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

Chapter 7 - Gone

A crash follows Doyle's shout, and I rush from the hallway. I can't see him as I stumble around the counter.

I hear snarling, and Doyle's sharp breaths. I round the desk and spot him through the open door to the next room – an office-looking room of some sort.

Doyle is laying on his back on the floor, a dead thing sprawled over him, growling and snapping, trying to bite him.

He's managing to keep it from doing just that, but his knife lays out of reach.

I practically skid to a stop in the doorway, watching, still holding the Glock out in front of me.

He hears me and grunts at me, "Wynne! Shoot the damn thing!"

My hands shake as I pull back the slide. What if I shoot him instead?

"But I'm not a good shot!" I gasp, trying to get the courage to tighten my finger around the trigger, "I might miss, I might hit –!"

"Just shoot!" He orders me, "Whatever happens, happens."

So I pull the trigger.

    +++++

Seth is pale as we sit on the porch, our feet hanging off, toes dragging in the dirt. It's been a few days since we got here to the three-building town. We decided to stay a little while and feast on the seemingly endless supply of food from the store.

He's worried about Kacey. She continues to get worse. She'll barely eat at all.

We found a map in the gas station, figured out where we are and how far we are from Finley. Well, Doyle did most of that, actually.

He's inside with Kacey right now, trying to get her to eat. Seth and I already tried. And failed. Seth came out here on the porch after Kacey had another fit of coughing. He can't stand seeing her like this. Doyle told me to come check on him while he tried to feed her.

So I just came and sat beside him, and we haven't spoken. Sometimes silence says everything that needs saying.

I don't know what we should do. Should we hurry up and get to Finley, which is a good seventy miles from here, or should we not move Kacey at all?

I know Seth blames himself for her poor health. But I think it would have happened to her no matter what he did. She's so small and fragile. If I hadn't been told she was ten years old, I probably would have thought she was about seven.

I think we all know that she won't last long like this. She's gotten so weak. She doesn't smile. It's like she's given up. And without the will, the fight, the want, the need or whatever to live, you will die. It's pretty much that simple.

I stare across the street at the gas station. When Doyle and I had checked it out, we'd discovered that it had been picked over and trashed. But apparently nobody found any use for an old map. Which is fortunate for us.

I glance over at Seth. He hasn't slept much the last few nights, he just sits by Kacey and watches her. She's all the family he's got left, and he could lose her anytime. It's so sad.

       +++++

The rhythmic sound of the shovel breaking ground is the only thing that breaks through the dismal silence. I watch from the window as Doyle's silhouette digs outside, the pile of loose dirt beside the hole slowly getting higher.

Kacey passed away last night. It's dawn now. She's gone. Seth is broken. I'm numb. The only thing Doyle did after was find a shovel in the store and start digging. I'm still in this house because I'm supposed to make sure she doesn't reanimate. Her body is still in the corner. Seth is out on the porch right now. He said he just wanted to be alone and walked out there.

Kacey was too young, too good, too fragile, to survive in a world like this.

I barely knew her. She barely knew life. It's all so terrible. But I don't feel like crying. Does that make me a horrible person? It'll probably hit me later. I only knew her a few days, so maybe not. I don't know.

I decide to busy myself by packing some of the food we have sitting by our packs up. Kneeling, I stuff as much as I can in my backpack, then move on to Doyle's.

I decide to put some of the smaller things in an outer pocket and undo the zipper. There's already something in the pocket, and I pull it out without thinking twice about it. In my hands I hold two Polaroids. In the first one, there is a group of people, Doyle among them, smiling in front of a Christmas tree. And he's smiling, too. His hair is neat, and between that, the smile, and the healthiness of his face, he's barely recognizable.

In the other, it's just Doyle and a girl with a stunning smile standing side by side. She's looking directly at the camera, leaning her head on his shoulder. He's looking down at her like she was the only person in the whole world. And she has pink hair. Oh my God, it's –

"What are you doing?"

I jump like I was just electrocuted and turn around. Doyle stands in the middle of the room, a furious expression on his face.

"I was just...putting food in your pack....." I mumble feebly.

"And you just decided to invade my privacy, too?" He is livid, "Do you really think now is the right time for something like that?" He marches over to me and snatches away the pictures. "That any time is right for it?"

"I just found them, I didn't mean to, honestly," I plead, standing up.

He shakes his head. "Whether you meant to find them or not isn't important. It's that you looked at them knowing you weren't supposed to that's important. But considering what happened last night, nothing is as important as getting Seth through this."

He stuffs the pictures back in the pocket and zips it closed. Then he glares at me. "So we're just gonna forget about it, and give her a proper funeral." His voice cracks on the word funeral.

A strange, rasping, noise suddenly breaks through our weighty, silent stare. I gasp. The only thing it could mean.....

Doyle closes his eyes and exhales through his nose. He takes a deep breath, pulls his pistol from the waistband of his pants and walks over to her. Her eyes, those big eyes that were chocolate-brown in life, are now blood-shot and yellow-looking. Doyle cocks the pistol. The bullet clicks. Inhale, exhale. He closes his eyes again. When he opens them, they seem empty of all emotion.

And then the gunshot.