Dead Days

Chapter 28

I rushed to the entrance of the building, pushing the half-open doors to the side before bolting through the lurkers and to the stairs. I rushed up them with the same speed as before, ignoring any pain my lungs and muscles were screaming at me. My family was more important. 

There was no one but lurkers in the building, which was really only on the bottom floor. I pushed through the door into our little home we made to see a man standing above the three kids. Emily was nowhere to be seen, and Matt was off to the side, too much blood coming from his head to be good. Even more fear pulsed through me at the sight. 

Having left my ax with the other bags down the street in panic, I went for the only other weapon I had on me and tried to attack him with it. Which resulted in me jumping on the guys back while trying to repeatedly stab the guy with the small pocket knife. 

What I was doing must have encouraged Mac as she ran and grabbed something from the kitchen and rushing back and using a kitchen knife she found to stab the man in the knee. Once having a knife in his knee, the man fell hard, taking me with him. He was obviously angry as he pinned me to the ground and pulled my knife out of my hand. He brought it above his head to swing down on me before there was a loud bang in the room and he fell on top of me, blood pooling out of his head and onto mine. I closed my eyes and mouth as I tried to push him off of me before Mac came over to help the best she could. 

Eventually, I was free of the large dead body on top of me and I could take in the whole room. What I didn't notice before was that Owen was on the floor, a gunshot in his stomach as his sister Sophia ran to him, crying. Matt was laying on the floor of the kitchen, part of his head bashed in as he obviously put up a fight. Emily was slumped by the window, a bullet hole through her head. And Beth and Carl were nowhere to be seen. 

I made my way to my bookshelf in the corner of the living room and started packing my few belongings into my backpack. Almost done, I looked over my shoulder, "Get your stuff together, we need to leave! Now!"

Mac nodded, finally lowering the gun she had managed to get out of my bag. She placed it on the floor before running to the kids' room to get her stuff. 

I looked at Sophia before going over to her and kneeling in front of her, "Sophia, we need to leave now, it's not safe here anymore. Okay? Can you go with Makenzy so she can help you get your stuff together?" 

She nodded, wiping her eyes to dry her tears but only smearing blood on her face. She got up and followed Mac into their room. Oh god, I felt bad, I just told a kid to disregard her family member's dead bodies so they can leave. And it made me feel even worse that we were going to leave them and not even give them a proper burial or anything. 

But it was too late to think like this. Maybe it was okay in the old world, but it wasn't in the new one. We had to get out of here.