Mortality

Chapter 6: Savannah

“Wake up.” I felt someone shake my shoulder and I slowly opened my eyes. I blinked a few times before remembering where I was and what had led to my falling asleep, curled up in the middle of the road. The events of the day before threatened to overwhelm me, and I let out a groan as tension rushed back into my body.

“Savannah, get up. Now.” Pierce stood over me, but I could barely see him. It was still dark and I was still so tired.

“What is it?” Alex sat up and turned on a flashlight, which he pointed right into my eyes. I squinted and gave him the finger.

“Turn that off,” Pierce hissed. “There are people coming. They’re headed right for us.” The light flickered off and for a few seconds I couldn’t make out anything except white splotches floating in front of my face.

“What? Where?” I rubbed my eyes.

“Down the way we came from. I think I see headlights.” As I turned around, I could make out exactly what he was talking about. About twenty pinpricks of light were coming our way. They weren’t moving very quickly, but it was still the last thing I expected to see at that time of night. My brain snapped awake as I realized it could easily be a group of survivors making their way across the highway at night.

“Maybe it’s our group,” Alex suggested, mirroring my own thoughts.

“Why would they be traveling at night? It could be anyone.” Pierce—always the voice of reason and crusher of dreams.

“Alright, so we just wait until they get here and see,” I offered. I couldn’t imagine Mayor Paulson allowing everyone to be out, just wandering the road at night in an area we couldn’t be sure was safe, but I let myself hope for good news. Who knew what they could have run into being forced to leave town? Maybe they weren’t able to find anywhere to settle in for the night. Maybe they were looking for us.

We shuffled around in silence, trying to gather our belongings in the dark and watching the lights get closer and closer. There were a few stars out, but April rainclouds kept most of them from providing us with enough light to see what was coming.

“What if it isn’t them?” Zack finally asked, voicing the thought I’d been trying to push back. As usual, he was the last of us to really wake up. Zack first thing in the morning was a whole other kind of zombie, and since he’d already taken his watch, he couldn’t have gotten much sleep.

“But what if it is?” I countered, needing it to be them.

Soon after, the approaching group was close enough that we could make out the silhouettes of dozens of people walking by the cars. We started to hear the sounds of yelling, laughter, and gun fire. They were creating a huge racket that was bound to draw in any nearby infected. They were even spraying bullets up into the air, as if they wanted to draw exactly the kind of attention we were trying to avoid. My heart sank as I realized these weren’t our people.

“If we can see them, how much closer do they need to be before they see us?” Alex asked, tension rising in his voice as our situation looked increasingly perilous. “We should get out of their way.”

“Where do we go though? We can’t stay on the road,” Zack said, shoving the blanket I tossed him into his pack. “They’ll see us eventually. And if we can’t use flashlights we could run into trouble up ahead as easily as here.”

“We’ll go into the forest and wait this out. Stay close until they pass. Then we regroup,” Alex said without hesitation.

“Why do we have to split up?” I asked. I glanced at the forest. The trees cast an ominous shadow that devoured any light. It definitely wasn’t somewhere I’d be signing up to go into alone.