Vampires sue Twilight author

Due to the recent series of novels and their success among modern youth, the sanguine Crown of Noctheim demands Twilight author Stephenie Meyer reimburse them for misportraying an existing and ancient species with a long and noble history.  They stated that they took great offense at the main plot point of the book series and film adaptations: the vampire-human relationship; a relationship of such has only ever happened once in the history of the Inquieta in the 16th century and has never happened since.  The circumstances of this historical relationship were very different from those in Mrs. Meyer's portrayal, and it definitely was not romantic, again like in the mistaken portrayal in the book series and films.  Humans and vampires, while the latter's population is drawn from the former, are different species and not compatible with each other reproductively and due to certain necessities.

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The Last: Breakfast

I woke up several hours after our nightmarish escape from the safe house.  The sun was peeking past the buildings of downtown Boston, hitting me right in the face with its obnoxious golden light.  I think Gorham had been sleeping too; Chula Vista still had her eyes closed and head leaned against her door..  I looked over at Victor; he had bags under his eyes and he was doing his anxiety chewing on a toothpick.  If he had cigars he'd have smoked 'em all by now.

"Charleston, what time is it?" I grumbled.

Victor's face involuntarily twitched.  Yeah, he needed a nap.

"0720... er, 7:20.  Lookin' fer a place to crash."

I stretched as much as I could crammed in the seat as I was, then yawned, "Wh- why don't we leave Boston?  If– hey, there's Piero's." I saw the warm red and brown sign through all the debris and wreckage.  When I was up in this part of the city, Piero's was my favorite cafe to stop at.

"Can't.  CDC's still blocking 90 n' 93.  And smaller roads too.  Bridges over the river have been blocked off by the National Guard.  This city's bolted up tighter than Satan's colon.  Only way out's on foot, which means bein' chewed up alive and shat out by one of the f–kers."

"Alright... alright.  Victor, ya gotta get some rest soon though.  And it looks like your about to explode, I mean I'm scared shitless but ya gotta relax a little."

"What d'ya think I'm doin'?  Driving around 'cause I feel like burnin' gas?  Now can it, Russia."

Yeah, he really needed a nap.  Ok, and I was really getting sick of that "Not-calling-each-other-by-our-names,-even-your-own-godson-thing".  This was gonna be a long zombie apocalypse.  I turned my head away from Victor, his eyes twitching as he glared at the crap-filled street, and I looked out my window.  Man, the city had really been going to hell.  Heaps of bags and trash; suitcases and boxes; broken appliances; shattered glass; busted, broken, and/or burning cars; and whole lot more general debris and chaos.  There were cop cars too, and a turned over SWAT van with its windshield busted in, at Huntington and Stuart.  Reminded me of those pictures you see like on Wikipedia of cities after World War II or something.  Except this had the scattered corpses of people, clumps of dead zombies, and the occasional living one.  

I heard a noise behind me, I looked back and saw it was Vista waking up at last.  She stretched, brushing some of her black hair out of her face.  I think she noticed me looking at her.  She gave me a little, nervous smile, I tied to return a confident, manly half-smile.  Not sure how it turned out.  Vista looked out of the hummer, leaning to the side to see the passing buildings out the windshield.

"Um, Sir, Charleston?  Do you have any food?  Are we going to stop to have breakfast?" she looked plaintively at Gorham and me.

I looked at Gorham, then at Victor.  Right, food.  Damn was I suddenly hungry.  I think the last thing I ate was in my dorm.  My stomach felt empty and it began voicing its desire for food.

"Yeah, Charleston, we should get some food from the trunk."

"No.  I'm saving that for when we need it." Victor's eyes snapped around as he scanned the wreckage-clogged street we were driving down.  He sped up and stopped by a little cafe at the bottom of a parking garage.  It was The Atre Cafe or something like that.  I think we were near Wang Theater.  I thought I knew most of the streets of Boston, guess not.

"Grab weapons from trunk.  Get in, grab n' get out.  Be careful." Victor kept the hummer running as Gorham, Vista, and I hopped out of the car, I was pretty darn stiff though, and hobbled to the trunk.  I took out a 9mm and Gorham took one of Victor's rifles complete with scope.  Vista I think took another handgun.  I also slipped the machete into my belt for good measure.  I led Gorham and Vista up the small flight of stone steps up to the cafe front.  It had a glass front and most of the panes were smashed, at least partially.

"Careful of the glass guys." I said back to Gorham and Vista.

I strode up bravely to the glass door, praying to God there wasn't another 500 pound zombie waiting for me on the inside.  Gotta act cool, you know.  Gorham looked through the smashed store front into the dim cafe inside.

"Looks clear, Russia, let's hurry and get this over with.  Looks like some people didn't make it out."

I pushed open the door, the other two close behind me, I quickly raised my handgun, searching the cluttered cafe for zombies.  The place was a mess; tables were knocked over and coffee and other liquids were spilled across the floor.

