Survival Horror

[o ding]

His name was Soaps. He was about five-foot-nine and of average weight for such a height, aged about twenty five. He had dark hair which reached about his shoulders, and every now and then he'd forget to shave and have a bit of a stubble on his face.

Timothy J. Soaps, to be precise, and he was one of maybe three people in the city to actually own a house and not some kind of an apartment or mansion. It was jammed in between a couple of massive office buildings, its white paint making it seem as though it'd just been picked up and then dropped from a suburbia, though he was lucky enough not to share their driveway. He hadn't asked for the house to be built there and nobody was really sure why it was; it just was, and when he'd arrived with a handy paycheck from the service and his parents, it was for sale.

Soaps did not have a great job. He'd been in the military and he had a lot of potential to do lots of things - he was a halfway decent writer, for instance, and knew a lot about the world - but none of these things really helped him get a job. So he'd been stuck in a nondescript office with a nondescript desk in a nondescript cubicle, surrounded by nondescript coworkers who never really talked to him. He returned the favor very often.

Still, the nondescript office job paid a handsome amount of money after the many years he'd been working there and was more than enough to keep him fed and pay the bills. It was enough to get a nice black sedan and a number of other things that he enjoyed having, such as a gun and a television set and a computer.

On many days, he would rarely move, simply watching television or browsing the internet. On other days, he would exercise and do cardio and whatnot because he couldn't remember how not to after leaving the military.

Very rarely he would actually go somewhere that wasn't a workplace or a food market. Sometimes he'd buy something frivolous, but usually he was just out buying new glasses or doing something he'd been invited to do. The latter was more rare.

But on the date of 8/21/12, things happened. Horrible things. And much of the above changed.

That date, that morning:

Soaps slammed the top of his television angrily, glasses inching their way down his nose with each bang. It was an old, bulky thing, not denting at all from the man's blows. "Fucking sound! Work!" He hit it a few more times before sighing and returning to his couch, remote in hand, occasionally hitting a button and waiting for the issue to work itself out.

He reached down to the coffee table in front of him and grabbed his cup of coffee, DUNKIN DONUTS logo prominently emblazoned into the thing's side. A sip of the stuff did very little to relieve him, television set flickering in and out of a picture with the occasional noise of static.

Another sip.

Zzzsssttt.

Soaps frowned and stood, coffee in hand, walking over to the living room's window. He pulled the blinds apart and peeked out to see what sort of day it was.

Cloudy. Very cloudy, he observed. Only light traffic, no big deal.

Sip.

He turned back to his couch, walked over, and plopped himself back down, tossing an arm over the back of it. Zzsssfft- "-epeat, all of the city's hospitals have been closed, and people are being strongly urged to stay in the safety of their own homes. Do NOT try to evacuate, do NOT try to converge at any government buildings, just stay calm, and-" ttsssff.

Soaps' eyes went wide. He set the coffee down on the table slowly, leaning forward in his seat.

Fzzz- "- mass hysteria, reports of people...eating other people...we just don't..."fzzzt.

He stood again, clenching and unclenching his fist. My gun, he thought, where...car. Right.

Soaps' mind races as he all but ran to the garage door, busting through it with his shoulder and continuing to his car. Where should I go? Should I just stay in here? He opened the door and groped around the seat, shaking his head and reaching for the glove compartment. I should probably stay here. Food, water, I can just lock the doors. Just a random house, some riot of crazies wouldn't care. The glove compartment popped open, metal glinting on top of a few dozen pieces of paper and a notebook. He grabbed it and the thing's ammo box quickly and ran back to the living room with haste.

The TV wasn't on the fritz anymore. Now it was on their end. It was easy to tell.

"We're...this is insane, but we're being told from hundreds...of people, eyewitnesses, that people are being bitten and hours later, just...dying, and then coming back and trying to bite people. People are dying...and coming back...eating people. We lost contact from people in the hospital hours ago, but..."The camera went out of focus, starting to turn away from the 'field' reporter who'd been standing in front of the hospital and gawking.

