Guilt (A Zero Spin-Off)

ThirtySix- Kyle

Simple. Easy.

Wishful fucking thinking is what that was.

We made it down into the tunnels before a car came prowling for us or there were any sounds of someone searching in our direction on foot.

But I hadn't entirely thought it through, running into a dark tunnel without so much as the moon to light to way. Much less a flashlight.

"Any chance you got a light on you?" I whispered into the darkness.

The shuffled around quietly. "Got some matches," he muttered to himself as he checked his pockets, a whispered "Ah-ha" when he found them. The match was lit and the dim light brightened the place enough to know this wasn't a good idea. The subway entrance was filled with zombies enough to make all of our breaths catch as we jointly stepped away from the mass in the tunnel. I leaned forward and blew out the match before more than a couple eyes turned toward us.

We started to move up the stairs back toward the street, but the woman stopped blocking the path when she heard noise from above us.

Well, shit.

The awful thought that I should have left them behind when I had the chance entered my mind. I could have saved myself if I hadn't saved them. It was a shitty thing to think, yeah, but I had made promises that I intended to keep and in that moment, it didn't seem possible. Fuck me for exactly what we agreed we wouldn't do. Fuck these people for needing rescuing. I had people to get back to. I had someone to keep safe.

I shook the thoughts from my head. It was too late now anyway.

And this wasn't over.

We weren't the most successful runners due to luck. We - I - knew how to navigate shitty situations. And you don't go a year out here without learning a few things about the zombies.

Zombies weren't super humans. They were dead humans whose bodies still worked. They didn't have heightened senses and I certainly doubted they could smell anything over the stench of their own decaying bodies. They worked on audio/visual cues. They gravitated toward things making noise, which is why the speaker system these assholes had set up was a pretty damn good idea. And if they spotted you, they would follow you. But I didn't think their vision was all that good. I'd seen them try to take bites out of one another before only to back away when they realized the meat wasn't good.

There were a lot down here. A lot. The amount that would have been in a crowded rush-hour type day for the subway.

We just needed to get past them. Just waltz right by. Quietly. And without light.

Super simple stuff.

"We can wait them out," the woman said in the barest whisper.

I didn't think we could. We were too close to their base. There would be no point in the very immediate future that I would feel confident strolling back up the street and walking toward Ella's house. I would not chance being followed. I shook my head out of habit since they couldn't see me. "No. We need to move on," I said quietly. "Without sight down here it's just sound. We keep quiet and head through."

"That's insane," the woman said a bit too loudly.

"No more insane than going back up to street level." I paused, reminding myself to be careful to keep my voice low. "You don't have to come, but I have people who need me."

"We're with you," the man said and his wife didn't protest.

Once we got to the tracks, inside the actual subway tunnel and further from the station, the zombie congestion would clear up. I hoped it would at least. The man, protective of his wife, put her between us and she reached up to set her hand on the back of my shoulder so I could guide us all down further without getting separated.