The Dead Roaming

Fears

I wake up in a cold sweat. I try to catch my breath but it feels like there is a weight on my chest. Tears start streaming down my face once again because I'm having the same night terror. It has been a month since I lost my father, yet the same nightmare comes to haunt me every single night. I could've done something. I'm not sure what, but I should have at least tried. I swing my feet over the top edge and plunge for the ground. I hear a snap as my feet hit the ground to find my sister hasn't picked up her crayons still as I trudge for the spicket.

    While dowsing my face with water and giving my stomach the luxury to snag a few handfuls, I focus to what I've been doing lately. We've taken in a few more survivors since that night... There's two boys who look about the age of sixteen or seventeen. They're identical twins named Elijah and Isaiah. I haven't really found a way to tell them apart yet and they tell me time and time again who's who, but I still have no idea. They remind me of the Sprouse Twins from the "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody" to be honest. They are lean with dirty blonde hair and piercing green eyes.

    We really need supplies right now. Especially first aid because Mary, who cooks to forget about the loss of her husband and Trevor, cut herself pretty badly. It had to be at least a centimeter deep. All I know is my mom had to use her sewing kit to stitch it up.

    I casually walk up to one of the twins and start a conversation. The usually, "Hey, how are you doing?" Hoping it's a better answer than the previous day, but we all know it doesn't get any better. I disrupt our normal conversation to get to the real talk,

    "Hey, can I talk to you?"

    "Sure! What's wrong Nate?"

    "We need first aid supplies. Mary could really use it. The cuts starting to look infected. Plus maybe we could find some candy or something and shed a little light and positivity for once."

    "I completely agree. That'd be nice honestly, I think we all need a little change around here. Find some happiness. When did you want to head out?"

    "In a half an hour, I'll come get you." I cringe at what I have just said. If my father never said those words to me, he'd still be here right now. I shake the thought out of my head and continue on, "I need you to get your brother to go as well..."

    "I'll try, but you remember what happened last time. Isaiah still hasn't quite been the same since then."

    Last time we had went on a run, we were in a convenience store gathering up some stuff for the women and kids, pretty much anything I guess. Isaiah pointed across the street and said, "I'll check the one right over there!" We thought he would be fine but when Elijah and I roamed out of the store we heard those dreadful moans and found where they were coming from. Isaiah was trapped down an alley in a corner by a swarm of them, only shielded by dumpsters.

    "That's right. God, I feel bad for what happened... Just ask and if he doesn't want to, don't force him. You and I should be just fine." The last thing we need is for Isaiah to choke up and end up getting hurt or worse, killed.

    "Alright! Meet you in a little bit then!" Elijah responds eagerly and we head our separate ways for the time being. I grab a few backpacks and put some supplies in them like water, flashlights, knives and lighters, you know the usual. I learned my lesson early on that you need to be prepared for anything. So you tell those you love that you love them and most importantly, bring a weapon and keep it in hand.

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    I didn't even have to get Elijah because he comes waltzing up to me ready to go, grabbing one of the backpacks and securing it on. I'm always nervous about going out, especially with people, but  I can't carry all of the supplies we need by myself so I don't have a choice. I have to bring someone with me. If it were just me, I'd only be risking my own life, but now if I lead us into a dead end, it's risking theirs too.

    "Isaiah didn't want to go, he practically shot me down right away on the idea." Elijah explains to me, but I'm not surprised. I wouldn't want to venture out just yet either if I was him. I remember that I didn't go out nor did I let anybody else leave when I lost my father and the rest of the men. When push came to shove, I had to go out. We needed the supplies and I knew I was the only one that could. I'm not going to lie, it was hard for me. What would've been a fifteen minute run turned into a two hour run because I was so nervous. Better safe than sorry I guess. In that same run though, I found Elijah and Isaiah in the process.

    Their story is a horrific one, nothing anyone should ever go through. That day I went out on my run, Elijah, Isaiah and their seven year old sister were hiding in a closet as men showed up busting down their door, shooting at the ceiling. The men started looting the house and took all of their supplies, ending their tirade by tying their father to a chair and sexually molesting their mother right in front of him. They then shot both their mother and father, but right before they were about to leave their little sister ran out of the closet crying and screaming. They couldn't stop her and they helplessly watched as she collapsed onto her parents corpses. Isaiah stated that they snickered at her mourning and shot her immediately. That's not even the worst part, they said that after the men left and enough time had went by, that they thought it would be safe, their parents and little sister started turning. They weren't the same anymore, they were one of them. One of the dead. Then I found them.

We head up the ladder with our packs and I open the old, creaky hatch that I've learned to love. It's early morning, if there's anything that I've learned, it's that things are quieter in the morning opposed to night. Plus we can see what is happening around us. I've never made a night run again...

I have a little piece of coloring book paper that I had to bribe off my little sister that has a list of things that I need to look out for.

First Aid Supplies

WATER

Candy (or any food for that matter)  

Clothes

More crayons...

    We jogged to a close by house and peeked around the corner. Body parts litter the ground and there is garbage scattered everywhere. We see some movement about a block away rummaging through something or maybe someone. We move a little closer to investigate what is going on. We see a tiny figure moving around. There is a body on the ground and I couldn't believe who it was. It was my teacher who was seven months pregnant. She didn't make it but it seems that the baby had turned inside of her and ate its way out of her stomach and is now eating away at her face. By the time we reached her mangled body, her cheek and nose were gone and the turned newborn looks up for a split second, choking on a piece of her skin protrudes out of his mouth. It then goes back to feeding on her once again. I give the two mercy and we continue on with our run. We don't speak about it as if we didn't see anything.