Beside the Dying Fire

Sarah's POV

"Is he okay?" I asked Savannah.

"He was just hit by a car. Leo's taking care of him." she answered.

"That's not what I meant. Do you think he's mentally okay?"

"Sarah, he killed Nate for no reason. Nate was his friend. He is insane."

"Leo said that he was dead when we left him. If we thought that he still had the smallest bit of life left, we would've fought like Hell to bring him with us," I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Speaking of which, how's Leo doing? How did he take the news?"

"He was surprised. He gave him as much treatment as he was to Danny."

"Danny's in the hospital?!" I gasped.

"Yeah," she said with a 'Duh' voice. "He was supposed to keep me from going after Kai, but I got the upper hand on him."

"How many limbs is he missing?" I honestly asked.

"Relax, it was just a few cuts," she assured me before changing the subject. "Ooh, Sydney and Hannah invited us, as well as the new ones, to spend the night at Syndey's apartment."

"But tonight's Christmas Eve," I pointed out. "We said that we would spend Christmas Eve with Kai and Danny. In out house."

"Danny's hospitalized and Kai isn't coming back unless he's somehow found you or he shambles back as a walker. We can go out and find him another night, but tonight we're not going to spend Christmas alone."

"But... I..." I couldn't think of any reason not to go. "Fine."

"You guys made it!" Sydney exclaimed as we entered the room. Besides her the was Hannah, Sree, and Laila in the room. Sree and Laila were simply just talking to each other, but Hannah was in the corner, being antisocial. She gripped her shoulder and looked super defensive

"So what are we going to do?" I asked her.

"Well," Laila stood up and invited us to the couch. "We were hoping that you two would bless us with some of your stories about you guys being out on your own."

I glared at Savannah, but she rolled her eyes at me. Well, eye.

"Alright, children," Savannah sat down and began to tell a tale. "This is the story of how I lost my eye. After 6 months of our group being out on our own, we returned to our home that we were thrown from. I was greeted by this kid in the armory. Blew my eye out with a crowbar, I blew his brains out with a pistol. I was brought to the hospital where Leo saved me. That was the first time that I had also met Leo. The next day, Sarah was bitten by a dead baby and had to shoot her pinkie finger off."

"Hey, you should let me tell my own stories," I joked.

"You call that a story?" Sree laughed. "This is a story: one dark and stormy night about 3 years into all of this madness, there were three men. They were a part of this group, just about a dozen people in this group. This place was surrounded with high, sturdy walls. One night, these three men got drunk. They were celebrating something, I'm not sure. They decided to open the gates of the community because they thought that they could take on an entire herd of walkers by throwing their beer bottles at the lurkers. In the process, two of the defenders on the wall died, leaving the guilt with the three men. However, one woman saw the men open the gates and she was the only other that knew. The men were so paranoid that she would tell the rest of the community that they grouped together and beat her to death. After seeing her dead body on the ground there, they didn't even trust each other not to tell someone else. They raced each other to the armory, pushing each other out of the way and throwing punches. Once they all were in the armory, each man grabbed two pistols and pointed them at the man to his left and right. These men had been best friends since they were in high school a good year before the eaters. Then after all of that stress and paranoia got to their heads' in that moment, they shot at each other and all died."

"That didn't happen," Hannah scoffed rudely.

Savannah and I looked at each other and smiled.

"Shun the non-believers!" I jokingly yelled.

"Shuuuuuuuuuuuun!" she tagged along.

"Shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!" I finished it off.

We both cracked up laughing.

"What the Hell?" Hannah looked at us strange.

I explained, "Two years before everything broke out, we found this stupid video on YouTube. What we said was just a reference to it."

"But anyways," Laila brought us back on topic, "the story is true. I was a part of that group and I heard the gunshots. When I went to investigate, I saw someone there."

"IT WAS ME!" Sree giggled. "That's how the two of us met."

"I don't believe it. I don't feel good. I'm going to go sleep," Hannah stood up with a pissed-off look on her face and went into Sydney's bedroom.

"Hannah, don't be that way," Sydney complained.

"Let her be. We can still have a good Christmas Eve," Savannah told the rest of us.

She was right. That night would be fun. We popped the movie A Christmas Story into the DVD player and watched it twice. I had never seen it before and I loved it. It brought a ton of new references for Savannah and I to share.

Suddenly, an alarm began beeping.

"Ooh!" Sydney got excited. "That means that it's midnight! Merry Christmas, everyone."

We all cheered, even Sree who didn't celebrate Christmas.

"Should I wake up Hannah?" I asked.

"I don't think she'll like you waking her." Laila responded.

"Too bad."

I opened the door.

"Hannah, get up. It's Christmas!"

She groaned on account of having to wake up. I do that every morning. However I got worried when the groaning continued. She emerged out of the shadows and came into the light. Her eyes were faded and she looked so very pale. She had become a walker.

Her reanimated corpse tackled me to the ground behind me through the doorway so that everyone could see. I could hear screaming from behind me. People were freaking out, most likely just Savannah, Sree, and Laila trying to take action while Sydney was stopping them. I wouldn't listen. I couldn't listen. I was too focused on not getting bitten. Not again. It was hard dealing with someone freshly reanimated. They still had the same strength as a human, but had the mindset of a murderer.

Bang!

Hannah's walker flew to the side as a bullet penetrated her skull, spewing blood onto my face. I looked at Sydney. With tears in her eyes, she held a .357 revolver with smoke trailing out the end. I looked back at Hannah. The neck hole on her shirt was pulled more open by her shoulder, revealing a bite wound. Back to Sydney, she didn't put the gun down. Rather, she did the opposite. She pointed it at me.

"Sydney, what are you doing?" I asked.

"YOU COULD'VE BROUGHT HER BACK WITH LEO! IF SHE HAD JUST LEFT THE FLICKERS' PLACE, SHE WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN BITTEN! NEITHER YOU NOR LEO WOULD'VE LET THAT HAPPEN!" she screamed at me.

Savannah tried knocking the gun out of her hands, but Sydney pointed the firearm at her.

"PUT IT DOWN!" Sree screeched.

"Come on, Sydney," I tried persuading her to put it down.

She began to scream at the top of her lungs. Then before I could react, before I could even realize what was happening, she took the barrel of the pistol with her two hands, held it up to her own ear, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!