Scratch

I saw some other people post their stories, and I wanted to post mine. If you can think of a better name for it, please tell me, and don't be afraid to (constructively) critique!
------------------------------------------
Prologue

I ran. I didn’t even know why I was running anymore, I just was. I sprinted over roots, through broken down buildings, across a barren field. Then I heard it. A blood-chilling cry, so close to me it was like it was inside my head. I remembered why I was running now. With renewed energy I kept running, desperately trying to survive. Under columns, in between fallen trees, down a stream, over another root- I had misjudged the distance and was caught in it. My whole body suddenly stopped moving, and I fell to the ground, smashing my face into the dirt. As I struggled to free my foot from the root, I heard the cries getting louder and louder. My fingers hopelessly fiddled with the root, my heart was screaming inside my chest. “I’m going to die,” I thought. “No. I’m not going to die…” A brutal realization came over me as I saw one running toward me. “I’m not going to die… I’m going to become one…of them.”
------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1: Claire
Two weeks earlier

    “Are we going to survive?”  I asked no one in particular. I might as well have been talking to the wall for all the response I got. I looked over at the people around me, most of whom I barely knew. Most of the other’s were sitting together, probably praying to God or something. Denver was sleeping, peacefully sleeping at that. Hopefully he still thinks this is a game we’re all playing with him. “Zombie Apocalypse”. He’s definitely handling it better than me. “I wanna go home” I whispered to myself, and suddenly tears were burning up in my eyes. I didn’t realize until now how much I wanted to leave this darned church. I had only been here for a week, but it felt like a lifetime. “I wanna go home” I whispered again, hoping for Ruby Slippers to drop in front of me, whisking me away from here. “I wanna go home….”

    “Claire, get up! Come on, it’s the first day of school, don’t you want to look nice?”
    “I’m up Mom, I’m up” I say dryly to her. Tentatively, I open my eyes and roll over to see what time it is. 5:30. “I really shouldn’t have stayed up till 12:30,” I think to myself. School didn’t start for another two hours, but, like my mom said, I did want to look nice for the first day of school. I stumble over to the bathroom and start to put my makeup on. When I was younger, I thought makeup was gross, and I still do. But if you want to be accepted in high school, it’s a must. Slowly, I paint over myself, masking the bags under my eyes, masking the scars on my face. Transforming myself into a normal, stuck-up, popular girl. Someone I could never be on my own.

    “Claire.” Jacob’s monotone voice takes me out of my daydream
    “What?” I asked, not even bothering to turn around.
    “Well… we’re out of food”
    “What?!” I said again, spinning around to face him. “How the heck have we run out of food already? I mean, it’s only been a week!”
    “Well, it’s not like we’re living in a grocery store. And there are a fair number of us here…”
    “Fine. But, how are we going to get food? You’re not actually saying we go outside?”
    “Well, yeah. Antonio said he saw a grocery store when he came here. We can’t go now, since it’s, well, nighttime. We’ll hit it tomorrow, at noon. That should keep us safe from...” Jacob’s voice trailed off.   
    “Ugh. Is Denver staying here?”
    “I... don’t know. Jane will probably decide that.”

    “Why does Jane get to decide? It’s not like he’s her son or anything” I said, staring at the pew. When I looked up, Jacob was already back to the little circle of friendship, talking to the others. I mentally prepare myself for tomorrow, running through everything I know about surviving a zombie attack. It isn’t much. “Aim for the head or both legs, don’t let its saliva contact your body,” I recite to myself. “Only go out during the day, as they mo-" A loud bark interrupted my thoughts. I turned around and saw Denver’s dog, CoCo facing toward the boarded up, stained glass window, barking.  I looked over at it. When I had arrived in the church the window was already boarded up, and hadn’t given it much notice since then.

    “Wha…what is it girl?” Denver said, waking up. He went over and tried to calm the dog down. The others started to look at the dog, wondering what she could be barking at. I saw Antonio slowly pull something out of his pocket. It was a pistol. The whole room became silent, except for CoCo’s incessant barking. We all waited, tense, as CoCo barks slowly died down into satisfied pants. I started to relax myself, convincing myself the dog had just barked at the wind. Then suddenly I heard a cry, an ear splitting, fear-inducing cry like fingers scraping a chalkboard. The glass in the window shattered with a crash and I saw a rotten, pale hand grasping the barricades. The zombie had got its hand through a space between the planks of wood. I screamed, and stumbled back into a row of seats. Antonio fired a shot at the window and I heard another cry, but this was a whimpering, pitiful cry. It made me think for a second that it wasn’t a monster trying to eat my brains. “This is going to be a long night” I thought to myself, staring out the window into the dark, merciless world I had to survive in.
------------------------------------------
Chapter 2: Antonio]

    It felt good to shoot something. Aiming at something, knowing that I would hit it. The nice feel of the trigger as I squeezed it. The satisfying kickback, the loud bang. It made me feel at home, oddly. For the first time since I arrived at this darned Church, I felt like I was in control, even for a moment. It felt amazing.

