Walking Amongst Them (Among Us, Book 2)

Fight or Flight

Sorry again! I need to set an alarm or something to remind myself what day thursday is! Pls enjoy though! 

The zombies came just before nightfall. I wanted to blame my father, but I knew too much time had passed between his earlier yelling and these corpses to blame it on him fully. Three of them wandered into camp, and we only realized it because one of them tripped a warning wire that was connected to some empty cans.

At first we thought it might be Ben, who had tripped over the wire a few times already and didn't seem to catch on to where they were. But then they walked into camp, quieter than I'd ever heard any zombie before.

Marty and I were making dinner when it happened. He was mid way through a story about his senior prom when he stopped and pointed out the rattling. Then they were on us. I grabbed the hatchet from next to the fire and walked towards the first one, swinging hard and imbedding the blade through its forehead.

Marty, behind me, lifted his gun and fired. The sound was deafening, and I turned quickly to gape at him.

"What's wrong with you? Now the whole world of zombies around us probably just heard that!"

He shrugged and shot again, "There's not a lot of zombies in the area anyways. We've been here for a while, Kodi, I know what I'm doing."

I didn't have time to retort, because another zombie was coming after me and the hatchet was still stuck in the first one's head. I yanked it out just in time to swing it again, only this time I pulled it out before the zombie could hit the ground.

Marty wasn't that great a shot, and so he fired off three times before he hit the third zombie. I turned to look at him, to demand he hand over the gun. But when I did I was met with two more zombies as they stumbled through the fire and caught flame. Their rotting flesh burning as they still stumbled towards us.

"Oh shit," Marty said.

And then he dropped the gun and ran. By this time the others were aware of the noise and coming out of their tents. Beck swore. Because the snow had melted, Clarke and Trish were out by the stream supposed to be gathering water as we had none.

There was no way to put out the zombies' flames.

I dove forward and grabbed the gun before climbing into the back of the pickup and aiming carefully at the first zombie. It fell into the tent I knew Rian and my father to be inside, and the dry canvas quickly caught fire.

Michael had Abby in his arms, and he ran over to the truck I was in and dumped her in the bed of the truck with me, "Stay here," he said, "Kodi will protect you."

Then we was gone, off to the other side of the camp where more zombies were coming from the forest. I shot the gun twice, each bullet finding their mark. The first zombie fell into my father's tent and the second one landed in the fire. The smell coming from their burning bodies made me involuntarily gag, almost throwing up.

I turned to Abby. She was wearing a backpack and a thick winter coat, eyes wide as she pressed herself as far back into the bed of the truck as she could.

It was like a bad domino game, where all the pieces seemed to have minds of their own. Beck and Sam worked together to fight off the zombies that were attracted by all the noise, and Michael had dove into the tent, emerging with as many bags as he could. He threw them all into the truck with Abby and I and flashed me a grin as he waved the key.

"What about Clarke and Trish?" I asked.

He didn't need to answer though, because they appeared, fighting through the zombies from the other side. There were at least seven of them.