Post by arthurbloodbain on Dec 24, 2013 23:59:04 GMT -5
A man, looking like he had not been resting in weeks with ragged hair and tattered clothes, he ran through the forest, running from something unseen. As he runs through the forest, attempting to dodge trees and roots, a noise is heard in the distance, a moaning almost, as if someone was in pain, or hungry. The man looks like he is panicking, as if something was coming for him. Another moan comes from within the woods, joined by multiple others. The man appears to be slowing down; but whether from exhaustion or simply giving up it couldn't be seen. As the moaning gets louder he tries to speed up again, and manages to get to the edge of a clearing, but ends up tripping on an exposed root. His ankle is twisted and he thinks it broken. As he lay there, trying not to scream, the moaning grew louder. The man looked even more panicked as the creatures came from out of the brush into the clearing. They looked like humans, just rotted away and with bite makes over their bodies. One of them stumbled close to the man, seeming to be hungry, as the side of its head exploded. The creature dropped to the ground. The other two's heads exploded in a similar fashion. The man looked confused. He saw where the smoke trails of the bullets came from. He followed the path as best he could, he limping all the way. When he got to the area where the bullets should have come from. When he got to the ridge he saw a note nailed to a tree.
Your welcome, Archangel.
It read. The man wasn't sure what it meant but he silently offered thanks to the person who named themselves Archangel.
---------------------------------------
The man who called himself Archangel was already far away by the time the man got to his sniping spot. He was wearing blue jeans and a camouflage coat, he had a bolt action rifle with a good quality scope over his shoulder, "Three bullets," He mumbled to himself. He felt it a waste of three bullets to save that one man but he still did it because those things, “walkers” he called them, needed to be put down before they could cause more damage than they already had. It had been ten years or longer, he had lost track, since they first crawled out from whatever hellhole they came from. He notched the edge of his guns hilt with three more scratches; three more to the dozens of ticks already on the hilt. He continued walking toward his base. A small underground complex built by his family, it housed what little there was left of them and a few other survivors. As he came up to the iron door he knocked its combination, three quick knocks a pause then a fourth. As he entered the complex he handed over what little supplies he had gathered for them, what little he had found. The man at the door, a ragged looking one, took his rifle, "Any more ticks today?" He asked in a raspy, dry voice. Archangle looked over to the man and his green eyes sparkled, "Three more re-killed," He smiled. He took of his camouflage coat and hung it near the exit. His dark brown hair did well the hide the sweat that was forming on his brow. He didn't know how much longer they could last in the bunker.
He walked to the place he called his room. A semi-large area he shared with the rest of the unmarried males in the bunker. He laid there on his bed and thought of the times before all of this happened. He was nobody back then though; just a desk jokey that went to the firing range to pass the time. Never had a kid; never had a real relationship either. Now both seemed so impossible. As he lay there though he saw the lights go off. Walkers had come far too close to the bunker. He ran to the main door to see a few men and women already shooting them down. He had led these ones here somehow, he knew that. He grabbed his rifle and took aim at the walkers. The first one he saw gave him pause though. It was his former boss. He aimed down his sites and squeezed the trigger. Not even that corporate @$$hole deserved this fate.
---------------------------------
He pulled the trigger on the last of the walkers, emptying his gun. Archangel was the best shot in the bunker but the rest of them were getting close. As he went to put his gun back in storage the walkers were already being disposed of. Burning was always the fashion for those no one knew the identity of, including Archangel’s former boss and the one woman from his family; his aunt. He didn’t like to think back to the good memories, it always saddened him to remember the times he spent with “normal” humans. Archangel walked to the food court of the bunker. He was hungry from his day of scavenging. He heard the conversations around the area of the people who got their food, “Not much meat left,” One man said, “We need some fresh produce,” Said another. It was hard to grow or raise much underground with little in the way of natural light, though they made due with the several people growing them. About sixty people were now in the bunker, thirty of them grew and raise the food, ten were children, fifteen were guards, and the rest were scavengers; the people who went to the surface for other supplies. He stepped up to the counter and the man giving out the food looked to him, “‘ere you go, ‘fresh’ chili for ye,” He said, handing over a bowl filled with a red goop, more liquid than meat or vegetable. Archangle sat down at the nearest empty table to eat. A few minutes later, while he was still eating, a few men came over to sit with him, surrounding him; they all looked rather bulky compared to the current stock of humans. The man across from him spoke first, “So what’s the surface like these days anyway?” He asked Archangel. Archangel looked at the man, a bored look in his own eyes, “You know very well what it’s like Bill, a hellhole full of the walkers,” He said, still eating his chili. The man sitting to his left spoke next, “What do you mean a hellhole? It’s gotta be better then living in this hole in the ground,” He said, half spitting it out. Archangle looked to the man who last spoke, “You haven’t been up there, seen the walkers, and seen what the other people have done to each other. Trust me, it’s safer down here, especially with you three as guards,” He said the last bit with a chuckle and took another spoonful of his chili. The last man saw it as his turn to speak, “Well the next time you’re up there what do you think about finding me something more fun to do than just pop a few rounds in the range,” He demanded more than asked. Archangel only chuckled. His butter knife poked the man to his right in the back, just above where his heart would be turning the man as white as a ghost, “You guys know I can’t take requests like that while scavenging, meds take priority over fun,” He said, lowering his plastic knife, the man began to get some colour back. The men grunted and walked away, the one to his left almost stealing his bread before Archangel’s butter knife hit his hand, making him retract quickly. He shook his heads, “Idiots,” He muttered under his breath, “Why did I have to save those three,” He silently cursed himself for his actions those three years ago, the actions against a bandit camp too close to the bunker in which he saved those three from becoming walker chow
