The First 30 Days (PUBLISHED)

Thirty - Day 15

"Bri," Shawn was already hurrying towards me in the darkened cafeteria.

"I saw it." I whispered back, clambering off of the chair.

"Go wake everyone up. Make sure they stay quiet," he took up a position watching out my window.

Careful not to bump into anything, I hurried into the office. The door to the next room was open and I could see the shapes of sleeping people on the floor. The room was not that large, and floor space was basically nonexistent with so many bodies stretched out in there.

I hissed through the doorway, "Get up!"

It didn't take much to rouse everyone after living on the edge like we had been. My second whispered hiss had everyone coming to attention.

"What's wrong?" Fallon shoved her hair from her face as she sat up on the couch.

"I don't know, but something's not right."

They all struggled to their feet, weapons coming out from where they had stashed them. The new group seemed particularly on edge, reminding me that they had been on the road for a lot longer than I had been.

Maya began stuffing her backpack with everything she could get her hands on. It took me a second to realize that she was preparing to have to run. It had happened to them before, and I suddenly felt ill prepared if we did have to leave the camp. Grabbing Shawn's backpack from where he had left it on the desk, I started stuffing bottles of water and the last of the food in it.

Everyone else had crept from the office by the time Maya and I had filled the two bags. Zipping mine closed, I followed Maya through the door.

The thought of having to leave the camp was terrifying. At first, this place had been creepy, but we had started to settle in here. I knew that being out on the road had to be worse.

Everyone had crowded around a few windows near the door. Tension crackled in the air as they watched outside.

I climbed back on my chair. The night outside was still too silent.

It couldn't have been much more than a minute, maybe two, since that deer charged from the gloom. Now, as we all watched, something else moved in the darkness.

A lot of something else's.

Zombies emerged from the fog by the dozen. They stumbled over fallen branches, got tangled in thick briar bushes, and limped along on damaged and rotting limbs. A few still moved with the fluid, fast movements that most of the zombies I'd seen before used, but most of them now more closely resembled the zombie that had managed to break into the cafeteria. I shuddered at the sheer number of them.

I don't know who gasped to my right, but I could only imagine that whoever it was, was as terrified as I was. We all froze in place, afraid that the smallest movement would give us away to the horde.

They wandered into the clearing, meandering along, clearly with no destination in mind. The silence was more unnerving than anything else. I had gotten used to the screams and snarls that always seemed to announce their presence. For whatever reason, the zombies outside made none of those noises. A few low growls made it through the walls, but that was all.

I didn't even want to think of the implications if the zombies became silent predators.

One uncoordinated zombie tripped over her own feet and crashed onto the hood of the jeep. The noise seemed to stir the others up a bit, and their movements collectively became more hurried. One zombie who still zipped around the clearing with speed, screeched.