Stranded (incomplete), Passengers fend for their lives on a bus

The day was warm, and Jaz’s skin tingled in the new temperature. He had just walked out of a really cold airport and the conversing temperatures made an odd sensation along his body. He shook it off and continued on his walk. It was near mid-day. He was making good time but if he wanted to make it to his destination on time he would have to pick it up just a little. Jaz was currently heading to the S.T.A.R.S. base in India known as Mohageon. He had flown to India directly after his S.T.A.R.S. training because he was considered an “asset” to the organization. His stealth skills were too great to waste on small gigs in Rapture, especially with Umbrella running around screwing things up.

Jaz never did trust Umbrella. He believed that the outbreak was their fault in the first place. Not to mention all the rumors of human experimenting and virus evolving efforts. They made him sick. He looked at his surroundings. The airport was a pretty modern one, not rundown like most of the buildings in his home town. The transport trucks dragged planes lazily across the tarmac beyond the barbwire fence and a few cars, mostly government labeled, drove to and from the facility. Jaz stopped when he approached the bus stop. It was 12:26 and the bus arrived and 12:30. He waited patiently for the bus to arrive. Once there he got on and gave the driver his fair. Jaz sat near the back away from the other passengers. He didn’t like the types on here. They looked…untrustworthy.

Despite his intuition telling him to keep an eye out, Jaz decided to take a nap. The drive would be a couple of hours, and that was without the occasional stops for gas. He laid back and closed his eyes. After a few minutes he could feel himself drifting off… “Lord!” Someone yelled from the front of the bus. Jaz’s eyes snapped open just as the driver slammed on the brakes. The bus thumped and everyone was thrown out of their seats into the aisle. Jaz was in a clump of three other people. He quickly stood and regained his balance, trying to survey the situation. The driver had been the one to shout, and had slammed on the brakes for some reason. “Are there any officials on board?” The bus driver asked hesitantly.

Jaz, out of uniform, replied “Yes, I am. Would you mind explaining what the hell you did that for?” The driver took a few breaths then stood and asked Jaz to follow him outside of the bus. Jaz stepped over the people sitting or laying in the aisle and followed the driver outside. “I think…I th-think I hit someone.” The driver said. Jaz sighed and frowned. The loss of a life, especially to someone as incompetent as this bus driver, always upset him. “Stay here, near the front of the bus while I check it out.” Jaz said in a firm tone. He walked to the back set of tires. As he feared, blood was streaked across the ground. Jaz knelt down and inspected the area. Under the left tire was a body. The tire was parked on top of it, crushing its midsection.

“Move the bus!” Jaz called to the driver. The driver quickly got in and drove the bus forward a few feet. Jaz grimaced as the body was revealed. The midsection had been decimated by the bus. He walked over to it to attempt to identify the body. He would have to file a report as soon as he hit the S.T.A.R.S. facility in Mohageon. Something was off. The clothing on the body was ripped and ragged. It looked rotten and the skin was not pale with the absence of blood flow as usual with a corpse, but greenish and ill looking. Understanding dawned on Jaz as a small moan escaped the body. A few curious passengers had walked off of the bus to have a look. “Everyone back on the bus!” Jaz bellowed. The lingering people stayed where they were, a few hesitantly moving back to the bus. Jaz drew his Colt Delta and fired a shot into the air. “I said back on the bus!” He yelled again. This got the reaction he wanted.

The crowd reloaded the bus just as the body began moving again. The presence of blood signaled that it was a fresh one. Probably just turned a few hours ago. That meant that there would be more, and on their way because of the smell of blood. The body on the ground raked its fingers on the ground and clawed its way towards Jaz. Its torso was barely connected to its legs after being crushed by the bus. Its mouth gaped open and the grey tongue lolled out. It was hideous. Jaz aimed his Colt Delta, put one hand on the barrel to block the spray of blood, and fired a round. It struck the zombie in the forehead, putting it down. Jaz wasn’t the best shot in the world but even he could do that at a distance of a few feet.

Once the thing stopped moving Jaz drew his knife and set to decapitating the zombie. He didn’t want it reanimating in the future. The work was bloody and gross. His knife was made for slicing, not hacking, so to break the head free of the spinal cord he had to step on the neck and pull. It popped off with a sickening squishy crunching sound. Jaz held it by the hair and walked back aboard the bus. “We may have a problem here soon.” Jaz said. The bus had a flat tire after hitting the thing and the front was a little smashed. In short, it would not be moving at any respectable pace at the moment. He held up the head and presented it to the passengers. “There are going to be more of these things on their way. This bus isn’t going to be moving fast enough to escape them, and right now it isn’t offering anywhere near enough protection.”

