"Hey man, the school is this way." Rat whispers pointing down the street. "You wanted to come with me and I'm hunting right now, care to join me?" Riley asks. Rat follow's him silently for a few minutes. "Why are you hunting and what are you hunting?" Rat asks. "Zombies and shit to kill them." Riley responds. Rat drives his bayonet knife into a zombie's chin Riley had passed. "You missed a zombie dude." The younger boy says, wiping his knife off. "I knew you'd get it." Riley says drawing his 2 hunting knives and dropped 2 close together zombies. "2 dead fucks." Riley says, pulling his knives free. "Why don't you ever bring the heads in for your points?" Rat asks. "I feel like it's cheating for me too and I need to carry stuff not heads but if they are close by why don't you claim them?" Riley asks. "I'll bring em for you." Rat says stabbing a zombie. When he looks up he sees that Riley has dropped 6 zombies both knives glistening and dripping in the moonlight. "Fuck man when did you do that?" Rat asks. Spinning his knives Riley grins. "While you were busy with that asshole with the munchies." Riley says looking past Rat, Riley tosses his left knife in the air catching it by the blade and throws it past Rat sticking a zombie running their way. Pulling it free Riley wipes the blade off before sheathing it still holding the right. "Looks like the fresh ones move faster than the older ones." Riley says writing in his journal. "Seen a lot of runners Ri?" Rat asks. Riley smile's. "Dogs are fucking worse." He says to Rats chuckles. "At least it ain't a undead Harambe." Rat says referencing Riley's aversion to monkeys. "True." the older boy says stopping next to a chain link fence, the inside crawling with zombies. "Wanna clear it or wait?" Riley asks Rat. The younger boy crouches and counts. "30 zombie assholes a piece and only with our knives might work for you zombie slayer but I'm not confident in my abilities. I say we hit it with light." Rat says standing up. "Please let me clear it too." Rat says as Riley paces in front of the fence. "Yeah we will clear it." Riley says starting back towards Crystal Lake. "What you think the roads leading through town are like?" Rat asks. Riley shrugs. "I want to start claiming the city at some point." Riley says. He is shocked to feel the desire start burning in him. He will claim the city. Just need guns first. While they walk they kill the occasional straggler and talk a little about their skills and how they use them. "So I gotta ask why Rat?" Riley asks playing with a cigarette before tossing rat one and lighting himself one. "Question for a question fair?" Rat asks. Riley nods. "My actual name is Rat-Jack William Crowley. But i always just go by Rat." he says shrugging. "Alright hit me, what's the question?" Riley asks. "Why don't you ever wear short sleeve shirts or always wear that jacket?" Riley laughs. "That's 2 questions, I have tattoos and for court, group homes, school, community service and other shit like that I had to wear sleeves so it just became a habit, and my jacket is sentimental." Rat nods staring hard at Riley. "You said you did archery are you any good?" Riley asks to receive a evil grin from Rat. "State champ every time I competed." The boy beams. "How many tattoos?" Rat asks. Riley snickers. "Lots." He says to the younger boys annoyance. "Can I see them?" Rat asks. It has been quite some time since he had seen a normal thing. "Tell you what little brother, if we get this thing done, save the ass hats and survive if you get everyone to give me 50 points, I will take my shirt off for all you to see as a dumb ass reward." Riley says this as a kind of asinine joke. "Okay deal." Rat says with conviction. "Is it only your arms tatted?" Rat asks. "Guess you will have to find out little brother." Riley chuckles. "So do you have a plan?" Rat asks. The older boy shakes his head. "We will have to pool our thoughts back home and try to come up with something." Riley says walking down a different street. "Where are you going now?" Rat asks. "Decided to get a look at that school after all." Riley says.
