FicWad

Sarah looked around the two men and her breath caught in her throat. Against pale moonlight she could see a line of shuffling corpses heading in their direction. Her brain whirred with disbelief and questions. Where had they come from? Surely they weren’t the same hoard that she’d seen earlier. They couldn’t have come this far in that short amount of time. None of that mattered, however. Sarah, noticing neither man had a weapon, handed over her gun and rushed back inside. She didn’t care how much noise she made this time because it didn’t matter. The zombies would find them either way.

Ethan was the first to wake up. He rose, groggy, and rubbed at his eyes.

“What’s going on?” He mumbled.

“Zombies are here,” Sarah said. She didn’t wait to see if Ethan registered the statement. She went on to vigorously shaking Daniel’s shoulder. Next was Mary. Then they had to find John. Daniel rose quickly and helped Sarah wake Mary while Ethan searched the house for John. When he didn’t turn up, Sarah began to panic. Horrible scenarios ran through her mind. She didn’t know what she’d do if John was bitten and turned. None of them would have survived this long without his guidance. Sarah hurriedly stuffed her backpack and shouldered it. She grabbed two handguns, which she hung in her belt, and a shotgun.

“Heading through the backyard is our best bet,” Daniel said. As the next oldest, leadership defaulted to him if John wasn’t around.

“Alright, just lemme go get the others.” Sarah made for the door, but Daniel grabbed her arm.

“What others?” Daniel had a scolding tone to his voice. It reminded Sarah of how a father would speak to his daughter who insistently kept showing up with homeless animals.

“These two guys,” Sarah tried to explain quickly. “They were the ones that told me the zombies were coming. They need our help! We can’t just leave them!”

“We need to leave now,” Daniel said.

In the heat of the moment, Sarah made a decision. She jerked her arm from Daniel’s grasp and fixed him with her best determined glare. “I will not leave them,” she insisted. “Ya’ll can go ahead of me, but I’m gonna go the others.” And with that, Sarah picked her way through the yard and back onto the street. Gritting his teeth, Daniel waited. A minute later, she was leading the two up to the house, telling them how to avoid the mines. They followed Daniel through the house, to the back, and out into the backyard. Almost instantly, John appeared at their side.

"I don’t know how I missed those,” John breathed.

Despite the situation, Daniel looked relieved. He wasn’t ready to lead the family. John kicked down the back fence and the group, heavy two people, proceeded to weave their way through yards. The moans seemed to come from every corner and every shadow seemed to shuffle like a zombie. Traveling at night preyed on everyone’s nerves.

The group broke onto the street, but the clear line of sight made everyone feel vulnerable, not better. Sarah instinctively moved to the front and started sweeping the area for zombies as she moved forward. A t-intersection came up and she glanced back at John for further instruction. He motioned to the right and Sarah turned the corner, quickly retracing her steps and almost knocking Daniel over.

"We’re gonna have to shoot our way through,” Sarah whispered. She cocked the shotgun and Daniel joined her at the frontlines. He nodded and the two surged forward, opening fire. The first wave of zombies was down before they knew what hit them. Once the others smelled blood, all bets were off. They scattered like spooked animals, but instead of moving away from what startled them, they moved toward them. The zombies moved slowly and unwaveringly. Not everyone could catch them in the head every time and for every shot that didn’t hit the target, the creatures got closer. Adrenaline pumped through Sarah’s veins. The thrill of battle got into her and she dived into the hoard. She elbowed living corpses aside, though always careful to avoid shooting them point blank. A zombie’s blood carried the virus and any contact with an open wound or orifice could mean infection.

A yell brought Sarah back to reality. The younger of the two strangers had managed to get himself between a rock and a hard place. A zombie had cornered him on the front porch of a house. The door was locked and zombies crowded all around, giving him nowhere to go. Sarah bit her lip and leapt back in. She blew away any zombie that got in her away until she clambered onto the porch.

The zombie had the guy pinned down, craning its teeth to his neck. The guy could feel its hot breath on his flesh when Sarah grabbed its shirt and wrenched it backwards. The zombie fell against a wooden pillar. Its head made a sickening crack when it hit the wood. Sarah put her boot on its chest and aimed her shotgun. She hesitated a second as she watched the zombie squirm beneath her weight. Its fingers uselessly clawed at her boot. Then Sarah pulled the trigger and its head exploded over the porch. She extended her hand to the stranger and he took it. She hauled him to his feet, dropping his hand the instant he was on his feet.

“Were you bitten?” Sarah asked. “Or scratched?”