"Ok, careful, guys, one of those things could– is that a cinnamon roll?  And coffee?" I lowered my gun and leaped over to the counter.

I picked up the cup of coffee and was about to guzzle the whole thing down my throat when Vista interjected.

"Um, Russia, you don't know what could be in that.  It could be.. I don't know, infected?"

The coffee cup stopped inches from my mouth.

"Oh yeah, good point, Vista." I tossed the coffee cup on the floor.  Somebody'd clean it up.. er, wait...

I proceeded to scoop up the cinnamon roll.  It seemed clean and was still very slightly warm, sorta lukewarm.  I was just about to take a huge bite, my mouth watering, when a frickin' zombie burst up from behind a table.  Apparently the people who didn't make it out were now zombies.  Should've guessed that.  I whipped around, heart hammering against my ribs, 9mm raised.  But before i even had time to fire off one shot, the frickin' zombie's head exploded and the cafe was filled with the loud crack of rifle fire.  An empty cartridge clattered onto the floor.  Gorham stepped beside me rifle raised.  I shook my head to try and alleviate the ringing.

"Let's just grab some food and go, bud."

I blinked at him.  Right, I didn't want to linger.  I jumped over the counter and scooped as much pastries and sandwich material as I could into bags.   Vista searched for more food close by while Gorham stood by the fallen tables, looking this way and that with the rifle of his held ready.  This was obviously not the first time he'd held a gun; Vista though, she held like it was a dead rodent.

"So Charleston probably wouldn't approve of this, but why'd you say you wanted to head up to New Hampshire?  Where is Gorham anyway?" I asked as I jumped back over the counter with my spoils of war.

"My wife, Florence, is up there, visiting her brother, Danny.  I stayed behind 'cause the shop was busy.  I was going to join her this weekend.  Gorham's up in the north of New Hampshire, in the White Mountains."        

"Oh yeah, well I hope she's alright.  How 'bout you, Vista?  You said your parents are in California?"

She nodded, "Yeah... I hope what ever this is hasn't reached there yet."

"Hmm, I wonder where this infection has hit.  Is it just Boston, or the East Coast, or what?" I said scratching my chin.  My hand scratched against the stubble that was growing there. "Oh we should go now, otherwise Charleston's gonna burst in here with a machine gun thinking we're getting eaten."

We all turned to leave when we heard a noise and a small whimper coming fro the employees' only room behind the counter.  Our three gun barrels were pointed at the door in a second.  My heart began racing again as we heard more noises and something walking closer to the door.  Gorham peered down the sight of his rifle.  Then we all jumped as a voice called out from just behind the door.

"Don't shoot!  I'm not sick!  I'm not one of those things!  Please don't– !" the voice was a man's, filled with stress and fear though.

"It's ok, we won't shoot, just get out here!" Gorham called back to him.

The door was pushed open just enough to let the man slip out.  He looked like he was only a couple years older than me, in his mid 20s or so, and was in the dirty clothing of a cafe employee.  A hoop glinted on his eat and he held a butter knife in his hand.  Really?  Come on, man.

"What's your name, kid?" Gorham asked him, rifle lowering.  Vista and I followed suite with our own guns.

"Uh, Clay.  Your not gonna rob me are you?" he mumbled as he wiped his nose on the back of his hand.  I noticed he had a pretty nasty looking bruise on the right side of his forehead.

"What?" Gorham looked surprised, maybe even a little taken aback.  "Why would we rob you?"

"The last people in here did... they, uh, took some others into the parking garage..."

Gorham, Vista, and I all gave each other significant looks.

"Guys, we should– !" I started to say with some alarm.  A door far on the other side of the shop to our left was suddenly hit by what sounded like fists.  A lot of them, more than I cared to stay and find out about.

"Let's go!" I shouted, waving my arms toward the exit.

The door gave in with an explosion of wood splinters.  A pack of those things came tumbling in, mouths open, eyes searching and hungry.  I saw one still had a fresh bite wound on his shoulder.  There must've been nearly twenty zombies shambling down the hall.

"Let's go!  Let's go!" I yelled, pulling Vista out the door, Clay dashing up behind me.

Gorham ran into the doorway, then he turned around and fired off several shots into the pack.  I think I heard some corpses hit the floor.  We all four fled down the steps and flew into the hummer.  Before the doors were even closed Victor was off, zooming down the street; the hummer smashed a sedan out of the way as we fled and as the zombies came stumbling down the steps after us.

"Damn, I must've hit three of those things dead in the chest and they didn't even flinch!" Gorham said as he flicked the safety on his rifle and wiped the sweat from his forehead.  "And these are hunting rounds."

Victor's eyes flicked up to look at the rear view mirror.

"Took you guys long enough.  Stirred up the whole f–king city too.  And who the hell is this?"

