End of Days 4 - chaos, chaos, everywhere..

Bourne Kiatz slowly regained consciousness. His lay sprawled at the side of a road, bruises all over his arms and legs, but thankfully only superficial injuries were sustained.

"Oww man.. what happened.. ouch!" He slowly tried to stand up, rubbing the gravel off his wounds. He looked around him and realised he was somewhere along the highway. "Oh! Now I remember!" he exclaimed. He had been cycling along the road when suddenly a bus veered dangerously toward him, and he threw himself to the side of the pavement to avoid being crushed by the bus. "My bike?? Where's my bike!!" He scanned the area frantically for his beloved $3000 bicycle. Then he found it lying in a ditch, very dirty and scratched up, but more or less alright. He ignored the chaotic scene around him, and ran toward his precious bike, when he realised he was merely a few meters away from where Mikki Monroe stayed. "Better check on her to see if she's alright!"

He carried the bike up the long flight of stairs to her block of flats, and to his dismay, the lifts were all not working. He lifted the bike again and carried it all the way to the 9th floor where Mikki stayed. That was when he finally began to notice the chaos and confusion all around him. It was not even dawn, and yet everyone seemed to be awake, there was several people fighting small fires, and several ambulances bringing injured people to the hospitals, massive car pile-ups, and in the distance, even a smoking building, as a plane had evidently crashed into it! Bourne blinked and rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't having a nightmare.

Knock knock knock!! "Mikki! Open up! Mikki?"

After a few minutes, a teary faced young girl answered the door, still sobbing and sniffing in fright. "Bourne? Oh, am I happy to see you!" Her face lit up and she almost gave him a hug. A friendly face was certainly a sight for sore eyes (literally).

The building began to tremble as another explosion rocked the place. Dust and gravel began to fall from the ceiling. "Come on! We've got to get out, this place looks like its gonna collaspe any moment!" Bourne urgently grabbed her hand and pulled her out of her house, and Mikki had only time to grab her red jacket and water bottle. They scurried down the stairs, when suddenly, a loud KABLAM deafened their ears and the whole building began to shake violently! Another plane had crashed into the very building that they were in!! People began running out of their homes, screaming and shouting in pure fright and panic, pushing each other and trampling over each other, wanting to escape before the whole building fell and crushed them!

"Hold on!" Bourne told Mikki to hold onto his back, while he jumped on his bike. "oh!! you are not going to!!.." Mikki gasped and held on for her life. "Hold ON!!" Bourne kicked the pedals and almost flew down the stairs, the bumpy ride almost making Mikki throw up! 5th storey, 4th storey, 3rd storey.. the building began to crumble as the screams escalated to a feverish pitch!

"YEEEAAAAHHHH!!" Bourne took a risk and jumped off the 2nd floor corrider with the bike, Mikki screaming and shutting her eyes. They were air bourne for about two seconds, as the world behind them exploded and crumbled into dust, ashes and smoke!

---

Vash had already picked up Swen and Wendy, and was on his way to meet Lance when they first met those things.

Swen King was excitedly assembling a new weapon which he had invented, modelled after a powerful weapon in Doom, the plasma rifle. Canisters of plasma charges hung round his neck, as he mumbled to Vash non-stop about the weapon. "One blast from this baby is enough to knock out a small group of attackers stone cold! One canister packs about 50 rounds of plasma charges! I can't wait to try it out--"

"Watch out!" Wendy shrieked, as Vash jammed the brakes as he saw 2 figures suddenly emerge from the shadows. "Oh crap!"

It was too late of course, a Spyder travelling at 130 km/h with enough horse power to ram a hole in a brick wall. Tires burned rubber to no avail. There was a sickening "THUD" and the bonnet of the car rammed straight into the 2 figures, and jerked to a stop, throwing the bodies a good 20 meters ahead of the car.

Wendy's face had turned ashen white in shock. "Oh God.. no.. no.."
Vash's face remained calm, but his knuckles on the steering wheel had gone white from his intense grip. He slowly let go of the wheel, stepped out of the car and headed toward the 2 bodies, which were surely dead.. Swen quickly put down his plasma rifle and went to comfort Vash, while Wendy was alone, trembling in the car.

"I.. I'm sorry..." Vash kneeled at the broken bodies and tears rolled down his face. It was a mother and her daughter. Swen tried to calm him down, "Come on! They ran out of nowhere! Nobody could've seen them coming, they were running so fast from out of those bushes.." A flash of thought raced throught their minds. The mother and daughter had terror striken eyes even in death. They were running.. but from who? Or from what?

"AARRRGGGHHH!!!!" a shrill scream broke the silence behind them.

"Wendy!" Vash and Swen spun around, and headed back. A small crowd of about 8 gangsters had surrounded the car, pushing and shaking it, scaring Wendy out of her wits!

