All That Remains

Watch

Dale pressed the little silver button and the most hideous sound emitted from inside it. The red lights flashed as he brought back his arm and with impressive force he hurled the distraction off the bridge. "Okay, now we drop down." Jake proclaimed. We were already aching and bruised from running and jumping over the rooftops and I estimated that we were about ten metres up. "How?" Sonny voiced everyone's thoughts.
"Well," Jake peered down the ten metre drop. "I came prepared." He reached into his rucksack and brought out a large coil of rope. Dale tied the rope to the rail that ran along the edge of the drop. Then Jake took the other end and looped it tightly round his waist. Then he jumped.
The rope held. Planting his feet firmly onto the ground, he squinted up at us."Who's next?" 

Dale and Jake had managed to safely get nearly everyone down, just Grace and I were left on the bridge. "Go ahead Grace, I'm right behind you."
"I, I can't. Please don't make me."
"Come on, we've got this far. Just try." I pleaded. I could see zombies on the bridge making their way towards us but I didn't want to panic her, so I stayed silent. "I think I'm going to faint." The zombies were slowly inching closer. "Grace? I think you should go now." I yelled as the first zombie reached us. I cut the zombies down one after the other as Grace turned to see a zombie lunge towards her. "AAAAAAGH!"
Everything slowed down as Grace stepped backwards off the ledge and fell to the ground with a sickening crunch. I grabbed the rope and slid down, trying to avoid looking at Grace's body.

Back at the base, I sat in the Mess Hall. The Mess Hall was where we ate our rations and you weren't allowed to take food out of that room to prevent rats and mice. But to be honest we would have eaten the poor rodents anyway. We were slowly starving, and with so many people, not even the daily scavenging trips were enough. This fortress was slowly becoming our tomb.

Over the past few weeks, I had been teaching the young children defensive tactics. I found some weights for Misty to lift and she was becoming stronger. I wondered how long she would last if she got lost.

"Zoey, what do you think?"
"Sorry, what?" I snapped back to reality.
"Do you think that other places in the world are infected, like America and Europe?" Lexi asked.
I thought for a second. "Surely if they weren't then they would send their armed forces to help us out." But as I spoke a horrible thought crossed my mind, perhaps more horrible than the thought that the entire world was dying. What if they are quarantining us? What if they are just leaving us to die?

This world is so fucked.

I shivered in the cold night air and rubbed my hands together. I was on watch with Kat and the cold October air rattled through my bones like a wind chime. We had been at the army base for three weeks and already I was a guard during the night, and teaching and training in the day. I had become part of a small society that was entirely dependent on each other. But Kat seemed to have made up her mind. She wanted nothing to do with Lang or her cronies. She had only volunteered to go on watch to get out or orderly duties like cooking, cleaning or setting tables. I was grateful for the company. She looked down at the camp from our vantage point on top of the wall. "Zoey, d'you think that we aren't allowed to leave?"
"Nah, I think Lang would probably let us go, because then she would have less mouths to feed, but we wouldn be able to bring many provisions." I replied.
"Lang is like a fucking dictator. I can't stand her." She spat.
"I'm in debt to her, she saved my life."
"Still, she can't just keep you to do all her dirty work."  A growl from the dark signified that our conversation was over. I flicked on my torch, being sure not to waste much battery power, and aimed it at the zombie. A sharp intake of breath came from Kat next to me. "Oh god no."