Never present your neck to a dead body
For a minute he pried his eyes open. He watched and heard a police officer and a man dress casually argue.
"This man has a record a mile long. He's been tried for five felonies and each time he was found innocent because of a fluke. He's dangerous. Just leave him here."
"Detective, I have deep respect for you and I always have, but I can't side with you on this one. If you knew what was going on, you wouldn't risk any lives. But you've been kicked off of the force now and I'm the cop and you're the unruly criminal. I have every right to put you in cuffs and have one of the other losers drag his ass out to the paddy wagon. But we don't have time for that, detective."
"Alright, just because we're in a hurry and I hate being in handcuffs. The first time I can finally get this man arrested and it’s when I'm not on the force anymore and I have to move his sorry ass...What has become of me?"
He passed out again. He didn't notice when they sat him upright in the truck. He didn't feel a thing when he fell over and one of the other criminals kicked him aside. It was when someone said his name when he woke up.
"Wow...It's really him? He's dodged five felonies and hasn't been in prison longer than a decade. I have deep respect for this man."
"So do I. I've been chasing his ass since we suspected him of smashing that poor computer salesman's head in with his own machine."
"Didn't they find the real criminal in that one?"
"Yeah, but from what we dug up, he almost did bash the china man’s head. He has more self-restraint, though. Isn't that right, Mouse?"
Mouse. That was his name? No. It was a nickname, but it fit him well. Take what he needed and hide and run as soon as you can. But what was his real name? Mouse sat up and looked around. There were five other men, all obviously criminals of some sort. There were three black men in here. Two wore blue bandanas, the other a red one. They were obviously of rival gangs, but their eyes weren't on each other, but Mouse. Another man wore tank-top and torn blue jeans and had a long scar going from his chest to his ear. The last man had gray hair, a puffed up lip, a long-sleeved black shirt, and cargo pants. Mouse realized that it was getting rather hard to keep his right eye open, his tooth and lip were bleeding, and his head hurt like hell. He moved back onto the seat.
"What's going on? Where am I? And who am I?"
"You're Mouse, the only felon in the United States not persecuted for a felony. You're in a paddy-wagon because something huge came up and the police want us out of the jail for some reason. We're probably headed to the prison. We can't do a damn thing there."
"Why am I so beat up? And who are you guys?"
"I'm Detective Harold Gibson. Retired, but I've been chasing you most of my life. I finally got you arrested, but I got arrested, too. We got in a bar fight. We both started it. We beat each up pretty badly. Haven't had a brawl like that in a long time," the gray-haired man said.
"I'm Randy Run. I was muggin' this blue-bandana buffoon here," said the man with the scar, gesturing to one of the African Americans.
"I'm Joseph Jones. Randy was stupid enough to try and mug me. This red-Rambo wanabee decided it'd be funny to help out Randy. Marco here saw what was goin' down and came to my side. We got busted right after," the man Randy gestured to explained.
"I have a name. Gregory Grones," the rival gang member said. He rolled his name out so fast it was hard to understand what he said, "And you're the best damn criminal I've ever known about."
"What about Adolph Hitler?" the detective asked, smirking.
"Hey, Mouse is a genius. Hitler was mad."
"He was stupid enough to be caught."
"And you were only smart enough to get caught with him. He was drunk, you weren't."
"I downed a few brews."
"He downed seven. Mouse here told the world last time he was arrested for theft that he was retiring. He was going to live an honest life; you fucked that up for him."
"Mouse would never retire."
"Says you."
"All of you shut up. The faster we get out of this city the better and I don't want to get out to slap you all, especially with what's going down outside," the police officer said. The car went silent. Mouse wiped his lip again and looked out the barred window. Something was wrong. And something very bad was about to happen to him.
Mouse felt the car bump a few times. He saw people running around outside the vehicle, screaming. One man was shooting like crazy as a huge mob consumed him. Must be some crazy riots going on outside. Maybe these men were very dangerous and the police couldn't risk having them instigate further riots...Or something more evil was afoot...
The wagon went over something hard. The driver whooped. Mouse stared out the back window and saw that they had road killed a woman. He skull was nonexistent. He noticed something odd, too...Her arm was missing, but with the way they had hit her there was no way that it would have come off...Not like that anyway. They went down a sharp turn and they ran another person over.
"Yo, what the fuck is going on?" Marco asked.
"You don't want to know," the police man replied.
"Officer, you know as well as I do that not only were those two people victims of hit and run as well as murder, but one of these men could consider this unusual punishment," the detective said.
"All will be explained as soon as we are out of Chicago. We'll head to Iowa or something. There isn't anybody in Iowa so there won't be any of these...Things."
"Things? Those are PEOPLE!"
