Radio | 1.0

CH 1.0

PRESENT

A singular huff of irritation could be heard, and then furious clicking noises. "Fucking hell," a boy grumbled, tossing his tool aside. He glared angrily at the radio in his hands. Repairs were not going well. He wasn't cut out of this shit. He hated technology with a passion.

"What's up M? You got that sour look on your face again. Someone piss in your provisions?" A middle-aged man with a full-length beard came to stand next to him.

"I can't fix the damn radio," M said with a grumble, pushing the piece of garbage into the bearded man, Klein's, arms. The man chuckled as he looked at it, messing with it. "Have at it," M huffed. "Things a piece of shit,"

"Now now," Klein said with a huff of his own, focusing on the radio in his hands. "I've seen this before, it's easy," He said as he worked his magic on it. Soon the radio started to crackle static, having begun working again.

M, or Mikael as his name was, groaned and stomped away. "Whatever man- I hate anything with electricity," he huffed.

"It comes in pretty handy, especially when you up and disappear," Klein said with a grin.

Mikeal gave him a look before he started looking through the shelves of the abandoned store. "Yeah yeah," he said with the shake of his head. "You're not my mom so I don't see what the big deal is,"

Klein switched off the crackling radio and put it into his bag, also searching through the shelves now. "You're a pretty important guy to us all, Mikael," he said honestly. "We'd have died a couple of times now if not for you,"

The boy ignored the compliment and picked up a box. It displayed bright green grass and what looked to be a dog on the front. Mikael had never seen a dog himself but he knew what they were. Well, actually he had seen some sort of canine creature before but it certainly didn't look like the friendly puppy on the box.

"Those are dog treats, you should put those back. Likely expired anyway," Klein advised.

"What if they're still good?" Mikael mused, opening the box.

"We're not gonna eat dog treats M," Klein said with an exasperated sigh. "Not even thinking about it,"

Mikael scoffed and tossed them back on the shelf, continuing his searching through the bare store. Klein wasn't done talking though as he followed him around. "I was serious about what I said, M. You're mighty important to us,"

"Yeah, I know. It's pretty useful to have a freak around that can save your life all the time," Mikael grumbled.

"Well that of course, but we all really appreciate you, even if some of us are a bit... harsh on you..." Klein was struggling to explain those of their group that hated Mikael's guts.

"Oh yeah? Harsh huh? I think I'd say beating the shit out of me is a bit worse than just Harsh," the boy grumbled.

"You know they were just scared and angry..." Klein tried to reason. "It wasn't okay and they were dealt with..."

Mikael grabbed a garden shovel and looked at it before tossing it back on the shelf. Was there anything useful here? "Angry because they're so privileged. They think because I can save a few that I have to save everyone. I can't," He said with the shake of his head, turning down another aisle to which Klein followed yet again.

"People get emotional in moments like that... none of us like losing each other,"

"Well, they're about to lose me," Mikael grumbled.

Klein slapped his shoulder. "Don't say that M. It's been 3 years you've been with us, you can't just so easily talk about leaving,"

"It wasn't meant to be permanent," Mikael said simply as he picked up a bag of rotted seeds. It was about time they got out of the pet and garden section of this store. There clearly wasn't anything of worth here.

"But it could be," Klein offered for the millionth time. "We've been doing really well recently. We've even started stalking up on food- actually making a reserve,"

The boy kept walking, Klein following behind him. "You all did that without me," He said simply, moving into the hardware section. This area was pretty barren too but at least there was likely something useful here.

"We had more people to accomplish it. You've helped by keeping those said people alive, M!"

Mikael turned back to Klein with a blank stare. "Keep talking about it, keep praising me, do whatever you like, but come spring I'm out of here. Like I should have been that very first spring,"

Klein frowned. "If you need me to talk to the other's again I will. I can get them to leave you alone-"

Mikael shook his head. "It's not really about being left alone by assholes or not. I have to keep moving, I don't want to stay here forever- besides it's dangerous if I do. I'm not like everyone else and you know it. If the right raizon storm blows in and triggers the radiation fields then I'm done for. I've managed to avoid it for 5 years, you guys don't know what it's like to completely lose your mind like that,"

Klein frowned. "What if it's different this time? It's been 5 years after all- you said you were different now..." He pointed at his ear, referencing Mikael's own slightly pointy ones. The ears he was self-conscious about.

