet shortly after that, and then we started making our way back to you guys."

Sarai smiled. "Ran into the old fool on the way, we did. That was fun. But more importantly, we got the location of the back exit out of one of the guards, before putting another bullet into that--"

But she was interrupted by a crash coming from behind them. The undead were moving as fast as their decaying limbs could carry them towards the group of survivors, having finally picked up on the odor of living flesh. There was no going back...not anymore.

The need to get their rear-ends in gear was enough to push any further thoughts on the matter out of the minds of the rest of the fleeing folk...all save Trunks.

His mind was quite simply more developed than that of anyone else there. Kinda like having a house with an extra floor...though nothing extreme. While his more conscious thoughts remained firmly focused on getting to the exit Sarai had told them about, another part of his fairly brilliant mind was working on something else.

Namely, on how the hell a tourist and a teacher could pull of the kind of stunts that would put Rambo to shame. Breaking free from leather straps? Shooting down a room full of guards? Resisting hardcore interrogation tactics for days?

If he'd been suspicious before, he was freaking the hell out now, on some level. But he didn't have the time to concentrate on the issue as much as he'd like...even without the weight of all the weapons he'd had to shoulder before being captured, he still felt heavy and weary from days of being imprisoned and stressed to his very limit. So he did his best to keep up with the others, as they neared the medical area that their two impromptu guides had previously escaped from...their rotting pursuers ever closer, rumbling and moaning as they pushed their shattered bodies further towards the meal they sought with every ounce of strength they had left.

Finally, they reached the very end of the long, winding corridor that brought them past the med lab, past the testing area, and past any other side-door or zone. If and when the dreadful creatures hot on their heels followed them all the way here, they would have to fight there would be no turning back, no hiding behind closed secondary exits. It was out of the entire complex, or bust.

The hallway opened up into a room roughly the same size as the very first area they'd happened upon when they'd escaped the trap-lidden entrance tunnel. This room as well had a defense mechanism of sorts, it seemed...several men in blood-covered lab coats and a few soldiers along side them lay dead on the way to the massive, safe-like door at the other side. By the looks of it, they'd made a run for it, and had been ridden with bullets before they'd even made it halfway across the room. Hidden turrets, no doubt, lay waiting under concealed sections of the walls and ceiling.

"No dumpsters or desks to shove here" said Link in a hushed voice, thinking about the rather insane stunt that he'd miraculously managed to pull before. "Anyone got a plan?"

A few of them looked to Fyndir, who had so far been the one to lead them in their darkest moments, to keep a steady hand on their shoulders, and to smash the crap out of anything standing in their way.

Jade shook her head, as she gazed up at him, still holding his arm over her shoulder. The poor bastard had been struck dumb ever since he'd seen the truth in his fianceè's eyes...she was bearing his child, and yet as far as he knew, he was going to lose her. The woman he'd have given his own miserable life for in a heartbeat, the only reason his heart had for beating, had a death warrant...and yet, she had new life growing within her. His very own child. Their child.

He simply looked back upon her, and held her, seemingly able to stand only so that he could take in the intensity of her gaze and the warmth of her eyes. He couldn't care less about turrets, soldiers, monsters or ruined cities.

Bobby looked on, observing them all quietly. She hadn't so much as sneezed, since they'd decided to make a break for it.

She couldn't understand the depth of what was going on in the hearts and minds of the two doomed lovers, but nonetheless she could see that if they wanted a way out, it was up to the rest of them.

With a sigh, she picked up a gore-smeared helmet off the white floor, cocked it back over her head, and threw it across the room. As soon as it hit the ground, two turrets emerged from the ceiling, along with another pair placed on the wall to their left and to their right. Half a second later, the military-styled helmet was reduced to a smoking pile of black rubble.

"Well, at least we know where the damned things are now", she quipped, turning towards the others. "Anyone got any bright ideas?"

Gagsy shook her head, kneeling and raising her weapon in the direction of the sounds drifting towards them from down the corridor they'd taken. "Not me. But if anyone else does, you might wanna hurry trying 'em out, 'cause we're going to be fucking swimming in undead creepies in about a minute."

Jen, Jade, Fyndir and Sarai looked at each other, quietly assessing the situation...then slowly suit. They simply had no better plan, no bright ideas. They silently agreed to make one last, desperate stand, until the monsters overwhelmed them by sheer numbers, or until they ran out of bullets.

Link, having long since started to quake in his nikes, now began to shudder and panic in earnest.

"Aw, c'mon, C'MON, you idiots are giving up now?!? Without even trying?!"

Sarai looked at him dispassionately. "We can't literally move faster than a speeding bullet. A whole LOT of 'em, to be precise...don't know about you."

At this, the teenager's jaw dropped. He thought that they'd simply been coming up with a plan of action while he fretted...but now it looked as if they actually meant it. Despair was written on more than one face, along with Gagsy's tears and Jade's cursing.

Which caused him, quite simply, to flip out entirely. He began to bang on the wall of the chamber with his fist, as hard as he could, while he screamed at the top of his lungs.

*WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM!*

"Goddamnit, goddamnit, GODDAMNIT I DON'T WANNA DIE, I DON'T WANNA FUCKING DIE!!!"

*WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-CRUNCH!*

Jen winced. "Ok...either you've punched a hole through the wall, or you've gone and broken your poor hand."

Trunks, however, simply gaped at the spot that Link had struck last...absolutely astounded.

The turrets overhead and to their sides came out of their hidden compartments and froze, displaying green lights underneath their ready barrels.

He simply couldn't believe it.

"Or...he smashed into the weapons-panel" he whispered in a hushed voice

(end of part two)

(part three)

Link had stopped shouting as soon as the turrets had protruded from the walls and ceiling. He'd frozen up completely, infact, standing perfectly still, arm outstretched and fist clenched...except now, his jaw had almost hit the floor.

"I...I did?"

Trunks was already pulling the smashed bits of plastic from the section of the wall that Link had struck last, revealing a metallic number-keypad underneath. Link had inadvertedly struck the "stand-by" key, or so it seemed. The turrets had yet to be deactivated, however: they were simply exposed, now. Even Link wasn't that insanely lucky, it seemed.

"Wonder why we didn't think to look for something that", he said at last, lowering his hand and rubbing the bruises that covered it, the pain finally reaching him once his panic attack had subsided enough.

"Zombies", offered Bobby.

Trunks wasn't listening, however. He was concentrating every last fiber of his being, every ounce of brainpower he could muster, on the numbers before him.

A six-digit code was required, and time was of the essence. The others, who up 'till then had simply stared at Link in utter disbelief (Jade for one had actually managed to stop cursing under her breath), were once again startled by the noises down the corridor. The undead were visible now, and closing in on them fast.

Gagsy wiped the tears off her cheeks, turned towards Trunks, and spoke:

"Hurry the fuck up".

And with that, she turned and drew her pistol, and fired. Jade, Fyndir and Sarai quickly followed suit, and soon it was impossible for anyone to hear their own thoughts over the ruckus.

Fortunately, Trunks could take it. Though he was emotionally terrified, his mind didn't buckle under pressure...it thrived on it. This wasn't exactly an Advanced Economics exam, but he could still take it.

He mumbled under his breath, going over every scrap of information that could possibly help him to freeze the turrets...and to unlock the door, it seemed, since this was the only keypad in sight. He certainly couldn't count on someone smashing into yet another hidden compartment.

He thought about dates, about names, about anything possibly connected to the base, to the military, that he could drag out of his mind. His fingers flew, as he typed in at least a hundred six-digit codes in the span of two minutes.

But with every second that passed, another cartridge fell to the floor, another weapon had to be reloaded. His friends, now joined by Link and Bobby, were doing their level best to buy him the time he needed. The festering cannibals were beginning to slow down a slight bit, having to actually climb over the increasingly large mound of their fallen undead comrades that had already been shot down, but there were more and more of them coming...some of them freshly deceased soldiers, others former medical staff, other still previously incarcerated prisoners who hadn't been as lucky as the other survivors.

As Sarai finished blowing twin holes in the head of a female officer that had managed to get within as few as eight feet from her, she ejected her clip and loaded in the last one she had at her disposal. She looked back at Trunks, who was working as furiously and as fast as ever. For some reason, she kept gazing at him, as if trying to answer some secret doubt, some unvoiced suspicion about him.

Trunks looked up for an instant, to see how much time he had left, and realized that if he didn't deactivate those turrets and open that door in the next thirty seconds, they were all going to have to grab their ankles and kiss their still-living butts goodbye.

He turned back to the keypad, thought "Fuck it", and punched in one last code.

*beep-beep-beep*

The lights underneath the turrets flared a lighter green, then turned off entirely. The guns retracted into the wall, and were still.

"Is that it?!" shouted Gagsy over the moaning and groaning of their would-be killers.

"Either way, I'm crossing this room" said Jen, truly meaning it. And with that, she ran straight for the door, Link and Bobby at her side.

They ran around and over the fallen men who had been torn to bits by the turrets...and reached the door intact.

Unfortunately, Link ran squarely into the heavy door, having kept his gaze firmly on the spots where the turrets had previously emerged from.

The door swung a few inches forward. The code had opened it.

Bobby pushed it even further, revealing at last a long, dark stairwell, at the top of which she could barely make out a beam of light. The surface.

"Come on, hurry up! And hope that those bastards can't climb stairs!!!"

With that, she flew past the door, and out of sight.

The others moved as fast as their legs could carry them towards the exit, quickly picking up a dazed Link and moving to the area beyond it, while Sarai and Trunks fired point-blank into the churning mass of the undead that followed only a few feet behind them.

Trunks had the fleeting impression that the swarm of cannibals, for some undiscernable reason, were more intent on reaching Sarai than they were on getting their mangled hands on him. He could have sworn, in the final moments before reaching the door, that one of the undead had been close enough to reach him, but hadn't even tried to grasp him before he shot it down.

Again, he had no time to dwell upon this oddity, as the creatures that followed them were truly almost upon them now.

"C'mon, let's run!" he cried, ditching his empty weapon and running for the door, outdistancing the monsters by a slight bit.

