This Is Our World Now -A Walking Dead Fanfiction

Chapter Eleven: Lighted Halls

We gather at around two pm, near the doors into the airport complex. Mr. Canello briefs us about what will be going down. He explains that today we will just be checking the first floor, and barricading it off so no roamers from other places can get in. If all goes well, he tells us, we should be sleeping inside tonight. At this, we all give a quiet cheer. The nights have been getting colder as it leads up to winter, and sleeping outside even for one night, last night, was miserable when the temperatures got really low.

Mr. Canello also instructs us to have our guns out at all times. I don't have one, so Ms. Gomez hands me one from the supply they have stored up. Everyone is then issued a few rounds of bullets, just in case we get seperated. Our goal is to lose nobody else.

"Annalyn, you are skilled with knives, I hear," Ms. Gomez remarks quietly as supplies are being handed out. I nod.

"You know," she continues, "That is an important skill to have when it comes to close contact with the roamers. Make sure you have your knoves handy."

I thank her for the advice as Mr. Canello tells our group to line in twos. Our group consists or Mr. Canello and Ms. Gomez, who take the lead, about six or seven teachers that I've seen around the school, and three young adults who look like kids who would have graduated high school last year, so they are maybe nineteen or twenty.

I file into line behind a kid I recognize as Oliver Topara, the student president from last year. He technically graduated, but there was nowhere really to go, so he joined the supple run team. I can see why he's here.

Next to me is Mr. Davidson, a teacher who I think taught sophomore english. I don't really know him, just that he was a big marathoner, so it makes sense that he's here too. Finally, behind me is Lila, a girl from my band class last year. I smile at her and she gives me a thumbs-up.

My heart is threatening to bust out of my chest, but I can barely keep the grin off my face. Mr. Canello pries open the doors with a crowbar, then we march two-by-two into the dark terminal. I squint, and my eyes adjust to the dim space, lit only by shavings of light coming through dirt-darkened windows.

Our pack presses together as the doors clang shut behind us. The part of the airport that we are in was the long, tall hallway that baggage check-in occured in. On the far side of the room, a one long countertop and dead computers sits. Its eerie to see this place, that we always saw bustling with people, to be completely empty.

Mr. Canello clicks on a flashlight with a beam no wider than my head. Still, the light it gives shows us enough.

Bloodied, bruised bodies litter the floor, the countertop, the chairs and couches. There are dozens, just within a fifty foot radius. I expected there to be bodies, but I still gag at the stench and hold back tears at the sight of the dead. As we inch forward, I almost trip over a small body. I look down and push back a scream. Lying in front of me, is the pale body of a little girl. White hair, matted with blood, the thick red substance also ringing her head in a dried pool from where she was re-killed. I shudder and move on.

We continue on this path for another twenty minutes as we slowly crawl from one end of the terminal to the other. After determining the place free of zombies and any breaches where they could get in, we move down a hall perpendicular to the one we were just in. This leads us to the thinner security checkpoint area. It is a much shorter hall and we clear it in no time. The thing that makes me uncomfortable is that we have yet to see a live zombie in here at all. But I shake that feeling off, and continue with the group silently.

We reach the spot where the airport officials would check your flight tickets bedore sending you through to the metal detectors. However, the thick metal gate seperating us from the metal detectors is padlocked shut. After a short discussion, the team decides that there could be food in there that could be vital to us, so we agree to send a smaller group in. Mr. Canello suggests that some of us hop the gate, because it doesn't quite reach to the ceiling. I am selected for this task, along with five other people who are on the smaller side. Mr. Canello himself goes first, landing with a thump on the other side. He then helps Ms. Gomez, then Oliver get over the gate. After a couple more people, it is my turn. I am hoisted up, then I am sitting on the top of the gate. I see the outstretched arms below me and I jump, caught in a net of arms not milliseconds later.

We tell the group on the other side of the fence to keep watch, then we head off into the deeper, blacker darkness with just Mr. Canello's thin flashlight beam to guide us.

We stick in a small, cautious pack. After we get out of the security area, we hug the wall, following another hallway down deeper into the complex. A mumbling sound reaches my ears. At first, I don't know if I'm just hearing things in the intense silence that is surrounding us. Soon, though, I know it's not just me, because Mr. Canello motions for us to halt.

A light is glowing around the corner from where we are, and with it comes, not the sound of moaning roamers, but the sound of human voices. We creep up to the corner and peek around. A small group is huddled around a fairly bright lantern, laughing and eating from cans of food.

I could have noticed the stacks of canned food along the wall next to them, or the box of batteries, or the warm space blankets, but what stood out to me above all else, was a head of straight black hair topping an extremely familiar face.

"BENJI!!" I screamed, breaking from the group, despite the adults trying to hold me back.

The boy's face looked up in confusion, then surprise, shock, and delight as he dropped his food can on the floor and ran forward to embrace me.