More Than Blood (The Walking Dead Fanfic)

Chapter 4

This is another really long one, y'all! Let me know if you prefer these longer chapters or more short ones.

][=][ Zhen Bryant's POV ][=][

I crept through the neighborhood with Duane behind me. My axe was in one hand and my pistol in the other. There were corpses all over; most of them were still, but some still moved around. We passed the Jones family car and slowly went up the steps to the busted-down doorway of the home we had been staying in. This place is a wreck... there's no way Morgan survived.

"Dad!" Duane shouted, shocking me and causing me to raise both of my weapons in front of me.

"Duane... you can't shout like that. If there are any more walkers around, it'll attract them to us," I said as I frowned at him and then looked around to make sure we hadn't already attracted any attention. "I know you want to find him, but we have to look around safely."

He nodded and looked down at the blood-covered floor. I looked at the stairs leading up to the room where Morgan had been firing his rifle down into the walkers on the roads throughout the neighborhood.

"Duane... I'm gonna go upstairs, but I want you to stay down here in case," I started to say before trailing off.

"In case my dad is dead," Duane finished with a broken tone.

"Y-yeah... that," I said as I approached the stairs and started to climb them. "See if you can find anything down here that we can use or if there's any evidence of your dad making it out of here."

With that, I made the climb, which I was dreading. I stopped in front of the doorway into the room... the door was barely hanging onto the wall. There were three walkers inside that looked like they were crouched around something and eating it.

"Hey, uglies," I said calmly as I entered the room and hefted my axe. "Please tell me you're not eating... Morgan."

I swung the axe in an arc that chopped the closest walker's head off, sending it flying into the corner of the room and allowing its headless body to fall over into a lifeless heap once again. The other two stumbled up from the floor, but I quickly swung the axe back again and knocked one of them backward, causing it to trip over whatever they had been eating. The last walker received a jab to the face with the end of the handle, and it stumbled back on top of its friend. The two walkers struggled to get back up from their heap of limbs, so I quickly slammed the blade into each head before they could get back up.

"Now that that's dealt with... moment of truth," I said as I tossed my axe over onto the bed and pushed the two corpses off of what they had been eating and gulped as I saw a brutalized skeleton of a person. "Oh... Morgan."

I turned away and barely held back the vomit that wanted to evacuate my body. I took several slow, deep breaths with my eyes closed to get my stomach settled before looking back at the bloody skeleton.

"I guess you didn't make it after all... shit... now I have to go tell Duane."

I went back down the stairs and found Duane attempting to search for anything that we'd left behind in the house. When he heard me coming down the steps, he looked over at me and clearly understood that his dad was gone.

"H-he's d-" he started, but stopped when I hugged him.

"I'm so, so sorry, Duane," I muttered as I squeezed him in the hug. "It's... it's pretty brutal up there."