Chapter 6: 'The Foundations of Apocalypse' Part 4

It was like a bucket of cold water to the head. Whipping his body with extreme cold as he passed through the emergency exit. A woman's screams echoed in the background as the several detonations of the gun echoed like popcorn in the microwave. Illuminating the scene of dark hallways, on a dark blue ceramic tile floor and white walls, the detonations flickered brightly.

Sam looked back and his eyes widened at the sight of such an unpleasant scene. Alphonse had fired at the monster holding the woman by the legs, but it didn't stop. Despite multiple bullets piercing his chest and face, it opened its jaw and bit the woman's leg. She screamed in response, to which her son, a boy with black hair and eyes of the same color, much like his mother, screamed in desperation and tried to rush to her aid, but the other monsters waiting in the corner of the hallway began to close in.

It was a scene mixed with screams and blood splattering, filling the floor with a crimson pool of despair and death. Detonations from the gun echoed non-stop with bullets impacting the head of the monster who enjoyed biting that woman's calves, quenching his thirst for producing pain to others with a smile on a disfigured face and blood spurting from the holes in his head.

Soon the woman stopped screaming and began to convulse. Foam came out of her mouth as her son cried and screamed being grabbed by the hand by the youngest woman present, who held him tightly along with her younger brother and led them back as the woman lying on the ground began her transformation.

"Everyone get in the truck, NOW!"

Alphonse shouted as he ran out of bullets in the magazine. He pulled a new magazine from the pockets in his uniform and began to back away along with the children and women, but Sam stood watching in horror as the woman convulsed as that monster chewed her up as if her flesh and blood was the most delicious thing his rotten palate had ever tasted.

'This is hell... this isn't happening...'

"Hurry up, you brat, run and get in the truck!"

Alphonse yelled at him again, but Sam didn't hear him.

At that, as the other monsters in the aisle moved calmly past the woman whose eyes began to glow, more human grunts, screams and roars began to sound around the parking lot.

With his gaze averted, Sam looked around and realized that this was worse than hell. It wasn't just fifty-odd monsters anymore. Completely surrounding the bars of the school, hundreds of those monsters were gazing longingly and happily at the humans cornered in this place.

"Fuck, get in the van already, you snotty little shit!"

This time Sam reacted to Alphonse's shout and stood up. He started running at full speed to the van where Thomas was waiting for him with his hand outstretched.

'Why, why don't you look scared?'

He thought as he saw the expression on Thomas' face. His look was very cold for a boy his age. His gesture as he held out his hand was more adult than any. This child, who seemed to understand the situation better than anyone else, did not appear to be a normal child.

Together with Alphonse, they began to run to the vehicle while the other monsters pushed at the bars with all their might, which began to bend and quickly allow everyone to enter the school parking lot. 

At this, both Alphonse and Sam increased the speed at which they ran. As the other women and children moved ahead, they were already in the back of the van, but the driver was missing. 

However, in the midst of all this chaos, the lights of the only four cars besides the truck that were in this parking lot came on and started up with full engine power. The wheels of those cars screeched against the ground just as they began to move forward at a steady and increasing speed. 

Thirty meters from reaching the truck, those four cars passed in front of Alphonse and Sam. The latter saw something in that small fraction of a second. Through one of the windows of the third car that passed he saw the same girl he had encountered earlier. Through that transparent window, with brown hair and silver eyes, she looked back at him with an expressionless face.

At that, Sam clenched his fists and picked up more speed.

It doesn't matter if he's tired. It doesn't matter if there are monsters running after him right now. There is something deep in his heart that tells him he has to run with all his might. But before he went any further, the fourth car passed in front of him, which made him slow down for a second. This made Alphonse take the lead running with his gun in his hands.

Alphonse being a soldier, he has military training and is faster than Sam, so taking this advantage, he reached the van very quickly. He took the keys and opened the door while Sam was still running fifty feet away.

'No way, no way!'

