"Thanks again ....!" I say, but he´s looking confused in my face. "Oh,I forget."
I take one of my colors, a brush and an old piece of paper from the floor, and write down my 'Thank you'. The only reaction is, a shrug with his shoulders. Than we walk again in the same direction.

Without a lot of words (how we could do that?) we walk block for block. Sometimes my new friend shows with his fingers on some buildings. I don´t know why. It makes no scene for me. From time to time it's a shop, a restaurant or a window in a building. Sometimes as he´s not playing my tourguide he's check his knifes with a proving slide of his thumb over the blades. I´m feel very safe with him if there would come any new undead, but I wouldn´t met him in a hour without a zombie-apocalypse :/

After a long walk, we stop on a bourgious terrace house. Mister double-blade goes straightly to the door. He is going to ring the doorbell, but in this moment he notice, that the door is open. Bloody handprints are everywhere on the door. He´s geting big eyes, and for a quick moment I believe that there are redflames in his eyes! He would like to charge in the house, but i symbolize him, that we take care of it. I don´t know why, but he comes down and we go slow and carefully through the door in the house. Everywhere is blood and some parts of brains (?) and other small slime parts on the walls, floors and everywhere. The whole rooms in the downer level are devastated. There are some rests of furnitures and household items. I´m sure it´s the house of his grandma, because everything has a 'senior' touch. Before we go to the upper level I found a picture of an women with a small baby in her arms. The baby has long black hairs ...

We go to the upper level. All doors are open without one. After we check the open rooms - they looks like the rooms downstairs - we go quit to the closed door. Mister machete, opens carefully the door. I don´t see any Zombie, instead of this I´m looking with great wide eyes open in a barrel of gun!

http://media.egotvonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/grandma-gun-14.jpg?41ed4f

"Go out of my house your bloody little bast....!" she´s crying. But than she realized that his grandchild is here to support her. I be able to breathe again. Grandma and my new friend are happy to see each other, but she ask him very angry why it tooks so long time?

"As I heared the big Bang", she tell us, "I close all doors and windows, and bulit up the machine gun of your dead grandpa (may god rest his soul)." She strokes about the barrel of the old gun.
"Than they walked around the streets. Everybody, who´s didn´t find insight gets one of them.Is there anybody still alive outside?", she ask us. But before we can answer she talk again:
"Fortunately your grandpa (ma god rest his soul ...) presented me that new kind of telephone to my last birthday, so I could sent you the message to pick me up here, that we can go."

Machetus and Grandma nod to each other, and she´s starting to pickup her things. Nobody takes care of me, and I´m standing clueless in the room.

"Where are you wanna go know?" I ask.
Grandma answer: "Oh may son, to the place!"
"What a place?" I ask again.
She say: "Oh my dear, they called us ... we have to go there. There where the others are!"

PART 1

With him you feel a little safer now, but at the same time you still remind clearly what happened the last time you give trust to a complete stranger (.... damn you Wrus!!!)...Still you know that in this situation being in group is best than being alone.
You follow the big man without a single word. He walks like if he knows where to go without much care about you following or not, but still you noticed that after every corner he glimpsed at you.
After half an hour of silent and cautious walk, you saw him suddenly stop and hide behind a car, making some gestures with his machete. Obviously there is something wrong! You run and squat at his side. Keeping an eye out in complete immobility, you finally hear some trail noise coming from the crossroad in front of you...After some eternal moments you finally see the cause of the noise: Three rotten corpses appear, moving slowly. They are covered in blood and one of them is eating a ripped arm. This one is ahead and the other two seems to follow him, probably to have their part of lunch...Without further delay, mustache leave the cover and run in charge against the leading zombie. What the hell?? You immediately run after him, and while he decapitates his target, you use you broom to keep the other two far away from him. Mustache is a killing machine and, in the blink of an eye, he finish off heads and limbs with his blades and the road is silent again.
This last seconds have been just fu**ing crazy! Only now you realise the madness and you find yourself with short breath. Mustache looks at you, smiling. You can't really say if he is extremely brave or just crazy.... maybe both? Who knows....
You start walking again, and this time you try to make a little conversation.
“Hey, wow, you made an amazing work with that dead bodies!”
He looks at you and smiles again.
“I’m still shocked about all this situation. I woke up in the metro hours ago and found myself thrown in this hell. Have you any clue how all this happened?”
He just shakes his head.
“Mmmm, it’s a mess…So, do you know where your grandma is?”
He just nod, and point the road ahead with his machete.
“Ok, perfect. I don’t want to disrespect, but why is she so important for you?”
Finally a reaction! You notice that he start looking at the ground and after a moment he looks at you and start speaking in an undertone. It seems his parents died when he was really young and his grandma was there for him all his life, the only person that had really loved him. He must find her, he owe everything to her. He made a promise, to keep her always safe, and that is exactly what he is going to do! You feel that the sadness in his voice start to leave place to determination and he start walking faster.

