Love is Dead

Chapter Three: I'll Show You 'Sickly Looking'

Fallon had woken Margot up early in the morning, saying something about having to move quickly, or her clan would find them. They travelled nonstop for a few hours, Margot not having eaten since the canned peaches from the night before, but she decided not to say anything. She didn't want to be a bother.

The two of them walked until they found a road, then they followed it to the nearest town. If they were lucky, they could find some items that hadn't been looted. If they weren't, well, at least they had shelter.

The town had been abandoned for a long time, probably since the outbreak started and people started to flee their homes to get away from the infected, or at least that's what Margot's parents had told them. Several houses had broken windows and doors, or the doors were just left right open. A couple of cars littered the sides of the road, abandoned as well. It looked like the entire town had vanished, leaving their homes to lay untouched for over two decades, slowly withering away.

"This place looks so eerie," Margot said, receiving no response from Fallon.

Eventually, they reached a street that was lined with small stores, most of which had their large windows smashed. Margot had heard that the looting at the start of the outbreak had been brutal.

"Alright," Fallon spoke up, pointing across the street. "I'll check the stores on this side, you check the other. Grab anything that could be useful. Food, spare clothes, medical supplies, that kind of stuff. Maybe try to find something you can use as a weapon, in case you run outta bullets."

She started to walk away before Margot could respond, entering a small restaurant. Margot decided to enter the nearest shop on her side of the street as well. She knew that it was unlikely that they'd find anything useful, but she made sure to check each store thoroughly, in case anything managed to get left behind.

Unsurprisingly, the stores that would have had anything useful were practically empty. Margot had managed to find a few things in a small clothing shop, so she'd grabbed a few sweaters, as well as some extra string and buttons that she put in her sewing kit. By that time it was already almost sunset, meaning that she'd have to meet up with Fallon soon.

Margot decided to check one more store before going to find her. The next shop looked like it used to sell candy, due to the faded sign in front that was painted to look like a peppermint. The shelves were completely barren inside the store. The candy would have long since gone bad anyway, so Margot wasn't too disappointed. She walked behind the check-out counter and started to search through the drawers.

Surprisingly, inside one of the drawers was a box of ammo, which Margot quickly swiped up, as if there was somebody else who could have taken it from her. Besides that, the drawers were empty, so she turned towards the back door, which had one of the shelves pushed up against it. Margot didn't know why someone would block the door off, unless they had hid something back there. Maybe there would be some good loot.

She struggled, but Margot managed to pull the shelf away from the door enough that she could open it and slip through. The room was dark, since there were no windows and there was no electricity to turn the lights on. She wandered further in as her eyes adjusted to the room.

She stopped, however, when she heard the sound of a zombie groaning.

So that was why the room was blocked off, she thought.

Slowly, Margot backed up towards the door as the zombie limped into view, the little light coming from the door lit up its grotesque face. Its yellowing, dead eyes were trained on her. She reached for her gun, but the zombie lunged at her, causing her to drop it. Margot held it away from her by its shoulders as it snapped its jaw at her, reaching out to claw her with its rotting hands.