Jaz looked around at the many faces on the bus. He counted 15 other passengers and the driver. That made 17 including himself. “Does anyone have a firearm, or other sort of weapon?” A couple of men raised their hands. One presented a small pistol, 9mm, and the other had a low caliber magnum. They were not what Jaz was hoping for, but they would have to work. Other passengers had various items such as baseball bats and other blunt objects. Most of them were men, but there were a few women and children, which worried Jaz. Children turning was a sight no one should have to behold, but one that many did nowadays.

He checked his watch. It had been 15 minutes since the blood was spilt. He figured they probably had another 10 before the first zombies started showing. Ok, I want you with the magnum, er what’s your name?” He asked. “My name is Samuel.” The man replied. “Ok, well Samuel, I want you stationed on the roof. You and I will pick them off from there at long distances. You with the smaller pistol, name please?” The other man looked up at him and said “The name’s Mark.”

“Mark, I want you in here patrolling the windows and the front and rear exits of the bus just in case Sam and I miss any. Everyone else, find something to hit stab or jab with and say a little prayer. Does anyone have a phone?” The people on the bus all looked at one another. No one had a cell phone. Figures; most people were too poor nowadays to afford anything like that. Jaz had his S.T.A.R.S. CB Radio in his pocket, but he wasn’t sure how far away they were from and broadcast towers. He pulled it out and tried a quick message for help. He was met with static. A few garbled words escaped the mess of sound but not anything intelligible from the static. He sighed. It looked like they were stuck until someone came along the deserted road.

“Ok, it looks like we are going to be here for at least a while.” Jaz said. “I need everyone to do what they can. First off is defense. We have weapons sort of planned out, but this bus won’t last long under attack from a large group of those things. I want you to cut up these seats, or just rip them apart for all I care, and use the cushions and metal bars to block the windows. I know they won’t block the zombies for long, but it will slow them down. They don’t quite have the brains to claw through all of that foam quickly.” As Jaz said this everyone started moving. They began taking apart the seats with boxcutters, pocketknives, and some bit and tore at them. He motioned for Sam to follow him and they got up on the roof through the emergency exit in the ceiling. Jaz could see them.

On the horizon dark shuffling figures approached. They were moving at a faster pace than usual. Probably spurred on by the blood they could smell. Jaz grimaced. Sam frowned and looked worried. This was going to be a nightmare.

A lone zombie was stumbling in some trees, not far off of a road in what-used-to-be India. It wasn’t necessarily going to kill anybody, and it wasn’t going anywhere in particular. It was just stumbling along, being a stupid little zombie. Of course, it would only last that long until it had somewhere to go, or something to do. Although many zombies couldn’t feel emotion, this one had the sense of being very bored right now. If one were to read its thoughts, it would be something along the lines of, “I wish some food would appear so I could eat,”

It’s head turned, hearing something from the road. A moment later, the stench. It wasn’t the right stench, though. That was the stench of his own kind. That usually meant that food was around somewhere, firing their contraptions that made his kind fall down and not get up again. He turned, and picked up his pace. He was a lot faster than a lot of other undead creatures, save for the ones that could transform. As he got closer and closer, his primitive eyes picked up the bus, and it was like a giant twinkie to the undead. Nice and crunchy on the outside.

There were two foods on top, firing their weapons at zombies on both sides, while there were a lot more foods in the actual thing itself. The zombie glanced back up at the top. The top foods would need to be killed before the bottom foods could be eaten. By now, a large amount of the undead had gathered around the bus, and as they were being shot, more and more came. The things came like flies on a left over dish. Ralph stumbled forward, eager to eat. It ate a few minutes ago, finding a dead body, but it needed more.

It crouched down, avoiding the gunfire that was raining down his fellow members of the undead. They were pitifully stupid, indeed. Ralph would find a chance when he could bring one of them down and then feast, however, the others might eat it before he got a bite. They’d better stay away from his kills. Still crouching down, he stumbled over to the other side of the bus, and started to climb up. On the inside, the food known as Mark let out a cry, and started firing through the window at him.

Foolish of him, that window of the bus would be broken, and others might get inside. It wasn't a giant hole, but if a smarter undead creature broke through, they might be screwed. One of the men on top, the one known as Samuel, peeked over the side to see what the commotion was about. That was his fatal mistake. Ralph had turned his arm into the blade, and stabbed upward, stabbing the man through the chest. He then pulled back, pulling the man off of the bus and hurling him several yards. About half of the undead creatures pulled away from the bus and stumbled over to the body. Ralph let out a little roar, and then swung his arm, slicing away several of the bodies.