PART 2

Finally you reach the house of the grandma. Great! It’s in the same district of Eduardo’s apartment, what a lucky coincidence!!
The house of the old woman is a little duplex with a small path and surrounded by some grass. The yard is full of abandoned stuff (maybe you can search for something useful). Windows are shut, some of them broken. No lights from the inside. You follow Mustache, running through the path and reaching the door. He stops, observing the door you see that there are many scrapes in the wood of the front door and that it is opened! You realise that there are some shadows moving inside and you hear something. It seems like if many hands are slamming against a door, and you hear also a distant crying. Mustache enrages and rush inside the house. Oh no, again! Damn his impulse! You have to follow him, to cover his back. It’s a hard and dirty job, but someone has to do it!
Inside there is a weak light, but year of miniature painting, under a small lamp, through the night in a dark room, have trained your eyes. Mustache is heading to the bedroom, he knows the house and the grandma seems to be pent-up there. There are many zombies scratching and slamming the door, trying to reach her. You have seen Mustache on the job. He knows how to handle the situation….or at least you hope so. But there are other walking deads that are coming from the kitchen and the living room. Oh my God…2, 3, 4…too many!
You try to push them backwards with the broom, but even if slow they are quite strong. You push left and right, trying to protect both sides and avoid to be surrounded, but you are quite tired from everything you went through this day and the long walk so, moving left to right, accidentally you hit the wall and the broom breaks. F**k!!! What now??? You look at what remains of the old good broom. The brush is gone and the handle is broken. What remains is a piece of wood with a spiky head. Not bad, not bad at all!!! You gather your strengths and pitch into the zombies, hitting everything that comes at range. Squirt of blood start covering your shirt and your face, till you see almost nothing but continue hitting almost blindly. You are unable to have a single thought and the only thing that you hear are the noise of ripped flash, crushed bones and some moaning coming from all around you. With your last power you jab your stick in the head of the last zombie and you fall on the floor under his weight (now you understand when they told you that a dead body weight more than a living…). You try to move the body with strife, and then you see Mustache hand that want to help you. Grabbing his hand you leap up, then you two take care of the grandma that is clearly in shock. She is safe, but probably needs some moment to regain herself. You leave the two in intimacy to hug and speak, and you go out of the room. Looking around and seeing the slaughter you feel so much satisfaction…and then you puke…This is too much for you. Suddenly you hear Mustache bursting in a loud laugh, and recovering yourself you start laughing too.

