The Ones Who Remain/Issue 1

Issue 1; Two Months
A lone man walked down the dark street, small hatchet covered in blood in his hand. The man with in his late twenties, had short brown hair, wore a small beanie a jean-jacket, and a pair of jeans. He had a small black bag slung over his left shoulder, and he walked with such caution, trying to be extra careful not to draw the attention of anyone or anything towards him. This man was Ray Ford.

Ray Ford, using the moon light as his guide, walking in the middle of the street, just hoping to find a place to stay for the night. The moans and groans of the infected was all that he could hear, those same damn noises he has only heard since this thing began.

Ray turned the corner into the next street, seeing nothing but the same dark empty street he saw before. He sighed, and cussed to himself, before hearing more moans and groans of the infected. He decides this is his cue to find some shelter, so he runs to the closest building, which just so happened to be an apartment building. He gets to the door, silently praying to himself that the door is unlocked, and luck is on his side today. The door swings open, and Ray closes the door again. He turns around, seeing that the main lobby is completely deserted. He smiles to himself, but knows he's not safe. Not yet.

He starts walking quickly down the pitch-black hallway, and gets to the first room, with blue numbers that say "101". Ray tries to push the door open, but, to his luck, it's locked. He goes to the next door, "103" to try the same routine. Locked. As he goes from door to door, they all give him the same bad news; they're all locked.

"Fuck." he mutters to himself, after another door gives him the same result. He hurries over to the last door, again, silently praying to himself, as he goes to open the door, he holds the hatchet up, in case he's met face to face with an infected. This time, the door is unlocked, and it flies open.

A smile forming across Ray's face, he hurries inside, closing and locking the door behind him. He quickly checked the small apartment, and after seeing it was clear, he threw his bag to the ground, and jumped on the bed. He laughed to himself as he covered himself in the warm and fuzzy blanket. This was the first time he had shelter in over a week, and it felt better than he would've imagined. As he drifted into sleep, instead of thinking what was in store for him tomorrow, he happily thought of the luck he had faced that night.

As the sun rose, a man in his early thirties, awoke on the cold pavement in a small alleyway. He had longer blonde hair, and wore a dark green sweatshirt and a pair of ripped jeans. Around him, the gates had barbed wire covering them, so none of the infected could get to them, although a few were stuck in their, trying to reach him. The infected had almost exact characteristics of humans; only two distinct differences. One, their eyes didn't have pupils, they were just a dark blue, brown, or hazel, depending on your eye color before you turned. The second one was that they couldn't speak, and that they had were hungry for human flesh.

This man got up, rubbing his eyes, as the infected still tried to get to him. As he yawned, he picked up a machete that was lying against the brick wall. He walked over to the barbed-wired fence, and looked at the infected, who were just staring at him. He silently slice the first one's head in half, smiling as he did so. He walked over to the next one, and did the same as the first one, the blood splattering onto the ground. This man was Maxwell Emerson.

Maxwell, turned away from the zombies he had just sliced, and walked towards a ladder, leading to a fire escape. He threw the machete up on the fire escape, and then steadily climbed up the cold ladder. As he reached the top of the fire escape, next to his machete, a light green backpack sat. He picked it up, putting it on, and then proceeded to pick up the machete.

Maxwell, ran across the fire escape, and then running up the stairs which led to the roof of the big building. From this sight, he saw an overview of the town he was in. It was chaos.

The town, besides the fact it was filled with the infected that tore the people to shreds, was that the town looked absolutely destroyed. The buildings looked broken down, and one of the bigger buildings had collapsed, leaving nothing but ruins.

Maxwell walked over to the opposite side of the roof, where there was a small lookout post, a chair and a pair of binoculars next to them. Maxwell walked over to it, and sat down, putting one leg over the other. He reached over, grabbed the binoculars, and looked out over the town for anything of note.

He quickly saw something interested, and looked even closer, to make sure he was seeing it right. A pretty girl walked through the town, slowly, crouching behind cars, doing whatever she had to do so she wouldn't be spotted. Maxwell could see her long brown hair, and her pink tank top and short-shorts. He followed her until she disappeared into a local pharmacy.

This young girl in her early twenties, ran through the pharmacy as fast as she could. She ran past the empty aisles, until she got to the last aisle, which was labeled "Medicines". She quickly looked up and down the aisles, muttering "Motrin... Motrin.... Motrin..." as she went along. She was clearly in a panic as she tried to find the Motrin, but who could blame her? This was Karen Scott.

