Bloodlust

Chapter 2 - The Death of Me

I winced and slowly turned around. There is seen my foster mother, a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips. Her light brown hair was in a bun, gray streaks running though it, showing her age. Her name was Mary McDaniel, but she insisted that I call her mom. My parents died during the first wave. We were on our way to a Stronghold when our car ran out of gas. Then two Runner's attacked, killing them. The only reason I escaped was because of a small group of people came and killed the zombies.

"Hi," I said slowly with a feeble smile on my face.

"Where where you?" She demanded, ignoring my greeting.

"The cafeteria," I replied a little too quickly.

I knew as soon as I said it that she didn't believe me. Her eyes darted to my bag, and the weapons that were with me.

"You were with that Wood boy again, weren't you?" Mom asked me calmly. I knew I was in for it. She never talked like that unless she was about to yell.

I looked down, knowing that I was going to be in trouble either way I answered. "Yeah."

"You know I don't like you hanging out with that boy!" She told me, her voice slowly rising. "He's a bad influence on you!"

"You just don't like him because of who his parents are!" I said angrily.

Ethan's parents and my mom hated each other with a passion. It started when she first came to the Stronghold, when I was just a little girl. I had no idea why they hated each other, but it was most likely a stupid reason.

Mom scowled, obviously furious with me. "Go in your room."

I turned and walked into my room. It was small, the walls gray. There was a medium sized bed against the left wall, and a dresser on the right. There was a bookshelf beside the door, and a nightstand with a lamp beside my bed. There was a picture of my parents on the nightstand as well. I plopped down onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling. Light rain started to fall, making small streaks on the window beside me. I could see the silhouette's of the guards standing in the towers, watching out for any zombies or bystanders. I knew that mom would be mad at me until the next day. She always was.

I always planned on leaving this Stronghold in search of a better one. The rules were almost always different st each one. Ethan already decided that on his twenty first birthday, he was going to go to Snowdrift Stronghold, located in Canada. He already said that when he left, he would let me go too. I rolled over in my bed. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

* * * * * *

The next morning I woke up and seen a girl looking down at me. She had long red hair and dazzling blue eyes. I jumped back in fright.

"Jennie! What are you doing?" I demanded, getting up.

Jennie Snow laughed. "To get you up! Its already ten o'clock!"

I jumped up. "Seriously?!"

She nodded. "Yeah."

I stood up, getting out of bed. Jennie crossed her arms. "Are you going to leave again today?"

I shook my head. "I don't think so. Ethan has to work on the cars today for transport."

Today was the day when certain people went to different Stronghold's. They were going to trade certain stuff, like food and animals. Jennie nodded.

"Then you can go out with the scavengers," she told me.

Even though Jennie was just eighteen, she was already in charge of sorting out people do do jobs. As soon as her birthday arrived, they gave her the job.

"Okay," I agreed reluctantly.

We left my room and went to the east section, where the scavengers were just about to leave. I brought my ax just in case of an attack. I was surprised when I seen Ethan sitting in one of the Jeeps.

"Hey!" Ethan exclaimed, raising his hand in greeting. "So your coming too?"

I nodded. "Yeah. But why are you here? I thought you were fixing the trucks."

"I already finished," he replied, smiling. "Get in the Jeep, sleepyhead."

I climbed in the passenger side beside him and gave him a playful punch to the arm. "That's for calling me sleepyhead," I joked.

We drove out of the gate behind the rest of the scavengers, heading in the direction of one of the small towns surrounding us. Right off the bat we seen five zombies limping around. The group of men in the lead lumped out of their vehicles and killed the zombies quickly, not choosing to mess with them like Ethan and me. Luke Fierce, the leader of the expedition, told us all to hunt for anything useful that we could bring back. Me, Ethan, and another group of people went into a large store. Kasey Greengrass, a twenty six year old girl with dirty blond hair, found a large stack of frozen pizza. She was exited about that, since the last a scavenging group brought back an oven for cooking.

"Hey, look at this!"

I turned around from where I was looking at some out of date cans of chilli and seen Ethan holding a box of bullets. I didn't know much about guns, but I knew that they belonged to a handgun.

"And it's still full!" He exclaimed, stuffing it into his backpack.

"That'll help us," I said. "I'm surprised that their still here."

Ethan nodded in agreement, zipping up the bag. "Well, I think I have enough. What about you?"

"Yeah," I said, glancing down at my surprisingly full bag. "You want to go put them in the Jeep?"

He nodded. We carried the bags out to the black vehicle, putting them safely in the back. I looked over my shoulder when I heard a blood curdling scream. It sounded like something you heard out of a horror movie. I glanced at Ethan and he nodded, agreeing with me. It was a Siren.

I looked towards the sound again and seen Alex Kline running towards us, a pack of Runner's and Swift's behind him. The Siren was in the lead, snarling.

"Crap," I muttered under my breath.

Ethan already got his bat and was running towards the zombies. Me and a few more scavengers also got their weapons, following him. The first zombie that came towards me was the Siren. Of course it would with my luck. I dodged out of the way, getting cut by its swipe. It rounded on me, and I quickly cut its head off. I watched the creature fall to the ground. I seen Ethan in the corner of my eye tussling with a zombie, but I moved to help Alex, who had a Runner pinning him to the ground. I raised my ax and ran towards the creature.

The ax swung through the Runner's neck, cutting it clean off of the body. I quickly kicked the head away before moving on to help Ethan. He stood over a Swift, obviously inflicting enough damage with his nail covered baseball bat that it knocked it out cold for possibly a few hours.

Ethan looked over at me and smiled, proud of what he did. I rolled my eyes and chuckled. He was about as happy as a little kid who got a new toy. Suddenly his expression changed into fear.

"Spore's!"

I spun around and gasped. Four Spore's were running towards us. It was rare to see that many together. Their red eyes glowed brightly, barely parring well with their green tinted skin. Everyone ran in different directions, trying to get to their vehicles quickly. Ethan grabbed me by the arm and dragged me towards the Jeep.

"Come on!" He yelled.

I turned around and ran, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I heard the snarling of the Spore's behind me. Suddenly, I felt a hand wrap around my ankle, pulling me down. I yelped in surprise, hitting the ground. I rolled over and seen a large male Spore, taller than me, although that was no surprise. It grouped as it let out a hazy, pale green smoke. Pain flared through my body as it touched my skin. Everything felt like it was on fire. The zombie just stood over me, its teeth bared. I gasped for air, but it burned even to breath. I heard a faint yell, and seen a silver streak above me, cutting off of the Spore's head. I watched the green smoke clear, and seen a fuzzy figure of a man above me before everything went black.