<strong>Day 1 (23 May): Outskirts of the City, undisclosed farm location</strong><br/><br/>Willie's breath came in ragged gasps. He hunkered down against the fallen log, gripping his AR-15 assault rifle tightly in both hands. He glanced over at his brother, Daryl, who also hunkered down behind the same log that Willie had, gripping his shotgun with similar intensity.<br/><br/>“Ready?” Willie whispered. “We only got one shot at these fuckers. If we don't get them now, we're dead!”<br/><br/>Daryl nodded emphatically. “Ready when you are, bro!” he whispered back.<br/><br/>“On three, then,” Willie said.<br/><br/>“One....”<br/><br/>“Two....”<br/><br/>“Three!!”<br/><br/>Both men rose and leveled their weapons towards the two figures in the distance, then they each started to pull triggers at the same time, letting out shouts of, “Die fuckers!” and “Eat lead, bitches!” as they unloaded completely.<br/><br/>The shotgun blasted, the assault rifle popped. Daryl worked the pump-action of the shotgun furiously as Willie just pulled the trigger of his rifle over and over. Bullets and shot hurled again and again toward their targets just fifty feet away, pounding them brutally, shredding them as if they were made of straw. Bits and chunks exploded from them from the impact, and neither man stopped until their weapons were all out of ammo.<br/><br/>“Hell YEAH, bro!! Nice shooting!” Daryl called out.<br/><br/>Willie sighed with a smile, leaping over the log and advancing on their targets.<br/><br/>The two target-dummies were made of a mix of wood and beer cans. Now, they were made of a mix of badly splintered wood and pretty torn up beer cans. Nailed to the top of the post holding both dummies were two words. Above the first dummy was the word, “THE”, and above the second dummy was the word, “MAN”.<br/><br/>“When are you going to get me those plans to remove the firing pin from this thing so I can take it full-auto?” Willie asked. He glanced around, taking in the sights of their farm at the outskirts of the city.<br/><br/>Daryl just laughed and shook his head. “In time, Rambo. Don't be so damned impatient. And you know that removing the firing pin will make your weapon illegal in every state of this great union PLUS Puerto Rico, right?” he asked.<br/><br/>Both men got real quiet for a few seconds – then burst out laughing together.<br/><br/>“Make yourself useful and go get me a beer,” Willie said. Daryl snorted and walked off.<br/><br/>Willie moved over to a nearby hay-bale and began to reload his weapon. He and his brother had to be ready. They never knew when the feds might come knocking at their farm, and the two men would have to fend them off with blood, spit, and lead. Willie had read about all the government's gestapo-like tactics in an effort to keep American entrepreneurs under the heel of tyranny. Just because their farm 'crop' happened to be 'illegal' didn't make a difference to him or his brother.<br/><br/>He glanced out over the field to his left. He could see the marijuana plants green and ripe from where he stood. He smiled as he finished loading his AR-15, smirking at the thought of the DEA trying to mess with him and his brother.<br/><br/>FUCK “The Man”.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Day 2 (24 May): Outskirts of the City, undisclosed farm location</strong><br/><br/>“Hey Willie! Shit! Shit! Shit! It's on, it's on!!! Shiiiit!” Daryl exclaimed as he barged into his brother's trailer, his shotgun in hand and dressed in his full BDU military wear that he had picked up at the army surplus store just earlier that week.<br/><br/>“Dude! Seriously! Don't you knock?” Willie growled, holding the latest issue of 'Penthouse' in his hands. He was JUST getting good and ready to 'take care of business' when his brother barged in. Thank God and the Holy Dollar that his brother hadn't waited a few more minutes to make his untimely entrance.<br/><br/>Daryl was agitated, far worse than usual, and Willie could tell that something was seriously wrong.<br/><br/>“They're HERE, bro! THE MAN is here!!! On County road 100, five miles out!  Sweet hickory bacon, Willie, they brought the ARMY! They KNEW we'd beat those fuckers back and they went and brought the whole friggin' army! Maybe, Marines, too!” he said, his blood racing, breaths coming in labored gasps.<br/><br/>Willie didn't think this was another one of his brother's pranks. Daryl's eyebrows weren't twitching like they usually did when he was lying. Willie leaped up and began getting dressed in his own military-grade outfit.