stay alive // jack metzger

five

I felt myself stop breathing as I looked out into the tree line, seeing the hoard of the dead pushing through.
   "They all couldn't have gotten through that hole," Jack said in a panicked voice.
   "They must have weakened the chained and broke the whole thing," Ryan said with even more panic in his voice that Jack, if that was even possible. "Jack, Kiana, go into the house and arm everyone. Ana, JJ-"
   "Elisha!" Adam yelled, running to the wooden fence where we were standing. We all looked behind us and saw Amanda and Elisha hanging laundry on the line in the field, both unaware of what was happening.
   "Adam, don't!" Ryan said, grabbing onto the back of his shirt. Adam tried his hardest to fight off his brother, but Ryan wrestled him to the ground.
   Ryan looked at us in confusion as we stared at the two on the dirt.
   "What are you all standing there for?" He yelled, holding down his brother. "Go fucking do something about that!"
   Before we could move, a blood curdling scream ran through my body as I looked out to the field and saw Amanda falling to the ground, blood covering her shoulder. A group of five zombies crowded around her as Elisha stared in horror, shocked at the sight.
   "Elisha!" I called out to her, pulling my gun from my pocket. "Move!"
  She looked up at our spot at the top of the hill, but before she could start running, a grey hand wrapped around her ankle and pulled her into the hoard that was surrounding Amanda's body.
   Blood splattered onto the clothes on the line and full panic and adrenaline set into my body. Adam's cries from the ground as Ryan held him there, not letting him see the sight of what just happened.
   I ran into the house, Kiana, JJ, and Jack behind me. Audrey, Maddie, and Dylan all walked down the stairs in confusion.
  "J," Audrey said to JJ as we walked into the house, guns ready to be handed out. "What's going on? What was that scream?"
   "There is a hoard coming from the woods," I said, cocking the gun and handing it to her. "There slow but they are starting to move up the hill."
   Maddie looked out the window in the living room and saw the hoard.
   "There are too many of them," she said in fear. "We can't fight, we need to leave."
   "We need to try," I said, handing her a pistol. "Amanda and Elisha are gone."
   "Babe, I'm gonna go check the back porch to see how extensive this is," Aubrey said to Jack, kissing his cheek. "You keep passing out guns."
   Aubrey ran to the back of the house and out the back door and we all armed ourselves. I heard gunshots blow from where Ryan and Adam were at, signaling Ryan was fighting back.
   "Cmon,"  Jack said to us all. "We need to form a line and try to push them as far back as we can. There are probably forty of them and there are nine of us."
   We all walked to the back of the house and Aubrey jumped out of no where to the door frame of the back porch.
   "Jack," She said in a fearful voice. "There's so many and I-"
   Fear choked at the throat as a dead man cane behind Aubrey and sunk its teeth into the crook of her neck, causing the scarlet blood to run out of her wound. She let out a deafening scream, calling out to Jack.
   "No!" He screamed, running towards the dead man and kicking him off of her. I pushed him out of the way and shot the corpse three times in the head. When I turned around, Jack fell to the ground where Aubrey was.
  Aubrey tried to choke out words, but the blood pooling in her throat caused her words to never come out. Jack held her head in his lap, sobbing as she continued to die.
   "Go," He said looking up at me. I hesitated at first, not knowing what to do. "Go!" He screamed.
   I nodded towards Kiana and she nodded back. We both ushered the group out of the door, politely stepping over Jack and Aubrey. Audrey and Dylan started to tear up at the sight.
   Ryan was standing at the top of the hill, blasting his gun off every second, hitting a target every time. I pulled my safety off of my gun and followed in his footsteps, trying to knock off the dead as they came.
   "Ana!" Kiana yelled and I looked over at her. She pulled her gun up and fired it, a dead woman's corpse fell to my feet from behind me.
   "Hey thanks," I said to her smiling.
   "Pay me back later," she laughed and cocked her gun, pointing it towards the hoard.
   As we fired, more came and more bloodshed. Dylan got too close, thinking he could nail a close one with his knife. The knife got stuck quickly and two more dead came after him. The scream that exited him shuttered my bones.
   People where dying around me, the dead and the living. I looked up to Ryan who kept his stern face the whole time and Adam, who was weeping while he rested his back on the fire of the truck.
   "Jack!" I yelled to him and he came out to the field, his white shirt soaked with blood. He stumbled towards us, a stern look on his face and a demeanor of anger on him. He cocked his gun and was trigger happy, killing anything that was in his way.
   "Ana, you and Jack take the west side, we will go to the east while Ryan covers us from the back," Kiana yelled over the gunshots. "All these bullets are doing is attracting more so we need to close in."
   I looked at Jack who was deaf to the conversation. I pulled at his arm and to the other side of the field.
  We hid in the woods, taking them out from the sides. Jack didn't even acknowledge my existence as he fired until his gun couldn't fire anymore.
   He looked at the metal handgun in disgust when he ran out of ammo. He threw down the gun and pulled out his knife, ready to charge at the dead in a split second.
   "No," I said to him, holding him back with my arm. "We run out, we are done fighting."
   "We are never done fighting, Ana!" He yelled at me, getting in my face. "We live in this world now. You either fight or you die, so fucking fight."
   I stared at him and pulled the nob on my gun, without breaking our eye contact. I shot a dead that was approaching square in the eye.
   "I know how to fight, Metzger," I said to him, putting the gun on safety. "Especially after a loss. You fucking fight, but sometimes you have to flee, and we have to fucking flee."
   "What about them?" He asked, pointing to the house.
   "We will come back," I said, hearing the moans of the dead coming closer and closer with a passing second. "We just have to give it a few days before we come back."
   He looked back, tears building as Ryan and everyone continued to fire.
   "Trust me," I said to him. "We have to go."
   He flicked out his knife and stared at himself in the reflection, causing my impatience to grow.
   "Now, Metzger."