Episode 1: Times Once Lived
I thought I'd make a fanfiction since everyone else seems to be. This one's a little different. I'm going to write it in chapter form. Each chapter will have a decision for you guys to decide on. Then, after you decide, I'll post the rest of the chapter. Hope you enjoy.
If you want to read the whole thing, go here. http://www.wattpad.com/story/17555078-the-walking-dead
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Chapter 1: Room and Board
In the hours I spent by myself, I could sometimes hear voices telling me to do things. I rarely agreed with the things they had to say, but I was thankful they were there. I don't like to be alone. The voices were there to comfort me and to guide me. I know it's silly to think that they're there. I know that it's only my imagination trying to compensate for the overwhelming silence around me. I know it's just pretend. But there's never a time when I'm more scared than when I'm alone.
I tore the seam off of a plastic bag and poured pellets of cereal into my bowl. It was morning, and I had neglected to wipe every bit of buildup out of my eye. The flowing brown hair that normally hung neatly at my shoulders flew astray in every direction, not aware that it was morning. I brought a spoonful to my mouth and spent every moment I could savoring the taste of the cereal. It tasted of strawberries.
The door behind me cracked open, and Cici strode through, holding a glass of skim milk. That was the only kind she would ever drink. She never did know when to quit dieting. "Well, Grace, someone's up early." She joked.
"Shut up." I scoffed, wiping the side of my mouth with a napkin.
"You're already up. Might as well get ready and get out there. Daylight's burning."
"I think I'll finish my breakfast first." I laughed, turning around in my chair to face her. "When I asked if I could come stay in your place while I was between jobs, I assumed you knew it would be a while before I found one. This is the second week, Cici. Cut me some slack."
"Yeah?" She said, pulling a chair out from under the kitchen table next to me and straddling it. "Well, I assumed you would at least be trying. I'm happy to rent my room out to my old roommate, but I'd still rather see you successful, with a job, providing for yourself, than here under my wing...no matter how many times you do the dishes."
"Yeah, but no one can quite get that sparkle like I can." She laughed and I couldn't help but laugh too. Her laughter was infectious.
"You were sleeptalking again last night." She informed me, removing the light tone from the conversation.
The smile immediately disappeared from my face. "Really?" I asked. "What about?"
"The same thing as all the other nights." She spoke, not able to meet my eyes. "It was about Sam."
I leaned in toward her, grabbed her chin and looked her in the eyes. "This is the last time you will mention my brother's name. Ever since my parents died, I sheltered him. He was the only thing I cared about in the world. I took care of him. I provided for him. I was more of a parent to that boy than mom and dad ever were. And how did he repay me? By stabbing me in the back. He can sit there and rot in that jail for all I care."
Cici broke away from my grip, turning her gaze back down into her half-empty glass of milk. "Those weren't quite the words you used last night." She spoke softly.
We sat in silence, eating our breakfasts. After ten or so minutes, I picked up the remote across the table from me and turned on the TV. The channel that appeared on the screen was not number 103 like we expected, but a news bulletin. There was a man on the screen speaking in an urgent tone. "-and so the plague continues to sweep the nation. The virus has infected over half the population in the eastern United States as well as other countries and is gradually seeping westward. The death toll of the past two days has been overwhelming."
"What is this virus they're talking about?" I asked Cici.
"It's some deadly infection." She answered. "It's been all over the news in the past couple days. We should be fine though. I've heard it only hits the coasts for some reason."
"The range of the pandemic has already been recorded in Nebraska and Kansas." The man on TV continued.
"Sh**..." She muttered. "If it's spread that far from the coast in two days...It should hit Colorado by midday..."
"-and the board of health recommends any not yet exposed to the virus to take precautionary measures such as-"
"Precautionary measures? Grace, we need to get off of the mountain." She said, pointing outside towards the city that was Colorado Springs at the base of the mountain. I never quite understood why Cici wanted to have a house up on Pike's Peak, but whatever her husband said went, and it's where he lived as a child. "We could stock up with medicine down at the city. I was planning to meet Gary for lunch down there anyway."
"I don't know, Cici." I shrugged. "If we go down to the city, we'll be in contact with a lot of people. That's how diseases are transferred."
"You sound like a doctor." She laughed, pushing her chair back under the table. "Of course, you wouldn't be, because you don't have a JOB!"
"F*** off." I scoffed, standing up from the table myself.
"C'mon." Cici begged, striding toward the door, putting her shoes on. "We need to get medicine. I hate getting sick. You know that. Remember that time sophomore year?"
She was referring to the day when she had the flu back in college. I had taken care of her that entire time. There was a period where she was crying because she couldn't do anything productive. I kind of thought that staying here in her house was payback for making me do that in college, but according to Cici, it was far worse. "Don't I know it." I replied. "Are you sure you're really going down there to get medicine, or do you just want to see Gary again?"
She put her hands on her hips and adorned her purse. "I don't see why we can't do both. And besides, he just got home from the airport today. I haven't seen him for three days."
"Yes, but you texted him the whole time." I shook my head.
"He had a few meetings." I stood there, staring at her judgementally. "They were really LONG meetings. Anyway, are we going or what?"
[A. Drive down to the city.]
[B. Stay on the mountain.]
[A.Drive down to the city]
Even though this is my fanfiction, I don't see why I don't get a choice. [B. Stay on the mountain.]
I can't write the rest of the story unless I have a swing vote.
[A.Drive down to the city]
[A. Drive down to the city.]
[B. Stay on the mountain.]
66.6% of people chose to drive down to the city.
"Sh**, Cici. Let me get ready first." I complained.
"Make it quick." She replied. "I want to get down there before lunch."
"You know me." I laughed, pushing in my chair. "Quick is the only way I know how." I spun around and walked through the hall, looking through room after room. There was my room, littered with dirty laundry and suitcases. The next room was Cici and Gary's room. It really should have been the only room in the house. That room was where she spent most of her time.
Here it was; the bathroom. I walked in and locked the door behind me. I stripped down and hopped into the shower. The moment my hand hit the nozzle, water began to pour over me, bending down the flailing strands of hair to where they normally sat. After fifteen minutes of washing with my favorite brand of soap, I stepped out and dried myself off with a towel.
I wiped my hand over the mirror, erasing the steamy foam that had accumulated. My gray-blue eyes stared back into themselves. There was a time when they were once full of life. There was a time when I used to look at myself and feel confident about who I had become. Those times were long past. They took my parents with them.
I reached into a drawer by the sink and pulled out my makeup kit. I carefully applied a bit of eyeliner, but not too much. Other girls always told me they were jealous of my ability to look good without a ton of makeup. My hand ran over my cheek to wipe away a bit of makeup that had fallen out of place. My finger kept running down past my chin until it reached a small scar on my upper neck. Painful memories of that day ran through my head as I applied a coat of concealer over it.