“No,” the guy managed between gasps of breath.

“Good,” Sarah said. “Then let’s rejoin our friends.”

With the young stranger weaponless, Sarah had to do all the grunt work. Her rounds were spent and she had to bust the zombies’ heads open with the butt of the gun. After what felt like an eternity, the hoard’s numbers began to ebb. The sound of gunshots grew infrequent until silence had once again overcome the night air. Sarah stood in the middle of the street, shotgun upside down in her hand. The metal was hot against her hands, but she didn’t let go. She scanned the street for her family. Mary was sobbing into John’s arms while Ethan sat on a porch stoop, eyes to the sky. Daniel was moving from corpse to corpse, nosing their bodies with his gun to make sure they were dead for good this time.

We need to keep moving,” John ordered.

“Where?” The young stranger asked.

Daniel chuckled, shaking his head. He walked brusquely past the stranger and retorted, “Do you think we planned on getting swamped by zombies? We’re on the road until we find a place safe enough to stay for a while.”

John placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear. Daniel rolled his eyes, but gave a small affirming nod. Everyone flocked together once more and proceeded on down the street. It came to an end a mile later, stopping at the foot of a forest. Two foot tall poles created a miniature barrier between the road and the trees. They were packed so closely together Sarah couldn’t see six feet through the foliage. John led the group into the dense forest, warning them to stay close. He held Mary’s hand and she held Daniel’s. Ethan slid his hand into Sarah’s. Getting lost was the first step to becoming a zombie’s entrée. What little moonlight had lit their way on the street was snuffed out when they entered the forest. Sarah could barely see the shifting outlines of John, Mary, and Daniel in front of her. However, the silence helped. She could hear the crunch of the strangers’ shoes on the leaves behind her and the rhythmic breathing of Ethan at her side.

Every hour or so John would give the signal for the group to halt and hold back while he checked out a suspicious noise or movement farther out in the woods. It never turned out to be more than a squirrel scuttling through the brush or an owl taking off. Still, they remained vigilant.

Two days passed while they trekked through the forest. Twice they stopped to rest and eat. Sarah volunteered to stay awake and keep watch both nights. Her nerves were shot and the openness of the forest made her uneasy. She kept the double barrel shotgun loaded at all times, her finger hovering around the trigger. When the trees thinned out and houses could be seen, Sarah felt like she could breathe again. She turned and shaded her eyes against the sunlight. For the first time, she saw the two strangers clearly.

The younger guy had messy jet black hair and hazel eyes. He had a few bruises from the zombie onslaught and cuts from being whipped in the face by branches. His shirt was stained with blood, as were his jeans. His skin was slightly tanned from being outside so much. A necklace dangled around his neck, half of it hidden beneath his shirt. He reminded Sarah of an up and coming rock star.

The older man looked to be in his thirties. He had a rough appearance with his dirtied jacket and ripped pants. There was a small scar above his right eye. He was a few inches taller than his younger counterpart.

Both of them looked tired. What little sleep they’d gotten was nothing compared to the strenuous hike through the woods. They collapsed on the couch of the first house John was able to open. Evening had fallen on the world and the light blue of the sky was turning into shades of pink, purple, and orange. Beams of light filtered through the windows, creating tiny spaces of warmth on the carpet. John, Daniel, and Ethan fortified the house while Mary scrounged through the food to see what she could make for dinner.

“I’ll make sure the neighborhood’s clear,” Sarah said.

The young stranger hopped to his feet. He picked a gun from a duffel bag and added, “I’m going too.”

He followed Sarah outside. The bright sunset was already beginning to fade and the moon was rising. The stranger seemed more relaxed than her; he strolled while Sarah paced and swung his arms back and forth while she held her shogun in position. A few bodies were lying out on the pavement, in their driveways or in their lawns. Most of them were chewed up. Sarah noticed one had an entrance wound in their temple and the back of their head was gone. Zombies didn’t have the intelligence to use weapons. Even six months after it all, she couldn’t imagine choosing death over life. She walked over and knelt beside the body. The man’s eyes were clouded over, his head tilted away from the gun still clenched in his hand. Sarah brushed her hand across his face, closing his eyes. Then she stood and continued sweeping the area as if nothing had happened.

The two of them were climbing the porch stairs to the front door when the guy said, “I’m Noah, by the way.”

Sarah paused with the door half open. “It’s nice to meet you, Noah. I’m Sarah.”

