Two Page Shorts by Nick Venom (top reads .txt) 📕

Maxwell nodded his head, motioning for Judge to talk. Judge stepped forward. “The plan is to take some of their experienced people and use them against Alpha Fox. This means we need your help with this plan. Ashfield is a large community and we need a lot of people protecting the walls.” He pointed at the large fence that circled the community. “We needed people who were experienced with rifles to fight with us to take over Alpha Fox.”

“And-” Rudd interjected. “-to add to Maxwell’s words, we heard about the reclaiming operation that failed and how the survivors were killed by Alpha Fox for it.”

“How?” I jumped.

“He said his name was Alan Howzer, he was in the Silver Daggers team. From what he told us, his team was overwhelmed and killed by the dead and he became the sole survivor. He tried to return to Alpha Fox but was shot at by the elite force there. He saw many people try to return and all were gunned down. You were all part of that operation, right?”

Garfield nodded. “The four of us were the third team apart of that operation. We were known as the Warriors. We were ordered to reclaim the southwest part of town, but the mission ended in failure. We lost half the team during the mission before heading back. Fortunately, we were radioed in by another member of the operation, Red Scorpions’ leader Hugh Hackman. He told us that they were killing all of his men, before…” His voice trailed off.

“What happened to him?” Rudd pressed.

“Dead. Suicide.” Garfield remarked.

Rudd and the others nodded their heads, looking away from us. After a few seconds of silence, Maxwell took a step towards us. “I’m sorry for what you went through and I know this is too much to ask for, but… Can you help us with our mission? We want to take over Alpha Fox and save its citizens.”

Garfield glanced at me. His eyes asked, what should we do?

I shrugged my shoulders. “Everybody living at Alpha Fox is already in the dumps. At this point, they have nothing to lose.” I whispered.

Salinas crept closer to us, nodding his head. “I want to look around the community first. You know… Make sure we know who these people are.”

Garfield nodded. He turned around to face the people. “We’ll help you out… in two weeks. Give us some time to get adjusted and make sure the people of Alpha Fox will live better lives here than over there.”

Maxwell nodded his head. “That’s okay. For the time being, I’ll have Rudd and Judge make more trips and take more people out. Crystal?” He turned to the third person, a woman dressed in an entirely leather outfit. She appeared to be Asian, but I couldn’t tell from which country.

She took a few steps closer to Maxwell. “Yes?”

“Lead them to their new houses. Feed and clothed them.” He ordered. I glanced down at my clothes, stained with blood, tears, vomits, and other stuff I never want to think about again. 

Crystal nodded, motioning for us to follow her. We went along, being led towards a series of two-story brick houses a few blocks away from the main gate. She pointed at one of the brick houses. “This house is empty. There are twelve beds in there, so you can choose whichever one you want. You’ll get some more roommates later if we need room.”

I nodded my head. I heard Salinas behind me, asking her “do we get a hot shower?”

Crystal nodded her head. “Five-minute showers, but no more than that. Any longer and you’ll be punished for it.”

“What’s the punishment?” Salinas asked. It was evident that he was going to see whether or not the risk outweighed the punishment.

Crystal scowled at him. “Death.”

I heard Salinas choke on air, caught off-guard by her answer. Crystal chuckled, shaking her head. “Don’t worry it isn’t death. If we were that strict, fewer people would live here.” She let out a genuine laugh, surprising me. I hadn’t heard one of those in a long time, a genuine one no less.

“Oh… good,” Salinas said, appearing in front of me. “So what is it?”

“You work off the resources you wasted. That can vary from going on dangerous scavenging missions to construction. We’re lacking both construction workers and scavengers.”

“Oh,” Salinas said, turning towards the house.

Garfield took a step forward. “Thanks.” He told Crystal. She nodded, turning away and returning the way we came from.

With her out of earshot, Garfield leaned in. “Pay attention to everything. If we do join them and help them with their operation, we need to make sure we’re on the right side.” He whispered.

“Right side?” Salinas asked, overhearing Garfield. “I would say the people who got us out of that hellhole are the good guys while the people who locked us up and tried to slaughter us are the bad guys.”

Garfield shook his head. “They could be scheming with Alpha Fox, who knows? Appearances are deceiving us. We could help them try to take them over to then find out they’ve been working with Floyd against us. You can never trust anybody, even if they’re family.”

I stared at Garfield, dumbfounded. He shared the biggest hint about his past that I ever heard. I was extremely bewildered.

Salinas nodded. “Okay, let’s go with that.” He turned towards Luna, who was behind us with her head down. “You okay with that plan, Luna?”

She didn’t raise her head, only nodding it slightly. She had lost all of her motivation during that one week of being under Floyd’s grasp. I wonder what they did to her.

