1 | I Am a Survivor of the Zombie Apocalypse | ✅

Chapter 4 - Banging. Growling. Scratching.

Doyle leaps into action, tossing Seth his pistol, pulling a knife from his belt and running to the top of the stairs. I jump up, pulling back the slide on my Glock, hearing the satisfying click of the bullet.

I join Doyle by the stairs. He gives me an almost put-out look, then slowly starts down.

I follow, holding the Glock in both hands, aiming at the ground, my arms tense.

We enter the living room. It's clear. I follow Doyle into the den. And there we see them. Three dead things made it inside by falling through a rotted board on the window. More are trying to get in.

Doyle lunges forward and grabs hold of one, stabbing it in the eye. If he would get out of the way, I could just shoot them. Maybe. I make my way further into the room. Doyle is grabbing hold of a dead thing's neck when another grabs his shoulder. I aim at its head. If I miss, even by just a little, I could kill Doyle. The thing's trying to bite him. I pull the trigger. BOOM! Well, that loud noise is definitely not going to send the others away.

The dead thing repels backward. More are coming through the window. Doyle is covered in blood from where the thing's shoulder exploded. I missed its head. The dead things are all snarling and growling and it's horrible. I've never been this close to this many before.

Part of me is panicking. Another is screaming fight! And yet another part is yelling at me to run back upstairs.

Doyle stabs the dead thing I shot in the head. It falls as he moves on to another one. The window is still spewing out more dead things. There are too many.

"We have to go back!" I scream at Doyle as I take another shot at a dead thing trying to reach me.

He doesn't respond, but starts backing toward the living room again. I keep the Glock held high as I back away.

When we get back into the living room, he slams the double doors to the den closed. He leans against the doors, and then the dead things all clamor against it. Banging. Growling. Scratching.

"Get the chair!" He yells at me.

I grab the chair and rush it to him. He wedges it under the door handles.

"SETH!" Doyle runs up the stairs. The snarling of the dead things is getting louder.

I follow him.

"We gotta go!" He's yelling as he is running, his knife dripping blood on the stairs.

Seth appears in the bedroom doorway. "How many?"

Doyle shakes his head. "Too many. We gotta go."

"Get your stuff." Seth goes back into the bedroom. Doyle turns around and goes back downstairs.

I go into the bedroom and lift up my backpack.

Kacey has crawled out of bed and is starting to fold up her blankets. Seth is gathering weapons from a corner of the room. The rifle, pistol and knives from the log.

Doyle returns, the humungous backpack from downstairs on his back. Seth tosses his pistol back to him. Kacey looks disturbed at the sight of blood-covered-Doyle.

All right, I gotta hand it to them: They may be horrible at getting food and water, but they're pretty okay at collecting weapons.

I kneel down and help Kacey fold up her blankets. The constant roar from the zombies seems to be getting louder. I can hear the double doors creaking downstairs. Is that possible, or my imagination? It doesn't matter which, we just need to hurry up.