In the midst of an smoldering building that was topped with an never-ending flame, there laid a young man holding a Remingtong870 Express shotgun. In there, laid a counter where customer service once boldly stood in the front right of the store; He gripped the gun tighter, eyes strained, and breathing slowly begun to accelerate as his adrenaline rose.

Slowly as the silence was to seduce him, a crack of glass woke him up from the illusion and he tensed the gun tighter once more. Another step and followed by another, it was sequence of a person being careful, not trying to walk too fast. Finally, the trespasser yelled, “I know you all are in here!”

Then when that was said the young man could hear the crackles of glass over, and over again. He now realized that there must be at least fifty other men with him.

“Come on!” he yelled as the sound of guns being loaded echoed throughout the store, and with a sense of duty the young man felt he must stand and fight. Then as he was actually preparing himself to stand, a hand settled on his shoulder. He glanced over and saw his friend who was much older and was bald on top of his head. He seemed more aggressive and with a strict look he shook his head to disengage the foolish thought. When all seemed hopeless for it was only a matter of time before the men would start spraying away, a voice rung on the walkie attached the boy’s bullet vest, “Okay, every is now in place, do it!”

The boy covered his ears in few brief seconds of silence, a hiss of smoke and the sound of something heavy falling and then...

DOOOOOM!!!!!

The explosion forced the boy to curl up in fear that his counter may fail from the blast. As the heat began to subside, the radio rung, “Hooty, check it out.” The friend who stopped the boy before tapped his walkie, “Copy that,” and he slowly stood up with his gun aimed at the main entrance. He hopped over the counter and observed and the gory display of blown body parts and some burnt while other just died without a gruesome outcome. He creeps towards the main door which now is a wide opening where the automatic glass doors used to be. He peeked outdoors to the left and the quickly to his right. He pulled back in and hurled back to the counter and replied on the walkie,

“Everything’s clear.”

The boy remarked, “Fool, why didn’t say that when you first confirmed it was clear?”

He replied, “Nigga, you act like we haven’t watched movies and you know when the guy says clear--- boom! Gets stabbed in the back and ate or some sh** like that.”

The strife aura that arrived with the unknown visitor has now left out of the store, many people all dressed for war emerged from every corners that couldn’t be seen with the human eye. They gathered together and greeted each other for surviving another encounter. Their lives have been in torment ever since the world as they knew it ended. Through an underground war that no civilian knew of, there was an exchange of bombs. Right now, it seems that everyone outside the store, they’re brainless zombies but they haven’t been confirmed to be dead. AS to why and how, no one knows but they do know that whatever happened, fried all the tech around the state and possibly the nation. They also know that when it’s best not to walk around while so-called zombies are roaming the streets.

This store here is Best Buy, a store that has been losing more and more of their inhabitants. A particular department of the store called the Geek Squad was designated to be kept alive and reframe from most fire fights as they need those tech-savvy users as they are trying to put together a device can communicate outside of the state in hopes they a have place where the y can go.

After the commotion and everything was settling down, the boy was cleaning his gun; an employee of the computers department rudely approached him, “I’m sure you have the cleanest gun here man! Maybe that because you never use it!”

“I’m just a guy who supposed to keep track of the functions of the store, killing is the last thing I need to do. How about you go to the back and bring out some more water.” The employee frowned for he was outranked based to the new rule and he quickly left to retrieve the water.

“Geek Squad! Line up!” a voice rung, and with this command the boy quickly got up and lined up next to his companions.

“Roll Call,” he yelled, “Tank, Creepo, Hooty, Ray-Ray, Hersh, Flash, LaLa, Benjamin, Bananna and…. as he approached the young boy,

“Carlton! Everyone accounted for?!”

“Sir yes sir!” They all yelled in unison!

It’s been tiring for the team to keep morale up in these days. Carlton often hanged with Hooty, who was slightly tubby but has buffed since the incident. The two would often talk thanks to their shared interests in music. They also felt a certain need to stay close being the few Negros the department. It was a foolish notion and they were aware of its foolishness, but later on, it didn’t matter. The other black fellow is the Supervisor who called the team over, a fair looking man who had a slick tongue that was always full of jokes and sarcasm before… But nihilism seems to be mixed in his tone lately.

In the inner section of the Customer Service counter, right behind it is the Geeksquad department which is a small little section cut off where we once fixed computers. Further down was a another room where we kept the completed computers but now it’s filled with parts that we used in hopes that at least one was still working. The walls that were once covered in orange and white paint are now covered in plans of escape, defense and attacks.

Carlton handled all files that involved with GeekSquad actions and changes. Anything that his department did or had to do was placed on paper in which he had to have a record of. An hour after the commotion, everyone returned back to their normal duties. Carlton was performing paperwork when Tank approached, “Hey man,” he said with a slight pip in his tone.

“Yo,” Carlton replied contrasting Tank’s tone,

“How’s the paperwork going?”

“Same ol, same ol…”

“Hey, um… I made an order for a nicotine replacement for about two months ago… And um, I’m really reaching my limit.” The more he talked the more tension you felt in his words.

“The GM seems to feel that our resources can’t be used to retrieve nicotine, right now we have to focus on necessities.”

