peachgunn

[peachgunn]

Chapter 1

                                                                                          The Encounter   The day started at 6:30 a.m. It was a beautiful, quiet morning, just like any normal day. Sunlight poured through the window and shined on Indigo as he laid in bed. The door suddenly opened with a slight squeak. His cat, Cheeto, jumped on his bed quietly and sat on Indigo's chest. It watched him sleep. Cheeto purred and licked Indigo's nose. He felt a tickling sensation on his nose, causing him to scrunch it and move to his right side. Cheeto sniffed his left ear.��It opened its mouth slowly and bit his ear as hard as it could. The bite sent shockwaves through Indigo’s body, he shot out of bed and stood up straight like a soldier. He glared at Cheeto, who rolled around on his bed. Indigo took a deep breath, pursed his lips with a slight furrow between his brows as he stared pointedly at Cheeto, and said, “You’re done... You're done.” He lazily walked out of the bedroom while he itched his head, his eyes half asleep. He walked through a hallway. The floor was made of wood, and pictures were hanging on walls painted white. One of the pictures had a mother and father with their 2 children at the beach. He walked past two doors. One had pink writings and unicorn stickers all over it, alongside a written name: “Katy.” The other door had skulls and scribbles all over it, with a sign that said, “stay out of Dustin’s room." He walked to a bathroom on the left side of the wooden stairs. After entering it, he took notice of himself in the foggy mirror covered in soap residue. He stared at his pale complexion. He rubbed his dark blue eyes while he yawned and touched his messy light brown, wavy hair. Brown freckles were scattered all over his long nose and cheeks. He tried to turn the tap on, discovering that the water had finally run out. He looked around the dusty bathroom full of cobwebs.  a black spider had settled on a web behind the toilet tank. “Good morning, Nelson, how’s the wife?” Indigo greeted it with a smile on his face. He turned around and stared back at his reflection, contemplating to himself, “Oh man, what the hell am I gonna do? Looks like my BO will be my new perfume.” He walked out of the bathroom and headed downstairs to the kitchen, with Cheeto following him down the stairs. He opened the fridge and found half a sausage and some moldy canned beans. His face was full of disappointment. He mumbled to himself “can this day get any worse it's only 7 a.m”. After closing the fridge, he noticed Cheeto sitting on the kitchen counter. The kitchen had a modern design but was full of empty cans of both human and cat food alike. “So,” Indigo said after taking a deep breath, “We have half a sausage and moldy canned beans. If you let me have the sausage, I’ll let you have the bed, and I will sleep in your box.” Cheeto walked over to him and hissed at him. Offended, Indigo replied, “Where do you get the audacity to speak to your father like this? Last time I gave you my salami sandwich, and now you won't even let me have this sausage. This relationship is getting more toxic every day. I do everything while you sit there and speak to me with disrespect. You should be thankful for having a strong, handsome father. Do you know how many cats would die to have me by their side? I would be treated like their Messiah." Cheeto climbed up his shoulder and slapped him with its tail. After 5 minutes of bickering with Cheeto, Indigo gave up and ate the moldy baked beans while Cheeto got the sausage.He walked to the living room. There was a board hanging on the wall, pinned with pieces of ripped newspaper articles and maps of safe locations that he could get supplies from. A picture of North Brother Island was in the middle of the board, with a red circle drawn around it. A map was laid on the coffee table, where he drew another circle on a location he planned to go to.  He turned around to face Cheeto and specified, “So, there’s an abandoned supermarket southwest of here, but it will take us a couple of hours to get there. If we go now, we will make it before sundown. So, let’s get ready.” He made his way to a basement located under the stairs. It had a lot of tools and weapons that he could use, although were kept as a Plan B. There were a couple of dead zombies on the left side of the basement—he had buckets full of zombie’s guts and dirty blood. He took his green parka jacket and his cloak from the hangar. Indigo dipped his cloak into one of the buckets, and pulled it out. His nose wrinkled in disgust. He contemplated finding another method to stop zombies from smelling his scent. He took out a little cloak and gave it the same treatment, putting it on Cheeto, it sniffed the foul odor coming from its cloak. cheeto’s eyes squinted, its mouth slightly opened. “Aww, you look so cute,” he said with a baby voice, and changed his voice to a thicker tone, “if only you weren’t a heartless