"Not anymore!" the driver shouted, running over a child.
"HEY! I knew that kid! He was a good kid! His mother wasn't a bad one, either!" Randy shouted, standing up.
"His ma's probably around here somewhere, too. I wouldn't be surprised if the kid bit his mom and infected her."
"What the FUCK is going on?" Joseph and Greg shouted at the same time. They snorted at one another.
"If you MUST know the de-"
At this second the driver steered too far to the left to prevent hitting a pedestrian he didn't want to hit. The car flipped, sending the criminals inside all over the place. When Mouse awoke, he noticed that only the Detective was up. He was performing CPR on Marco.
"Detective?"
"Wake the others. Everyone still has a pulse, but I haven't gone outside. Come one, you damn Crip, wake up!"
Mouse crawled over to Randy and shook him. He stirred.
"No, momma, I didn't fuck the Jones girl again..." he mumbled. Mouse slapped him. Randy jumped, now fully awake. The other two were not so hard to wake. Mouse rubbed his head and noticed it was bleeding. He slipped the bandana off of Marco's noggin and wrapped it on his own head to stop the bleeding.
"Will Marco be alright?" Joseph asked.
"Who cares? Let's bail now and save our asses," Greg snickered.
"Hey, if he was in your crew you'd be worried, too."
"My crew wouldn't do shit for me, why should I worry about them?"
"'Cause you can't fight, punk! You need them to do it for you!"
"ENOUGH! Joe, he's alive now. His heart's beating. Let's wait for him to wake up. Check the cops," the detective shouted. Joseph and Gregory stared at each other for a second and Joseph looked into the cab.
"They're dead. You'd think that since they have seatbelt and we don't they'd live and we'd die."
"We should have died. We don't deserve to live. Those two men could have left us for whatever is going on to take us. Instead they died for our sins and our stupidity. Now I don't care if you're a Blood, Crip, or if you're Barney the fuckin' purple dinosaur and Michael Jackson's love child, we've got to find out what's going on, alright? Now stop bickering and let's try to get Marco here awake."
After several minutes of arguing and attempts to awake Marco, they were successful in getting Marco conscious. They all checked themselves for injuries. Mouse had his bad bump on the head, but it wouldn't slow them down. Marco was still in pain and pretty bruised up. The detective suspected internal bleeding. Randy's wrist was sprained and Greg's ankle was twisted, possibly sprained or broken. Joseph's ear was crushed. Fortunately they could still walk. Mouse opened the door and looked around. He didn't see anybody. He walked to the cab and opened the door. He removed the bodies of the police officers and took their weapons. Two 9mm pistols with an extra clip, two canisters pepper spray, and two batons. He handed the detective a pistol and a clip, and gave Randy a baton and Gregory the other.
"Mouse, are you sure it's a good idea to give me this thing? My wrist is hurt," Randy asked.
"Use your other god dammed arm."
"Right."
"No, left."
"Right."
"No, left."
Randy stared at Mouse and smiled.
"Right."
Mouse shook his head.
"No, left."
"Correct."
"There you go. Let's find someone."
They walked a block when they saw a man crying his eyes out performing CPR on a woman. She twitched, opened her eyes. The man stopped and starting crying in relief. She took a chunk out of his neck. The man ran away screaming in pain. The woman stood up, hissed, and chased after him.
"What the fuck was that?" Joseph asked, shivering in fear.
"Maybe that's why the driver was running people over..." Randy responded. Mouse turned off his safety. They walked down a few more blocks and watched as people were chased down and devoured by chewed-up ghouls. Randy had the six. One of the creatures charged at him. It was given the response of a baton to the face. It stumbled and charged right back at him. Randy proceeded to beat it on the head until it didn't even twitch.
"God damn, Randy...Experienced?" Mouse asked in horror.
"No, just came natural."
"Look, the hospital! Finally!" Marco shouted.
"Not a good idea. The hospital's probably crawling with those things," the detective said.
"How would you know?" Marco asked.
"I'm a detective. If my suspicions are correct, if you get bit by one of those things, you're pretty much fucked."
"Zombies?"
"Aye."
"Damn. We need a car."
"Where can we get one of those?" Mouse asked.
"Pick one," Gregory said, chuckling. Mouse looked in front to see a parking lot.
"That works. A minivan. Those are big and we can fit all six of us to a car."
"Consider it done," Marco said. They followed Marco to a nameless minivan. He opened the door, which was surprisingly unlocked, and started to hotwire it. He got it running and he hopped in the back. The detective took the driver's seat and Mouse decided it would be best if he took the passenger. Harold backed up the van and drove towards the exit of the city. They weren't a good crew, but they weren't all bad. Mouse felt he could really relate to Gregory.