<br/><br/>“Calm down, bro, and tell me EXACTLY what you saw,” he said, in as calm a voice as he could muster while he continued to get dressed.<br/><br/>“Well, I saw at least  twenty hum-vee's, a couple platoons of fully geared soldiers, and I swear, there were half-dozen M1 tanks, bro! We are so fucked! What if they brought Green Berets? What if they brought Delta??”<br/><br/>Willie nodded as he tightened his belt, giving Daryl a determined look. “We're gonna have to make 'em pay for every inch, Daryl. They sent their best because they knew that's what it would take. They've probably been scoping us out for awhile now, probably spying on us – I told you NOT to bring that Hendricks girl here, didn't I? Was probably her who ratted us out, gave up our entire operation!”<br/><br/>Daryl shook his head. “No way would Suzie do that, bro. No way. She LOVES me! Besides we stay in the trailer most of the time, and-....” but Willie waved a hand, cutting him off.<br/><br/>“I ain't needing to know all your girl-business, Daryl, damn!” he said. Truth was, Willie had watched his brother and Suzie together a few times from hiding, and needless to say, there wasn't a whole lot that Daryl could tell him that Willie didn't already know anyway.<br/><br/>“What are we going to do, bro? It's the ARMY!” he said.<br/><br/>Willie nodded. “Alright then, we might go down, but we are going down swinging. Let it not be said that the Tooms brothers gave up like a couple of pussies! No sir! We'll head out to the west fence, to the sniper positions we built, and start-....”<br/><br/>But the rest of his sentence was cut off by the sudden drone of massive, powerful helicopter engines swooping overhead.<br/><br/>“Shit, bro!! They brought gunships? God-damn! I am NOT dying over some weed, bro!!!! I ain't!” Daryl said, panicking.<br/><br/>“Daryl! DARYL! Get ahold of yourself! Alright! Gunships, tanks... it's obvious they mean business, so I think a tactical retreat is in order!” Willie said. “If they're at County road, then we have maybe... ten minutes. So, go get your shit, bring plenty of ammo, and meet me at the barn. We'll go cross-land on ATVs, cause they'll have the roads shut down for sure!”<br/><br/>Daryl nodded, finally starting to calm down. “Can we stop by Suzie's place on the way out?”<br/><br/>Willie sighed, “No Daryl, you ain't got time for a quickie! We've got to get on the run, brother! We're wanted men, now. Fugitives. By the end of the night, we'll be on the top of America's Most Wanted. If they sent the army out after us, then this is it. We're done,” he said. “Now, hurry your ass up, you got nine minutes now. Meet at the barn. We'll hit the back trails. If they're still coming from County road, then we'll have to head towards the city. Dump the ATVs and catch a bus or hitchhike into town and get lost in the crowds. Then make our way to Mexico and start over. So, let's go!”<br/><br/>Daryl nodded, “Alright, alright. Let's do this!” he said, sounding a bit more confident with their chances.<br/><br/>They clasped hands in a warrior's handshake for a moment, then Daryl headed out while Willie continued to dress and quickly pack a duffle-bag with the essentials: a few spare changes of BDUs, a box of pop-tarts, three bottles of water, his penthouse magazine, and a bottle of mouthwash.<br/><br/>A few minutes later, the sound of helicopter blades could be heard in the distance, slowly growing closer... as well as the sound of an ATV engine...<br/><br/>Willie dashed out of the house and to the barn as they had agreed, but by the time he got there, Daryl was already gone.<br/><br/>“Damnit! Daryl!!!!” Willie shouted out, as he saw his brother ride off into the distance. He was going for Suzie's house, he just knew. The bad thing was, Willie didn't know where Suzie lived.<br/><br/>“Damnit Daryl! Picking pussy over blood? That's just WRONG,” he said to himself as he tore into the barn, and jumped on his ATV, making sure his weapons were stowed on-board. He checked the bike but saw that it hadn't been fueled yet. “DARYL! God-DAMNIT,” Willie cursed, leaped off the four-wheeler and began to fuel it. He'd never catch his brother now, and he'd be lucky if he got out of the farm before the army arrived to arrest him, or send him straight to hell.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Day 3 (25 May): Outskirts of the City</strong><br/><br/>He had tore away the night before, driving towards the city. He found a place to hole up, and didn't sleep very much that night. His entire life had come crashing down around him. His brother was missing – or more than likely hip-deep between Suzie Hendricks's thighs someplace while Willie was stuck out in the boonies with water, some pop-tarts, and his right hand.