"You're done already? It hasn't been very long." Cici said when I approached her on the couch. She had been sitting by the fireplace with her nose in a book. What little time she didn't spend with her husband was always spent reading. I didn't understand it. I always hated reading in school.
"You told me to be quick." I responded. "So I was. Let's get going."
Cici walked to the island in the center of the kitchen and digged through a large stack of papers. Her keys made a metallic clacking sound as she withdrew them from teh table. "Someday, I need to clean that mess." She said. "I hate having the house in a mess like this."
"Trust me, it could be a lot worse. Remember our dorm room?"
She shivered and smiled at me. "I wish I didn't remember that sh**hole. I suppose you're right. It could be a lot worse."
"Just be thankful you don't have any kids to worry about." I told her. "The mess in this house would be a hundred times worse if you did."
She chose not to respond. She always had a liking for children. During the school year, she worked as a kindergarten teacher. I, however, didn't much like the idea of having kids. They just seemed like too much work to me. She opened the front door, revealing her concrete porch. "Right this way, sir."
I tipped the invisible hat on my head to her. "Thank ya kindly." I strode out the door into the fresh mountain air. The view from Cici's house was amazing; truly breathtaking. I could see for miles. I took a deep breath and entered the passenger side of the car. I was oblivious to the fact that once I left the mountain, I would never be the same again.
NOT ANOTHER FAN FIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You don't have to read it if you don't want to.
Chapter 2: Day One
The pain surged through my body like a bolt of lightning to a cell phone tower. I could barely move my right arm. The lower half of my body was completely numb. I could feel the distinct trickle of warm blood flowing down my face from my hairline. I didn't know what happened, and I didn't want to.
My eyelids hung heavy on my face. It took about ten minutes to build up enough strength to open them all the way. I cranked my head to the left to find Cici with her blonde hair hanging all over the steering wheel. The airbags in her car must not have functioned. I nudged her shoulder. She didn't move.
I turned my eyes toward the windshield. Where the engine of Cici's car used to be, there was a wide tree trunk. The glass from the windshild had cracked when a branch of the tree had merged with it. The clock on the dash seemed to be the only part of the car that was still functional. It read, "8:24." We had been out here all day. I found it strange that will all the clear wreckage, there were no police cars or ambulances surrounding the scene by now.
With great effort, I reached over, through the bent armrest, to unclick my seatbelt. The strap did not fly backwards into its holster as it was supposed to, so I had to feed it back in manually. Once it was out of my way, I put my left arm on the door handle and squeaked it open. It made a loud, painful screeching noise, but at least it wasn't jammed shut, like some of the other car doors looked to be.
I swung my legs out the side of the car, but landed them wrong and stumbled onto my side. I couldn't feel my legs, and now I wish I couldn't feel my arm. As my strength returned to me, I was able to push myself onto my feet. I leaned against the car while I walked off the numbness in my leg.
My eyes wandered to the tire tracks on the ground. I was curious to find out what happened, but I tabled the emotion to see if Cici was alright. I found myself working my way around to the driver side and opening up the door. I poked her on the shoulder. "Cici wake up." I said, quietly, then began to shake her a bit harder. "Wake up, da**it!"
After taking a moment to move her head from the steering wheel to the I bent down to and extended two fingers to her neck to check her pulse. I didn't feel a single vibration. I wiped a forming tear from my eye. "No, Cici, don't do this to me." A moment after I said that, I felt a slight beat. She was still alive. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Help!" I called. "Please! Somebody help me!"
There was no answer... but what did I expect?
My attention moved from my friend in the car to marks on the ground. Memories of the crash started rushing back to me. I saw a black smudge on the asphalt leading to our own tires, and a similar trail in the same lane. Cici had been driving... There had been an idiot who was trying to pass a rig around a bend... She swerved away, bringing the front end of her own car into the forest... I noticed the foreign skid marks led off the road to the other side. I travelled to the other side of the road to find a pickup truck that had rolled down the hill into the forest, now crashed into the side of a cliff.
Part of me wanted to check the crash out. Surely, the person in the truck had it worse off than we did. But, if anyone happened to drive by on the road, I'd need to flag them down to get a ride into the city to get to the hospital. I couldn't just leave Cici in the state she was in. I found myself standing on the double yellow lines in the center of the country road that should have never been crossed, and I didn't know which way to cross them.
[A. Stay with Cici.]
[B. Check out the wreck.]
[Stay with Cici
I wanna see shrekage
[B.Check out the wreck]
I would choose [B. Check out the wreck.]
I think my fanfiction got overlooked when they all got moved.
[A. Stay with Cici.]
[B. Check out the wreck.]
60% of people chose to check out the wreck.
Curiosity filled my mind as I rushed down the side of the hill toward the wreck of the pickup truck. Someone could still be alive down there. I had to leave Cici in the car on the road, but at least she was alive. I couldn't live with myself knowing someone who needed my help could be dying in the bottom of a valley when I stood at the top, able to help.
The red pickup truck was infinitely worse off than our car. Where there used to be the hood and mechanism of the car, there was the stone cliffside. I quickly opened the doors to find the engine of the car pinning a man's torso to the seat. There was no way he was alive. Insects were already picking at his decaying flesh. Where his arm used to be was the oil tank of the pickup. There was blood dripping from his mouth. Something told me this man's death had not been a quick and painless one. The scene disgusted me.
I couldn't stop thinking about the crash. If Cici had simply turned to the left instead of the right, it would be her with the engine pinnning her to the chair. Seeing as there was no passenger seat in the pickup anymore, I don't think I would have made it out too great either. All this could have happened to us. We were lucky...
There was a small locket hanging from the rear view mirror. It was gold and shaped like a heart. Inside held a picture of a young woman and a young boy, both with bright blonde hair. I assumed they must be the man's wife and son. I felt a wave of sadness upon realizing that he wouldn't be going home.
He moved. I leaned in closer to the dead man. Surely, he couldn't still be alive. "Hello?" I said with a slight stutter in my voice. "Sir?" He answered my question with a groan. I tried to look him in his eyes, which were opening gradually. The pupils in his eyes had become white like the rest of them. His flesh had turned a sickly shade of green. The blood dripping from his mouth was a deep hue of blackish-red. The man was dead... but he wasn't dead...
"Sh**!" I exclaimed. With a rapid lurch, the dead man attempted to pull himself toward me, reaching out in attempts to grab my arm. He would have fallen out of the car if not for the engine holding he to the car. I backed away out of his reach. "What the f*** is this?!"
I stood there for a few moments, in awe of the creature in front of me. It definitely wasn't human... at least not anymore. The sound it produced resembled a watery groan. This was like nothing I'd ever seen before, but I could tell it was dangerous.
