Standing in front of the doorway, appeared to be a heavily augmented, humanoid figure that stood at about 8 to 10 feet in height... Its skin could be best described as Puke Green, its body looked heavily malnourished... It looked like it had toothpicks for legs... It had two metal, mechanical arms, each with buzzsaws for hands... Connected/Protruding to/from its stomach appeared to be two more mechanical arms, but instead of having buzzsaws for hands, these arms wielded bloodied machetes in a tight grip.
Possibly the most disturbing thing about this eldritch abomination was its face... Its face appeared to be a leathery mask, with stitches all across except for one spot, which was the upper right corner of its face, where it appeared to be made of metal, with a glowing red eye, similar to a cyborg. This being's face, except for the metal part, had a face made of what looked like human skin, all varying in skin color/tone. Its left eye appeared to be a milky white eye, it possessed white, unkempt, and frizzy hair, and it had a disturbing grin on its face, with a gold tooth visible... Its teeth were jagged, rotten, and mangled...
All the boys could do was stare at this... Abomination in horror and shock, their eyes wide and jaws dropped.
All Luke could exclaim was: "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAAAAAT?!?!?!
"Is that a kid from a UNICEF Commercial?" Chase asked. His three other friends exchanged a short laugh until Samuel decided to put in his two cents.
"It looks like Albert Einstein and Leatherface if they had a crack-addicted kid!" was Samuel's opinion. His witty remark caused a short chuckle between his other friends, but that laughter turned into screaming when the cyborg monster in front of them began to laugh in a slightly mechanical/slightly biological way, but its laughing sounded like it was coming from an utterly insane, mental patient, before crouching through the doorway, stomping over the pile of zombie corpses and guts and charging towards the four.
"RUUUUUUN!!!" Christopher screamed, and he didn't need to yell that twice, because he and his friends were running towards the backdoor of the home, and even though they heard no sounds from the undead come from the back, they were internally praying that nothing was outside in the backyard.
Luke charged and took the lead, swinging the back door open, and signaling his friends to run outside.
"GO, GO, GO!" He shouted, and when the last friend, Christopher ran out, Luke slammed the door to try and shut the creature in, but that would only buy them so much time, as they began to hear the sounds of buzzsaws sawing into wood. To their relief, no signs of zombies or monsters were roaming in the backyard. What they saw in the backyard was a small, concrete patio with a barbecue grill and a bag of charcoal, and on the lawn was a shed painted in dark green, a lawn mower that sat outside the shed, a wooden playground, and a tree with a rounded-balcony tree house with a wooden ladder.
"Everyone, up the tree house! We can use it as a vantage point!" Christopher ordered.
Christopher, Chase, Luke, and Samuel all ran up to the tree house, climbing up its wooden ladder, which thankfully, was strong enough to support the weight of four grown men and their heavy gear, and were able to get on top of the tree house. Chase and Samuel entered the treehouse, while Christopher and Luke stood outside on the balcony, as if they were snipers in a sniper tower, all their guns drawn at the door.
"Jesus Christ, this treehouse is so goddamn claustrophobic!" Samuel commented as he and his buddy Chase resided inside the treehouse.
"Coming from the guy who's literally built like Shaquille O'Neal!" Chase replied, pointing out Samuel's size, a 6 '4, man who was built like an NFL Linebacker.
Christopher jolted up and his eyes widened when he heard what sounded like footsteps from down below, over the sounds of the buzzsaws of the creature inside the house trying to saw its way through the wooden door.
"Guys, I heard movement!" Christopher called out as he looked down below, where the shed was, which was where the noises came from. All four of the men turned their heads and pointed their guns toward the shed, but slowly lowered their guns and had expressions that displayed fright and apprehension...
Standing outside of the shed were four people... One of them appeared to be a mother in her Early/Mid-40s with tangled, brown hair... The woman had what appeared to be some kind of facial deformity, where one side of her face appeared to be normal, but the other side of her face... Seemed to be drooping down, and the affected side of her face possessed an eye that was cross-eyed, staring at the sky while her non-affected eye stared at the boys at the treehouse.
