ETF and ZOMBIES 2

They managed to make it across town without being eaten, and dashed up onto Nick Matthews' porch, with Max whacking a zombie with his branch as they went.

They banged on the door and after a moment, a suspicious eye showed through the window beside.  When the said eye saw who it was, there was the sound of numerous locks and bolts being undone in record time, and the door flew open.

"Hey, guys!" Nick yelled, dragging them all inside.  "Get in here before you get eaten!"

"We came here because we figured you'd have the most zombie-proof house in town," Robert explained.

"Nickie!" Monte cried, flinging himself on Nick.

"You got that right, I've been working on it for like six months now.  Got some extra locks" - he was at this moment fastening the eighth lock again - "a few weapons-"

"Dang," Max breathed, staring around the room – the walls of which were so covered with various guns, knives, and swords that the wallpaper might as well be nonexistent.  "A FEW!?  I think you've got more than the frickin' ARMY!"

"Nickie!" Monte yelled again.

"Well, yeah," Nick said modestly, sliding the twelfth bolt back in place.  

"Holy crap, a REAL katana!"  Max dashed over and practically drooled on the gleaming sword.

"You can use that if you want.  You can all have something – like you, Robert.  All you have is a curtain rod?  Is that ALL you guys had on the way over here!?"

"I had a branch," Max said, still gazing dreamily at the katana.

"Hi Nickie!" Monte chirped, and Nick smiled at the blonde.

"Hi, Monte.  You can stop hugging me now, thanks."

"'Kay!"

"So where's the rest of Get Scared?" Craig asked, examining a large gun.

"I dunno."

"Aw, I wanted to see Johnny B," Andy pouted.

"Well, they aren't eaten, anyway, I just called them all a bit ago.  They said they were having fun."

There was a scream from outside, and Max rushed to the window.  "Ooh, that's gonna leave a mark," he commented, and everyone else crowded around to see the carnage outside.

After a moment, Andy shrieked.  "Holy crap, there's JAKE!!"  He bolted to the door and started yanking futilely on it.  "Nick, get over here and open your frickin' door!"  

Nick began deftly undoing the fifteen or so locks, and as soon as he'd opened the door an inch, Andy leaped out onto the porch.  "JAKE!" he screamed, waving frantically.  "JAKE, OVER HERE!!!"

The black-haired guitarist sprinted over through hoards of zombies and Andy dragged him inside the house.  "Are you okay!?" he asked, looking Jake over to make sure no major bits were missing.

"Yep.  In one piece and with my brain, anyway.  Hey Nick."

"Hi," Nick said, casually  handing him an enormous machine gun.  "Have this."

"Thanks."

"Jakey!" Monte cried, flinging himself on Jake.

"Didja see Johnny B?" Craig inquired.

"Yeah, actually, he was hitting zombies in the face with a shovel.  Looked pretty happy."

"I can picture that...."

"How about Gerard?" Max asked.

"Nope."

"Hi Jakey!" Monte said again.

"Hi," Jake said, prying the blonde off him.  "Get off, please."

"'Kay."

"So what do we do?" Robert asked.

There was a silence.

"....About what?" Nick asked.

"About the ZOMBIES."

"We have to do something...?"  Max seemed completely mystified.

"Yes!"

"Why?  As long as WE aren't eaten, what difference does it make?"

"Yeah," Nick agreed, as Craig, Andy, and Jake nodded.  "That seems right."

"But it's not MORAL!"

".....What's moral?"  This was from Monte.

"Well, what do you want us to do?" Craig asked.

"Try to help other people!"

"....How, exactly?"

"What's moral?" Monte asked again.

"Keep them from being eaten!" Robert yelled.

"....Why?" Max asked.

"Because it's not right to sit about and let everyone else's brains get eaten!"

"Why not?"

"BECAUSE IT'S NOT MORAL!" Robert shouted at the top of his lungs.

"WHAT'S MORAL!?!?" Monte shouted, equally loudly.

They finally paid him some mind.  "It's uh...." Craig started.  "It means, like.... good.... as um..... as opposed to bad.... er...."

Leaving Craig to try to explain the concept of morality to the clueless Monte on his own, Nick said, "So do we all agree?"

"I don't have to," Andy said, folding his arms.

"Yeah you do," Jake said.

"No I don't."

Jake whacked him upside the back of the head.

"OWWWWW......."

"NOW will you?"

"Only cuz you'll hit me again if I don't."

"Probably," Jake smirked.

"So're we all on the same page now?" Robert asked, exasperated, and, without waiting for an answer, "Good.  So how should we do this?"