-------------------------------------
The bandit camp was far too close to the bunker. Archangel didn’t know if he could take the chance of them knowing or not. The bandit camp had to fall, he knew that much though. He raised his rifle and took aim at the biggest of the men in the camp outside of the cages, where five humans sat, two women and three large men, He aimed slightly higher than the man’s head, needing a guaranteed headshot and from around a hundred meters away. The tall man began barking orders, “Yeah, he’s the leader,” Mumbled Archangel as he adjusted his shot for the big man’s movements. He pulled the trigger and the man’s head exploded out of its side. The other men in the camp panicked, Walkers began breaking through their defenses. There were only five Walkers but they managed to get to the bandits and begin eating them alive. Archangel saw his moment. He ran as fast as he could to the camp and pulled out his side arm, a 9mm pistol which wasn’t in the best possible condition, and jumped the makeshift fence surrounding the place. The walkers near instantly turned their attention to him and began stumbling to him in their usual manner. He dispatched the remaining three from the initial group with a quick three headshots. He walked over to the bandit that was still “alive” and stood him up against the wall, “How many more of you are there?” He asked the bandit, somehow knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. The bandit simply spat in his face and mumbled something he couldn’t understand. Archangel simply put his pistol to the bandit’s head and pulled the trigger. As he made his way to the other bandits before they turned his gun jammed on the last of the twelve, “Damn, no way to repair you either,” He said, dropping the pistol and instead putting a rifle round into the man’s head. The prisoners behind him began to whimper, “Who… Who are you?” One of the women asked as Archangel walked over to their cage and busted the locks open, “Your guardian Archangel,” He said, trying to make it sound more impressive than it actually was.
------------------------------------
Archangel finished his food and set himself up in his room for the night. Tomorrow there would be more scavenging to do. He woke up to a quiet bunker. It seemed like everyone was still asleep. He went to the cafeteria and got a hunk of bread and what passed for honey down here. He ate it on his way out of the bunker, a bit of food that he could get some energy out of. He got his coat and his rifle out of the storage closet next to the exit and set off from the bunker. He assumed it was the middle of spring. It was an hour walk away from what use to be a big city, where he usually scavenged. As he got to the city he saw the remains of a few bandit camps, some with Walkers that use to be prisoners still stuck in cages. The air was cold around him but he didn’t mind it. He though this use to be the northern section of some continent but he wasn’t sure; Kanata, or something like that. As he entered the city he saw flare guns go off, far above what was left of the buildings. He wasn’t sure what use they would be until he saw what he thought to be, once, a news helicopter. He saw it land on one of the roofs then take off again; most likely some bandits. He walked into the city, a lot of places filled with rotted bodies, food, and moss. There was a very large building locked up and filled with Walkers; it was once to be a place to buy things. Archangel nicknamed it the Eaten Center; its original name was lost to him though. He was near to what once was a pharmacy; he would get anything he could from there. The walkers seemed to be too busy to be anywhere close to him, most likely following the sound of the chopper that flew over not fifteen minutes ago. He knew that this luck wouldn’t last though. He grabbed what he could from the pharmacy, preserved foods, medicine, anything he thought useful enough to grab. After he filled his bag with supplies from the pharmacy he began trekking back to the bunker. He heard the moans of the Walkers coming back into the city though. He ducked into the nearest building, hoping to avoid a swarm. As he heard the Walkers coming toward the building he was in a gunshot fired into the horde. Another and another as what sounded like pistol rounds were fired at the horde. Archangel but a metal bar between the door handles to keep it shut from the walkers and began walking toward the back of the, what seemed to once have been at least, restaurant. As he walked back he tripped over a broken chair and fell with a thud. He heard moaning, inside the shop. He looked behind the counter to see a Walker, almost fully rotted, lying there, unable to move but able to moan. Some of the Walkers outside began pounding on the door. Archangel smashed his knife into the head of the one inside the building, quieting it permanently, and raised his rifle toward the door. He assumed the glass wouldn’t hold much longer, this was a bar though so not much of the door was glass. He fired three shots, only killing two Walkers but blowing out the throat of a third. The bar that held the door was beginning to bend and twist; the Walkers were breaking through. He looked around in a half panic. He saw a staircase and ran for it. As he climbed the stairs he heard the door smash open behind him, walkers were pouring into the shop, looking for meat. He ran as fast as he could up the stairs and poured the oil he grabbed at the shop onto them, hoping that he could cause a Walker slide.