Garfield nodded, turning around and heading into the house. I went to follow directly behind him, but Salinas jumped in front of me. Of the four of us, Salinas was the most excited to get into the house. 

Once we entered the house, we marveled at the interior. It wasn’t a makeshift hut or anything degrading but an actual house. 

“Wow, this is amazing,” Salinas said, staring at the chandelier over the dining room table.

“We’re living here?” Garfield asked, looking around. He looked to be searching for some kind of trap or security system. There was none of that.

“Is this… our new life? No more living in a cell with stale bread?” I asked, not even realizing the words escaped my mouth.

We continued inspecting the house, finding the four bedrooms with two sleeping beds extra in every room. That’s how they could have twelve beds, with space in the other rooms to fit more beds. 

As we met up again in the living room, satisfied with our findings, I heard something I never expected to hear. 

“Are we home?” Luna asked, raising her stare towards us. She stared at us, her eyes watering. She looked to be on the edge, tiptoeing between not crying and sticking it out and balling her eyes out. She chose the latter.

“Yes,” Garfield said, smiling. “We’re home.”

Truer words were never spoken.

***

Two weeks had passed in a flash. The time was mundane, but perfect for us. It was better circumstances than what we’d faced in Alpha Fox. Everything was, for a lack of a better word, bliss.

We left our shared house, arriving at the same parking lot we were at a couple of weeks ago. Maxwell, Crystal, Maxwell’s son Alexander (the man who resembled a boy more than a man), Rudd, and Judge waited for us. They stood by a convoy of five trucks: a jeep, three humvees, and a semi-truck.

“How was your time here?” Maxwell asked.

“Better than we expected,” Garfield answered for us.

“Good.” He said, smiling. “Then let us start the operation. Are you ready?”

Garfield glanced at me. I nodded my head. He nodded back, turning to Salinas and getting the same answer. However, we weren’t sure about Luna. She had progressed better in the last two weeks than the two months we were in the cells. She opened her heart and talked more in Ashfield, but this operation asked her to risk her life in Alpha Fox.

She stared at us, biting her lip. She lowered her head, giving us her answer. Garfield turned to face Maxwell and the others. “It’ll be the three of us.”

“Okay, then get in. Guns are waiting for you.” Rudd said, turning away and grabbing a rifle from inside of a humvee. “Here’s three rifles.” He said, taking out another rifle.

“Make it four,” Luna said. We turned to stare at her, dumbfounded. She stared at us, her eyes on fire. “I want to avenge my family. Let me help kill those bastards.”

I jerked my head back, surprised at her confidence - and about the fate of her family. She had told us about Lee’s fate but never about what happened to her that, essentially, destroyed her mental state

I saw Garfield smile, nodding his head. “Get four rifles. We’re all going.”

I turned around and saw Maxwell smiling. “Good, get in the humvees and prepare yourself. We’ll be reaching Alpha Fort in a few hours. You’ll get your revenge there.” He turned away from us, staring at Rudd. “Come back safely.”

Rudd nodded. “Don’t worry, we will.” He turned to face us. “Let’s go. Operation Dominance will be underway now. We’re killing that Floyd bastard by sunset.”

I nodded my head, seeing as everybody around me agreed with Rudd. Everybody wanted Floyd dead.

“... I guess truer words were said.”

Two weeks had passed since the first day of the outbreak. Since then, electricity and water went off. The television only showed a still image of a news anchor with a sentence under him reading, “-flee from them. Do not engage or-”. There wasn’t much they could get from the news anchor aside from that they shouldn’t engage the monsters outside, an obvious statement now.

Edgar paced in front of the television, silently hoping that the electricity would turn on and a news anchor would tell him that the army was clearing the zombies and soon everything will be okay. The television, however, never turned on, his hopes remaining as that - hopes.

“How many days left?” Grant asked, taking over the leadership position from Edgar and the others. “Do we have enough to survive the week?”

Maisey shook her head. “A day, at most.”

Grant shook his head disapprovingly. “We need to scavenge before we starve.”

Maisey nodded. “Who will go? The streets are thinning, but they’re still out there. Remember we saw that man be ambushed by four of those monsters. It could happen to us.” 

“I know, but… we’re almost out of food. We need to find some quickly.”

Edgar overhead the conversation in the kitchen, stepping to the doorframe of the entrance to the kitchen. He looked down the long hallway housing the entrances to several rooms, the kitchen included. The door was wide open, inviting him in. He approached the open door, entering the kitchen and receiving stares from Maisey and Grant. “How about we go to the base? They have to have supplies there… and large walls and an armed military. We have none of that here.” He kept his voice calm, not raising it higher than a normal talking voice. 

Grant shook his head while saying, “No. They’re buffets for the monsters outside. There’s no way we’re getting ourselves killed there!” He declared.

Edgar bit the inner part of