The wheels skidded and grinded across the faded and worn street that was full of life at one time. We had finally arrived in Indiana. “Alright ya’ll. This is as far as I can take ya.” He opens the door as he obligates us to leave. We step down the two metal stairs with a loud clank with every step. There were boring brick buildings that all looked like clones of each other. Each one looked dreary and worn as if they had been abandoned for ten years instead of the two months of the irreparable damage caused by the infected. There were fallen street lights covered in vines and cracked stone sidewalks that looked like a hazard to people not looking, and every sign on the stores mentioned a place called Angola.

The bus rumbled as the diesel begins to burn as it barrels down the beaten highway. Kozbial pulls out the map. “We are just short of 100 miles to The Lake. He couldn’t take us any further?” He throws his hands up in frustration. “That’s what you get when you put Kenny in charge of a bus.” Kozbial opened his mouth to say something and was interrupted by a loud, monotone, hum of a minigun from the rooftop. “MOVE!” We run to an old investments building for cover, the bullets hitting the pavement like a hailstorm. We dive through the glass door as the barrage halted and the glass shattered. “Jesus Christ, who is that?” Kozbial asks with a sense of fear and anger. “I don’t know or care, but he is going to be here any minute, we need to take him out before he takes us out.” We hear the hum of the minigun again as it beats down on the brick rooftop, knocking bricks down on us, attempting a burial. He peeks through his crude entrance, He was a tall, heavily muscled man with a gas mask and crude armor made out of a rusty shopping cart. He pulls back on the hammer giving us time to strike.

We barrage him with pistol shots, hitting him in the cranium three times. In a slew of profanity, he grabs his head and runs away. “I shot him in the head, three times!” Said Kozbial in utter confusion. By the time we exit the building, there wasn’t a single trace of him. Deciding to call off the search, we traveled through Angola and down the beaten highway until nightfall when we set up camp.

I wake up with the morning fog rolling over the field giving a disturbing aesthetic to an already disturbing world, the morning dew sticking to me like sweat. I pull the tarp off of me, checking my watch, displaying 7:08. I still saw a heap under the wrinkled blue tarp over by the pine trees, Kozbial was still asleep. I look at the map, the red line indicating that we have only traveled three miles.

I hear a shuffle from under Kozbial’s tarp as he awakens and pulls it off from him. He shuffles to me, half awake. He plants himself on a log that rolls under him as he falls on the damp grass. I couldn’t help but laugh, It felt good for I haven’t even cracked a smile since the beginning of the apocalypse. He flips me off as he gets back on the seat. We cook ramen over a crude firepit and resume our journey.

We were walking the dusty and beaten road when we heard a shifting sound that sounded like a breeze. We blew it off and continued when we heard it again. It was closer this time and more menacing with a faint Stomp Stomp. We turned around and look all over, the forested road as deserted and quiet as it was before. We turn back around when the sound became faster and louder. Before I can turn around, I hear a raspy grunt as a bloodstained machete was thrust toward me. The masked giant was back for more.
The blade missed me by centimeters. In a harsh growl he quickly rears back the weapon. What did he want? Why did he survive three headshots? He slashes again, this time scratching my face and knocking my knife from my hand as it skids away from me. I punch him in the stomach and it felt like hit a brick wall. Kozbial put his pistol to the man’s head. With supernatural speed, he grabs and twists Kozbial’s arm with a nasty crunch. Kozbial falls to his knees as the giant kicks him in the face with his steel boots, knocking him unconscious. This guy was NOT human.

I run at him and attempt to pull the gas mask off when he flips me over his shoulder as I hit the ground, everything around me looking tripled and swirling, I found out that seeing stars was not a metaphor after that. He lifts his leg to crush me under his heavy foot. I roll to the side as his foot plants into the road, surprisingly shaking the concrete, making my grounded knife fly up. He turns to me and everything seemed to enter slow motion. I hear the woosh of the blade coming back. We look up at the sky as the steel glints in the early sunlight. It comes down like the fist of god onto his air filter.

It rips a small hole into it and it made a sound like a balloon deflating. He wheezes and emits a rattling cough that sends shivers down my spine. He covers the punctured plastic with his meaty hand and turns to run. I was not going to let him get away. I want answers. He ran surprisingly fast, each step making the ground tremble. I chase him down as the city we are in became increasingly more dense. He turns sharp corners left and right as I stay on his heels. He turns a final corner and I see a tall metal fence with broad sidewalk and cages, and a room next to it with a rusty steel door that looked like one that belonged to a meat freezer.  it must have been a zoo. He rips open the door and slams it with an extremely loud boom. I run to the door and tug at the handle but it didn’t budge. I kick at it a few times and notice that there is no way it is opening.