He repeated to himself inside his mind. The adrenaline of the moment kept him from stopping. The fear prevented him from stopping. Despair and death at this moment awaited him in the back of his mind, but before he could do anything, Alphonse started the van and pressed the accelerator without releasing the handbrake.

But that was all for Sam, as one of the monsters reached out and grabbed him by the leg. This caused him to fall on his own forehead, which left him dazed for a second. However, upon hearing that monster's growl, he immediately went into despair.

"Ahhhhhh! Get off me! Get off me!"

He kicked it in the face as the other monsters were just a few steps away from arriving, but at that, multiple gunshots echoed throughout the parking lot. A bunch of bullets pierced the monster's head, but unfortunately, one of the bullets grazed Sam's leg.

Following that, the windows on the second floor shattered and both James and Anthony descended from there to, upon falling, roll on the ground. They both felt the pain of the fall because apparently something broke inside their bodies at the moment of the fall, but the pain at this point did not matter. 

The two began firing at point blank range making their way through the monsters who fell down dejected after being shot multiple times in the head and chest. Though that was only temporary, for when they both got to where Sam was and helped him to his feet, the ones that were shot down got up and started running to follow them.

"Hurry up!"

Alphonse shouted from the truck. 

Only a few feet from being overtaken by the horde, James and Anthony lifted Sam like a sack of potatoes and threw him into the truck. They both climbed in after that, which consequently caused Alphonse to release the brake, accelerating from the center point of the parking lot and running over the monsters that had finally surrounded them, which began to roll over the vehicle.

Alphonse maneuvered the steering wheel from left to right as he dodged and ran over the monsters. They moved across the parking lot and quickly arrived at the vehicle entrance for this school, whose gate was broken after those four cars sped past. 

They moved through the gate feeling heavy turbulence as the wheels went over the shattered gate that was on the ground. After that, they finally found themselves on the road. 

Alphonse watched in the rearview mirror as those monsters stood there staring at the horizon. He squeezed the steering wheel with all his might and paid attention to the road, which was not so dark because of the red moon shining high in the sky right now.

...

Inside the truck bed, James and Anthony looked down at the ground where Sam was lying. They both groaned with pain in their bodies after that fall from the second floor, while Sam looked at his right leg and noticed the wound the bullet had made. There was blood running down there and he felt quite a bit of burning. It was his right thigh, the place where that monster almost bit him. His blue jeans so common were getting stained with his blood. Seeing himself lying on the ground and mentalizing this whole situation, his voice started to crack.

Many questions arose inside his stomach, which he spat out in his cracking voice.

"What the hell is going on, why is all this happening to us?"

He looked up at the ceiling of the box and covered his eyes with his forearm.

"Why is this happening to us!!! What the hell are we supposed to do!!! What the fuck are those things!!! Is this supposed to be a trial!!!"

He shouted over and over again.

Thomas looked at him silently. It's true, he's wondering the same thing too. If it weren't for all this, he would still be living the normal life of a child next to his mother. No... not at all...

James and Anthony were no exception.

Everyone here was thinking the same thing. From the children who were crying in fear to the women who were trying to calm them down even though they too were crying their eyes out. Everyone is scared, everyone wants this to be just a nightmare. They all want to be at peace again, but right now that is no longer a possibility.

"We don't know..."

James said in a whisper. He looked at the boy who lay crying about leaving his mother behind next to the youngest girl here, who in turn was hugging her little brother. He looked at Alphonse failing to protect one of the women here and felt only helplessness at the thought of that. Alphonse was not to blame for this. In fact, it's a miracle that he managed to save almost everyone.

Although all that is not over yet.

Suddenly, a thump was heard on the roof of the box followed by a slight movement throughout the truck, as if someone had landed on the roof. Two more noises were heard next, which caused the truck to shake a little alerting everyone.

They looked up at the roof and heard a rustling sound. Soft knocks on the box, as if someone was knocking on the door, echoed. James and Anthony looked up and held up their assault rifles. They slowly pointed the barrels of their guns upward.