Before long, I heard a creak and the engine holding the thing broke free and sent it plummeting to the ground. It didn't seem to have control of its legs, as it was crawling toward me. For some reason, the wounds to its stomach and vital organs didn't seem to affect it in any way. It caught hold of my foot as I backed away and caused me to trip. I kicked its face away from my foot, and backed away as fast as I could. "Crap!" I yelled as my back hit a log. I couldn't move out of the way.
It pulled its gaping jaw toward me. It climbed on top of me and pressed itself with all of its strength toward me. I held my hands on its shoulders and pushed it away. I couldn't keep it off of me. My strength was failing me, as I just regained it minutes ago. The monster's teeth were 12 inches away... 10 inches away... 7 inches away... I closed my eyes and accepted whatever came next.
A loud echoing sound was issued from above. I opened my eyes to find the monster with a hole in its head. Its black blood littered my new jacket and my face. With a great heave I shoved it off of me.
I found myself staring down the barrel of a gun. The man behind it had a full beard and mustache. His black hair hung to his neck. He brushed the blood droplets on himself onto his pants. He extended his hand to me and I took it. "You're going to get yourself killed." He said. "Come with me."
Chapter 3: The Black Death
Sometimes we put up walls. Not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to knock them down. I've been guilty of doing this sometimes. It always either destroys relationships or puts cement between the cracks. It irritates me when I build a wall and I'm not standing in the rubble.
The man with the beard put his handgun back into its holster on his belt. "You gotta keep quiet." He told me. "You keep yelling like you were and you'll never survive out here."
"Wha-what do you mean, survive?" I asked the man, still shaken up from the man lying dead on the ground. "Me and my friend... we were just driving down to the city..."
"No." He stated plainly. "I just came from there. You see that thing? There are hundreds, maybe thousands... and their numbers are growing by the minute."
He turned and began to walk up the hill towards our car. I followed him closely behind. "What even are these things? This is all just so strange."
He refused to look me in the eye when he talked to me. "The important thing is to not let them get to you. They take a bite out of you and it's all over. You can call them whatever you like. A few of the people I knew have taken to calling them lurkers, biters, geeks, walkers...zombies. However, they're all dead now, so I'm not sure why that matters."
"Oh..." I patted the man on the shoulder, attempting to comfort him. "I'm sorry..."
"No, I'm sorry." He put his hand on mine and removed it from his shoulder. "They weren't my friends. I just knew them. I don't have any friends." He turned and looked me in they eyes. They were a shade of deep green. I could see a great pain in those eyes masked by a rugged appearance. He sighed and paused a moment before letting go of my hand.
He began to walk towards the car and I ran to catch up with him. "You know, you never did tell me your name. Mine is Grace Peters."
"Name's Noah." He said roughly. "Don't know my last name, and don't need to. I lived on the street since I was young. I'm not sure I ever had parents. As I grew older, I hopped homes every now and then. The people who took me in always ended up kicking me out later. Tried to get jobs here and there, but that's pretty hard to do when you don't got a decent education. Since I was 18 I've been living out here off the mountain. The city folk don't look too kindly on me, but I do okay. Travel down to the city every once in a while to get supplies and farming tools. How about yourself? Where do you come from?"
"I'm originally from Denver, but I moved to Colorado Springs for college." I began. "I suppose, in a way, I'm kind of like you. My parents died in a car crash when I was very young. I was raised by my godfather after that. I have to tell you though, he was a real piece of sh**... I get jobs here and there, but they never seem to last."
"You know how to fire a gun?" Noah asked me.
"Well, no... I've never really tried. It can't be that hard, can it?"
He smiled and chuckled as he directed his eyes to the top of the hill. "You'll have to learn that right quick. One of these things? It's what saves your life from here on out."
"You're talking like this is the end of the world..." I squinted, trying to process everything that was going on. "Surely this whole pandemic thing will all pass over in a couple days...a couple weeks at the most."
"If we're lucky." Noah replied. "If what was happening down in Denver is happening all over the world, then this is f***ing huge. Even if it does pass over in a couple days...I don't think the world will ever be the same."
We arrived at the car that Cici had wrecked into the side of the road. She was still sitting in the same position as when I left the car. I hoped with all my heart that she was still alive. "I saw her on the way down to get you. I'm sorry." He coddled me. "Who was she?"
"Her name is Cici... and she's still alive." I told him. "I checked her pulse before I went down to the truck. I felt a beat. She's not dead. She can't be."
"It's unlikely." He argued. "Was she bit?"
"What do you mean? By one of those things?"
"That is exactly what I mean."
"No...I don't think so, no."
"Good." He smiled. "That means she's not gonna turn. But look, if she's dead, or close to it... I'm not dragging her anywhere. We would be sitting ducks."
I pointed at him angrily. "Hey, if you're saying what I think you're saying, I'm not going to-"
My statement was interrupted when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cici's eyes flicker open. Great fear filled my head until the miracle happened. She turned to us and said, "...Grace? What happened? Who is this? What's going on?"
"Well, da**." Noah crossed his arms, seeming disgusted with himself for suggesting to leave someone behind that was sitting alive in her car. "I guess you were right."
I bent down to her and unbuckled her seatbelt. "Cici, this is Noah. We have to go now. Everything's gonna be all right."
I put my arms under hers and helped to lift her onto her feet. She gasped in pain. She looked up into the sky and seemed to notice that night had fallen. "What time is it?" She asked anxiously.
"Around 7:30." I replied.
She wiped her forehead in irritation. "I missed my lunch date! Gary's going to kill me!"
"I think we have more pressing matters right now." I told her. "And there are plenty of other things that want to kill you. C'mon, get up." I pulled on her and she managed to stand up straight.
"Grace, what's going on?"
"I'll explain when we get down to the city."
I started to walk in the direction we were driving, with my arm around Cici, helping her to hobble along. Noah placed his hand on my shoulder and stopped me. "We're not going to the city."
"What do you mean, 'we're not going to the city?'" Cici shot back at him. "That's where Gary is. That's where I'm going."
"There's too many monsters down there." He replied. "I barely made it out alive, and with you in the condition you are, there's no way you'd be able to."
Cici turned to him and squinted at him, narrow-eyed. "I'm going to find my husband."
"What do you propose we do?" I asked him.
"I don't know." He shrugged. "We wander around and find some shelter... We go anywhere but the city."
"The city is where all the medicine and supplies are." I argued. "That's why we were going down there in the first place. Cici and I know people down there. We have to find them."
Noah sighed and pulled the gun out of his holster. He held it in his hands and showed it to us. "You see this gun?" He said. "This gun has killed 47 of those things so far, and I didn't make a dent. They're crawling the streets. We can't go down there."
I sighed and turned to Cici. "Is there any way you could...call him or something? Make sure he's okay, or find a place outside of the city to meet up?"
"Phone lines are down." He informed us. "Have been since noon today."