He ran up the stairs, as he passed a full three stories of the building the stairs began to degrade, they were crumbling below him, they wouldn’t hold the walker horde he was sure was trying to follow him up the stairs. The shots he heard were growing louder, and more joined in on it chorus, these sounding like rifle and shotguns. Archangel thought these shots were from a bandit team, he hoped not though, bandits were hard to reason with. The stairs wouldn’t hold his weight any longer if he went higher and the oil did hold of the walkers, just not as long as he would have liked them to. He ran from one side of the building to the fire exit on the other side, this seemed like it would have some supplies he could scavenge but he didn’t have time to. As he reached the fire exit the walkers got to the stairs he had just exited, he saw maybe two dozen as he jumped from the fire exit to the building beside the bar. He aimed his rifle and fired into the horde; four shots and four walkers down. He quickly pulled his knife and notched six new scratches on the hilt. He dropped down the fire exit of the building he was on now; some of the walkers that were following him hit the ground with a thud, splattering on the pavement. The shots were slowing down from the front of the bar. He walked to the edge of the building and tried to locate the source. In a building about thirty meters away he saw a team of at least five humans shooting at the walkers; wasting bullets mostly. They seemed to have killed off most of the horde though; only a dozen remained out of the entire horde that was at least two-hundred strong. He came out from the building and shot down three of the remaining walkers, the rest were no harm anymore, most of their limbs shot off. He raised his rifle, trying to show that he was human and not a walker. He was about to yell out, “I’m human, don’t shoot,” As a bullet from a rifle passed through his shoulder. He heard yelling and more shots as he black out. He heard a woman nearby, “You bloody idiot he is a…” He heard as everything went black.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archangel woke up on what he thought was an operating table, He tried to get up but his limbs were held down by straps. He saw a man in a lab coat throwing away bloody gloves. Archangle wanted to know what the hell was going on, “Hey! You in the lab coat,” He shouted, “What the hell happened and why and I pinned down on this table?” He asked, his tone clearly displaying that he was furious. The man in the lab coat walked over to him. He put a needle into Archangle arm and injected him with whatever was inside, “Hey? What the hell was that?” Archangle asked, he was worried about what in the world was just put into his bloodstream. The man in the lab coat simply chuckled a little bit as Archangel blacked out once again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Archangel woke up a second time the straps were gone. He sat up and began feeling a little dizzy. A woman ran over and pushed him back down, “You need to lie down, you’ve just had a bullet removed from your shoulder after all,” She said, the same voice he heard just after he was shot, “I’m sorry about that, some of my men are a bit twitchy when it comes to pulling the trigger,” She said to him, you could hear that she was sorry by her tone. Archangel agreed though, there were too few humans left for all of us to be killing each other all of the time. Archangel stood all of the way up, fighting the dizziness. The woman, he noticed she was of a slight build, about average height, and had red hair, tried to sit him down but he brushed her off. He looked around the small square room, “My coat and my gun, where are they?” He asked her as he began walking for the door, stumbling a little. The woman rushed over to him, trying to help him keep his balance, but Archangel was above all of that, brushing her off again. She stared hard at him, “And where do you think you’ll be going?” She asked in a motherly tone, “You’ve got nowhere to go right now, this complex is in lockdown right now, only the three choppers we got can go anywhere,” She said, making Archangel turn around and speak, “That was your chopper that attracted all of those walkers and almost got me killed?” He said, more shock than surprise. The woman looked at him and nodded, she was sure she could get into this man’s head. She walked over to him, “I am sorry that you were almost killed by the walkers but we need to run extermination teams, they have ruled our world for too long now,” She said, Archangel nodding in agreement, “So what’s your name stranger?” She asked, her tone as calm as ever. Archangel chuckled at the question, “Those I’ve saved and those I protect call me Archangel, a man with no story, no past, and a man who rarely misses,” He said, a little pride in his voice; his name, Archangel, was given to him after he lost his old one, after this all happened. The woman looked at him suspiciously, “What do you mean Archangel? Don’t you have a real name?” She asked, which made him laugh even more, “I don’t even remember my own name, I have been called Archangle for so long,” He said half honestly. The woman knew he was lying, but she didn’t press the point, respecting his privacy.