After that, a long five-second silence was felt at the scene, but it was not total silence. The engine of the military truck could still be heard roaring and accelerating. Everyone's breaths also filled the scene, but something strange could also be heard out there.

Unknown to anyone, someone was on the roof. It wasn't just one, he was accompanied by two more. Those unwanted visitors dug their fingers into the roof of the truck. Their moans and roars could be heard; disturbing laughter as if someone had had their oral cords torn.

Sam, who was looking up at the roof saw those fingers go through the aluminum bodywork like butter and, when he least expected it, the entire roof began to tear being lifted upward. The roof caused a screeching noise, followed by the metal tearing and revealing a large opening above the roof.

"Shit!"

"Alphonse!!!"

They shouted as they saw three of those monsters looking down at them from up there. Sam froze at that moment, as he was again seeing these beasts up close. Thomas also saw everything up close and his body could only react by cowering against the ground. The remaining women and children could not help but scream in horror at the visit of these monsters.

The soldiers immediately opened fire, but they were not fast enough as one of the monsters reached into the van and grabbed a child and his mother by the neck. With bestial force, he threw them both out of the van as everyone's screams increased.

This same monster was immediately shot down, taking bullets at point-blank range that pushed him off the roof of the van and sent him to the road. As he fell, this monster's head hit the ground, scattering like jelly.

This left the remaining two, who clung to the opening in the roof to avoid being pushed by the bullets. This time they both reached into the box and grabbed four more people, tossing them onto the road with great ease. Respectively the boy who had lost his mother, two more women, the most adult of them all, and one of their children.

"No!!! Mom!!!"

But the second woman's son, in desperation, held on to her leg, which in the end also pulled him out of the truck, crashing him to the ground crashing to the ground.

James was screaming inside because he had run out of bullets and had to reload, while Anthony was trying to hit all the bullets and not waste a single one, but these monsters seemed indestructible. Despite the bullets ripping through them, these ones were clinging to the van tightly with their mangled bodies, showing bones, red-hot muscles and blood splattering.

'This... This could be worse?'

Sam thought. His eyes were lost in the darkness as all those screams echoed in his head. He felt the bullet shells rolling beside him, all this while one of those monsters stuck the fingers of his right hand into the eyes of one of the women, who began to scream as the blood ran out of her like tears. 

At that, three small children, those of a similar age to Thomas, mustered enough courage and stupidity to grab the woman and not let her go, but as James fired again and Anthony yelled at the children to let go of the woman, just before these monsters fell to the hard pavement from the recoil of the bullets, they grabbed the three children with their remaining hands. Two of them flew through the air and landed on the pavement, while the last of them fell prey to the claws of that beast, which opened the child's abdomen with its fingers.

This caused the boy to scream in agony as his blood spilled over Sam's face, who was still frozen, watching what was happening. 

With an impossible save, the bleeding boy fell next to the two monsters on the road and the scene was finally left in a terrible state where only the engine of the vehicle and the breaths of the survivors could be heard.

James looked at the fact that there were only three children, a teenager and a young woman. He then set his gaze on Anthony, who said nothing about it, but he knew that all of this was horrible for everyone. There was nothing to say. He simply stood holding the rifle looking at the blood on the floor, where Sam lay in shock.

His gaze was still on the ceiling with wide eyes as blood dripped down his hair and face. 

Thomas got up from the floor and looked at his hands. He saw that much of the blood had also splattered on him and he fell silent. His gaze showed a strange darkness, accompanied by a voice and screams echoing inside his head. It was a memory from not long ago, another trauma lying in his mind.

A knife...

Blood on the floor...

A woman crying and hugging the child...

A memory that was very similar to the situation they are living in right now. A memory that hardened that expressionlessness on his face whose look showed nothing but a state of deep shock.

This was the first night of the apocalypse...

To be continued...