Secret Santa Fic for Herl - Living Proof

[Ulrich Schneider]

Happily Holidays Herl!

Living Proof
-a future zombie apocalypse au fic-

I'm too young and too old
To continue this worthless fight
I've seen through the darkness
To understand the value of light

Onward

In an old boat, several miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, sat two blondes, one French and one German. Both men were on the run, sailing away from the disease infested lands of the place they once called home because it could no longer be saved. To a new land they ventured, seeking an escape from all they hoped to leave behind. They dreamed of a new life and a fresh start for each other and for humanity.

“Ulrich,” the Frenchman called out to the German sweetly.

Blue eyes met with gray and locked themselves in a silent visual connection. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Even without any spoken words, it was obvious what the German, Ulrich, was thinking. It was nearly impossible for the observant Frenchman, Rhett, to miss the subtle clues in his face. Ulrich was a fighter. He didn’t run from his troubles, he faced them head on until his troubles were no more. But some things could not be fixed… not by anyone.

“There was nothing we could do,” Rhett reiterated. “Everyone… and everything… it’s all gone.”

Ulrich nodded. He understood. “To Greenland we go.” It was the only option they had. Greenland was untouched by the virus and set up as a safe haven to all survivors who make it there.

The men looked out of the ocean ahead of them. The journey would be long, but it was well worth their time. Behind them, there would soon be nothing left to return to.

“Ten seconds,” Rhett noted.

Ulrich looked to his left wrist where a solar-powered watch stolen off of a rotting corpse counted down to midnight.

“Nine”

“Eight”

“Seven”

“Six”

“Five”

“Four”

“Three”

“Two”

“One”

The sky lit up with fire and the light booms of explosions in the distance were heard from the land they escaped. Mushroom shaped clouds formed on the horizon, growing into tall pillars of death that pierced the heavens. Although they couldn’t see it, it was quite obvious that anything left living on those lands was doomed.

“Happy New Year,” Rhett said without emotion.

There was no happiness… not even for the beginning of the New Year.

Nor was there any happiness on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter either. For the time being, happiness might as well have faded from existence.

“You were right,” Ulrich said bluntly, “they really were going to nuke it.” There were no hints of surprise in the German’s voice. Rhett was always right… even when he didn’t want him to be.

“Let’s not worry about that anymore. It’s in the past and that’s where it should stay.”

Rhett was right. Ulrich knew it was time to move on.

“Look away,” the Frenchman commanded nicely, “and focus on the future. Focus on what we still have.”

Ulrich looked down into the water, “each other?”

“That’s right.”

Rhett placed a gentle hand on Ulrich’s cheek. It was scarred and dirty, a constant reminder of the battles they fought, the lives they took, and the sacrifices they made. But underneath it all was a person. It was a hunter that kept them well fed when food supplies dwindled to nothing. It was a warrior that kept the enemies at bay in times of danger. It was a survivalist that sheltered them in the cold of night. But most importantly, it was the boy Rhett fell in love with many years ago in a long destroyed boarding school. “I love you.”

“I… I love you too, Rhett…”

Visible only by the light of the moon and the glow of the incinerated lands of the past, they kissed slowly and intimately. Even without happiness, there were some things that could not be destroyed. Those things were love and hope. Together, they were invincible. No matter how many millions of the undead chewed their way to human extinction, love and hope would always prosper.

Rhett and Ulrich were living proof.

Escape

“This way,” Ulrich said calmly as he swung his rusted machete through the decaying skull undead man. Dark red and black organic matter splattered on the ground and on his clothes. It had a rancid smell, like rotting flesh, but worse. However, the two were quite used to it.

Wielding a shovel, Rhett followed his lead closely. “No,” he insisted, “that way is infested. We have to go north.”

“But the coast is to the east…”

“I know that,” Rhett added with a bit of aggravation in his voice. “We’ll die if we head east; the cities are too big here. We need to head north first and find a smaller port town.”

Ulrich’s machete impaled another undead head. “We don’t have time!” he argued.

Rhett grabbed Ulrich by his collar and shook him for a moment. “We don’t have a choice. We can go north first and try to beat the clock or go east and die.”

“Alright,” he reluctantly agreed. Rhett’s intuition hadn’t failed them yet.

They moved north on foot. Vehicles were not safe anymore. Most roads were congested and infested with the undead, plus the noise they gave off attracted them from miles around. Cars were nothing more than steel death traps.

“There should be a small town up ahead,” Rhett said while looking at a blood stained map and a compass. “It should have a boat we could use.”

“How much time do we have left?” Ulrich asked.

“Not long,” Rhett replied. “We have to get to the boat and move far enough out into the water to avoid the danger zone.”

The German momentarily stopped in his tracks. “Does that mean it’s time for some firepower?”

“Lock and load, Ulrich.”

