Josiah's story 15

The moon in the preparation room…

Josiah's eyes snapped open wide in alarm as he dropped his sword and looked at his forearms beginning to panic, "What where!? Get it off, get it off! I knew one of them tried to get me but I didn't feel anything!", Josiah was starting to reach for his straps keeping his forearm guards on when Seb stopped him with an outstretched hand to grab him by the face.

"Josie chill the f*ck out and don't grab at it with your hands, your gloves are ripped! Stop and let me HELP you.", Seb put extra stress on the word help to try and calm Josiah down a bit, "I've got my rubber gloves and a rag, give me a second and I'll fix you in a second. Extend your arms.", as Seb ordered the last command he began pulling his gear out of his many pockets, he always carried multiple sets of rubber work gloves on him at all times as well as rags, a bunch of small weird tools, and a few pocket books, despite being a plumber he really didn't like having his hands dirty with anything besides glue or solvents.

As the conversation had become quite heated near the end the crowd surrounding them began to edge away with some even readying some makeshift weapons and eyeing the pair dangerously. Seb noticed the change in those around him and Josiah as he pulled his gloves on with a cursory look around, spotting those who looked the jumpiest he instructed Josiah to sit on his bucket facing a certain way so that both he and Josiah had them in their field of view, even if Josiah understandably had other things on his mind.

Unbuckling the straps and removing the metal guard that wrapped around three quarters of his arm Seb could see the multiple scratch marks in the metal as well as the sticky white goo that he had noticed to begin with. Wiping it clean with a rag and checking the leather padding underneath for any signs of contamination Seb decided to ask again about the blood and condition of the armour, "It's not so bad Josie, this sh!t is only on the armour parts and didn't get into the layer underneath. This brings me back to my question earlier about why you're wearing this gear in the first place though? I mean it's obviously saved your @ss from what I gather considering what definitely looks like bite marks on your arm plates.".

Josiah let out a deep sigh to release the tension that had boiled up in him upon finding out he had egg goo attached to him and looked up at Seb as he replaced his gloves with a new pair and began re-fitting Josiah's armour pieces, "Well as I said it's been ten days since you vanished and I escaped from the job site attack, after that I just tried to get home while calling 911 for help against that thing attacking the job site. The thing is the lines were all busy and while driving home I could see why pretty easily with all the chaos that was going on everywhere I went, those originals were all over the place man, I could see them running out of grocery and hardware stores, through fields, and even running through traffic. I live pretty close to site so I made it pretty quickly and immediately started to suit up in my armour, and yes before you say anything I know it's a bit odd to have but I've been doing those medieval mock battles and what not, remember those videos I showed you of those guys fighting each other in gear like this?".

Seb stopped for a second as he was tightening the last strap and thought for a second, he did remember Josiah trying to get him into something like this a few months ago while showing him some clips, he had just discounted it after a while though as he had little interest in shelling a bunch of money to go around and do fake fights with. In hindsight he thought it might have been worth it if he could have gotten gear like Josiah, but hindsight wasn't worth sh!t anyways and he shrugged as he got Josiah back to battle ready.

"I remember ya, but when you were telling me about that sh!t you said all of the weapons were dull.", the last he said while staring at Josiah's bloody sword before picking it up to look at it, "Oh well sh!t it pretty much is, you must have been swinging this thing pretty hard to be doing any significant damage.".

"It's not that hard actually even with a dull blade as I'd aim for heads or necks and just let the weight do the rest, it's even good for breaking arms or even severing them if you hit just right at the elbow.", Josiah responded reaching out to take back his sword, "Besides most of this blood on me is from trying to carry injured people away after an attack from an original that had ambushed a group of scavengers who were returning with supplies back to the church.".

"The church, of course that's where you'd go during the apocalypse.", Seb said while flicking Josiah's visor down over his face playfully.

Flicking his visor back up Josiah glared at Seb before continuing, "Yes the church is where I went after I got ready at home, it's where I thought I'd see most of the people I knew in Calgary, but it turned out that only a few people I knew from there actually showed up and it was filled with just random people trying to get off the streets and into the safety of our building, the church is pretty big after all. The first couple days were nerve wracking as we could see outside from above in the tower that there were roving packs of those drivers running around, the first time we saw them in person was when people that had been infected in the very first attack began to go through the changes in the church just like those videos showed.", Josiah stopped for a moment grabbing the side of his face as he began mentally looking back at all of the horrible things he experienced.

Seb stood silent and patiently waited for Josiah to continue as his young friend finally had a safe moment to recall the horrors that led him here, it took a moment and Josiah seemed to have mumbled a prayer to collect himself but he finally looked back at Seb, and seeing no ridicule or condemnation in his eyes just picked up where he left off, "At first people tried to help them but just before morning the first one started to attack people who were in their room trying to help them, and then when those people tried to get out the infected tried to attack everyone in the building.", Josiah shuddered as he recalled the incident, "It all went crazy after we stopped them though and figured out it was the bites that turned them into those things, people began saying we should kill the infected before they could change and things got heated between groups that had formed. In the end the infected were just locked in the basement instead of being killed, but listening to them beg to be let out was horrible in its own way.", Josiah once again leaned forward on his sword and took his head in his hand again.

"Ya I could imagine that wearing you down a bit, come here.", Seb interjected with a shake of his head and moved in front of Josiah to give him a hug that momentarily had Josiah tense up before leaning into it, Seb gave him one final squeeze before stepping back to arms length to continue, "Still it's crazy that you've been out there for ten days while I've been here minutes, that sh!t boggles my mind. I do have to ask though about Calgary, how many people do you think have been turned out there?".

"I believe I can help you with that answer.", the familiar voice was right behind him causing Seb to stiffen and turn around slowly to find Quirrel floating two feet away from him looking down with that crazy smile and amusement in its eyes.