By: Benjamin He

THE THEORY HOUSE

(‘

T: Welcome, new machine!

P: That took forever to find.

T: Yeah, after you broke it.

P: Shut up.

L: Guys! Come on, let’s get a move on.

’)

LINA:

Okay, where was I in my story again? Oh yeah! My ninja fights against two zombies. So I watched the zombie get mauled by my dog as my brother kicked the broken remains of the other one. Two more zombies lumbered into the room.

One was considerably shorter than the other, about three feet tall. I couldn’t tell if that was because it was still a child or if it was just a dwarf. The other was about the height of an adult, but it was missing an arm and one of its feet was twisted at an odd angle, which suggested it had clubfoot. I didn’t really care.

I grabbed the pair of scissors and an ugly, knobbly vase, and along with Petey, shred both of them to bits. A few minutes later, I took a second to just stare at the carnage. Tay peeked through the pantry door.

“Uhh…wow.” he says, taking his foot off of a piece of flesh that he stepped on. “I didn’t know you could tear through them like a freakin’ woodchipper.”

“Well, you do now,” I said, throwing the remains of the vase on the floor. “Come on. Take as much water as you can. Let’s get out of here.”

After stuffing our pockets with bottled water, we headed out the door and down the street, with absolutely no idea of where we were going. We eventually made it to the highway, where we just kept walking, our pets in tow. When we finally got to the next town, we went through like seven bottles of water, with everyone combined.

Then we looked down at the neighborhood, and our hopes were shattered. It was a big city, no doubt about that, but there was chaos. Buses were overturned. Things were on fire.

The city was in chaos(You said that already! And it’s my turn, anyway).

OMAR:

Hey! I’m back! I think Seraph actually told a lot of my story after the whole bus fiasco. So I tumbled out the door of the bus, running as fast as my feet would carry me, rushing down block after block.

Eventually, I tired out and sat down, right in the middle of the street, completely open. Luckily, I didn’t get mauled, and I just wandered around for a bit after that.

Afterwards, I walked until I ended up at a warehouse.

I would later find out that the people inside were from all over the state who had gathered here, trying their best not to go to the flight. They were doomsday preppers, conspiracy theorists, hoarders, and zombie apocalypse-megalodon-tornado-the-entire-planet-goes-boom-I-have-a-bunker-type-people.

I didn’t know any of that at the time though, so I just pushed open the doors and walked in.

Then all hell broke loose. Paintballs slammed into me, most of the shots missing and slapping into the side of me, but multiple still finding their mark. Buckets of water, slime, paint, and other assorted liquids were thrown on me. From somewhere above, a tub of pencil shavings were then dumped on my head, and to top it all off, a huge volleyball bounced off my head and knocked me to the ground.

After a few seconds, I heard a chorus of groans.

“Dang it!” I heard someone yell. “Darn it! I told you, Jim, that the pencil shavings didn’t work! I told you the second you posted that pencil shavings burn through zombies. But no, you never listen! We should’ve used cream of wheat!”

A scraggly man who must’ve been Jim stood up. “Well, sorry, Tom, but your volleyballs didn’t work either!”

That sparked a whole discussion throughout the warehouse, people yelling at each other, arguing about who did what wrong.

I coughed. “I don’t think I’m a zombie.”

One of the guys with a paintball gun comes over. “What? Are you sure?”

I nod. “Yeah…?”

He pokes me with the butt of his gun. “Like, are you sure? Are you absolutely certain?”

“Yes, I’m certain!” this time I said it with a little more confidence.

“Hmmmm…” the man peers closer before shrugging. “Okay…I suppose that you are human.”

“Of course I’m human!” I exclaim. “Why am I covered in paint!”

Everyone begins muttering and shrugging. Someone shouts something about how zombies to paint is like snails to salt. They read that on the internet. Of course they did.

Then more voices begin yelling at each other about how they should have used bullets. An old man hobbled over to three gangly teenagers and began yelling at them about how they should’ve used bullets because “Back in my day, if it worked against the Russians, it would work against anything else!”

This sparked a chorus of new arguments, which went anywhere from “shut up, old man!” to “who took my bean rations?”

There were about one hundred of them in total, and the constant yelling wasn’t doing anything to calm my nerves. Eventually, I snapped.

“SHUT UP!!” I roared, much to the terror of the warehouse residents. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! HOW’VE YOU EVEN SURVIVED THIS LONG?!”

They quieted instantly, many of them shrinking behind the backs of their comrades. One of them, a mid-20s in a scratchy overcoat stepped forward, mentioning that the warehouse was ‘already filled with food when we arrived.’

Most of the other assorted residents just shoved their hands in their pockets and avoided eye contact. A guy in a Zoro mask mumbled some lame excuse and sped off, while a lady with crooked glasses muttered something among the lines of an apology.

There was some commotion near the back, and a scraggly man flanked by two teenagers, both of them wearing white hockey masks, shoved and jostled their way through the crowd.

The scraggly guy approached me. “Hey,” he said, fingers scratching at his goatee. “Sorry for the rough welcome.”

I blew out a huff. “What is going on?”

He spread out his hands. “Well…this is a community of conspiracy theorists who’ve all gathered here because apparently the government evacuations are going to drive them straight into the ocean in an attempt to reduce the human population, and the zombie apocalypse is just a cover story for that.”

“Hey…but I thought the government was going to drive us straight into a volcano and then…” the guy talking trailed off as one of the hockey masks shot a look at him.

Goatee rolled his eyes. “This community is made up of twisted, misguided, disturbing, and crazy people, and I’m pretty sure there are a few ex-cons in here too. I got roped in here because my son-”

Goatee pointed to a guy in a ski parka, who waved.

“-kept nagging me about it. So I came, which turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made. I get to lead these people, because no one else here could lead a kindergarten class.”

Goatee turned back to me. “I’m Billy. Billy Delaney. And what say you? You want in?” Billy extended a hand.

I considered his palm for a moment before shrugging and shaking it. “What choice do I have?”

To this, the entire warehouse erupted into cheers again, which caught me totally off guard.

I raised an eyebrow. “These…these are the same people who just almost shot me to death with a random assortment of items, right?”

Billy laughed. “And didn’t even apologize? Yep.”

He spread his arms wide again, as behind him, people clapped and cheered.

“Welcome to the Theory House.”

End of log.