There was something in Christopher's head that thought, this facial deformity wasn't "normal" and by him thinking that, he believed something unnatural (possibly even radiation) might have caused one side of this poor woman's face to become deformed, while keeping the other side of her face visibly intact/unaffected...
The woman possessed three children, a boy that appeared to be 10 to 12 years old, a girl that looked to be about 6 to 7 years old, and a preschool-aged, little girl... It appeared these children were affected, but not by what their mother had with her face...
The boy's right eye appeared to have a split down the middle, revealing a deep, gruesome crevice that gave the appearance of a third eye...
The boy's right cheek was covered in a large cluster of painful, red, fluid-filled skin bumps which made their skin look uneven and bumpy, and made this poor child look disfigured and unnatural. For the young girl who appeared to be 6 to 7 years old, her head appeared to be grotesquely swollen, with one eye visibly higher than the other, and both eyes seeming to stretch too far apart on their face, with the raised eye being abnormally larger than the other.
And the preschool-aged girl held a teddy bear in her hands, and for the most part... She looked completely normal, except for her skin appeared to be pale and as white as snow as if she suffered from albinism.
All four men were disturbed, but they felt a tragic feeling of sorrow for this poor family...
The individual that was hit hardest was Luke, as tears began to fall from his eyes. During the Hmong Independence War, he had seen many brutal sights that he would never forget... Men and Women, civilians or soldiers being blown to pieces by bombs, cities that were once bustling with life, culture, and activity, reduced to rubble and silent skeletons of their former selves, piles of bloodied, beaten, and violated corpses of people who were once individuals that lived, loved, and laughed, discarded as they were nothing but mere trash...
But the absolute worst thing he saw that would never go away no matter how hard he tried to forget... Was the sight of civilian families during the war... Either affected by the absence or loss of a family member, typically a father or a brother who had left home to fight for their people, or even just a lone child or group of children, or even families that looked famished... This was a terribly grim sight that hit way too close to home for retired Lieutenant General Luke...
Even though Chase, Christopher, and Samuel never experienced any kind of war... As they saw the look on Luke's face, they could tell... He was being haunted by demons of the past... The looks on the family's faces... Even though they said nothing, the looks on the faces of the family simply read... "Will you save us?" or "Are you here to help us?". It was nothing short of a disturbing, yet extremely heartbreaking sight.
It felt like hours as the four men stared at the mother and her children, with foreboding expressions. Luke was doing his absolute best to hold back his tears... But then... They heard the backyard door break, and that buzzsaw-wielding monster that laughed like the Joker had broken down the door with its buzzsaw hands, and locked eyes with both the four men, and the family.
Then, the buzzsaw-wielding horror ran past the family and began to try and saw down the tree. Adrenaline spiked through the bodies of the four men, as they regained their wits.
"Shit, everyone, hop on that shed and we'll hop into the backyard of the next house!" Christopher exclaimed.
Samuel ran out of the treehouse and towards Luke who stood on the balcony, still in complete shock... The horrors of war were returning to his Veteran friend, and it was pretty clear it was hitting him hard... Samuel grabbed onto Luke's shoulders and shook him, in an attempt to shake him out of his PTSD episode.
"Luke, we gotta go!" Samuel yelled urgently. Samuel did not have any hint of anger in his voice, he wanted to shake his buddy out of his trance, in order for them to escape. Luke wouldn't leave any of his friends behind, and Samuel wouldn't leave him behind either.
After a few seconds of shaking, Luke shook his head rapidly, breathing heavily.
"Alright! Alright! Let's go!" He exclaimed in response, panicked. Due to him being in a clear state of shock (although he snapped out of it), it was pretty clear he was too traumatized to take the role of leader for now.
"Alright men, follow my lead!" Christopher barked in the voice of a Drill Sergeant. Christopher may have been the smallest guy of the bunch, but he sure did make up for it by displaying his courage whenever needed.
"SIR, YES, SIR!" Chase and Samuel replied, following Christopher's orders.