<br/><br/>He hated his brother at that exact moment, for having a girl, for abandoning him back at the farm. His brother had been his best friend his whole life, and at times, his only friend. But now, he had traded Willie in for a girl! How stupid was THAT?<br/><br/>He sighed, and stayed-put in his hideout all day. He had his walkie-talkie, and he tried to call up his brother on it every thirty minutes like they had always agreed, in an effort to conserve battery power.<br/><br/>All he ever got was static.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Day 4 (26 May): Outskirts of the City</strong><br/><br/>Willie stayed away from the main roads as much as possible, riding his ATV, circling the ten square miles or so of land between his old house, and downtown. He wasn't sure where Suzie lived, but damned if he was going to give up on searching for his brother. His brother might have quit on him, but he was still blood.<br/><br/>He saw a few homes with lights on, with people, but he avoided them. If The Man was looking for him and his brother, if they really were on America's Most Wanted right now, he didn't want to show his face. Being public enemy number one would be a tough life, but Willie was willing to accept it as his way of life, for the freedom it offered, for the ability to give the finger to The Man.<br/><br/>He traveled around all day, and siphoned some gas from Mr. Pinkin's pick-up truck a few miles west, towards town. He kinda felt bad, Mr. Pinkin was a good fella for the most part, minding his own business and such. But, desperate times called for desperate measures.<br/><br/>He holed up again in some woods where he and his brother often hunted. There was no sign of his brother anywhere. After tossing-off to the foldout of “Miss May” in his copy of Penthouse, he tried the walkie again and after getting the same thing in response, he turned it off and slept.<br/><br/><strong><br/>Day 6 (28 May): Outskirts of the City</strong><br/><br/>Willie was really starting to get worried. No word from his brother. Even if Daryl had gone on a sex-drug binge with Suzie, surely by NOW he would have been over it, and tried to contact his only kin? Suzie couldn't have been THAT damned good! Yeah, she was cute and all, but FIVE DAYS?<br/><br/>Willie also had begun to notice a few other oddities. A lot of the houses he passed were dark, their driveways deserted. A LOT of them.<br/><br/>Day or night, it was oddly silent. Some of the houses he passed were even boarded up, as if they were expecting a storm or something. “What the hell, do they think this is Florida or something?” he wondered to himself.<br/><br/>He eventually came to a residence with owners that he didn't recognize. “The Bloomfields” was painted in ornate script on the mailbox, and Willie shrugged, not having a clue who the Bloomfields were. He pulled up into the driveway, powered down the four-wheeler, and jumped off.<br/><br/>Silence.<br/><br/>It was just too damn silent.<br/><br/>For a moment, he wondered if The Man, using his DEA underlings, had sent a warning to the nearby area that the raid on his and Daryl's farm was going down, so that people could leave the inevitable 'war zone'. But even that idea sounded silly to Willie, because what if some of these people around here were friends, and warned the brothers? No, something else was going on.<br/><br/>Willie approached the house and rang the buzzer. And then again. And then a third time.<br/><br/>Nothing.<br/><br/>Going around back, he looked around and saw nothing and no one. Not even the wind stirred in the trees. He approached the back door, and just to test things out, he pounded loudly, shouting at the top of his lungs.<br/><br/>“This is the Sheriff! Open up, or we're coming in!” he said. Still, silence.<br/><br/>Using his BDU-covered elbow, he broke the glass of a window near the back door, reached in and unlocked it, and just like that he was inside.<br/><br/>The place was beautiful, one of those fancy digs like you only see on TV or in fancy commercials or reality shows. He looked about the place, his hands gripping his rifle lovingly, expecting to be jumped by an angry home-owner at any minute. But it never happened.<br/><br/>He searched thoroughly, and noted that it appeared that the people living here had left in a hurry. It looked like a husband and wife pair, no kids, based on the pictures he saw on the walls, and the existence of only one bedroom.