Cici looked me dead in the eye. I knew her. She was not going to back out of this. She knew where her heart was. "Grace..." She started. "I don't know what's going on out there, but from what you two are saying, I can tell it's dangerous. I am willing to take the risk. We're going down there. I have to find Gary."
[A. Side with Noah.]
[B. Side with Cici.]
I vote [B. Side with Cici]
[B. Side with Cici.]
[B. Side with Cici.]
Also no offense, but I think it's weird to see writer to vote on his own fanfiction. I bet you already have an idea what will happen if we choose one choice or another, so aren't you a bit influenced by this? Since you already know which one is "better"?
I know what happens in each outcome, but I don't let that affect my decision. I make the decision based on what I would do if I were put in the situation. It also helps if there's a tie. If there happens to be a tie after the voting is done, then I withdraw my vote.
[A. Side with Noah.]
[B. Side with Cici.]
83.3% of people chose to side with Cici.
I looked her straight in the eyes and couldn't say no. She had to find her husband. I wasn't going to take that from my best friend. I turned to Noah and stated in a plain voice, "We're going down to the city."
Noah looked me in the eyes and sighed. He turned to Cici and got the same reaction from her. He could tell that he was now in the minority. "Fine." He spoke. "We'll go down to the city, but we have to make a few stops first...be prepared. You think you're gonna waltz right in find that guy you're looking for? Think again."
Cici shot me a glance, and I nodded. She hadn't seen the monster at the bottom of the hill. She hadn't been exposed yet. She seemed to trust my word more than his. "Ok." She said, clutching her side in pain. "We'll run your f***ing errands."
"Great." He smiled, turning around to point down the road in the direction we were originally headed. "I saw there was a small town a few miles up. It's gotta have a hardware store or something we can use for weapons. A little bit of food would be nice too. It's been a couple days though...Da** place is probably picked to the bone."
"Weapons?" Cici asked, with a certain fear in her eye. "Like guns? What would we use those for?"
"The plague." Noah stated. "I don't know where you've been for the past few days, but you get sick and you die. You don't stay dead, though, oh no! That would be too easy. You come back as a hollow vicious flesh-eating shell of what you once were. And those...the dead...are flooding the streets of Colorado Springs and they aren't showing any signs of slowing. And that, girl, is why we need guns."
Cici's skin turned a sickly shade of green. "I don't feel so hot." She said.
"Really?" I asked. "What's wrong?"
"My stomach hurts...and I'm a little bit light-headed."
"Light-headed?" Noah asked, raising an eyebrow. "Good. Not a symptom of the virus. You get sick? The first think you're going to feel is intense headaches."
"How do you know that?" I asked him, looking up from Cici for a moment.
"Told you already." He said, focusing his gaze just above mine. "The people I knew. They're all dead. How do you think they went?"
I wanted to tell the man sorry, but with the reaction I got last time, I didn't think that was a good idea. I simply stayed silent and let him sigh his feelings away. He was clearly trying to sell me the tough guy act, but I could see straight through it. Inside that shell hardened by the world was just a guy trying to bear too much pain on his shoulders. I walked up behind him and placed the hand that was not sprained onto his shoulder and patted him. I wanted to let him know that he didn't have to be alone.
"Guys...I'm not..." Cici started, her eyes bouncing open and closed. She looked down at her stomach and removed her hand from her side. Her purple tank top was now stained red with blood. Her hand was dripping. "Oh God..." Cici's eyes closed slowly and she collapsed to the ground. As her head hit the pavement, so did my heartbeat.
Chapter 4: Only Minutes Left
The limbs of bushes and trees bounced up and down in the wind. The droplets of rain made a refreshing pitter-patter on the ground below us. The thunder struck moments after the lightning flashed in the night sky. The storm was upon us. It was moments like these that made me want to cuddle up by the fire with a blanket and a cup of coffee. I had no fire, I had no blanket, I had no coffee, and Cici was bleeding out.
“F***!” I yelled, dropping to the ground to help my friend. “Why didn’t she tell us she was injured? What do we do?”
“Keep your voice down!” Noah said, frantically, gesturing toward the ground. “They can hear you. Normally, I’d rip off a piece of my shirt to make a tourniquet for the wound, but it’s around the side of the body. No piece of my shirt could reach that far.”
“Well, what do we do?”
He bent down and put his hands underneath Cici, lifting her into the air. “I’m guessing you don’t have any giant pieces of cloth in that car of yours?”
“No. I don’t.” I answered.
“Then we’re booking it down the road. First house we see, we’re breaking in and finding a blanket. I’ve seen my fair share of wounds like this before. I say we got about half an hour before she’s gone.” He started to walk down the road, and I followed him.
“That’s breaking and entering!” I argued. “You do know that’s illegal, right?”
“Grace, there ain’t no law anymore.” He told me. “Not after what I saw down in the city. And if the police force is still trying to enforce the law, then us breaking into a small house in the middle of nowhere is not their biggest concern right now.”
I shrugged. It felt strange that I was willingly going along with a plan that involved breaking into someone’s house. But right now, it was become a robber or lose Cici, and I wasn’t about to lose Cici. “Fine.” I sighed. “We’ll break into some house, but we’re taking a blanket. That’s it.”
“You may change your mind once you get there.” He continued. “Trust me; the concept of stealing is not a new sensation to me. You’re inside a house, and you see something you need, you take it. Don’t matter if it’s wrong or not. You need it. They’ll do fine without it. And in these times, you’d be a da** fool not to take it.”
“I’m only stealing the blanket.” I said with a certain confidence, one that would not leave my voice. “Now let’s go.” I gestured toward the road, and we continued running. I started to feel wheezy, but pushed harder. I was never a runner. I had to keep reminding myself, that I was doing this to save Cici’s life. Every step I took was for her. I turned my head away from the blackness of the asphalt to the raindrops falling from the sky. It was much easier to run faster if I wasn’t looking at the ground.
“Can you load the gun for me?” Noah asked me. “Just take it out of the holster there. There are rounds in the backpack.”
“Sure.” I said, withdrawing a huge breath. I reached my hand over and grabbed the gun out of his belt. It was heavier than I thought it would be…more metallic…more unfeeling…more deadly. I slowed down a small bit and ran behind him. I felt awkward trying to unzip his backpack when we were running, but I managed to do it. I reached into its cloth frame and pulled out and handful of rounds.
“Good.” He told me, pulling his arms up to try to find a more decent way to hold Cici. “Now pull the bottom out of the handle.” I did as he told me and pulled the empty chamber out of the bottom of the gun. I put six bullets into it and clicked it back into place. The gun was loaded. “Okay.” He huffed. “The rest is simple. Pull the top back until it clicks, aim and pull the trigger.”
“Wait…” I breathed. “You’re not actually going to make me shoot this thing!”
