CHAPTER 11
Back by a few minutes . . ..In the mist of the rumble that remained of the museum, Marvellous saw a group of people standing not too far and watchingthem. With his enhanced vision, he could clearly see that they were the same people that almost had an all out conflict with hisfriends. Rising to his feet, he let out a grunt before calling out to them.“We meet again!”.His statements caught the attentions of his friends and although they were unable to clearly see the faces of the figures in thedistance, they started walking towards them.Roosevelt was puzzled. ‘How far can he actually see?, his senses are perhaps a hundred times stronger than that of anormal human. Is this really as a result of his mutation?. . ., what has he mutated into actually?.’ she thought.Since the event of the light enveloping her, she could feel her senses alert than they had ever been. What ever happened tothem when they bonded with their new weapons, she knew it changed them in ways they couldn’t imagine. She already felt like one with her weapon, and she could sense the same feelings from her friends. But Marvellous was also bathed in the light and he also bonded with a weapon. In addition to his earlier mutation. ‘Just what had happened to him?’, she thought.With the distance between them reduced, Roosevelt could finally make out the faces of the strangers, truthfully they werepeople she recognised . . . at least if not all, the male and female in front were just too familiar for her to miss.Standing before them, Marvellous repeated . . ..“We meet again!”.Present time . . ..Maxwell’s face lit up in surprise at the recognition the teenagers showed. He thought they were some bunch of arrogant fellows who had no form of basic courtesy, because of theif previous encounter and how they had responded. But at thatmoment they were actually taking the initiative to call out to him at the moment, even wearing smiles that he seemed unable to see through, it did nothing to ease his suspicion.“It’s good to see you again”, Maxwell said.“Same here”. Marvellous said.“My name is Maxwell Synopes and this is my vice leader Anthonia Darkwood”. Maxwell introduced himself. “These guysbehind me are part of my raiders, I used to run a sanctuary for survivors until some weeks ago when it was overrun byzombies . . . Right now, I’m trying to find a place to rebuild my sanctuary”. Seeing himself talking on a friendly note with theteenagers was something Maxwell had only dared to imagine, seeing the chance presenting itself, he decided to give the terms of friendship a go.“Well it seems you are one passionate person, going through all this trouble just to rebuild a fallen sanctuary. Seems nice, but . . . We will see about that”. Marvellous replied. “By the way, I’m Marvellous, this young lady holding the axe is Roosevelt, the other one with a whip is Rose, the lady with the dagger is Ebbie, this guy with the spiked recking ball is Basit, those ladies standing together are Mercy and Kardi J, the guys beside them are Timothy and Mod, buddy with the bow and arrows is Kiki, guy with spear is Josh . . .”.“You guys are travelling alone . . . Were you part of a sanctuary once?”. Maxwell asked. Finally seeing the opportunity to realise his dreaming of having the teens join his sanctuary - as they seemed to loosen up to him - present itself, how could Maxwell loose the golden opportunity?.“Nope . . .”. Rose replied. “We’ve never joined any sanctuary, why ask?”. An astonished look flashed across Maxwell’sface, to think that his mere drifting words of the past actually turned out to be true, such young fellows yet they had been ableto survive on their own in an apocalypse filled with horrifying looking creatures, without the help of an elderly person or arefuge. Such teenagers like this, tempered from the life experience of the apocalypse. How many teenagers like them actuallyexisted?, with such people seemly in a good relationship with him, how could he loose the opportunity to form and alliancewith them?.“I’m currently on need of people to join and help with my sanctuary, I was hoping you guys could join me”, he said catching the group by surprise from the abrupt request.Emmanuel was the happiest of the teenagers at the invitation from Maxwell, the thought of having people other than his friends to live with really excited him. Tightening his grip on his mallet, he traded excited glances with his friends. But hisexcitement was not meant to last for long, most of his friends had frowns and suspicions on their faces.“If I remember clearly, we just told you that we never joined a sanctuary. Yet the next instant you are inviting us to join your sanctuary, what do you want?”. Ebbie asked.“Well . . .”.Maxwell did not expect such a question to be directed at him, just because of a simple invitation he extended to them. Short ofwords, he could only let out a nervous laugh feeling the suspicious glare from the teenagers drilling holes through his skin.