After the strange mustache man got rid of the zombie with two muskete strikes he decapitate it with a slashing noise. He spent a bit of time to loot the dead body but dont find anything of worth. With a guesture he singaled me to follow him. We sneaked through the silent city, occasionally some slurping footsteps we tried to prevent and turned the direcrion to bypass them. And yes, its winter and the first snowflakes are kissing the bottom of the streets. Its gettin colder. The mustache man moves like a cat in all its garace through the streets.. i never saw someone like him. sometimes he walks with hands and feet. After about 10 minutes.. i dont know... i lost my sense of time... we came to a small brickhouse with a garden entrance. He guestured and loughs insanely to the window where light is on. And the chimney puffs. Mentally i was really happy to found more survivors but a ugly feeling was with me.
I´m knocking on the door, slow steps i heard inside of the house and a old woman opens careful. She has grey scruffy hair, thick googles, a pink dress with a knitted dark grey cardigan. she smiles at me and a lonely tooth shines out of her mouth. In her hands she holds a hunting rifle and aims at me.
"Go away you godless beast or i pump a bullet straight in your head" she shouts.
"Maa´am" "im a survivor and i think your grandchild brought me to your house". I stutterd shocked. She puts her weapon down and grin evily. "Ben we have guest, take some brand and come in." she looks at me and say "boy, you must be hungry i think. come in". I was such happy because i was that hungry, i would eat everything. I entered the house and followed her slowly without any words into the kitchen. and took a seat.
The kitchen is a very old one. maybe from the late 70s. And on the floor its dirty. Maybe nobody cleaned it the last years. in the Center of the kitchen there is a old rusty wood fired oven like my grandma had. A big pot stands on it. The Grandma gives me a plate with hot Soup and meatballs in it. It tastes really good, and it hits exactly what i needed. It tastes strange... but i was really hungry..I slurped.. I smacked..i burped.. hell Yeah. just a beer i missed :)
She sits next to me asked my name and I told her what i experienced the last ours. i asked her about his granchild Ben, why he dont talk. She told me a tragic story about an car accident he had in childhood. His parents died there and he closely survived with a head trauma. Now he has a kognitive disability but he is strong as a bear. He is a good boy and takes care of his old granny.

Suddenly the mood of the friendy old Gran turns. "Boy! It was a pleasure to meet you" she nips my cheek and stand up. The door opens and big Ben stands in the door with his two machetes and rattle them together. His eyes are fixing me.
Gran:" I think Ben is hungry, it seems he really likes you, FOR DINNER"
Ben: "loughs insanely"

The ash choking the air gives a heavy overcast to the skies as the stranger and I make are way through the littered streets. Buildings and cars seem lifeless with the decay of this apocalypse. Hope seems all but lost of finding anyone alive in this nightmare.
But wait, what was that? A flicker of light catches the corner of the eye.
There was a candle in the apartment window above a shop but someone had pulled the blinds closed again.
Signaling to the stranger we make our way over to the shop. Windows broken out the place looks to have been looted. Not much can be seen on the inside but empty racks that once carried paint and hobby supplies. It is a sad scene to behold as we walk through the store. There seems to be nothing left, except, could it be? In a display case a female with fiery orange hair looks at you and you find a Figure Art book. With joy you hurry along to the back of the store.
We make our way to the staircase at the back of the shop, when the stranger suddenly pulls me to a stop. With a wry smile he points to the hair thin wire and gives a thumbs up. A booby trap? This granny isn't a typical type. At the top of the stairs the stranger give a special knock on the door and the signal is returned. The sound of chains and locks make way to a cozy little apartment when the stranger is reunited with him grandma.

