It's always nice to jog.

You get to admire the various gardens that some people have spent years taking care of, you get to enjoy the atmosphere that comes from a plush suburban environment, you get to breathe in the clear morning air, and most importantly, jogging is the most efficient way to escape from immortal super-zombies.

Not to mention all the vitamin D I'm getting.

Behind me, the howls had stopped being filled with rage, and had taken on a more mellow, determined tone. Not so much the, "I"LL KILL YOU AND THEN FUCK YOUR CORPSE!" and more the, "When you get tired and slow down, I'll rip out your insides and feed them to you."

I at least know that these zombies aren't mindless. Kinda comforting, to know that the creatures that want to murder me are conscious of their actions. It would kinda suck to get killed by something that doesn't even know what its' doing.

Like when a newbie accidentally shoots a rocket cross-map and nails you in the head. Those occurrences just serve to piss me off.

Another thing I found out during this time. Even though I've made certain choices, such as running through alleys, going in between trees, over fences, and other ways of breaking up the group, I only managed to isolate two long enough to smash their heads' in, grab their eyes, and take off again. After the second time, the leaders have started waiting for their fellows before continuing the chase.

They're intelligent, and they can learn. Which sucks for me. But I'm not done yet. We're coming up on a construction site, now that the suburbs are being left behind. The friendly houses and well-cared-for lawns are being replaced with sidewalks, bike-lanes, and parking lots. Stores are starting to crop-up, and I've passed at least three NCRonalds already.

Looks like their building a new mall. I don't much care about what they'd put in it, what I'm interested in, are the piles of steel beams and cinderblock lying all over the place.

Let's see how these immortal fuckers' like being mashed into paste.

I ran up to the ladder leading up to the crane, and started climbing. After a little, I heard the sound of claws on steel rungs. Silly monster. If you come up here, someone might hurt you. This sledgehammer is a pain to carry, but it'll be worth it to see each and every one of your skulls cracked open under my strikes.

I got to the top, and reached the box. For some reason, there was a lock on the door. Inside, a monster in a yellow construction shirt sat at the controls. I chuckled, smashed the window open with my trusty hammer, then pulled out Longsilver and shot the construction zombie in both elbows. I then reached in, dodged his attempt to bite my hand, then stuck my fingers into his eye-socket, and ripped out his lefty. He howled, and closed the other eye. I just pushed in anyway, and retrieved the second. I then opened the door from inside, dropped the eyes into my pouch, and banged the railing with my hammer.

The zombie got up, and stumbled over towards it. I came up behind him, and lifted him by the legs to chuck im' off.

I felt kind of bad, pushing a blind-guy off a crane. Oh well, I'll get over it.

I went back to the top of the ladder, just in time to use the sledgehammer as a golf club.

"Three!"

Ah...

I shaded my eyes, and looked out, watching the head fly. Hm, I was always shit at sports like golf, but now that the ball isn't so damn hard to hit, I seem to have gotten quite a bit of distance. I imagined a phantom audience, applauding my performance.

"Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week..." While bowing in all directions.

A clawed hand appeared at the top, the headless monster still coming.

Persistant bastard.

I let him get his legs up, then broke both his knees, and pulled my leg back. Then I kicked him in the stomach so hard he went up a little before going back down.

Hm, maybe I should take up soccer? I kinda like kicking.

I began smashing the top rung, and the bars next to it. After snapping a couple, which will hopefully delay the others, I went back to the crane. At the controls, the keys were still in. Nice.

I'm fulfilling every childs' wet fantasy. I'm driving a crane on an actual construction site, with a bunch of zombies down below.

I fiddle with the controls a bit. There're a bunch that I have no idea as to the application, but I do know which buttons make the crane go side-to-side, and which one raises and lowers the rope. I adjust the rope until it hooks into a waiting pile of beams. Once I'd lifted them into the air, I found swinging it to be quite easy. As long as I didn't worry about all the things I was knocking over.

I laid my hands lovingly over the controls, then spoke in my heart to all of the poor bitches below.

"You immortal-flesh-eating-cock-suckers have run out of luck. When I wasn't blasting heads in Call of Responsibility Zambie mode, I was on my computer.