He zoomed in on a woman in medical garb shambling out of the door, covered in blood. She moaned very loudly as she approached the police barricade that'd been set up around the place, the men and women in uniform screaming at her to freeze.

She didn't, limping towards them with arms outstretched.

Loud bangs rang out. Soaps could hear them from his house, able to see where they were coming from on the 'box.

One bullet, through the arm. Hit the artery.
Another, through the right lung.
Another, through the heart.

She kept walking, shaking the fatal wounds off and continuing. More bullets, more gunshots.

Finally, one went through her head, right between her temples. Her body fell to the ground in a pile and the cameraman pulled the plug on his connection.

Soaps chambered half a dozen rounds, Smith & Wesson Model 29 8⅜" barrel revolver steady in his hands.

He clicked it into place and made it spin, sitting down onto his couch with wide eyes. He hit the power button on his remote and the 'TECHNICAL ISSUES' screen and beep went away.

"Well...ah..."

[o ding]

First things first, Soaps finished his coffee, mind at work hard. This isn't a riot. This isn't a couple of crazy people causing a commotion. This is fucking biological warfare. He nodded to himself. Fucking arabs, with their...russian...shit.

Not important, he noted. I need to get out. This city is hot, and as long as I'm in it, I'm at risk.

He set the coffee down, glancing around the room. He knew what he'd need and compiled a mental list; first, he went for the things that were closest. He snagged a portable radio from the TV's stand and then headed for the kitchen, filling up a couple of bottles of water and taking a backpack off the counter to toss it all in. He went for the cupboard and snatched some canned fruits, vegetables, and soup. Then the bathroom. Behind the mirror above the sink was a cabinet, and in that were some first aid supplies; he grabbed then and tossed them into his bag as well. Bandages, alcohol, emergency scissors, etc.

He ran out from there and back to the garage, once again slamming through shoulder-first. His eyes scanned the room for things he'd need; the bike, a crowboar, some .44 rounds lying around. He tossed them all into the backseat, bike going last, before dropping handfuls of rounds and round-boxes into the glove compartment. A knife was in one of the car's containers, he was sure, along with some matches. Lighter in his pocket, along with some smokes. Blankets in the backseat.

He pulled the car keys from his pocket and slid it into the ignition, pressing the big red button on the side the loop it to make the garage door open. He twisted the key. The car rumbled.

The metal sheeting slowly slid upward, sunlight pouring into the dark car-confinement-area and revealing the road ahead. Helicopters and their trademark, noisy blades were spinning above. Lots of them.

"What's it been, two minutes?" he mumbled to himself, hand on his head as he observed the hectic traffic. It was moving at a decent speed, but there were too many cars for his liking. Too late now. He put his foot down on the gas and pulled out onto his driveway, taking a right onto the road and heading east.

"...Fuck, I forgot a compass!"

Too late, he mocked. He eyed the vehicle in front of him; an SUV, full family inside. He couldn't see their faces from behind, but it was obvious they were scared. Same with the truck behind him, glancing at it through his side mirror, though he could see their fear plainly.

Shaking his head, he flipped on the radio. Another talking head. "The police line is down, those things are just pouring out of the hospital...we're getting similar reports from Cities all over the world, almost -everywhere- is under siege from these things...as far as we know, our city was the nineteenth area infec-" he switched the channel.

Static.

Soaps sighed. "Come on," he breathed. "Just some music..." He twisted the tuning knob a few more times. The rock stations, the pop stations, the rap stations, the country stations...all static. News still up, of course. The last thing he wanted to hear.

CITY PARK - 1/4TH MILE, a sign he passed by informed.

Expansive skyscrapers and larger buildings started to get smaller, most of them just being warehouses or the occasional school or hospital. Wait, hospital? Ah, no.

He steered with one hand, the other wrapped around the revolver's grip. His eyes darted around the scenery, beginning to turn to green woods.

They locked onto the hospital. No lights. No movement. Only a couple of cars left. On a Wednesday morning.

