Apocalypse [will not be finished]

Chapter Eleven

"So, like, how come we haven't seen any zombies yet?"

I rolled my eyes and clenched my knife even tighter in my fingers. It was only twenty minutes into our walk away from the apartment, and he was already getting on my nerves.

"First of all, they aren't zombies. Second of all, shut up." Maybe I was being harsh, but he was annoying me too much for me to go soft on him.

He sighed, and mindlessly dragged his knife against the brick building next to us. It made an annoying, scratchy sound, and I put one hand on my temple, massaging gently. Would it be bad to just run off and leave him?

"How old are you again?" He looked up, smiling.

"Twelve." I tried to smile back.

"Are you and Quinn together?"

I gave him a look, but bit my lip, thinking. Were we? It wasn't official or anything, but you can't exactly kiss someone and leave it at that.

"Kind of."

"How is it 'kind of'?"

"It's complicated, okay?" He nodded, removing his knife from the wall, slipping it back into his belt and tying the threads to keep it safe. He ran a little to keep up with my quick footsteps, and I gestured for him to be quiet. I wasn't experienced with these streets, so I had no idea how safe they were. Tom had little advice about the place, and Sylvia had none. I'm pretty surprised they let a twelve-year-old go out with some strange girl who dropped in on the look for her little sister. But then again, they simply thought I wanted to find somewhere else that was better. They didn't know about Lou, and they definitely didn't know I wasn't planning on staying close by.

"It looks better in the day time, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," I said, shading my eyes from the sun that was just about breaking through the clouds. "Pretty. Reminds me of how it used to be."

He stopped suddenly and grabbed my arm, stepping slightly in front of me. Startled, I followed his gaze to the giant shopping centre to our left.

"What?" I said in a whisper. Maybe discreet isn't my forte, but at least I know when to be quiet.

"There. Do you see it?"

"See what? I don't see anything."

"In the window. In between the two bits of cardboard." I squinted and grinned as I saw what it was.

"A dog."

"Yep!" He said, taking my hand and pulling me along towards the window. He jumped up onto the giant bin that was conveniently placed in front of the window, and climbed up the wall to reach the sill. He then began ripping off the cardboard, bit by bit. My head swiped left and right, checking for creatures. The coast was clear, and I turned my attention towards the dog inside the shop. It's tail was between it's legs, nose dug deep into some kind of red meat. It was skinny, ribs just about visible through his thin layer of fur. It looked like it had a bad case of fur loss.

I jumped up to join the boy and tugged off the last piece of cardboard. He tried to place one leg through the sill, but a bit of glass crunched under his foot and the dog's head whipped up. It started to growl, and I tried to shush it, eyes frantically searching for some way I could jump down. I couldn't use my knife when I was balancing on such a narrow ledge.

The dog's ears pricked up, it's lips raising above it's teeth and a low-pitched, repetitive bark rumbling down from it's stomach.

"Be quiet, please, be quiet!" I pleaded, fingers gripping the remaining glass at the top of the window.