child.” They went out from the basement door that led them outside. The sun shined brightly, and everything was quiet. Zombies roamed around the neighborhood. One zombie passed by them, which looked like it was a mailman back in the day. He walked with slow movements, his eyeballs were gone and all you could see were his dark eye sockets. Half of his jaw and head were missing, black discharge leaked out from his brain. He was wearing his uniform, but it was dirty and had black goo all over it. One leg walked while the other was sliding, with his bag tied around it. The zombie didn’t detect the smell of human flesh and left. Indigo whispered to himself, “I don’t think Bobby is doing his job right. When was the last time we got mail?” He sneaked through the neighborhood, and caught sight of two zombies to his left, a woman and a man. The woman was crawling with no legs, wearing a pink floral dress with holes on it. Her eyes were clouded, teeth snapped while her head moved left and right, her hair was half gone, and she had spikes coming out of her back. The other zombie walked in circles. His ears were like bat ears, and he had horse legs. He had no clothes on and a huge hole was in his abdomen. Those zombies were not like any other zombies. They were mutated zombies, meaning they were most likely created in a lab. After two hours of walking, Indigo finally got to his destination. The street was full of debris. Cars turned over, stop signs impaled through walls. Everything was a mess. Indigo hid in the corner of a building and squatted down to check for any danger. All he could see were a couple of zombies. Everything was silent, with only the wind moving. Indigo took out his machete with a worried look. He patted Cheeto’s head, who sat on his shoulder. He took a deep breath and sprinted towards the broken down supermarket, trying to not step on any broken glass. He managed to make it inside without making any noise. Inside what once was a supermarket, the shelves were all on the floor with barely any food or supplies. He picked up each can, but they were all empty. He tsked and whispered, “They already beat us to it." He kept searching for scraps when he noticed a door under all the rubble and broken shelves. He slowly pushed away all the rubble and broken shelves to find a steel door. It was locked, so Indigo bent down and examined the lock. He grinned and glanced at Cheeto on his shoulder. “You know I used to be a locksmith back in the days, so this is gonna be a piece of cake,” he said proudly. After some time had passed, he eventually unlocked the door, but couldn't open it all the way. Indigo had to slide through a tight gap. He shined his flashlight in the darkness to find out that he had found a goldmine, packed with food and water. His face was full of excitement. “This day has officially gotten better," he rejoicefully said. “Cheeto, tonight we’re going to dine like royalty.” He glimpsed over his shoulder expecting to find Cheeto, but to his surprise, Cheeto was nowhere to be found. Before he could even speak, he heard a loud screech outside. The screech was so intense his ears were ringing, he held his hands over them to block the noise. After the screeching stopped, he peeked out the door and saw a huge creature with wings. It had white fur, a big and wide mouth, it had sharp long teeth that could break steel, no eyes, long black claws, and a venomous scorpion tail. This was another mutated zombie. It couldn’t see, but it could hear and smell the scent of blood from miles away. Indigo pondered to himself, “Why is there a chicken zombie here at this time? Shouldn’t it be sleeping... Could it be…”  Indigo hid behind the door, checking his body for any wounds. After finding none, he let out a breath of relief and whispered to himself, “It’s not coming from me, then what could it be?” his face changed from calm to panic. He grabbed what he could take and got out of the storage room, closing the door after him, and hid it under the broken shelves so he could come back later. Indigo ran quietly to the glass door, whispering, “No no no no no no.” Hiding in a corner near the window to his right, he took notice of a huge herd coming his way with three more winged creatures. The winged creatures only come out in the daytime when there’s a herd. They only hunt at night. He caught a glimpse of Cheeto under a dumpster in an alley, next to an unconscious person. Indigo started signalling Cheeto. “Get your ass here now.” Cheeto wouldn’t come. “Ah fuck,” he mumbled and sprinted to the dumpster in the alley. He squatted down and saw Cheeto licking the stranger’s face. “What the hell is wrong with you? Were you that hungry that you resorted to cannibalism?” He’s dead, let's go.” Cheeto wouldn’t move, it gave indigo a worried look. Indigo checked the guy’s pulse. “He’s alive, but he’s bleeding. That was what the zombie chicken was smelling. We can’t take him with us, it’s too risky. We need to go now!” He tried to pick up