Playing physics-based flash-games."

I turned ninety degrees away from the pack of zombies at the base of the ladder, then swung the crane like a pendulum. And when it reached the end of its' swing, I turned the crane, and lowered the rope.

Several tons of steel met flesh and bone. And, also, the bottom of the crane. Which resulted in my world starting to tilt.

...Yeah, probably shoulda seen that coming. What kind of idiot takes stuff she learned in a digital game, and applies it in her fake/real dream/nightmare...?

...Is it too late to hit reset?

Well, shit.

Luke held the shotgun, Shotty, in one hand, and a duffle-bag full of dangerous things, and sprinted across the road. He'd gunned down a couple of the creatures, but after seeing Tiff do the same thing, and have the monsters get back up again in a half-minute, he wasn't too optimistic as to how long the brief peace he had would last.

The three new acquaintances were keeping up quite well, so there isn't much to worry about there. He'd spotted a Falmart, which should be a pretty good place to hunker down and wait for Tiff to catch up.

Now if only he could get Tiff to stop calling him, 'bitchboy,' things would look pretty-

A sound like a thousand cats all shrieking at once reached his ears. He looked back, looking over buildings and seeing only a couple tall buildings in the distance, telephone poles, and a tipping crane...

...

"Dammit Tiff, there's a limit to the number of things you can break with a sledgehammer. How'd you even manage that...?"

I'm fucked.

Screwed. Boned. Rammed. Bundled. I'm so fucked, in fact, that I think my virginity is in danger.

Which I have, thank-you-very-much. I may not have many morals, but I don't believe in underage intercourse. And the website this is posted on would get mad at the author otherwise.

Anyway, returning to the problem of my being screwed with a capital FUCK, at least my plan worked. Only the ones on the ladder aren't pasty red stains spread in a mile-block-radius, so that's pretty good.

I could really use some wings right now.

...

...no?

Shit.

Guess I've gotta do this myself.

I got out of the crane housing. Now, most people, they'd run as far away from the point of impact, which is the end of the crane holding the pile of steel beams, but that would end with death. They'd be catapulted through the air, and land splat all over the ground. So, what do I do?

Well, the crane is actually moving pretty slowly. So I just gotta run.

I jumped on top of the railing, and started running towards the point that would hit the ground first.

I'm really starting to hate high places. I always seem to manage and fall off of them.

Well, I'm not gonna go into the physics behind what I'm doing, since, you know, almost certain death.

Jumping from bar to bar, I made my way over the arm of the crane. It being slanted down helped, though its' reason for tilting was sorta the problem. I reached the end, and waited while the earth, the crane, and my body shook for all it was worth. Like a mighty red leviathan, the crane fell to the ground like a ponderous whale. The second before the arm hit the ground, I jumped.

I rose into the air, and in the next moment, a cloud of dust rose and enshrouded everything. I fell to the ground, hitting feet-first and rolling. I came up, and started sprinting. I didn't pay attention to where, just away from this place. My ankle had twisted, but I hadn't broken anything.

I ran-limped for who knows how long. The dust had finally started to settle by the time I ran into a pair of doors. I pushed them open, ran through, then started looking around for something to hold it closed. Luckily, I found a large wooden cross on the wall, which I slotted into the handles of the door.

I fell gasping into a bench, and looked around. I'd lost my sledgehammer somewhere, so all I have is a two-thirds-loaded Longsilver, and...what, eighteen rounds? I doubt that'd be enough.

I slowed my breathing, and looked towards the front, where an alter stood in front of a large statue of a nearly naked man, impaled and bleeding, wearing a crown of thorns.

"Haha, it took the apocalypse, but I finally got here somehow."

As if in response to my voice, a clawed-and-fanged monster in white-and-gold robes came from behind the statue, and started towards me.

"Come'on, mate...we're in a house of worship, can't ya take a break?"

"Rraagh!"

"Guess not..."

I got up, wincing at my ankle, and walked over to him. I then raised Longsilver, and pointed it at the immortals' throat. I cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

It jammed.

"MOTHERF-"