Losing hope, I look around the dreary landscape. I didn’t even notice it began to rain. There was a stack of faded blue containers behind a small brick building with various logos applied to the plastic shell. I look back at the building and notice that if they were to be stacked, then I could get on the roof and continue my hunt. The boxes were surprisingly heavy I heave each one over to the roof, each one harder and harder to mobilize. I eventually make a pathway up to the roof of the white concrete building. I heave myself on top and get a view of the horrifying scene below me in the zoo.

There were people imprisoned in the exhibits and dozens of the strange superhuman men, all wearing the old black gas masks as my attacker. He just wasn’t a freak of nature, this was a tribe of these mutants. Below me was two of them smoking cigarettes, having a conversation about Slim Jims. I was conflicted with myself. I want to find out who these people are, but also know that I will be accepting my death with open arms if I were to get caught by the large men. I suddenly feel a tug on my shoulder as I vigorously get turned around to see the masked perpetrator, I got to see a glimpse of his eyes through the tinted glass. They were unusually green, looking like they were teeming with unholy power. He punches me square in the nose and I feel my consciousness fading.

I wake up in a bunch of tall grass. It smelled of musk and rot. I help myself up as I feel a trickle down my face as I see the blood drop on the yellow grass. I wipe below my nose and get my hand covered in crimson from the nose bleed. I barely rise above the uncut grass and see acacia trees and a gorge made of fake rocks. It looked like an African savannah. There were emaciated people dressed in rags looking so sad that it reminded me of those humane society commercials before the apocalypse about the starving children. One man with white hair was rocking back and forth with his head buried in his bony hands. He looks up toward me with his sunken brown eyes and quickly looks down and resumes sobbing. I walk out of the tall grass and see a dark skinned woman pacing back and forth mindlessly chanting “no,no,no,no”. They all looked like skeletons, like they have been here for months, never being fed. There was a brown colored man made river with another starved prisoner with long, greasy blonde hair drinking from it like an animal.

I walk toward him as he turns away from the nasty water. He had a large, hooked nose and rotted teeth. He gave a toothy grin and pointed to the top of the rocks at the exhibit as he chanted “Go talk to Wisey, go talk to Wisey!”
“What is wrong with these people?”
“Uh-uh, uh-uh.”
I give him a confused look and give the clifftop another look. There was an African-American man wearing robes made from the rags with streaks of red and orange he had dreadlocks that went down to his hips. He had a crude staff made from driftwood. He pointed an arthritic finger toward me, his joints so damaged it looked like he was pointing to the tree next to me. He then gestured me up to him. I trudge up the mountainside. I reach him and he then invites me to sit on the rocks next to him. 
“Okay, first, my name is Jones, don’t be like those demented folks and call me Wisey.”
“Yes sir.”
“Do you know what you are doing in here?”
“Not a damn clue.”
“Do you know why these people are insane?”
“Nope”
“We have been trapped in here like animals for the past three months, every time they get twelve prisoners, they send lions out to kill us, whoever survives gets ‘enlightened’ and gets to join them. The anxiety is making everyone go mad, and you sir, you are number twelve.”

The guilt hit me like a semi truck. I am going to be responsible for the death of eleven people, possibly me too anytime now. I look back to the tribal man. “So how does this go down?”
“They release lions and we have to fend for ourselves, but I have made weapons for my people.”

He heads over to a knot hole in the tree near him and pulls a surprisingly sharp wooden dagger, he then rests it in my hands. “You can use this to survive, and I am positive you will be the lucky winner. Come now, let’s get you cleaned up.” He lifted a rock to reveal a bottle of purified water he poured some into his dirty hands and wiped the blood off of me. We then waited for the lions on the hard rocks. The wait stretched from minutes to hours to days. The hunger was unbearable, I could feel my body slowly dying from lack of nutrition. I was trying to make a fire when we all heard a man on an intercom. “Who’s ready for the interview? I know I am! Release them!” We heard the mechanical whir of the steel doors rising as three of the wildcats slowly walked out. They sniffed around and began to circle around one of the starving prisoners. He pulled out a crude axe and waved it furiously around the lions. He then accidentally cut the nose of a big one with an overgrown mane. It snarled as it pounced on him. I turn away from the grotesque scene and run up the fake cliff. They finished their killing and searched for more prey. Jones and I waited on the cliff for our time as they killed everyone one by one. They eventually turned toward us. They prowled under the cliff when I came up with a bright idea. I kicked the edge over and over until an avalanche of stone came down and ended up crushing the lioness in the rear of the pack.