PART 1

Stepping out onto the street, our shoes crunching on broken glass, what I noticed was the eerie calm. Nothing I had ever read had hinted at this; I could hear the wind and the odd crackle of flames, but otherwise it was quieter than 2 in the morning.
I can understand that zombies aren’t the most talkative of things, but where did all the people go? Surely there had to be some emergency response or military still on the ground?
Well... at least the street is clear for now. Walking quickly and quietly down the empty street with my silent companion in tow we began to head towards the east end of town, his grandmother and Eduardo. Picking our way between broken cars and piles of abandoned belongings I was shocked that the city could fall so far so fast; this looked like something I’d see on the evening news, not while walking to get the morning paper.
We had just reached the corner when my mustachio’d companion put his big calloused hand on my shoulder to draw us both to a halt. Just in front of us were a group of five zombies feasting on what appeared to be a rather famous local celebrity. As if that didn’t pose enough of a roadblock, looking down the high street all I could see was a crowd of undead swaying back and forth, like grain in a breeze.
Grateful for my companion’s silence, and my own careful footing, I took a few quiet paces back behind the corner and out of sight. Rummaging softly through the detritus all around I came up with a half-used red pen (Acquired – half-used red pen). I peeled off a couple of sheets of precious toilet paper and sketched out my plan to Quiet Mike (I had to start calling him something)... walking the road was a no-go, I had had more than enough of underground, and there was no way we were getting a car through all this mess. So, it was time to head up to the rooftops.
We slipped in through the shattered front door of an apartment building, taking care to clear each corridor and doorway as we ascended. On the third floor there was a long smear of gore that ended in a pair of grandma slippers, some reading glasses and an empty canvas shopping bag. Sorry grandma, I thought, my needs are greater than yours (acquired: canvas shopping bag – supplies split between transport box and bag).
Quiet Mike and I finally reached the rooftop and opened the door. Standing there in the weak sunlight we could see the city stretching out before us. It was only two more blocks to Mike’s Grandma, but I could already see how difficult it was going to be. In the office block across the street the wall-to-ceiling glass displayed an assortment of zombies, almost like window shopping for the apocalypse. The post office and my favourite sandwich shop were on fire, casting an OSL glow on everything around.
I pulled out my can of energy drink, because it was the strongest thing I had available, and decided that now was when I needed the boost the most. I’m not the most unfit, but I had never imagined earlier this week that I would be parkour skipping across town to reunite a silent human woodchipper with his grandma.
Then, just as I was about to offer some words of encouragement to Mike, I caught a glimpse over his shoulder at what had become of downtown...

Part 2

I started to run, with mike following closely behind (thank God) and I don’t know whether it was the adrenaline, the taurine, or the hours of playing Mirror’s Edge, but I managed to lead us all the way to Grandma’s house.
Huffing and puffing my lungs out on her roof, and now exceptionally keen to see Grandma and be behind a bolted door, I passed Mike a couple of squares of paper and asked why it was so important for him to see his grandma.
Two reasons, Mike Wrote, one, I have her diabetes medication, (he pulled out a small medical packet and showed it to me, and two, her place is where I keep the real weapons that I need to get me and her out of the city.
I eyed the two machetes that he had put down when writing and thought; if this is what he carries without his ‘real’ weapons, what am I getting myself into? And, what kind of old lady acts as an arsenal for her brawny young charge?
But, there are zombies about, and a friend with muscles, rage and blades is a friend indeed (or so I hope)! We drop down through a skylight and head one floor down to number 38; Grandma’s house. Mike rings the bell 5 times and waits. Inside I can hear some movement, and it’s getting closer.
There’s the sound of a key turning in the lock and then the door flies open, revealing a small old lady in a wheelchair with black glasses over her eyes and a shotgun pointed straight ahead. “I heard more than one person,” she says calmly, “you’ve got two seconds to speak or I’ll assume you’re a zombie!”
“Hello!” I quickly gasp, “I’m here with your grandson: don’t shoot!”
She grunts and rolls to the side, letting us in.
“I’m hearing all about these zombies on the old wireless; you can never be too careful.”
I think about that for a second and then ask, “But if your grandson can’t speak, how could he respond to you?”
“Oh, as long as he’s alive, he’s faster than me. Don’t you worry about that. Would you like some tea?” The door is closed an locked behind us, and I’m starting to feel like I’m Alice, falling down the rabbit hole, down into somewhere that no longer exactly makes sense.

Finality (gemini_seraph@hotmail.com)

"Hank you, I'll helpf you ind your grandma".