Usually, the two would avoid using guns unless they were in a desperate situation. Guns were loud and the sound attracted any undead close enough to hear it. They learned long ago that firing a gun was suicide, and because of that, they turned close range weapons like bats, knives, tools, anything they could get their hands on really. However, they did keep a fair amount of guns and ammunition on them just in case things got tough.

The town they approached was a small port town. It was a probably quite peaceful before zombie outbreak ravaged the world. Its buildings are crumbling and it was probably cleaned out of all its supplies long ago, but Ulrich and Rhett were not interested in that. They were looking for a boat, their only viable way of getting to the safe zone in Greenland, but to get there, they had to cross through the entire town.

“What’s the plan Rhett?”

The French blonde cracked his knuckles. There was only one thing they could do with their time constraints. “Run for the docks and kill everything in the way.”

Without another word Ulrich jumped into action. He was the first to run forward with dual pistols at hand flipping and twirling fancily between his fingers before snapping against his palms. Rhett followed closely behind with a hefty sawn-off shotgun at hand. It was zombie killing time.

Despite the town being fairly small, it still had a sizeable undead population roaming around aimlessly for their next meal. It was all the undead did. If they were devouring the flesh of the living, they mindlessly wandered around, sometimes in groups. It was one of the main reasons why Rhett and Ulrich avoided major roads and cities. The groups were sometimes excruciatingly massive and tore through areas like stampedes of death. Avoiding them was paramount to survival, but Ulrich and Rhett were ready to face them head on.

Taking the lead, Ulrich threw his arms forward and aimed his pistols before pulling both triggers simultaneous. Two instant kill head-shots followed shortly after with rotten brain-matter splattering against the pavement, but many more were necessary to make it to the other side of the city. And to make matters worse, the gunshots would only attract more of the undead, alerting them all to a fresh source of flesh to devour.

The blondes manage to make it down one block with little resistance, but they knew that wouldn’t last for long. Every zombie in the town and beyond would come hobbling their way, desperate to feed on them.

Moving on again, Rhett took his turn as the lead and jogged toward a small storefront where a tight group of zombies with their blackened flesh, exposed teeth, and frail, decaying bodies approached with arms in front of them, reaching out for their food. Rhett wasn’t going to let them feed though. He held his shotgun at his waist and fired once. The ammo slung out of the weapon with fiery roar, scattering a wide shot that impacted each and every one of the undead in front of the blonde. The shotguns sawn-off barrel widened the spread of the shot, making it perfect for taking on many enemies at once in close quarters, and for Rhett, it served its purpose. It slayed the zombies in front of him; some of their limbs were even severed off by the shot completely. Blood flowed through the street like water on a rainy day, but there was a lot more bloodshed to come.

Seeing that the coast was clear, Ulrich joined up with Rhett and covered him with a hail of bullets while the Frenchman scouted ahead for the quickest route to the docks. It didn’t take him long to find the straight shot through the center of town that led directly to their destination, but there was a huge problem.

The center of town was infested.

Rhett ran back to Ulrich and reported what he found. “I know the quickest way to the docks,” he said, giving the good news first, “but it’s swamped. Do you still have that grenade?”

Ulrich smirked and pulled out the egg-shaped, handheld explosive looted off the body of a dead soldier many months ago. He couldn’t wait for the day he would be able to use it ever since.

Pressing forward block by block to the center of town, it seemed that the more shots that were fired, the more zombies were pouring into the small town. It was obvious to the two that their position was well known to every walking dead in the area, which meant it was time to pull out all the stops if necessary.

Firing a few shots into the air to get the attention of the undead, Rhett and Ulrich stood in the middle of a narrow street. The large horde of zombies then began swarming their way, funneling themselves desperately between the buildings on either side of the street to get to the two living humans.

“Wait for it,” Rhett said cautiously. “Make sure you get it in the center of the crowd. Kill as many as possible.”

Ulrich nodded once and waited for the signal. Meanwhile, the zombies continued struggling with to get to them with their forsaken bodies, weakened from malnourishment, rot, and decay. They were driven to do nothing but feed, barely shells of the people that once were before. When the outbreak first began, some felt bad about killing the undead – like it was murder. But Ulrich and Rhett knew better than that. The monsters they were facing were not people anymore. The zombies had no personalities, no memories, and absolutely no humanity. There was nothing human about them, not anymore. They wanted nothing more than to consume the flesh of the living, which is why the blondes no longer felt any remorse for killing them. Killing a zombie was a mercy killing, the act of sending an already dead person to the grave. It was like putting someone out of their misery, saving them from further suffering. It was justified.

“Now!”

Hearing the signal from Rhett, Ulrich pulled the pin and tossed the grenade dead center into the swarm of zombies coming their way. As soon as the grenade left the German’s hand, the blondes dove into a nearby building to take shelter before they heard the massive explosion of the grenade go off outside.