“Now’s as good a time as any to learn.” He argued. “Told you already. That thing’s what saves your life from here on out. Yes. I’m going to make you shoot it.” He looked down to Cici. “My shootin’ arm’s a bit occupied at the moment.”
I shrugged. He made good points. We ran for a couple more minutes before I spotted something moving in the woods. As I drew closer, I heard the watery groan grow louder. It was a similar sound to the one I heard at the bottom of the hill. It was what Noah called a lurker, and it was approaching us slowly. As it stepped out of the forest and into the light, I saw that the bottom half of its jaw was missing. The plaid shirt it wore was bloody and in tatters. On impulse, I pointed my loaded gun at the monster.
"No!" Noah shouted. "They move very slowly. We'll outrun him. You'd be wasting the shot." I put the gun back down at my side and continued running. As we passed the dead man, I shot a quick glance behind me into it's colorless, dead eyes. It looked sad. I'm sure I did too.
We plowed through half of the time Noah estimated we had left running down the road, looking for a house. I thanked God when I spotted a small mailbox in the thick of the forest. We immediately turned in onto the gravel road. There was a small cabin at the end of the path. It's roof was slanted at an odd angle. The windows were all circular and made with stained glass. From what I could tell, the home looked to be custom built. There was a truck parked in front of the garage. It looked as though it hadn't withstood the years all too well. The rust covered more of the frame than the paint did.
We arrived at the door soaking wet from the rain, and with not much time left. I was walking ahead of Noah, so I reached out and knocked on the door. After waiting a couple seconds, Noah spoke up, "Out of the way." He said in a gruff tone. He climbed the steps, lifted his leg in the air, and with a mighty heave, kicked the door in.
Noah had opened the doorway into a very dark room. I raised my gun in the air with caution. In the center of the room was a man poised in a chair. There was a television across from him playing static. It was the only light source in the room. I tried to turn on the light, but to my surprise, the power was out. "No!" I shouted. "We don't have time for this sh**!"
Noah sighed. "C'mon, we'll work in the dark." He began to run throughout the house, checking the doors in the hall across the room for beds with sheets. He didn't bother to even use the doorknob. He simply kicked his way into the rooms. "If that guy moves, take care of him." He called back from the hallway.
A bolt of lightning flashed in the sky, and I could make out the situation. There was a hole in the man's head, and a gun on the floor next to him. "Hey!" I called, holding my gun shakily in the air. "You getting up?" I waited for a few seconds before lowering my gun and my guard. This man was completely dead.
"Grace!" Noah called from the room in the hallway. "I found a sheet! I need you in here!"
"Okay!" I started to run towards the sound of his voice, but caught my hand on a wall. I slowly turned around to take one last look at the dead man. His eyes were forever pointed in my direction. I could feel them stare at me with intense accusation. I looked away. I couldn't bear any more pain. I looked down directly next to him, at the gun in a pool of blood on the ground. It had been the instrument of his demise.
Noah was right. This was a very hard choice. That man didn't need it anymore. Why should such a valuable thing like a gun just sit on the floor? I turned my body around to match my eyes. Then again...I had never stolen anything before. Even from a dead man, stealing seemed wrong. My eyes shot back and forth between the gun on the ground and the door to Cici's room.
[A. Take the gun.]
[B. Walk away.]
[A]. Take the gun.
[A. Take the gun.]
[A. Take the gun.]
[B. Walk away.]
100% of people chose to take the gun.
I willed my body to cease its hesitation and bent down to pick up the gun. I opened the chamber. It didn't have any bullets in it, but we could fix that. I would have felt bad for the stealing, but there was no time for that now.
I quickly ran to find the room that Cici and Noah were in. In the hallway, he had kicked open the bathroom door, the closet door and the door to the basement. The last door he had kicked in led to the master bedroom.
I knelt down beside Noah and the blood-soaked bed. He had his hands placed over the gash in Cici's side. "What are you looking at me for?" He asked, exasperated. "Get the blanket!"
Standing up, I pulled a blanket out from underneath Cici. It was green with a floral pattern on it....not that that mattered. It was a bandage. I wrapped it over and under her body three times tightly, then tied the loose ends together. Noah withdrew his hands from the wound and applied pressure on top of the sheet.
I slipped my hand inside Cici's. It was cold as ice. "You're gonna be okay..." I cried. "Everything's gonna work out..."
Noah shot me a glance and then turned his attention back to the woman bleeding to death. "You known her long?" He asked.
I was having trouble forcing out the words. "All my life..."
Noah opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again, deciding not to respond. I could tell things weren't looking good. He wanted to spare me that pain. He sighed. "At least she wasn't bitten. You'll never have to see her as one of them."
"No." I said confidently, wiping a developing tear from my eye. "We're going to save her. She's going to be okay."
He lowered his eyes to the ground in solemnity. The brown hair on his head hung down past his eyes. We each sat in silence by the girl whose life was draining away drop by drop, both knowing the likeliness of her survival was low. But we sat hoping that she would come out all right. We had done all we could. Hope was all we had left.
After a while, The pitter patter of the rain outside died down. The storm had stopped. The silence made the watery groan emanating from the next room noticable. We were not alone. Noah, hearing the sound, stood up and sighed. "Come on." He said. "Sounds like we got company." I stood up beside him and stared down at the gun I held in my hand. It was one of two. A few days ago, if someone had told me I would be holding these before me like this, I wouldn't have believed them. He noticed the second gun at my side. "Where'd you get that?" He asked me.
"It was on the floor beside the dead man out in the living room." I replied.
"See?" He smiled. "He didn't need it. You did. Stealing is part of life now, Grace."
As much as I wanted to disagree with that comment, I couldn't. I handed Noah the gun with the empty chamber. "It's empty." I told him. "You've got tons of bullets in your backpack though."
He took the gun I gave him and placed it in the holster on his belt after loading it with ammuntion. He exited the room and I followed. There was one door left in the hallway that hadn't been kicked down. "Get ready." He said. "On the count of three, I'm sending this door to the ground. That lurker gets close and you land a bullet in its a**."
"Got it." I replied. I aimed my gun at the door and sat waiting. I rubbed the side of the gun with my finger, feeling the cold metallic surface. I never wanted to hold one of these, but it wasn't the first time. I rubbed the scar on the side of my neck, remember my life before it was there.
"Three..." He started. The sweat forming on my brow dripped down to my nose before he was able to speak again. "Two...one..."
Noah sent the door plummeting to the floor. I flinched, expecting there to be something there. There was nothing. I lowered my gun and my guard and entered the room. It was a bedroom. The walls were painted a deep navy blue with animated planes speckling them. Plastic toys were strewn everywhere. The room looked to be that of a little boy. However, they were not the only things on the floor. There was a large pool of blood in the center of the room with footprints leading to the doorway. I could picture the scene in my mind. It had trouble choking down my disgust.