    “I feel awful…”I say to Rosa.
    “Awww, was the back to school rush as big as expected?” she asks almost sickly sweet. I can tell she feels bad about waking me up last night because of that nightmare she had.
    “Yeah, the lines went all the way back to electronics!” I say, remembering how franticly we all had to work at Wal-Mart.
    “Sorry honey. Maybe this will help you feel better.” She comes up and kisses me on the cheek. It does help.
    “Thanks.” I say and kiss her back.
    “Antonio..?” she says softly, tilting her head away. “Remember when we were in high school, and we had that dream that I was going to go to college…and you were going to get a good job. And we would have enough money, and live happy forever after, like in a fairy tale? Remember that?”
    “Yeah” I say carefully.
    “What happened? What happened to that dream we had?” She asks, and I see that she’s holding back tears.
    “We…we woke up from it”

    “Antonio!”
    “Wha, sorry” I turned around and see Huojin, a constructionist staring at me.
    “I’m going to barricade the window again, and check for anymore openings. You should get everything we need for the trip tomorrow.”

    “Yeah, sure” I stood up and walked over past the empty pews and up to the altar. Behind it was our supply pile. I looked through it to find anything that would be of use for tomorrow’s journey. A few flashlights, a lantern, some pillows we took off the pews. I rummaged through the pile until I found a few useful things. “A knife, three stun-guns and some bandages” I said to myself, thinking over anything that could happen. “That should protect us from a zombie attack. Since there’s no food don’t have to worry about that. A flashlight in case we get stuck for too long and three bottles of water.” I brought the things over near the front of the church and laid them down in a nice stack. Then I looked around to see how Huojin and the rest of the crew was doing.

    Huojin was repairing the window the zombie had gotten through. He was the one who had boarded up the windows in the first place, so I guessed he was feeling guilty. He was looking around for any spare pieces of wood. Most of the others were helping him with that. Claire, that preppy high-schooler was just sitting, doing nothing. As usual. Denver was petting CoCo and reading a book. I looked closely at it and saw it was the bible. “He must be bored” I thought. I turned and looked down the central isle and saw Mother Anabella sitting in the front row. I had completely missed her when I went up looking for supplies. I walked up to the row she was sitting in and sat down next to her. She was whispering to herself, probably praying.

    “Hello Mother” I said when she was done.
    “Hello child. How is your search for supplies going?”
    “Fine. How’s your praying going?”
    “Good, good. Tell me, how many bullets does that gun you carry have left?
    “What?” I said caught off guard. “Um… five”
    “Well, we’ll need more than then won’t we? If I remember correctly, there is a guns shop about three blocks away, the opposite direction of the grocery store.”
    “Heh, what kind of nun are you? I may not know much about nuns, but I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to be telling me where I can get “unholy” guns.”
    “I suppose you’re right. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ll need them. I suggest you split into two groups tomorrow.”
    “Good idea,” I said. I looked up and say that Huojin was finished. “I better go, and tell everyone the plan for tomorrow.”

     I walked back up to where everyone was sitting. “OK everyone, I know you’re all worried about the food shortage. But I’ve got a plan” I stopped for a moment to put the finishing touches to my plan. I really hoped everyone couldn’t how nervous and unsure I was.
    “We need to hit both the grocery store and the gun shop tomorrow. To do that, we’ll break up into two groups. I’ll lead a group to the gun shop, and…someone else can lead the grocery store group. We’ll leave at noon tomorrow. Any questions?”
--------------------------
Chapter 3: Claire
    I woke up to whispers dancing around my ears. It was so dark I could barely see anything. “Why the hell would anyone be talking this late?” I asked myself, frustrated. I got up and started to walk over to the whispering figures. As I got closer my heart started to beat faster and faster. I knew I shouldn’t go up to them, but I kept walking. Then they were there, right in front of me. I stumbled back, confused. The whispers were getting louder, and angrier. “Fear, for you are not redeemed.” “You shall be punished for what you have done.”

    “But, it wasn’t my fault, I was right!” I said. Then the whispers stopped, and one of the black figures walked right up to my face.
    “Hell itself is too good for you,” and then I saw a woman’s face, eyes puffy and red, staring at me furiously.
    “Mom? What are you doing here?” I asked; hope flowing through me for a moment. But then my mother’s face morphed, her skin turning into a sick pale green, her eyes turning from a perfect blue into a horrible yellow. Her skin started peeled away, revealing gashes all over her face.
    “No…No…” I whispered. Then with a vengeful scream, she lunged at me.  “NOOOO!” I yelled.

    I pushed the zombie back, and tried to run away, but fell over something. I looked around and saw that it was morning. I had fallen over a pew, and the black figures were nowhere to be found. I slowly stood up, cringing, since I had smashed my hand onto the floor to break my fall. Once I got up I looked myself over. “No bite marks,” I said thankfully. “Maybe it was just a dream.”

    “Ah, Claire, what the hell?”
    I looked down a row and saw Jacob had fallen in between two pews.  He had his hand against the back of his head and eyes squinted in pain.
    “Oh my God, what happened?” I said, running over to look at him. As I squatted beside him, I could see his head was bleeding.
    “You happened. I heard you yelling, so I ran over and tried to see what was wrong. You were thrashing about Claire, like… a spazz. What was going on with you?”
    “Nothing, it was just a nightmare. Sorry, let’s see if we can get you bandaged up or something like that.”
    I got up and looked around for any cloth I could use to stifle the bleeding. I ran up to the altar and looked through the supplies pile frantically. “Nothing,” I said frustrated. “Where are the bandages, I know we had some.” Anxiously, I walked back to see how Jacob was doing. When I got to back the row, he was gone.  “Jacob,” I called, looking around for him.
    “He’s over here,” I heard someone call back. I glanced over to see a young man with short curly hair. He was very skinny and seemed to have a nervous twitch to his voice. Jacob was lying next to him, his head half wrapped in bandages.

    “How is he?” I asked once I got to them.
    “Fine. He’s got a minor concussion, and will have to stay here for awhile, but it’s nothing that won’t heal. Oh, my name’s Wilder, by the way.”
    “Wait, but I’ve got to go scavenge for food today, I can’t stay here.” Jacob said. “We need three people, that’s what Huojin said.”
    “I’ll go,” I said before I could stop myself.
    “But Claire, it is way too dangerous, don-“
    “I’m going Jacob,” I interrupted.  “And don’t act like we’re married because we’re not, okay?”

    “I don’t know, he’s such a idiot,” one of my friends says.
    “I know! It’s like he was raised in a barn.”
    “Totally. Aren’t I right Claire?”
    “Yeah,” I say absentmindedly. I never really have to listen to my friends talking. Besides, they only talk about reality T.V and boys, both of which don’t interest me very much. Well, maybe the second one a little. I look at the other side of the cafeteria where my friends and I are sitting. A 12th grader, Jacob is sitting against the wall, eating yogurt. He seems so alone there with no one to talk to. I wish I could go over and talk to him, but all my friends think he’s a real creeper. Even so, I can’t help but keep glancing over at him, noticing tiny things about him. How he seems to have grown another three inches this year, making him over 6 ft. tall. How his dark green eyes somehow fit with his curly, light-brown hair. How even a stupid goatee looks good on him. It hits me how much I’ve missed his presence over the summer, even though we barley know each other.
    “Claire, what are you doing?” one of my friends asks me while I’m looking at him.
    “Nothing, I’m just thinking about how my schedule sucks this year,”
    “Oh my God, you’re totally right! I can’t believe we only have two classes together…”

    “Are we ready to go?” I asked Huojin. Everyone who was going was all standing around a circle, right next to the big double doors that lead out of the church. Around me were people I’d never bothered to get acquainted with. There was that pyromaniac, Antonio, the doctor Wilder, the Asian, some Greek man who’s name I couldn’t pronounce and a black woman.

    “Almost. Remember everyone, once Antonio takes off the crowbar holding this door back we run straight out into the middle of the street. Me, Claire and Wilder will go in one group to the grocery store, while Antonio and Zebah will go to the weapons store. It’s vital to stay in your group; we don’t want any dead bodies, okay?” he paused while everyone nodded their heads at him. “Okay, on the count of three…One, Two,” Antonio lifted the crowbar off the door handles and kicked the door open. My throat suddenly became tight as I realized that I might come face to face with a zombie today, like in my dream. I wished I could stay back at the church, but I knew that was impossible now. “THREE!” I dashed outside, and looked around at the destroyed landscape that used to be Virginia.
-----------
Thanks for reading! If you could rate it out of 10, that'd be cool.

Last edited by warioandbob (2010-03-06 13:26:17)