After clearing a three story building by the school the 2 boys reach the roof and step up to the edge. "Well fuck me sideways with a wrench." Riley says the horde swarms all the way around the 2 story school. "Wanna venture a guess?" Rat asks. "515 not counting what's on the other side." Riley says. "Dude, did you count them?" Rat stares at the older boy in awe. "Fuck no you said venture so I just subtracted our outskirt towns population from the number of zombies we killed." Riley says. Rat nods still impressed. "This is gonna be fun." Riley says with a groan. "We better get back and start the game plan." Rat says. Riley nods and the pair start the walk back. Sitting around the table looking at a map. "What if we pipe bomb, the shit out of them, maybe Molotov cocktails?" Alex says. "Might burn the school down." Rat says "We could armor a bus like in dawn of the dead and barrel through." Tank says. "Didn't go well for them in the movie plus you get stranded then we gotta save your ass too." Alex says "We could drive a truck slowly while shooting arrows and spears till they die." Rat says. "They might break off and head to Crystal Lake." Jason says. Everyone groans. Riley leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. "So we are screwed." Alex says. "Could just say fuck em." Slim says in his slurred way. "No" everyone says in groaned unison. Riley stares at the ceiling he had seen for years. Blood had spattered the ceiling the first day when they had cleared around the group home. An idea strikes. "Your ideas are shit." Riley says standing up and circling the school with a marker on the map. "Well alone they are but if we combine them it's not bad." Riley continues marking the map with red lines a few blocks from the school surrounding it. "Tank's idea. We take buses, armor one side and park them blocking off the roads here." He says pointing at the lines. "We take the bows set up in the buses and arrow and spear the zombies into oblivion and bomb to attract them." Riley says. "Where do we get the buses?" Tank asks. "Me and Riley found a bus depot used for the city and school. We can use those." Rat says. "How will we bomb them to attract them if you already said it might burn the school down?" Alex asks. "We make small but loud bombs and set them off a safe distance from the horde and therefore not close to the school." Riley says marking where he plans to put the bombs. "How do we know the buses will keep them all contained?" Jason asks. "Once the buses are in position we will move cars in to fill the gaps. We will put spikes and spears on one side at an angle and roll the windows up pinning those that try to go around and we can weld some fencing between them to try and better reinforce our blockade." Riley says. "We will set traps on trip wires throughout here and hopefully knock the horde down a bit while we wait in the buses." Riley says marking where he would put the traps. Everyone around the table nods. "What if we need to retreat for a while and rest?" Jessica asks. "Then we do it, if blocked right and I'm certain we will know quickly we can come and go as we please but if they are starving like you said we don't have a ton of time." Riley says. Stepping around Riley taps Jessica's shoulder "you are coming with me we have a hell of a lot of work to do." Riley says "take a nap and see me when you wake up and don't forget to bring 2 gallons of water." Riley says as he heads to the garage. Once inside Riley starts making bows and arrows for the coming battle. Riley gets a trash can and starts filling it with his homemade arrows. "Time to see if these are worth a shit." Riley says grabbing 12 of the arrows. "Time to find that archery loving ass munch brother of mine." Riley mumbles to himself Riley walks to a beat up dirty blue pickup and sits on the roof waiting. After 30 minutes Rat walks up. What's up? Rat asks. Riley waves him over. "You talked for years about shooting bows, are you actually any good with them?" Rat chuckles "Why you find one?" Riley shakes his head "Nope made em need you to test it to see if it's worth a shit." Riley says, handing the "DIY" bow and arrows over. "Wow this thing looks like a special kinda cheap." Rat says. "Okay I'll test it and you fuck yourself" Riley says angrily. "I'll test it i'll test it" Rat quickly says. "Good that building there hasn't been cleared yet and likely has some zombies in it test it there." Riley says pointing at the building he had talked about. Rat looks at it for a moment. "What?" Riley asks. Rat turns back looking at Riley. "C-can you come with me?" He asks. Riley hops down and smiles. "Yeah, I still gotta get some of my own hunting done." Riley responds walking towards the building. Rat jogs to catch up. "How are you not scared?" Rat asks as they reach the double doors of the three story building a block from crystal lake. A name they had given their home based on Jason. "I'll tell you when you can use it little brother." Riley promises holding his pinkie out that the younger boy grabs with his own. "For now just remember I'm here with you and i'll die before they get you just test the bow and give me the yay or nay." Riley re-assures the boy. Rat straightens up a little. Riley draws his knives in both hands and opens both doors. "Okay kiddo let's do some killin." With that Riley enters. In the lobby of what Riley realizes was once a hotel three zombies stand facing the elevator. "Take your shots, I got your back." Riley says. In less than 2 seconds all three zombies hit the ground with an arrow buried in the back of their heads. "Jesus Christ fucking hell man you weren't kidding about being a champ." Riley says watching Rat retrieve the arrows. "Bow works great but if you could put a finer point on the arrow heads I think we will be doing great." Rat says. Riley nods. "Could you give me some pointers on shooting a bow?" Riley asks. Rat scratches his chin. "The arrows arch so aim higher than what you're aiming at other than that you gotta practice sorry brother." Rat says. Riley nods and moves toward the elevator. "What are you doing?" Rat asks. "Clearing the building." Riley says, hitting the elevator button. "I thought we just needed a test?" Rat asks. Riley nods. "Yes but I'm not done until this building is empty." Riley says, turning to Rat and standing up. The doors open and Rat's eyes widen. Riley spins stabbing 2 zombies and yanking them together to block a third, yanking his blades free he stabs the last in both eyes and tosses it towards Rat making it slide leaving a bloody smear across the dusty white tile. "If you wanna come with me you should be warned." Riley pauses to wipe some blood drops on his cheek. "We kill them all." With that Riley heads to the stairs.