The Twins

I woke up fairly early one morning with a kink in my neck. I realize I had turned sideways in my sleep and cuddled up to the police baton I had scavenged from the dead body of a security guard just inside terminal 3. I groaned as I sat up, rolled my neck and shoulders around to try and loosen up my muscles. I looked around lazily, throwing off the cover of my sleeping bag I grabbed the half empty bag of Doritos I had been snacking on the last few days. I shoved a handful in my mouth and chased it with a drink from a flat can of root beer out of the vending machine down the hall. It hit the spot, that's for sure.

After having my fill of nacho chips and root beer I stood and looked through the security cameras, like I had been doing the past 10 weeks. Only today something was different, the security guard that had been prowling around the front entrance was leaning against the door, black ooze coming from his head, he wasn't moving, or gagging like he normally did while he was standing there. I had named him Gage, and seeing Gage all the way dead sort of worried me, he was like my little guard dog, I could hear him growl and scream if others came to the door. But he didn't make any noises today, I didn't hear him yelling or growling, I just woke up and he was dead against the front entrance.

"What happened Gage?" I whispered to myself. I looked to another security camera, another regular, Janet patrolled the entry to terminal 5. She now leaned against the conveyer belt to the metal detector. Every camera I looked through there was someone, dead, that hadn't been fully dead before. I began to panic. I didn't see who was doing it, or why. I just saw the destruction in their wake. Then I heard voices, a man and women's, talking about which room to search next, I heard their footsteps stop at my door. I seized up, looked for a way out, and upon remembering that the only door in and out was the one that was currently blocked by unknown assailants I grabbed my baton and faced the door ready to strike. I heard them wiggle the locked door handle.

"Step back." I heard the male voice say to the female, it was silent for a few seconds, and then a muted gun shot rang through the security room, the bullet stopped in the door, but not before the door knob flew off, opening the door wide enough for the two to burst in. I screamed loudly, swinging my baton in the air in front of me.

"WOAH WOAH WOAH!!!" The man's voice screamed, "We are good! We are good!"

"Tell that to my goddamn door you just shot open!" I screamed back as I regained my stance against the back wall.

"She's got a point" The girl said.

"That was my only defense against those things, I'm fucked!" I screamed, "What's stopping me from beating you in the head with this baton!?"

"The fact that I have a gun pointed to yours?" The man said. The girl looked at him and then back to me. She slowly put her gun to her side, back into a holster strapped on her jeans.

"Emmett." She said, "Stop."

He looked at her, lowered his gun slowly, one hand in the air to show that he wouldn't shoot. But I didn't lower my baton.

"Why the fuck did you shoot down my door?" I asked.

"We didn't think anyone was here." The man said. "With all the zombies around we figured no one would have been brave enough to come in here."

"I was in here before it started. But really, thanks again for destroying the only bit of security I had." I said sarcastically. "Can you go now?"

"We really are sorry." The girl said to me softly, "We didn't realize anyone was here, we just came to shut off the siren, and we thought if someone was here they would have done it already."

"Well you can't, the only way to shut it off is in the tower, and you can't get in through the outside."

"How do we shut it off then?" The boy asked.

"You don't! You leave it on, it keeps those freaks from bothering me." I finally lowered my baton into one hand, straightened my back and looked at them, the boy was tall with broad muscular shoulders, his hair was dark brown and unkempt, shorter on the sides but it curled wildly on the top of his head. His eyes were dark but shining green and his olive skin and clothes were covered in a dark sticky mess. The girl was the same, she was tall, and built like an athlete, she had the same brown, wavy hair, pulled back in a tight pony tail, and the same dark green eyes.

"There has to be a way." The girl said. She peeked out through the door and her eyes widened. "Em…"

"We need to shut it off, that tower has some vital tech that we need desperately."

"Em…"

"Hold on."

"No Em, We've got company." she yanked the boys shoulder back so he could see out the door, his eyes widened as well.

"Oh shit…"

They both pushed through the door, bracing their backs against it to close.

"See what you did, shot the lock off, now we are fucked. Thanks a lot."

"You know what!?" The boy asked, pointing his hand at me "Right now is not the time for sarcasm." he handed his gun out to me. "Can you use a gun?" he asked as I took it from him.

"uhm…" I stumbled, "well yeah…" I said.

"Can you get a good shot through the hole in the door to get them?" I dropped my baton and nodded. I knelt down beside him, and aimed the barrel through the gap they had made in the door. I had a clear shot of a zombies licking tongue, I pulled the trigger and the gun snapped back slightly, banging against the top of the hole, but that zombie was done for, the next came up, put his mouth up to the hole and licked, smelling fresh blood. I gripped the gun tightly and pulled the trigger again, less recoil this time, but more blood splatter. The rest of them stood clawing at the door, I couldn't get a good shot on them.

