The Infected (Old Version)

Chapter Eight: The Death of You (Picture of Ryan Peril)

Author's Note: This chapter is kind of gory, so BEWARE. Lol, not really, but still (:

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Chapter Eight: The Death of You 

“What?” Sarah asked, shock clear on her face.

“Exactly what she said.” Ryder said, breathing heavily.

“There. Is. A. Stampede. Of. Zombies. Coming.” I said, clipping off each word. I laid on the ground, holding my chest. It felt as if there wasn’t enough air. Mandy came beside me and helped me up. I sat up, still gasping for air. 

“Do you hear that?” Jonas asked suddenly. We all became silent, searching for any sound with our ears. Then I heard it. Loud sharp barking. Barking? Jonah immediately leaped to the door, climbing out.

“Jonah!” Sarah screamed, chasing after him. I stopped Mandy from running out also.

“Don’t! It’s too dangerous!” I shout over the commotion. Mandy looks at me in the eyes then nods. Jonas climbs out anyways. Why is everyone running out over a dumb dog?! Chris climbs out also to check on them then I hear closer barking and…laughing. Chris jumps back in with Jonas and Sarah following. Then what I thought I would never see was a large golden retriever hopping in after Jonah. The dog runs around the safe house sniffing at things. 

“Heidi! Come here, girl!” Jonah calls after jumping in. The dog recognizes her name and bounce up to him, licking him playfully. 

“Heidi?” Destiny says, petting the dog’s pelt. Aaron locks up the safe house.

“Yeah, this is me and my brother’s dog. I wonder how she survived.” Jonas said, rubbing Heidi’s head. She barks and runs around knocking things over in the process. I giggled at the happy dog temporarily forgetting about the mob of zombies. A small miracle. She stopped near me and rubbed against me. I ran my hand over her back when I noticed dry blood caked on her paws. She must’ve been through hell and back. Before I could comment on her paws, the snarls and growling of the infected rang in my eyes. The pounding and yelling. I put my head between my knees and covered my ears and screamed. I screamed as loud as I could. I didn’t want the sound of them in my ears. I felt arms wrap around me, but I couldn’t comprehend it. I think I passed out after that. 

When I woke up I was laying on a cot. I sat up, rubbing my eyes. The trap door was open wide, letting in white light. There wasn’t anyone inside except for Alayna. She was still sleeping on a cot across the room. I got up and climbed out of the safe house into the blinding light. I put hand over my eyes to block out the sun. I looked around to find a large pile of scrap metal, barb wire, and chained links. When I started walking around I found Chris struggling with some barb wire. 

“What’s going on?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the sun still. He looked up from his work, squinting.

“Ryder thought it was a good idea to barricade the safe house. We’re going to build a wall around so the zombies can’t come in and we can if we ever have to.” he explained. I nodded in understanding and helped him carefully gather up the lethal wire. We hauled it back to the pile together to find the rest of the crew already starting to build the wall. It took us all day to build a stable one.

The wall was about six feet tall with barb wire on the bottom and top to rip them up before they even have the chance to break it down. We decided on building a pit a while out to put all of our trash in so it can stop building up in the safe house. 

After a week or so, our new home was becoming more and more like a real home. I was in the middle of transferring garbage to the pit with Heidi and Ryder when I noticed this. We were becoming a family. Even though Ryan and Mandy had a fall out and seriously hate each other right now, we were all living the dream, sort of. We didn’t have to worry about the zombies anymore. The wall worked perfectly except for the occasional limb left behind. 

“Hey, Ryder. Do you think we could live here forever?” I asked, dumping the bag into the pit. 

“I can see it. Building more and more safe houses so we don’t have to stay cooped up in the one we are in now, making a garden so we don’t have to survive off of canned food forever, us getting married, maybe even making a pool!” I laughed at him.

“I don’t know about us getting married but a garden, a pool, and a few more safe houses wouldn’t be that bad.” I teased. He smirked and gave me a light kiss on the top of my head. We walk back hand in hand almost liking my new life. We didn’t have to go to school, but I sure did miss school somehow. I guess now that it is gone, I now miss it. 

“Why not?” he asked finally. I looked up at him. His face has grown tanner and he had a streak of grey from stress in his hair. 

“Because there isn’t any point.” I said. He sighs.

“I guess.” he says. I wrap my arms around his waist while we walk. He hums a tone that I may have known before the outbreak, but I decide it’s not worth thinking over. This life is nice. Not too bad. Then I heard that scream. That earth shattering scream. I look up at Ryder after freezing for a moment, then we both shot towards the safe house. It was late afternoon, but I didn’t think zombies would come out this early, but I was wrong. The mother of all zombies. He was enormous. Ryder pulled out his gun, but what I saw stopped us both. He was holding Ryan high above his head. And he simply tore him in half. I screamed and tried to look away, but I couldn’t. He dropped him and started to rip out his intestines eating it like a pig. Destiny finally shot him with her nail gun and he dropped dead. I was in horror. The image scarred me for life. When I got back to the safe house, avoiding the carnage of Ryan’s body and the zombie, I found Mandy sitting in a corner looking petrified. We locked up for the night. We were going to deal with the bodies later. Ever since Ryan cheated on Mandy a couple years back I disliked him instantly. I didn’t trust him and maybe it hurt to see him die, I defiantly wasn’t sad to see him go. 

But who knew how many more times there was going to be that occasional mega zombie popping up out of no where. We were going to have to set our clocks back to an earlier time. Lesson learned.  

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Author's Note: Yeaaaaaah. Kind of sad, but whatev's. Comment and/or rate and don't forget to fan me! Thankss! (: