What Walks Among Us (book one)

If Stalking Was A Sport, I'd Come In Last

I woke up with a leg cramp, and after what seemed like several minutes, I finally got it to uncramp. I was wide awake now and the pain of the cramp was fresh in my brain, to make it worse my bandages on my knee had started to soak through. I knew I wasn't getting back to sleep, and by the sun that shone in through my open window I figured I might as well take stock of what we had, and see if those boys had left yet or not.

As I grudgingly sat up on my bed, I stretched out my muscles, and with a final yawn I made myself get out of bed. Chip mewed at my feet and I took that as my cue to feed her. Once I had fed her and dressed in a black tanktop and a pair of jean shorts, I walked into the bathroom to change my bandages. Mabel wasn't up, so there was no one in there. Not that we really used the bathroom anyways, the only reason we used it was to go to the bathroom, because the toilet still worked if you poured water in it and flushed, and the tub worked for washing clothes.

My knee was red and looked a little angry, that is if knees had feelings.

Which I'm sure on some level they did. Right? Right?

I shook my head at myself and used a rag and a little bit of water to gently clean it. Each time I pressed the rag down I wanted to scream, and so it was the worse washing of a wound in the history of wound washes.

When I had finished redressing my knee and cleaning myself up a bit, I hobbled downstairs, trying to use my left leg as little as possible. It took a little while but when I had finished I knew just how bad we were, there was eight can in total of food, and three of them were unmarked so I wasn't sure that they were even food. We had eight bottles of water left, and no actual weapons other than the knives from the kitchen.

I was leaning against the counter with a pen in my mouth and staring intently at my notepad of things I needed to somehow get, when Mabel finally came downstairs. I couldn't say for sure but I figured it was about noonish. She asked about food and I pointed to the can of peaches that I had had for dinner the prior night.

She grunted and ate it all in record time, she went for another can of something else and I stood up straight, "Mabel you can't just eat everything. There's hardly any food left, we need to be careful until we can get some more."

She turned, her eyes narrowing on me, and the pain of her mother's passing was no longer visible on her face, instead it was like every other day. She looked at me with a scowl, "we don't need to do anything, Kodi. You do. That's what you were trying to do the other night wasn't it? Get more supplies? Well that hasn't changed. I'll watch the house and you can get the supplies. It's my house, now. You know? She was my mother, not yours and the house was in her name," she walked around the counter, stepping closer to my, and I took a step back, confused with her 180 of an attitude, "which makes it mine."

I frowned, she left before I could say anything and I watched her go, at the top of the stairs she paused, the can of soup still in her hands as she looked back at me, "Oh and you should be grateful I let you and your cat stay. I would just do as I say, because you don't know what could happen to your cat if you don't cooperate."

She turned away stiffly and stomped the rest of the way to her room, while I was stuck there trying to figure out in what world did she think it was okay to not only threaten me, but my cat! What kind of quackjob did that?

I frowned at took comfort in the fact that Chip was probably too smart to be captured up by Mabel. I pushed away from the counter and took the pen and notepad with me into the living room, I so should have told her off.

As soon as that thought went through my head a bunch of comebacks came to mind and I mentally smacked myself. Why could my brain not work like that four minutes ago when it would have been useful?

I walked over to the front window and peaked out, looking at the street curiously. The few zombies I had killed the other night were still where I had left them and the street was empty, I was about to back off and try to go out the front door to walk to the house with the pool, when a few houses down on the semi-circle of houses I lived next to, I saw a curtain move. I immediately backed up and then rubbed my eyes. I dropped the pen and paper on the ground and leaned closer to the window, peeking out while making sure I couldn't be seen.

The curtain moved again and I sucked in a breath. I saw the front door open but with the way the windows were boarded up, I couldn't see who had just come out of the house. I ran into the kitchen, momentarily forgetting about the pain in my knee as I grabbed a chair and ran back to the living room, I put the chair in front of the door and climbed up on it, peeking out of the window that was above our front door.

I looked around for a second, the door was open but nobody was standing near it. It took a minute but a boy came from the side of the house, and boy was he adorable. He had brown hair and tanned skin with muscle top on and a pair of basketball shorts. His mouth was moving and I pressed my face closer to the window, trying to get a better look even though my view wasn't obstructed.. I was just a bit far away.

Another person walked out of the house and I recognized him instantly but it was a moment before I realized that he was the boy I had bit. His hair was black and it was grown a little long, so he could run his fingers through it but it didn't quite fall into his eyes. He, was also super attractive, I leaned against the door, staring. Is this for real? This is messed up.

The boys who were going to sell me as a sex slave were attractive.

Things got even more unbelievable as two more boys came from around the corner, one had red ringlets and the other had brown hair like the first. The all looked around my age, except for the redhead- he looked maybe twenty or older, he had a bunch of firewood in his arms, which he loaded into a trailer, that was already most of the way filled up. The three younger boys started chatting next to the trailer and the older one, the redhead walked inside.

I shifted my weight to stand mostly on my right leg, and continued watching. Did this count as being creepy? No. I'm like 88% sure it's totally normal to watch people out your window, standing on a chair. I looked away and towards the stairs making sure Mabel wasn't watching me watch the boys.

I bit my lip and looked out the window again, the black haired boy that I bit was gone and I was caught up watching the two brown haired ones, so caught up that I barely noticed the zombie come out from the woods behind the house.

I let out a tiny shout of warning, but I knew the boys hadn't heard me as they continued to chat. I was on my toes, debating whether or not to show myself to save them when the one with the muscle top on straightened and turned to look at the zombie. His shoulders tensed as he walked over and fearlessly stabbed its head with a dagger and pushed it away from himself. He shook his head and started back towards the trailer. His eyes lifted and looked around, meeting mine.

At the same time the black haired one came out of the house, shirtless, and I tried to back away from the window, embarrassed at his shirtless state and scared that muscle top had seen me. I freaked out a little bit, and forgot I was on a chair, and I stepped back a little too far. The chair tipped and I fell over with a very loud crash.

I landed on my hurt back and tears sprang into my eyes while I tried to catch my breath. The house was very quiet except for Mabel poking her head out from the top of the stairs.

"What the hell?"

I shook my head and waved her off, "Do me a favour? Hide."

She opened her mouth to argue but saw my expression and went to her room. I sat up and kicked the chair aside, not caring about the noise as it was too late and the boys had already heard, and saw me by now.

I sat up and put the chair back up, double checking that my suspicions were correct. The two brown haired boys, and the black haired boy were on their way over, while the red haired boy was stepping out onto the porch and raising his hand in question. I couldn't hear him, but I could tell he was asking what they were doing. I saw one of the brown haired boys, the one without the muscle top on, turn around and yell back. The other two continued to run at my house.

I scrambled down and left the chair where it was, after I locked the door I hid in the closet with one of my knives.