Karen, looking for anything of use in the empty aisle, quickly went through it. She finds a couple of boxes of vitamins, that she stuffs in her bag, but not what she wanted. After going up and down the aisle, more than enough times, she dropped to the floor, checking for anything under the aisle.

Luckily, a box of Aspirin lied there, just waiting for her to take it. She smiled, picking it up, and putting it in her bag. Now it's time to go. She quickly sped down the store, hoping to make her escape, as an infected walked in front of her. The defenseless girl, with no weapons, quickly looked around for anything as the infected started to limp towards her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a screwdriver lying on top of the cash register. She quickly ran towards it, picking up the screwdriver, before swinging around, and practically being tackled be the infected. She dropped the screwdriver, as the infected tried to bite her; but, Karen seemed to be able to hold it off with almost super-human strength. She looked over at the screwdriver, and used her free hand to quickly grab it, before she brings it back to her, and stabs the infected in the side of the head, the blood from the infected covering her face.

As she pushed the infected off of her, she panted heavily, out of breath. But, she knew that this was no time for rest. She got up and quickly went back on her way, and ran out of the store.

Ray woke up to the sound of gunshots nearby. He quickly jumped out of bed, grabbing his hatchet, and throwing his bag over his shoulder. He's been waiting for the military to arrive for, what seems to be, years, but it wasn't. It's been only two months since all this shit happened, but he's been alone for a while, that it seems like it's been years. But, he wasn't going to give up the opportunity to miss out on the military saving them.

After grabbing his stuff, he ran out the door, not bothering to look at his surroundings to see if he was safe or not. He ran down the hallway, and out the front door, looking for where the gunshots came from. As he heard them again, he ran the way in which it came, the infected seemingly have just disappeared. As he turned the corner, he saw a whole bunch of the infected crowding in the street. He hears another gunshot, and sees one of the zombies on the end fall. He looks up at the roofs, and on one of the roofs, a person stood, sniper in hand, shooting at the zombies. It was hard for Ray to see, but he definitely knows it was a person. He looked back down at the zombies, to see that they haven't noticed him.

"Hey, down there!" the feminine voice called.

Ray looked back up at the person, who was now looking at him. "You gonna come on up? There's a ladder in the alleyway over here, leads right to the roof." she called.

Ray, although wary of this stranger, decides to go for it. He quickly ran across the street, putting the hatchet in his bag as he ran. He got to the ladder and started climbing, hoping none of the infected had notice him. But, as he started to get higher up, an infected grabbed hold of Ray's foot, but it was just out of range for it to take a bite of it.

Ray felt himself losing his grip, as the infected tried to pull Ray off the ladder so he could eat him. Ray looks back at the infected, who's mouth is open wide, the groaning as loud as can be. Suddenly, a bullet goes through it's head, and Ray looks back up at the sniper, who is standing above on the roof, looking at him.

Ray continued climbing, but stopped himself as he got close to the top. The sniper, who is very visible at this point looked at him confused. She was this pretty blonde girl in her early twenties, wearing jean shorts, and a red shirt.

"Come on. It's safe up here." she said.

"Are you gonna try and mug me?" Ray asked, eyeing the girl.

"No!" she exclaimed. "Why would I do that?"

"I dunno. Maybe you would though."

"If I was gonna do that, I'd shoot you, let you fall to your death, and then take your supplies."

Ray sighed, and then continued climbing. As he got on top of he roof, he saw the sniper, holding her hand out to his. He takes it, and she helps him up.

"Thanks." Ray said, patting her on the back. "Thanks, a lot."

She smiled, but it quickly went away. "No problem, sir."

Ray looked at the roof they were on, and saw that she had a pretty nice setup going on. She had her vantage point with a sniper and high ground, she had a tent up there too, for whenever she had to sleep.

"So," she said, looking at Ray. "You got a name?"

"Yeah, I do." Ray said, smiling. "Ray Ford."

"Nice to meet ya, Ray. I'm Amy Hill."

"The pleasure is all mine, Miss. Hill." Ray said, still smiling. "So, why the hell are you bringing all this attention to yourself?"

