It was a cold Sunday morning. Sugamayne had surprised everyone by showing up the night before, bolstering the group's numbers from from 11 to 12. Shawn's arrival fueled a seemingly never ending night of gaming that culminated in a frustration laden versus mode of Left 4 Dead. A few stragglers stayed up and played some more, but everyone else decided that had been enough for the night and decided to catch some shut-eye. Thankfully, the house was large enough for everyone to retire to a little corner of a room and find some sleep – peacefully.

Sunday - 3:17 AM

Steve, Numbers, and Suga sit on a couch, awkwardly all relegated to their own couch cushion. Steve stares at the four remote controls, no idea how to work what when it comes to this entertainment system. He grabs what looks like the cable remote and begins looking for ESPN.

Numbers: “I hope the Flyers won tonight.”

Shawn: “Who did they play?”

Numbers: “I dunno, I just hope they won.”

Comedy Central, Bravo, E!, every channel is navigated quickly on the way to instant sports knowledge. VH1 and a Nickleback music video.

Shawn: “I don't understand why everyone hates them so much, their music really isn't that bad. I mean, it's not like their music sucks, right?”

The other two are strangely silent. Steve has stopped the TV on CNN. The words “Breaking News” are at the bottom of the screen. The talking head on the TV looks openly concerned and has a look of slight fear on his face as well. Steve turns the volume up loud enough to hear it, but not wake the others sleeping.

“...reports are coming in that nearly 80% of the world's population is infected. Effects of the infected include loss of motor skills and response to stimuli in their surroundings. They are considered extremely dangerous and hostile. There are no known sources for the infection currently, and as soon as we know how it spreads, we will let you know. Out to David Anderson in the Congo...”

Numbers: “Oh shit...are they saying what I think they're saying?”

Steve: “I don't know what they're saying...”

Shawn: “Maybe we should wake the others up.”

Sunday – 3:41 AM

The group is really in disbelief of what they're hearing. Some think it's a joke, but still come nonetheless. They all watch the same newscast that was seen earlier. Some are sitting, some are standing but all have the same relative look on their face. Concern and fear. This is not a group that is known to be this silent. You can see all of their minds racing attempting to decipher what they're seeing. Could it be? Could it really be zombies?

Liquid: “Is anyone getting cell phone service? My phone isn't letting me dial out for some reason.”

Cowboy: “Yeah, it seems that no one's cell phone is working, that's not good. I tried the house line earlier too, and it was all messed up.”

Cozmo: “So 80% of the population is considered to be infected?”

Numbers: “That's what the reports are saying.”

Cozmo: “So hypothetically speaking...out of 12 of us, 10 of us should be infected?”

The room grew silent. His math checked out, but since no one knew how the virus had been spread, how do you know who's infected and who's not? What if 10 of them were infected? There's no telling how long the virus takes to mature and take hold...let alone how it's spread. Everyone just kept looking at the TV, but no one was listening. All anyone could think about is 'what if I'm one of them?'

Compton: “Is this house secure?”

Ratty: “What do you mean?”

Compton: “I mean, like, how safe is this house? You said there were some guns here? We should probably start boarding up the windows and doors, ya know?”

Steve: “Well, who says we should stay here? I mean, we have vehicles. Maybe we should try and get somewhere. Like Whiteman Air Force Base or Wal-Mart or something. We don't know how long we'll have to stay somewhere considering how serious this thing is.”

Everyone began talking over each other. There was no right answer. You could stay there, but eventually your food supply is going to run out and you leave your protection up to yourself. You go somewhere else, there's the thought of being in transit and out there, but if you got there, you'd be protected by others and supplies would be provided. There seemed to be no easy way to decide where to go and what to do. The arguments continued into the early morning...

Fairplay: (to Rshep) “You want anything to drink?”

Rshep: “What do they have? Pepsi? I hate Pepsi, I'll just take some water”

No one even cared that Fairplay got up and left, everyone was focused on surviving right now. Stay, go, stay, go, the answer was becoming no more clear. There are some who want to leave and there are some who want to go.

Steve: “We can't really expect to defend ourselves here. There's a limited food supply and limited ammo supply. What if they're the kind of zombies who are smart enough to come in here and fuck shit up? We'll be sitting ducks here. We have to go somewhere. Somewhere a lot of other people are.”