The boy resisted reaching for his own ears to touch them and turned back around, grabbing a hammer off the shop wall. "Reizon is enough by itself. You've seen what those are like alone. But radiation? You all live and breath out here in the stuff. I more sensitive to it than you are,"

"Right because you were a lab rat at some fancy city bubble. We can avoid the storms, Mikael. You just have to trust us..."

Mikael didn't even respond as he walked towards the food section of the store, which happened to be far barer than the rest of the place. The shelves were rusted and the floors were cracked, none of the lights worked so this place was rather dim, but Mikael could see just fine.

"M..." Klein called. "You gotta stay with us,"

Mikael ignored him as he looked through the practically empty food isles. Most shelves had rusted and fallen to the floor but there were a few still left up, and even less of those few actually had something on the shelf. But most of it was bad- about 12 years bad. Really none of it should be edible but some canned foods were probably still good. At least that's what Mikael was hoping for.

"Heeeey," A woman's voice called into the building. "It's time to go- we saw some zeds,"

"Just zeds?" Klein called back.

"About 5 but they got that black stuff on 'em. I think there's a runner nearby," She responded.

My head picked up, and I started walking to the exit, Klein following. My boots crunched over some glass as I shielded my eyes from the bright sun. When my vision went back to normal I looked around the old abandoned and run-down city. Most buildings had collapsed from the harsh weather. There were plants growing into the rubble but they weren't green like they should have been. Most of these plants were purple or maroon, maybe an orange colour. An effect of the Reizon. None of the plants here would be edible. Reizon was toxic, poisoning everything it came into contact with. Including people.

You could touch the plants sure but if you were desperate enough to ingest them then it was a different story. You'd get incredibly sick and start going crazy until you practically lose all cognitive function. Not only that but it carried with it some sort of strange fungus with it... you'd eventually become a zed.

I looked to the girl who had called us out because of said zeds. "Why didn't you just take them out?" I asked her.

The woman had cropped brown hair that I was told was called a pixie cut. She said long hair was too much of a hassle but honestly I could care less. Her name was Genevieve but to call her Gen, so we did. We were all covered in heavy clothes that we'd salvaged. It was wintertime, and though there was snow out, the purple and maroon plants didn't care about the temperature. I envied them in that way. Immune to the cold? I had spent too many nights freezing my ass off.

"Take them out? Did you not hear me, Mikael? They've got that black shit all over them! There's gotta be a runner around here, we need to leave. None of us are fit to take on a runner," She said with the cross of her arms.

"You've got a gun," I said, motioning to the pistol on her belt.

"Yeah and three bullets, dumbass. None of us are as sharp a shooter as you are," Gen had a bit of an attitude, but so did Mikael.

"Then give it to me," He said simply.

Gen gawked at him, placing a protective hand over her gun. "Uh-uh no way,"

"What's the use of having a gun if you aren't going to use it?" Mikael asked her, face blank.

"It's for emergencies only and I dunno if you heard me M, there are 5 zeds, not 3,"

Mikael stared at her. "I'll take care of them then. Where are they?"

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. "Do you listen at all Mikael? There's 5 of them AND likely a runner around here. If there's a runner who knows what else there is!"

Klein set his hand on Mikael's shoulder. "I agree. We shouldn't take any unnecessary actions here. The safest bet is to just leave why we've got the chance..."

I shrugged him off. "Fine, let's go then..."

My head picked up before anyone else's and I stared in a direction for a long time before two bodies rounded a corner and started jogging towards us. Tiff and Sean. I sighed seeing it was just them, but they seemed worried.

"Gen, there's more- a lot more!" Tiff said as she rushed to the group with her ever silent brother, Sean.

"How many more?" Gen said, gaining her own worried expression.

"I- I don't know, there were too many to count without being noticed. We gotta leave now, most of them are covered in that black shit," Tiff explained to us just before we heard an ear-piercing scream echoing through the desolate city.