The car in front of him lurched and then stopped very suddenly, some kind of crash coming from ahead. Soaps managed to slam the breaks in time and hardly nicked the SUV; it wasn't the sound of metal on metal, it was metal on flesh. There was some sort of roaring and screaming, and he saw glimpses of brown fur and crimson blood. An animal. They'd hit an animal. And it was...attacking them? Some kind of rabid bear, maybe?

He looked around to their side. He could just drive around and leave them. The victims of the bio attack could be anywhere, and from what he'd heard and seen they were dangerous. Very dangerous.

Don't be a hero, Soaps. Don't be a hero, just get out...

[o ding]

Soaps took his own advice, slamming on the gas and speeding around them. He didn't bother to look out the window to check on the family or any other cars; his eyes locked forward on the road ahead, ignoring the people he'd abandoned and their screams.

"Asshole, asshole, asshole..." he muttered. If he weren't driving, he'd be banging his head against a wall.

He took a left at the next turn and as he came around the bend, a building which had been standing in the way of his vision moved away to make the scene clear. How he hadn't heard or noticed any of this just around the next turn dumbfounded the man, but there was little time to worry about that.

The next car behind him, apparently having made a similar choice in regards to the poor family, swerved and went in the opposite direction the moment it came around the bend. He or she had obviously seen.

Soaps himself simply stopped driving, taking in the view.

Fires raged in this part of the city, dozens of cars overturned and crashed into one another. What seemed to be an oil truck had tilted over, its namesake spilling into the streets and blazing up an entire half of the road. What must've been ten, fifteen people shambled around madly, equally on fire.

"..."

He looked over the buildings and the rest of the area that wasn't ablaze, hoping to God there wasn't anything he'd want in this particular area.

A shopping mall, right on his path if he decided to take this route. Mostly clothing and food courts, but he knew there was a gun/gun accessories store there. Very wide selection he probably wouldn't find again after he'd left. Big, huge windows that were hardly off the ground. I can just drive in. It's spacious enough that I wouldn't have to park until I reached something important.

The park, off to left and stretching on for most of what he could see in this part of the city. He could get out and run for it, though if that bear wasn't just a freak accident, a random rabid creature, then the implications weren't very good.

The road itself was littered with obstacles, but he could squeeze the car through quickly enough. And better yet, there wasn't any traffic on account of all the death.

His hands gripped the wheel, looking back. Or I can just leave.

[o ding]

Soaps shook his head, breathing deeply. Even if he did make it out of the city on the main roads, even -if- they didn't wind up just like this one with him trapped in the midst, he would get nowhere with just a revolver and the bare necessities for life. The radio had said it loud and clear - the city wasn't the only place affected. It was the entire world. It was a global event. He wouldn't be safe by skipping town, he might not be safe anywhere.

His foot pressed down on the gas, just hard enough to make the car lurk forward. The last of the people on fire fell to his knees and moaned before collapsing entirely, leaving the path clear of living obstacles.

The vehicle weaved around the charred and twisted metal that covered the road, swerving cautiously to avoid flames and hunks of jagged iron.

It was deceptively easy to navigate, Soaps smirking as he traversed the little patch of Hell. He let his weight down on the pedal some, accelerating.

[glow=red,2,300]"Unnnhhh..."[/glow]

Soaps jumped, hand shooting to his gun. That hadn't been him. His eyes darted around from window to window, scanning. There was nothing.

Bang. Bang.

It was coming from below. Under the car. Soaps slammed his foot on the pedal, machine jetting towards the oil spill's flames. He swerved, hard, to the right, car skidding and going in that direction exactly and not stopping.

Soaps closed his eyes, one fist clenched around the wheel and the other holding his glasses in place. Crash, oh god, crash...

About a minute later, he opened his eyes. Things were blurry; he couldn't see. He put his hand up to his face, glasses pressing against his cheek as he realized he'd pulled them away. Sliding them back on, he looked around; pale, very light blue. Mostly the floor and the walls. A couple of trees in the middle of what looked like a long, empty hallway. The ceiling above was glass and gave a view of the sky. Dozens of wide doors, huge glass windows, things on display.

