Surviving

Chapter 22

Billy easily blended in with the rest of the kids, enjoying finally having friends to play with. I quickly found a friend in Melody, with her being the first person to fully open up to me. She introduced me to two girls named Ingrid and Hayden, who also became my friends.

Everybody over the age of seven had a job based off of what skills they had. Mine was hunting for supplies since I could already do that. Whenever we ran low on anything, I was part of a small team of three that went to go find more of it.

I quite often had time to kill, most often finding myself spending time with my three new friends. We acted much like teenage girls, gossiping and staying on top of any drama there was.

We were in an intense game of Go Fish! when Travis came up to us. He was in charge, organizing everything and making sure all jobs were completed properly.

"Melody, Adira, we're getting low on bottled water. We have enough canned food to last us another month, so you guys only have to get water. I've already told Roland, and he's getting ready." Travis gave us a nod of conclusion and left.

I shrugged, and Melody got up, laying all of her cards down.

"See y'all later," I said, following Melody to go find Roland.

He was waiting for us by the door with three large duffle bags large enough to fit a small child.

Melody, Roland, and I were the team that went on supply runs. Melody and Roland were the natural choice because of them being twins, and I was added because of my previous experience.

"Y'all ready to go?" I asked after each of us had a bag in hand.

"Probably not. But, as always, we need to go," Roland replied. I rolled my eyes and Melody giggled.

"You need to get over yourself!" Melody gave him a playful shove.

"Come on guys, let's go." I walked out, them close behind.

As soon as we were outside I felt tense. We were no longer in the safety and confinement of the warehouse. I looked up and saw the sky filled with clouds, though it had not yet rained.

We walked a direct route to the nearest grocery store, which was about five miles away. The path we took led us through the streets filled with small shops and through a few wooded areas. We passed by a spot where you could look off the road over a small cliff (it only extended about ten feet down).

Once we finally arrived at the store we went straight to the drink section, filling up our bags with the small amount of bottled water. But, it only filled up half a bag.

"What should we do now?" Melody looked stumped.

"Let's try to get into the back," I suggested, making my way to the double doors leading to the store's storage.

I pulled out a small flashlight from my pocket and illuminated the pitch black storage space. Roland and Melody were right behind me, also looking around the dark area. After a few minutes of searching through mostly spoiled foods we came across huge cases of water. Melody cut several open, and we stuffed the bags until they could hardly shut.

Once we had finished and managed to lift the heavy bags we made our way out of the store, a bit slower then we had gone before due to the extra weight we had to carry.

We followed the same route back, and the tension of being outside seemed to ease up a bit for a short period of time. But, then we came to one of the overlooks and were greeted by something unpleasant.

First, there was the smell and sound. The rotting flesh of corpses. There was a hoard of them, probably containing hundreds. Just walking along the road. And headed the same way we were.

It didn't have to be spoken to be know. We all took off running towards the warehouse, which had to have been at least two miles.

After the agonizingly long run we arrived at the warehouse, bursting through the doors and causing a few people around us to pause for a moment. Roland caught his breath before Melody and I and went straight to Travis.

"We need to barricade this place! Now!" he practically shouted.

"What's the issue?" Travis didn't seem very concerned.

"There's a whole hoard of corpses coming straight towards us!"