Despite all the cures I feel a little dizzy. Loosing a tooth drains somehow one's energies.

With this thought we look through the slit door and see a group of zombies wandering by the neighbour house. Unexpectedly, he shuts the door open, easy running towards them as if a kids game.

I curse and pick an umbrella all of a weapon to follow him in a folly.

His slaughter is as awesome as effortless and while he faces ten of them, I manage to keep myself safe and end up with two of the walkers with great fright.

With the street empty and a completely destroyed umbrella in my hand I see him finish the last two of them. As he ends up, he looks at me and we smile at each other. Could be that the start of a strange friendship?

A cracked loud voice breaks the moment "Mario? It's time to dinner. Stop kicking at your friends and come here. Otherwise they wont play any more with you and I'll give what you deserves!"

Without knowing how I get invited and I'm able to engulf some soup almost avoiding the pain in my mouth. Afterwards we keep a good calm talk about all. I deny being Mario's girlfriend and he looks a little disappointed at that, but there's no further trouble. Then I get astonished at grandma's explanation about them. After an hour of monologue I am still unable to tell from their vast family even if Mario's father was really his father or why his parents are scattered one in Mexico DF and the other in Barcelona.

After all I savour this strange moment of quietness and normality in a sinking world...

Your finish of the Story is awesome. I would like to give me my vote, but the is a big problem: if your finish wins we all are in HUGE trouble tomorrow ;)

hey,
give me some more minutes please...

So my part i little late, sorry for that, i hope it will count. i didn´t check my spelling. so please forgive any mistakes i made.
have fun reading!


As my new friend don´t talks too much, and because he hadn´t told me his name, i call him "Tuesday". Why, thats easy, because thats todays day.
After a while of walking, we reach the house of Tuesdays grandma. It´s an older townhouse, three stroeys high, a little bit neglected but in a good overall shape.
An interesting feature that caught me eye immediatly are the windows and the frontdoor. The were locked up wirth woodenboards nailed to the frames.
And there is smoke drifting out of the chimney. So there must be someone at home....

Almost at the door i hear a voice calling out with joy. Tuesday raises his fist, i think it might be a kind of greeting.
The voice must be grandma´s, i hear hear asking who i am and if i am are ok. Tuesday signals again with a thumbs up.
Grandma tells us to go to the backside of the house where she lets us in through a metal firedoor.

To me she looks like a friendly old lady, but the wrinkles in her face tell of a life full of hardship.

After a heratly welcome to Tuesday she starts questioning me.
Who are you, where are you from, what do you do here, how did you survive, whats the stuff you carry.
I am a bit annoyed, but answer all her questions.
Afer a while she is satisfied and i think i got her confidence.

She tells us how her house became a safe haven for a small group of survivors. Mostly form people living there. But also for a bunch of kids that lived around the corner. They all helped to lock up the house. Went out to collect supplies, and of course fought against some zombies.
Some of her group are already dead. Killed!
At the moment there is only one other adult in the house, he must be somewhere in the top floor, she tells me that he was a hunter when he was younger. What she didn´t tell is where he got his gun from.
The others were on the way to look for food.
Some kids are in the cellar, cooking soup for all.

After having eaten i´am allowed to take a little rest. I wake up when its dark. The other adults haven´t returned so far.
Tuesday takes the watch from the Hunter. And i sit in the kitchen with grandma.
She tells me lots of stories from here eventfull life.
From here time as a young woman in the last month of WW2.
From her 2 husbands, her kids, and grand kids.She told me why Tuesday doesn´t speak, and whats his real name.
She likes my nickname for him, so i keep using it.
Her stories went on for a while, until she told me that its her turn for the watch. She sends me to bed finally.

The next mornig i wake up, only knowing that i have slept like a dead, ähm very deep, can´t remember any of my dreams.
So there is a new day. What will it bringto me.... i don´t know.