Zombie Exodus: Aftermath, Scene 2

Continued from Scene 1 

You run into the courtyard, center of camp, maybe the worst place to be in this attack. Jesse shares a trailer with a group of people she met before arriving at Tempest Point. You never got along with any of them. As you reach the door, it’s already open and flapping in the breeze. You throw it open and run inside. It’s a complete mess and one of the reasons you never like to come here. A bag of trash blocks your path, so you step over it. You duck a clothes line that stretches out across the interior. You circle a triangle tent someone set up in the space between two benches. Several bodies lie asleep on the benches, but you move past them all.

“Jesse! Jesse!” you whisper shout.

She stirs, rolls to her back, and pulls a sheet up to her neck. Even in bed, she wears that dopey tie-dyed painter’s hat. A mumble escapes her lips, but her eyes remain shut.

The trailer shakes, and you place your hands on the wall for balance. Tin cups and a box of crackers fall from a high shelf.

“How are you not awake? Get up,” you say and shake her by the shoulders.

Her eyes pop open. “What the hell?” She blinks a few times and looks around. “Is it even light out?”

“It’s noon and Tempest Point is under attack. Don’t you hear that?”

As if on cue, automatic rifle fire spreads just outside the trailer. Another explosion sounds in the distance, and the shouts of the dwellers come from every direction. Jesse throws the sheet off. She’s wearing a gray sports bra and oversized boxers that hang to her knees. She’s short and stout, and when she rolls out of bed, she meets the floor on her knees.

“Ouch! It’s too early for this mess. I barely got any sleep last night,” she says.

You help her up and grab clothes from the top of a dresser. “Put these on. You have a to-go bag?”

“What? Nah. Everything I own in the world is spread out in this trailer. Give me like five minutes —“

“We don’t have five minutes. Can’t you hear the people outside? It’s a war zone right outside this trailer.”

She reaches for a pack of gum and pops a stick in her mouth. “Who do you think it is? O-zoners? West Point? Wait, you don’t think it’s the Terries?”

“Definitely not the Terries. They don’t come out during the day. You know that.” Terries, short for subterrestrials. They moved underground shortly after the outbreak and have lived there ever since. They’ve adapted to life without light, and it has changed them into something…animalistic.

You slide a curtain aside and peek through the window. You can see two men in red suits running past the trailer. They raise red painted rifles and fire at dweller soldiers, gunning them down.

“It’s the Reds. We have to go, now.”

When you turn from the window, you see Jesse going through a chest and picking through items like she has no care in the world.

“What are you doing? We have to go! I just saw two Reds killing our defenders. We don’t have time.”

Jesse pulls a revolver from the chest and tosses it on her bed. She slips on a pair of jeans and grabs a hoodie from a clothes line. “I’m going to need five minutes. Everything I have in the world is in this trailer. If we leave now, it’s going to be ten times harder to survive out there,” she says and points north. “Besides we have to wake everyone up. We were partying last night. Legend busted out one of his ciders, and a game of Aces – Deuces started up.”

Another series of shots rings out in the courtyard. A bullet cracks the side window of the trailer, and you and Jesse duck to the floor.

“Maybe we can go now,” she says with a weak smile. “But life out there is going to be ten times easier with all my stuff and the rest of the crew here. Your call.”

Continue to scene 3