Beside the Dying Fire

Danny's POV

The last thing that I had seen was Sarah showing an unhealthy dose of badassery. She killed the man who restrained her with nothing but a stone and Sarah ran towards Kai, who had Yaaseen stab him moments earlier. I fumbled to get the Desert Eagle out of my holster, but it must have been stuck. Sarah threw Yaaseen off of Kai and beat the hell out of him before dragging his bleeding body next to Kai. She used Yaaseen's knife to stab his chest. Yaaseen pulled out a radio and spoke into it just as my gun popped out of the holster. The building came crashing down onto me in a fiery mess. I knew that neither Sarah nor Kai had a gun on them, so instead of dodging all of the debris, I chucked the pistol towards the 2 of them.

Pain. Nothing but pain. Among the fire and blood and broken bones, I could hear Kai and Sarah crying, "DANNY!"

More dialogue followed, but I couldn't hear what was said.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out, hopefully from Kai or Sarah firing my gun.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Each shot grew smaller in loudness. Then everything went black.

I woke up as if I had a bad dream, but I could only hope that what happened was a nightmare. I squirmed around from underneath the rubble, trying to find an escape. I pushed and pushed the debris aside until the crisp, cool air reached my skin. I pulled myself out of the destroyed scaffolding until I was free. The full moon's light shined dimly on my face. I looked over at where Yaaseen was. Just a blood stain remained in the sand. His walker was roaming around with a group of others, trying to find a midnight snack. When a wooden beam from the remains beneath me snapped, a turn in the direction of the horde brought me to believe that I was their next meal. Then all of a sudden, headlights beamed on my face. A nearby rumbling caught my attention, as well as all of the corpses. The black painted school bus emitting the light and noise sped right through the opened gateway and mowed down a group of the walkers.

6 men in camouflage clothing vacated the vehicle, most held combat knives. Others held other melee weapons. The 1 closest to me had a long chain. That's when the reanimated corpse of Yaaseen, a survivor from the bus, began crawling up the rubble to me.

"HELP ME!" I screamed for the men to save me.

The one with the chain yanked the walker by the sweatshirt hood to the dirt. He swung his chain from behind his back, over his head, and smashed down the series of metallic links into the corpse's head, dooming it upon impact. The man climbed up the ruins and helped me down. This was the first time that I had been able to see my injuries. I was bruised all over, but it was apparent that my left leg was broken and singed.

"Geez," the man said. "What happened here?"

"We were attacked," I told him. "Just a few hours ago."

"We need to get you fixed up. There's a medic in the bus. We can take you with us for as long as you need to heal."

"Thank you so much," I smiled at his generosity.

After I was being casted, I introduced myself to all of the others. They were part of the Nevada military. Hopefully, they weren't too in such with the air force. The youngest one, who wielded the chain, was named Nick. The others refused to speak to me, even the medic, in fear that I was bad, but Nick was very kind. He offered me food and water when I had already taken so much of it from him.

"I need to find my friends, they got out from the battle," I told everyone.

"No way, we just saved you," 1 of them shot me down. "You need to stay with us until you've paid your debt."

Sounded a lot like slavery.

"But they need me," I begged.

"We just spent half of our resources on you!" Nick chucked in disbelief. "The least you could do is stay for a week or 2."

I had a slight feeling that they wouldn't let me go, even after those 2 weeks. So I had no other choice but to sneak away. Luckily, they hadn't moved the bus since they had healed me. Every man was asleep, so I had to be very quiet. I slowly maneuvered myself to the front of the bus where I creaked open the door. Before I hopped off, I snatched a revolver off of the dashboard and hobbled away.

To my surprise, a full scale search party didn't come hunt me down. After hours of dragging my bad leg through the dark forest, I came across a house. I reached the door, but didn't open it. I heard a soft scream come from inside, followed by a small conversation. I found a window that allowed me small access to peer at the inside of the room with the talking. The only thing that I saw was my Desert Eagle sitting on the nightstand. I was so happy. It must have Kai and Sarah in there, so I burst the door open without thinking that it could have been just 1 of Yaaseen's men who stole the pistol. They knew that I was in the house regardless, so I pulled back the hammer on the loaded revolver, which spun the ammo cylinder. I walked out from the shadows until I could see 2 people laying on a pullout couch.

"DANNY!" Kai and Sarah yelled simultaneously as they jumped out of the bed to hug me. The affection was painful, being that I was covered in bruises, but I didn't see the others having untouched skin either.

"How are you alive?" Sarah asked.

"These people came to the base a few hours ago and brought me back to health," I answered. "I left them in the middle of the night to find you all."

"Don't you think that they'll be looking for you?" Kai asked.

"Most definitely, which is why we have to get to San Diego in the morning."

"You want the bed?" They both wondered.

"No, I'll be fine in a chair."

I plopped down on a recliner and dozed off.