--------------------------------------------------
Archangel finished his cup of what these people called coffee, it was horribly bitter but he added some honey that they had in their cafeteria and it tasted better. He figured if he was stuck here then he should enjoy it. While he was talking to the woman, whose name was Sarah, he found out he had been out for three days, and the people in his bunker must think him dead by now. The complex these people lived in seemed to be impenetrable by the walkers. The walls were solid bricks, nearing two meters thick and twenty tall. This place seemed to be the safest place in this world, his sixty people could help this place greatly, and seeing as despite the size of the complex they only had around seventy people inside. He would try to get the people in his bunker ready to move if he could get Sarah to agree to the transfer. Archangel knew that this place would be better than the current bunker hole in the ground they were living in. He had tried to get his rifle back but she wouldn’t let him unless he was going to unload it; Archangel never kept his gun unloaded. They had been nice enough to sew up the hole in his coat where they had shot him as well as sewing up the hole in his shoulder, which was nearly healed already, it was a little shaky but he thought he could still hold his rifle as he normally did; they had told him it would take a few more days for it to stop shaking.
------------------------------------------------
Archangel walked into the cafeteria of the base, Sarah was off in her own table eating some of the supplies these people had. He walked up and sat beside her, “When you asked where I came from, if there were any others, why did you ask?” He asked her calmly. She looked up from her soup, or at least that’s what it looked like, “Because humans need to stick together, we can’t fight ourselves like this for much longer or else there won’t be any more of us left to fight, if you were part of a camp we could move here, we would not only increase our own strength here but the safety of your people as well,” She said honestly, she hated the idea of humans killing each other, she hated the idea of humans simply abandoning what she saw as we were meant to do to the Walkers. Archangel dipped his head, he knew the feeling, it was why he tried to rescue so many other survivors, even the one he had saved from the three Walkers, the Dirty Man, as he knick-named him, was probably dead by now. Archangel looked back to her, “And if I was part of a group, I’d need my rifle back and for you to return me to the city you found me in so I could tell them there was a safer place to be than living in our current home,” He said honestly to her, She smiled at him and handed him the magazine she had removed from his rifle, “So what do those ticks on your gun mean anyway?”
-----------------------------------------------------------
Archangel ran through the city, the walkers were distracted by the chopper that flew in the other direction, what few there were left didn’t bother him much. While he was running he added a few new ticks to his rifle, seeing as he didn’t get the chance to after he was shot. Sarah was nice enough to give him a few extra rounds just in case he ran into some trouble. He had to hurry though; he knew the Walkers wouldn’t be gone for long. He ran as fast as he could, hoping he wouldn’t come back to an empty bunker.
------------------------------------------------
As he neared the bunker he could hear gunshots. He saw that the Walkers were approaching in full strength. He began firing into the Walker crowd. After they had been dispatched he dropped down into the doorway to see several gun pointed toward him and the same amount of curious glances, “Trust me, it’s a long story,” He half laughed. He walked into the main hall, keeping his coat and rifle and going into the room that controlled what little of a P.A. system they had in the bunker. He hit the button and turned on all the speakers, “This bunker is no longer the safest place we can find,” He said to the sixty or so people left in the bunker, “I have made contact with a group where we can live in greater peace and peace of mind than we can here. We need to travel to the city to get there but it will be worth the trip and the risks we will face along the way,” He said, he could tell that he was beginning to unnerve some of the residents of the bunker, including what little family he had, “Meet me in the main hall if you’re interested, if not then I’m afraid this will be goodbye,” He finished speaking. Most of the residents of the bunker knew he was serious; Archangel never talked that much unless he was. Before too long he had most of the bunker in the main hall, minus the three guards he saved and a few miscellaneous people. He must have had forty-five to fifty people gathered before him. He knew they would all be ready to head out very soon; that made him very happy.
--------------------------------------
The group was gathered, one person with a gun for every five, two spotters for every person with a gun. They marched through the ruins into a field that Archangel and Sarah had chosen as their meeting point. Little happened on the trip though, a few Walkers shot down but nothing major. When they reached the field Archangel pulled out his flare gun and fired into the air. The flare burned a bright blue; Sarah had told him it was meant for a pickup. As the three choppers near the field they saw the sheer size of the group they needed to pick up and radioed Archangel, “Uh… Yeah. We are going to need to make two trips, we can only transport ten people in each chopper, you need to choose who goes first,” They said. Archangel knew wouldn’t be hard. The children got on one chopper, fifteen of the women got the two others; along with five, unarmed, men leaving Archangel with twenty armed men and an area to hold for an hour, the travel time between the two camps. He knew that that meant, the noise from the helicopters would have attracted some unwanted attention. The men formed a circle around Archangel; he nicknamed this maneuver the doubled man, as it was nearly literally that. Ten in front, ten in back, they would rotate shooting and reloading. Archangel had shown them this maneuver before but had never used it against real Walkers; he could only hope it worked. The men worked well together, most of the Walkers in the area, the city included, must have come for them but the men held out the full hour with no casualties and few misses. Once the choppers returned they saw what was happening and began shooting at the walkers themselves. When two of them landed the order of the double man fell apart completely. All of them began running for the helicopters. Three of them were caught by the walkers but the rest made it to the helicopters safely. A man begged to go back but was pushed onto the helicopter as Archangel put a bullet in his friend’s head, merciful compared to being a Walker. He shot the other two that were caught as they lifted off. The walkers simply looked up to the helicopters, seeing their food fly away from them.