The car wasn't damaged at all. Broken glass was scattered around him. He took a glance at his side mirror; behind him was the road, a woman without a lower half slowly pulling her way towards him with her hands alone.

He glared, switching the machine into reverse, aiming, and hitting the gas. It lurched backwards at a decent speed until one of the back wheels hit a fleshy bump with a wet squish and a number of cracks the further he went, stopping with a slam on the brakes and switching it back and hitting the pedal again, another squish and more cracks.

He drove back into the mall and prowled along the side, slow enough for him to be able to read the signs but fast enough to remain reassured that he wouldn't be left in the aftermath of whatever was happening.

The glass on most of the stores was broken, the displays missing. The place had been looted thoroughly.

The further he went, the more he began to notice random objects littering the ground, often bathed in blood. Television sets, jewelry, cash registers. Two corpses. He hit a soft bump. No, three.

...No, four, five, six...he counted a trail of the things, most of them missing heads completely and the rest bleeding severely from them.

CRACK. A gunshot.

He pulled his foot off the gas and turned off the car, taking a moment to collect his thoughts in silence. The gun shop was just ahead, and the bodies were leading in its direction.

CRACK. Another.

Soaps rubbed his face, grabbing his revolver and double checking whether or not it was loaded. It was, of course. He rapped his fingers against the steering wheel.

CRACK. Three.

[o ding]

Damn it, don't...his mental protests went unheard, the car door clicking open. He grabbed his keys and his backpack and locked the thing up, tossing the hatch closed as he walked away.

The gun store was far enough away for the car not to have been spotted, the slight jut of a few more bulky clothing stores aiding its own stealth. The path to the store was painfully uncovered, however, so Soaps had little to do but keep his head down and run as quietly as he could for the door.

Though it did have windows for display, they were much smaller and higher up than most, with none of the actual merchandise in sight. He approached, both hands wrapped around his pistol. He ducked around, under the windows where there was enough of a wall for him to remain unseen.

CRACK. It'd been a good while since the last shot.

He creeped forward, ducking his head around the door for a look. A man and woman were standing there, moaning. They started limping towards him - Soaps raised his revolver.

CRACK. One of the peoples' heads simply disappeared in a shower of red and pink, flying towards the leftmost wall. Soaps ducked back behind cover as another shot rang out, the last moan ending with a drawn out gasp.

Footsteps started to approach, then stopped. They turned and went towards the other side of the store.

Soaps breathed. His hands tightened around the gun, raised and ready.

[o ding]

Soaps grimaced, shuffling a bit as he attempted to think of something to say that'd give off a good first impression. "Don't shoot," no. Just "Hey!" ...nah. How about...

"I'm human!" he shouted, slowly approaching. His heart pounded, vision tunneling. This was not a very tactical move.

"Well, yeah," a voice called back. It was...almost feminine? He shook his head for a moment, disbelieving his disbelief. This was a new goddamned age, women had rights and drive and whatnot. He hadn't even been born when they hadn't. "That, um...that you are."

A shell hit the floor. She was reloading - probably a bolt action, from the sound of it.

He came around the corner, gun aimed where he thought her head were be as he stepped. The guess was wrong, of course, and he had to adjust - but only slightly. She wasn't bothering, busy attaching a silencer to her rifle, though she stopped to glance at him briefly before finishing. A little bit shorter than him, thinner, lankier. Black sweatshirt, hood up - concealing some of her face and her hair entirely - slim blue jeans, some sneakers, a backpack, etc.

She looked him over in the same way; untucked dress shirt, shoulder length dark hair, glasses, stubble of a beard, dress pants, dress shoes, backpack, etc.

"...Well, quit pointing it at me already," she nervously laughed out. "If some zombie makes a sudden move this wouldn't be a great situation, would it?"

Soaps lowered the pistol, looking at it somewhat confusedly for a moment before pulling his finger off the trigger entirely. Zombie? "...No. It wouldn't."

She slung her rifle over her shoulder, shrugging a bit. "Here for guns, yeah?"