My senses lit on fire as my eyes sharpened and I stared at what I guessed was the direction that the scream came from. My muscles grew tense as I strained my ears to listen. It was too quiet...

"Was... was that a person?" Klein asked now.

"No... " Mikael answered as he placed a hand on the knife attached to his belt.

Gen smacked his hand away from it. "Like hell you're gonna go fight whatever that is, M! Let's get out of here! I don't wanna know how many zeds are here,"

Tiff nodded. "I second that, let's just go," Sean was ever silent next to her.

Reluctantly Mikael nodded. "Alright let's go..." he said as they started to trudge through the ankle-deep snow towards the way they came.

They walked about 40 yards through the city before Mikael threw a hand out. "Wait..." he said suddenly. He started to stare off into space, using his hearing to sense anything nearby... something was wrong, it was incredibly quiet but something here was off...

"M? We need to move, what is it?" Tiff asked him only gaining a hand telling her to shut up.

Mikael turned slowly behind them and made eye contact with what was silently behind them. "Nobody move," he commanded them seriously. Cautiously the group slowly turned to see what it was he was looking at. The group seemed to tense at what it was that was staring straight at them. A runner.

The runner stared at them, slack jaw hanging open to expose rows of spiky teeth. It was slightly humanoid having arms and legs, but it was insanely tall and long and sickly skinny. It was bald and its grey ashen skin was all but humanlike. Its eyes were black like marbles, big and bulging. You couldn't tell by looking where its attention was but you could certainly feel its eyes on you.

The thing had to be over 7 feet tall but it steadied its skinny self on all fours, its arms longer than its back legs so it somehow held itself up like a gorilla might- if a gorilla was deathly anorexic and out to kill anything that moved.

No one knew what runners were, but there was the sneaking suspicions that they had once been human. The thing we saw now wore no clothes and had no genitalia to speak of. They certainly couldn't reproduce.

The group was frozen, staring at the creature before them. Any sudden movements and they'd be in a world of trouble. Runners tended to be curious before they were brutal. If you were boring and didn't move, most times they would move on. Well, at least if they didn't smell any blood at least. Luckily no one in the group was bleeding.

A sniff of the air and Mikael's face scrunched up. No someone here was bleeding. His eyes followed where the sent was coming from and reluctantly fell on Gen. He said nothing about it, but this certainly would explain her attitude.

"Oh you are not just smelling me," She said as her eyes met his. "You freaky lab perv, I'll shoot you," Gen threatened him.

Mikael's brows rose. "Your gun," he said now.

"They'll hear us! No," She growled at him.

"It's the only choice we have, if we run now he'll get us, but if we shoot and run then we've got some time to get out of here," Mikael reasoned.

A look of confliction passed across Gen's features before she grumbled something, handing over her pistol to Mikael. He gladly took it from her and released the safety, holding it up and pointing it in the direction of the runner. They were called runners because, well, you could probably guess why.

The ashen creature seemed to tilt its head to the side as Mikael held out the gun. He narrowed his eyes, focusing as he aimed straight for between the eyes. Regular guns weren't very effective against these things, or most monsters for that matter, but if you could get a perfect shot between the eyes then they went down immediately. Mikael pulled the trigger and the shot rang out, a bang that pierced the silence of the city streets.

The bullet hit the runner dead centre between the eyes and it immediately thumped to the ground. Gen immediately ripped her gun from Mikael's hands and shoved it back into her holster.

"Okay lets fucking go then, we stay here now and we'll be sitting ducks!" Gen barked at them and no one hesitated to start running through the snow towards their destination.

Or at least that was the plan.

As soon as Mikael turned around to carry on with everyone, Klein shouted out in surprise as he was tackled by a grey blur. The two skidded along the snow until they landed a couple of yards left of them. Klein yelled in surprise and scrambled to pull the knife from his boot but the runner on top of him screamed loudly, making everyone cover their ears. It was immensely loud and echoed around the tall building, gaining identical screams all throughout the city.

"Klein!" Tiff shouted, unsure of what to do.