Your welcome, Archangel.
It read. The man wasn't sure what it meant but he silently offered thanks to the person who named themselves Archangel.
---------------------------------------
The man who called himself Archangel was already far away by the time the man got to his sniping spot. He was wearing blue jeans and a camouflage coat, he had a bolt action rifle with a good quality scope over his shoulder, "Three bullets," He mumbled to himself. He felt it a waste of three bullets to save that one man but he still did it because those things, “walkers” he called them, needed to be put down before they could cause more damage than they already had. It had been ten years or longer, he had lost track, since they first crawled out from whatever hellhole they came from. He notched the edge of his guns hilt with three more scratches; three more to the dozens of ticks already on the hilt. He continued walking toward his base. A small underground complex built by his family, it housed what little there was left of them and a few other survivors. As he came up to the iron door he knocked its combination, three quick knocks a pause then a fourth. As he entered the complex he handed over what little supplies he had gathered for them, what little he had found. The man at the door, a ragged looking one, took his rifle, "Any more ticks today?" He asked in a raspy, dry voice. Archangle looked over to the man and his green eyes sparkled, "Three more re-killed," He smiled. He took of his camouflage coat and hung it near the exit. His dark brown hair did well the hide the sweat that was forming on his brow. He didn't know how much longer they could last in the bunker.
He walked to the place he called his room. A semi-large area he shared with the rest of the unmarried males in the bunker. He laid there on his bed and thought of the times before all of this happened. He was nobody back then though; just a desk jokey that went to the firing range to pass the time. Never had a kid; never had a real relationship either. Now both seemed so impossible. As he lay there though he saw the lights go off. Walkers had come far too close to the bunker. He ran to the main door to see a few men and women already shooting them down. He had led these ones here somehow, he knew that. He grabbed his rifle and took aim at the walkers. The first one he saw gave him pause though. It was his former boss. He aimed down his sites and squeezed the trigger. Not even that corporate @$$hole deserved this fate.
---------------------------------
He pulled the trigger on the last of the walkers, emptying his gun. Archangel was the best shot in the bunker but the rest of them were getting close. As he went to put his gun back in storage the walkers were already being disposed of. Burning was always the fashion for those no one knew the identity of, including Archangel’s former boss and the one woman from his family; his aunt. He didn’t like to think back to the good memories, it always saddened him to remember the times he spent with “normal” humans. Archangel walked to the food court of the bunker. He was hungry from his day of scavenging. He heard the conversations around the area of the people who got their food, “Not much meat left,” One man said, “We need some fresh produce,” Said another. It was hard to grow or raise much underground with little in the way of natural light, though they made due with the several people growing them. About sixty people were now in the bunker, thirty of them grew and raise the food, ten were children, fifteen were guards, and the rest were scavengers; the people who went to the surface for other supplies. He stepped up to the counter and the man giving out the food looked to him, “‘ere you go, ‘fresh’ chili for ye,” He said, handing over a bowl filled with a red goop, more liquid than meat or vegetable. Archangle sat down at the nearest empty table to eat. A few minutes later, while he was still eating, a few men came over to sit with him, surrounding him; they all looked rather bulky compared to the current stock of humans. The man across from him spoke first, “So what’s the surface like these days anyway?” He asked Archangel. Archangel looked at the man, a bored look in his own eyes, “You know very well what it’s like Bill, a hellhole full of the walkers,” He said, still eating his chili. The man sitting to his left spoke next, “What do you mean a hellhole? It’s gotta be better then living in this hole in the ground,” He said, half spitting it out. Archangle looked to the man who last spoke, “You haven’t been up there, seen the walkers, and seen what the other people have done to each other. Trust me, it’s safer down here, especially with you three as guards,” He said the last bit with a chuckle and took another spoonful of his chili. The last man saw it as his turn to speak, “Well the next time you’re up there what do you think about finding me something more fun to do than just pop a few rounds in the range,” He demanded more than asked. Archangel only chuckled. His butter knife poked the man to his right in the back, just above where his heart would be turning the man as white as a ghost, “You guys know I can’t take requests like that while scavenging, meds take priority over fun,” He said, lowering his plastic knife, the man began to get some colour back. The men grunted and walked away, the one to his left almost stealing his bread before Archangel’s butter knife hit his hand, making him retract quickly. He shook his heads, “Idiots,” He muttered under his breath, “Why did I have to save those three,” He silently cursed himself for his actions those three years ago, the actions against a bandit camp too close to the bunker in which he saved those three from becoming walker chow
