Surviving

Chapter 18

I awoke to Billy sitting on my floor watching me. He appeared to have been there for awhile.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked sleepily.

"Why didn't you wake me up when you got back? I was scared." He frowned, crossing his arms like a toddler.

"Well, you were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you."

"Fine." I got out of bed and sat beside him.

"I wanted to talk to you about something." He looked at me, unimpressed. "I let somebody yesterday that is a part of another group. They may be able to help us. But, I need to check them out first." He nodded, as if seriously considering it.

"When do we go to meet them?"

"I can't take you with me." He poured so hard at this I thought his lips would fall right off his face. "I need to make sure it's safe first. I promise, if it is you can meet them as soon as they're okay with it."

"Fine."

After a quick breakfast, I got and said goodbye to Billy. I wanted to meet with these people as soon as possible.

After waking for what seemed like ages, I arrived at the spot where I met Roland last night. I walked around to kill time, finding the bodies of the zombies that had been killed last night. It appeared that all of them were accounted for, and their stench filled the air. When I couldn't take the stench a moment longer I walked back to the road.

It only took a few minutes longer for Roland to arrive, followed by another guy about his height. My hand went to my dagger and the other guy pulled a gun out, pointing it at me.

"C'mon guys, that's not necessary," Roland said. After looking back and forth he sighed. "Travis, put your gun down. If you point it at her of course she's gonna pull out her knife."

The other guy, Travis, lowered his gun. I dropped my hand from my weapon as he put his away.

"Adira, this is Travis. He helped take out those corpses last night."

"Corpses?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, the zombie things. That's what we call 'em." Travis narrowed his eyes.

"So both of you were following me?" Roland looked at the ground guiltily. "Creepers."

"You're some girl hiding out in the woods. That means I could call you a witch," Travis said.

"Yeah, if it were the sixteen hundreds."

"Stop arguing, lets go," Roland snapped, annoyed.

I followed them into town, taking a slightly different path than I had. After what seemed like hours, I followed them into a warehouse that appeared to be abandoned.

I was stunned by what I saw inside. There were almost thirty children, all ranging from toddlers to teenagers, sitting around in groups. Some were playing games and others were just talking.

When everybody saw me the noise died down, and I was hit with multiple death stares. I looked around, trying to stay calm, but suddenly there were millions of butterflies in my stomach. I felt like a deer caught in headlights, sensing I could be attacked at any moment. I was sure my eyes showed my fright, but I couldn't hide it.

"Hey," Roland turned around to look at me. "It's gonna be fine."

"Get back to whatever you were doing, this doesn't concern you," Travis yelled out to everyone.

"C'mon. I'll show you around." Roland smiled. The butterflies started to die down, but I still watched everyone cautiously.