I heard a noise get closer and closer until it seemed that it was on top of me. Thump…thump…thump. I thought to myself, would he see me behind this crate? Will he hear my breathing? I know I will not get away this time. But I still got my bat ready. It was if he didn’t realize I was there! He was walking away. He got to the door, opened it and went out. Wham! Fortunately, I had seen this trick before and stayed down. He sighed, saying something about brains.
          Ok, now I’m out of danger for the moment. I am Brady Carr.  Do not laugh at my name because those both were great football coaches at U of M. My great granddad was Lloyd Carr and my mom named me after Brady Hoke.  I live in the once grand city of Ann Arbor. That was before the zombies got into the world.  It all happened with an experiment on a few local pests. But something went wrong and they got out of the cell they were in and started to bite people. I would have died a long time ago if I did not find the friends that I have now. They are Medd, Kiran, Brendan, Madeline and Olivia Stiffler.
          “Watch out, there’s a zombie behind you, Matt!” I said. Ouch, that had to hurt! Hey, that was Greg Springstead, the pro basketball player and behind him was Colin Jones, the soccer player! I thought that they were at a military base in Alaska.
          My friends and I have been hiding in my dad’s condo basement.  My dad is a special marine soldier, so he gets to have all his gear and extra stuff at home because he is so close to the border.  He got killed fighting the zombies off.  The zombies had come from our own old people that had died in our country.  
          BOOOOM!
          “The whole building shook with that explosion!” Medd said.
          “Everyone get in to the hole!” I yelled. “That was one of the land mines!” We all scrambled for the hole that was dug into one side of the wall.  We all got into our positions. I had the machine gun because I am the only one that can that can lift it; everyone else got pistols.
          “EVERY ZOMBIE OUT! NOW! WE WILL JUST BLOW UP YOUR HEADS!” called someone outside.
          “I will go up and see who they are, and what they are doing,” said Madeline and Brendan. “I will go,” said Madeline and Brendan together again. An awkward moment followed.
          Instead of them, I went up. It was impossible not to tell with them that something was going on. They were always doing everything together, if they could. But it was I going up, not them. I walked up the stairs fast because I knew that those were human voices, not zombies. Then I saw the shirts. They were from my dad’s squad. 
          “Henry, Zander, Michael, Joe, and Sama! How have you been? Where’s Mick? Have you been wandering all this time since the epidemic? Come in. Meet my friends and have some food,” I spurted out.
           Henry answered saying, “We will come in for tonight, but we came to take any food and weapons and bring them back to the base.”
          I continued to pepper them with questions, as we went down stairs.  I asked about the base they were from, about their kids, their wives, their friends. When we got down everyone was surprised except me.  My friends were surprised because they had not expected to see the squad; the squad was surprised because they were not expecting this many young people to ration the little food that was in the house.
          “We have been stealing from the grocery market,” Brendan said.
          “And the Supermarket down the street,” Kiran said. “We also harvested the vegetables in the garden.”
          “Well, at least we know that you won’t be stealing at the base,” Sama said.
          “It was Brady who rationed it for us; he would not give us any more then we got even if we begged,” Olivia said.
          “Good for you Brady,” Joe said.
          “Well they would do the same, given the chance,” I said.
          “Hey right,” Sama said.
          “Well I would try but it is unlikely that I would do as well,” Kiran.
          “See others would do it,” I said.
          “But he said that he wouldn’t do as well,” Joe said. “And I quote, ‘Well I would try but it is unlikely that I would do as well.’ That means he wouldn’t do as you do.”
          “Whatever,” I replied.
          “Let’s go to sleep,” Sama said to avoid the awkward silence.
          We set up the guard schedule and went to sleep. While my friends and I slept the squad discussed the return to the base. The consensus was to bring the kids. The argument was how they would get back home. Sama said that they should hijack a car and come back for the guns. Henry and Zander said that they should have them hijack two trucks. One truck to bring the kids and one truck to bring the guns back to the base. Michael seemed to lean to Zander and Henry in the debate but Joe was for Sama. Both sides were trying to get Michael. Finally Zander and Henry won over Michael.

          The next day the squad explained what was going to happen. The plan was to find two trucks and to pack them up with food, guns, and ammunition. Then tomorrow Sama and Zander would leave for the base with my friends and me. Joe, Henry and Michael would wait for tomorrow and then leave with the food, guns, and ammunition. That way the trucks would not kick up as much dust that zombies could see. Then they would be safer. We prepared for our departure.  We sent Zander and Medd to hijack the cars and make it possible to drive them. Olivia, Madeline, and Sama were sent to get all the food in the town. Brendan and Joe went to get all the guns in the town. Kiran and Henry went to find ammunition. Michael and I were to find a gas station with gas in it and put it gasoline canisters. At dusk we had everything ready. The next day we set off to the base.
          We radioed back to the Joe, Henry, and Michael regularly and told them how far we were. At the end of the day not one zombie had shown itself. We were so scared that we set up a system so that we could see them from any side.  That was a sleepless night for our group. The next morning was a hurry to get going and we were on our way by seven. We reached the base at ten and celebrated.
          The people at the base were extremely happy to get more people. We went through a medical examination after all the people got out of the way. The examiner found us healthy and fit. We were given a weekly schedule that we were to follow. “School” was an hour of Survival Training. My friends and I aced the Survival Training academic. Two hours of expertise training. We crushed the previous leader. Our areas of expertise were: Technology was Medd’s expertise, Madeline and Olivia warred for top spot in Food, Guns in general were Brendan’s expertise, Kiran was a sniper, and I was the expert in Strategy.
          We were given guardians to watch over us. We rarely saw our guardians because they had guard duty at night. After school we looked after the smaller children.
      Years passed and we grow older.
      Then I had a daring idea. I thought if we don’t start expanding we would never take back America and the world. So at the first public meeting with the base leader that I attended I yelled out “Why are we just sitting here doing nothing?” And to make a long story short we attacked the zombies.
          



6


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                                                                                                                                                 7/31/2012