"And maybe some food, yeah."

She nodded. "Well, shop's all yours. Haven't cleared out the back rooms, so watch yourself if you go in there," she said.

"Oh, and, um...good luck." They nodded at each other.
She started to walk out. Soaps bit his tongue.

[o ding]

"Wait," he called, pulling his backpack from his shoulder and setting it down with a clunk. She stopped and glanced back at him, hand absentmindedly traveling to her rifle."Maybe...we should go. Together. Instead of alone, you know? One of us could carry ammo, the other food and other supplies. We could take shifts sleeping, we could pool our skills together...whatever your skills are...we-"

"Yeah," she stopped him. "I get it. But-"
"I've got a car. More than enough fuel to get us out of here."
"...Alright. Where is it?"

Soaps pointed towards the bump in the mall his car was parked behind, turning his head briefly to look at the gun selection. He'd been to the place before and knew it pretty well - all the guns on the shelves were disabled in one way or another. They'd either take a professional to fix or wouldn't ever be fixed, or at the very least they were missing parts that weren't easily obtainable. They were just display - all the real merchandise was in the back room. She'd probably just shown up for ammo, not the rifle.

Of course, the ammo and the silencers and the scopes and the straps and the stands were all real enough.

His mind snapped back into focus. "You stay here and clear out the back room. I'll pull the car up and we'll grab anything we need." They nodded at each other and ran off in opposite directions.

Soaps did a quick checkover as he ran back to the car. Nobody around yet. He glanced into the back and front seats to make sure. All clear. He opened the door and started the thing, hitting the gas and pulling up on the shop, only a few feet from the entrance. He switched it to park and got back out, leaving it on for a quick getaway.

She was standing in the back room's doorway, lighting a cigarette. "None of 'em are in there."

He sighed. "Alright. Grab anything you want and watch the car, I'll be right back. Oh, and do you have a sidearm...?"

The woman lifted up her sweatshirt, revealing a colt .45 tucked into her jeans.

"Good. Be right back."

"Hey, hold on." He stopped. "Yeah?"

"Nothing works but headshots. Everything else just slows them down."

He nodded.

Soaps paced around hurriedly, looking over the literal room filled with guns with hunger, anger, and disappointment. He wanted all of them, but that just wouldn't fly - besides, he knew pretty much exactly what he was looking for.

The rows of firepower were divided by weapon type; machine guns, submachine guns, assault rifles, semi-automatic rifles, bolt action/hunting rifles, shotguns - automatic, pump, and other - all types of pistols, and a few other sections filled with random and odd contraptions.

He wanted to share ammunition and he needed something with good aim - that meant he, judging by the expended cartridges she'd left lying on the floor, needed a rifle that could go for .308s.

A single beauty popped into his mind immediately - the M1 Garand.

There were two in stock, the only visible difference being their paint jobs. One traditional wood-brown and iron silver, the other military black.

He grabbed the latter, slinging it over his shoulder.

One down. Next, something to match with a colt .45 - how about a colt .45? Just about every gun store had about a hundred M1911s, meaning he could probably find ample spare parts if anything were to break, and it was a simple, reliable gun in the first place.

Of course, this one was no exception. They practically had a box full of the things, most of them identical though a few had shorter barrel lengths than the rest. He ignored those, grabbing one of the larger ones and looking it over. It was easy to tell, even without a field strip, that they were all in pristine condition.

He picked one with a similar aesthetic to the Garand and tossed his revolver away, holstering it in a similar fashion as the girl had.

"You ready yet?" she called.

"Grab all the .308s and .45s you can carry and toss them in the truck, we gotta get outta here quick!"

"Gotcha."

He ran out of the backroom and ducked through the shelves, grabbing a scope and a few flashlights and filling his backpack with the aforementioned ammunition before running over to the car. He cracked the backseat door open and emptied everything he'd taken there before climbing in to the driver's seat and waiting for her to do the same.

The door slammed as she did so, obviously nervous. "So, um, where to?"

Soaps grimaced, hands gripping the steering wheel.

