Breathing the Dead ~ H.S

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR: MEET AGAIN

I sat by the blown-out fire pit in utter silence – picking at a plate of spam which had probably gone cold by now. Listless, I put down the plate and sighed; reaching into my back pocket and pulling out the one item that I always kept in there. A tacky little hairpin – slightly twisted from overuse, with some of the black varnish on it peeling off due to being jiggled inside too many padlocks and keyholes.

Annalise's lucky hairpin.

I found it in her hand just after I shot her; tightly clutched in her strongly clenched fist. Lucky hairpin, my ass. If it was a lucky hairpin, she wouldn't have been bitten by that walker, I wouldn't have had to shoot her, and she'd still be here making jokes about her ex-boyfriends and the stuff we learned in Sex Ed when we were 12.

My ears were suddenly filled with the low snarls of the prowlers outside; and I inhaled sharply as I felt myself beginning to tremble with hatred.

Everything was their fault.

It's their fault I still haven't found my mother.

It's their fault I've lost my boyfriend and my best friend.

It's their fault I'm still stuck in this stupid fucking pharmacy because they're not clearing out of the area for shit.

It's their fault that the painful memories of the fun times & gossip sessions I had with Annalise in this pharmacy torture my mind and soul.

I've lost everything because of them.

I want them all to die.

Taking a deep breath to try and calm myself down, I restored Annalise's hairpin to my pocket and tried to eat my spam; only to realise that I'd completely lost my appetite. With an exasperated sigh I got up with my plate and opened the door by the pharmacy counter which had a staircase that led to the emergency exit on the roof. I climbed the stairs and emerged on top of the pharmacy; scowling as I took in the sight of the disgusting creatures that lurked around in circles below me. Gritting my teeth, I hurled the plate of spam right in the middle of the herd, causing a number of them to surround the food and stand around it in some sort of circle.

"That's it. Try eating some normal food for once, you stupid assholes," I muttered heatedly before turning on my heel and going back downstairs.

Once I got back to the pharmacy; I leaned against one of the walls to try and catch a breather. However, as I began to look around the room, visual memories of me & Annalise seemed to play back at me like some sort of crazy movie. Us cooking together, looking through holes in the window boards to laugh at the weird way the zombies walked...it all began to play back in one painful compilation all around the place. I clutched my head and groaned in frustration; silently pleading for the agonizing memories to leave me alone.

I can't take this anymore. I need to get out of here.

With a newfound determination, I ran to the back room and snatched the journal that I had been reading from the desk where we found the security code. The journal was something I'd recently stumbled upon – it was sitting at the top of a shelf when I opened the medicine room for the very first time. It seemed to belong to the owner of the pharmacy (aka the walker who I snatched that set of keys from), and the very last entries were written when the apocalypse started. The first few entries I had already read contained heaps of information. There has to be something this guy wrote about how to maneuver through a herd of walkers without getting chewed to death. There has to be.

Frantically, I flicked through the last part of the journal, and on the very last entry I finally found something useful.

Diana has found a way to get our family through the herd of monsters at our door. All we have to do is cover ourselves with their blood – it will block our scent and trick them into thinking that we're monsters ourselves.