This was his kill, and he made sure that the other undead knew it. He gripped the body by the neck, pulled it up, and ripped a bloody chunk out of his neck. He chewed a few times, and then dropped the body.
Tasted like shit.

He turned, glaring up at the other one on top. He was next. He stumbled towards the bus, and crouched down again, using his fellow undead creatures as cover.

He’d wait.

The disgusting undead had gathered around the bus. They were already in a large group, numbering in the 30-40s. Jaz and Sam stood on top of the bus and fired down upon the mass of filthy bodies. Jaz was scoring head and chest shots here and there, but Sam was failing miserably. He fired into the crowd at random, hitting legs and arms but never doing any real damage. Occasionally he would get a headshot, and land a killing blow, but they were far and few between. Jaz grew concerned as he heard shots ring out beneath him. Mark had begun firing. That meant the zombies were getting closer to infiltrating the bus, and the bullet holes Mark must have created would not help. He heard screams from below him as well.

Jaz just continued to kill the crowd before him, trying not to worry about the other passengers for now. So far he had managed to kill about 8 zombies. Sam had killed 2 and wounded many others. He was using his ammo stupidly and aiming like a child. Jaz couldn’t blame him, it was a tough situation. He continued to fire into the crowd, conserving ammo as much as possible. The crowd was shrinking, and then growing as more joined it. They would never survive this if Sam kept firing randomly. For some reason Sam had decided to look out over the edge of the bus. Jaz looked out of the corner of his eye, and instantly regretted it.

As the man leaned over, a blade-like body part shot into his chest, impaling him and probably killing him in an instant. His gun clanked on the roof of the bus, threatening to fall into the crowd. He couldn’t lose that gun. As Sam’s body was dragged into the crowd of raving undead, Jaz snatched up the gun just as it was about to slip into the mass of zombies. He checked the clip; 9 rounds left, plus the small box of ammo Sam had placed between his legs. The box had about 20 rounds left. Jaz still had 50 rounds left for his Colt Delta, the more powerful of the guns. He decided to conserve the Delta ammo and use the smaller 9mm handgun.

He holstered the Colt Delta and cocked back the 9mm. He continued his firing into the crowd of zombies. By the time the clip was empty, he had cleared about 4 more zombies from the planet. He reloaded and hoped that the people inside the bus could fend for themselves, at least for a little while. He took a pause from firing to try his CB radio again. Once more he was met with static. Frustrated, he threw the radio to the ground, which happened to be the roof. He reached into his pack and took out a flare gun. He only had two flares, so this had to work. He said a prayer then fired the flare straight up. It was their only hope of surviving this.

If night rolled around before help arrived, Jaz didn’t even want to think about what would happen.

The two men on top of the bus weren’t great shots, but the one Ralph hadn’t killed was a much better shot, still taking out the zombie’s fellow undead creatures. He would use a whole clip of ammo and take out less than five zombies. The man on top stopped firing for a moment, and then a few moments later, fired a bright light into the air. Ralph’s eyes followed it. He was able to understand that it was a cry for help. He glanced down, aiming to attack the foods that were inside of their shield. Then, all of the stupid undead would try to kill the top foods.

Still crouching, his right arm grew again, and he got close to the side of the bus, near the window that Mark had been shooting at. Inside, there were around fifteen foods. Not enough to satisfy thirty to fourty of the blood eaters, but they’d have to live with. Ralph pulled his arm back, and then gave a massive swing. It sliced into the broken window, breaking it open. An unfortunate bystander happened to be standing there, and it just so happened that he was decapitated. Blood sprayed inside of the bus, and screams started to ring out.

There being an opening, the stupid undead started to claw at it, breaking into the bus. Mark began firing rapidly, hitting zombies in the chest, and once or twice getting in the neck, but he could never obtain a head shot. Meanwhile, an old lady was bashing Ralph on the head with her purse. The zombie turned to her, and then gripped her neck tightly. She coughed up a bit of blood, and then the zombie slammed her head against the side of the bus. She fell down, bleeding. Mark panicked, broke a window, and then leapt up the side of the bus, climbing to the top.

A man with a baseball bat rushed at Ralph, and slammed it into his stomach. The zombie let out a low groan, and then sliced his teeth into the man’s neck. He let out a scream, and fell back, bleeding. No virus had been transmitted, but being bitten would kill the man enough. Zombies began to pour in after Ralph, and began to tear away at the people inside. The zombie turned, seeing that no one else was alive in the bus.

