Bloodlust

Chapter 1 - Adventure Time

The crazies. The weirdos. The idiots. That was just a few of the names that the people at Steelwood Stronghold called me and my friend Ethan Wood. They were kinda right. We always climbed over the fence and teased the zombies. We only hunted certain zombies at certain times though. We weren't that crazy.

The zombies we looked for were the Stalkers, Runners, Swifts, and Sirens. They were the less lethal. The Spores and Nightwalkers were worse. The Nightwalkers were one of the reasons why we only went out during the day. We never go out at night. That's when they were most powerful. That's also the only time when they came out. The other reason was because I had Nyctophobia, the fear of darkness. I was fine if there was someone with me, but if I was alone, I was afraid. Nobody but Ethan knew about my phobia.

As we climbed the gate armed with machetes, axes, and nail covered baseball bats, since ammo for guns ran out in the first wave. Ethan looked over at me, a grin on his face. His sandy brown hair paired nicely with his ocean blue eyes. I, on the other hand, had night black hair and cool gray eyes. Ethan always called me a witch because if that.

"You ready?" He asked me, holding his machete in his right hand.

I nodded. "Totally."

I was left handed, which didn't help my cause with Ethan calling me a witch. He also didn't understand how I could hold a pencil.

We ran out into the woods, which held zombies, mainly normal ones, that were lured away from the Stronghold. We went into the vast forest so many times that we knew where to put our feet, where every root and twig was, and what was poison ivy and what wasn't, which was surprisingly not common knowledge here. The light filtered through the leaves, leaving small light patches on the ground. It was one of the few beautiful things left in the world.

We erupted on the other side of the small woods, entering a small town. There was probably only twenty to thirty houses here, and it held plenty of zombies. Ethan pointed to a zombie that was limping down the street towards us, its right leg twisted in such a way I guessed that it was broken. It was missing half of its left arm, and there was blood on its head.

"You want it?" Ethan asked me.

I shook my head. The last time we went out I got the first and last zombie. "You go ahead."

He smiled gleefully and raised his machete. The zombie let out a feral growl, barring its bloodstained teeth. I crosser my arms as Ethan stopped a few feet away from it. The zombie launched itself at him, which he easily dodged. It growled in rage and spun around, swiping at him with its right arm. Ethan leaned back before finally taking a swipe at it. He cut the side of its neck. It healed instantly, but made it angrier non the less.

"Hurry up, Ethan," I called to him. "By the time your done every zombie in town would have left."

Ethan mock glared in my direction, but sped up the attack. When the zombie lunged at him again, be grabbed it by the hair and threw it on the ground. Before it managed to stand back up, be already cut off its head. With the machete still between the head and body, he kicked the head away so it wouldn't heal and come back to life.

"Happy now?" he asked me, getting a bloodstained rag out of his pocket and cleaning off the blade. I nodded.

"Kinda."

I glanced up at the sky, which was steadily turning orange and pink. "We chose a bad time to come out," I whispered.

Ethan nodded, glancing at me. "You want to go back? You can have the first two tomorrow."

I stayed silent for a moment. "Maybe just one more," I finally suggested.

He grinned. We walked through town, looking for zombies or something to pick up. Whenever we left the Stronghold, we brought two large backpacks. Ethan's was filled with medical supplies, snacks, drinks, and a large flashlight. Mine was empty, just in case we stumbled across a store with in-date food, batteries, or anything else we needed. We entered a small grocery store, and the first thing we heard was a growl. The next thing we seen was a female zombie, nothing wrong with her but a bite mark on her arm. She obviously wasn't a zombie for long. Her eyes darted between Ethan and me, her red eyes glowing brightly. She looked like she was going to spring at any moment, which meant that she was a Swift.

I chose the ax and walked towards her. She barred her teeth and let out a ferocious snarl, trying to chase us out of her den. I quickly advanced, cleanly swiping the ax through her neck before she could move. I didn't have to move the head, since it rolled far away from the body. We then looked around the small store. Ethan found six packs of Energizer batteries. I grabbed some Lay's chips and Gatorade. There was also some cough medicine, which I decided to grab, since the Stronghold ran out a few weeks ago.

"Ready to go?" Ethan asked me, pointing over his shoulder to the outside, which was steadily growing darker.

I nodded. "Yeah. Let's go."

We left the town without running into any more zombies. We were the only ones brave enough to leave the Stronghold. Anyone who did leave left in packs and that was only when they were going to neighboring Stronghold's to trade. We made it through the woods and climbed over the fence as soon as it got dark. We snuck into building two unnoticed. We weren't supposed to be out after dark. No one under eighteen was. I had two more years before I was aloud, but Ethan only had one. I didn't think it was fair though, since nothing really bad could happen. No Nightwalker's could get across the fence, because there was bright lights around the perimeter.

Ethan said goodnight to me and went into his room. I walked down the hall towards my room. I twisted the old yellow knob to my door and opened it. Then I heard a stern voice behind me.

"Selena!"