Just Another Day 2010

Enzo stood poised over the concrete wall, sniper rifle grasped firmly within his yielding hands. His back was straight but not rigidly so. Just enough to bare the weight of the rifle and to stifle the recoil. Through the telescopic sights he could see the target bobbing up and down, lazily. Taking in a deep breath, he held it in his chest for a few seconds and then slowly exhaled. On the apex of the escaping breath, he gently squeezed the cold metal trigger. A flash of fire erupted from the end of the barrel, so fast it seemed to only be a temporal displacement of light. Not a nano-second later did a loud crack shatter and drown out the horrid wailing below, in the street. Through the sniper scope Enzo watched the target disappear in a glob of pink mist. The body fell to the floor in a mangled heap, lifeless (again) before it had even hit the ground.
“Ninety-two.” Enzo cooed.
“Aren't you getting bored yet?” Paddy sighed, leaning on the wall with his elbows. His sniper rifle was rested on the wall next to him.
“No.” Enzo smirked, scanning the crowd shuffling about below.
“Well I am. Sick of waiting here and sick of seeing them.” Paddy snorted, mentally pointing down at the walking cadavers in disgust.
“I was born to do this shit.” Enzo answered, a little too enthusiastically. That said, Enzo found another target and resided his scope cross-hairs over it.
“How can you say that?!” Paddy snapped, suddenly standing up stock-straight and looking at every inch of Enzo. “How could you have been born to do this?! It's bullshit! That's what it is! A whole lot of it too, let me tell you!”Paddy went back to leaning on the rough wall with his elbows. His cheeks had turned a ruddy red.
Enzo lowered his sniper rifle and looked down at the mass crowd in the street. Whatever they were, they weren't human and had not been for a while now. Looking at them, they looked like your average happy-go-lucky civilians just trying to get from A to B, but that was the deceptive part. It was a lie. The only give-away as to what they actually were and are was the acrid stench. Rotting flesh, pound after pound of it. They were what we came to know as zombies. Deadheads. Deadies. Whatever you decided to call them and they weren't human. Not at all. They had become a major threat to civilization as we knew it (had almost destroyed it also) and indeed man had been violently shoved to second place on the food chain, involuntarily.
“Let me tell you something, Pad,” Enzo said, raising the sniper rifle back into its previous position and locking on the target of old. “Before any of this crap happened I worked nine 'till five in a dead-end job in a supermarket. In a goddamn supermarket. I still lived with my parents. I had no girlfriend. I didn't have a car. I had nothing ...Ninety-three... but now I don't have to work, I don't need to pay rent, I have all the sex I need and a big fucking gun to boot.” Enzo turned to look at Paddy.
“Yeah, well, before this I had a wonderful wife, two beautiful little girls and a very handsome little boy. I just wish this had never happened and that things would go back to the way they were before.” Paddy retorted, frowning so deep his brow was furrowed and his eyebrows made a savage looking V in the middle of his forehead.
“I sympathize. I really do. I know what happened....tore you up Paddy but....” Enzo said, grimly.
“I miss Debs...”
“You're just going to have to learn to adapt to the situation better, mate. That's all.”
Paddy was about to rear up at that point, anger fueling his already annoyed blood but was abruptly interrupted.
“Gamma Seven this is Lima Two. Do you copy, over?” A woman's voice crackled over the two-way radio perched on the wall.
Enzo picked it up. “Go ahead, Lima.”
“The car wont start. We're currently fixing it. You're going to be out there for a few hours longer. Is that okay? We'll keep you posted. Over.”
“Thats fine, Lima. Much appreciated, thank you. Over.”
“Stay safe, Gamma. Over and out.”
Enzo perched the radio back on the wall. He looked back down into the street below and was rather dismayed to see more deadheads had joined the swelling ranks. No matter how many he dropped with a bullet to the head or a severe break of the neck, of the one he had dropped, ten more deadheads seemed to claim that one empty space. They just kept on coming and coming. On that note he wished proper humans would stop dying. Or rather of being so careless in the first place to allow themselves to be attacked by these monstrous atrocities. Sometimes it was inevitable that you were going to be attacked, it just could not be helped. The other times it was either by ignorance, apathy or laziness. In times like these those three things did not bode well with any given day-to-day activity, voluntary or not. Be apathetic to your surroundings and what is going on around you, you can be sure a deadhead is going to get you.
“Shit.” Paddy sighed, frustrated. “More goddamn waiting.”
“Best get to it.” Enzo said, picking up Paddy's rifle and shoving it into his arms.
“Get to it my arse!” Paddy snapped, accepting the rifle. He peered down into the street, chose his target.
“Thing is Pad,” Enzo said, picking out another target, “One man's dream is another man's nightmare. And that is the god honest truth of it all.” There was a considerable pause here as the weight of Enzo's statement hung like choking, poisonous smoke in the air. “Shit!”
“What?” Paddy looked over at Enzo, startled. His heart suddenly slammed into his rib cage.
“I lost count!” Enzo chided.
Paddy took a deep breathe as the tension drained out of him, amidst an arrogant little laugh,
Enzo had his target locked, the projectile path was clear and he took the shot with a quick twitch of the old index finger. Another deadhead fell to the floor in a flurry of exploding pink mist, to stay lifeless this time. “One!” He yelled in Paddy's face.