Christopher ran on the balcony of the treehouse, jumping over the wooden guardrail, and landing on top of the shed where the family had emerged from. Christopher motioned his buddies to follow him. The treehouse began to shake, as the buzzsaw-armed monster continued to cut into the base of the tree... If they didn't act soon enough, the three were all going down with the tree if it fell.
Chase, Luke, and Samuel all hopped over the guardrail, and onto the top of the shed.
Christopher and his three friends hopped off of the shed, and into the backyard of the neighboring house. There were a few examples of the undead in the backyard, about five to six zombies, who moaned and snarled as they turned their attention to the boys.
As they jumped into the backyard, while in midair, Christopher, Chase, and Samuel opened fire on the zombies in the backyard of this house.
Since Luke was still in shock from the appearance of that poor family, all he could do was run for his life and follow his friends as he trailed behind, and he didn't fire, which led his buddies to claim the kills on these zombies.
"Fire at the wooden fences!" Christopher ordered.
Christopher, Chase, and Samuel aimed their guns at the wooden fence in the backyard, and fired, causing the wooden planks to splinter and split apart, creating an opening small enough to run through. As soon as a hole was big enough to run through, the four men ran to the next backyard, and they just kept running from backyard to backyard in an attempt to escape the zombies, and that buzzsaw-wielding monster.
"I'll cover you!" Chase cried out
"Watch your six, watch your six!" Samuel exclaimed
"Zombies, 3 O'Clock!" Christopher alerted
After they ran through about 10 to 11 backyards, it appeared Luke finally snapped out of his PTSD episode, and rejoined the fight with his buddies, squeezing the trigger of his MG 42, and punishing any zombie that even dared to breathe the same air as he and his comrades.
"Diiiiie, you fucking zombie shit!" Chase exclaimed
"Hey, Luke's back in the battle!" Samuel pointed out
1:39 PM...
"Guys, over here!" Christopher said, signaling his friends to follow him towards a chain-link fence door that led to the front of the house. Using all the strength he could muster, Christopher raised his leg and kicked the fence door as hard as he could, and by some miracle, it snapped the chain holding the door closed. Once again, the trio followed Christopher's orders and ran behind them as he led them to the front of the house.
The streets in front of them were packed with zombies, but the quartet of friends made quick work of the zombies until they decided to run into a Two-Story house. Christopher swung the door open, holding it open for his pals, with Chase and Samuel running in. But before Luke could make it in, he was tackled to the ground by a muscular, running zombie. The impact caused him to drop his gun, which landed near Christopher's feet.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
All Luke could do in this moment was scream, and try his best to push the zombie off of him, and... He said something rather eye-raising:
"I'M GETTIN' MOLESTED!!!" Luke screamed in a voice of sheer panic.
"DON'T FUCK WITH MY FRIENDS!!!" Christopher yelled in a voice of pure fury, letting out an aggressive war cry as he raised his MP 40 and fired almost a magazine's worth of lead at the zombie that tackled his comrade. Christopher's friends were very surprised. Why? Christopher had always been a calm, shy, quiet, and humble person, and in their 10+ years of friendship, they didn't recall any time Christopher raised his voice in anger like this...
Luke was able to shove the zombie (which was now dead due to the amount of bullets pumped into it) off of him, grab his gun, and run inside the house. After the four men ran inside, Christopher slammed and locked the door, and they all got quickly to work barricading the doors and windows. After they were done, they all sat in the living room of the house, taking a rest.
"Hey... Chris? Thank you for killing that zombie..." Luke said with pure gratitude in his voice.
"Hey... No problem, comrade." Christopher said with a proud smile, before raising his hand in a salute.
Luke exchanged a small, but sincere smile and returned the salute.
"Luke? Was everything alright? What was goin' on when we was back on top of the treehouse?" Samuel asked. He knew his buddy was suffering from an episode of PTSD, but wanted to make sure and confirm he was alright.
"Yeah... I'm alright, thank you for asking Sam... Just... Just seeing that poor family... Reminded me of the stuff I saw during my time in the war..." Luke replied in a weary voice, looking down at the floor.