“We are in need of strong individuals that can protect the sanctuary”. Anthonia his vice replied on his behalf. SeeingMaxwell actually speechless and even looking like he was trying to boot lick them and at the same time not, could only choose to help him reply. “You look like strong people, the kind of people we need right now to ensure the safety of the sanctuarymembers. You won’t be joining for free too, you will be granted authority on par with the leader, as long as you keep thesanctuary safe and you can decide if you want to mingle with public affairs. You can leave the sanctuary anytime as long as you will return and there will be no restriction whatsoever on you guys in the sanctuary”.Listening to the proposal that Anthonia was making, Maxwell was stunned for a second, especially when he heard that they would enjoy authority equal to his. Noticing his eyes fixed on her, Anthonia looked at him with a questioning gaze and mouthed.“What? . . . Can you stop them if they decide to take over the sanctuary from what you have seen?”.Having such a question directed to him, Maxwell averted his gaze, avoiding eye contact. In the post apocalypse, a lot ofanomalies happened everyday. For the teenagers to have survived on their own, even if he was to be beaten to death, hewould never believe they were just some simple individuals. Such people who could still stand independent in the apocalypsecould be very dangerous.Turning her attention back to the teenagers, Anthonia asked. “So what do you think? . . . Are you decided yet?”.Hearing her question, Marvellous cast a quick glance at Maxwell to verify what he felt before he turned back to Anthonia.“Give us a minute”.Stepping aside, Marvellous looked at his friends with questioning glances. Receiving equally questioning glances, he couldonly sigh as he contemplated.“I know . . . Sigh. . . They can’t be trusted yet but . . . What other choices do we have?”, he said. “Besides the us right now are not people they are capable of dealing with. If things go south, we’ll just have to deal with it then”.“That’s right”, the rest of the group nodded.“Yeah . . . But what about you?”, Rose asked. “Silence . . .”.“Him? . . . What about him?”. Roosevelt asked.“If they find out that he is half zombie, do you think they will just sit back and watch while he lives with and even practically rules over them?”.Slowly, Marvellous nodded his head. Thinking about everything that happened since the apocalypse, most of the peopleliving as members of the sanctuary obviously lost their families, friends and relatives to zombie attacks. For them to learn of a zombie living among them, they would obviously fly into rage. Sighing, he finally spoke . . ..“Don’t worry . . . I know what to do”.CHAPTER 12 A year later . . .. Standing alone at the middle of a training room with sweat tickling down his half naked body, Larry tightened his grip on his halberd as he prepared for another round of harsh training. Over the course of a year, he had gotten accustomed to his weapon and could now manipulate its powers fairly well. Not only him, his friends had also been training with their weapons and had discovered the individual powers they had been gifted. As for the sanctuary, it had grown fairly well as more survivors joined them, and even gotten a name - THE SANCTUARY OF MYSTERY - in relation to a rumour that had some how found its way around the sanctuary. The rumour was about a group of mysterious people that lived in the sanctuary, as protectors and governors. The name however was just hearsay until a few months ago when the sanctuary was under attack from a neighbouring sanctuary that wanted to devour them for their resources and members. The group - as the story went
Roosevelt walked into the school premises gloomy as always, today was a beginning of a new session and though she would have loved to stay at home and watch tv, her mom would not hear of that. Being a low profile high school student, it was practically hard to maintain a smiling face because of constant bullying activities. Roosevelt was not poor, in fact she was from a rich home – ‘a stinkingly rich home’ but she just hated the idea of associating with the rich spoilt kids and even the poor ones too. The bell rang to signal the beginning of class, the teacher came in and the class started off boring as usual. ‘Well it is time to zone out again’ she thought as she relaxed in her seat and let the fresh air breeze her into her world of fantasy. Not only was Roosevelt a social weirdo, she was also classified as a shy provocative idiot so everybody practically underestimated her, even her teachers. “Miss Roosevelt can you solve the problem on the board?” The teacher asked. As she walke
CHAPTER 1 The hot sun burning her face woke Roosevelt up. Forgetting she was not in a bed, she rolled to the side only to fall. Now in what was called the ‘Zombie apocalypse’ by the press before total black out, she knew better than to stay anywhere. There were resurrected beings roaming everywhere and ready to pounce on anybody they could find. To prevent getting pounced upon in her sleep, she choose to sleep in a tree and fell because she rolled over. Sleeping on the ground was just liked committing suicide so now she had to learn to get used to the body aches she felt every morning from sleeping on rough and hard surfaces. In this world where wealth no longer counted, the only luck she felt was the weapons her parents were able to purchase despite being quite unfortunate them selves. As Roosevelt began her journey once again, she spotted a petite zombie, one that had perhaps been a cheer leader at one point in her life coming for her. Actually she wasn’t so surprised to see a zo