"I can't get the other ones."

The boy looked at me then around the room. "No other way out?" He asked.

"None that'll get us around them..." I responded "How about that window, can you get them from there?"

"If it was open yes." He said "Can it be opened?"

"If you can get the suitcase tops off." I responded.

He looked at the girl then back to me. "Think you can cover the door?"

"Yeah." He grabbed the gun from me and scooted to the side while I braced myself against the door to the security room. We traded spots as he went to the customer help window to pull off the suitcase covers I nailed to the window.

"The window slides open, don't break it or you will alert them." I warned.

"Thanks." It took him a few minutes but he was able to pull the suitcases from the window and open it just enough to get a good shot on the zombies on the other side of the door. 3 shots and done.

"That's all for now." He said as he looked up and down the hall.

"We need to get gone." The girl said.

"We need to get that siren turned off first." He responded, still looking out for more zombies. He was replacing the clip in his gun with a new, full one, stuffing the empty one in his pocket.

"How?" She asked.

"There's a below ground entrance." I chimed in. "We can open it through here."

"If we can get that thing turned off we can get that back up battery and those wires we need."

"Well what the fuck am I supposed to do then, that's the only thing that has been keeping those freaks away from here." I screamed at him.

"Just come with us, we have a safe place to go."

"I had a safe place until you ruined it."

"That's in the past." The girl said, "Just trust us, we have a place to go."

I looked back and forth to their green eyes, after a second of thought I nodded. "Fine. Okay." She smiled at me.

"How do we open the door then." she asked'

"And how do you even know about it?" he said skeptically.

"I worked in one of the restaurants in here during the summer, There is an underground walkway that leads to it and just about every other place." I responded, "It was used by employees to stay off the tarmac while the planes took off."

"Okay and?"

"It can only be accessed through here, there is a switch." I walked over to the desk and looked for a second, everything was labeled but the panel controlled every single door, light and moving thing in the airport, and it was hard to piece through each and every one to find one tiny switch to one door. When I found it I flipped it, and on the monitor I saw the door slide open. "Okay. now it's on the other side of the food court and down a set of stairs. One door opens the other door needs a security badge, we need to find Gage."

"Gage?" they asked in unison.

"That's what I named the security guard you guys killed at the front door. I don't remember his name, but I know he has a badge." I pointed to the screen of the monitor that watched the front door. On his bullet proof vest, a card was attached, and on the back I knew had the bar code for the security door. "We need that key to get in and out of that second door."

"Okay, Let's go." The boy said, the girl and I both nodded our heads.

"Let me get my stuff." I said. I rolled up my bag and stuffed it into the backpack I had brought for my trip, I also stuffed in as much of the food and drink and extra things I had collected, the girl helped by stuffing some of it into the backpack that she was carrying, we ended up only missing a bag of chips that we all agreed we didn't like and an unopened can of sprite. I set them on the desk, hopping that if anyone were to venture in here hungry, at least they could have something in their stomach before being eaten themselves.

I grabbed my baton from the floor and we made our way out of the security room. It was quiet, but we kept our alerts high as we made our way down the broken escalator to the front door, where security guard Gage still sat, propped against the sliding door. I reached around his chest and unclipped his security badge from his shirt. I flipped it around, it had the barcode we needed, and above it was printed "Richard Henderson."

"Sorry about this Richard." I said to him. Patting his shoulder.

"C'mon." The boy said, "I can hear more slugs coming."

"Slugs?" I asked as we began trotting to the food court, jumping and zig zagging through the bodies of people who were lucky enough to have enough eaten out of them that they didn't become zombies.

"That's Emmett's way of telling which is which." The girl said, "Slugs are the ones that just limp after you, they moan and growl but other than that they are really slow. Rabbits can actually run, not very fast, but still fast enough to scare the piss out of you. They like to scream and howl. Like the way a scared rabbit does"

"Oh…" I nodded.

We reached the stairwell to the underground walkway and began the short one story descent, the door was open for us and we picked up the pace running through because now we could hear zombies stumbling down the stairs. We would have to get out through the outer door somehow. The second door was a large steel contraption that looked like a cage, there was a small terminal to the side flashing a red light at us, the monitor lit up, asking for the barcode to be scanned, I held out the security officers card and it chimed and read out "Access granted: Officer Henderson." The door buzzed open and we pushed through it then quickly slammed it closed behind us ensuring that it locked.