<br/><br/>He also found a big flat-screen Cable-TV, and smiled as he pumped up the air conditioning. Damn, the place was pretty awesome!! He flipped through several channels, completely ignoring news reports about some sort of sickness in the county (he wasn't sick, afterall), and finally found something that caught his interest – re-runs of “TJ Hooker” were playing on TBS.<br/><br/>“William fuckin' Shatner! That's a MAN'S man right there,” he said, as he made his way to the kitchen to help himself to food and drink.<br/><br/>He kinda felt like goldilocks, noting to himself that he even had blond hair, but goldilocks didn't tote around an AR-15 with 20 rounds of hollow-points, either.<br/><br/>He got quite comfy in the “Bloomfield” house, and as he went to the can to take a leak, he peered in the den and saw a computer. To him, a computer equaled the internet, and the internet equaled one thing.<br/><br/>Porn.<br/><br/>He powered it up and within minutes had a browser going. Within minutes of that, he had found seven different free-porn sites and unknowingly downloaded about a dozen viruses and malware programs. Now, if Willie had any idea what those things were, he might be worried, but he wasn't.<br/><br/>Then, an idea hit him.<br/><br/>He pulled up another browser and started searching.<br/><br/>Susan Hendricks.<br/><br/>After about thirty minutes of narrowing down his search and being slightly distracted by illicit pop-up ads, he finally found his culprit.<br/><br/>“Suzie fuckin' Hendricks. I got you now, you brother-stealer!” he said to himself as he noted the address, and knew exactly where it was.<br/><br/>In the morning, he was going to get his brother back!<br/><br/><br/><strong>Day 7 (29 May): Outskirts of the City</strong><br/><br/>When morning came, he prepared himself with the solid determination of a man on a mission. He collected a bunch of food and sundries from the house, stuffing them in a dufflebag that he found in one of the various closets in the home. He headed out front, looking around and was still surprised to find no one, no traffic, no sounds other than the faint blowing wind and the occasional bird call in the distance.<br/><br/>He hopped onto the ATV and fired it up. Turning the vehicle about, he set out cross-country again, determined to stay off the main-roads lest The Man finally track him down.<br/><br/>As he rode, he started thinking. His brother hadn't contacted him at all, and he just knew in his heart that his brother wasn't going to short him for a piece of ass. So the only other answer was simple: The Man had caught up to him.<br/><br/>Daryl and Willie had both been anti-government for most of their lives. It was quite possible, he surmised, that The Man could have been spying on them – otherwise, how in the world could they have found out about their farm? And if The Man knew about his farm, then chances were The Man knew about Daryl's girl.<br/><br/>THAT explained it. Daryl was either already in custody, probably being tortured for the whereabouts of his accomplices Willie KNEW that The Man preferred 'water-boarding' as a form of torture. He learned this from Fox News, which he knew was NEVER wrong. Or Daryl was holed-up somewhere lying low, not wanting to break radio-silence for fear of being tracked down.<br/><br/>Willie held to hope as he made his way slowly cross-country, praying to sweet baby Jesus that his brother was not in the clutches of the Evil Empire.<br/><br/>Several hours later, it was near noon when he rode down the street that he had gotten from the internet. He didn't understand why EVERY house was silent, empty, and dark. He had expected to see some kids at least, or something, but once more, it was as if the whole world had taken a vacation at the same time.<br/><br/>He headed for the address, pulled up, and turned off his ATV. Immediately, he knew he was onto something – around back, he could see his brother's ATV – so he HAD to have been here at one time, at least! His heart pounded, but he tried to keep his hopes realistic. The Man could have been here already and taken him away.<br/><br/>He decided on a stealthy approach, deciding to start off going around back. If Daryl were still here, he'd be lying low, and he'd have warned Suzie to ignore people coming to the door, as it could have been the fuzz.<br/><br/>Willie reached the back, whispering loudly for his brother. When he had tried the walkie again that morning, he didn't get any response, but again, he figured Daryl was just observing radio silence.