My eyes were drawn to the ceiling. Hanging just above the bed was a rope tied to a hook. Underneath the rope hung a flailing body...one of the dead. It was a young woman when it was alive. Her blonde hair had turned gray. Her once charming smile hung in tatters from her jaw. Her eyes were full of the same colorless cruelty I saw in the man at the bottom of the hill. There were teeth marks on her left forearm. "F***..." I covered my mouth, eyes scanning up and down the undead woman. It was the first time I had gotten a good look at one. This was the world I was living in now. This was a walker.
"Yeah..." Noah sighed. He looked under the dead woman's flailing body and picked up a note that had been left there. He began to read the words written on it. "Dear Hugh, I'm so sorry about what I have to do. But, with our little angel gone now, I don't see how else to escape the misery. Know that, throughout the rest of your time on this earth, I will be watching over you. Signed, Anne."
I could picture the scene all too well. There little boy had turned, and when she went in to check on him, she got bit. She had to face the obstacle no parent should ever have to do, and put down their own child. It must have been too much for her to take. Then, the husband shot himself out of sorrow. This new world had taken an entire family into its grasp. "That's horrible..."
Noah breathed softly. I could tell he was feeling remorse, but trying to hide it. He turned to me with sad eyes and said, "I'll let you do the honors. I don't need no more target practice."
I looked feebily down toward the gun laying in my hands. I gripped it firmly and pointed it at the monster's heart. My heart raced as I about squeezed the trigger. I felt a warmth touch my shoulder. Noah placed his arm under my shooting arm and pointed it higher. "Noah..." I spoke softly.
"The head." He stated, avoiding my eye contact. "You have to aim for the head. That's what kills 'em. As far as I can tell, body shots only piss them off."
I followed the path his hand was guiding mine on. I put the barrel of the gun between the dead woman's eyes. All I could see behind that face was sadness, misery and anguish. In a way, I was helping by taking her away from this cursed form.
The crash of the gunshot echoed over the mountain.
Chapter 5: In the Past
I awoke to screams of agony. They were distant, but nonetheless present. As they faded away into the morning, I sighed. As much as I didn't want to believe it, this world had taken another life in its clutches. I wished I had woken up to my own circadian rhythm, but I knew that such a feat wouldn't be common anymore.
I liked to sleep. The last time I had slept for less than five hours was during college. I had never wanted to go back, but with the way things were turning out, I really didn’t have any choice. I ran my hand through my brown hair and attempted to scrub out the dirt and grime. It was no use. There was more there than I could brush out. I swung my feet off the bed and onto the ground. Yawning, I glanced to the left. A small digital alarm clock sat there. The face was blank. The power was out. It was never coming back on.
Last night had been a disaster. With Cici almost dying from blood loss, and finding a dead couple in the house, I tried as hard as I could to forget yesterday. Noah and I had hauled the bodies of the man and the woman out shortly after we found them. It was only then I realized how tired I was and passed out on the floor. Noah must have put me in the bed. I looked to the ceiling. A length of rope hung there; the rope that had previously hung the bitten woman.
I swung my feet off the bed and onto the floor. With my drowsiness, I found it difficult to hobble to the door and creak it open. I walked slowly through the hallway. Now that the sun was up, I could see that the paint was floral wallpaper was peeling off the wall. The floor creaked under me. This was a fine piece of land.
I passed the bed where Cici lay resting. I strode into the room slowly and watched her breathe. Her skin was pale and I could see the veins beneath her skin, but with everything she had been through, just the fact that her breath remained constant was a miracle. The blanket tied tightly around her side had effectively stopped the bleeding. I could only see a slight stain of blood in the top layer. I smiled. I felt terrible for chuckling, but I found it ironic that this was the first she had slept away from her bedroom for years. Cici was going to make it. We had come too far to stop here.
Noah was gone. I walked into the living room and noticed that the makeshift bed Noah had crafted out of couch cushions was empty. I found it rather sweet that he was willing to to let me sleep in the bed while he was out here with no way to keep warm. He told me he was used to it. His time on the mountain had taught him that he doesn't need a blanket to sleep. "Humans have been sleeping for thousands of years." He had said. "Just because I ain't comfortable don't mean I can't go to sleep."
I sat down in the chair the dead man had shot himself in. It seemed to be the only comfortable chair in the house. Only a portion of the fabric was soiled with blood, so I leaned to the left in order to avoid it.
I glanced out the window at the trees flowing in the wind. The drops of rain that had filled the sky during last night's storm now sat on the leaves as morning dew. The sun sat behind them, greeting the morning. For a moment, things felt peaceful. I almost felt a twinge of...happiness...an emotion I didn't think I was ever going to experience again after seeing the dead walking among us.
The kitchen to my right was empty. Noah had checked all the drawers and cabinets before we went to sleep. We must not have been the first visitors to this house. I remembered back to that horrible day all those years ago. I never thought my brother would be the one behind that mask...But that was all in the past now. It was time to look forward.
After an hour of staring into space, I heard a tapping on the door. "It's me." Noah called from the other side of it. I pushed the dresser holding it closed out of the way and opened the door for him. He was holding his black backpack under his arm, and his pistol in his opposite hand. "You want the good news or the bad news?" He asked, walking into the house.
"Eh...I'll take the bad news first." I replied, moving the blockade back in front of the door.
He sighed, running a rugged hand through his thick black hair. He set the backpack on the ground and fell backwards into the armchair I had been sitting in. "The bad news is I didn't find any supplies. The stores on the outskirts of town are completely tapped. Ain't no fight left in 'em."
"And the good news?"
"The good news is, the lurkers have cleared out of the streets in decent amounts." He continued. "If your friend wakes up, we could start heading down there. There's likely to be somewhere with better defenses and Cici has a good chance of finding her husband. Plus, I find it hard to believe every last scrap of food has been cleared out of that city."
A wave of relief passed over me. "That's good to hear. She'll be happy to hear that, once she wakes up. You see a lot of bodies?"
"Not as many as I expected to see." He answered.
"But it was still unsettling." I finished for him. He looked up into my eyes and nodded. He agreed but didn't want to say so out loud. It would be hard for me to believe that every single one of the dead that Noah was talking about was up and breathing at one point. "How are you holding up?"
"Don't worry about me." He said, twisting the gun around in his hand. "I'm a survivor, Grace. I've been out in the rough for longer than I can remember. I made it this far. Don't see why I should stop now."
I leaned against the kitchen counter. "What did you do for work?" I asked him. "You know, before you went to live off of the land."
"I was the apprentice of a blacksmith when I was young." He answered, laying a glance in my eyes for just a moment before gazing back down to the floor. "It's how I got used to the heat. I hated the job. The blacksmith's name was George. He was my foster father and a real a*xhole. Didn't pay me for sh**. I quit that job two years later."