-------------------------------------
The bandit camp was far too close to the bunker. Archangel didn’t know if he could take the chance of them knowing or not. The bandit camp had to fall, he knew that much though. He raised his rifle and took aim at the biggest of the men in the camp outside of the cages, where five humans sat, two women and three large men, He aimed slightly higher than the man’s head, needing a guaranteed headshot and from around a hundred meters away. The tall man began barking orders, “Yeah, he’s the leader,” Mumbled Archangel as he adjusted his shot for the big man’s movements. He pulled the trigger and the man’s head exploded out of its side. The other men in the camp panicked, Walkers began breaking through their defenses. There were only five Walkers but they managed to get to the bandits and begin eating them alive. Archangel saw his moment. He ran as fast as he could to the camp and pulled out his side arm, a 9mm pistol which wasn’t in the best possible condition, and jumped the makeshift fence surrounding the place. The walkers near instantly turned their attention to him and began stumbling to him in their usual manner. He dispatched the remaining three from the initial group with a quick three headshots. He walked over to the bandit that was still “alive” and stood him up against the wall, “How many more of you are there?” He asked the bandit, somehow knowing he wouldn’t like the answer. The bandit simply spat in his face and mumbled something he couldn’t understand. Archangel simply put his pistol to the bandit’s head and pulled the trigger. As he made his way to the other bandits before they turned his gun jammed on the last of the twelve, “Damn, no way to repair you either,” He said, dropping the pistol and instead putting a rifle round into the man’s head. The prisoners behind him began to whimper, “Who… Who are you?” One of the women asked as Archangel walked over to their cage and busted the locks open, “Your guardian Archangel,” He said, trying to make it sound more impressive than it actually was.
------------------------------------
Archangel finished his food and set himself up in his room for the night. Tomorrow there would be more scavenging to do. He woke up to a quiet bunker. It seemed like everyone was still asleep. He went to the cafeteria and got a hunk of bread and what passed for honey down here. He ate it on his way out of the bunker, a bit of food that he could get some energy out of. He got his coat and his rifle out of the storage closet next to the exit and set off from the bunker. He assumed it was the middle of spring. It was an hour walk away from what use to be a big city, where he usually scavenged. As he got to the city he saw the remains of a few bandit camps, some with Walkers that use to be prisoners still stuck in cages. The air was cold around him but he didn’t mind it. He though this use to be the northern section of some continent but he wasn’t sure; Kanata, or something like that. As he entered the city he saw flare guns go off, far above what was left of the buildings. He wasn’t sure what use they would be until he saw what he thought to be, once, a news helicopter. He saw it land on one of the roofs then take off again; most likely some bandits. He walked into the city, a lot of places filled with rotted bodies, food, and moss. There was a very large building locked up and filled with Walkers; it was once to be a place to buy things. Archangel nicknamed it the Eaten Center; its original name was lost to him though. He was near to what once was a pharmacy; he would get anything he could from there. The walkers seemed to be too busy to be anywhere close to him, most likely following the sound of the chopper that flew over not fifteen minutes ago. He knew that this luck wouldn’t last though. He grabbed what he could from the pharmacy, preserved foods, medicine, anything he thought useful enough to grab. After he filled his bag with supplies from the pharmacy he began trekking back to the bunker. He heard the moans of the Walkers coming back into the city though. He ducked into the nearest building, hoping to avoid a swarm. As he heard the Walkers coming toward the building he was in a gunshot fired into the horde. Another and another as what sounded like pistol rounds were fired at the horde. Archangel but a metal bar between the door handles to keep it shut from the walkers and began walking toward the back of the, what seemed to once have been at least, restaurant. As he walked back he tripped over a broken chair and fell with a thud. He heard moaning, inside the shop. He looked behind the counter to see a Walker, almost fully rotted, lying there, unable to move but able to moan. Some of the Walkers outside began pounding on the door. Archangel smashed his knife into the head of the one inside the building, quieting it permanently, and raised his rifle toward the door. He assumed the glass wouldn’t hold much longer, this was a bar though so not much of the door was glass. He fired three shots, only killing two Walkers but blowing out the throat of a third. The bar that held the door was beginning to bend and twist; the Walkers were breaking through. He looked around in a half panic. He saw a staircase and ran for it. As he climbed the stairs he heard the door smash open behind him, walkers were pouring into the shop, looking for meat. He ran as fast as he could up the stairs and poured the oil he grabbed at the shop onto them, hoping that he could cause a Walker slide.
