What Walks Among Us (book one)

Don't Shoot Me...

I heard the zombies before I saw them. Without any weapon, I couldn't just stand and fight. The options that I had were limited, and it seemed like at the hot spring I would have to make do with what I had and hope it would be enough.

Running wasn't an option, as I could see the compound in the distance and I didn't want to risk getting lost again. There was barely any sunlight left and the night was swiftly turning into one of the coldest yet. I stopped walking and closed my eyes, listening carefully.

Days and nights spent listening to the creaks and groans of my house to detect where everyone was came in handy as I heard about three of the dead coming from somewhere on my right. I hadn't had much experience with zombies so I wasn't sure how far away they were.

I looked around the part of the woods that I stood in, the trees were too tall to just climb and the forest floor was barren of any sharp object.

I'm not going to die, I told myself as I crept towards the compound. Maybe if I run fast enough towards it, I could outrun the zombies and climb inside, without a problem.

I spent too much time thinking it seemed, as a zombie came into view, and spotted me.

"Holy shit," I muttered as I turned on my heels and booked it towards the compound.

My heart raced in my chest, so hard it threatened to burst through my ribcage. I heard groans and footsteps behind me as the zombies gave a chase. They must be new. They had more power than I did, being new, or freshly fed.. then again they could be starving and desperate.

I was rounding a corner around a tree when I tripped and landed on my front, the sickening groans of the zombies got louder and I pushed myself to my feet. As I looked around a little wildly, I noticed a dead tree. Not a dead tree as it had fallen over, but a dead tree as it had been hollowed out and it looked like there was enough room to fit inside.

It was a risk, but the angle of the hollowed out opening was facing away from the zombies, as long as they didn't look back, I would be safe. I took the chance and folded myself inside the tree, trying to ignore the possibility of this being the house to spiders or other nasty things. I would rather be bitten by a spider than be bitten by a zombie.

As the zombies approached I pressed myself tighter into the hollow tree and forced my eyes to stay open as they hobble-ran past me. The first one to pass nearly made me pee my pants. It was wearing yoga pants and what was left of its blood stained blonde hair, was in a high ponytail. It wore a shirt that might have been white at one point, and ugg boots. One of its arms were gone and the clothes looked very wrong on the rotten flesh and decaying body parts.

The second one to pass was even worse, I couldn't see its front but the trail of intestines that it drug behind it gave me a pretty good idea of what the front looked like. It was so bloated and torn up that you couldn't tell what it had once been, male or female it was unidentifiable now.

The third was the worst yet, a little boy from the looks of it, tottered behind the two others. It had a toy truck clutched in its little rotten hand and I wanted to throw up. It looked like it had lost a foot, and that's why it limped everywhere.

I waited until it disappeared in the trees before letting out a breath. The smell that had accompanied the trio was revolting, and I had to swallow back the bile that threatened to rise up. I stepped out of the tree and rested my hands on my hips. The compound wasn't far off now, and I knew that if there were no more zombie problems, that I would make it back before the light completely disappeared from the sky.

I took a step forward, only to have a hand touch my shoulder. The self defense lessons that I had been taught by my father, that Cody had been teaching me, rose to my mind and I lifted my elbow, swinging back and connecting it to the side of a fleshy, too soft to be human, temple.