<br/><br/>When he came to the back door – and found it hanging open, pieces of it broken off and shattered, his heart sank. There were even splotches of blood on the ground and around the door's frame. He didn't see any bullet-holes, but Willie was smart enough to know that this had been the sight of a fight of some kind.<br/><br/>Entering the back door with his rifle at the ready, he noted that there was even more blood on the linoleum floor of the kitchen, smeared as if a body had laid in it, and then been dragged away.<br/><br/>“The fucking MAN!” he hissed to himself. He knew how the government worked with their cover-ups, and this had all the makings of one.<br/><br/>Willie heard a noise down the hall... a faint scrape, and slowly, he turned his weapon that way, walking in a slight crouch as quietly as he could down the hallway.<br/><br/>There were doorways along each side, but they were all closed – except at the end of the hall, one door remained open through which light poured. The hallway was rather dark otherwise, but even Willie could make out the bloody drag-marks on the floor. What if Daryl was wounded, but survived, and even at this moment was bleeding out? His radio could have been lost or damaged.<br/><br/>“Daryl?” he dared to call out, walking quicker down the hall with thoughts of his wounded brother in mind. When he got to the doorway, he froze, not truly believing his eyes.<br/><br/>A naked woman sat on the floor in the corner of the bedroom, hunched over, her long blond hair looking dirty and disheveled. She was smeared in blood, and parts of her body looked... scabbed over, dirty, infected, perhaps even rotted. She slowly turned her head towards him, and her glossy reddish eyes told him that she hadn't slept in months – or that she was sick somehow. Sitting next to her was a naked man, who looked much the same, and as he, too, turned his head to regard the intruder, Willie recognized him right away.<br/><br/>“Daryl!” he called out. “Thank God, man! I've been looking all-....” he began to say, but suddenly stopped.<br/><br/>The -third- person was someone he didn't know, a middle-aged man from the salt-and-pepper hair on his head. He lie flat on the ground before Daryl and Suzie, covered mostly in blood, and both of his arms were missing.<br/><br/>Those arms, coincidentally, were each in the hands of Daryl and Suzie.<br/><br/>“What the FUCK!!!” Willie cried out, horror crossing his face. In all the survival guides he and his brother had read, NONE of them including instructions on eating other humans to survive.<br/><br/>“Bro, what the FUCK!!” he said again. Both Suzie and Daryl slowly rose to their feet, without saying a word, their rheumy red eyes settling on him as they both lurched toward him, step by step.<br/><br/>Willie raised his rifle. Something was wrong. As they walked more into the light, their dead flesh became more visible, and it finally slowly began to dawn on him<br/><br/>Zombies. Just like in the movies.<br/><br/>Great.<br/><br/>With the gentle raise of his weapon and the feather-touch against the trigger, a single round fired off into Suzie's forehead. “That's for stealing my brother in the first place, bitch!”<br/><br/>Then, Willie raised his weapon towards his brother.<br/><br/>“Daryl, wake up man, wake up!” he whined desperately. Daryl hadn't even flinched when Suzie's head had exploded from the hollow-point, like a ripe melon, or when her body collapsed to the ground at his feet. Indeed, Daryl simply stumbled over her, arm outstretched towards his brother.<br/><br/>“Daryl....” Willie said, shaking his head slowly. If the movies were right (and he generally trusted Hollywood a heck of a lot more than the US government) then there was no cure.<br/><br/>Willie backed away, hoping, wishing there was some way his brother would recognize him. But from the way he came forward, it was obvious to him that Willie was just a big, juicy steak to him.<br/><br/>“Fuck me,” Willie said, his eyes brimming with tears. “You'd do the same for me...” he muttered, and just before he squeezed the trigger one more time, he whispered, “I love you, bro.”<br/><br/>The back of his brother's skull and a good chunk of his cranial matter plastered the wall behind him like some abstract painter's masterwork, and Daryl's body crumpled to the ground.<br/><br/>Willie leaned over, fighting the urge to vomit. He pressed his hands against his knees, taking deep breaths in loud gasps. He did his best to avoid looking toward where his brother's remains lay.