Everyone else, as a single person, shrugged.  "It was YOUR idea, bro," Craig said.  "Don't you know what to do?"

"I hadn't figured it out yet!"

"What's this?" Monte asked from somewhere across the room, but no one paid any attention.

"Well, why haven't you?" asked Max.  "We already AGREED to try your strange, foreign ideas, what MORE do you want us to do?"

"Actually try HELPING for just ONCE in your lives!"

"What's this do?" Monte asked again, and again to a startling lack of replies.

"Look, THIS is how you do it," Jake said, flinging the window open and firing several rounds from his machine gun outside.  There were a few screams, some groans that definitely came from zombies, and the sound of bullets ripping through decomposing flesh before he shut the window.  "See?  THAT'S how it's done," Jake said with a smirk.  

"Did you just shoot a civilian?" Nick inquired.

"Nope."  Jake hesitated for a moment, glanced out the window, and said again with more certainty, "Nope.  She's giving me a thumbs-up, she's good."

"Hey, Maxie!" Monte cried, running up behind Max.  "What's this do?"

Max turned around and shrieked, because Monte was aiming a rather massive bazooka directly at his face.  "PUT THAT DOWN!!!!"

"Why?  What's this trigger do?"  Monte's finger went dangerously close to pulling the trigger and making it quite easy for any passing zombie to get to his brains.

"DUCK!!!" Max screamed, flinging himself to the floor and dragging Andy, who was closest, down with him.

Monte laughed.  "You're funny, Maxie!  I know what it does, I've see it a thousand times in video games!  I wasn't REALLY going to blow your head off!"

Max stood up, glaring at Monte and stepping on Andy's hand.

"OW!" Andy yelled, "GET OFF MY FINGERS!"

"Sorry, dude," Max apologized, stepping off Andy's crushed fingers, and snatched the bazooka away from Monte.  "YOU DON'T PLAY WITH GUNS, IDIOT!!"

"You play with that ninja sword," Monte whimpered.

"THAT'S DIFFERENT!  IT'S A SWORD, NOT A FRICKIN' GUN!"

Monte burst into tears and threw himself on Craig.  "Please make him stop yelling at me," he sobbed.

Craig stroked Monte's hair and glared at Max, who was still seething but now appeared to be slightly ashamed of making Monte cry.  "Say you're sorry," Craig chastised.

"M'ry," Max mumbled, looking at the floor.

"Don't say you're sorry to your FEET, say it to MONTE."

Max looked reluctantly up at Monte, who was sniffling and rubbing his eyes.  "I'm sorry," he said, slightly louder than before.

"For what?" Craig prompted.

"Yelling at you...."

"And what do YOU say?" Craig asked, looking at Monte.

The blonde threw his arms around Max.  "S'okay, I forgives you, Maxie!"

Max patted the fair hair.  "'Kay."  When Monte let go of him, he found he'd also been used as a human tissue.

"What about me?" Andy asked tearfully, from where he was pressed against Jake and had been weeping quietly for the past three minutes.

"....What?  What about you?" Max asked, puzzled.

"Don't you have to say sorry to me?"

"...For what?"

"Stepping on my hand!" Andy cried indignantly, holding out his pretty much fine hand.  

Max sighed.  "Sorry."

"S'okay, bro!"  Andy tried to high-five him with his apparently injured hand.

Robert, who had been watching all this silently and without much amusement, now cleared his throat.  "I thought we were helping people."

"Oh yeah!" Nick cried, as if remembering something he'd completely forgotten a long time ago.  Well, Robert thought, he probably WAS remembering something of this nature.

Sighing, Robert smacked his forehead.  "How will we do it?"

"Where did the zombies come from?"  This was Monte.

They all shrugged.  "How are we to know?"

"Could we get rid of them if we knew where they've come from?"

There was a moment of silence in which everyone blinked confusedly.  This was actually not a bad thing to have come up with, from Monte anyway.

"....Maybe," Craig said hesitantly.

"So all we have to do it find out where they're from, yeah?"  Monte smiled cheerfully about at everyone.

They blinked again.  Such a display of something resembling a fairly decent idea from MONTE was a never-before-seen happening.

"....That might actually work.  Maybe," Jake said slowly.

"So where did they come from?" Max wondered aloud, gazing out the window at the blood and gore in the front yard.

Craig sat down beside him and watched as well.  "........They look a lot like the zombies from that game you were playing earlier," he remarked after a long pause.

