The Land of The Dead

Seperation

We had been walking for an hour already, no sign of Mom, Dad, John, Michelle, Kenzie or May. "Hey, slow down, we will find them." Said Linea, walking next to me. "I know we will... I just want to know they are safe." I said, continuing to walk the same speed as before. The hours passed and it started getting darker and darker, until we had to stop. "Wait, did you hear that?" I said. There it was again. "Is that a car door?" Whispered Chris. "Let's go check it out." He headed over and flung the door open. "Oh my god..."

The moment I peeked inside, I wished I hadn't. What we heard was a zombie with its hand nailed to the door. "I guess he didn't want to hurt people after turning." Said Ranae. "He's not hurting anybody, let's just leave him alone." We nodded in agreement but, just as we were starting to walk away, I saw something in the passenger seat. "Wait, is that a filtered water bottle?" I walked over to the locked passenger door and broke the window. "We will need this." I said, cleaning the nozzle. I stopped talking and listened... We heard the shuffling of feet. We all had the same idea and slid under a large truck next to us, keeping as quiet as possible. As we watched, a whole group of zombies walked past. "That must be the same group." I mouthed to them. We waited for what seemed to be a never ending horde.

After laying still for hours, the horde dispersed and ran off into the woods. "Give it a few minutes." I whispered, just hoping to make sure they're gone.

"I think we're good." Said Chris, sliding out from under the truck. We all followed him and brushed off our clothes. 'I hope the rest didn't run into them.' I thought to myself. We kept walking and watching for the group but they were all off in the woods. After a few minutes, we saw it. There was the store. I started sprinting toward it, but stopped dead in my tracks when I saw group of looters inside, throwing things in bags and destroying things they don't like or want. Seconds later, my mouth was covered and i was pulled into the woods.

I pushed Chris off of me and I watched from behind a tree. As I began to come up with a plan, another person charged in and tackled one of the looters, as the other dropped like a stone and a splash of red hit the wall. "Drop your weapons." He yelled to us. Not questioning how he saw us, I walked over, keeping my pocket knife hidden. "Are you alright?" I asked the guy. "I am," He said, turning to look at me. As he did, I realized I knew him. This was James, a tall, brown haired, muscular guy. He was the opposite of me in every way but we were still the best of friends.

"Where have you been?!" I shouted, glad my best friend was alive and pretty much unharmed. "We've been travelling around, protecting each other, on our way to the base." He told me, picking up a Pringles container. "Wait, who is we?" I asked. He whistled and two familiar faces walked out of the woods, one wounded on the leg, the other on the shoulder. "You know Joseph and Ann." Joseph was also my best friend, we had actually been friends for longer than James and I. Joseph was a bit shorter than I am, with black hair and a muscular, skinny build. He also had freckles and slightly tan skin. Ann was someone I knew very well because she was my ex. I cant say I didn't still have feelings for her because she was very smart and beautiful. She too was shorter than I am, she had dark brown hair that was always braided and tan skin, her eyes change colors.

I ran over and helped them both to the bench outside the store. "How did you both get injured?" I asked them. I figured it was a gun shot because it was just a hole, not a bite mark. "We were shot. By the same bullet." Said Joseph. " It went through my shoulder and hit her in the leg, lucky for us, it did not hit something important." I pondered how they could both be hit in entirely different spots without being several feet away. They must have noticed my wonder. "The man was on the roof and missed his head." Said Ann. "James saved our lives." He was inside so he didn't hear. I helped Joseph up so I could talk to him. "Brad, I'm just going to take a nap for a while." And Ann stood up and hobbled inside. "We have a lot to talk about."

"We need to get there." James was telling us his plan. "The middle school could be made into a defense system on the main floor and a living space up top." Linea, Ranae, Chris and I decided to stick with them for a while. "Well, I remember there was a group of people who always said they would be there." I remembered in 7th grade all the groups who had a plan. There were the people who were going to a store, people staying home, people leaving the country and then the people who didn't believe that a cannibalistic virus could ever happen. Well, those people were wrong.

"Let's try to find a ride. One with keys."

"There is one up the road, I figured it would be too loud to use, but it has keys and if we go fast, they wont be able to follow very easily." Said Joseph from across the room.

"If we leave now, we can get there under cover of darkness." I looked out a window to see he was right. Had that much time passed already? "Let's do it. We can pick up supplies from Dubois, if the car is big enough."

He looked over to me, "Oh yeah, it's a Raptor."

Getting there was the easy part. We jogged down the road, saw a few zombies, killed them and made it to the truck. Easy.

Now the hard part was getting the to the middle school without attracting too many zombies.