"Uh, hi, I'm– ." Clay began, but of course was cut off by Victor.

"Don't tell me yer name.  I don't need to know, neither do I care.  I'll just call you Waiter if I need ya for some reason."

I dished out food to everyone, except Clay says he wasn't hungry.  Something made me think he'd seen more than he'd wanted to today; ugly, terrifying things.

"Bon appétit, everyone." Gorham said as he raised up his sandwich.  We all dug in ravenously, even Victor.

We were speeding past Chinatown, planning I guess to get to the river, or just find a place to hole up for the night.  We were passing Wilbur Theater when we saw them.  Whole packs of them clustered around the theater, battering at its boarded-up doors.  Scared whimpers and yelps could be heard faintly from inside every time one of the things hit the doors.

"Hey, hey, there are people in there!  We gotta help 'em!" Gorham exclaimed.

I felt bad too for the poor bastards locked up in the theater, must be pretty terrifying in there.  Looks like they did a pretty good job of boarding it up though.

"No." grunted Victor, "We keep driving.  Not our problem."

"Charleston, please!  We should at least bust 'em out through the back or something.  Come on, listen to 'em!  They need he– gelp!" that last word came out as this weird strangling noise because Victor had suddenly braked and swerved the car the car around.

He kicked it into high gear, driving right into the main pack gathered at the front doors of the theater.  Zombies tumbled over the windshield leaving bloody streaks; zombies were smacked by the side mirrors, bones cracking and heads turning at unnatural angles; zombies were run over by the hummer with that sickening bump and crunch.  Blood spattered onto my window making me jump.  Victor stopped the car.  He wrenched the door open, marching to the back of the hummer and throwing the trunk open.

"Ya wanna help these people?" he said as he cocked his AK-47, "Then hurry up and grab a gun."                      

Extraneorum

Captain Germanicus' report to the Senate of Rome and Emperor Trajan:
I, Germanicus Manius Gaius Flavius Albus, veteran of Dacia and the Germanic frontier, was stationed by request in Britannia.  I desired to see the wild land Caesar so long ago had landed on and I thought I might make a life there.  I was put in charge of a garrison from Eboracum; we patrolled the city's borders, guarding against intrusions and raids of the Picts and Brittunculi.  We did stop a raid of several of the local tribes from reaching the city.  It happened on the fourteenth day of Iunius, a warm, gentle day; I was leading six of by best men in a scouting mission to the north of the city.  There was Marcus Bubulcus a broad man from Gaul; Quintus Galerius Licinius, the son of a colonist from Londinium; Aelius Scipio and Nerva Naevius, my two lightest scouts, both from Italia; Armendric called Alexander, a Burgundi tribute soldier stationed here; and Tiberius Brutus from Syria.  Aelius was ranging ahead when he rushed back, face slick with sweat.  He said he had found strange Pictish machine.  We were all curious to see this contraption, for as of yet Rome had seen no cleverness in the Britons.  We hurried to the fell where he had found it; the thing lay on the grassy side of one of the sloping hills, exposed to the sky, dark trees all around.  We circled around it, inspecting it and trying to discern its purpose.  The alien thing was made of a dark metal seemingly akin to steel; strange rivulets or strings of blue ran down the center of the monument.  It stood easily two men tall and bout three wide, prongs, four of them, reached up in the center of the thing, which was roughly tear drop shaped.  Finding no discernible purpose to it, we searched inscription or markings.  Though the thing was covered in octagonal designs of foreign origin, we could make nothing of it, but instead we found a hatch to inside the Pictish edifice.  I ordered Bubulcus to pry it open; he was just about to give the hatch a great heave when it opened easily before his hand with the hiss of hot water in a pipe.  Inside it was dark except for similar blue lighting, like the sun seen through ocean water; Aelius and Nerva were able to fit inside easily.  They found many strange Pictish ornaments and odd octagonal pieces of the dark metal.  I kept having a growing bad feeling about this whole thing; I began to question where this strange monolith was truly made.  Then Aelius and Nerva brought out the corpse.  It was shrunken and emaciated as with famine; its veins were of the same azure blue  as the rivulets on the monument; its skin was gray like a corpse, and had un-human hands more like claws; and its eyes were large, circular, and black.  The tribal creature had a split in its chest that oozed green ichor.  I knew this was no Pictish landmark or ritual monument, but something far more foreign and mysterious.  We loaded all the artifacts onto our horses, who acted with some suspicion around the pieces of metal.  We rode hard all the way down Britannia to Londinium to consult the governor.  On the way, as we were camping only several miles north of the city in the forest, Quintus and Aelius were inspecting the ornaments when one of them clamped onto Quintus' arm.  In the struggle to get it off, another ornament a little longer than Quintus' clasped onto Aelius' arm.  The cuffs caused no pain and were the same coloring as the monument; as we consulted with each other, Quintus' let off a pulse of azure fire that extinguished our fire but also charged his sword with the glow of lightning.  One of the octagonal pieces of metal flew into the air, unfolding to cover Quintus in armor that marched the steel armor he had worn.  The ornaments then came alive with activity: one flew up and strapped itself around Bubulcus' shoulders and chest, with the armor following soon after; a second cuff wrapped around Quintus' free wrist; an ornament clasped onto Nerva's upper arm; an ornament that turned into a gauntlet folded around Alexander's forearm; Tiberius received one cuff around his wrist; and I too had one of the ornaments wrap around my shoulders.  After all was done, we all had new, dark sets of armor to replace our old.  And that is what happened the night of the thirtieth day of Iunius; that is how we, the Extraneorum, were made.     

