Young Writers Society

"I told you already. We don't need a distraction. Just this baby." Here Jerry held up his gun. "Unless there's something about them that you haven't me yet? So far they just seem like complete wimps."

He saluted Syl, acknowledging his comment. "We have weapons. What do they have? An infectious bite? Just shoot 'em before they get close and we should be fine."

Connery chose the moment to interject, "The night-walker is already among the dead!" he announced.

"I'm going to take your fucking head off in the afterlife," Kate growled.

"Not so! Your soul is corrupted beyond repair! You will never reach the plains of the dead. Even so, we will be separated between planes! I will go the the place of the good and just, for those things apply to me as they will never apply to you again."

Kate gripped her cutlass tight enough to turn her knuckles whiter than her vision. Without another word, she marched toward the doors and threw them open.

She had to stab something.

"They can move faster than you think-" Steve started to say, but the girl was already out the door. He sighed and glanced over at Alex. Escaping through the back seemed like the smartest idea right now, but it just felt wrong. The conflicted look on Alex's face confirmed his suspicion that he wasn't the only one who didn't like it.

But if the ghost - who Steve was liking less and less every time he opened his mouth - was right about her already being dead, then there wouldn't be any problem if she got bit. The infection wouldn't spread.

...At least, that was how it would work in theory.

Before Steve could even mention his concerns, Brian was already heading out the door after the girl. Steve and Alex had to dart over and grab onto his arm to prevent him from going.

"Where are you going?" Alex whispered.

"Out there," Brian said. "Where else? I want to see the zombies."

"They're going to bite you," Steve hissed. "You can't risk it, Brian."

Brian tore his arm out of their grasps.

"I'll be fine," he reassured them. After a moment of silence, he yanked the pipe out of Steve's hands. "See? I even have a weapon now. I'll get you two once it's safe outside."

Then Brian was gone.

Steve let out a groan, and Alex let out a tired sigh. Still, it wasn't like they could follow him - Steve wasn't even armed anymore, and neither were as skilled as him.

Jerry watched as the two people walked out.

"Nobody obeys anybody, it seems. Extremely bad strategy. Well, come along you four," said Jerry, following the duo. He walked outside. There were only four zombies.

"Only a few?" he said, slightly disappointed. "Oh well. Now for the fun part." He turned to Kate, the only other person with a half-decent weapon. "You ready to kill these suckers?"

He didn't feel any guilt about wanting to have fun killing the green corpses. After he had learned that they were mindless and already dead, he had decided that he might as well get some target practice in.

Kate hardly glanced at the other guy. His obsession with a chain of command was beginning to grate on her. And there was also the nasty motherfucker trying to lock his greasy jaws around her arms. That was a little distracting.

The slippery little glitter licker managed to get out of the way of her first strike. No such luck the second time. As his head bounced and rolled away on the pavement, one of his friends managed to get their teeth into her shoulder.

She yelled in pain and shoved away. "Fucker," she growled, turning to face her new pincushion.

She'd hardly gotten her balance back before the bastard fae-created piece of swamp trash lunged at her again like a hungry hippopotamus. No grace in that things gait whatsoever. Maybe Kate should have been more sympathetic, she thought sarcastically as she took off the fucker's arm, after all, she was also infected and made to be undead.

The gurgling yell the zombie gave as it ran at her as enough to give her an insta-headache, or maybe that was just the leftover shut the fuck up leftover from the last time Connery opened his mouth.



Connery was truly a visionary in a den of eyeless hags. But even that was an overstatement. He simply possessed the sight required to know that the foul-mouthed creature who drank the very life of others to remain among the living where she most certainly didn't belong, was a danger to them all. A horrid, unnatural thing born of the terrible mixing of science and magic. Truly the lowest point in history, and what a human thing it was to do!

With these thoughts occupying his mind, Connery floated after the group. They were among the fray, fighting like barbarians against the hoard. Or, Kate was absolutely barbaric, the others had some civility in the manner in which they defended their lives from the hoard.

One of the walking dead came barreling toward him, and he shrieked, only for the creature to pass right through him as though he were made of smoke and the life-gifted corpse was a branch a child was swinging about.

