Chaos Theory: The Zombie Effect (Chp. 2)

If you haven't read Chapter 1 here's a quick summary, though I recommend you read it:

Claire and several other people are barricaded in a church during a zombie apocalypse. Jacob informs her that they are out of food, and will get some tomorrow. While they are talking, a zombie's hand breaks through a barricaded window, but Antonio shoots it. This chapter is written by Antonio.

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Chapter 2: Antonio

It felt good to shoot something. Aiming at something, knowing that I would hit it. The nice feel of the trigger as I squeezed it. The satisfying kickback, the loud bang. It made me feel at home, oddly. For the first time since I arrived at this stupid Church, I felt like I was in control, even for a moment. It felt amazing.

“I feel awful…”I say to Rosa.

“Awww, was the back to school rush as big as expected?” she asks almost sickly sweet. I can tell she feels bad about waking me up last night because of that nightmare she had.

“Yeah, the lines went all the way back to electronics,” I say, remembering how frantically we all had to work at Wal-Mart.

“Sorry honey. Maybe this will help you feel better.” She comes up and kisses me on the cheek. It does help.

“Thanks.” I say and kiss her back.

“Antonio..?” she says softly, tilting her head away. “Remember when we were in high school, and we had that dream that I was going to go to college…and you were going to get a good job. And we would have enough money, and live happy forever after, like in a fairy tale? Remember that?”

“Yeah,” I say carefully.

“What happened? What happened to that dream we had?” She asks, and I see that she’s holding back tears.

“We…we woke up from it,”

“Antonio!”

“Wha, sorry” I turned around and see Huojin, a constructionist staring at me.

“I’m going to barricade the window again, and check for anymore openings. You should get everything we need for the trip tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure” I stood up and walked over past the empty pews and up to the altar. Behind it was our supply pile. I looked through it to find anything that would be of use for tomorrow’s journey. A few flashlights, a lantern, some pillows we took off the pews. I rummaged through the pile until I found a few useful things. “A knife, three stun-guns and some bandages” I said to myself, thinking over anything that could happen. “That should protect us from a zombie attack. Since there’s no food don’t have to worry about that. A flashlight in case we get stuck for too long and three bottles of water.” I brought the things over near the front of the church and laid them down in a nice stack. Then I looked around to see how Huojin and the rest of the crew was doing.

Huojin was repairing the window the zombie had gotten through. He was the one who had boarded up the windows in the first place, so I guessed he was feeling guilty. He was looking around for any spare pieces of wood. Most of the others were helping him with that. Claire, that preppy high-schooler was just sitting, doing nothing. As usual. Denver was petting CoCo and reading a book. I looked closely at it and saw it was the bible. “He must be bored” I thought. I turned and looked down the central isle and saw Mother Anabella sitting in the front row. I had completely missed her when I went up looking for supplies. I walked up to the row she was sitting in and sat down next to her. She was whispering to herself, probably praying.

“Hello Mother,” I said when she was done.

“Hello child. How is your search for supplies going?”

“Fine. How’s your praying going?”

“Good, good. Tell me, how many bullets does that gun you carry have left?

“What?” I said caught off guard. “Um… five,”

“Well, we’ll need more than then won’t we? If I remember correctly, there is a guns shop about three blocks away, the opposite direction of the grocery store.”

“Heh, what kind of nun are you? I may not know much about nuns, but I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be telling me where I can get “unholy” guns.”

“I suppose you’re right. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ll need them. I suggest you split into two groups tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” I said. I looked up and say that Huojin was finished. “I better go, and tell everyone the plan for tomorrow.”

I walked back up to where everyone was sitting. “OK everyone, I know you’re all worried about the food shortage. But I’ve got a plan” I stopped for a moment to put the finishing touches to my plan. I really hoped everyone couldn’t how nervous and unsure I was.

“We need to hit both the grocery store and the weapons store tomorrow. To do that, we’ll break up into two groups. I’ll lead a group to the gun shop, and…someone else can lead the grocery store group. We’ll leave at noon tomorrow. Any questions?”