Roosevelt stabbed a zombie’s head as it got close to her. In her state of excitement, she had forgotten to check the surroundings and the inside of the building through the windows and well she could only be thankful she brought a knife along at least.As the last zombie fell to the ground with a knife stabbed into its skull, she began to ransack the building. Considering the fact that the house had never been visited or looted, she felt like lady luck was smiling at her from above and she couldn’t help but smile back. At a crucial moment of her life when she was beginning to feel like it was an hustle to only be capable of carrying so little for fear of slowing down and stilling worrying of how to get more before it completely ran out, she couldn’t let anything go to waste. After packing everything she felt was valuable, she took a little time to rest. Even though the sofa was covered with dust and the house stank of decaying flesh, she still dosed off too tired to care about that.*
CHAPTER 3 The sound of a vehicle approaching the RV woke Marvellous from his meditation, taking note of the happenings in the RV, he saw his friends laughing at their own jokes as they passed time. Obviously none of them had noticed the approaching vehicle.Taking action quickly, he ran out of the RV and climbed to the top to inspect the surroundings. His actions however did not go unnoticed by his friends. “What is going on ?” Larry asked. “I guess he sensed something . . . ” Timothy said jumping out of the RV to join Marvellous on the RV, “Marvellous what’s wrong?” he asked. “Shhhh . . . Keep quiet” Marvellous replied, “Someone is coming”. “Are you seeing anything ?” Timothy said, “cause I can’t . . .”. Just then the sound of a vehicle approaching interrupted him. A truck driven by a girl their age appeared as the vehicle’s sound got closer and stopped in front of the RV. How long was it since they last saw humans like themselves, and suddenly a truck driven by a girl their age
CHAPTER 4 Encountering a few zombies a day was normal in the apocalypse, encountering a hundred a month was also normal and tolerable. But encountering over ah hundred a day and all in one place was terrifyingly rare - after all even the population of zombies had dropped in the years of the apocalypse. However at this moment, over a hundred zombies, swifts included were chasing a young girl. With a backpack strapped to her back, she could only run as fast as she could when she saw the numbers of the zombies. Luckily, she had a variety of supplies in her truck when her fuel ran out so she was able to take supplies to her liking that could fit in her backpack, so she had no worries for supplies and she still had weapons albeit a little lesser than she always carried. Naturally, the young girl or lady was Roosevelt and at the moment she could only blame her luck for her situation. The only reasons why she had survived for so long after abandoning her truck was because of the pistol and
CHAPTER 5Roosevelt sat in front of the fire the group had built, absently minded she ate her dinner while thinking of that face filled with reluctance to part as he turned and ran. 'The longest period it takes an infected to turn is seven days, lets see how long he can fight against the virus before he finally turns' she thought."Hey Roosevelt" comfort called dragging her out of her thoughts. "Yup ?" she replied."Did you actually share that dream with us ?""Hmmm . . . I guess so" she replied. " . . . except it's a bit different now given that nobody was bitten then" She said casting a glance at the RV."How did you know we were going to be at the warehouse ?"Basit asked.Hearing the question, a sigh escape Roosevelt's mouth as she questioned her self. 'Was there a reason why she actually ran in the direction of the warehouse ?, was it fate performing its trick ?, were the heavens directing her to that warehouse ? or was she just overthinking ?' she thought before replying. "I didn
CHAPTER 6 Maxwell stood outside his tent watching the sun rise, since the apocalypse everything had changed. The sun no longer looked yellow but a blood red as if dyed by the blood of those that had died during the past few years, and it was hotter than before the apocalypse. It had been a week since his sanctuary - the only place he had called home since the apocalypse era - had fallen into chaos, he and the remaining survivors were heading north for the closest town. As he thought of things that had happened in the past few days, he could only shake his head and let out a deep sigh. Returning to his tent, he picked a remote and pressed the button on it to wake the other survivors while he settled down for breakfast. Looking at the quantity of food he was preparing for the remaining members of his sanctuary, he almost broke into tears because it reminded him of the tragic incident on that day. The amount of food he was cooking would not have been enough to satisfy even one - tenth