If We Survive

Chapter 7

"C'mon... What's your name?" He says, pulling me in closer.

"Mrruph." I reply, turning my head. 

"Everybody else knows who you are, exept me. And honestly, I'm the important one." I struggle playfully to get out of his grasp. 

"Oh, the important one. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Well," He snorts. "it's not exactly like we're getting much of that done, anyway." It's true; the geneorator started slowing down at the begining of October, and it seems too cold to fall asleep, dispite the five blankets that I have stacked on the couch.

"You've stayed at my house the night before camp for the past few years, and you were in my brother's cabin at least twice. I remeber the first words you ever said to me, and you can't even remeber my name? Pathetic." 

"That's because you're like a super genius, or something. Chole? Carissa? How many C names are out there?"

I bite my lip, smiling. "A lot, I think. This may take you a while." 

I hear someone plodding down the stairs. I roll out of Zack's arms, crawling across the freezing wood floor. 

I don't know why, but I know it would be a bad idea if the other people in this house found out about Zack and I. And it seems almost byond a feeling, like I know that I would get into bad mumbo-jumbo if they did. It's not the first time that I've thought this exact thing; like I knew exactly what someone was going to say before they said it. But whenever I tried to predict what someone was going to say, I just screwed it up. So maybe it was my brain playing tricks on me. 

I yank my skinny body under the heavy blankets, embracing the warmth. I hear someone come by- it's Achilles, I can tell by his slightly uneavan breathing. Gregory's is deeper, more like gasping,  Shelly's still sounds a bit like she's hyperventalating, and Stephen's is evener, more calm, contained. 

He pauses not far from my couch, and I think he's listening. 

"Holy bloody shit!" He shouts at the top of his voice, switching on the lights. We're not supposed to turn those on to conserve power. 

"What's going on?" I grumble, throwing my covers off me. 

He just points out the window.

There must be a hundred of them. 

Creepers, I mean. They're tightly packed together, stumbling along in the darkness. They seem so much less human, in thesmallest light illumnating the first of the dark faces. 

"Get the guns." I say in what I have come to call my serious voice. Quieter, dealier than the normal me. Not me, really. 

I get out my hand gun, which I still keep tucked in my waistband. They're coming in slowly, as if they're flightened. The light. The light is scaring them. 

"Turn on the rest of the lights!" I shout. Greg runs out, and I can see the electic lights going on in his wake. I know we're on the same page, but as ofr the others...

"That'll waste all the power!" Shelly says, appauled. 

"They're scared of it, though." I can see a few of them retreating slightly. 

"They won't be for long, though." Stephen says confidently, raising his rifle. 

"Not yet." I reach out an arm to his, pushing the weapon down slowly. "We doint waste bullets. Wait until they come running in. They'll do it in waves." 

How did I know that? It just appeared in my mind, like any other fact I had learned. 

"Stephen and Achilles, go on the roof and pick off the things as they get in range. Shelly and Zack stay down here, and keep them from getting too close." I toss Zack my gun, which he accepts gladly. "Extra rounds are in my bag."