Steve and Alex remained in the building. Alex wasn't exactly sure what Jerry thought any of them could do, given that Steve was weaponless and she just had a board. She hadn't been able to find any redstone to work on, either, which left her armed with the thing she liked to use least.

"Should we go out?" Steve hesitantly said.

Alex shook her head.

"We'd only get in the way," she pointed out. "The others seem like they can handle themselves, and they have Brian. Once he realizes he can't win the zombies over, the battle will go a lot differently."

Steve frowned. "It still feels wrong."

Alex gave a small sigh. "I know it does."


Brian approached the first zombie he saw, pipe held loosely in his hand. Maybe he should have left the pipe with Steve - it wasn't like he really needed it. It was Steve who probably needed it more. Zombies were always violent towards people like Steve and Alex, and Brian didn't want to leave either one of them unprotected.

But they hadn't followed him outside, so that made his guilt feel a little less strong.

Which was good.

Brian didn't like feeling guilty about things.

The zombie didn't lunge at him this time, but it also didn't do what zombies normally did. It just studied him like it was trying to figure out if he was friend or foe. Brian briefly glanced down at his infected arm - and wherever else was infected now - and then looked back up at the zombie right in front of him.

...It was trying to figure out if he was one of them.

He glanced back towards the building.

He couldn't risk Steve and Alex getting hurt. It didn't matter that the zombies were treating him with a little more respect now - he had to make sure none of their little group would attack Steve and Alex if they found out they were hiding someone who had gotten infected.

He sighed and turned back to the zombie in front of him.

"I'm sorry," he softly apologized, raising his pipe. "But Steve and Alex come before any of my creations."

He knocked its head off with a hard hit from the pipe.

The zombie's body fell to the ground, now truly dead.

Jerry pulled the trigger, and watched as a zombie was decimated by the pink bullets that were shooting out of his gun. He then ran out of ammo, so he grabbed another cartridge to attach. Unfortunately, some zombies were getting real close.

"Darn," he muttered.

He pulled out a small contraption out of his pants pocket, and pressed a button. A sword blade slid out, unfolding and expanding. It was glowing orange. He sliced a zombie's head off, and it began smoking from the blade's intense heat.

"Blech!" Jerry shouted, as the most horrible stench imaginable leaked out of the burnt corpse. He began breathing through his mouth, and then he ran around shooting and slicing every zombie he saw. He was also getting quite sweaty from the intense heat coming out of his sword. He turned the heat down a little.

He frowned. First there were four, but now it seemed like there were a dozen, along with another dozen dead on the ground from him and Kate. Another zombie hobbled in from the street.

"Um, are we going to leave anytime, or are we going to keep fighting until we kill every zombie in this city? Because I think we're attracting more over."

Syl watched the others leave, waited a few moments, then followed to the zombie-infested streets, making sure he left no form behind to be forced to return to.

He looked between the zombies, choosing a group of 5 right next to each other, and shooting vines up around them. Syl tied the vines into a knot and made sure to puncture each zombie's skull.

He looked around to each person. They could get surrounded so easily. This was a problem.

It wasn't long before the zombies were for-real dead. Kate had found herself in the company of real fighters, for once. About time. If she had to go into a fight with a flailing potato sack and a squishy little human chick she was going to flip.

"You are a truly barbaric fighter, cutting down your fellow undead as though you are in any way better than they are. As though you deserve your un-life more than they do." The OG glitter-licker was right the fuck behind her. She whirled, her zombie-goop coated cutlass passing through him. He shrieked and gave an indignant huff, then an indignant speech, accompanied by an indignant look, indignantly.

Kate just stalked around him - she would even go through that nasty sparkle-coated piece of rot - and went to the others. They, at the very least, had to good sense to wish a more permanent death upon Connery, as he deserved.

"How about we get out of the open here and fuck off to somewhere else," she suggested. There was hot, seething anger in her voice leftover from Connery's last attempt to mimic the English language.