Seneca Blasted Zone

Cal turned the nob on his gas mask, pressurizing his suit with a sharp pneumatic hiss.  He picked up his rifle, slinging the fraying strap over his armored shoulder.  He ran through the usual preps through his head.  He had done this thing a thousand times before; satisfied that all routine precautions were met, Cal sealed the the door behind him and then opened the vault door in front of him.  A hiss filled the little airlock he stood waiting in.  The blaring sunlight of a noon sun filled the dark hall; Cal's eyes were protected by the tinted goggles of his gas mask.  The usual open vista of brown hilly wasteland and patches of bare tree trunks opened up before him.  It looked to be a usual sunny day in the Seneca Blasted Zone.  Cal clunked across the open yard to the old barn he used as a shed to store some of his least important gear, like his bow and arrow and extra horseshoes.  His horse, Braxton Bragg, he kept in his dwelling.  Cal's hired farmhands– there were about six or seven of them– lived in the old rest station across the yard from the barn.   

Cal had learned, in his exploring he did in his free time, that he lived in what was once called New York– why it was called new, he did not know– before the War of Wars, but now was called the Seneca Blasted Zone, which stretched from the Eastern Lake down to the ruins of the Great City on the coast and the irradiated forests in the south, and up to the Wreckage Lakes in the north and west.  Cal himself lived in a small bunker near an old farm, only the barn remained, and a rest station.  The town of Echo-Point One, a thriving community on the banks of Dead River, was a couple miles down the remnants of the old world highway.

Edmund, Clancy, Michael, and the brothers Percy and Olson Gauge were already suited up and mounting their horses.  Kelly was lagging behind as usual.  Cal and his farmhands were cowboys: a select few brave or foolhardy men who rode across the Blasted Zones delivering cattle and other livestock to towns or wealthy warlords.  Sometimes they were hired just for their guns to act as escorts or extra muscle to drive away bandits or raiders, or merely to deliver precious postage.

Cal, after seeing the cattle were safe and sound in the barn, walked back across the yard, dust puffing up in clouds behind him and the grass crunching under his boots.  He unlocked and lifted up the blast door to Braxton's pen in the bunker itself.  The horse whinnied at the familiar look and stench of his master.  Braxton had black-to-brown hair and intelligent golden eyes; he was of course one of the genetically-altered animals, unaltered livestock couldn't survive in the Zones, so that they could survive all the radiation still floating around after the end of days.  The cattle were the same.  Unaltered animals only existed in stories and supposedly in the unopened Vaults.

Once Kelly finally got out and mounted, the seven men opened up the barn and began to corale the cows.  Cal was supposed to deliver the cattle to a powerful warlord in Smoke Town along the coast of East Wreckage Lake.  While being a cowboy was incredibly dangerous it was very rewarding and lucrative if you could do it right and survive.  They rounded up the cattle, Cal used a lasso to control a particularly troublesome cow while the farmhands used prods to herd on the other cattle.

"Keep your weapons cocked and eyes open!" Cal called to his men, "Now let's ride!"

All the farmhands had rifles like Cal, except for Clancy who only had a bow and arrow and low caliber pistol.

With a thunder and clouds of brown dust, the cowboys encouraged the cattle on as they began to thunder off across the valleys and hills on their ninety mile long road to Smoke Town.           

The Progenitors: Vor and Athaneans

Vorian Republic:

