You Can't Survive Alone

Part 2

Sometime later

I'm somewhere between being awake and being asleep. There are people around me, and I feel that I am safe. I don't know how or why, but I'm alive.

More later

I wake up in a bed. I turn my head to look around, and I am alone. I look down at my side and see that it is bandaged. Whoever these people are, however long it has been, there must have a doctor.

The room is lit with a small battery operated lamp, which shines through little star-shaped holes that make patterns on the ceiling. It's just like the one I had when I was a little kid back home.

I decide to go exploring. I creep around silently, and open the door.

On the other side of the door there is a room with a chair in it. In the chair sits a woman who looks to be about 20.

She looks up from the book she is reading, and stares at me for a minute.

"Hello," I say.

"Oh. Hi," she says in response.

"Uh, where am I? Who are you?" I remember my flight through the woods next to I-95. Then I have a crushing realization. Zack ran a different direction than me. I don't know where he is, or if he is safe. "Have you seen a guy, a bit older than me?"

"You're in the White House. My name is Jess, and I'm from a group of survivors here. And I'm sorry, but no we didn't see anybody else. Who are you?"

"My name is Ash." It takes me a minute to process the information she told me. "So... are there a lot of you here?"

"Not really, there are only 4 of us. We found you on I-95, unconscious."

"So why did you take over the White House?"

At that, she laughed. "It seemed like a good place. Huge building, lots of space. Hopefully it's a place where we can collect others and start a colony."

"How long have I been here?" I ask.

"Two days."

That's longer than I thought. I really hope Zack is alright. I also realize that I left my bag with the men.

"Why are you standing up? You should be resting."

"I didn't know whether I could trust you guys. I figured it was worth it to risk exploring a bit."

She sighed. "Ok. Want to come meet the rest of the group?"

"Sure." I figure, what's the harm in meeting these people? If I'm going to find Zack, I'm going to need all the help I can get.

We walk through the halls, until we stumble upon someone. He is average height with curly black hair and dark brown eyes, around age 18.

"So you've finally woken up, huh? Nice to meet you. My name's Nick."

"My name's Ash." I wonder how I should bring up finding Zack. I don't want to seem too annoying. I mean, they've already helped me quite a bit. I don't want to seem like I expect their help. Ugh, why do I have to be nice even during a zombie apocalypse?

"Nick is kind of like the leader of the group. He was one of the founders." This was Jess speaking, trying to be helpful.

"Cool. I had a group, well, a teammate. We were more like friends though." I say, trying to get to the topic of Zack.

"Was that the one you asked me about?" asks Jess.

"Yeah. I don't know where he went."

Nick says, "Sorry about your friend. How did you end up getting separated? I assume it's linked to you getting shot?"

I think about how I should respond, and decide to just tell the whole story.

"His name is Zack. We've been friends since first grade, and lived next to each other. He was cornered, and I helped him out, so we became allies. We've been traveling south along I-95, and we found a group. They... weren't nice people. They tried to kill Zack, and I attacked them. I told Zack to run, so he ran off into the woods, and I ran too. One of them shot me, but I just kept running, knowing that if I stopped I would die. I collapsed, and now I'm here."

Another guy walks up while I'm telling the story. He's tall with tanned skin and military-style hair, probably around 25. He's the oldest person I've seen here.

The guy says, "Wow. I'm sorry, that sounds terrible. My name is Jake."

"Hey Jake, this is Ash. She's the girl we found by I-95," Nick told him.

I started to get really tired, and the others could probably tell. Nick walked with me back to my room, and we didn't talk. Finally, someone who doesn't feel the need to fill every space with words.