When the sounds of fighting died outside, Steve and Alex finally emerged from the depths of the building. Alex had been right - the moment that Brian realized he couldn't win the zombies over, he had actually started fighting against them. He was standing near one of the zombie corpses now, wiping its guts off of his mask with his jacket's sleeve.

"We should find somewhere else to go," Steve agreed. Alex and him started to scan the horizon. There had to be somewhere that was safer from the zombies. If it had supplies, they'd be in even better shape.

"There's a school over there," Alex said, pointing a little ways down the road. "I've never seen one so large, but it must have supplies."

Steve had to agree. The building was smaller than the other ones, but it was still massive - schools were mostly one room. Still, it had a school sign in front of it, and it did look like it could have supplies they could use.

"Let's go there," Steve agreed.

He turned to Brian to see what his thoughts were, but quickly discovered that Brian was already marching down the road towards it.

Jerry retracted and sheathed his sword. He watched as Brian walked off. He looked around at everybody else, shrugged, and started following.

Oh the inhumanity of it! These creatures truly deserved nothing but the worst of fates, trapped in the bowels of the deepest depths of the worst of the underworlds. The zombies could join them there, as well.

Connery watched in horror as Katherine - one must mourn the loss of the girl she had once been - fought viciously - an animal! - alongside the horribly impolite strangers as though she'd done it before many, many times. But of course, she had! Who was to say if she did not orchestrate his death with the help of these hoolagins as well!

The trio who gathered together, one of them in a mask that hid his entire face - which was rude, on many counts, and set him up as quite the shady figure - began to walk toward a building that was clearly labeled as a school, but it was a pathetic one. A little building, one or two stories at best, certainly the kind of place with dingy restrooms - and one could always tell the quality of a place by its restrooms.

Still, he floated after them. The had, perhaps, been the cause of his plight, this treachery which hath befallen him, after all, and it was, therefore, their duty to send him back home once they'd gotten over this ridiculous prank of theirs. And for that ghastly creature with the horrible attitude to give him his body back. It was Connery's body, after all, he shouldn't have to argue to be given it back.

Katherine, Kate, the forest-dwelling bloodsucker, passed through him with a horrible glower on her face and shoved her sword - what sane person would provide an angry thing like her with a weapon? - back into its scabbard with a metallic shink. She tried the door to the school. Oh, the doors made an awful racket when they shook, and Connery found himself looking around to see if more of those rotter's had been attracted by the noise. He didn't hear any more moaning, but he still gave Kate a withing look. "You'll start up another of your barbaric fights with all that noise!" he warned her.

She tensed and whirled on him, fangs flashing like a feral beast, "Your shrill shrieking is going to attract the wrong sort of attention if you don't shut your fucking mouth-"

"How would you know what I do with my mouth?" he blurted out indignantly.

Her scowl deepened, and she looked quite like she was holding back the urge to scream. Abruptly, she turned and marched down to one of the windows. It was all boarded up on the outside, but she jammed her blade under one of the boards and pried it free, then the second, until the window was clear. No one who offered help got anything more than a glare until, with an athleticism that she had never displayed while she and Connery attended the same - much better than this one - school, smashed in the window and clambered up through it. A minute later the front doors opened.

"Get inside," she growled, "Except you," she glared at Connery, who doubted any of the others were foolish enough to argue with her, "you come with me." He certainly wasn't that foolish.

She led the way, stalking into the building even though she'd implied he wasn't going to go inside, and soon they were in a classroom, of sorts. It was much smaller than any of the classrooms he'd studied in, and had absolutely no workspace. Were the students really expected to complete all of their work at those claustrophobic desks? Did this school only teach microspells? Was there no essay work? How did one survive here?

"Listen up you fucking piece of glitter-licking swamp water," Kate's growl brought his attention to her. Her eyes glowed like red suns trapped behind the flimsy blue of the skies. The brightness of them now was hardly quenched by the blue lenses of her glasses, so they now looked truly like twin suns in twin skies, about to supernova.

He swallowed a lump in his throat.

"You're an insufferable prick, you know that," it wasn't a question, and he didn't answer. He could feel his heart pounding. She's going to end my afterlife.