Capital: Vorpiter 

Government: Socialist republic

Language: Ril

The Vor of Vorpiter were a race with a strong collective consciousness simply called the Noosphere.  The Vor were a mammalian species with blue or flesh-toned skin that grow hair of dark shades.  They have bone protrusions on their foreheads that are arranged in various patterns and designs.  An individual Vor's brain didn't contain the components for memory and holding learned skills, but these things were instead automatically put into the Noosphere for all Vor to draw from.  Unlike the Prothen, who had a similar collective consciousness in the T'ra, the Vor didn't have any concept of the individual.  The Vor were ruled by the Great Mind, a Vor who had ascended fleshly form and became the Noosphere itself; the Great Mind could, at any time it desired, possess a Vor or Vor, this was the basis for the destruction of the "person" in Vorian society.  The Republic was in effect ruled by the Great Mind, or indeed, the Republic was the Great Mind, since all Vor were one in the Noosphere.  Vorpiter was a lush, resource-rich world; this easy environment allowed the Vor to construct a relaxed republic.  Also due to their strong racial connection in the early Noosphere made the Vor very peaceful amongst themselves which made global government easily achieved.  It is unknown what Vorian society was like before the Great Mind, it seems all records of that time have disappeared.  The Noosphere made the Vor a generally peaceful race: they put an end to the First War, the cataclysmic war between the powerful Kronn Bureaucratic Empire and the rising Teloph Combine; they aslo ended the imperial wars between the Kronn and the newly discovered Prothen Empire.  When the Galactic Tetrarchy was formed, the Vor were always the mediators in the Council, especially between the Kronn and Telophs.  The Great Mind seemed to have foreseen the Dark Epoch because only a minority of galactic fringe-dwelling Vor got the implants of microscopic organisms.  When the Dark Epoch began with the infection sweeping through the galactic fringe colonies of the Tetrarchy powers, Vor losses were minimal and the Republic quickly fortified against the infection.  Through the long centuries of the Dark Epoch, the Vor fought alongside the Prothen Empire against the growing infection, even as the Telophs were wiped out by the Kronn-made artificially intelligent Cyth and as the Kronn themselves were drawing closer to extinction.  For uncertain reasons though, either due to loss of population or some decree of the Great Mind, the majority of Vor suddenly fled Republic space, warping to some remote corner of the galaxy, never to be seen again.          

Athanean Federation:
Capital: Byzaren
Government: Stratocracy
Language: High Athanese
Athaneans, one of the surviving children species, formed their Federation during the long centuries of the Dark Epoch, carving out a large enough portion of the galaxy to be considered an equal to the Tetrarchal species.  Early Athaneans were enslaved by the Kronn along with thousands of other "barbarous" races deemed to "uncivilized for civilization" to build many of the wonders of the Kronns' empire.  When the infection began to tear apart the galaxy, the Athaneans along with thousands of other children species rebelled against the Kronn and declared independence.  Many of these small, newly created nations bereft of Kronn protection usually were swept away by the infection, but the war-like Athaneans held together.  They assimilated what Kronn technology remained in their little domain and reformed their society around the the military; a powerful stratocracy was formed with polemarchs, commander-rulers, leading the new polity.  The Athaneans flew out in small, well armed, highly trained armies using long-range weapons tactics to reclaim lost worlds.  On the Federation's path to reclaiming the galaxy, they came across many children species barely holding on to existence; a key Federation ideology was formed then: that of Stewardship.  The Athaneans took it upon themselves to save every sentient species they came upon by pulling them into the Federation.  Three of the main races brought into the Federation were the Barari, Narubs, and Phaldar who all became key members of the Federation.  The Athanean Federation reclaimed a huge portion of the galaxy– even claiming lost Prothen worlds– with the goal of eventually taking Krodia Prime from the infection.  But even the powerful Federation, cleanser of a thousand worlds, fell around 86,540 -AI due to enormity of borders, civil unrest within the Federation, and hundreds of infected systems within the Federation itself.  The Federation, though, should be remembered for its long and successful fight against the infection; being the only species to have retaken so much space from the infection and able to hold of cases of internal spread of the infection.  The Barari come from the frost-bound caves of Barar I, they are a very unique species of alien; they are mammalian, covered in white fur, with a lupine face, but their bodies are long like a snake's and they have multiple sets of arms.  They have powerful innate telekinetic psionics.  The Narubs of Narubia, a gas giant wracked by extreme solar winds, are a race of humanoid insects who live in great, floating hives, the thick walls of their lairs and their own chitinous carapaces protecting them from the jet streams of solar radiation.  Unlike the Barari, the Narubs had to be militarily conquered by the Athaneans, who took it upon themselves to "preserve" any surviving children species by folding them into the Federation.  The humanoid Phaldar of unstable Phaldarax, a world of crystal mountains and jungles of fungus long ago devastated by a great psychic disaster, are slight, have green or gray skin, and possess innate psionics.

