If We Survive

Chapter 4

I dig three graves. The ground is soft, because it's just rained. I'm finished by dinnertime. 

I feel like I have death on me. I wash my hands thoughly, until Achillies tells me that I'm wasing all the water, and if I want to take a shower later I should probubly shut off the water. He also mentioned that I really needed a shower. It would've been funny if he didn't sound so damn dead serious. 

Dinner consisted of hamburgers. It was so good that I smiled fr an hour after. I hadn't had warm, good food for a long time. Shelly didn't join us. She keeps out of veiw for the most of the time. 

Really, it had only been five days. But that hardly mattered. It could've been a lifetime, because as far as I'm concerned we live in comeptely different world. A world that is not my own. 

The shower is divine. I only get three minutes, but it's enough. I ask to borrow Shelly's hairbrush, and I put my hair inro a long braid down my back. My hair seems to have grown, too. It was already long- almost all the way to my lower back, but now my braid goes clear down to my hips.  

I sst myself down on the futon, facing the window. I found myself a book, but outside seems so much more interesting. My brain wonders, and I begin writing stories with my mind. I do it all the time, to escape. I think about what my brother would do. I could see him now, coming to the house, big glasses and braces...

I drift off to sleep, my brother's crooked face in my head. I wake up with my face wet. I've been sobbing in my sleep without knowing it. I hate this. 

When you're a teenager, you always think that  the zombie apocolypse would be awesome- escape from all of the annoying parentals to killing out the living dead. The thing is, you always think of yourself as one who survives, one who was at the right place at the right time, wit pleanty of guns and supplies. Somebody else always becomes the zombie. The thing is, we're all someone else to someone else. 

But by some unatural stroke of luck, I made it. 

Let me tell you, I'm not a luckey kid. I once got stuck in an elevator for three hours on New Year's Eve with a whole binh of strangers- in the pitch black. Another time, I broke my leg, and in the same week broke my wrist. And then this- well, you get the point. 

It's long before dawn, and I can hardly see the light on the horizon. Achilles is taking watch on thefront porch, rifle laid across his lap. 

I join him out there, setting myself down on the other rocking chair. It's much warmer than it usally is this time of morning. 

"What are you doing?" He asks, not even looking my way. 

"Joining you, sourpuss." I reply. "and I don't plan on leaving." 

Annoying people. I should have a degree. 

Dawn is beautiful- the sky is about a billion shades of orange and yellow. I remeber watchng the sunrise with my parents as a kid. I thought it was beautiful then, but now I honestly wish I had my sletch book and paints. I love to paint. 

"You guys don't-" I start, but I am rudely cut off by Achilles. 

"No, no we don't." He replies flatly. 

"I'll go find it myself, then." I say flatly, heading back inside. In five minutes, I find some papaer and pencils, but nothing colored. I settle on just sketching out a face. What face? I csn't remeber what I drew before the disaster- stupid stuff, I'm sure.

I could draw my brother. I don't have any pictures of him, but that would send me up into another torrent of tears. I would probubly feed myself to the zombies if Achilles saw me crying.

I settled on a different facr, a face that was of a kid. I didn't really know who it was, just a kid, I guess, a little girl. It sort of made me wonder what happened to all of the younger kids- Julia had been twelve, but she had been the youngest. Were all of the kids, between the ages of one and eleven dead, too? 

I really didn't want to think about that.

"Oi!" I hear Achilles shout, crashing my train of thought. I leap off of my sofa, yanking out my gun. Impulses. 

I race outside, to see him standing up, looking through the scope of his rifle. I can't see anything. 

"What?" I slip my gun back into it's place. 

"Survivors!" He shouts, going back inside. If I just squint, I can see a few black dots on the distant horizon. I slip out my gun again. They're probubly zombies. 

But as they get closer, I realize that they can't be. It's some carrying someone, and since when to zombies behave like that? 

I think I should come up with a better name for them. They're not exactly zombies, are they? Creepers, I decide. Because they're creppy, and not at all human. Or dead. 

They're more like animals. 

I go out to meet them, one hand on my gun. It's a man and a girl, a little girl with brownish hair that sticks to her forhead. It looks like she's running a feaver. 

"I'm not here to hurt you." I say to him, only a few strides off. 

The man looks at me, the sun hitting his greyish eyes. He's about the age of Gregory, although his hair is much more gray. 

"Help my little girl," He whispers. He's been on the move for days, clearly, and h hasn't slept. He also smells a bit like a barn. 

I lift the little girl out of his arms, carrying her into the house. I can'rt see anything wrong with her, only the fact that she's burning up. The man collapses behind me, just before I reach the house. Gregory runs to him, checking his vitals. Gregory mentioned that he was once a doctor- which is just about the best kind of person to asscociate yourself with in an apocolypse. 

"Achilles, help me with this man!" 

But I can see Achilles, and he isn't moving. He's frozon at the door, staring at the drooping grl in my hands. I brush pat him, and he follows me in, mouth slightly agape. It looks like he's trying to say something, but his vocal chords won't work. 

I set he down lightly on the couch, her pale face sticking out horribly on the black leather. Gregoty makes it insdie, pushing past Achilles, who is still frozon, and kneeling by the bed. 

"I don't know what's wrong with her." He umbles, more to himself than to me. 

"If there's anything-" I start, looking the the young face. She can't be more than ten. 

"Yes." He replies, checking her heartrate. "I need you to get this gil some water. She's nearly dehydrated." 

I go to the kitchen sink, busying myself with a small glass, which I fill to the brim. 

"I already tried that." Says the older man, now consious. "She won't drink." His voice is gravaly. He sounds hopeless, and I get the feeling that he knows what Greg does not- he knows what this little girl has.

And somewhere deep inside me, I know, too.

It's nice how I just recently asked a question, and now it's being answered, right in front of my face. The man says that her name is Flora, and she's eight. 

Eight is too young. 

Hell, sixteen is too young.

Gregory doesn't answer, but opens her jaw lightly, and purs some down. She involentarily sputters, choking on the water. It goes down, which I suppose is what matters. 

For an hour and a half, we work to save the little girl's life. Achilles comes out of his dream state, and helps a little, although in the end, he just goes up to his room. He knows, too.

We think, for a while, that she's getting better. He face is still pale, but she talks quietly- it's gibberish, but it seems like a start. 

And then she changes. 

In four seconds flat, she becomes one of the monstors, trying to bite Greg's face off. 

I put a bullet in her head without thinking. 

It feels more like murder than flat-out killing.

We bury her in our growing graveyeard at dawn the next morning.