Hope On The Rocks/Issue 28

This is Issue 28 of Hope On The Rocks, entitled "The Tale of Kerri Mavis".

This issue is Kerri-centric.

308, The Tale of Kerri Mavis
I were born in Nebraska, oldest of four. I haven’t seen any of my siblings since all this began. Our father was never around. He was an alcoholic according to our mother. I don’t remember him, neither do my siblings. Maybe that’s a good thing. Billy, the youngest of my siblings, and I lived near each other before the outbreak. He was the first one I looked for. He wasn’t home, and I escaped the town. I’ve been on my own since that. I think about him everyday, Billy. He was so nice to me. I had a crappy job as web designer, but Billy helped me get through the day. I miss him everyday, all the time. The first week I managed to stay off the roads, not even facing one single zombie. But I realized that you have to kill these things. It’s the only way you can survive now; kill them before they kill you. That goes for humans too. I found out. I think it was two weeks into the apocalypse, I met three guys. They said they wanted to help me, and I trusted them, followed them to their so-called ‘base’. Turned out their ‘base’ was a small alley where they could rape and eventually kill me. Fortuenaly, it didn’t went that far. They got me down on my knees, but while proceeding to tie me up, some rage went alive inside me. I killed them all. All three men. From that point, I were no longer dead meat. I were Kerri Mavis.

I can’t really hear what they are saying, but I can see them through the scope of my rifle. I am hiding in a bush around 500 meters away from a crowd, and a man proceeding to kill two other men. I don’t want to have anything to do with this, I just want to look. Not that I want to see them be killed... well... actually, that is what I want to. There’s not any action movies anymore, so why not have some fun this way? I might even kill that fat man with the gun afterwards. No, Kerri. Just looking. Nothing else. Someone yells something. Everyone seems upset. I guess that fat man is the bad guy in that little community. Billy would have wanted me to help them, but it’s too dangerous. If I save those two men, kneeling on that car, they will find me and kill me. I’d have to kill the fat man. If he’s the leader of the town, I wouldn’t survive it. They’d kill me. I don’t want to die. I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a few seconds. I am not going to kill him. That would be stupid. Though, it would be fun... No, Kerri, no! I look through the scope of Billy’s old hunting rifle again. The fat man is now pointing the gun towards one of the men; he looks asian. I can hear the shot from here, and also the people yelling. I can’t hear what they yell, but they yell. Oh, they yell. The body falls to the ground, and i now see the other man begin to cry. Well, I can’t see the tears, but he is looking like someone who is crying. The gun moves towards the other man, and now someone runs up on the car. A woman in her 20‘s, probably same age as me. She’s pretty. She is pushed aside by the fat man. I cringe as she hits the ground. I had a boyfriend once, Leon. He got in a fight with Billy, so I broke up, but he was nice. If I had to watch him get executed I’d be sad, very sad. I remember how I had it after I broke up. I don’t think I have ever cried like that. I place my finger on the trigger. Oh, how I hope the fat man is a bad guy. I like killing, I do. I like groups too, but I am ‘socially awkward’, so people say. I hope they wont kill me. I really hope they wont. I take aim, same time as the fat man takes aim. A shot is heard, whether it’s from my gun or his I can’t tell. The fat man drops to the ground, and the other man is okay. The woman from before runs up on the car and unties the man, who looks arabic. I take a deep breath, get up, take my rifle over my left shoulder, bag over the right, and raise my hands. Then I begin to walk towards the town.