However, to his surprise, Sarai had already been waiting there for him. She'd beaten him to the door, before he could even suggest to cease the shoot-and-retreat tactics.

With one hand, she held onto the thick, circular door. With the other, she held her gun out in front of her. She looked upon him with a dark expression on her face, one he'd never seen on her before...she looked angry. Furious, even. And perhaps a little bit...disgusted?

He almost stopped running. Something was wrong...terribly, horribly wrong. She was pointing her gun right at him.

He could barely hear her as she spoke to him, as he looked down the barrel of her pistol. Time seemed to freeze around them.

"Funny. I was told you were smarter than this."

And she pulled the trigger.

Trunks saw a flash of blinding light, felt a pain that was not pain, that he couldn't even begin to understand, and then nothing more.

A few minutes later, Sarai emerged at the top of the staircase. The others had preceeded her by about thirty seconds, and were presently trying to see down the shaft as far as possible beyond her.

They pulled her out, and upon seeing only a handful of the undead pressed and squished against each other at the bottom of the stairwell, looked at her in shock and dismay.

Sarai shook her head.

"I...I'm sorry" she said in a quiet voice, as she looked up at them all.

"He didn't make it."

(end of part three)

Oh shit, I'm dead!

Awesome chapter. I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole time :D

Oh my god Trunks no! ;_;

Glad to see an update, I thought you had given up on it, I hope my teasing the other day didn't make you worry too much about it.. Still I would love to see the conclusion of this. =)

Nice Job, best thing I have read in 4 years.

Only just now had a chance to really take in the new chapter. I loved the plot twist. I was certain that Trunks would make it to the end. I guess not.

Looking forwars to the next chapter...... Hopefully before my Birthday in January of 2009. ;)

*forward.

Freaking typos more annoying than zombies. LOL.

At 10/26/08 04:37 PM, Trunks wrote: Oh shit, I'm dead!

Awesome chapter. I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole time :D

Yup, you're pretty deceased. But hey, if you could choose how to kick the bucket...would you have preferred being chomped into a whole lot of itty-bitty pieces?

Getting shot down by a hot chick in a hospital gown, on the other hand... :D

At 10/26/08 06:36 PM, Gagsy wrote: Oh my god Trunks no! ;_;

Glad to see an update, I thought you had given up on it, I hope my teasing the other day didn't make you worry too much about it.. Still I would love to see the conclusion of this. =)

No, it's ok. I needed every bit of incentive you guys could fork over, to get past that nasty-ass writer's block.

And yeah, you'll be seeing something of a conclusion...eventually :p

At 10/26/08 06:45 PM, igott wrote: Nice Job, best thing I have read in 4 years.

Uhm...wow. I can't help but wonder what it is, exactly, that you've been reading these past 4 years...but thanks!

At 10/27/08 11:43 PM, Monocrom wrote: Only just now had a chance to really take in the new chapter. I loved the plot twist. I was certain that Trunks would make it to the end. I guess not.

Glad you liked it. But yes, unfortunately the herd had to be thinned out a tad, and Trunks drew the proverbial short straw. C'est la vie, in zombie-land.

Looking forwars to the next chapter...... Hopefully before my Birthday in January of 2009. ;)

Sure thing.

Oh, and to those wondering about all the typo's and mess-ups...I accidentally posted the original draft, instead of the corrected and spell-checked one :/ Was a liiiiiiiiiiittle bit frustrated, as you can imagine.

I'll be considerably more careful about that kind of thing next time.

This is your femme fatale Sarai...

I approve of these extended chapters....

Now, I will admit to not quite knowing why exactly I shot Trunks, but I'm sure that all will become clear going forward. I find in real life more violence may solve a temporay memory loss... We'll have to see if I can keep my urge to stab kids in check for long enough to actually save your lives... *_*

Also, where's the Doctor, I've lost his phone number!

---

In all seriousness, I didn't notice spelling errors, I just saw a good story that kept my interest! I am currently writing a Zombie story for another website and I'm really into characters and situations at the moment. This story has given me a few ideas :)

Thanks for finally updating... as others said, I hope there is more to come, I'll remain your most ardent fan (check your news message history!) but I do apologise for not being around NG much... there's hardly anything good to do, except read your story and play a few games.

As always, you're welcome to catch me on MSN...

Lots of x

-S

At 10/28/08 07:29 AM, LinkSilvermane wrote: Getting shot down by a hot chick in a hospital gown, on the other hand... :D

Yeah, that WAS a great way to die. Thanks I guess? :D

That... story.. just.. blew my fucking mind, man. Seriously nice writing.

Damn nice addition to the story. But it always sucks when a main character dies.I wonder when the next version comes out.keep on going man this is one story that i do not want to die.

Damn great story i do say.
If you can .. pretty pretty pretty pleaseee gimmie a part =]
like a soldier on their side on something =]
seeing as i wanna be come a marine im sure it'd fit.

But i do gotta say this is the best story i've read in a while.
In school when i get bored i write in a story i've ben making since like october.
that shits long man.
Zombies and all.
Vamps have been a downer since twilight and all blah/

but yes
long story short.
great story so far.

i want in =]