We could see the zombies closing in on the hallway, they slowly limped after us but couldn't get past the door. We sighed in relief as we climbed up the narrow stairs to the tower. Once on the ground floor the stairs turned into a spiral staircase beside it was the door that once again needed the security officer's key.

"Okay." The boy looked up the long tube that would lead us into the contol room. "From what I know, there should be a backup battery behind a panel up there, then there is a few wires we need to hook it up. If we are lucky the tower hasn't switched onto the battery and we should get a good few days off of it."

"Why do you guys need it?" I asked.

"We may be able to attach it to a radio we have and see if we can contact a military base or something." The girl said, "Our dad was sort of a nut case, he had a fallout shelter under his house. When our mom sent us out here from New York for the summers we assumed it'd be the worst luck we ever had, but we are probably the safest in the entire town."

"Our dad had a bunch of schematics on where to find back up supplies that most people wouldn't think about, we already tried at the hospital, all we got out of that was what you'd assume you'd get out of a hospital."

"Pain pills, bandages, syringes, morphine and all that good junk." The girl added. "But without knowing the layout we couldn't get very far into it without getting stopped by blocked doors or zombies…"

We started our climb up the stair case, it was narrow, we could only go single file, but Emmett was at the front, gun raised and ready even though there wasn't anyone up there.

"Tried a phone store down the road from here too, all we got from that was small battery packs, not enough to get the radio on long enough to keep communication but enough to keep a few minor electronics on." He said. "Plus there was a vending machine packed full of snacks."

"We loaded up on that. What about you?" The girl asked.

"I was headed off to Arizona as a birthday present to see my grandparents, the airport was attacked as I was about to board my plane. I've been surviving off of vending machines and the leftover food in the food court places." I answered.

"We may want to stop there and see if we can pack in some extra food just in case" the girl said.

"If we have time and the ability."

"One of the food places is next to one of the luggage areas, we could probably grab a few bags to stuff with supplies." I added. They both nodded and expressed their agreement. As we neared the top of the tower the siren got louder and louder.

"We will have to turn the siren off to get them to leave the bottom of the tower so we can get out." I said. "There should be a switch for it, but as far as I know there shouldn't be anyone or thing in there. The only people in there fled about a week ago, they just constantly kept the siren on hopping help would come."

"Not too lucky, eh?" the girl asked.

"I guess not. They got attacked right outside the door." I replied.

Emmett pushed open the hatch that lead into the tower, he spun in a circle before he climbed into the room, and we followed him.

The control room was filled with panels of buttons and switches. There was radar panel facing the tarmac.

"That's the switch." The girl said pointing to a large switch next to the radar panel. It was conveniently labeled "Siren"

Emmett went to it and flipped it. The girl and I watched out the window as some of the zombies slowly started to turn and stumble away, a few of them remained at the bottom, as if they knew we were up here, but a majority of them started wandering away, bumping into each other and trying to push their way through the airport fencing.

"Nice." The girl said, "We can probably clip the remaining ones from up here."

"Can we just get the things you need and get going?" I asked, I was beginning to get impatient. With the things now wandering it was a matter of time before they would find themselves in the wrong places at the wrong times. At least with the siren on they would stay put.

"I'll start on it." The girl said. "Oh, By the way my name is Emily." She added. "This is my brother Emmett if you haven't figured that out yet."

"I got that you guys were related." I said with a small smile. Emmett Smirked at me from the radar panel his warm smile sent a shiver down my spine.

Emily pulled a small tool set from her back pack and started unscrewing one of the control panels.

"We are going to have to go get your guys vehicle so we can get out of here after Emily is done." I mentioned as I watched them.

They both paused and looked at me.

"Vehicle?" They asked in unison.

"Yeah? The car you guys came in?"

"We don't have a car, we rode bikes here." Emmett said.

"Bikes?" I asked, "Why didn't you take your dads car?"

"Neither of us can drive…" Emily said, "We grew up in New York its all public transportation and Bikes."

"So you never learned how to drive? Neither of you?" I asked.

"There was no need to Girl." Emmett said, "We took our Bikes everywhere. our dad was supposed to give us crash courses this summer..."

"How the hell did you guys even GET here!?" I screamed.

"There isn't too many zombies on the route here." Emily said pulling a panel off of the wall. She began clipping wires from the cavity in the wall.

"How the hell are we going to get out?" I asked.

"We were just going to walk…" Emmett said.

"No!" I growled, "Definitely not! Hell No!"

"Calm down." Emmett said, "We didn't think it through."

"We weren't expecting to find anyone else in here." Emily added.

I hit my forehead on the palm of my hand and groaned. "I can't believe this. I cannot believe this…" I fell to my knees on the floor, just repeating that I couldn't believe this.