Looking outside a broken window, they saw black and gray smoke rising, the glow of fire, and various scorched body parts and organs raining down from the sky before splattering on the ground. On the bright side though, they could no longer hear the painful moaning and groaning noises the zombies made, and walking back into the streets, they noticed a significant path had been cleared for them.

The blondes sprinted, stopping only to shoot and zombie or two along the way, all the way to the docks and began searching around for a usable boat. They had no gasoline, so they needed something they use without, and eventually Rhett caught sight of a small white sailboat with room for about four or five people at the most. While Ulrich untied the boat from the dock, Rhett got on board and began hoisting the sails.

“Hurry, they’re coming!” Ulrich shouted when a mass of the undead were heading their way.

Rhett continued working on the sails. “I’m trying!”

After untying the boat from the dock, Ulrich jumped in and began firing out into the crowd of approaching zombies in an attempt to slow down their approach. It did little to help though. Luckily, Rhett managed to figure out how the sailed unfolded and hoisted them up quickly. There were a few holes in the fabric, but nothing that couldn’t work out on the water.

A gust of wind came through in the nick of time, and pushed the boat out into the water and out of the reach of the zombies. A few of them desperately reaching out to the boat fell into the water and flailed around aimlessly. Thankfully, zombies weren’t great swimmers.

“We’re safe,” the blondes said collectively as they momentarily collapsed on the boat from exhaustion. They hugged each other happily. They knew they were going to live… at least for a little while longer.

Reason

Several years have passed since the beginning of the outbreak. The virus spread like wildfire, spreading from human to human through blood and saliva, and in a matter of years, billions were infected. Governments fell, militaries collapsed, and societies were decimated. The world turned into one of every man for himself. Not even the most powerful of people, such as the meta-humans found in the Hammel Institute in Vermont were safe. It didn’t take long for the undead to outnumber the living.

Eventually, it was every man for himself, but two boys, Rhett Goddard and Ulrich Schneider survived. By combining their knowledge, skills, and their dedication to each other, the two managed to beat the odds and stay alive through one of the worst times in human history.

After years of fighting and traveling, they settled down in a lightly fortified area in the Canadian wilderness, and on a routine run to a nearby town for supplies, something unexpected happened to them.

“Do you hear that?” asked Ulrich.

Coming from the sky was a roar unlike anything they’ve heard in years, and in a matter of seconds they saw a plane flying low over heard. Something white fell from the bottom of the plane like snow and littered across the land. Some if it fluttered in Ulrich and Rhett’s direction, and upon further investigation, they learned that it was paper.

Rhett picked one up. “It’s a note,” he said while showing it to Ulrich. “It’s says it’s from the World Military.”

“The World Military,” Ulrich questioned. “What’s it say?”

Rhett began reading.

”Dear Survivors,

If you are reading this, you are one of the few living humans left on the planet. Your life is important to us, but we have decided that the best step for humanity to take is to eradicate the infestation. To do this, the newly formed World Military will begin systematically dropping nuclear weapons in this area and elsewhere in North America on midnight of the New Year. Your best chance of survival is to find shelter underground or find and boat and move out to sea. Our base of operations is in Greenland, where the remainder of militaries from several nations across the globe have come together to create a safe haven. If you can make it there, you will be welcomed with open arms.

Good luck.”

“You think they’ll actually do it?” Ulrich asked. “You think they’ll actually nuke everything?”

Rhett nodded. “I think they will. Why else would they take the time to print these up, fly over, and drop them off?”

Ulrich walked up to a previously slain zombie and chopped its hand off with his machete.

“What are you doing?” Rhett inquired.

“Getting us a watch,” Ulrich said as he slipped it off of the dead zombie’s wrist. “We’re going to need an accurate way to tell time right?” He took a moment to examine the watch. “This one’s solar powered. No batteries required.”

“Perfect,” Rhett replied. “We better get moving though, our time is limited.”

“Right, I’ll get the guns.”

“Ulrich, wait,” the Frenchman said before the other blonde could leave his sight. “If anything happens along the way, I want you to know that… you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

The German blushed at his words. “Thanks… I don’t know if I could have survived without you.” They stood in silence for a moment until the moaning of the undead could be heard in the distance. “I guess we should leave,” Ulrich added before giving his partner a quick kiss.

The boys set off to grab a few things before forming a plan. “We should head east to the coast, find a boy, and make our way to Greenland,” Rhett formulated, “that’s our best bet.”

“I wish I could stay and fight,” Ulrich said as he gathered the guns and some other things. “I wish I could stay and reclaim the land instead of having it all leveled by nukes.”

“Well, we really don’t have a choice.”

Ulrich sighed. Rhett was right once again.

“As long as we have each other, everything will be okay.”

End

(I hope you enjoyed your fic, buddy! I tried to make it as backwards as you are. :D Hehe. Thanks for being such a good friend!)

[Ulrich Schneider]

Thank Tony!