Dead as Time

Chapter 11-Alyssa

The smell of espresso fills the air. I quietly squeeze out of Michael's arms. I go downstairs to see Andrew shirtless messing with my espresso maker. I make a small huff noise and his sights shoot to me. "Um, hey. You know how to work this?" he asks dumbly. "Yeah. Let me see" I respond walking over to the espresso maker. I follow his sights which seem to be at my chest and I realize I wasn't wearing a bra and only a light purple camisole. I quickly turn away after starting the machine. "Okay I'll um, see you later" he says to me, I don't reply. I walk up the stairs swiftly and climb back into bed with Michael. I don't tell him what happened.

Seeing Andrew again at lunch was awkward. No words are shared between us and the parents start to get suspicious. "Okay, how about we curve around the mall this way and go into the back entrance then we sneak up behind the Crazies and wipe them out" I say as I drag my finger around the map of South Ridgeway mall. "But are you sure you made a good evaluation of how many there are?" Christopher Martinez asks me. I shoot him a dirty look, "No I just walked up then walked back. Of course I did. If I didn't we wouldn't even be risking the trip."

The plan was set and we all started packing up. Ashley and Melissa stayed home with the kids, everyone else came with me. It took 30 minutes to walk there and we did one last scope around the mall. A small man was in the space between the outside entrance and inside entrance to the mall. The Crazies were focused on him. We snuck up to the Crazies on the outside and let the man out. "Thank you! Thank you, so much! I felt I was running out of luck and was gonna become dinner soon" the man says in excitement. Jim stays back and talks to the newly found man.

Michael and I go up to the inside glass doors and see about 12 Crazies. I have Michael open the middle door and they start coming out slowly making it easier to kill them off. I let Michael kill the last three while I hold the door open. When we're done Jim and the rest follow us in. "Okay Michael and I will take the upstairs everyone else down here" I say walking backwards. "Can I go with you guys?" Andrew says from behind the group. I sigh thinking about him staring at my basically bare chest, "Yeah sure, stay close and quiet. Got it?" "Yeah got it" he replies nervously.

We split from the group and headed up the stairs. Once on the second floor, we filled our bags with things we found. I got mostly clothes. As I'm finishing putting a shirt in my bag Andrew comes up behind me. I realize something's behind me so I whip around and press my pistol to his forehead. "Woah! Damn! It's Andrew!" he screams. I immediately pull the pistol away. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry. You can't just sneak up on people like that. Newsflash, you're probably going to get shot" I reply back with attitude. He puts his hands on his hips, "Who bit you sassy pants?" I look at him dumbly, "Hmm I wonder who." "What did I do?" he replies snappy. I fold my arms and roll my eyes, "Well let's see, constantly flirting, staring at my chest without a bra? Really respectful." Just then Michael walks over and joins the convo.

"What's a.. goin on guys?" he says staring at me. "Well me and Andrew's fine conversation is just ending. Let's go find the rest of the group now" I reply back snapping again. Andrew rolled his eyes and staggered far behind Michael and I. By the time we get downstairs Andrew is no longer behind us. "Michael wait. Andrew" I call to Michael. We turn around and hurredly go back upstairs.

"Help! Help!" we hear Andrew call. We run towards the call and see a distressed Andrew trapped in a corner with three Crazies closing in. Running as fast as we can, we make it over to Andrew just in time for a Crazy to sink its teeth into his arm that he was holding up for defense. Dumbass. His screams fill the air. The rest of the Crazies dig in as David and everyone else gets upstairs.

"Andrew! No!" David yells as he runs over to his son, "What happened!? I thought you were going to protect him!" I gasped, thinking about how he is blaming us for his son being a dumbass, "Us? This is not our fault! We tried to help him!" I screams back in defense. "Listen, it's no one's fault. We all know death is inevitable in this world we live in. It does nothing to blame anyone" Emily yells out from the back of the group. The mall goes silent as David grieves over Andrew.