Zero Blood: Volume 5

Zero Blood

Volume 5

Part One

"Sanity"

Episode 1

"Pieces"

(Jess's Point of View)

It's been two weeks since we got here, and a lot has happened in those two weeks. I strolled through Stan's backyard peacefully, looking at what we've built. We turned the mansion into a fort, in only two weeks. It had to be done, we know what people are capable of. We weren't prepared for Gus's attack on the mall, if another attack ever happens, we'll be ready this time. We set up watchtowers along Stan's house. One in the backyard, two in the front. The towers were about ten feet tall. They were made from wood. As soon as we got here, we started getting people to work. We all headed to the forest and started cutting trees down, Stan had a lot of tools in his garage, so we were able to work fast and get these towers up. At night, people take shifts watching the mansion. Stan even has a few of flash lights for everyone to use up there. That wasn't all though, Mark was lucky enough to find a car in the woods. It was an old beat up truck, and it didn't work. It wasn't too far from the house, so Stan and him pushed it through the snow all the way here. It took all day, with three breaks, but they got it. Mark and Stan were fixing it right now in the garage. If we can get it to work, we have transportation again. It was an old model truck, must have been there for a long time. Mark said it had most of it's parts still intact, but they were frozen over. He might have to go scavenging for more parts later.

It was getting warmer outside as well, winter was almost over. Stan has kept some calendars in his house, keeping up with the time. It was January, and winter is almost over. Thank god, it had been a bad winter. I headed inside the mansion. I stomped my boots on the rug to get the snow off of them. Brandy was watching television with Ned and Doug. They were watching some of Stan's old movies he had in there. They were old cartoons, but it looked like Ned and Brandy were both entertained. We have also done some interior work on the place as well. Since Stan's mansion is so big, he had quite a few rooms he never used. We made use of them. We turned one of his old office rooms upstairs into an armoury. We have a system going and I think it works pretty well. Bay is in charge of the guns, and whenever someone needs a gun they need to check one out and get Bay's permission first. That way, we know who had hold of the guns, so we don't lose them. Kayla likes to help Bay with her job a lot, so it's pretty much her job as well.

We have also added a workshop in the basement. Stan is in charge of that. He collects scrap metal from wherever he can find it and turn it into weapons. He has a few anvils down there, and it works out perfectly. He told me that he used to blacksmith in his spare time before the apocalypse. He sold everything he made to people, and made a lot of extra money off of it. We turned a spare guest room into a small infirmary. Elise, Julie and Ryan run it. It's pretty straight forward, if someone gets hurt, they go to the infirmary and Elise will treat them. Fortunately, we haven't had to use it yet. I also run a small food system in the kitchen. People can't just walk in and grab whatever food they want now. We need to ration it carefully. Stan had a ton of food, he even has a couple freezer's in his basement where he keeps food. The problem is that it's starting to run out. We only have a couple weeks worth of food left now. That's if we ration it as well. Bay normally likes to go out on runs to Kingston to try and find some food, lately she has had trouble finding anything good.

I headed out into the garage, where Mark was working on the car.

"Hey." I said.

"Hey." he replied, while doing something to the hood of the car.

"Any progress?"

"Well," he began, grabbing a wash cloth and cleaning his hand, "lucky for us, we are only missing two parts to the car."

"And what would that be?"

"Spark plugs, and the air filter. I'm sure Bay can find something in her next run into town."

"Hopefully, maybe she could hit up an auto shop or something," I said, "she's been having bad luck with scavenging lately."

"You think Kingston is running out of items in general? We don't know how many other survivors are scavenging in Kingston either. It could be getting empty. Once winter ends, we need to start up a farm again, it's our only certain way of getting food."

"We could also try hunting," I said, "We have a lot of bullets, for now. We all know how fast those things get used up."

"Why don't you check in on Bay and see about it? I gotta finish some things up in here."

"Alright, good luck with that truck." I headed out of the garage.

I started walking upstairs, and went into the armoury room. Bay and Kayla were hanging out, and cleaning guns.

"Sup." Bay said when she saw me enter, she was playing around with what looked like a gold necklace.

"Not much, how many guns do we have?" I asked.

"Um," Bay started as she started counting guns on the rack, "six pistols, two rifles, one shotgun, and three machine guns. Oh, and one flare gun. I just found this lying around the basement."

"Where did we get the machine guns?" I asked.

"I stole them from a bandit camp a couple months ago." she answered.

"How much ammo?"

"Oh I don't know, too much to count that's for sure. Any strangler attack, we'll be ready."