"I don't know how the fuck you got here-"

"You brought me here!" he blurted, and immediately realized that was well and truly the very most wrong thing to say.

Her hand slammed down on the desk beside her and there was a crack! as the wood splintered. When she drew her hand away, there were claw marks left behind on the damaged wood. "NO I FUCKING DIDN'T YOU IGNORANT, ARROGANT-" she spluttered, the string of insults clogging up in her throat until she made a sound of frustration and stuck a finger in his face, "You're going to keep your godsdamned mouth glued all the fucking way shut, got it?"

He gathered his composure and rose to his true height, plus a few inches from his floating, and looked down his nose at her, "Why should I?" Oh, that was a good line! He'd write it down later. He was a beacon of defiance, surely she'd crumble at his resolve! She'd realize he was unbreakable just as she broke herself in her attempts to slay him! Her words meant nothing - well, a little. Barely anything. Perhaps a little more than just that - and she would realize she fought him with blades of grass rather than steel. How heroic he was to brave her torment! How resolute! How-

Her glare had turned stony. A blunt instrument which she pounded into his head with her eyes. His resolve chipped a little.

"Because you want to get home," she ground out from between clenched teeth. Her fangs were very, very sharp. "And if you don't want your body skinned and used to make sandals, I would suggest you stop pissing everyone off."

"You're the only one who's angry," he huffed, "The others find me to be just as charming as I am, unlike you. You're vulgar and rude. Perhaps it's you who has to watch your mouth." His resolve came right back. She was a pitiful little thing. An undead, blood-sucking, nightwalker with the language skills of the most disgraceful sailor the ports had ever had the displeasure of welcoming. The others were just a little harsh with him because she put them on edge.

Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath - he had never known Katherine to be one for theatrics, but she had changed in so many ways already - and she fixed him with a cold stare, right in his eyes. It was impossible for him to break eye contact. Some spell, it was. She was a witch as well as a nightwalker! That was it! That was how she accomplished this all!

"Go to hell, Connery."

She turned to leave, but he stopped her with his words, "You used to be quite the sweet girl," he grumbled. He had hardly meant for her to hear, and he hadn't expected her to respond. What he expected was for her to glare at him again, maybe try to slash at his spectatorial form. What he got was her whipping around, the look on her face so heated, so full of hatred and bloody murder, he forgot he was dead. He feared for his life.

"I NEVER FUCKING CHANGED!" she practically screamed, "I'M THE EXACT-FUCKING-SAME PERSON YOU ATTENDED CLASSES WITH YOU DENSE FUCKER! You changed. You stared being a dick the moment I got these fangs, you bigoted piece of trash. Get the fuck over yourself and don't say another fucking word until you learn how to get off that high-horse of yours."

With that, she vanished through the doorway, leaving Connery dumbfounded in her wake.

Steve was trying to keep their group together and unified, but he was starting to realize how impossible of a task that was. Arguments kept breaking out. People kept slipping off. He was sure the ghost possessing the zombie was going to get into another argument with Brian soon, and was sure that Jerry was going to reprimand them all for something Steve honestly had no control over.

He sighed and massaged his forehead.

They were standing in what looked like a classroom now. Alex was digging through the electronics in the back, trying to find anything she could salvage and make into a new creation. Brian was as restless as usual. He kept wandering around and fiddling with things, swinging them about to test if they worked as an impromptu weapon. Right now he was waving a ruler in the air.

Steve didn't have the heart to tell him that even with his strength, that ruler wasn't going to be cutting through any zombies.

Steve opened his mouth to say something - he wasn't sure what - but then he glanced over at Brian and realized he wasn't swinging the ruler around anymore. Brian, and the ruler, had both vanished from the room. He knew that Brian couldn't get kidnapped right under their noses, and knew that Brian also wouldn't let himself get kidnapped.

But it was definitely worrying.

"Hey, Alex?" he said, drifting over to his sister's side. "Have you seen Brian?"

Alex shook her head.

Steve wanted to give a groan in frustration, but then he realized Alex was tapping her arm in the same spot Brian had been bit - he must have been about to turn.

"Oh," he said. "Well, hopefully he gets back soon - wherever he is."