Sarah Tries to Save the World (2 page)

Chapter 2

It takes us a few days to dig to Perlin. It would’ve taken us a long time even if all of us had dug for 24 hours straight- all the dirt we took from the tunnels had to go somewhere, so we had to seal our tunnel behind us.

Of course, this meant that the person on ‘break’ was most likely cooking or moving the supplies forward, not truly taking a break.

We tunnel until we almost completely reached the surface. Aria pokes her head out of the tiny hole we made (which was barely large enough to accommodate her head). After looking around for a few moments, she comes back down.

“As far as I can see, the coast is clear.”

We would’ve all cheered, but we’re too used to disappointment for that. Instead, we grab our weapons and head up to the surface. Nearest to us are a few demolished buildings, which we quickly check for anything useful.

Aria finds a bit of food stocked up, which she chucks in a bag we’d found back when we were newbies to it just being the four of us. Other than that, there is nothing noteworthy in those buildings.

Ben and I went to explore a building, which, although partially destroyed, is recognizable as the church. There’s a good place for sniping from the top, if need be, and a small, sheltered part at the top that would serve as a great base.

None of the zombies would be able to get up except by climbing. That is actually a really good thing, considering the fact that we have more guns than knives. We met back up with Aria and Lily, who explored a house nearby.

After that, we decided that sticking together for the last two buildings (a warehouse and the hospital) was a good option. We did the usual brief scan of the warehouse, but something seemed a bit off to me as I looked at a symbol on the wall.

“Does anything look off to you guys about that symbol?” I asked. (Obviously, I decided that asking them and being wrong would be better than not asking them and being right.)

They all look at it carefully before Lily slowly walks up to the wall. She feels her hand along it, pressing at random spots before hitting a part of the wall that protrudes ever so slightly from the rest of the wall. The wall literally flips over, showing an entire wall full of empty cabinets.

I stand there with the rest of the people, and we’re all utterly flabbergasted, before our brains kick into gear and we decide to search the cabinets for valuables that somebody might’ve hidden.

Hidden stuff is almost ALWAYS good loot. We all carefully examine the cabinets, discovering a single piece of paper, hidden in the very back of one so it was almost impossible to see.

Instead of letters on the paper, however, there are strange symbols. I look at it, confused, as Lily presses another button (making the wall flip back over).

“One of the symbols at the top matches the one painted on this wall. It looks familiar from something else to me, though.” She furrows her brow in thought for a few minutes before suddenly bursting out, “My dad! My dad had that symbol on the side of his uniform!”

We all look at each other, beginning to wonder what that symbol could mean. As we all stare at the wall, I suddenly notice a weird crackling sound issuing from a space nearby. I reach out, grabbing a radio that was expertly hidden in a corner.

“The plagues are growing at a rapid pace. The war has officially ceased between Murlyn and here,” blared the radio.

Then it shut itself off.

We look at each other, at a loss for words. I fumble with the radio, accidentally pressing a button that turns on a bright light. We gasp as we look at the wall. The intriguing messages “follow the white” and “DEK is to blame” are imprinted on the wall. Curious and shocked, we wordlessly stare at each other.

What on earth could this message mean? And more pressingly, why were all three things there, as though someone had placed them there for a purpose? Do they have a link between them?

The next second, we hear banging noises surrounding us. Apparently, while we were preoccupied doing all this, the sun had begun to set and the zombies were literally out for blood. After carefully stowing away the piece of paper, we pull out our weapons, ready to fight to reach our safe base.

I give Aria a reassuring look and she nervously smiles back at me. It’s time to fight.

Running out of the door, we rushed into battle. Ruthlessly, we attack when we can and parry the clumsier attacks, ducking if we need to. Only one objective is in sight for us; we have to reach our base safely.

We don't have enough energy (or bullets) to survive another full-on attack right now. As we grapple to reach the base, I’m pleasantly surprised to discover that Aria also has skills with a knife to rival her skills with a gun, although admittedly her gun skills exceed anything she could accomplish with a knife.

Whilst we fight our way through the masses, all anyone is able to see of us in the fading daylight is the shine off our blades. Finally, we reach our destination. I remain fighting while the rest of them fall into the hole. Although I’m parrying the attacks all around me, I can still manage to see the wave of zombies about to jump on me. I am luckily pulled down into the base by Ben a split second before I’d be submerged under the wave of zombies.

I fight to slow down my ragged breathing, taking deep, slow breaths. It takes me a few minutes, but I do calm myself down. When I’ve finally regained my normal breathing speed, the implications of what we saw in the warehouse (before we were suddenly attacked) hit us ALL.

“The sun hadn’t set yet when they attacked us,” I say slowly. “That never happens. The zombies take a few minutes to come out and be ready to fight….”

“Which means that they must’ve known we were here for some reason,” finished Ben.

Aria’s eyes widened. “I’ve also never seen so many in one place…”

I voice the conclusion I knew that everyone must be thinking. “There was something there, something that the zombies didn’t want us to know.”

We look at each other with grim expressions on our faces. It was all too plausible, even for not-so-intelligent zombies. They still have enough intelligence to know when information is not good for enemies to know.

The only question was - what did they want us to miss? What was so important about Perlin City that the zombies would attack before the sun set, at the risk of being burned by the sun?