"Oh no you DON'T touch my car!" Vash grabbed the collars of 2 guys and yanked them backwards, and delivered a roundhouse punch to a 3rd. Swen had merely charged himself at the other 4, ramming the first in the stomach, pushing them all tumbling to the road! The last guy barely had time to react before Vash delivered a punch to his chin and the poor thug's neck snapped back before he collasped to the ground. "Wendy! You alright?" She muttered an inaudible answer. Swen recovered himself and stood next to Vash, ready to kick some serious @$$.

That was when they noticed that 3 of the gangsters were missing a limb. 2 of them had clothes burnt to a black cinder, and another 2 were bleeding all the way from the neck down. One of them gurgled, one of them actually roared. They slowly began to pick themselves up from the road, and advanced toward Vash and Swen.

Vash and Swen glanced at each other, realising these guys were really tough! They had taken such a beating and yet could still swagger toward them in the offensive!

"No enough? Come get some!" Vash punched one in the gut, pulled out a bloodied fist, elbowing another in the throat, and judo-slammed another one onto the road! Swen got into the action as well, kicking 2 guys with his right foot with a roundhouse, then jump kicked a third straight in the face, his boot connecting and breaking facial bones! The moment he touched the ground, he swung his right leg round again and knocked the 4th guy to the ground, lept into the air and did a fantastic "people's elbow" on his stomach with a primal scream, "YEAAAHHH!!" Vash finished the last guy with two punches to the face, and an upper cut to the chin. Crunch! Bone was split. Blood splashed onto his shirt as he raised his fist in triumph. "Ha! You don't wanna mess around with me!"

Wendy was actually cheering from the car, when she noticed more thugs emerging from the bushes! "Guys!! Get back in the car!!"

"What?! More of them?" Swen could not believe his eyes. A small crowd of more than 20 more thugs rambled out of the bushes, moaning and roaring! It was almost animalistic, not the sound of a normal human! They ran back to the safety of the car, and Vash stepped on the pedal, zooming off before the horde could attack them. Vash was panting and perspiration soaked his shirt, when he glanced in the rear view mirror and saw something that made his blood freeze.

The battered bloodied broken bodies of the 8 thugs began to pick themselves up again, and joined the horde in groaning angrily at them.

"Oh... my.. gosh..." Vash, Swen and Wendy choked in their thoughts when they looked at what was in front of the road about 100 meters ahead.

About 50 more thugs, this time armed with wooden sticks and other weapons sauntered toward them, totally unafraid of the speeding Spyder! Vash honked and flashed his headlights at them, but instead got the fright of his life when the head lights illuminated the thugs.

Many had open wounds, some were burnt and charred, rumble and sharpnel sticking into their bodies, blood running freely down their bodies. And their eyes. They were bloodshot and lifeless!

"What do we do??" Wendy screamed at the top of her voice, as the groups converged on the car. Vash looked at Swen, "You wanted to test your thingy right??" "But its still not assembled! Its not been tested! It could very well blow us up!" he frantically gestured by shaking his head. Vash couldn't take it and lost his temper, "Look, do you want to get out of this alive?? Can't you see those 'things'??!! Give it to me!" Swen held on to his invention and replied, "No! Don't you get it?? Its still unstable! It could backfire and roast us instead!!"

The horde of creatures moved ever closer, and were almost within a meter of the car now, as Vash and Swen argued over the weapon, and Wendy shivered in fear prayed, "Oh God, please let some one save us!!"

God, as always, answers prayers.

RATATATATATATTTT!!RATATATATATATTTT!! BLAM BLAM BLAM!!

Gun shots echoed throughout the night, as machine guns and automatic pistols opened fire, ripping through the bodies of the thugs, blowing heads wide open, splattering brains and guts all over the car!

Whooooooosssssssssssshhhh... KABOOM!!!

Someone had even fired a rocket launcher! Body parts flew everywhere, and the car shook with the powerful force of the explosion.

"Who on earth...?" Vash peered through the destruction and smoke to see who their saviour was..

"You gotta be more careful mate! I ain't always able to rescue you, you know?" Lance Pak stood in a rover carrying an empty rocket launcher, smoke still bellowing out of it. In the driver's seat was Dome Rickado holding a smoking USP pistol, and next to him was a tough-looking girl with a red bandana on her forehead and a GPMG Machine Gun in hand, Jiacolate. Well, well.. Vash thought to himself, Hong Kong traid members really do know how to show up in style!

"Lance! Thank God its you guys!" Vash called out in relief. "You wanna come with us to the old church and set up base?"

Lance Pak grinned as he reloaded his rocket launcher. "Yup! And you could say, the calvary has arrived!" He put two fingers in his mouth and gave a sharp whistle.

RRRrrrrrrumbbbbbleee....!! The ground rumbbled a little, as Lance's comrades showed up one by one. Tosh and Nic roared past in Japanese bikes, while Jaws and Death-Huade brought up the rear in another army buggy, accompanied by Jordan in a souped-up Harley Davidson, a double-barrel shotgun slung over his shoulder.

"Now we're ready to rumble!" Lance commented with a handsome smile on his face.