Compton: “If we go somewhere else, we put ourselves in a situation where we could be surrounding ourselves with the infected -”

Steve: “We could be right now though, we don't know how it's passed or what kind of zombies they even are.”

Compton: “True, but we can control it here. We can at least quarantine those who are infected here in case there's ever a cure instead of putting ourselves in an open place where hundreds could be infected.”

Cozmo: “Maybe we should wait and see how the infection is spread before we decide to make any move, stay or go.”

Shawn: “Um, I think something is going on on TV right now...”

Indeed it was. The announcer came blaring onto the screen. “Sources have shown how the infection started. Reports are showing that 99.9% of the world's water supply are currently carrying the virus that negates all muscular actions and cause a body to become lifeless. The bodies have no semblance to their previous form and are to be considered the walking dead. The only way to stop an oncoming attack from the infected is to either remove the head from the body or mutilate the head in a manner where the body cannot act or react. We urge everyone to avoid anything that includes water. Showers, faucets, hoses, and anything that might drain water is to be avoided. Jugs and bottled water have been shown to be clean as of now, and if anything changes, we'll let you know...Once again, the world's water supply has been contaminated with a virus that is leading to the infection...”

Fairplay: “Oh no...”

Everyone turned and looked to the back of the room. No one had drank anything but soda and beer all weekend and Sunday was to be the shower day for everyone. The closest anyone had come to water was sitting on the toilet, and that seemed like the safest situation to be near the water at this point...But not Rshep. He had at least four glasses of water that weekend alone...let alone the glass he just finished after Fairplay brought it to him.

Compton: “Was that water?”

Rshep: “....”

Compton: “Was that fucking water Rshep?”

Rshep: “....”

Steve: “We're not going to kill you, we just want to know if you drank the water.”

Rshep: “Yeah...”

Steve: “Ok, we need to quarantine Rshep right now. We don't know how long the virus takes to go through his body and effect him. We need to find a room in the house to trap him in there. We'll give him a little food in case it takes awhile -”

Compton: “No we won't. We shouldn't give up any of our food supply on someone who is already infected. That's just a waste of food. We, as survivors, can use the food ourselves to keep living.”

Cozmo: “Well, we can't just kill him. We'll just lock him in a room and if there's ever a cure, we know exactly where to find him. If he gets out and tries to get us, we'll just shoot him in the head....sorry Rshep”

Sunday – 5:11 AM

Imagine sitting there listening to how they're going to kill you once you're already dead. There's no arguing the point. You know you're going to wind up being a danger to them, but you don't want to die...but you don't want to live on as an infected. The best case would be to be locked in a room...with hope for a cure one day, but with 80% of the world's population already infected, the odds of someone surviving and finding a cure were nearly impossible. There was only one course of action now, and it was survival. Rshep knew he had to help as much as possible, but he had to be locked in a room.
No one truly wanted to do it. They were a close group of friends. Doing this to one of their own was different. They all knew what he was to become though. Rshep went into the smallest room of the house and stood facing the doorway. He closed his eyes and looked down, he didn't want the person who closed the door to have to look in the eyes when they closed it. A couple of the guys tore a wooden chair apart, and took a nail and hammer and boarded up the door to the room Rshep was in...The room had no windows...there was only one way in and one way out. Everyone hoped that one way wouldn't be used either way though.

Sunday – 5:42 AM

The remaining eleven sat there in silence. Some waited for others to speak up and start a plan while others waited for an ominous sound to come from the small room. The TV had never said a timeline of infection, but it was also confirmed that the infection could be spread by attacks from the infected.
The argument of whether to stay or go were going to have to be picked back up very soon though. Daylight was coming, and then they'd be able to see outside the house and measure the situation that they were in. Ratty mentioned that the shed behind the house most likely had a lot of supplies in it that could be used in this kind of...”situation.” The guns had yet to be brought into the conversation though, but everyone had kept it in the back of their mind.
The talking heads on TV kept talking about the zombies numbers being in apocalyptic form. It was surprising that TV transmission could still be used, but it gave the remaining 11 hope that a safe place could be found. The real question was to whether the place they were currently in was the safe place to be...or being on the move was the best idea...Soon the morning would come...and in the morning, decisions would have to be made...

To Chapter 2...

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