"You stuck around for two years?"
"Yeah." He stood up and walked towards where I stood in the kitchen. "I had to buy food somehow. And I wasn't exactly the first choice for any other job, not having even a grade school education. I can read though. Taught myself when I was looking for jobs. I never got real good at it, but I know the basics. It's all I need."
I was awestruck with the man. I didn't even realize it was possible in this day and age to grow up in the world in the way that Noah did. I wished I could have helped him out of it, but it was all over now. "Sounds like it hasn't been easy for you." I sighed.
Noah walked right up next to mean and leaned over the sink. He pulled on the left handle, and expected cold water to rush from the faucet. When none did, he exclaimed, "Da**. The water line's down now."
He was standing very close to me, but I didn't step away. I looked up into his eyes and he stared out the window into the forest. "Do you trust me?" I asked him.
He sighed and met my eyes. "Too early to tell. You can't be too careful these days, you know?"
"Then how come you picked me up when were in the forest?" I asked back. "I was going to die. You saved me. Why?"
"I can't explain what I did." He said. "I saw a lot of people turn when I was in the city. Those people were weak. I don't know why, but I sensed something in you when I saw the way you held off that biter. I could tell you were stronger than the rest. And so I saved you."
I smiled at him. "Thank you."
"Your welcome." He met my gaze and held it there for a moment. I could tell there was something else he wasn't telling me, but I figured I would just leave it at that.
I heard a very loud sound coming from outside the house. "What is that?" I asked. It sounded almost like a car horn. Curiosity won me over. I immediately rushed to the door and unblocked it. I ran outside to see what was coming. I ran onto the highway and glanced to the left. I could make out the front of a bus driving down the center of the road toward the city. Whoever was driving the bus was honking the horn repeatedly.
I thought about waving and signaling the driver's attention, but as soon as I was about to, I felt Noah's hand on my shoulder. "Don't get this guy's attention." He told me. "This dumb f*** is alerting every single walker in a mile radius to his vehicle. We can't have him stop here."
"I don't care." I told him. "He's alive. That bus is huge. He could have a load of people on board. We need to bring them to us."
"The cabin is strong, but it's not that strong." He continued. "If the dead begin to pile up against the door they're going to break it in. The door doesn't close now that I kicked it in."
I turned back to the bus approaching us from the hill making lots of obnoxious noise. "There's strength in numbers..." I said.
"Are you just going to up and trust these people?" He asked me. "We don't even know who they are! They could be dangerous."
As the bus drew closer, I could make out a man in the driver's seat. He looked frightened as he smashed his hand into the wheel over and over. I could tell the man was making a cry for help. He wanted to be found. But as much as I wanted to help him, I didn't want for him to attract any unwanted guests.
[A. Signal the bus.]
[B. Hide.]
[B. Hide.]
Bumping this for you. I think this fanfiction deserves more attention, it's very well written.
Thanks
[A. Signal the bus.]
[B. Hide.]
80% of people chose to hide.
I breathed a short sigh. With as much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew Noah was right. We couldn't just up and trust someone who was honking their horn like an idiot in the middle of the forest. They would just get all the dead moving this way. I turned around and hid behind a thick tree.
As the bus passed by, I could see the man in front was a larger man with short graying hair and square glasses. The look on his face that I had mistaked for fear revealed itself to be determination. Maybe there was a reason he was honking his horn...
About thirty seconds after the bus passed by and out of sight, I stepped back out onto the road. I noticed another car, a white minivan with tan stripes on the side, driving very slowly down the road. It couldn't have been driving past 10 miles per hour. "What are they doing?" Noah muttered under his breath, confused.
He started to raise his handgun to the car, but I caught his arm and lowered it. I could tell it wasn't a coincedence this car came directly after the bus. "The guy in the bus wasn't an idiot..." I started. "He was a genius."
"And how? Pray tell." He answered.
"They could be in the same group as these guys. He's driving down the road in his giant a** bus. And everyone else is holed up in the van following closely behind..." I was piecing there plan together bit by bit. The more I thought about it, the more I respected the creativity of the idea. "The walkers will all be drawn to the bus, and will pass harmlessly past the slow-moving car."
"Sh**.." He cursed. "That's one smart son of a bi***."
We waited for the van to draw a bit closer. I could see that the driver of the car was a giant African American man. He was so tall he could barely fit inside the van, and I could see the sun shining off of his bald head. There was a young woman with bright blonde hair sitting in the passenger seat. There was something vaguely familiar about her. The two were bickering about something. She slapped the man on the arm and he responded with an angry expression, but then seemed to comply with her demand. The van pulled to a stop at our feet. They didn't seem to notice us standing behind the trees. The woman opened her car door and stepped out. "We need a place to stay!" She raised her voice. "We've been on the road for two f***ing days!"
"We need to get to the city!" The tall man said, stepping out of the car himself. "You were the bi*** who wanted to get to the city so much!"
"I want to find a rest stop more!"
The side doors of the van opened and four more people stumbled out. There was a smaller woman with short gray hair. She gave quick glances to the argument playing out. She seemed very shy. The second person to exit the vehicle was a lanky Asian man with no hair on his head. As soon as he put both feet on the ground, he pushed his thin glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, then turned around to help the next person out. She was a young girl that looked to be a freshman in high school. Her silky brown hair was tied in a bun and she held a pad of paper in her arm. The last to exit was a young boy that looked to be the same age as the girl, if not a bit younger. This blonde hair was the same shade as the woman in the front seat's.
"I so sick of that sh**ty van!" The boy cursed, stretching his back as far as he could.
"Zack!" The woman interrupted her argument with the tall man to scold the boy. "How many times have I told you not to say that word?"
"But Mom!" He complained. "You say it all the time!"
"That doesn't change anything." She scowled. "You're only 13."
"Lay off the boy, Elizabeth." The Asian man spoke, raising his hands to try to calm her down. "It's just a word."
She replied angrily. "That's easy for you to say, Quentin! You don't have a child!" The man scowled at her. I could tell there was a sense of scorn between them.
"Nice little group." Noah whispered from behind the next tree.
I laughed quietly and flipped my hair back behind my head. "You should have seen my high school basketball team." I bit my lip and turned around. I walked up to the group with arms outstretched. Noah hesitantly followed. "Hey, I'm Grace!" I introduced myself.
The woman named Elizabeth jumped. "Whoa! Where did you come from!"
"Who the hell are you people?" The tall African-American man yelled as he backed away from us a bit.
"I'm Grace and this is Noah." I told them, trying as hard as I could not to sound threatening. I could see the look of slight fear on everyone's faces. "You guys were looking for a place to stay? We've got plenty of room for all of you guys."
"That cabin looks pretty small..." The young girl suggested hesitantly.
"Grace we don't got much room." Noah said. "There are only two bedrooms. Cici's sleeping in one of 'em."
