midst of death

Chapter Two

~Chance~

"Tony, what the hell are you doing?" I asked, laughing.  

Tony was standing by the river, examining the rocks that crossed over to the other side. The only problem was that they had to be at least four feet between each one, and they were all different sizes. I shook my head, laughing even harder at the concentrated look on his face. He looked like he was really considering hopping across, and knowing him, he was going to be a dork and do it. 

He was wearing a blood-stained gray muscle shirt and his jeans were very tattered, like mine. My black Three Days Grace T-shirt was ripping, and I was sure that not many people had Three Days Grace T-shirts stashed in a dresser at a long lost and forgotten home. I didn't care, but I seriously needed fresh clothes. 

His army cut brown hair was blood matted and dirty, his face streaked with blood, along with his arms. I didn't look much better, and the river water rushing by confirmed with a bubbling whisper. My longer brown hair was even more matted and dirty than his, because I preferred up-close-and-personal fighting because I had personal reasons for beating the shit out of them. He preferred the Glock, though we had a fun time finding clips for it. My hunting knife was big enough so I wouldn't get mauled by them. 

Finally I had enough of the filthy feeling so I just jumped into the river, clothes and all. Tony watched me jump in and hollered, "How does it feel?" 

I whipped my hair out of my face and yelled, "Like Heaven!" He laughed and jumped in after me. I scrubbed at my face and arms, and tried to get as much blood out of my hair as possible. Tony was just screwing around, fighting with the current and surprisingly, he was winning. That kid was such a dork, but it would've been hard to survive without him. He was so badass when it came to killing things, but he almost always got killed in he process. He was so stupid but he had a sense of humor and that made things so much easier in this time. 

I washed most of the blood and grime off of me so I waded over to the bank and pulled myself up out of the river. My clothes were dripping wet, but most of the blood had somehow washed out of them. I shook my hair out and watched Tony carefully. The last thing I needed was him getting hurt and me having to leave him behind.  

I still remembered the days before all this happened. I remember exactly what period I was in when we had to hide, 6th period English. I remember the weather, a pouring down rain all day. I especially remember the girl that I hid with. Her short brown hair had been unruly, and she was freaking out because she couldn't find her friend. She was anguished, and I remember her talking with her hands, the deaf girl. And no one but her friend really bothered to learn the signing language, except for me.  

I also remember how I helped them escape the hellhole that had gotten compromised. They had been terrified, but at least they had finally found each other. I pushed open the door and forced them out the door. They stumbled out, and I winced. I hadn't meant to be so rough. The halls were filled with screams and death moans. I pulled them down the hallway to a flight of stairs leading up to the third floor. The classrooms up here were strangely quiet, and it sounded eerily silent compared to the rest of the school. "Ok, we're going to have to find a fire escape, and hurry. We don't have much time before they sense us and come up." They nodded, terrified, and they looked at each other before they split up. I went with the one with the long hair, to help her find one. With my back turned to the other one, I didn't see her signing frantically. She started making a lot of noise, banging the lockers to get our attention. "Shhhhhh!" I said frantically. "They'll hear you and come after us!" Of course I had forgotten that she was deaf so she kept on doing it. Her friend quickly signed to her exactly what I said, and she began motioning us over to her. We quickly realized that she had found the fire escape, and just as we met up with her we heard death moans echoing ip the stairs. I looked at the long haired girl and said, "I'll hold them off for as long as I can, but I need you to promise to run and keep running. Don't trust anyone you meet, learn to use weapons when you find any and don't waste ammunition. If I don't come out, don't worry because I'll always look after you two, even if I don't know you personally." She looked at me with sadness in her eyes, like she wanted me to come with them, and I really wanted to, but I had to keep the zombies from attacking them. "Trust me," I whispered. She nodded and took her friends hand and helped her up to the fire escape first and then helped herself up. I watched carefully as they slipped away silently, hoping desperately that they would live. I then turned to face my fate. 

It was hard to believe thay almost everyone we grew up with were dead. And I was fairly sure that those two girls were dead. 

"Chance.... Chance, hey bro, wake up!" Tony was waving his hand in front of my face. I snapped out of the flashback. I hated reliving the past, and I got cold chills every time I relived this certain one. I walked over to the river and splashed more river water on my face. I groaned and threw myself on the ground. Tony sat down slowly, and he knew that something was up again. "Is it about the girls?" he asked.  

"Yeah... I can't stop thinking about them. I don't know if they are alive or not, or if we will ever meet up with them again." 

"Dude, it's the zombie apocalypse, I doubt that we will see them again. Stop living in the past, we have to live here in the present, Chance, we have to live." 

I stared into the dead forest. I knew he had a point, but I wanted to refuse to believe it.