I walked briskly through the street of New Orleans, hearing the disjointed trumpet blows blaring in the distance. A Stumbler appeared before me, catching my musky, yet manly scent in the air and turning towards me, literally dropping its jaw from its hinges as it drooled over my sight.
I took a small step back, lowering my chic sunglasses to get a bead on the fucker. It had to have weighed at least 300 pounds before The Strike, leaving its slobbering husk parading the post-Mardi Gras streets contemptly, searching not for beads to give, but for flesh to take, and gnaw on vehemently. I resigned my gun into the holster after a small moment of pondering, and reserved my iron bat from the belt fitted around my shoulder, grabbing it tightly as the fuckers lunged, or more likely lumbered towards me, giving me ample time to load up my swing and bash the fat piece of shit in its cranium, blasting the rotting grey matter all over Bourbon Street. Ghastly, I thought, when I turned around to find the biggest Stumbler I had ever seen behind me, staring down at me like I was a Sunday's buffet fill of bacon and I had not time to reac
The lardass was kicked in the head from the side, sending it flying through the nearby restaurant's window, effectively slicing it in two as the large shards fell down. Camille, my nimble assassin, always a welcome sight when in a pinch. She spit at the Stumbler and walked over, waving her hips like in a runway show, giving me the red card on male arousement in zero point two seconds. She grabbed me by the shoulder, pulling me in for a wet, hot kiss. As our tongues departed, she lowered herself to her heels and let our her sultry voice.
"Now wheeeeen the Stumblers be coming into toooown..." she sang in the echoing streets as I continued:
"...there ain't nobodyyyy to show them 'rooouund..." as we finished in a duet of perfect harmony:
"...as we cock our trusty shotguns and we readyyyy our riflessss, we aaaaare the partyyy, to welcome new arrivaaals!"
We laughed and hugged, both completely aware of any sudden movements around us, and started walking down the street like nothing bad ever happened to the world. Camille asked me a difficult question.
"How many people do you think you would have offed if you had become a dead one here in New Orleans?"
I honestly couldn't say, but answered by courtesy.
"...fifty-seven. Most of them old folks, of course, but as you know, dear, I am in a hell of a shape compared to these lumbering lardasses, so I think my kill count should be in the tens at in any case, without any bragging, even."
She scoffed at my answer, hitting me in the stomach for good measure, as we continued our way across the desolate, post-Katrina streets towards our temporary safehouse, just down Rue de Monde.
She entered as I locked the fence up, with three sturdy locks, and I turned around to see her having opened the blast door-like shutter ahead of me, obliging as I entered before her with a tiff of the hat. She slammed the shutter down as I sat next to Callum.
"Well, well, if it ain't the true Survivor, eaten any maggots lately? Or shark balls?"
Camille laughed out loud, sending the ripples of her voice across the refurbished building and drawing out the other Mates from their rooms. Ronan raised his pants, buckling his belt as Shalia appeared behind him in the nude, hugging him and teasing us other men, most in relationships, as the round-a-bout whore of the Horror Holiday Inn. Trevor acknowledged my presence, throwing a beer in my direction from the second floor, not for a second doubting my ability to catch, but as I reached for the bottle, a quick and strong hand appeared before me and snabbed it from my reach. I heard a loud sizzle as the bottle opened, and three loud gulps as the liquied vanished into his stomach, giving out a mighty bellow as he smashed the empty beer against the wall, sending the shards down into the large, slowly but surely acrued pile of glass.
He sat beside me, raising his feet on the table in front of me and Callum, disgusting the girl with his behaviour.
"Well, well, if it aint' the untrue Survivor, picking up lint here and there just to save the day. Tell me, Garreth, when's the last time you brought anything useful to this community of... outliers?"
Camille came to me, hugging my upper torso, glaring furiously at Morduth, the only piece-of-shit hardrocker in the town of smoothing jazz, rhytm and blues. I knew she had feelings for him, some at least, hopefully only on a sexual level and nothing deeper, as I had made her mine, but it didn't stop this burly, ginger who was an apparent God of rock, to try and throw stick between my wheels at every opportune moment. I pushed her away and leaned towards the giant douche.
"You do understand that most of the electricity here goes towards your obsolete hobby and feeding the amps you so richly assume to be your property instead of sharing it with us lowly... survivors?"
I saw Callum react at this comment, but I didn't mean to startle or disrespect him. The only guy from New Orleans who had won a Survivor show and a million dollars, was now shying away from any real contact between us other people, pushed to choose survival in a dreaded town like this. I put on a stern face for Morduth.
"You may have come here from Norway, but before this all went down, I didn't see you burn any churches, or nut up for anything that would have made a difference here. So, I suggest you shut the fuck up or raise a real issue before I go on another scavenger hunt to supply your silly little role playing bullshit!"
He stood up, grabbing his 9mm as I cocked my Magnum behind my back and hoisted right in that fucker's face. None of us made a move or a sound, with Camille tremling behind me, unable to make a simple, affectual decision between two Alpha males, and Callum hiding his head under his hands against the table. Ronan emptied a .45 round in the air, penetrating the roof and causing us to turn around to him.