He looked up when he felt three hands touch him. He saw Samuel's hand, touching (Luke's) chest, Christopher's arm wrapped around his shoulder, and Chase's hand reaching over to rest on top of Luke's other shoulder. They all gave their friend supportive, caring smiles, the "We're here for you" type of smile.
Luke's heart, felt warm, as a small, but grateful smile made its way onto his face.
"It's alright, Luke. We're going to get through this together like we always have..." Christopher said with a supporting smile.
"Guys? Thank you... You're the best friends a man can ever ask for." Luke said, his smile and voice showing gratitude.
"Ay, don't mention it," Samuel replied with a smile.
The four all stood up and exchanged a four-man group hug. They had been best friends with each other since the 1st Grade, and they had all been through good and bad times together. After their group hug, they all sat down in the living room, Chase and Samuel scored the couch, while Christopher and Luke sat on two bean bag chairs.
A bit of a mischievous grin made its way onto Chase's face. He wanted to lighten the mood and lift the spirits of his buddies, especially his pal, Luke.
"Why did the sperm cross the road?" Chase asked, his signature goofy and mischievous grin plastered across his face.
His three friends snickered.
"Ayo, what?!" Christopher asked in surprise.
"I don't know, why?" Samuel asked.
Chase bluntly replied: "I put on the wrong sock this morning."
"EEEEWWWW!!!" Christopher reacted in complete disgust.
Luke and Samuel were laughing and snickering, it was clear that they found this crude, teenage humor joke funny. In reality, even though they were grown men in their Early/Mid-20s, they were teenage goofballs at heart.
"Hey guys, what do you call six gay men in a war?" Luke asked with a snicker.
"Tell me," Chase replied, a smirk on his face knowing that this would be a good riddle.
Luke's response was: "Rainbow Six Siege."
This caused all of his friends to burst out into laughter.
"Oh my god..." Chase said through tears of laughter, slamming and banging his fist on the wooden table in front of them.
Christopher felt his stomach rumble.
"Hey, are any of you guys hungry?" Christopher asked his friends.
"I'm actually pretty hungry, could go for some KFC but, y'know, zombie apocalypse..." Samuel replied
"Yeah, I'm pretty hungry..." Chase agreed.
Luke did not speak a word but nodded in agreement. The four were all hungry from running from house to house, backyard through backyard, all while shooting, ducking, and dodging waves of zombies. The last meal they had, were bowls of chicken noodle soup, back at their home base, which was probably burned to the ground.
"So... What do you guys all have?" Chase asked
And with Chase's question, the boys emptied their bags and laid out all the food and drinks they had on the table. They had a wide variety of foods and drinks on the table, ranging from candies and snack bars, sealed, plastic bowls of cereal, boxed and canned foods, water bottles, and canned beverages, mainly consisting of soda.
"Man, looks like we've got quite a feast, this could probably last us a few weeks or even a month..." Christopher commented at the sheer amount of food they had. He
"Well, at least we've got food, it's one of the few luxuries we have during the zombie apocalypse besides our guns." was Chase's opinion.
And with that, the boys began to feast on some of the food they had on the table, which was refreshing and vanquished their hunger and depleted energy after fighting and running from zombies for a little over 2 hours.
"Hey, you guys got a plan?" Samuel asked before biting into the hot pocket he had heated up using the house's microwave.
Christopher and Luke looked at each other and nodded, and then glanced at their buddies, Chase and Samuel.
"Y'all keeping a secret from us or somethin'?" Samuel asked, raising his brow.
"We've come up with a plan," Christopher stated.
Christopher got up, walked towards one of the windows of the home, slowly pulled back the curtains and took a small peek through the blinds, and pointed at a vehicle in the distance. Parked in the driveway of a house a few ways from the current house they resided in, was a large, Class A Motorhome, a 26-Foot, to be exact.
[1977 GMC Royale = https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/images/news/1977-gmc-motorhome-coachman-royale-is-more-than-a-home-will-outlast-you-194431_1.jpg ]
"Oh yeah, we cookin' up a meth lab in an RV? We gon' be Breaking Bad, 2.0!" Chase said
Christopher, Luke, and Samuel snickered and chuckled a bit at their buddy's comment.