He bent down, and started tearing away at the old ladies’ body. It tasted like shit, still. He turned, pushing away a zombie over a child’s body, and bit into it. It tasted fresh, and sweet. He pulled off the child’s arm, blood spraying all over him, and picked it clean. He was satisfied. However, there were still two humans on top of the bus,

The zombie turned his right arm into a blade, and then stabbed it upward, through the roof of the bus. Maybe he could hit somebody.

Jaz knew the shit had hit the fan. He heard glass breaking and screams from inside of the bus. Mark fired his weapon a few times then the sound of more glass breaking reached his ears. Mark had climbed to the top of the bus. “What are you doing?” Jaz asked him, raising his voice over the screams in the bus.
“They got in!” Mark yelled. He was obviously distressed. Jaz didn’t want to think about what the guy may have seen in there. “Alright, you pick them off around the sides of the bus. Try and shoot the ones closest to the window so they don’t get in.” Jaz instructed. When he saw that Mark understood he moved the emergency exit in the roof. He could see down into the bus and was treated to the visual of blood spattered walls and zombie covered bodies, teeth mashing and gnawing at the fresh dead flesh.

Jaz was sickened, but quickly regained his composure. He had a job to do here. He was about to aim down into the bus when the sword-like appendage that had skewered Sam broke through the roof beneath him. It rose up between his legs, coming within inches of his manhood. He jumped about three feet in the air, something not hard to do in that kind of situation. After leaping up and back, he fired a few shots at the sword. He didn’t care if he hit it or not, only that it was gone. Once it was no longer a threat he moved back to the emergency exit. He fired shots down into the bus, trying to clear the zombies as quickly as possible before the sword forced him to move again.

Once he had emptied the clip into the bus there didn’t seem to be anymore zombies left inside, as far as he could see anyways. He had killed all 5 in his sight. As he reloaded the gun he heard a faint static voice. He turned and realized it was the CB radio. He quickly snatched it up and sent a help message, hoping someone was finally near enough to hear him. This time he was met with a voice. “Officer Daniels! I repeat, Officer Daniels, we have a lock on your location. You flare was seen and we now have a support chopper on its way. Do you think you could hold out for just a few more moments?” Jaz was overjoyed at the news. They would make it out of here after all. “Yes, yes we can hold it down for a few more moments. There is currently only one other survivor besides myself. Once we are evacuated the area will be clear for demolition.”

The voice replied with an affirmative and shut off. Jaz could already hear the hum of the chopper’s blades as it drew near. He saw it. It blocked out the sun like a great bird on the horizon. It was approaching quickly and Jaz jumped for joy. “We are getting out of here Mark!” He said, addressing the cowering man firing into the crowd of zombies. The helicopter was directly above them now. A burst of machine gun fire was heard and a few zombies trying to climb onto the roof were felled. A rope ladder lowered and Jaz pushed Mark up to it. He followed quickly behind. They both boarded the helicopter. “Nice to have you safe, Officer Daniels. I hear you are quite the catch out of the Academy.” The pilot said, handing him a grenade. “You know what to do.” He said with a wink.

Jaz grinned a wide toothy smile. He knew exactly what to do. The pin went clank as it hit the floor. The grenade went thunk as it hit the bus. The bus went BOOM! The chopper was now on its way to the S.T.A.R.S. base in Mahageon and Jaz could finally have that nap he wanted so badly.

Ralph didn’t feel anything when he shoved his claw into the air until a few moments afterword when he felt a few bullets hit it. The zombie felt the emotion known as humor, and pulled the arm blade back, his arm returning to normal again. A moment later, shots began to be fired down into the bus. Ralph, not being totally retarded, hid behind a seat near the back so no bullets would hit him. Another moment later, and the zombie heard the food talking to someone. Was it the other food who had gone up on top? No…it was something else.

Ralph heard the hum. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to stand up against a food contraption of that power. He leapt out of the bus, and ran as fast as he could, which was as fast an average human man’s actually. A moment later, he was in the trees, safe once again. The zombie looked back, seeing bullets hit his fellow undead creatures, killing them again. He let out a zombie sigh. Try to imagine that, if you will. The zombie’s eyes stayed on the bus until the grenade went off, exploding in a bright flame and causing the bus to catch on fire.

Its white eyes followed the Helicopter then, watching it as it slowly flew away. If only his kind could use such contraptions, they could take over! But, alas, they were not intelligent like food. Food was pretty smart, and the undead were pretty dumb. Well, most of them were. Ralph was a bit more intelligent than a lot of them. He turned, returning to his task of not knowing where to go. Wherever the kill would take him, he would go.