"Kids, you are a but a piece of the puzzle. You may be athletic, able to sort yourself around the fat Stumblers of deep-friedn Orleans, but how would you fare in a bigger and less broken town, say, the size of Dallas? Would you be able to make it, there, in the city of athletes, both male and female, healthy as hell and nimble as... Norwegians."
He was still buckling his belt, holding the pistol far too close to his rpivate parts without readying the safety, as he continued down the stairs, sharing his elderly wisdom.
"What we have here right now is paradise, or at least that's what I assume. Imagine the Wall Street masses, filled with superfood and pure nutrients until the day of reckoning came before us, hunting down any and all surviving humans
with deadly efficiency, burning their overtime not on caviar or fine wines, but on your trepid innards, munching away, without a worry of gaining weight or losing positions in the business world!"
He came to the landing, turning around the swiveling staircase and continuing his sermon.
"What about San Fransisco, then? We've seen their ability to climb hills and gain entry to even the highest towers built by man before the broadcasts cut off. Imagine those re-deads, would they gain power in their legs from climbing all those hills, navigating the tram routes, could they outrun you as you became fatigued, while they would hunt you down and feast on your flesh like the Earthbound hippies they were, camping in their Priuses, waiting for the right moment to strike at their brethren. Well, what about you, what about us?"
Ronan slicked back his long, ginger hair, fluttering down his pale, Irish shoulders before he put on a suave shirt handed to him by the resident lady of the night, holstering his gun under the tuck.
"After seeing New York fall, and after escaping from LA, do you really have any reason to doubt my words anymore? The words of someone earning the nickname "Rugged" Conan O' Brien? Do I look rugged to you, gentlemen? A lanky, redhead freak, somehow surviving all the odds and living until this day? No. I worked hard to survive", he said while aiming a friendly nod at Callum, flexing his gigantic biceps before us as his crimson sideburns danced furiously next to his beard. "I took initiative, and I earned that name. I might still be funny, but right now, I am serious as fuck. I'll have no more of this gangsta bullshit in this house ever again, is this understood!?"
We all nodded in unison, as Morduth scowled at me, ready to retreat in his special sound-proof chamber, as Co... Ronan pushed him down onto the small stool.
"Sit."
He looked at me and Camille.
"All of you, sit."
We gathered around the large, crescent-shaped table, with me and Camille explaining today's events and Trevor writing down the information for the inventory. Suddenly, Ronan slammed his white fist on the table.
"It's not enough. You all know it. Those slobbering fat fucks, they were the only risen ones in any city that I actually saw diving in grocery stores, filling their rotting stomachs with candy, pastries and potato chips over fresh meat, us, walking by unsuspectedly. Meaning", he exclaimed sarcastically "...that our nourishments are running dry, no doubt about it. But there is a way."
Ronan stood up, holding his hands behind his back and walking circles around the mahogany floor of the old inn.
"Seven miles from here. There's a drugstore called McCathy's. A pharmacy of sorts, filled wall to wall with useless trinkets and you'd be damned to even find any isle with some Aspirin on it."
We all looked at each other, staring away silently as Camille clenched my hand in hers, as Ronan continued.
"...beneath that shop, is a possible treasure trove for us. The owner was a real nutjob, a clear tinfoil case. I made jokes of him often during my show's run, and I know for a fact that he has a bunker underneath the pharmacy, filled to its edges with food, water and other supplies to last him, and only him, fifteen straight years."
What Ronan told us couldn't have come at a better time. We needed any possibility for survival, and we were going to take it. Among the Stumblers, what could really go wrong?
"Morduth, Callum, Camille... and Garreth, you will be the search party. Here, thekey to the armory, stock up on anything you need, but remember - any extra baggage might lead to situations you aren't ready for! Don't you forget that. Leave when you must, and I wish you the best of luck."
As we locked and loaded the needed artillery, weapon belts her and there, I saw Callum shaking at the thought of venturing outside once again, while Morduth was applying eyeliner and more white facepaint in the corner, simultaneously assembling and disassembling his assault rifle without even looking at it, the whole process over and over taking mere seconds. I looked at Camille, equipping herself with loads of grenades and handgun ammunition, while I grabbed my trusty Magnum, swooned over it, grabbing a sawed-off shotgun and a hefty aomunt of shells into my backpocket while taking all the Mag clips I could find. I motioned for the group to go outside and no less than a minute later, Camille had pulled the heavy shutter down.
I looked at everyone one of them, all both shaken and stirred by the past and what was about to go down, each of us unable to see our fates laid before us like a house of cards ready fall down at any given moment. I turned around and opened the three sturdy locks, letting my crew past and shutting the fence behind me.
The sun had begun to rise, shining the bright yellow light upon our faces, as I started to hear the trumpets sounding off in the wind, echoing across the abandoned streets of New Orleans. I looked at the map given to me by my redheaded mentor, and grimaced.
"Boys... girls... it's time to sing the blues again."
We hustled off into a brand new, post-apocalyptic day.