"So, our plan is, we're taking that RV. Luke has a car battery strapped to the shield on his back, so I bet we can hotwire it. That's gonna be our ticket out of this zombie-infested, dirty shithole." Christopher detailed.
"Why the hell do you even have a whole-ass car battery on you, man?" Samuel asked. He believed it was quite bizarre Luke had a wooden shield on his back as if he was a medieval knight about to slay a dragon on a quest, all he was missing was a sword, but even more bizarre, taped to the back of the shield was a high-end car battery with a few wires.
"Man's got the whole-ass Razorback from Team Fortress." Chase joked with a smirk.
"Where did you even get that?"
"On the first day of the apocalypse when the riots and looting were goin' on, I slipped through the crowd, pushed past all the rednecks at O'Reilly's, and splitting the defense past the 40-year-old neckbeards who smell like cigarettes and cheap brandy," Luke said with a proud and mischievous smirk.
You could tell in his imagination, he was roleplaying as a football player with the football, running down the field about to score a touchdown while fleeing from the rednecks.
His friends all chuckled at Luke's description, they knew he could be quite descriptive with scenarios he had experienced.
"It ain't a crime if you don't get caught," Luke said, mimicking Chase's hillbilly accent he put on sometimes.
"Hey! That's my line!" Chase said, a little upset.
"Uhhhh, guys? We got a little sidetracked, you guys heard our plan, right?" Christopher asked.
"Yeah man, we heard you, so... When we gonna pull it off?" Samuel replied, confirming he was listening to the plan.
Chase was staring off into space with a goofy grin, cross-eyed. You could tell he probably wasn't paying attention, and had the single intact, functioning brain cell bouncing around his head like the DVD Screensaver.
"Uhm... Chase? Did you hear a single thing I said?" Christopher asked, an eyebrow raised.
There were a few moments of awkward silence as the trio stared at Chase. They had absolutely NO IDEA what was going on inside of Chase's head. For all they knew, he would have probably been thinking about smoking weed with a bunch of Jamaican dudes, or flooring it on the Daytona 500 Race Track on a rocket-propelled shopping cart, the man was the very definition of spontaneous and unpredictable.
Then, Chase snapped back to his senses, shook his head, and acted all confused.
"Wait, what? The microchip the government installed in my frontal lobe to discourage thoughts of free speech and active terrorism interfered with my thinking, and I think it made me blackout. What'd I miss?" Chase asked.
The trio had their eyes wide after hearing what Chase had said.
"WHAT?!" Christopher asked, completely dumbfounded after hearing what Chase said.
"Koj hais li cas?" Luke asked (Translation: "What did you say?")
Samuel just stared at Chase, not even knowing how to reply to what flew out of his mouth. All they could react with was just bursting out into laughter.
"You... You heard what I said, sir?" Christopher asked in his Drill Sergeant voice.
"SIR, YES, SIR!" Chase replied, eyes crossed and with his signature goofy ahh grin.
"Alright, when we leavin'?" Samuel asked Christopher
Christopher pulled out his phone and checked the time, 1:44 AM.
"Let's roll out in about 15 minutes, we'll leave at 2:00 AM," Christopher said
"Sounds good," Chase replied. "Hey, how about we scavenge this house for anything of use?"
"Good idea, let's do it," Samuel replied
And with that, the four all split into different areas of the home, to try and find food, medical supplies, and weapons. Luke went into a room, and to describe the aesthetic of the room, it was a bedroom that looked like an elderly person would have, it just gave off that smell and vibe. He walked towards the bed in the room and checked under the pillows, and after flipping both, he found a silver, Double-Action, 6-Shooter Revolver, which caught his eye.
He took the revolver, put his right index finger in the trigger guard, and spun the gun around, feeling like he was some kind of cowboy or Western justice doer. He walked to a nearby dresser drawer, opened it up, and found a small box of .500 S&W Magnum cartridges. He checked the revolver's cylinder and smiled a bit when all six rounds were present. He left the bedroom, placing the revolver in his pocket and returning to the living room, and sitting on the couch.
