Day 16

I am sitting alone. My head in my hands, a pistol held loose in my right hand. I can feel the weight of it and its cold metal press against my head. The others are not near me. I left a distance away, sitting on a curb in the middle of Sacramento, letting the chill winter air freshen my lungs. I hear noises around me but  ignore them. They are not near me. My brothers are not near me. 

The pre-morning light seems to speak against the city. Betraying it. The light reflects on the downtown buildings and shows the grey and red and brown of the city. But there is no life, and this city, like all others, is dead. Cars parked on streets, broken shops and signs of destruction everywhere. From riots. From attacks and panic. And there are no dead bodies. None littered on the streets. No zombies, even. Not yet anyway. 

I consider traveling alone. Just leave, I tell myself. Find your family. The ones you didn't kill. It doesn't matter if Crystal was already dead, although a zombie. I killed her. I killed something, because something made her do this. Something must have brought her back to life. And that life was within or apart of her . . . and I destroyed it. I destroyed her. 

Chad blames me. He blames me for both of their deaths. I tried to explain that Clive never woke up, but he doesn't care. And really, I know it doesn't matter. None of it does. 

I see them running down the street, running towards me. Their guns are out as well as blades. Josh, with his machete, Chad with his sword. Jacob has a shotgun; I doubt it has many rounds left. They are shouting something. Josh is waving his arms and pointing to something. I turn around and see it. A zombie, running towards me--running fast. I raise my gun and aim, squeezing the trigger. I am unable to do so. The safety is on. I grab my machete with no time to flip the safety off and wrench my hand upward, stabbing the zombie through the jaw. It stops and falls near me, bleeding greatly. I jump back, away from the blood and turn to the others, running towards me. 

"Why did you leave," Josh demands.

"I," I start to talk but am not sure what to say, or what he wants to hear. 

"Never mind," he says, waving it away. "We need to move." This city is over run. There are no people and Chad said he could see quite a lot while he was looking out over the buildings from the roof." Josh points to a tall building. 

How did it spread so quickly? I ask myself. To cause this whole city to be so completely over run.

We start to walk. my pistol is out in stead of my M21. Ammunition is low and I only have one full clip left.I have at least three clips in my bag for my pistol and so I choose to use it, saving the other.

The sun is peaking through the buildings and down the street. It lights the asphalt and cars and debris in its orange tint. It is hard to look down the streets where the sun is shining brilliantly. I do not see any movement not can I hear anything other than our careful steps and my stomach rumbling. Its been over a day since I've eaten anything and I am starting to feel its effects. I am tired and weak. We need to find food and soon.

After an hour of walking we see our first zombie. It is alone and wandering away from us. Josh walks a head of us, balancing on the tips of his toes, trying to stay quiet. He nears the thing and pulls out his machete from his bag. He holds it to the side, out a little ways from his body, ready to swing it at the zombies head as soon as he is within range. The zombie in front of him stopped and turned around as Josh is about ten feet away. Both stand there for an abnormal amount of time before the zombie lunges forward towards Josh. He swings hard, but as he does the zombie raises its arm and the blade sticks in the bone. The zombie lunges at Josh and we all run forward as Josh is knocked over. He fights the thing but as he blocks his head from the zombies face it sinks its teeth into his forearm. 

I raise my pistol once I'm a few feet away and fire right into the things head, kicking it off of Josh who is holding his right arm with his opposite hand. 

"Josh!" I plead. "No, please, no." He moves his fingers from his arm and I see the wound. The teeth marks are deep and if the zombie would have lived for a few more seconds it would have torn the chunk of skin and muscle right off. 

Chad comes over and gets him onto his feet. "Common," he says quietly, "we need to get you somewhere safe." He leads him down an alley, looking for somewhere to take him. I am ripping part of a spare shirt I have in my bag to use as a bandage. As we walk I wrap it around his bleeding arm and try to stop the bleeding, but that isn't really what any of us are concerned about. 


Turning onto a main road I see three or four zombies coming towards us. We all halt and look around, "this way," Jacob yells, pointing and we follow him. We turn on another street, cars abandoned here and there. There is trash covering the street. Down a ways are some town homes and we run towards those. I have gotten the bandage around Josh and Chad has let him run in his own. I can tell he is in pain, but ignore it for now. First we need to get somewhere where we can take a look at him. I know our running is making a lot of noise as more and more zombies come out of alleys and alternate roads. In our hast to get to the town houses and to safety we begin firing on the zombies, dropping those directly in front of us.

This brought more into the chase as we grew near to the town homes. I pull my machete out and hold it in my left hand. Chad has his katana out and has slashed at two zombies, covering it in blood. Josh runs between me and Chad, with Jacob in the front firing the shotgun sparingly, looking to us to cover him. I slash at my side, knowing I'm only wounding most, but it slows them down. We get near the building and I put my pistol away, swing my rifle around and start shooting as they each climb the stairs. They yell for me to follow once they're all in the building. I do, and we lock the door and dead-bolt behind me.

I run over to josh who is sitting on a couch, unused for some time. He is looking at his arm. The bandage still in place. 


"I am going to die, aren't I?" he says, still looking down. I don't answer but just sit beside him with my arm around him. I feel broken inside. None of us could have ever been prepared for this. And here we are, broken, deadly and hunted. Chad sits down on the opposite side of Josh.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I tried to do what was best. I tried to save her the agony of being like them." I point out towards the door that Jacob is barricading. I realize I am not talking to Josh, but Chad. "I didn't want you to see. I . . ." I trail off and look at Josh. "How do you feel?" 

"My arm hurts, but that is it. No different."


"Lets get some food in you. I'm sure they have something around here." I get up and look through the cupboards. There is some stuff available and I bring him a bag of chips and can of soda. He takes them and drinks and eats. Jacob has blocked the door, wedging things between the door and staircase adjacent to it. 

We all sat there, listening to the mayhem outside, waiting for something to happen, for some sign that Josh was going to die. There was nothing else to do but to wait.