For a minute he pried his eyes open. He watched and heard a police officer and a man dress casually argue.
"This man has a record a mile long. He's been tried for five felonies and each time he was found innocent because of a fluke. He's dangerous. Just leave him here."
"Detective, I have deep respect for you and I always have, but I can't side with you on this one. If you knew what was going on, you wouldn't risk any lives. But you've been kicked off of the force now and I'm the cop and you're the unruly criminal. I have every right to put you in cuffs and have one of the other losers drag his ass out to the paddy wagon. But we don't have time for that, detective."
"Alright, just because we're in a hurry and I hate being in handcuffs. The first time I can finally get this man arrested and it’s when I'm not on the force anymore and I have to move his sorry ass...What has become of me?"
He passed out again. He didn't notice when they sat him upright in the truck. He didn't feel a thing when he fell over and one of the other criminals kicked him aside. It was when someone said his name when he woke up.
"Wow...It's really him? He's dodged five felonies and hasn't been in prison longer than a decade. I have deep respect for this man."
"So do I. I've been chasing his ass since we suspected him of smashing that poor computer salesman's head in with his own machine."
"Didn't they find the real criminal in that one?"
"Yeah, but from what we dug up, he almost did bash the china man’s head. He has more self-restraint, though. Isn't that right, Mouse?"
Mouse. That was his name? No. It was a nickname, but it fit him well. Take what he needed and hide and run as soon as you can. But what was his real name? Mouse sat up and looked around. There were five other men, all obviously criminals of some sort. There were three black men in here. Two wore blue bandanas, the other a red one. They were obviously of rival gangs, but their eyes weren't on each other, but Mouse. Another man wore tank-top and torn blue jeans and had a long scar going from his chest to his ear. The last man had gray hair, a puffed up lip, a long-sleeved black shirt, and cargo pants. Mouse realized that it was getting rather hard to keep his right eye open, his tooth and lip were bleeding, and his head hurt like hell. He moved back onto the seat.
"What's going on? Where am I? And who am I?"
"You're Mouse, the only felon in the United States not persecuted for a felony. You're in a paddy-wagon because something huge came up and the police want us out of the jail for some reason. We're probably headed to the prison. We can't do a damn thing there."
"Why am I so beat up? And who are you guys?"
"I'm Detective Harold Gibson. Retired, but I've been chasing you most of my life. I finally got you arrested, but I got arrested, too. We got in a bar fight. We both started it. We beat each up pretty badly. Haven't had a brawl like that in a long time," the gray-haired man said.
"I'm Randy Run. I was muggin' this blue-bandana buffoon here," said the man with the scar, gesturing to one of the African Americans.
"I'm Joseph Jones. Randy was stupid enough to try and mug me. This red-Rambo wanabee decided it'd be funny to help out Randy. Marco here saw what was goin' down and came to my side. We got busted right after," the man Randy gestured to explained.
"I have a name. Gregory Grones," the rival gang member said. He rolled his name out so fast it was hard to understand what he said, "And you're the best damn criminal I've ever known about."
"What about Adolph Hitler?" the detective asked, smirking.
"Hey, Mouse is a genius. Hitler was mad."
"He was stupid enough to be caught."
"And you were only smart enough to get caught with him. He was drunk, you weren't."
"I downed a few brews."
"He downed seven. Mouse here told the world last time he was arrested for theft that he was retiring. He was going to live an honest life; you fucked that up for him."
"Mouse would never retire."
"Says you."
"All of you shut up. The faster we get out of this city the better and I don't want to get out to slap you all, especially with what's going down outside," the police officer said. The car went silent. Mouse wiped his lip again and looked out the barred window. Something was wrong. And something very bad was about to happen to him.
Mouse felt the car bump a few times. He saw people running around outside the vehicle, screaming. One man was shooting like crazy as a huge mob consumed him. Must be some crazy riots going on outside. Maybe these men were very dangerous and the police couldn't risk having them instigate further riots...Or something more evil was afoot...
The wagon went over something hard. The driver whooped. Mouse stared out the back window and saw that they had road killed a woman. He skull was nonexistent. He noticed something odd, too...Her arm was missing, but with the way they had hit her there was no way that it would have come off...Not like that anyway. They went down a sharp turn and they ran another person over.
"Yo, what the fuck is going on?" Marco asked.
"You don't want to know," the police man replied.
"Officer, you know as well as I do that not only were those two people victims of hit and run as well as murder, but one of these men could consider this unusual punishment," the detective said.
"All will be explained as soon as we are out of Chicago. We'll head to Iowa or something. There isn't anybody in Iowa so there won't be any of these...Things."
"Things? Those are PEOPLE!"