1:59 AM
After the boys had scavenged the house for any useful supplies, they all sat in the living room, ready to move all of the heavy objects blocking the front door, and facing the horde once more.
"Stay frosty boys, in about a minute we'll be out the door and facing hell again..." Christopher said in a Drill Sergeant voice, standing in front of his three friends, about to deliver a speech.
Christopher cleared his throat, and spoke in a bold voice, as if he was a military general making a valiant speech to his fellow soldiers:
"You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would be killed in a major battle. Every man is scared in his first action. If he says he's not, he's a goddamn liar. But the real hero is the man who fights even though he's scared. Some men will get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour, and for some it takes days. But the real man never lets his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood."
Chase, Luke, and Samuel all nodded. Chase and Samuel began to clap, while Luke saluted after Christopher finished his speech.
"Hmmm, that sounds like good odds, there's only four of us, and 2% of 4 is... 0.08%, so technically, none of us will die," Samuel said with a confident smile and voice as he checked his phone on how much 2% of 4 was.
"Uhm... I hate to break you larping as George S. Patton dude, but, it's 2:01 AM, didn't you say we were finna leave at exactly 2:00 AM?" Chase asked, eyebrows raised.
Christopher's eyes widened and his confident demeanor slightly dropped.
"Oh, Scheisse! Come on, troops, let's roll out!" Christopher replied, slightly panicked but returning to his military leader-esque persona.
"SIR, YES, SIR!" His three friends replied, following his command. The trio ran towards the front door, throwing away all of the heavy objects they used to barricade it. As fast as he could, Christopher used his left hand to unlock the front door and swiftly swung it open, the door slamming against the wall hard.
Standing right outside the door, was a large, bloated zombie, moaning and reaching its swollen arms towards Christopher.
"Aw shit, here we go again," Samuel said, in the voice of CJ from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
"Zurück, Zurück, Zurück!" Christopher ordered. (Translation: "Back up, Back up, Back up!" [OR] "Return, Return, Return!")
He and his friends had already come across one bloated zombie in the previous house they hid in, and it ended in an explosion that showered the room and the boys in red, and guts. The three obeyed Christopher's command, and they all fired their guns at the bloated zombie while backing up into other rooms and hallways of the house.
Luke decided it was time to put the revolver he had found to the test. He had never seen one like it. It was as heavy as an anchor (not literally) and was fairly large for its class of firearm. He put his finger on the trigger, closed his left eye, and aimed at the bloated zombie's head. He squeezed the trigger, and a loud gunshot rang out into the house.
Christopher, who had been standing right next to Luke, clutched his left ear with his hand and groaned as he heard a ringing in his left ear.
"Jesus, that is LOUD! It's like a thunderstrike!" Christopher comments
As the revolver fired, the gun jumped from the recoil of the shot, greatly affecting Luke's accuracy. Instead of shooting the zombie in the head, the round hit the ceiling. It wasn't a skill issue, Luke had utilized many different types of firearms during his nearly 7-year military service career, so he definitely had experience under his belt. He had dealt with intense recoil from firearms and heavy artillery, but the recoil and jump from this revolver, even after one shot, seemed insane.
He pretty much had the expression on his face when he witnessed how much recoil this gun had.
"Up the stairs, Up the stairs!" Chase warned.
"I'll cover you!" Samuel replied to his friend, as all four stood on top of the stairs as the bloated zombie shambled towards them.
Luke got into a better firing stance, gripping the revolver tightly, and fired his second shot, aimed at the head of the bloated zombie. Once again, the revolver jolted upwards again from the recoil, and missed the zombie's head, hitting the ceiling again. Fortunately, his second shot had just a tad bit more accuracy.
"Shit!" Luke yelled out, in a bit of frustration and panic.
"Open fiiiire!!!" Christopher ordered in an urgent and panicked voice as he kept firing his MP 40.
Chase kept firing until he heard Click Click Click from his M16A4.
"Shit, I gotta reload!" He exclaimed in a panicked voice, ejecting the empty magazine from his rifle. He then did something no one expected.
(The End of AVCSS S01E1 Part III... To Be Continued...)