Kill Them Dead (Zombie Apocalypse Fiction) - Scene 5
If you missed scene 4...
https://steemit.com/fiction/@pwpretorius/kill-them-dead-zombie-apocalypse-fiction-scene-4
Billy Kramer
Billy woke with a gasp.
Although he was surrounded in utter darkness, he could sense that he was in a confined space. How long had he been in there? Minutes? Hours? He honestly couldn’t tell. It took a few seconds before he remembered that he was in a maintenance closet. The machine gun that he clutched in his 17-year-old hands confirmed the memory: He was trailblazing his way through twenty levels of Fire at Will, a console game—heavy metal blasting through his headphones—when a hand suddenly grabbed his shoulder. Billy still could remember the icy pang that shot through his body when he spun around and found himself staring down the barrel of a real gun.
It was Edmund, one of the four peacekeeping guards on board the space station, and a good friend of Billy’s. During free time, they played a lot of co-op games together, and Billy’s parents didn’t seem to mind their friendship despite the fact that Edmund was about twice his age.
“Thank God you’re safe,” Edmund said softly and lowered his weapon.
“What’s wrong, Eddie?” Billy asked louder than he intended because of the lead singer still screaming through his headphones.
Edmund held an index finger to his lips as he yanked off the headphones and switched off the television.
It was only then that Billy heard the muffled screams coming from the hallway outside. “What’s happening?”
“Hush!” Edmund said and knelt down so that he could address his young friend eye-to-eye. “If they hear us, we’re dead, understand?”
Billy nodded despite the fact that he indeed did not understand. “They?”
Edmund pinched his eyes closed as if trying to lock out images so bad that he was afraid Billy might catch a glimpse of them in the reflection of his eyes.
“Who are they, Eddie?”
“Hush!” Edmund insisted, his voice barely above a coarse whisper.
Despite the seemingly rude snap in Edmund’s voice, Billy could hear that the word was laced with urgency and fear. “What’s going on out there?” he whispered.
“I…I’m not sure, but we need to get out of here right now.”
Billy’s eyes searched the room. “Where’s mom?” he asked. “Where are my parents?”
“I don’t know,” Edmund said and shoved a machine gun into Billy’s hands, “but we’ll try to get to them, okay?”
“Okay,” Billy said as he rubbed his fingers over the metal of the gun. He bobbed it up and down a few times to gauge its weight. It sure felt heavier than it looked like in the movies and the games that he played. In those games he would run around for hours while carrying a load of various weapons and an endless amount of ammo. He would never tire as he cut down enemy after enemy, and for a split second, a smile crept across his face. The thought of actually living out one of the games was enticing, and he wondered if he alone—with his hours of practical gaming experience—would be able to save everyone on board the space station from whatever enemy was out there.
Edmund stood upright and held his ear near the door. The screams outside had subsided, moved elsewhere on the ship. “We have to go,” he said and tugged at Billy’s arm. “Now!”
Billy slowly opened the closet door and peered out. The hallway outside was completely deserted. There was no sign of Edmund or anyone else. He looked up and down the passageway, and once he was sure there was no one in either direction, stepped out from the confines of the small room.
An eerie silence lingered in the darkened passageways of the ship, a kind of unnerving quietness that unsettled the boy. Billy briefly considered getting back into the safety of the closet, but decided against it. He clutched the gun tightly with his sweaty hands and took a deep breath.
Just before Edmund had shoved Billy into the closet, he flipped on the gun’s safety clip and then gave him a crash course on taking the safety off again. Once again the endless hours of playing games came in handy, and Billy grasped the instructions easier than he would have without it.
Which way? he wondered as he pressed the button that closed the closet door with a soft whoosh sound. In one sense, he was nervous about what lie ahead, but at the same time pure adrenaline pumped through his veins and he was excited about blasting the first bad guy he came across full of holes. The only problem was that he didn’t really know who or what he was looking for. The “thing” that jumped Edmund just as the closet door whooshed closed appeared human in form, so if it were aliens that attacked and boarded the space station, they very much appeared human-like. Billy didn’t particularly believe in aliens as such, but he had killed enough of them in his games to know how to handle them in the event that his beliefs—or, rather, lack of—turned out to be wrong.
Thunk!
Billy spun around and held the weapon at the ready. He almost fired, but managed to keep himself from doing so. Don’t wanna run out of ammo on Stage 1 already, he thought, and a grin spread across his face.
Something down the passage had made that noise, so Billy figured he would start “Stage 1” in that direction. If it was a bad guy, he would mow him down and find out what he was up against. If it was a good guy, like Edmund, they would fight together in winning back their space station.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Billy whispered and unclipped the safety as he slowly started down the darkened passageway.
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