Sarah introduced Noah to the rest of her family and learned the older stranger’s name was Max. He sat on the couch, telling everyone his life’s story. At least, his life after the virus outbreak. Max wasn’t married so he joked that he had that going for him. He didn’t have anyone to worry about which made surviving a bit easier. And then, one day, Noah had come banging on the door of the mall he’d called home for the past few months. Behind him was a whole hoard of zombies that had been trailing him for miles. He was obviously malnourished and tired so Max let him in, but they couldn’t stay put for long. They took off the next day, using Max’s car until it ran out of gas. From there, they just ran. They’d been running for three days straight when Sarah found them out on the street that night.

“I tried ditching him a million times, I swear,” Max teased. “But he just won’t leave me alone.”

“I’m the best thing that ever happened to you,” Noah said, playfully punching him in the shoulder.

Night came and John took his usual position as night watchman. Everyone spread out around the living room to sleep. Sarah was at the foot of the couch. She had her hands beneath her head, her eyes closed, but she wasn’t really sleeping. Despite the fact that she’d gotten no sleep for the past three nights, she couldn’t calm herself enough to drift off. With nothing else to do, she got to her feet as quietly as possible. John paced back and forth on the front porch. Sarah wandered down the hallway to a room in the back of the house. Bookshelves lined two of the four walls. A sofa was placed against the far wall, a coffee table directly in front of it. Sarah picked a book from a shelf and leafed through its pages.

“Midnight run to the library?”

Sarah turned to find Noah standing in the doorway. He had a snarky look on his face and his arms crossed over his chest. If she had to bet, Sarah would say that Noah had been the class clown in his high school years. She shrugged and turned back to the book.

“I just—uh—wanted to thank you for saving me,” Noah said.

Sarah replaced the book in its spot. “Well, I couldn’t just leave you there…”

Noah stepped into the room and moved closer. “There aren’t that many people left that would risk their life for someone they didn’t even know.”

A timid smile spread across Sarah’s lips. She stuffed her hands in her pockets, feeling without looking that Noah had moved within a foot of her. He was behind her, off to her left. Out of nowhere, a feeling of immense sadness washed over her. Noah was a handsome guy. Sarah should have been thinking about that. She should have been thinking about to flirt with him. Instead her brain was telling her how fast she would have to move if he attacked her; the best move to incapacitate him. Without meaning to, she accounted for all the exits and found the heaviest object she could lift to use as a weapon. The modern world had warped her mind.

Sarah came back to reality and tried to regain composure. She brushed off the comment and said, “I was just trying to do the right thing.”

Noah chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m trying to say thank you.”

“Sorry.” Sarah turned from the bookcase to Noah. Almost immediately she averted her gaze to the floor, suddenly becoming very interested in her shoes. She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, unsure of what else to say. Sarah had never been a people person.

“You’ll jump into a hoard of hungry zombies, but you’re shy around normal people?” Noah asked, stifling a laugh. Even in the dim room, he could see the heat rising to Sarah’s face. She settled down onto a cushion on the sofa while he leaned against a bookcase. “You’re very lucky to still have your family. I don’t even know if mine is still alive.”

Sarah shifted uneasily in her seat, a somber look crossing her face. “No…no, they’re not my actual family—I just call them that. I’ve practically been with them from the start. John took me in when he found me wandering alone. My real family is dead. Of that I’m sure.” Sarah’s eyes darkened. Her brow furrowed as the memory resurfaced. She shook her head in an attempt to dispel the image. “They turned and I killed them.”

“I’m so sorry…I didn’t know…” Noah took the spot next to Sarah. She could feel his eyes on her.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Sarah said. She waved away his apology.

There was a long moment of silence as the two just sat on the sofa, taking in one another’s company. Noah watched Sarah with curious eyes. She sat with her legs curled under her, watching as she interwove her fingers and separated them. Her face was young with smooth skin and not a single flaw to speak of yet her eyes looked millions of years old. Noah could see a thousand thoughts racing through her mind. Since she’d found him and Max out on the street, she’d surprised him. She was a skinny little thing, but fought like a warrior out of a gladiator movie. It was impressive that her “family” let her take the lead as a scout, not to mention her prefect aim. After all that, she still seemed troubled. Noah wanted to reach out and reassure her, to make her smile. He was about to when Sarah abruptly got to her feet.

“We should probably get some sleep,” she said.

Noah was left in the dark library. The indention on the cushion where Sarah sat was still there. He stood and pulled the book she’d been looking at from the shelf. It was old and covered in dust except where her hands had been. The leather binding had no writing on it. He opened it and flipped two pages to the title. It was a book of fairy tales.

When Noah returned to the living room Sarah was already asleep.