Rabbit Holes

The Keeper stood in the shadows against a support beam against the wall, scratched pocket watch gleaming in his hand and a device in his other hand that had the appearance of a a compass mixed with a watch but with the complexity of a chronometer.  He looked up; the Guardian stood in the sewer passage in front of him, in usual brown hoodie, red hair flowing out of the pulled up hood.  She had a similar device in her hand as the Keeper's; a watch of scratched silver was in her pocket.  She looked up at him.
"You know I'm glad I was selected as Guardian.  I always thought the Keeper's outfit was a little queer."
The Keeper gave her a look as he tipped up the brim of his top hat.
"As usual, Gee, your comments are helpful and filled with insight." he said mockingly sweeping off his hat.
"Time?" she asked.
"1:43.  You know, you have your own watch?"
She ignored him and looked at her chronometer.
"It's close.  Be ready."
They waited in silence for roughly three minutes, heads turning every now and then to look down the sewer tunnel.  At 1:46 their chronometers began ticking.  Slowly at first then building to a rapid, metallic klaxon.  An area of space about five feet down the sewer from them began blinking, almost in rhythm with the building chronometer alarm.
"Right on time," the Keeper said, trudging toward the place, "Watcher called it right this time."
The Guardian followed closely behind, pulling out an orb of energy surrounded by a silver metal; a device given to the first Guardian.
"Wait, damn, something's coming through!"  the Keeper exclaimed, throwing back an arm.  They dashed behind two support beams on wither side of the passage; the Guardian readied her bell and the Keeper cranked a gear on his chronometer.  The distortion of space before them which was now a swirling vortex as apposed to blinking, was called a rabbit hole; a rent in time and dimension.  Through them entire worlds lay, all the possibilities, all the "if"s lay on the other side of rabbit holes.  Alice Realities they were called.  And every so often, a rabbit would come out of the hole.  The Rabbit was a grotesque creature from a dark Alice Reality.  The creature was once possibly human, but had been twisted into something other.  The Keeper had encountered only a few of these types of Rabbits before but he knew they could cause serious damage to the city if not sent back to their reality quickly enough.
"Damn it!" he swore and cranked his chronometer up all the way.
His device sent out a pulse rippling toward the Rabbit; it hit, but the creature merely shrugged it off.  The Guardian let a bolt of azure energy out from her orb.  The beam had a greater effect, hitting the creature with a small explosion.  The Rabbit let out an injured howl then sped past them at such a speed that the two were knocked to the ground by a shockwave.
"Gee, get after that thing!  I'm going in!" shouted the Keeper as he slogged up to the portal, splashing through the sewage of the tunnel.
The Guardian's orb turned into a long-barrled gun of the same material, she nodded at her companion then splashed down the sewer after the distant Rabbit.  The Keeper sucked in breath then exhaled, cranking back up his device.  He stepped into the rabbit hole.  The same, well-known feeling of falling; the tingling in his gut, coursed through him as he slipped from one world to another.  He stumbled into the Alice Reality and looked up to iron gray skies and walls of fog filling the drab streets of a drab city. Great, it was one of those Alice Realities. 

