The Rising; Chapter Five

Chapter Five - To Live Is To Lose1

Luke burst into the room shouting my name as the very tip of Tanya's lips brushed mine for an instant.2

"There's two in the back garden Shaw!" His eyes were wide and he was out of breath.3

I told Tanya to follow us as we ran downstairs, and found everybody starting towards the kitchen door.4

"Guys! Stop! wait a second!" I whispered fiercely.5

Everyone turned to look at me, every now and then they would glance back to the figures of the two creatures roaming the garden.6

"There must be a hole, so before we cause any disturbance we need to patch up yeah? So we either kill silently, which is hard since there are two, or we lure them into the garage using Luke as sure dead bait" I put forwards the idea's to the group, Luke took particularly well to the silent kill option.7

My Dad took my arm and pulled me away from the rest of the group, he whispered in my ear "Go to the college, it's going to be much safer for you there, I've gotta go now"8

My expression turned from confusion, to realisation, and then to horror as my father ran into the back garden and stood by the gap in which they had broken through. Before the creatures got to him he fled through the gate, running into the industrial estate behind the houses and leading them out of the garden. I couldn't climb the stairs fast enough to get to my bedroom window, I needed to see if he was okay, but Luke grabbed me from behind and looked into my eyes.9

"You know he's already dead, Shaw, we need to get on with the hole now" He tilted his head towards the back garden, and the large gap in the fence.10

I couldn't figure out what i had to do, all his words just slipped over my head like i was falling through space. 11

I looked outside and saw Tanya hugging my Mum as John and Jake ran to help Mike, who was lifting huge planks of wood towards the gap in the fence. Emily ran to me and shouted for me to come and help, but i was still in a state of shock. 12

I felt blinding pain on the right side of my face and watched as Emilys now red-palmed hand fell to her side.13

"Come on, we need your help" She said as i shook my head and stumbled towards the garden. 14

By the time my brain was back to normal functioning, the gap in the fence had already been blocked up with layers of wood and compost, right up to about seven feet high.15

Something inside me made me want to go straight ahead and take everyone to the school, and so I gathered everybody in the living room and asked for silence.16

"Look, you know we can't stay here, and my plan is to get to my College, and I know we have a lot to take, but I think I know how we can take it"17

Jake and I once again found ourselves on the scooters, we revved the engines and veered out of the driveway and onto the main road. We navigated our way around the destruction which had now become a normality to me. We headed towards the set of warehouses down the road, in the industrial sector of the town. One of the warehouses was much larger than the rest, the Bus Depot.18

About a mile into our ride we came to the huge gates of the depot, and saw beyond them that the huge doors were closed, Jake and I exchanged glances.19

"Do you think?" I ventured.20

"Survivors!" Jake almost shouted compared to the whispering we were used to.21

Jake rolled his scooter to the gates and grabbed the handle. He grinned at me and turned the scooter around and gunned the engine. He almost ripped his arm off, but the gate started to move as the scooter revved loudly. My eyeballs nearly popped out of my head as the gate began to squeal and screech as it opened further, and the lock on the bottom began to scrape along the concrete. Jake stopped pulling and scanned the nearby roadside for any signs of life, well, not really life.22

He looked at me and gave me the thumbs up as i rolled my scooter through the narrow gate opening and let it roll down the hill towards to warehouse in neutral.23

When we reached the doors we saw a panel at the joining of the two doors, with a faded, handwritten sign above it with the numbers 2580 and the words underneath in brackets "We don't think they're gonna figure this out"24

I smiled at Jake and i punched in the numbers at the keypad. There was a metallic clank and i pushed the "open" button on the keypad. the door trembled for a second and slid about four feet sideways, i rolled the scooter into the gap and was greeted by pitch black, with a sliver of light penetrating the inkiness of the blacked out warehouse. I saw, around thirty feet into the warehouse, the edge of a boot in the light, i then rolled the door a little further, and saw, to my dismay that the boot was attatched to a shinbone, to which nothing else was attatched. I did not leave the seat of the scooter as i peered into the darkness in confusion, surely we should be dead by now, i thought to myself as i signalled Jake to follow me. Past the severed foot i saw half a giant tyre and part of the "FIRST BUSES" insignia painted upon a coach.25

I saw Tanyas most confused face ever in my bedroom window as I brought the 49 seater coach to a stop, and Jake pulled up in an equally large coach behind me. Tanya gave me an all clear sign and as we had planned, Luke, Emily, my Mother and Mike began loading equipment, food and water onto the coaches with John standing by with the handgun i had charged him with. As we were bringing the last of the possessions in to the coach, a black streak darted across the front yard and between my mothers legs and then into the hedgerows which seperated the garden from the main road, my mother recognised the anomaly instantly and dropped the box she was carrying to chase it. I frowned at the others, but nobody else knew what was going on. My mother began to chase the rustling of the hedges down a few houses until she was far away enough to spark me off. 26

"Get back here, leave whatever that is alone!" I shouted, but my mother waved me off and moved further away, I heard Tanya banging on the glass from my window, her fearful face told me all i needed to know.27

I grabbed the handgun from John and slipped the safety off as I ran towards my mum. Seconds before i reached her, she emitted a high pitched scream, and i saw her being pulled by both of her arms into a large bush in a front yard. I saw a bloody face in the leaves for a microsecond before it buried itself in my mothers neck. her screams stopped instantly and the hideous creature looked me straight in the eyes as my mum dropped to the ground. I raised the gun at the Zombie and aimed carefully as a tear ran down my cheek, I only shot once, but I hit my target, the bullet entered through the eye socket, and exited through the back of its head, pulling most of its partially denuded brains with it. By the time the rest of the group arrived to help, the Zombie had already slumped into the bush, not to return.28

As I knelt beside my mother I could have sworn i saw her muscles twitching, then I reminded myself that rigor mortis would set in and her muscles would contract every now and then, but as her eyes opened to pierce into mine i realised that it would normally take hours for anything to happen, and that she was staring right at me.29

Blood began to leak from her mouth and her hand grabbed my ankle, she rasped at me, but only her left side would move, the rest of her seemed limp. The Zombie which attacked her seemed to have broken her neck, and paralysed her body almost completely.30

I pulled away from her, and asked the rest of the group to give me a moment.31

They moved away in respect and with the girls in floods of tears, and I don't know why, but I did not feel a surge of emotions as I cocked the pistol. 32

This was beyond grief, pain, suffering or loss. Having to shoot my own mother whilst she was immobile was nothing I could have prepared myself before, and so I pulled the trigger, putting her afterlife to an end.33

Tanya threw herself into me as I fired, too late to stop me, she beat me with her fists until her fragile frame collapsed in tears against me, she screamed at me for doing what I did, and cried in my arms. Emily resigned herself as she silently wept in the coach and watched as Jake, Mike, John and Luke somberly lifted the rest of the stuff into the cargo hold of the coach.34