Fighter

Chapter 6: New Faces

I can’t remember the last time I actually slept, let alone in an actual bed. The morning sun shines through my window and hits me directly in the eyes.  I squint trying to avoid it, but it does nothing. My eyes flutter open as I stretch out my arms and legs, letting out quiet groans. I stand up carefully trying not to wake up Chewy as he lightly snores on my bed. I grab my toiletries and head to the washroom. I step in the shower and allow the hot water the rid the sleep from my body.  After my shower I wrap my towel around my hair and change into a pair of black yoga pants, a tank top and combat boots and wrap my tack belt around my waist.

“Derek! Josh!” I call as I finish towel drying my hair.

“Kitchen!” They answer as I brush my hair into a messy bun. I pop into my room and grab Chewy off my bed. He’s still passed out. I hop down the stairs and as I make my way to the kitchen to join Derek, Josh and Biscuit along with the smell of bacon and eggs fill the air. Chewy’s eyes practically pop out of his head and my mouth is probably drooling when I enter the kitchen to find a plate literally with my name on it with a bacon and egg smiley face with a slice of bread and a glass of orange juice on the side.

“And this,” I say lifting a piece of bacon up with my fork, “is why I love you guys!” I laugh taking a bite of the bacon and giving them a quick hug and throwing a piece to Chewy.

“Okay, okay hurry up and eat.” Derek says as he begins cleaning up. “We gotta a big day ahead of us, we have to go to the store and get more food, we have to build a barrier around the front gate to stop Walkers from getting close to the house, we need to get the rest of the stuff from the jeep.” He lists.

“Yes sir!” I say saluting him and eating another piece of bacon.

***

After breakfast, we pack a few things in our gear bags. We put the leaches around the dogs and Derek is standing by the front door.

“Well we can’t get out from there; we can’t break a window because Granddad installed bullet-proof glass last summer…” he begins to list. “We could go through the cellar in the basement?” he suggests turning to face Josh and I.

“How ‘bout  instead of going through the cellar… we just crawl out of the little window in the laundry room? Like when we were kids? It’s on the main floor and it would save us a shit load of time.” I suggest.

“Yeah… yeah sound good.”

***

We walk down the street towards the store and it seems so… peaceful… so serene… so empty. To empty, where the hell are all the Walkers? Just as the though pops into my head a Walker stumbles out from behind a car. I look over to my brothers and nod my head; I take out my boot knife and throw it into the Walkers head, right between the eyes.

“Bulls eye.” I whisper as I walk over to the dead Walker and yank my knife out of its head and wipe the blood on its shirt before I stuff it back into my boot.  Once again I thank Granddad for being an ex-marine, and him teaching Mom and Uncle Nicki all he knew, and them teaching us what they knew. Before all this, kids would think we’re weird, not just for being supper smart, but for us having a gun collection and all but come on, we’re in America for God sake, and our Uncle was a cop like come on, but now they would look up to us for our survival knowledge. I am interrupted from my inner babble by Derek nudging me with his elbow.

“We’re here.” He says pointing towards the store. We walk up to the front of the store to find the front door chained shut. Great!

“Looks like we’re going around.” Josh says as I kick the door and walking around to the back. “I made a list of ‘needs’ and ‘wants’.” Josh says from behind us, I turn to see him digging in his pockets and he pulls out a crumbled piece of paper and hands it to me.