The Last: Unexpected Friends

Victor jumped off the roof of the hummer, an AK-47 in his hands.  Part of me, the part left behind in college dorm rooms, classes, and friends thought that owning an assault rifle was illegal.  The rest of me sitting in the hummer with the burning Boston skyline in front of me told that part to suck it up and focus.  Victor jumped back in and sped down the destroyed city street.  It had been several hours now since the bathroom incident and we had hardly seen anyone; a single fleeing business man here, a pack of scared people there, and a zombie and a-not-so happy meal every know and then.  Victor would stop if it was only one or two zombies, open up the door or roll down the window and blow their brains out with his gun.  Yeah, the trunk was pretty much packed with food, first aid kits, and guns.  That's godfather Victor; always prepared.  Anyways, I couldn't believe how fast things had gone to hell: the streets were filled with dead bodies, broken down cars, trash and all that debris dropped by dead fleeing people.  I think Victor was trying to find a safe respit 'cause the sun was going down and we couldn't get out of the city right now.  Yeah apparently the city was like in lockdown or something.  I slouched in the chair, staring dumbly out the window as we drove and drove; the V8, all-wheel drive, barricaded hummer punching through most road obstacles, including zombies.  In my stupor I actually noticed those.. things, the infected, go all "deer in a headlight" when a car is speeding at them with headlights on.  I think I chuckled a bit as Victor tested this theory.  I must have dozed off just a nod when Victor exclaimed something.  I jumped up in my seat, eyes gummy and a fleck of drool hanging out my mouth.
"What's it, Victor?"
"Lights, boy, it's gotten dark we gotta stop."
It had indeed gotten darker while I had been dozing.  The smoke from the downtown towers blotted out the stars in front of us.  The lights were coming from a building just two blocks down the road.  As we got closer it looked like the building must have been an office or part of a college campus, but it doesn't really matter anymore does it?  It was a brick building with several stories and annexes with a courtyard around it and a brick wall around the courtyard with one of those Tim Burton wrought iron gates in the wall.  Yeah, real fancy.  There were lights in the most of the windows and what looked like the silhouettes of a ton of people inside.  When we pulled up next to the gate we also saw there were police officers inside the courtyard.  Victor rolled down the window.
"Hey, over here!  Open up the gate quick before those f–kers come!" he yelled.
Some of those riot police guys, you know with the black padding and riot shields came up along with several normal city cops.  One of the regular cops walked up to the gate, he must've been the chief.
"How many?" he asked quickly.
"Just two." Victor said.
The chief motioned and the gate was pulled open hurriedly.  The hinges squealed pretty loudly.  Did they not even think to grease them?  Victor slipped inside; the courtyard not in front of the building's main doors was packed with cars, motorcycles, and shopping carts for some reason, I guess to carry people's crap.  Victor parked the car as near the gate as he could in case of a quick escape I guess.  The chief and some other cops approached us, man, they looked like they were about to pass out.
"We weren't expecting much more survivors in this area.  Where 're you too from?" the chief was pretty beat lookin' with bags under his blood-shot eyes and his hair was all disheveled.  His mustache, which was pretty cool– one of those manly bushy ones– was snarled sticking out all funny.
"I'm from out of city, the kid here's from the state college.  How many people you got bottled up in there, officer?"
The chief turned to some subordinate, "Brown, how many checked in?"
The other cop, Brown, flipped through the pieces of paper on his clipboard, "Around 450, Chief."
That's quite a lot of people." Victor said to the chief, "They're all packed in there and ya' got the lights on like it's some f_king college party!  This ain't Woodstock, man!  You need to cover up those windows, turn off most of 'em lights, and tell those people to shut up.  We saw you a mile away and you're usin' up huge amounts of electricity and I'm bettin' the power stations are probably about to go."
The chief's shoulders sagged and his eyes drooped.
"You can take it up with Chief Freeman inside.  Now, get inside quick."
The double doors into the building at least were reinforced and there was a pile of furniture that the cops on the inside had to move away for us to enter.  Now the building wasn't huge and 450+ people is a lot of people.  Every inch of space was filled with some sweating, anxious, self-concerned person and their metric tons of "important and life-saving" junk.  I mean really, suitcases and trunks of shoes, clothes, jewelry, and other crap.  I even saw a flat screen TV.  What are these people thinking?  Cops were here and there trying to get control of the situation.  As we entered the main room of the ground floor, a cop, as beaten down as the ones outside, came out of the sweltering pack of bodies as thick as a wall of trees.
"Two?" he yelled hoarsely at us over the collective din of hundreds of scared shitless people.
Victor nodded affirmatively.  The cop shouted into his walkie talkie.
"Two new ones.  Room?"
A voice crackled back over in response.  "We got room third floor."
Our cop jerked his thumb to the stairs, "Third floor!  Go!"
We ran up the stairs to the third floor.  It seemed just as packed as the ground and second floors.  We made for a less packed corner of the floor.  We found a room that might've been a lounge just two days before.  Twenty or so people filled the room, sitting on sofas, tables, window sills, and sleeping bags.  Victor dumped his pack on the floor and pulled out two sleeping bags.
"I'm gonna go get some extra water f I can and try and talk some sense into the cops here." Victor spoke as he pulled the sleeping bags out.  I saw other gear and foodstuff in there, how much had he crammed in that pack?  In a quieter voice he added, "Be ready to run, ok?"  he left the pack on the floor and walked out of the room into the oven-hot crowd in the main room.  I sat on the sleeping bag, head in my hands, my numb brain still not excepting what was going on.  I just wouldn't, couldn't, understand this.  Footsteps near me.  I looked up.  A guy with graying tan hair and blue collared shirt hanging over his belt had walked up to me from the corner.
"Hi," he said, "I'm Mike Mancini, I see you just got here.  Eh, what's your name?"