Mikael rushed over, unthinking what his plan was. His blade was already drawn, a knife that was just 6 inches. The runner sensed him coming and swung out a long bony arm to knock him back but Mikael narrowly dodged before he was able to grab Klein and throw him to the side with all his strength only to have his back stomped on by the creature. He hit the snow chest and face first, his knife knocked loose from his hand.

He scrambled to get up before another scream rang out over him. Mikael felt the weight lift from his back and he struggled to push himself up, the wind knocked out of his aching lungs and his face cold from contact with the snow. A second later a shot rang out. The bang of a gun. Mikael managed to whip himself around to face where the noise came from. "Gen! Save the bullets!" He shouted at her.

She held her gun with a terrified look on her face. "Mikael!" She screamed just as the Runner swiped at him with its large boney and clawed hands. It hit him with a thump, sending him into the concrete wall of a building. He hit it on his back and slid down to his feet, sputtering and coughing; struggling to regain his breath.

The runner ran at him, and he just barely managed to roll out of the way. His hand came to his belt but his knife was gone. Right. He'd dropped it earlier. Mikael pushed himself to his feet and just barely managed to avoid the lunging runner. He wasn't able to avoid the clip of its claws on his shoulder though. It made him stagger to the side, gripping at the bleeding wound as he tried to catch his breath and look for his knife.

"Mikael!" Klein shouted as he tossed his own sheathed knife to Mikael.

He caught it with ease and opened it, tossing the sheath to the side. He turned to face the beast with his eyes shining a frosty blue, nearly silver. He said nothing as he started to walk in circles with the Runner, slowly eyeing each other down.

"We need to leave now M!" Gen said, catching the attention of the beast.

Mikael bit back his desires to tell her to shut up as he launched himself at the runner, gripping it by the side of the head as he jabbed the knife right in between its marble black eyes. It screeched out, the blade not sinking as far as it needed to. Yelling out, Mikael pushed against the blade, using his other hand to hold onto the beast despite its thrashing. Mikael was just barely holding on, his lower half flailing around like a rag doll. Suddenly a big hand came up and smashed him into the ground. Hard. His vision went blurry as he gasped out. Gen and Tiff yelling out once more.

Sean, ever the silent one, came up with his own knife as the runner was approaching Mikael on the ground. He lunged his blade into the side of the creature's neck and it shrieked out, the sound reverberating around the buildings. Mikael's ears were ringing and his vision was swarmed with stars and static. He blinked a couple of times trying to come back to his senses.

He heard Tiff scream in horror and something came, landing with a thud right next to him. What... what was that? He blinked a few more times before he looked to his right to see... the blurriness cleared from his eyes just enough to see a head. Sean's head. The sound's of Tiff's panicked screams came to the surface, but she was only background noise as Mikael got up off the ground with a growl, coming back at the runner at a full paced sprint. He ducked from the swipe of a claw before launching his hands to the knife in his head.

Mikael ripped and pulled at the knife, dislodging it only to yell out as he slammed it back into the wound that was gushing out black blood. The creature immediately went stiff before suddenly going slack and toppling to the ground on top of Mikael. He was panting wildly despite the blinding pain in his ribs. A few were likely broken but he didn't have the time to pay it any attention.

Klein came up and managed to pull Mikael out from under the heavy monster. He saw that Gen was holding a sobbing Tiff. Weary eyes came to glance at the decapitated body of Sean and the head only a few feet away. He'd hardly talked to Sean in the 3 years he knew him but he knew the man was a good guy. "We've gotta go," Mikael found himself saying.

"But Sean! My brother!" Tiff cried, struggling against Gen's grasp.

"Leave him Tiff! We've gotta get out of here! He wouldn't want you to stay and die!" Gen tried to reason with her.

"No! No he's my brother! I can't leave him!" She sobbed, voice cracking.

Klein set a weary hand on her shoulder, tears streaming from his eyes only to get caught up in his beard. "We have to leave him... he's dead, T," He said solemnly.

Tiff sobbed more before they could get her to move. But it was too late by that time. They'd taken too long.