[o ding]

"Well, I figure...do you have any food?"The girl nodded hurriedly. "A few cans of pineapple slices and a sandwich in a bag."

"Well, I've got about the same. I figure that'll last us more than long enough to reach the next town. So...let's just get outta here, then?"
"Alright."

Soaps hit the gas, car lurching forward. He sighed. "Oh, and buckle up...It's a bit of a bumpy road."

The vehicle came back up on the smashed glass, the scenery on the road outside being a tad different by way of there being more people standing on it. They limped around on broken legs and sliced tendons, some of them hunched over the many of the dead and clawing at their cooked flesh.

"There they are," she said. "Those things. The zombies. Do you have enough room to drive on, or do I need to pick some of 'em off?"

Soaps gave her an irritated look. "Look, they're not zombies. They're victims of some insane terrorist attack, with some new biological weapon. They're just messed up in the head, they're not flesh-eating ghouls..."

She wasn't listening, staring at one of them as it shoveled human meat into its jaws.

"...Well, ok, maybe they are. But still, what if the government finds a cure? What if they can fix them?"

"Well," she said, "that'd be awful nice, wouldn't it?"

It kept devouring its victim, eyes slowly turning towards the car.

Soaps sighed, rubbing his eyes. "...Yeah, take those two over on the right out."

The girl gave him a small nod and grabbed her rifle from beside her, rolling down her window and leaning out of it to get a proper aim. She'd affixed a scope to it while he'd been gathering weapons, and her eye was pressed up against it in search of a headshot.

CRACK. Red mist sprayed onto a car behind one of the fatter zombies, his lumpy body crumbling beneath him.

She pulled the bolt back, cartridge ejecting, and slid another bullet in.

CRACK. One of the zombies got a big red hole on its chest, stumbling back before turning to face their direction. It screamed, very loudly, and as he did every single other of the beasts within ear shot screamed even louder.

"Holy shit!" she cried. "Slam it, go, go! They're all coming for us!"

Soaps' eyes widened, doing as she asked with force. The car jumped, the girl almost falling from the window before pushing herself back into the thing with a shove. She threw her seat buckle back on, Soaps frantically looking her over before doing the same to his surroundings. "How many, how many!" The car swerved, narrowly dodging one of them as he made his way around a trashed and burned car.

"A lot!"

He glanced in the mirror, glasses almost falling off the moment he saw. The entire street behind them was filled with running, limping, drooling, decomposing beasts. At least they were going the right way.

Their car swerved around one after the other of its burning, crashed counterparts, making its way down the street with due haste. They'd left behind the slow ones; he could see them in a crowd further down the street. A good number of them were running, though, and fast, managing to keep up with the car because of its curvy path. They leaped over obstacles and ran through the flames, over the sharp spikes of metal that would've knocked out the car's tires. They screamed continuously, more of their brethren joining with every raspy yell.

She turned her head back to him, fear glazed over her face. "I counted at least fifty, and there's gotta be dozens more that I skipped over..."

He nodded, hardly paying attention to anything but the road. The skyscrapers around them clouded too much of their surroundings, leaving him practically blind every time he came up on a turn; not that he was taking any, rushing straight forward.

The things started to lag behind, too many of them tripping and the obstacles littering the road becoming to small or too few. Soaps started to outpace them, slowing down some as they fell further in the distance so he could get around things easier.

"Fuck, that was close."
"Yeah."

They both exhaled, the road ahead still being uninhabited but

Then the car roof all but caved in with a huge slam, metal contorting into a massive dent above their heads. The dent screamed, Soaps hardly even flinching as he grabbed the pistol from his belt and emptied its clip into the dent to finish off whatever it was. If it'd been anything.

"What the fuck...?" she muttered, staring ahead.
He looked at her, wanting to laugh. "I guess it jumped on us."

"Yeah...look."

His eyes went back to the road, glasses once again almost falling from their perch. The things were gathering on rooftops, regardless of how tall, before leaping off onto anything that looked like food.