"Uh... uh... Adam." I mumbled.  We shook hands.
"Do you know what's going on?  They won't tell us anything ever since we got here.  They're not letting us leave.  I don't know how long we can survive hear."
I shook my head wearily; I was very, very, sleepy.
"Sorry, I only know as much as you.  This morning I was a college student studying for a test... then, hell broke loose.  You come here in a group, Mike?"
"Yeah, I came with a group from Geneva Avenue.  Some of 'em fell behind on the way here.  We were split up once we got here so I'm just here with Nicki now." Mike pointed with his thumb behind him to the young woman that had been sitting with him.  She looked up at us with blue yes, then gazed back down at the floor.
Victor burst in, slamming the door behind him scaring us all witless.  He stomped over to us muttering something about bureaucracy and procedures.  He threw himself down on a sofa next to my sleeping bag.
"Hi there, I'm Mike, I–" Mike began when Victor stood and hushed him with a look.
"Don't tell me your name, sir, situation like this I don't need to know it nor do I care.  Just tell me where you're headed."
Mike blinked, then cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"Oh, um, I'm tryin' to get up to Gorham, New Hampshire... see if my wife's still alive." he said the last part quietly with a downcast look.
"Nice to meet you, Gorham, best of luck to you.  I'm Charleston and this here's Russia.  Any idea what the hell's goin' on?"
Mike, or "Gorham" shook his head.  Victor was pretty adamant about this whole not telling each other our names thing.  He said it helped stopped us from getting to attached to others, especially if we told them more about ourselves.  Nicki came over to where we were all standing.  She was pretty, real pretty.  And pretty pale too.
"D– do know–?" she stammered to Victor.
"Nope, stop asking." Victor grunted. She snapped her mouth shut.
"What's yer destination, miss?" Victor asked.
"Uh.. um.. well, I'm trying to get to Chula Vista.  That's.. that's where my parents are." she spoke softly.  She, Nicki, was cute; she had black hair in a pony tail, blue eyes, and smooth pale skin.  She had on a little gray hoodie and black, work-out pants.
Victor whistled, "That's mighty far, Chula Vista.  Besta' luck to ya."
"Hey, maybe for the time being we could, I don't know, team up?  Pool resources?  You know I'm a mechanic– Mancini's Auto Repair– we could help each other!" Mike, er, Gorham said.
Victor raised one of his bushy, gray eyebrows, "I ain't one for passengers."
"So is that a no?" Gorham asked, uncertain.
"Hell yeah." Victor grumbled, he then turned to me. "Kid, get some sleep.  Now.  I'll wake ya' up in a couple of hours.  I don't want to stay here long, just enough o rest and get my bearings."
"But, Vic– Charleston, they won't let us leave!" I mumbled.
He put a hand on my shoulders.  "Just get some shut eye, I won't let them stop us."
I think one of those classic "once their head hit the pillow they fell deep asleep" things happened to me because all I remember after that is Victor shaking me awake and cussing.
"Wake the hell up, boy!  Shit's broken loose!  Get the f–k up!" he yelled.
I leaped up, blinking violently; strange noises were coming from the lower floors of the building.
"What's goin' on?  What time is it?" I moaned, rubbing my eyes.
"They're climbin' over the wall, they're at the f–king doors!  It's still dark out, boy, pack up the sleeping bag!"  Victor was getting red in the face as he barked orders at me.
I felt like I was till asleep.  I felt like a sleepwalker as I stuffed the sleeping bag away and shouldered the pack.  Victor dashed over to the windows, peering out and dashing over to another.  He finally peered out the right window and smashed it open with his boot.  A fire escape led to the paved courtyard three floors below.
"Get your ass out the window, boy!" he yelled at me.
I threw myself out the window and waited for him to leap through.  Gunfire and these horrible, blood-chilling screams could be heard around the front of the building.  And over the screaming and raucous was the droning growl of those things.  Gorham poked his head groggily out the window after us.
"H-hey, can we come with you guys?"
"No!  Just get outta the building ok?  Don't follow us!" Victor roared back up the metal ladder.
"Victor, come on, man, it's just two of 'em!  I mean the guy's a mechanic, that could be useful!  C'mon, they're scared and we could help each other out.  Strength in numbers, y'know?"
"Yeah, and also a bigger meal... but fine, if you love 'em so much they can come." Victor grumbled.  Man, he was unhappy.  "If ya' wanna come along, get yer ass down here right now!" he barked up to the window.  The sound of a breaking door reached our ears: they were inside the building.
Gorham scrambled out the window followed closely by Nicki, er, Chula Vista.  We all clattered down the fire escape, hitting the ground running at the bottom.  Victor halted us with his arm as we weaved through the sea of cars to the front of the building.  The hummer was near the gate and currently those zombie-things were gnawing at the iron gate or climbing over the wall.
"On my mark we run ok?  Ya' fall behind, yer left behind." Victor had turned back to us, giving Gorham and Chula Vista a hard look.  He turned back and watched, and we waited.  Hours passed, but  y'a know it was really just seconds.  Then Victor waved his hand forward.  He all broke into a dead run for the hummer.  Scream,growls, and gun shots filled the confused night, 'course I wan't really paying attention, I was focused on jumping over the mess of cars and not getting eaten.  I reached the hummer first, flinging myself into the passenger seat and slamming the door.  Victor was in the driver's seat a second later and turned the key to start the car.  Gorham and Vista leaped up into the back seats; Gorham just had a single little backpack and Vista had her purse only.  Victor swore as he turned the key again and again; the car wasn't starting.  Then the things noticed us.  My heart thumped loudly in my ears as they leaped over other cars or the wall and began banging on the doors and windows, a couple of 'em climbed onto the roof.  The hummer finally roared into life, Victor swore some more as he sped the hummer backwards , slamming into a car and setting off its alarm.  He turned the car sharply and floored the gas, flying through the gates and shooting down the street, flinging all the things to the side.  One of the ones on top fell in front of the car promptly disappeared under its tires.
Victor looked at the gas meter.
 "Good thing I filled up earlier." he said as we sped off into the night.
I think I fell asleep again after that.