"What about a people attack? We always have to be sure."

"I'd say we would have a pretty good chance. What's with all the questions?"

"I don't know," I began, "we've all just had pretty bad luck with people lately, thank god we found you and Stan. It's nice to find good people once in a while."

"Hey," Bay started, "do you think this looked nice on me?"

She put the necklace around her neck, I nodded.

"Yeah, it looks nice."

(Kayla's Point of View)

I left the armoury room and let Bay and Jess talk. I wanted to get some fresh air, I headed down the stairs and walked out of the front door. Winter was almost over, I can't wait for spring, I just want to see the grass again. I saw a couple of stranglers roaming around in the snow not too far from the mansion. The mansion is laid out uniquely. There is a forest all around, but then there is a big opening where Stan's house is, so sometimes stranglers will just show up around on his front lawn. The stranglers didn't see me, so I grabbed my pistol and got ready. I snuck up towards the stranglers and shot one in the chest. It dropped dead. The other strangler saw me and started a scream, I shot it in the head before it could scream too loud. I guess their scream is like their call, it's to alert other stranglers in the area. They are pretty smart if you think about it, they have their own instincts. It's weird. I stood there proud, whenever I kill stranglers by myself, I feel some sort of rush I can't explain. I turned around to head back into the mansion when I noticed Ryan. He was standing in the snow by the house just staring at me. Was he watching me the whole time?

I leaned in to get a closer look, once he noticed I saw him, he turned back and walked into the house. What was that all about? I shrugged it off, he probably just wanted to watch me kill some stranglers. In some weird way, it is entertaining. I walked in the mansion and stomped the snow off of my boots on the mat. When I got inside I saw Brandy hanging out in the kitchen, he was eating a granola bar. I ran up to him.

"Brandy! Jess is in charge of the kitchen, you can't just walk in and take whatever you want!"

"It's okay," he said, "As long as she doesn't know."

"Jess is in charge," I swiped the granola bar from his hand and wrapped it back up, "We need to listen to her."

"You seem to be really forgiving to let her to tell you what to do." he said.

"What?" I asked, shocked.

"She shot your dad and left him out in the cold, and you are just letting that slide? I'd be angry if she did that to me."

"You're really trying to turn this on me?" I asked, "Of course I'm still mad about it, but even I can agree that Jess is the best person for a leader."

Brandy just stood there and looked at me, expecting me to change my mind. I wouldn't. It was true that I was still hurt by what Jess did, but she did what she had to do. I'm sure my dad will be fine, I'll keep looking for him. Tomorrow morning, I'll gather up a crew and we will go looking again.

(Mark's Point of View)

I decided to take a break from fixing the car. I was getting tired, and I wasn't getting anywhere. It was also getting late outside, I needed to rest up for tomorrow. We're gonna need to find those spark plugs and air filter. It was even tougher to fix a car with one arm, but I knew a lot about cars, I could manage. I cleaned my hand with a rag sitting on a desk in the garage. I then headed inside the house. I turned on the T.V and started watching. Ned was there, he was looking at a yellow sticky note. The one that we found in Toronto.

"More answers in Kingston," he said, "I wish I knew that that meant."

"Maybe we can go to Kingston and look around, once I get that truck fixed." I said.

"Yeah, that would help. I really want to find out more, the stranglers are so mysterious. It's driving me nuts."

Something caught the corner of my eye out of the window. I walked over to the window and took a look. I could see stranglers making their way to the house, they multiplied. Some would emerge from the forest and make their way the mansion, and even more would show up as well. In just the few seconds that I looked out the window, there were already around fifteen stranglers running towards the house. I panicked.

"Get the guns!" I yelled.

Ned jumped up, he took a look out of the window and saw the stranglers making their way to house.

I grabbed Kayla and Brandy from the kitchen and told them to come with me. I ran upstairs with everyone to the armoury. Jess and Bay were in there.

"What's going on?" Jess asked me.

"Stranglers, they are coming, a bunch of them. I don't know how they all came at once, but we need some guns."

"Alright." Bay panicked, she grabbed some guns off of the wall.

She handed Jess two pistols to duel wield, she handed me a machine gun, and she gave Ned a shotgun. She handed a pistol to Kayla, but Kayla pulled out one she already had in her holster.

"I got my own." she said.

Bay seemed confused, but shook it off. She handed Brandy a pistol and took a machine gun for herself. We loaded them up and prepared to take down the stranglers, then I realized something very wrong.

"Where's Stan?"