They ran up the ridge as Jones was throwing painted stones at the beasts. One of the rocks missed as it hits the rusty cage top above us as a piece of steel came clanging down with loud sounds in front of them. I use the diversion to charge at them. I shout a war cry as I dig the crude weapon into the neck of the largest lion of the pack. I growled and looked at the sky as it collapsed. The other one jumped at me with it’s large claws looking like impending doom. I roll toward Jones as I see the dumb lion jump of the cliff to its death. It hit the ground with a yelp and no longer moved. I wink at Jones “guess they don’t always land on their feet huh?” He let out a cackle of a laugh for a brief time.

The intercom blared the voice again. “Holy cow! We have two survivors! Congratulations to both of you! Come on in!” Wisey grabbed my shoulder “It’s a trap. Don’t fall for their s***.” I nod to him as we walk the victorious path out of the cage. There was a table with a magnificent display of food that looked like heaven itself with three of the mutants standing by it. They smile and nod toward the feast. We stuff the plates with as much as we can and sit down on a picnic table. Wisey leans toward me “You can pretend to eat it but do not consume it.” He then sits back up and pulls out a wooden instrument and plays a short tune. He looked like a complete fool.
“What are you doing?”
“Just watch and listen, young one.”
I officially concluded that Jones was a weird old man. I wonder what he was like before his capture. Before I could ask, a loud crashing sound burst to my left, I heard a musical tone of a horn as a dirty white pickup truck bursts through the ornate gate and steamrolls two poor guards. I hear someone in the car shout “FEAST YER EYES!” As he blasts a concerned mutant with a shotgun. “You’re welcome” Jones said coldly. After the pellet spreads make the mutants look like ragdolls, The truck stopped as a man with a buzz cut and shaved blonde hair stepped out of the muddy vehicle. He broke his shotgun and dumped out his two spent rounds. “Come on boys!” He said awkwardly.
“Who are these guys?”
“Old buddies from Civil Air Patrol.” Jones said as we file into our new friends car. We heard the faint tune of an extremely patriotic playlist.
“Why couldn’t you have done that earlier?”
“Slipped my mind, I’m sixty anyway, young buck like you wouldn’t understand.”
“How was the field trip pal?” The man said sarcastically like it was a joke despite the horrible experience.
“Wonderful! Now, where are we going, Jenkins?”
“A wonderful resort that everybody wants to go to but doesn’t have the fuel. Wall Lake.”
“YES!” I say with excitement. An Arabic man turns around and looks at me with resentment?
“Yo this ain’t christmas, cool the engines.”
“Amir, shut up, he just escaped a zoo. I bet he is excited to finally get some fresh air.”
Amir glared at me and turned back around. I admit, I did instantly feel embarrassed the second I said it. We were on the road for about two hours, hitting zombies about every five minutes, I learned that Jenkins loves to run over stuff in the two hours I’ve known him. He turns onto a wooded, gravel path as we rumble down it we saw armed guards with a very authoritative look to them, each one wearing something that looked like a cross between a military uniform and a Boy Scout uniform. We get to a shabby gate made from salvaged wood, tires, steel, and other components.

One of the adult Boy Scouts walked up to Jenkins as he rolls down the window. He makes a motion with his hand that he needs money as Jenkins puts $200 firmly in the man’s gloved hand. He then walked over to the gate and opens it as we resume driving.  This was the best looking place I’ve ever seen, perfectly preserved houses, fertile corn fields, people walking about with no form of armor or weaponry, green grass, trees with leaves, an actual operated restaurant. It looked like it was never affected. It was utopia.

We pull into a driveway of a small blue house right on the lake with a steel dock with two kayaks docked next to it. Jenkins pulled the key out of the slot and we all exit the truck. He opens the screen door and holds it open for everybody. The house had a wooden interior with many photos and a great smell from the kitchen area. Everyone started to take their shoes off and walk into the kitchen. An old lady was stirring something in a pot. Jenkins plops down on the creme colored couch behind the counter and activated something that was no big deal but was nirvana now. Television. It was playing an old debate from 2016 there was a blonde haired man with a hoarse voice talking about emails as an elderly woman was sitting in a nearby chair looking at the audience and shaking her head.

I think this was that big joke election that tore the nation in two and almost caused a second metaphorical civil war. The old lady turned away from the pot. “Zach, stop watching that stupid debate and watch something educational!”
He abruptly ended the televised argument and switched to a soap opera. We watched it until the soup was done, it was the best thing I’ve ever had probably I haven’t had anything in a few days. That was the best night I’ve had in the longest time. An actual bed, not having to worry about a midnight attack, a shower, clean clothes. I went to sleep that night, knowing I was forever at peace.