Among The Dead (Season 1)

S1 E1 Alone

I've always been a loner. Years into my birth I was tossed onto somebodies doorstep. Left to die. Four years later I was abandon at a carnival from the same people. Left to rot. I soon found my way into an orphanage. At the age of 13 the people at the orphanage were able to hook me up with my brother, Jack. He was my only freind before it happened. We soon snuck out of the orphanage and found ourselves in the woods. It was just us and the wild.
But by then we were able to find a decent sized group of hunters. They took us in. Helped us. Fed us. Saved us.

It was all good, until the world went to shit.

I stood on the front porch of the shady cabin. Trees surrounded me from every angle. We had no idea the world was fighting for survival then. We were completely isolated from the outside world. We had no TV or radio, we didn't even know who the president was.
So I was standing there on the porch, twiddling my thumbs. I was waiting for Jack and Andy to return from their hunt. The forest seemed awfully quiet. No chirping birds. No crickets. Just the eerie sound of silence. Inside of the cabin was Jay and Kole. I don't know what they were doing.

I scratched my head and squinted at the trees. Beautiful brown oakwoods just towering over everything. I shook my head and looked back over for Jack and Andy. It was getting late. A silent wind blew in and the trees danced a little. I scratched my head again and took a step off of the porch. I was soon stepping through fallen leaves and weeds.

The wind blew at my hair and although it was only a inch long, it
whipped around.

I heard a ruffle in the bushes beside me. I looked around then approached the shrubs. My hand slowly hovered over the ferns, but I soon smacked away the greenery and jumped back in shock.

"Son of a-!" I stopped midsentence and looked a little harder at the squirrel. It's furry skin had some blood tainted in it. I picked it up and looked hard at it. I rotated the dead squirrel and found to my suprise a large bite mark extanding down its spine.

"What the hell did this?" I said to nobody. I then rotated the animal, "Who the hell did this." I corrected. I began to study the fatal bite mark; Andy, Jay, and Kole were the ones that taught me about the local animals. "This couldn't be a bear-the teeth are to small. And it couldn't be a wolf-the jaw is too wide." That was when I realized it.

"Oh my god, this is human bite!"

There was a growl and I turned around and dropped the dead squirrel. A hand grabbed my wrist and twisted it away, leaving my neck unprotected.

"Gotcha!" Jack yelled. I glared at him and smacked away his hand. "Dickhead." I said with a rough voice. Jack extended his arms, "what?! Can't a man have a little bit of fun with his own brother?"

Andy soon stepped into vision. He had four decent sized rabits strung to his shoulder. He waved at me, "we got dinner."

I learned all of my hunting skills from Andy. He too was once a loner, but instead of being a city boy like me he was quickly adopted by Jay and became a huntsman early on.

The three of us marched on back to the cabin and set out dinner. We cleaned and gutted the rabits and they were soon on a plate.

"Hey Jack and Andy. Thanks for dinner. I know the rabits are getting noticeably hard to find and I appreciate your hard work." Kole said this with his deep-post puberty voice (Kole at the time was about 18 and quite short. But his manners made up for it; he was the kindest of gentlemen)

"It's too bad that you guys could only find four." Jay said (Jay was an old man with wrinkles and a long white beard. The wise one among us)

"well, they were hella tough to find so don't judge us." Andy countered biting into his meat (Andy was tall and rather skinny. He was a young adult at the age of 22)

Me and Jack were sort of like twins. Jack had short stubby white hair that showed his cratered skull. After his years in the army, it's never grown back. I on the other hand had some outgrown black hair. We both were light skinned and had crazy blue eyes.

"Hey, on that subject..." I began, "I saw a squirrel while looking for Jack and Andy." Everybody looked at me quietly. "Well....why didn't you grab it? " Jack burst out, "only because it was bitten." Jack looked hard at me,
"it was bitten by a human."

At that moment a fist pounded on the door.

"I'll get it." Jay said casually and sat up. He set down his knife and walked over to the door and yelled "Who is it?!"

No answer.

This clearly upset Jay. "Whatever." He said and opened up the door. He looked around then turned back to us.

"Probably just the wind."

And at that moment a bloody hand reached out from behind Jay and tugged on his long white hair.

I gasped as a dark figure loomed behind Jay. It then bit hard into Jay's neck. I yelled out and we all stood up and saw the blood spurt out of the new wound.

The figure then bit again and the two fell over and off of the porch.

"Jay!" I screamed as I sprinted over to the door.

The man chomping on Jay's shoulder was a large guy in a suit. His skin was white and his eyes were white and dilated. He wore a broken pair of glasses smeared red with blood.

Jay screamed in pain as blood blubbered out of his shoulder and neck area.

Kole yelled at me to move and held up to aim his shotgun. Kole fired and the bullet drove into the man's head. Jay sat up and held onto his left shoulder at the spot he was bit.

"Oh fuck." I mumbled as the four of us crowded around Jay. The old man looked at us warily. "I have medical supplies!" Andy stuttered and stood up. He would have left but Jay grabbed him by the wrist.

"Medicine can't heal me." Jay said roughly. Jay then looked over at me. "Only a bullet can."

Everybody stared at me.
Jay was the father I wish I had. We were close. He taight me a lot and cared for me. He wasn't speaking but I knew what he was trying to say. He was telling me to shoot him.

Jay reached into his back pocket and pulled out his black desert eagle. A gold eagle was imprinted on it. It's wings outstretched.

I took ahold of it.

A tear made its way past my impenetrable emotions and I wiped it away. I haven't cried in years.

"Do it." Jay said. He then smiled and added, "for me."

I shook my head.

"This isn't a game." Jay said in a soothing voice. "Just pull the trigger, Ace."

Another tear went down. I held up the gun to Jay's head. "sorry brother." I whispered.

I pulled the trigger and the gun fired.