What I couldn't believe was a pair of twins invading my safe place and saying to come with them when they didn't even have a vehicle to escape with, they destroyed my base, shot open the lock to my room, drug me from the only place I could be safe at. And then told me they had no escape plan to get us out of this hell hole of an airport.

"Fuck!" I screamed rising back to my feet, I put my hands on my hips and pondered what to do. The twins still nonchalantly worked on whatever it was they worked on. Emily kept tinkering with the wires in the control panel and Emmett finally started working on the panel opposite of her.

"We will figure something out." Emily said looking up at me briskly with those bright green eyes. I shook my head looking around for anything that could help.

Then I saw it, a map of the layout of the airport property. There was an emergency route traced out on the map of the quickest way off of airport grounds, it had the watch tower and tarmac as well as the airport and parking garage sketched out on a large sheet of paper.

"Wait a minute." I said quietly.

"What?" Emmett asked, they both looked up to me. Emily stood and came up next to me and pondered the map as well.

"What's up?"

"Here." I said, I pointed to the parking garage.

"What about it?" She asked.

"There's a parking valley station." I said.

"So?" Emmett asked joining us at the map.

"So?" I repeated, "You know where people drop off their keys when they are running late and they pay to have their vehicle parked while they are on their trips and a kid comes out and parks it for them?"

"Oh yeah, they have those in NY." Emily said. "Remember Emmett? Mom used one of those once when we went and walked down town when she had that rental car last year."

"Oh yeah. They keep the keys in the office right inside the door." Emmett said.

"Exactly!" I said, "We get into the office and grab a set of keys and find a vehicle to take, no one will miss it."

"Good idea but how do we find out what car the keys belong to." Emmett asked.

"Automatic start." I said, "Everyone has them around here cause cars won't start in the winter. Not to mention I am almost certain there is a list of where each car is parked for easy finding."

"Okay let's do it." Emmett said.

"I'll do it." I said dropping my bag to the ground.

"I'll come with." Emmett added.

"You should probably stay with Emily."

"She is the tech person she can get the stuff we need, she has a gun, You don't and I'm not about to let you run off with my gun. You may not come back."

"Like I have anywhere else to go." I countered.

"You could." He said, "I'll come with, Em is safe up here, no one can get in or out without that security badge, so we will leave it with her and honk when we are outside."

"That's a good idea." Emily said, "Emmett is a good shot, if you guys run into trouble it'll be good to have him with."

I looked back and forth between the two and nodded. "Okay." I said. Emmett smiled.

"You'll be okay right Em?" He asked.

"Yeah, I think I'm just about done, I'll pack any supplies I can up after I get the battery, just leave your backpack so I can put it in there."

"Right." He slipped his bag from his shoulders and ripped it open, he only had a few clips of ammo and a few granola bars in his bag, but it was a large military grade bag that I assumed they had saved just for this occasion, he picked up two clips of ammo and put them in his pockets replacing the empty one in the bag. "We may need to clip off those last few stragglers by the door though."

"I can do that." Emily said, she looked to me, "Think you can bust a few windows out with that baton?"

"Yeah sure." I answered, I walked to the window that overlooked the tarmac. I swung my baton hard. The window crashed under its force, sending shards of glass flying every which way. I grunted as the baton recoiled slightly from the force. Emmett patted my shoulder as he went to hit the remailing glass shards out of the window. One by one he and Emily picked off the 6 remaining zombies, the gunshots were quiet, I didn't realize that they both had screwed on silencers on their guns. It was helpful, any gunshots would alert nearby zombies to our presence.

"Alright." I said.

"Let's go." Emmett nodded.

We went down the narrow stairs back to the door which needed a key card to open from the inside.. "Okay, Emily." I said, "We are going to open the door and leave you with the key card, from what I've seen we shouldn't need it anymore." She nodded in understanding, "As soon as we exit the door shut it behind you, make sure it seals." She nodded again.

"You need to work double time and get everything you can out of those panels." Emmett Added.

"I will honk the horn when we are outside, try and get the bags downstairs while we are gone, that way we can grab them and get gone."

"Got it." She saluted us with a smirk and we smiled back.

"Okay team." Emmett said, he put his hand down in front of us Emily put hers down on top and they looked at me expectantly. I shrugged and put my hand down on top of Emily's. "Zombie slayers on 3." We counted down

1…

2…

3…

"Zombie Slayers!" We cheered together.

Once we were downstairs I used the key card to open the door it once again said "Access granted: Officer Henderson."

I turned and handed the card to Emily. The door closed behind us and we were off to the parking garage to find ourselves a chariot worth bringing into the zombie apocalypse.