He ran up the stairs, as he passed a full three stories of the building the stairs began to degrade, they were crumbling below him, they wouldn’t hold the walker horde he was sure was trying to follow him up the stairs. The shots he heard were growing louder, and more joined in on it chorus, these sounding like rifle and shotguns. Archangel thought these shots were from a bandit team, he hoped not though, bandits were hard to reason with. The stairs wouldn’t hold his weight any longer if he went higher and the oil did hold of the walkers, just not as long as he would have liked them to. He ran from one side of the building to the fire exit on the other side, this seemed like it would have some supplies he could scavenge but he didn’t have time to. As he reached the fire exit the walkers got to the stairs he had just exited, he saw maybe two dozen as he jumped from the fire exit to the building beside the bar. He aimed his rifle and fired into the horde; four shots and four walkers down. He quickly pulled his knife and notched six new scratches on the hilt. He dropped down the fire exit of the building he was on now; some of the walkers that were following him hit the ground with a thud, splattering on the pavement. The shots were slowing down from the front of the bar. He walked to the edge of the building and tried to locate the source. In a building about thirty meters away he saw a team of at least five humans shooting at the walkers; wasting bullets mostly. They seemed to have killed off most of the horde though; only a dozen remained out of the entire horde that was at least two-hundred strong. He came out from the building and shot down three of the remaining walkers, the rest were no harm anymore, most of their limbs shot off. He raised his rifle, trying to show that he was human and not a walker. He was about to yell out, “I’m human, don’t shoot,” As a bullet from a rifle passed through his shoulder. He heard yelling and more shots as he black out. He heard a woman nearby, “You bloody idiot he is a…” He heard as everything went black.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archangel woke up on what he thought was an operating table, He tried to get up but his limbs were held down by straps. He saw a man in a lab coat throwing away bloody gloves. Archangle wanted to know what the hell was going on, “Hey! You in the lab coat,” He shouted, “What the hell happened and why and I pinned down on this table?” He asked, his tone clearly displaying that he was furious. The man in the lab coat walked over to him. He put a needle into Archangle arm and injected him with whatever was inside, “Hey? What the hell was that?” Archangle asked, he was worried about what in the world was just put into his bloodstream. The man in the lab coat simply chuckled a little bit as Archangel blacked out once again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Archangel woke up a second time the straps were gone. He sat up and began feeling a little dizzy. A woman ran over and pushed him back down, “You need to lie down, you’ve just had a bullet removed from your shoulder after all,” She said, the same voice he heard just after he was shot, “I’m sorry about that, some of my men are a bit twitchy when it comes to pulling the trigger,” She said to him, you could hear that she was sorry by her tone. Archangel agreed though, there were too few humans left for all of us to be killing each other all of the time. Archangel stood all of the way up, fighting the dizziness. The woman, he noticed she was of a slight build, about average height, and had red hair, tried to sit him down but he brushed her off. He looked around the small square room, “My coat and my gun, where are they?” He asked her as he began walking for the door, stumbling a little. The woman rushed over to him, trying to help him keep his balance, but Archangel was above all of that, brushing her off again. She stared hard at him, “And where do you think you’ll be going?” She asked in a motherly tone, “You’ve got nowhere to go right now, this complex is in lockdown right now, only the three choppers we got can go anywhere,” She said, making Archangel turn around and speak, “That was your chopper that attracted all of those walkers and almost got me killed?” He said, more shock than surprise. The woman looked at him and nodded, she was sure she could get into this man’s head. She walked over to him, “I am sorry that you were almost killed by the walkers but we need to run extermination teams, they have ruled our world for too long now,” She said, Archangel nodding in agreement, “So what’s your name stranger?” She asked, her tone as calm as ever. Archangel chuckled at the question, “Those I’ve saved and those I protect call me Archangel, a man with no story, no past, and a man who rarely misses,” He said, a little pride in his voice; his name, Archangel, was given to him after he lost his old one, after this all happened. The woman looked at him suspiciously, “What do you mean Archangel? Don’t you have a real name?” She asked, which made him laugh even more, “I don’t even remember my own name, I have been called Archangle for so long,” He said half honestly. The woman knew he was lying, but she didn’t press the point, respecting his privacy.
--------------------------------------------------
Archangel finished his cup of what these people called coffee, it was horribly bitter but he added some honey that they had in their cafeteria and it tasted better. He figured if he was stuck here then he should enjoy it. While he was talking to the woman, whose name was Sarah, he found out he had been out for three days, and the people in his bunker must think him dead by now. The complex these people lived in seemed to be impenetrable by the walkers. The walls were solid bricks, nearing two meters thick and twenty tall. This place seemed to be the safest place in this world, his sixty people could help this place greatly, and seeing as despite the size of the complex they only had around seventy people inside. He would try to get the people in his bunker ready to move if he could get Sarah to agree to the transfer. Archangel knew that this place would be better than the current bunker hole in the ground they were living in. He had tried to get his rifle back but she wouldn’t let him unless he was going to unload it; Archangel never kept his gun unloaded. They had been nice enough to sew up the hole in his coat where they had shot him as well as sewing up the hole in his shoulder, which was nearly healed already, it was a little shaky but he thought he could still hold his rifle as he normally did; they had told him it would take a few more days for it to stop shaking.