"Cause, I'm trying to start something here." she said, motioning him to follow her, which he does. She leads him to the tent, and she walks in, and quickly comes back out, holding a sketchbook. She flips to one of the pages, where there is a rough sketch of the entire town. There were a bunch of arrows and people on the drawing, and Ray quickly realized what it was.

"You're trying to retake the town?" he asked.

"No dumbass." she said. "We need the numbers in we want to survive... whatever the fuck this is. I'm just trying to get something going."

"C'mon," he said, not believing her for one second. "What makes you so sure we can survive this thing anyways? Even the military couldn't."

"Easy." she said, looking at him. "We can do this because we know what we're going up against. The military had no clue what they were doing, and that is why they were taken out so easily."

Ray couldn't believe that he was actually believing this plan might work. I mean, with time and effort and numbers, they'd have a shot. Which is more than they can ask for.

Karen ran into a house, closing the door behind her, the girl was still panicking as she ran through the house.

"Junior!" she yelled, running through the house.

She ran into the master bedroom, where a man in his late twenties stood over a teenager. The man had an afro, and was wearing a sleeveless-shirt; and the teenager was lying in the bed. The kid looked like he was dying, his skin was pale, he could barely keep his eyes open.

"Get away from him!" she yelled, charging at the man, who quickly dodged her attack, and restrained her.

"What the hell was that?" he asked.

"Get away from my brother... please." she cried.

"I ain't here to hurt your brother." he said, letting go of her. "It looks like you could actually use my help."

"We don't need your help." she said, walking over to Junior. She pulled the Aspirin out of her bag, and gave them to Junior, who swallowed the pills, and Karen then helped him drink water from the bottle.

"What's wrong with him?" he asked.

"I don't know. He's been burning up, he's been having trouble moving... I don't know what the hell is going on."

"Sounds like the simple flu."

"What are you?  A doctor?"

"Actually, yes." he said, walking towards her. "Yeah, it's probably just a flu. Nothing to worry about."

"But what if it isn't?" she asked, starting to cry. "What if he's dying? I promised my mom I'd protect him."

"No, he won't die." the man said, walking over to her. "I'll stay with you, if that's ok. You could probably use the help."

Karen nodded, looking down on her younger brother, who looked up at her, not finding it in himself to move.

"Name's Jason." the man said offering his hand to Karen.

"Karen." she said, shaking it.

A lady in her mid thirties, wearing nothing but a bra and panties, ran in pursuit of a group of infected. She ran as fast as she could down this street. She was unable to protect herself as she had no weapon, and she was attacked in the middle of getting changed and the only thing going for her was her stamina and her quickness. She didn't know what do to, in fact, she was thinking about turning around and letting these things take her. She's seen so much that she doesn't know if she can continue on in this world. This was Tracy Hawk.

Tracy quickly discarded those thoughts, and continued to run as fast as she could. She turned the corner, seeing a gold club lying in the middle of the streets, and knew what she had to do. She ran for it, picking it up as she went along, and spinning around to face the infected. There were four of them, and Tracy knew she could take them on.

Tracy lifted the gold club, looking at the infected that was the closest to her. She quickly swung the club, hitting it in the side of the head. As is fell, Tracy could see the indent in the infected's head, and it made her wanna puke. But she couldn't. No, she had to keep going.

She lifted the golf club again, hitting the next one in same fashion as before. As that one fell, she aimed for the next one; killing that one too. The last one came at her too quickly, tackling the girl; causing her to scream. As the infected went to bite Tracy's leg, it's head was sliced open. In a state of shock, Tracy just lied there watching as a man tried to help her up.

"Lady, you ok?" he asked.

"Yes-- yes, thank you." she said, a distinct Irish accent in her voice.

"C'mon, get up." he said, helping Tracy stand up. "Come, follow me before anymore come up."

Tracy followed the man to an alleyway, with a fence covered in barbed wire.

"Names Max." he said, going through the opening, and holding it open for Tracy.

"Tracy." she said.

"Nice to meet you. Come on, I got a spare change of clothes you can have."

"It's much appreciated." she said.

"Don't worry about it. We gotta protect one another if we wanna come out of this alive." he said, showing her to the ladder.

Tracy started to climb up the ladder, Maxwell close behind her.

Credits

 * Ray Ford
 * Maxwell Emerson
 * Karen Scott
 * Amy Hill
 * Junior Scott
 * Jason
 * Tracy Hawk

Deaths

 * None