Those Who Survive

Uncertain Continuation

"Hang on, Cry," Minx grunts as she stands, hunched over the side of his seat.

Dan and Thomas are quick to kill the two infected reaching into the truck before rushing back to the other side, where two more are waiting.

"Little help, please!" Cry gasps as he struggles to hold the infected back. The diseased man is twice Cry's weight and quite tall, so it's not exactly an easy feat.

Dan is pinned to the grill of the truck as he fends off the first infected, while Thomas tries to put a bit of distance between himself and the last, hands trembling. Calm down, you can do this. Holding his knife out in front of himself, Thomas waits until the infected charges at him, and then he lunges, one hand out to quickly stall the infected's movements before he stabs the knife into the creature's eye.

It falls to the ground and he pulls his knife free, breathing a little heavy. The last infected falls finally dead moments later, Dan pulling his knife free as well, frowning down at the creature. Back in the truck, Minx grip the back of the diseased man's shirt, and pulls back as hard as she can. She drives her knife up through the back of his throat with all her strength, but her blade misses the target. He squirms and twists free of her grip.

This causes her to yell as he lunges at her, knocking them both to the back seat. Minx lands mostly in the floorboard, head leaning back on the seat. Her knife still sticks out the back of the infected's throat as it tries to bite her's, held barely away by her trembling arms. Cry is quick to get up when she fell and he pulls the knife free, the infected far too interested in Minx to react to him now. With Cry's knife still somewhere in the floor of his seat, he uses Minx's knife to save her instead.

Cry pulls the infected back by the hair and stabs Minx's knife into the nearest eye. The creature finally goes still and Cry lets out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Minx pushes her self up onto the seat as the door opens, and she relaxes upon seeing it's only Thomas and Dan. Dan climbs in and helps them get the infected out of the truck before he takes the driver's seat. Cry retrieves his knife first, then lets Dan have the seat. Thomas sits up front as well so Cry can try and sleep in the back seat with Minx.

She's back to staring out the lightly cracked window, the infected that got in the truck was really bugging her. It opened the door, they've never seen an infected do that before, and it terrifies her. The truck is in silence for a long while as Dan drives. Cry stares out his window as well, unable to relax enough to sleep after that ordeal. The infected opening the door freaks him out just as much as it does Minx. They're going to have to be even more careful from now on.

...

"Felix and I will go," Jack suddenly speaks up, "We'll go up first to make sure it's safe."

Felix nods, "Out of all of us, we and you, Ken, are the most able. So it makes sense for us to go ahead and you can help Mark and Nate."

Ken nods, "If that's how you want to do it, but we need to hurry."

Felix nods again, handing off Oliver to Mark before running out of the alley and quickly ascending the ladder. Jack waits to follow until Felix is halfway up the ladder. The infected have noticed the movement on the ladder and are shuffling their way now. Thankfully, no runners so far. Ken backs the group up into the shadows a few feet back, to try and hide so the infected will wander back again. Felix gets into the window and looks around the apartment room he's entered.

He's standing in a living room area, overlooking into a kitchen to the right. There are two door to the right, just off the kitchen, and one door directly across from Felix. In the living room, there's a dusty beige colored couch in the center with a broken wooden coffee table in front of it. There's an overturned bookcase in the right corner, books scattered around the shelf. The walls are off-white, with a few big dried blood splatters on the left wall closest to the door. There's some dried blood puddles on the imitation dark hardwood floor as well. Broken picture frames and glass is scattered around near the left wall.

Jack climbs inside, looking around as well. He frowns lightly and Felix looks back at him, pressing a finger to his own lips. Jack nods, eyes narrowing lightly. They both draw their knives and Felix heads for the door across from him as Jack heads for the nearest door to the right. Felix gets to his door first, opening it with ease. He looks out into a hallway with other doors. He closes the door and moves towards the doors to the right, Jack's already inside the nearest room, it's a simple small bathroom. Felix opens the last door to see it's a bedroom.

The bedroom is clean of blood or debris, so he takes that as a good sign. The bed isn't made, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. The walls are painted a soft gray and there's a single overturned dresser against the opposite wall and another door next to it. He walks over to the door and opens it, it's just a closet, an empty one at that. He shuts the door and meets back up with Jack, who's now in the kitchen.

"Find anything good?" Felix asks.

"Not really," Jack replies, "Whoever lived here is long gone, there weren't any antibiotics or bandages or anything left in the bathroom."

"The bedroom looks fine, but there's no clothes left in the closet. Dresser's overturned, so I haven't checked it, though."

Jack shrugs, opening a cabinet. He sighs, looking disappointed to find the shelves empty. Felix pats his back, "Hey, this is a good thing. At the very least, we're not crashing somebody's home, so we don't have to deal with that. That's good, right?"

"I guess," Jack turns back to him, "But we'll need more food sooner rather than later. Bandages, too."

"And we'll find them." Felix assures.

"How can you be so sure?" Jack groans, crossing his arms, "We can't be the only people in town, right? So, what if everything is already gone? What then?"

"I don't know," Felix admits, "But we can't think like that. We have to try and stay positive, okay? If there's supplies left around, we'll find it. Just because there's nothing in this apartment, doesn't mean there's nothing in any of the others."

Jack sighs, nodding, "You're right, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Felix smiles softly, "I understand where you're coming from, this is just something Marzia would have told me, so.. I gotta listen."

Jack nods again, smiling lightly back at his friend. They move silently back to the open window. Jack looks down, there are a few infected dead around the ladder and he sees Ken peek his head out. Jack leans out a bit and waves lightly. Ken gives him a thumbs up and he steps back, looking to Felix, "They're about to come up."

Felix nods and Jack turns back to the window, ready to help his friends. Mark ascends the ladder first, with Oliver held close to his chest. He moves slowly but carefully. Jack leans out the window again, holding his arms out to take Oliver as soon as he can so Mark can get inside easier. Once Mark gets close enough, he hands the baby off then finishes climbing in. Jack hands the baby to Felix and glances back out the window.

Nate is the next one on the ladder, and he has to move much slower. He grits his teeth, holding his breath as he forces himself to move faster. It hurts like hell, but he gets up the ladder fast enough. Jack and Mark help him cross the window and then Ken's rushing up next. Once Ken's inside, he pushes the ladder away from the window so it falls back to the street. There's already another small group close to the ladder and when it falls, it kills one of them with a strong hit to the head.

Ken closes the window and looks around, "We can rest here for awhile, then we'll check around for supplies in the rest of the building."