The moving car must've looked a lot like food, at least three more of the things crashing into a red pulp around it before Soaps once again slammed on the gas and sped forward. "This is fucking insane! Absolutely fucking insane!"

She nodded, rifle cradled in her arms.

Splat. Splat. Splat. Dozens of the things all but liquefied as they struck ground, their blood splattering all over anything in the vague area - including the car's windshield. He switched on the wiper, but it did little - everything took on a red tint.

Metal twisted above them again, the thing that'd hit them apparently still alive. Fists slammed into the metal a few times before ceasing, moving down and hitting the glass instead. The girl aimed her rifle up and fired, reloaded, fired, reloaded, fired, but it was no use - everything was just a potshot without a clear aim. The front windshield cracked with force, all but obscuring his sight - but then it cracked further, a few fist sized holes offering Soaps a view.

"Kill it, damnit, kill it!"

The tiny view was hardly sufficient for him to manuever with, the car barreling into what he assumed was one of the creatures. The fists kept hammering away, the girl still shooting - then a scream from above, and another all-too-loud crash on the roof along with a second dent. Something rolled away, and the punching ceased.

She hit out the rest of the glass in front of him with the butt of her rifle, just in time for him to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a sign, whatever it might've said obscured by blood.

"I think," Soaps gasped between breaths, "this is the suburbs. All condos and apartments." There was a splat just behind them.

Ahead, the buildings weren't so tall. It wasn't abandoned, though - there were definite people, running around and trying to gather what they could before jumping into cars and jeeps and racing away. Looting, stealing, anarchy.

There was another path - through the woods. The park? It extended further than he recalled, seeming to sprawl over abandoned buildings that he didn't remember and a road that he didn't think had ever been overrun with plant life. But then, he usually stuck to the inner city.

Still, it was a road, big enough to fit their car through.

She shook her head, telling he was thinking about it. "Don't. I've got friends up here I used to visit all the time - those plants shouldn't exist. It's part of all this shit. We go in there, we'll be those things' next snack. We've got a better chance making it through the looters."

He pushed his glasses back up to his eyes, reloading his .45.

[o ding]

Soaps 'holstered' the pistol hesitantly, glancing back at the ubergrown woods. "They're just plants. I'd rather take a chance with some trees than a road full of gangbangers."

She shrugged, hands tightening around her rifle. "It's your car."

He nodded to her, hitting the gas and turning for the abandoned green street. His eyes kept glancing upward and around, expecting more of the things to hop out, covered in some tentacled moss-vine thing. It didn't.

As they turned the corner, it became clear that the term abandoned was very fitting. The street was covered in low-lying bushes, vines, and moss, dozens of trees littering what was likely a very lawn oriented community beforehand. Houses and sidewalks were drowned in the sea of green, ropey tentacles wrapped around everything they could cling to.

The girl kept an eye on her mirror, gun in a ready position. "Something's moving in there."

He took a brief look as well, trying to keep his sights on the road ahead. "What?"

"...Nothing, I guess," she responded. "I thought...no. Just plants."

He nodded, pondering whether or not he should keep an eye on her instead. The trees on the path were starting to get taller, thicker, and more numerous; light from above was even beginning to become obscured. Frowning was all he could make himself do beyond drive.

Bump. "What the hell?"

"We hit something, calm down."

Bump. Bump. Bump. "...What the hell!"

"The plants must be upturning the road or something...it's, ah. Bumpy. You're buckled, right?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Then we should be fine."

She stared back into the mirror, eyes widening the moment she did. "Something's definitely moving. Look, damnit!"

He mumbled to himself and did so, the road being fairly clear anyhow...or not, he noted as he spotted the road's carpet.

The vines and moss and leaves were over another, fleshier thing, dozens of them lining the bottom. Limbs and corpses restrained by layers of vines struggled to escape the plant covering, their innards and skeletons spilt over the 'grass' under them.

He slammed on the gas, not needing any further incentive. The car rumbled over the flesh and bone, shaking and tilting in uncomfortable directions.

"Hey, hey, wait! Stop! No, no, stop! HEY!"