“Yeah, I know but I’m really losing my cool! I mean with the fact that I’m dealing with my loved ones f***in zombies, and also everyone is holding on to their cigarettes! I need just something to relax in this nightmare, you know?” Carlton was getting irritated about having a conversation on smokes, and then calmly replied,

“Listen , I already made a requ---“

“WELL MAKE IT AGAIN!” Tank interrupted with a yell and a fierce bang on the counter, leaving a small print in it.

Carlton stared at him with a scowl that was not feeding into any of the aggression. Tank stared back with deep heavy breaths while his lips were sealed in his mouth. His veins strained from his neck as did he arms for Tank wasn’t a huge fellow but was nicely built.

“Are we,” Carlton calmly asked, “going to have a problem here?”

“And what if we do?”

“Then I may how put you down for a nap…” Tank couldn’t resist but smile at the threat made by the slightly chubby boy who muscles didn’t compare to his.

“Hah! Yeah, you can try!”

Then silence, the outburst that Tank made didn’t catch anyone’s attention and it was only the two of them at the Administrator Counter. After nearly ten seconds of pure tension….

Tank’s swings his arm instantly and as Carlton could barely follow the hand, he cocked the pistol he hid under his shirt and then….. Tank pats Carlton on the back and with a carefree laughter, he exclaims,

“Aw buddy, I’m just kidding, you can’t be serious all the time. We need some humor otherwise we’ll go insane”.

Tank walked away as subtle as he arrived leaving Carlton with a mixed bag of feelings regarding what just happened.

When Carlton’s shift ended, he could relax for the rest of the day, there had to be arrangements made for one break room wasn’t enough to hold all those aren’t working. There was no paycheck, everyone needed to work to survive. Most consisted of sending teams out to retrieve goods that couldn’t be sent to the store.

When Carlton finally finished his paperwork, Hooty came over with an excitement that hasn’t been seen since the warzone started.

“Hey C! You have to check this out dawg, I got a lil something for me and you.” Carlton couldn’t help but be skeptic as to what news would bring such happiness.

“Aight what is it?”

“No, no...” Hooty replied in a joking manner, “This dawg, you gotta see it! And let’s say, I don’t want everyone to know how I found

these.” Without another word, Carlton got up and followed him in the Men’s bathroom.

“Man,” Carlton mumbled, “you wanted me to follow you into the bathroom, that’s kind of gay.” Hooty ignored the comment and went into the last stall with the help of a scalpel had on him; he removed a tile from the wall behind the toilet. With a heavy annoyance, he finally pulled out a rocket! He softly placed that on the ground,

“What the—“ Carlton yelled in fear and shock, “Is that a friggin rocket!?”

“That aint the best part!” He then pulls a launcher and pulls out four more rockets. “THIS,” Hooty projects with a danger-welcoming tone,

“This my nigga, is some Rambo sh** right here!”

“When will you need to fire a rocket?”

“When the first rocket doesn’t kill everybody! Me and Leo from computers went on unapproved trip to the weapons’ store about nine miles South. That one hasn’t been touched by anyone but us; we get the basic weapons while the managers get the serious guns. But even though we went on our own, we only picked up one thing and called it a night, but I think our whole department should be strapped to the max. So we’re going again, Leo gonna pick up a better weapon and I want to stack up our whole department.”

Carlton really was speechless, such a daring idea that seemed too dangerous to entertain but Carlton would like to have his own weapon rather than gun that he has to turn in everyday after his shift. Not to mention that his current paperwork program was becoming dull and mundane and he wished to go out once and travel beyond the same street.

“….. Fine” Carlton finally said,

“That’s my nigga right there!”

“Alright, “A voice mumbled from outside the stall. Hooty and Carlton looked out and saw Flash leaning against the stall. “So, when do we leave?”

“Aw hell!” Hooty yelled, “Flash you can’t come man, I can’t have you dying man.”

“That’s right I agree, but who’s said I will be dying?” Flash was very soft-spoken man who seemed to play with other’s words and held a certain mysteriousness about him. However, he still was very skinny, and he was mocked by how he looked like the depiction of white Jesus. After the pause Flash remarked,

“Or, I could just let those in charge know about this little plan? Either way, I won’t be dying anytime soon, that I assure you. “

“Fine,” Carlton answered in a slight disdain, “we’ll need maybe one more person.”

“I was thinking about Hersh,” Hooty commented,

“Oh great idea,” replied Flash, “involve the overweight- no offense- person rather than a person who has had military training ---

“Like Tank,” Carlton finished the sentence with a sour taste in his mouth.

“Well yeah,”

“No,” Hooty argued, “Hersh has had my back for years! I’m gonna make sure he’s part of this and he gets what he needs. Either he goes, or we all don’t go.” Flash softly nodded his head, “So, when are we leaving?”

“Tomorrow night, I had some pistols for everyone, you’ll have to turn in your gun before you go otherwise they’ll start looking for you when don’t log your gun back in. SO Flash, what type of weapon do you plan on getting? Semi? Automatic? Or something with a boom?”

“Boom is nice, but I’m more of a personal person.”

Flash walks out without another word and as the door closes, they both sigh as the situation could have gone down a lot more worse. Hooty then digs into the wall again and pulls of a miniature shotgun, similar to what Carlton already has and says,

“I got this one for you dawg,”

“So you did have something more than a pistol for me, so what do you think will happen when we go on this journey?”

Hooty took the shotgun, grinning while loading a few shells and with loud load he yelled, “Mayhem and Murder my nigga!”

*To be Continued!*