Cheeto, but it dodged and hissed at him. “Ah, fine, I'll help your new boyfriend.” Indigo pulled out the unconscious guy from under the dumpster, picked him up with one arm under his legs and the other supporting his back. “Dang, he’s light as a feather,” he said jokingly. He scanned around the alley, all he could see were dumpsters and trash. In front of him, there was a wall. “Shit, we need to climb that wall.” He realized he can’t carry him like this while climbing. Indigo put the guy down and opened his bag. Grabbing some rope, he tied the guy’s hands and put him on his back. Cheeto climbed on indigo’s shoulder. He got up on the dumpster and reached over the side of the wall to climb it. After he successfully reached the other side, The winged creature released another loud screech. Indigo looked up, his eyes widened and eyebrows pulled up, mouth wide open. The winged creature was flying above him like an eagle that found its prey. "Oh, fuck me," he nervously thought to himself. He scuttled towards the forest ahead as fast as he could. Trees and bushes were everywhere. The beast caught up to him and was about to charge towards him with its stinger, but Indigo dodged it by jumping to the left side. He fell from the path and rolled down a hill. He hit his back on a tree trunk, and the other guy landed a short distance away. Cheeto licked Indigo’s face while he was on the ground. He felt light-headed, he couldn’t stand on his own two feet. Indigo was worn out, he struggled to his feet using the tree as support, his vision blurred. Indigo realized that he and the unconscious guy were separated during the fall. He noticed the beast was heading towards the insensible guy. fear paralyzed Indigo, his heart leaped into his throat, eyes wide open he couldn't even blink. “ Run, leave him and run. now is your chance.” he ruminated. his hand unknowingly went for his machete, without taking his eyes off of the creature. without thinking he sprinted towards the beast and sliced its stinger before it could attack the guy. it let out a huge screech of pain, black goo gushed out of its tail. Indigo dropped his weapon and fell backward, he was icy with panic. It flew up in fear. Indigo snapped out of it and crawled towards the guy, and put him on his shoulder, and ran. He reached a cliff, there was a river at the bottom, he stopped to take a breath and saw the beast was still behind them. “Hang on tight," he said breathlessly. Cheeto dug its claws into indigo’s clothes. Indigo jumped before the creature could catch him. It hesitated as it watched them floating in the water, before flying away. Indigo swam towards the shore and sat down. He tried to catch his breath. “Is everyone okay?” he asked. He focused on Cheeto as it shook itself to get dry and licked its paw. His attention went to the unconscious person and he noticed his features. Indigo's eyes softened while he gazed at the young guy. He had never seen someone as beautiful as him. He resembled a painting. The guy had beautiful Asian features, his ivory complexion was smooth like flower petals. His eyelashes were long and dark. A beauty mark was under his right eye, his curly hair was as dark as the night sky on a starless night, and he was tall and thin. He wore an all black outfit, with a hoodie,  jeans, and combat boots. He had a weird-looking black stick with markings on it, it was tied behind his back. That’s when Indigo noticed the blood on the guy’s abdomen. He unzipped his hoodie and found a bloody bite mark. “Shit, he’s been bitten, how come he hasn’t turned yet?” He opened the guy’s eyes and inspected them. “His eyes are not cloudy yet.” He peered at his neck. “No black veins. This guy hasn’t turned yet, how is that even possible?” But when Indigo felt his skin, it was hot. “Shit, he has a fever.” Indigo took his cloak and jacket off, he then took off his t-shirt, ripped it, and wrapped it around the guy’s wound. He covered him with his jacket. He put him on his back and left with Cheeto following him. After a couple of hours, Indigo managed to get home before sundown. He put the unconscious guy on his bed, cleaned his wound, and covered it up. Indigo left him shirtless and covered him with a blanket. He got a basin with warm water and dipped a cloth in it, wiping the guy’s body. When he got to his arms, he started to notice needle marks all over them. He thought to himself, “Was he a junkie in his past life?" Indigo sat on a blanket in the living room with Cheeto on his lap. “ You know I wanted to leave him behind back there. I was so scared that I tinkled myself,” he chuckled, and scratched the back of his head. After hearing what indigo just said, Cheeto got up and slept on the floor. “But something came over me, I wasn't thinking, I just ran and sliced off its tail like it was bread, even though I had no idea what I was doing I looked very heroic didn't I? if that guy was awake he would have been intimidated by my alpha vibes,” he said feeling superior.