They Left Us For Dead

The Parish: Park

Two pink lines. One word; pregnant.

How would they take the news?

I held the stick in my hands and sat on the edge of the bathtub, paralyzed in fear. I watched as scenarios played in my head. Of me, eight months pregnant trying to run from infected. Me trying to run from hordes with a crying baby on my shoulder. It all scared me. I couldn't do this. There was too much to lose. But they deserved to know.

I hear a loud knock on the door, and followed by a very concerned voice asking me a question.

"What's taking so long? Everything okay in there?" Nick asked, and I fell silent. My eyes were locked with the stick. The two lines seemingly laughed at me, and I couldn't take it anymore. As shaky as I was, I forced myself to the door.

Rochelle looked at me, painfully watching as I walked out of the bathroom. I was crying, I could feel the salty tears leaving my eyes. But I was silent. I handed the stick to Nick.

His face went white. Like he had seen a ghost. The look on his face sold me the story. He looked terrified, like for once he had no idea what to do. He always had plans, but this time, he had no plan for this.

He handed me the stick back, and pulled me into his arms, pulling me out of my frozen state. I wrapped my arms around him, and looked at him in the eyes.

He turned and walked towards Ellis, and Ellis was walking towards me. Nick had already started a conversation with Coach, knocking the silence out like a light.

"Nick said you had something to tell me. What's going on?" Ellis looked more confused than anything else. His face showed confusion, rather than concern. Meaning, Nick hadn't told him.

"I'm pregnant."

Ellis didn't look as scared as Nick had, actually Ellis was very happy. He knew that I had picked Nick, but he hugged me anyway. It felt nice to be comforted. I needed it. I really needed to hear that it was going to be okay.

"I don't know what's going on, but we should probably hit the road." Coach says, analyzing the amount of infected gathering in our area. We mutually agreed, and gathered our things. Nick, Ellis, and Rochelle kept an annoyingly close eye on me. Every move I made, they made too. Every stumble I made, they helped up.

We followed the streets, which then led to a large park. It was completely surrounded by heavily maintained bushes. We had to follow the inside maze, which eventually ledes out the other side.

We continued our path, and found ourselves under a collapsed intersection. It was overrun and looked impossible to navigate through.

Coach threw a pipe bomb, which exploded most of the horde. Thankfully, we were able to make our way out of the intersection and into an emergency vehicle used by CEDA.

"The door will sound if opened without proper clearance from CEDA. Lovely, looks like we're gonna attract a crowd." Rochelle sighed, but knew what we all had to do. She gave me a glance, and I knew what she meant. But I couldn't stay behind, that would only lead to more trouble.\

We all ran to the toward, climbing two sets of ladders to get to the alarm box. Ellis made his way there before anyone else, and cleared the tower of any infected. We then made our way down the tower and found a room with a long walkway, leading us to the next safe room.

"I didn't think we'd make it there for a second. Not gonna lie." Rochelle was out of breath, after running literally for her life.

"At least we're all alive."