survivors of lazurus Ch.2

Ch.2

John stood watching the creaking gates of the tower open letting the group in. they rushed in as soon as it was wide enough. John bent over breathing heavily. The small band had spent the last mile running from a small horde of zombies that had come from a small grocery store.

To make matters worse they were late, and to make sure they knew was Ronny the tall Lithuanian man who was in charge of the traders post in town and their boss. He had braided his black beard the only hair on his horribly scared face.

It had been burned on the first night of the new world as he called. The details of his pass life were extremely vivid and many did not trust him but John thought he was a great man. He treated him like a son if it hadn’t been for his slight drinking problem John might have moved in with him. But he settled for employee.

He strode up to the grimy bunch looking them over as they waited for the lecture, “well, your two hours late, Brian go find your mom she’s going to have a heart attack tell her I’m talking to john.”

Riley came running through the gate as it closed with an arm in her mouth jumping on Ronny. He laughed trying not to vomit over the dog’s gift, riley loved Ronny as much as she loved John, if she wasn’t with John she was with Ronny.

John grabbed her collar pulling her off of Ronny, “come on girl, let’s drop the disease infested arm before you become zombie mutt.” He pulled it out of her mouth and threw it quickly.

Ronny sighed, “Um so why the hell dose that dog like me so much.” John shrugged scratching the shepherdess ears, “well uh anyway what your little bunch get wait you were off to the mall right did you get anything or was it a bust.”

Lilith sighed “bust.”

Ronny frowned disappointed.

Wong spoke up quickly “not true I got some old ration packs that are still fine and Brian found a good looking gun.”

Ronny sighed relived, “well good and I’m guessing the reason your pouting Lilith is because you didn’t get to the gun store.” He raised what was left of his burned eye brow.

Lilith began to speak but was interrupted by John, “dash gave us some trash info that place was apparently far from clear, we need stop trading info with him most of it is useless, false or deadly wrong.” Lilith glared but knew he did the right thing she had a killer temper that shot off like a rocket when she got mad.

Ronny sighed again, turned and head towards the post hands on the back of his head. The three followed behind quickly as he thought. “I know Dashes info is less then, perfect but it’s cheap and I mean at least you got some supplies.”

Lilith shot up, “but at what price will it be on day, there were tons he said on or two might be around not tons, an entire horde. One day his cheap info will cost a life, is it really worth it.” She glared at Ronny who wouldn’t meet her eyes.

He pushed open the door to the trading post front office, it was a rundown post office that they had taken over. They had fixed it up pretty well when they first set up shop, there was the job board with bounties on people who were wanted dead, or to be found. Jobs to clear out small areas all kinds of stuff.

Also they had rooms for traders who needed a rest upstairs were they could rest before heading back out. It was comfy and well the base for the town scavengers. Ronny held out his hand for the groups borrowed weapons. You could take three weapons your choice then go out but when you got back you handed them in.

He stored them in the vault a small walk in vault were they kept a lot of stuff like extra food, some ammo and other stuff. He went into his office and sat in his wood chair. The room was nothing special. A small pull out cot in the corner a drawer and his desk that a picture of what everyone presumed as were his wife and his two sons.

He thought rocking his head side to side, he exhaled loudly “I’ll talk to him see what I can figure out and well I guess we go from there. You two go get some rest you have all tomorrow off so relax just hang do whatever you delinquents do in a zombie apocalypse.” The trio said their goodbyes, dragged Riley out of the room and head to the residential housing.

Lilith brooded as Wong and John talked, “there was absolutely no sign of anyone in the main building we found the jeep with a few rations strewn around and Brian found this dead solider who had his head lopped off. His gun in hand of course.”

John picked up a stick from a pile and through it as far as he could sending Riley dashing after it. “So were did all the zoms come from you say the main building was clear so was it the storage room or were.”

“Not sure probably the storage rooms yeah, but we almost didn’t hear them there were just three Lilith took um down quick but she was pretty noisy about it so some started shambling from some hall we would of stayed if there weren’t so many” john shook stick from Riley’s teeth.

Lilith spun towards him “there weren’t too many, there were only 14 or 15, sides we could have just avoided them and gotten to the gun shop we would have been rich or least on the standards of the middle of a flicking zombie apocalypse.” She spun back around and stormed off into apartment 6 to her dad’s apartment.

Wong shook his head and sighed, “Well I got to get home my family’s helping my uncle get ready to head back to Florida. You know my dad and his ‘family values’. I did indeed, they were big on the fact of loyalty. When the apocalypse started they booted down here to Brazil to a small farm turned to a small stronghold that held out for two years.

Why it fell apart no one’s sure but they ended up here helping to found the town and now was in charge of growing food for the entire town. It was also used to trade with merchants who stopped in every once and a while.

John said his farewell and headed to apartment 4b26 which he shared with Brian’s family the Welles. He lived in the back room with Riley.

He opened the door to hearing Mrs. Weller yelling in polish at her mother who also lived with them. He stopped shocked as the small lady came barreling out at him in harsh polish about me breaking my promise to protect her grandson.

Mrs. Weller came running over pulling the pudgy old lady with the bifocals that made her look like some kind of evil bug, “sorry john she’s had a bad day, Brian went to go see his so called girlfriend, oh and your eyes rolling.”

I chuckled nervously as the old lady stormed of to the room she shared with Brian. I head quickly to my own room. It was comfy but it was currently home and held all john owned. He hurried over to the mirror that was hung on the wall.

I put my finger in the socket and pulled out the small porcelain eye. I held it in front of my good eye and sighed. I had lost it to an extreme burn when I was in Mexico. A priest slash doctor I had been traveling with had given the glass eye of his father to me. It fit pretty well but had the problem of rolling down without me noticing, and a mismatch eye color.

I sighed and carefully slipped it back in. I looked at riley with my blue slash brown eyes, she stared back with a worried look. “Well how’s it look” she wined and flopped down on to the ground, she despised the prosthetic eyes look.

He looked himself over, he pulled his collar down and examined the harsh burn on his shoulder he had earned a month ago trying to save what he thought was a normal little girl but was a stumbling corpse and had been knocked him into a fire pit. The doc had patch it up good and the burn had saved him from zombification, but it hurt badly.

He had several scars and burns with similar stories some from zombies some from psychopaths, even one from when Wong had found me with my eye out. Had thought I was a zombie and shot at me, luckily he was a bad shot. But he had ripped through an artery.

He heard the apartment door slam open, and a knock on his room he ran to the door and opened it to see Brian standing there. “Caravans have arrived a day early come on we need you down there now for support.” I nodded and grabbed my bb gun from behind the door and ran out the door behind Brian.