<br/><br/>Quickly, Willie dashed out of the room, down the hall, and back to the door he had came in. He ran around to his ATV, and fired it up, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. The ride back to the Bloomfield's was quicker as he rode a bit more recklessly, a bit more urgently. Things were starting to make sense, even to the mind of this average-intelligence farmboy. The reports he barely watched on the news. The silence. The missing people and how everything here seemed so... deserted.<br/><br/>People had fled. They had packed-up some of their shit and simply fled.<br/><br/>The military... they weren't after Daryl and himself at all. They were -containment- for whatever was happening. How big was it? How bad? The city? The state?<br/><br/>He arrived back at the Bloomfield's, a completely different person now. He examined EVERYTHING to see if anyone had been around while he was gone. No tracks, no signs of other forced entry, everything around the house looked as it had when he left that morning.<br/><br/>Willie barred the doors and went to the TV, turning it one, and this time, he went to the first news channel he came across. With wide-eyes and horrified ears, he watched, he listened, and he learned.<br/><br/>Then... he cried.<br/><br/><br/><strong>Day 9 (31 May): Outskirts of the City, The Bloomfield residence</strong><br/><br/>Wille had remained frozen in the Bloomfields for two days, taking stock of the situation, mulling over his options, and gathering whatever info he could.<br/><br/>He took stock of his situation. He had rushed from his house and had very little ammo on him, only 18 rounds remaining for his rifle. He had his trusty .45 too, but only a single clip of 8 rounds, and a hunting knife, like the one “Rambo” used in the movies. That's why his brother called him 'Rambo' sometimes, and just thinking about it caused the young man to choke-up for a moment.<br/><br/>What would mama think of him, blowing his brother's brains all over the wall of his girl-friend's house? Had there been another way? Could he have captured his brother somehow, and held out for a possible cure or something? Or did Willie simply pull the trigger because he had been scared shitless?<br/><br/>No. He did what -had- to be done. His brother would have done the same for him, he was sure of it.<br/><br/>Willie decided he had to go into town. There would be cops there, other people, and of course – doctors. Out here in the 'burbs, there was none of that. In fact, he bet that's where a lot of people went – including the Bloomfields and other folks just like them. Safety in numbers and all that.<br/><br/>No matter what, he just didn't want to be alone. The silence, now that he knew the reason, was weighing on him. It was starting to creep him out and he found it difficult even to close his eyes for a bit of rest.<br/><br/>He decided to leave at noon<br/><br/><br/><strong>Day 10 (June 1): Downtown New Angeles</strong><br/><br/>The drive through the streets was surreal to him, as if right from a horror movie. It was quiet – far too quiet. At least when he was in the 'burbs, he could kinda expect it, people living not so packed-in and tight as they did in town. But here he was, slowly moving up another street, hour after hour, with nothing and no one in sight.<br/><br/>The damage, though, was obvious. Every street he traveled on looked like a war zone. Abandoned vehicles, many burned-out, trash and debris spread about as if dumpsters and garbage cans had been emptied into the streets. Shops looted and damaged, tons of broken glass everywhere. Corpses, by sweet baby Jesus, the corpses were countless, half-eaten and mutilated, as well as the blood... lots of blood, dried and dark on the pavement in so many places. It was eerie. It was surreal.<br/><br/>It was scary as fuck.<br/><br/>Willie traveled down various streets, the huge scrapers of downtown visible in the distance. It just wasn't right. It felt like the end of days. The Apocalypse. He expected four scary dudes riding horses to gallop by him any minute.<br/><br/>People. There HAD to be other people somewhere! They couldn't have ALL died, not THAT many! Where would he look? Where would he go? Where would he-....<br/><br/>The Mall! A center point of congregation for large numbers of people. Surely, if anyone survived, that would be one of the places they'd go. Supplies, tools, electronics, clothing, even a drug-store for medicine.<br/><br/>He had a plan, and he gunned the engine of his four-wheeler, even though the needle on the gas gauge was dipping towards “E” with every passing mile.