"Not anymore!" the driver shouted, running over a child.
"HEY! I knew that kid! He was a good kid! His mother wasn't a bad one, either!" Randy shouted, standing up.
"His ma's probably around here somewhere, too. I wouldn't be surprised if the kid bit his mom and infected her."
"What the FUCK is going on?" Joseph and Greg shouted at the same time. They snorted at one another.
"If you MUST know the de-"
At this second the driver steered too far to the left to prevent hitting a pedestrian he didn't want to hit. The car flipped, sending the criminals inside all over the place. When Mouse awoke, he noticed that only the Detective was up. He was performing CPR on Marco.
"Detective?"
"Wake the others. Everyone still has a pulse, but I haven't gone outside. Come one, you damn Crip, wake up!"
Mouse crawled over to Randy and shook him. He stirred.
"No, momma, I didn't fuck the Jones girl again..." he mumbled. Mouse slapped him. Randy jumped, now fully awake. The other two were not so hard to wake. Mouse rubbed his head and noticed it was bleeding. He slipped the bandana off of Marco's noggin and wrapped it on his own head to stop the bleeding.
"Will Marco be alright?" Joseph asked.
"Who cares? Let's bail now and save our asses," Greg snickered.
"Hey, if he was in your crew you'd be worried, too."
"My crew wouldn't do shit for me, why should I worry about them?"
"'Cause you can't fight, punk! You need them to do it for you!"
"ENOUGH! Joe, he's alive now. His heart's beating. Let's wait for him to wake up. Check the cops," the detective shouted. Joseph and Gregory stared at each other for a second and Joseph looked into the cab.
"They're dead. You'd think that since they have seatbelt and we don't they'd live and we'd die."
"We should have died. We don't deserve to live. Those two men could have left us for whatever is going on to take us. Instead they died for our sins and our stupidity. Now I don't care if you're a Blood, Crip, or if you're Barney the fuckin' purple dinosaur and Michael Jackson's love child, we've got to find out what's going on, alright? Now stop bickering and let's try to get Marco here awake."
After several minutes of arguing and attempts to awake Marco, they were successful in getting Marco conscious. They all checked themselves for injuries. Mouse had his bad bump on the head, but it wouldn't slow them down. Marco was still in pain and pretty bruised up. The detective suspected internal bleeding. Randy's wrist was sprained and Greg's ankle was twisted, possibly sprained or broken. Joseph's ear was crushed. Fortunately they could still walk. Mouse opened the door and looked around. He didn't see anybody. He walked to the cab and opened the door. He removed the bodies of the police officers and took their weapons. Two 9mm pistols with an extra clip, two canisters pepper spray, and two batons. He handed the detective a pistol and a clip, and gave Randy a baton and Gregory the other.
"Mouse, are you sure it's a good idea to give me this thing? My wrist is hurt," Randy asked.
"Use your other god dammed arm."
"Right."
"No, left."
"Right."
"No, left."
Randy stared at Mouse and smiled.
"Right."
Mouse shook his head.
"No, left."
"Correct."
"There you go. Let's find someone."
They walked a block when they saw a man crying his eyes out performing CPR on a woman. She twitched, opened her eyes. The man stopped and starting crying in relief. She took a chunk out of his neck. The man ran away screaming in pain. The woman stood up, hissed, and chased after him.
"What the fuck was that?" Joseph asked, shivering in fear.
"Maybe that's why the driver was running people over..." Randy responded. Mouse turned off his safety. They walked down a few more blocks and watched as people were chased down and devoured by chewed-up ghouls. Randy had the six. One of the creatures charged at him. It was given the response of a baton to the face. It stumbled and charged right back at him. Randy proceeded to beat it on the head until it didn't even twitch.
"God damn, Randy...Experienced?" Mouse asked in horror.
"No, just came natural."
"Look, the hospital! Finally!" Marco shouted.
"Not a good idea. The hospital's probably crawling with those things," the detective said.
"How would you know?" Marco asked.
"I'm a detective. If my suspicions are correct, if you get bit by one of those things, you're pretty much fucked."
"Zombies?"
"Aye."
"Damn. We need a car."
"Where can we get one of those?" Mouse asked.
"Pick one," Gregory said, chuckling. Mouse looked in front to see a parking lot.
"That works. A minivan. Those are big and we can fit all six of us to a car."
"Consider it done," Marco said. They followed Marco to a nameless minivan. He opened the door, which was surprisingly unlocked, and started to hotwire it. He got it running and he hopped in the back. The detective took the driver's seat and Mouse decided it would be best if he took the passenger. Harold backed up the van and drove towards the exit of the city. They weren't a good crew, but they weren't all bad. Mouse felt he could really relate to Gregory.