"Did you hear me wrong?" I raised an eyebrow. "I said we had room, not beds." He sighed and looked back at the six people standing before us. "So, you guys gonna introduce yourselves?"
The tall man stepped forward, feeling threatened. "You gonna let us in first? I'm not telling you jacksh** til' we get inside."
The girl with the pad and paper stepped forward, giving a judgemental look to the people standing beside her. "Don't mind them." She told me. "They're just a bit on edge, with everything that's happened. My name is Paige. Nice to meet you."
"You're just a kid..." Noah said skeptically.
"Yeah, and you're just an adult." She replied. "Why exactly does that matter? Anyway, the woman here that won't say anything is Katherine." Her brown eyes quickly shot up from their position on the ground to look at us and then back down. "The other kid is Zack, and his mom is Elizabeth. This guy is Quentin. He's a doctor."
"Certified physician." He corrected her, nodding his head up and down.
"Whatever." She continued. "This last guy is Ross. He likes to be called by his last name, Bennett, but we all just call him Ross."
"Hey f*** you!" Ross shouted. "You can't talk to me that way! I'm older than you are."
"Yeah, but I'm doing the talking! Case and point!" Paige smiled. She had a very persuasive tone to her voice. She would have been a natural lawyer. Ross's hand hovered over the handgun strapped to his belt. He seemed very angry that he was being pushed around by a 14-year-old. "You gonna use that?" She asked. "Tell it for the ten or twelve walkers that are going to get over that hill in three...two...one..."
Just as she predicted, there were a number of the lifeless corpses that roamed the earth now approaching over the hill in the direction from which they came. "Let's get back to the house." I suggested. "I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to be standing here when those things get here." A few of the members of the group began to run towards the house, but I stopped them. "We can take our time. They move slow, and they're travelling towards that bus you guys sent. That was a brilliant idea that guy had."
Elizabeth shrugged. "Jarred? I'd be surprised if you could get a simple math problem out of that fat lard."
"Mom!" Zack complained. "That's really mean!"
"It's true!" She sighed and turned to Noah and I. "Anyway, that wasn't Jarred's idea. That idea belonged to Paige."
I turned to the girl with her hair in a bun, impressed at the level of maturity she was displaying. She smiled sweetly at me. "It just seemed like common sense to me. Regardless, every body that passes by this house following that bus Jarred is driving is another body we don't have to add to the head count when we take them down."
Here, take my bump
Chapter 6: Stragglers
"Let me have a look." Quentin said emotionlessly, leaning down to Cici's limp body. "If it's like you say, she could already be gone."
"What do you mean?" I asked frantically. "We sealed up the wound. The bleeding stopped. How could she be dead?"
"She may have lost too much blood." He replied, taking Cici's hand in his, checking her pulse. "It's a long shot. I'll do everything I can to help your friend, but I can't guarantee anything."
Noah took me by the shoulder and turned me around. "C'mon, Grace. Let's give the doctor some space."
"That would be great, thanks." He said, without looking us in the eye. "I work better when people aren't breathing down my back."
I turned around and exited the room, leaving Cici alone with the young doctor. He didn't look older than 30. He must be new to the job.
"She'll make it." Noah told me confidently after we shut the door. "I've seen people come back from worse."
"Like what?"
"Like Cici did back in that car on the road." He replied. "If she can come back from that, I have no doubt she can come back from this."
I smiled at him. "Thank you, Noah."
He nodded in agreement and turned around toward the hallway. The remaining five people rested in the living room, arguing up a storm. We walked into the room. I sat down beside Paige on the couch, and Noah leaned on the wall, away from it all. I couldn't tell if he didn't like these new people or he was just shy.
"What the f***?" Ross swore, glancing around at each person in the room. "When I say I want to get down to the city before making a stop, I mean it!"
"We need to rest!" Elizabeth replied, stroking her hair back behind her head. "Get some food! We haven't eaten in two days."
Katherine nodded her frail head and held her hand on her stomach. She wanted food too. "It's okay." Zach said, sweetly, patting her on the shoulder. "We'll find food soon. We're all hungry."
"My son is going to have some food in him by the end of the day!" Elizabeth barked. "No one is going to argue with that!"
Paige raised her hands in the air, trying to calm them down. "No one's arguing with-"
"I am!" Ross shouted. "Now you're gonna listen to me! We are packing up our bags right now and drive the f*** out of here!"
"We're staying here!" I shouted back at him, inserting my opinion into the argument. "I've got my friend injured back there and you've got a doctor with your group."
"Who said you're a part of this conversation, bi?" He scowled. I squinted angrily at him and Noah stood up from his leaning position, looking angry as well. "We met you ten fing minutes ago. Your opinion doesn't carry no weight."
"Say that again." Noah spoke through his teeth.
"Noah, I can fight my own fights." I told him, attempting to calm him down. I stood up out of my seat and he stood up close to me to counter it. He stood at least half a foot taller than me, but I didn't care. "Who are you to say I don't have an opinion? We let you in here. You're safe because of us."
"You think I'm going to take orders from a da** woman? Get back to the kitchen where you belong."
I looked back at Noah through the corner of my eyes to see him struggling to keep himself back. Everyone else in the room looked annoyed, but no one did anything. I could tell the people were afraid of the man. I scowled at the man. "You think I'm scared of you? If you want food so much, you get to the kitchen."
"Heh." Ross chuckled. "Dumb bi***."
Noah walked slowly up into the conversation. He put himself between Ross and I. He sighed and looked the man in the eye. "What did I say about that word?"
"What are you gonna do?" Ross taunted him. "Punch me? Well come on! I'll even give you the first blow."
Noah sighed and looked away from the man's eyes. "I'm sorry." He brought his fist up and drove it into Ross's face. He fell to the ground, clutching his cheek. He definitely underestimated Noah's strength. "Stay down, a**hole."
Ross wheezed and spit blood onto the ground below him. Three teeth splattered onto the floor. "You bast***!" He cried. "You knocked my teeth out!"
Everyone in the room sat back in their seats, staring in shock at Noah; myself included. "What?" He said, turning around to all of us. "F***er had it coming."
"Yeah. He did." Elizabeth agreed.
"I thought you said this house was empty!" Ross said scornfully from the ground, wiping off his mouth and staring at Elizabeth.
"I never said it was f***ing empty!" She replied, leaning out of her seat a bit in anger. "I said I knew the people that lived here...Maya and Rodd. They were good people. I used to work with Rodd." She turned to me. "Do you know what happened to them?"
[A. Tell the truth.]
[B. Lie.]
[A. Tell the truth.]
Hello guys. If anyone is still following this fanfiction, I turned it into a text-based adventure game at this discussion. http://www.telltalegames.com/community/discussion/78965/the-walking-dead-fan-game?new=1
A.tell the truth