The dead have risen

Rationalizing the situation

John looked at Ashley and asked, "aren't you a physician honey?" Ashley looked at john saying, "yeah why?" John replied, "maybe you can grab a sample of the blood from the undead you shot outback," john pointed toward the back door. Elizabeth grabbed a needle, went outside, and drew some blood from the lifeless corpse. "Alright so to run an analysis on this we need to get to my lab at the science complex downtown." So john and Elizabeth cleaned up the mess, put their bags in the trunk, and took off to the Los Angeles research center. John asked, "So are you worried at all honey?" Ashley looked at him with a hint of vigor, and confidence, "no because I have you to protect me," Ashley said as she pulled into the research center, but before they got out it started to pour down rain. John and Ashley stayed in the car for awhile and talked about this whole world ending apocalypse thing. "It looks like the rains letting up," john said cocking his gun, "time to head inside," john said as he got out and walked toward the entrance, peering inside john could see some of the lights flickering on and off, and undead all around in there just shambling around. "Guess they aren't very alert," said john as he went inside and opened fire on the undead. Ashley followed close behind with her gun pumped. Ashley broke away from following john and went to checkout the disease research labs down in the basement level. When Ashley reached the bottom of the stair case she noticed the door was open and down the hall were several undead, she sighed, their heads jerked around and they full on ran toward her as she took off up the steps. Ashley "shit!" As she continued to run and john met her at the top of the stairs, "several undead coming this way," Ashley said throwing her only grenade down the stops, closing the door behind her and barricading it. "Let's try the x-ray room over here," Ashely said entering the room and finding a basic chemical analysis machine. "John, may I have the test tube with the Black chemical?" Ashley asked as she powered the machine on. John handed her the tube, she poured it in and waited for the results. The machine started to beep, then it printed the results and displayed them on-screen, "these results are saying the chemical is magic?" Ashley said confused. "But magic doesn't exist right?" John said feeling awfully uncomfortable. "Well there was always this rumored legend of a black stone called the stone of necromancy. The stone of necromancy was said to be located in an underground cave on the outskirts of Los Angeles and it was supposed to grant the person that possessed it the power to raise and control the dead, but even if it's true no one would be brave enough to go hunting such a dangerous artifact right?" Ashley said looking concerned. "Well maybe Gideon Belfry, but i haven't seen him since high school, he kept swearing he would make his dream of raising the dead to do his bidding come true," john said laughing sarcastically as he gently grabbed Ashley's hand and started to walk outside. "You don't think he could have do you?" John asked getting in the car and putting his seat-belt on. "It's a possibility john, we should go check." John nodded backing up and pulling out of the research center, "so northeast onto Main Street and down by the old gas station right past the edge of the city limits right?" John asked as he drove calm and steady through the dry and gloomy Los Angeles weather. Ashley just nodded in agreement as she read up on the necromancers stone, "it says here that if the stone was to crack in half that the wild dark energy contained within it would randomly infect any corpses remotely near that area," Ashley said looking intrigued. John slowed out," wow it's completely different out here than the city, it's so open and not congested," john said as they pulled into the gas station. Ashely hopped out and turned her flashlight on noticing it was getting dark out. John did the same, looking for any sign of an excavation pit that might have been covered up. John yelled," ahh fuck that hurt," as he stepped right on the hollow ground and fell through the padding covering up the pit. Ashley ran over and climbed down from the ladder, "you found it, nice," Ashley said as she laughed in a concerned way. "Alright let's find that stone, and Gideon belfry." John led the way, slowly creeping down the hall with his gun raised, just as he shook his head in disbelief he found Gideon's body behind a door, clutched in his hand was the drained and cracked necromancer's stone. "I bet if we smashed it to dust the magic would dissipate from the reanimated corpses and they would cease to function thus meaning we could stop the apocalypse and rebuild society." Ashley said, "Actually the book says there's no way to stop it, we have to survive and Rebuild society but killing them is the only way." A group of undead heard john and Ashley talking, and started running toward them, john and Ashley ran for their lives, climbing the ladder with such speed they jumped in the car and took off, but a few of the undead managed to climb up and jump onto the back of the car, john had to drift across the sharp turn up ahead to throw them off and almost went off the edge with them. "That was too fucking close," john said breathing heavily.