Max sat up a little straighter.  "Hey yeah, they do!"  He watched a little more carefully.  "And they ACT like them, too...."

"You mean eating people's brains and tearing them limb from limb?" Robert asked dryly.  

"NO, they kind of.... there, you see, that one is actually getting that woman's brain out through her nose!"  Max bounced up and down, pointing, as Nick fired briefly out the window and put an end to the stealing of the brain through the nose.

"You mean that game, Zombie Storm Apocalypse 5?" Monte asked suddenly.

"Yes."

The blonde gasped, eyes widening.  "Then maybe they came OUT OF the video game!"

For a moment, everyone stared blankly at him.  "Er...."

"That's a great idea!" Max cried.  "I bet that IS where they came from!"

Monte blinked, disconcerted.  Usually people just laughed at his ideas; they never agreed so wholeheartedly.  "Are you being shark.... sar.... scar.... sacar.... SARCASTIC?" he asked, stumbling over the word he'd heard the others used.

"I think it's great too!" Andy exclaimed, not giving Max a chance to answer Monte.

"So how did the people in the game stop the zombies?" Robert asked, though he didn't sound like he really believed this was it.

Max shrugged.  "I dunno.  I'm stuck, I haven't finished it yet."

"I finished it seven times!" Monte cried brightly.

"SEVEN!?"

Since Max was apparently incapable of speaking any more – he was staring at Monte with his mouth hanging open – Craig asked, "So what'd they do, Monte?"

Monte shrugged.  "I dunno.  Don't remember."

Max suddenly got his voice back.  "WHAT!?  How could you not remember!?"

"I have that game," Nick said, stopping Max from yelling at Monte any more.  "I haven't finished yet, either, but we could play it NOW and finish."

"'Kay!" they all cried, and rushed to set the game up.

So ten minutes later, they were crowded around Nick's telly, playing a zombie game.  In the middle of the zombie apocalypse.  A fact which did not escape Robert.  

He was standing near the window, shooting down any zombies that dared to get too close – which was more and more frequently, he noted.  They seemed to be multiplying.

"Agh, no!  No!  Use the – yeah, the chainsaw!" someone, probably Max or Andy, shouted.

"Shoot!  SHOOT, you idiot!"

There was loud gunfire which cut off abruptly, and everyone groaned.  "How could you let him sneak up behind?" Nick demanded.  

"Look, you're back, but you only have like two lives left, so be CAREFUL this time."

Robert casually shot a passing zombie.

The yelling from around the TV continued.

After a few more minutes, something ran up to the porch before Robert could shoot it and started banging furiously on the door.  Nick paid no attention until Craig shouted at him, "OPEN THE FRICKIN' DOOR!" at about the same time as the person outside shouted almost the same thing.

Nick sighed, stood up, and slouched over to the door, rolling his eyes.  He unlocked everything and opened the door, keeping a hand near his chainsaw in case it was necessary.

"Oh, hi Matt!" he exclaimed when he saw who it was.

"Matt!?"  Andy leapt up and was across the room with almost inhuman speed.  "Hi Mattie!"

"Hey, Andy!" Matt cried, as Andy hugged him quite hard.  "Glad to see you're not eaten!"

"You too!"  Andy pulled Matt further inside.  "Come on, look, we found out where the zombies came from!"

"You did?"

"Zombie Storm Apocalypse 5!" Max yelled, firing a virtual machine gun at the virtual living dead.

"Um.... what?"  Matt looked utterly confused, so Andy began explaining it to him.

"An' we noticed that the zombies looked and acted JUST like the ones in the game, so we're tryin' to finish it and find out what to do!"  

There was a pause.  Robert watched Matt carefully, wondering if maybe he had an ally against the others' insanity.  There was Jake, but he wasn't much good.  One other non-crazy person would be nice.....

".....That is so frickin' awesome!" Matt yelled.

Robert rolled his eyes.  Why did they all have the same outlook on this?  Then again, why had he expected anything different from ANDY'S best friend? he asked himself.

"Isn't it?" Andy agreed with Matt, and they bounced excitedly for a moment before throwing themselves onto the couch to watch the video-game-playing.

Monte had the controller now since he was apparently so good at it.  Although bad at remembering endings.

Without REALLY believing that this would work, Robert kept watching them and occasionally shooting the undead.  If this turned out NOT to work, though, like he suspected.... he didn't know what they WOULD do....

He shot another zombie, then grinned as Gerard Way ran past with his mallet, smacking left and right and leaving a trail of previously-undead-now-once-again-dead bodies on his wake.