------------------------------------------------
Archangel walked into the cafeteria of the base, Sarah was off in her own table eating some of the supplies these people had. He walked up and sat beside her, “When you asked where I came from, if there were any others, why did you ask?” He asked her calmly. She looked up from her soup, or at least that’s what it looked like, “Because humans need to stick together, we can’t fight ourselves like this for much longer or else there won’t be any more of us left to fight, if you were part of a camp we could move here, we would not only increase our own strength here but the safety of your people as well,” She said honestly, she hated the idea of humans killing each other, she hated the idea of humans simply abandoning what she saw as we were meant to do to the Walkers. Archangel dipped his head, he knew the feeling, it was why he tried to rescue so many other survivors, even the one he had saved from the three Walkers, the Dirty Man, as he knick-named him, was probably dead by now. Archangel looked back to her, “And if I was part of a group, I’d need my rifle back and for you to return me to the city you found me in so I could tell them there was a safer place to be than living in our current home,” He said honestly to her, She smiled at him and handed him the magazine she had removed from his rifle, “So what do those ticks on your gun mean anyway?”
-----------------------------------------------------------
Archangel ran through the city, the walkers were distracted by the chopper that flew in the other direction, what few there were left didn’t bother him much. While he was running he added a few new ticks to his rifle, seeing as he didn’t get the chance to after he was shot. Sarah was nice enough to give him a few extra rounds just in case he ran into some trouble. He had to hurry though; he knew the Walkers wouldn’t be gone for long. He ran as fast as he could, hoping he wouldn’t come back to an empty bunker.
------------------------------------------------
As he neared the bunker he could hear gunshots. He saw that the Walkers were approaching in full strength. He began firing into the Walker crowd. After they had been dispatched he dropped down into the doorway to see several gun pointed toward him and the same amount of curious glances, “Trust me, it’s a long story,” He half laughed. He walked into the main hall, keeping his coat and rifle and going into the room that controlled what little of a P.A. system they had in the bunker. He hit the button and turned on all the speakers, “This bunker is no longer the safest place we can find,” He said to the sixty or so people left in the bunker, “I have made contact with a group where we can live in greater peace and peace of mind than we can here. We need to travel to the city to get there but it will be worth the trip and the risks we will face along the way,” He said, he could tell that he was beginning to unnerve some of the residents of the bunker, including what little family he had, “Meet me in the main hall if you’re interested, if not then I’m afraid this will be goodbye,” He finished speaking. Most of the residents of the bunker knew he was serious; Archangel never talked that much unless he was. Before too long he had most of the bunker in the main hall, minus the three guards he saved and a few miscellaneous people. He must have had forty-five to fifty people gathered before him. He knew they would all be ready to head out very soon; that made him very happy.
--------------------------------------
The group was gathered, one person with a gun for every five, two spotters for every person with a gun. They marched through the ruins into a field that Archangel and Sarah had chosen as their meeting point. Little happened on the trip though, a few Walkers shot down but nothing major. When they reached the field Archangel pulled out his flare gun and fired into the air. The flare burned a bright blue; Sarah had told him it was meant for a pickup. As the three choppers near the field they saw the sheer size of the group they needed to pick up and radioed Archangel, “Uh… Yeah. We are going to need to make two trips, we can only transport ten people in each chopper, you need to choose who goes first,” They said. Archangel knew wouldn’t be hard. The children got on one chopper, fifteen of the women got the two others; along with five, unarmed, men leaving Archangel with twenty armed men and an area to hold for an hour, the travel time between the two camps. He knew that that meant, the noise from the helicopters would have attracted some unwanted attention. The men formed a circle around Archangel; he nicknamed this maneuver the doubled man, as it was nearly literally that. Ten in front, ten in back, they would rotate shooting and reloading. Archangel had shown them this maneuver before but had never used it against real Walkers; he could only hope it worked. The men worked well together, most of the Walkers in the area, the city included, must have come for them but the men held out the full hour with no casualties and few misses. Once the choppers returned they saw what was happening and began shooting at the walkers themselves. When two of them landed the order of the double man fell apart completely. All of them began running for the helicopters. Three of them were caught by the walkers but the rest made it to the helicopters safely. A man begged to go back but was pushed onto the helicopter as Archangel put a bullet in his friend’s head, merciful compared to being a Walker. He shot the other two that were caught as they lifted off. The walkers simply looked up to the helicopters, seeing their food fly away from them.