Chapter 3

We’ve been tunneling practically all night. At the suggestion of Aria, we’re heading in the direction of Sunrise City, a place she visited on vacation once. She says it was a nice town, peaceful and quiet.

We’ll just have to see if Sunrise City’s remained that way, or if darkness has fallen on the once cheery city.

Breakfast receives the ‘all-time-smallest-breakfast’ award, with a single canned jar of food for the four of us to share together. That’s another reason we’re heading to Sunrise City. Without food, we’re goners, even with the small supplies of edible food we find on the zombies after full-scale battles.

Not that we could sustain a full-out battle, anyways. Our bullets are running dangerously low. We arrive at about noon, and this time, Aria doesn’t come back down from checking the surface with a smile.

“It’s all gone. The buildings are so destroyed that they’re not even worthy enough for the dump. Well, other than one rickety old lighthouse that wouldn’t serve as a base for anyone. But it’s worth a try to comb through the ruins and search the lighthouse for food before night falls.” She says this in a gloomy voice that gives me no hope as to the ruins having any food.

Nevertheless, we all clamber out of the tunnel and begin searching around. The closest building to me was a torn down dump that could’ve, a hundred thousand years ago, passed for a dump in slightly better shape with some faulty construction problems. I began to paw through the dirt on the ground, finding a single can of soup in the decent-sized building (if you could still call it that.)

Aria and Ben both found a single can, too, so we will (hopefully) be eating better tonight.

It all depends on the food we find here- if we find about ten cans, we can treat ourselves and have an entire half a can, as opposed to a quarter of the can.

Lily ends up finding three cans in her slightly-less-of-a-dump building, which resembles a building as much as a triangle resembles a square. But hey, it’s better than usual!

Anyways, after storing away our food in the base, we head to the lighthouse, where we’ll hopefully find even more canned food.

As we head inside the lighthouse, a husky voice says, “Well, ain’t that rude. Didn’t even bother to knock on the door, did ya?”

Aria jumped about a mile into the air as a white-haired man with twinkling blue eyes moved out of the shadows.

“The name’s John Pemberly. But just Old John’s good enough for me. I’m an adventurer, or at least I used to be, before this blasted war and apocalypse. And who might you be?”

I didn’t even blink an eye. Being a human among the throngs of zombies meant that friendliness was a must. I mean, if you’re still civilized, you should probably be civil to the other civilized people. If that even makes sense. Also, wordiness has no point. You’re blunt and not quite as polite as you would be.

“That’s Aria, Ben, Lily, and I’m Sarah. Sarah Sindile.” I extend my hand and he shakes it.

“Nice to meet you. Now, as I’m an old man, and likely to die the next time a massive zombie attack comes, I reckon I oughter pass on my old map.” He turns around, grabbing what seemed to be a small, ordinary piece of paper. He starts to unfold it, and it takes up a good five feet by five feet of space. “This here’s my beauty. A map of a good space here. Here’s where we are- Ah, I remember those two cities….” He gazed at certain points on the map, and started to reminiscence at length about the distant cities before stopping himself. “It’s yours now. I’m an old man and don’t need it.”

“Why don’t you come with us?” asked Ben, looking at him. “We could use your help.”

John waved an arm impatiently. “No, no, I’m too old, I’d only slow you down. Take the map- and come take some food! It’s more than an old man like me could’ve eaten in his entire lifetime!”

John takes us to a cabinet filled with “exactly 100 cans” according to him.

“I counted them myself,” he said proudly. “I grow my own crops up on the roof, and the cans I just take off the zombies. Who knows why the carry them, anyways. It’s not like they eat them.”

My stomach turns at the thought, but I’m still grateful as he pushes cans upon cans into Aria and Lily’s hands, before pushing bags full of home-grown food into my hands. Then he tosses cartridges of bullets into Ben’s hands. “I don’t need all this.”

“Now, you best be goin’, younguns. The sun’s gonna come down soon, and you’d better have tunneled to a new city before the sun goes down. Before you go, however, I need to tell you something.”

His twinkling eyes grow dead somber as he looks each of us in the eye.

“Follow the white, y’hear? DEK is to blame for all of this; so no, no, just follow the white. Never DEK. Always the white.”

His genial and jovial mood returns a second later.

“Thank you, younguns, for visiting me. I haven’t had some visitors in who knows how long! But you need to leave.”

As I open my mouth to thank HIM for all he’s given us, he says, “And no protesting that you have to help me defend myself. I’ve lived a good long seventy-five years, with fifteen of them being either a time of war or a time of great disasters, and I intend to live another good long seventy-five years and be a crotchety old man of a hundred and fifty! Now, be off with you. Goodbye!”

He waves us out the door, and I smile to myself, the cryptic message he said earlier completely disappearing from my mind. I have no doubt that THAT particular old man, though he might live to a hundred and fifty, will never become crotchety. “Old John” was the jolliest old man I’ve met in my entire life.

We head back into our tunnel and each ate a single bite of fresh bread- which was heavenly- and an entire can of soup.

Also, we decided our good luck would probably hold if we decided to sleep good and long, until the sun had more than risen for the next day. So we all clambered back into our makeshift beds, settling ourselves down for a blissful twelve hours of sleep, never dreaming what was to come the next day.