She’s laying down on a stretcher looking annoyed.

“You okay?” I ask.

“This man is giving me weird looks.” She glances over at a man who looks like he's in his forties, he has curly brown hair and is short, about my height.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s probably nothing but he keeps pacing around me, he even came up to talk to me and said, ‘We don’t get little girls like you around here much anymore’.” She says in a deep, mocking tone.

“Just… forget him. Sophie left for good. We got rooms with two beds each and met a girl named April, she” I whisper. “said this place isn’t safe and that they kill ‘certain’ people.”

“We should get the fuck out of here. Is that Sophie?” She points at the front gates. Sophie is arguing with Herbert.

Serafina gets up and starts towards them, “Come on.” I follow.

***

“What’s going on?” Serafina asks.

“This isn’t your problem.” He says.

“He won’t let me leave!”

“Why?!” I ask.

“We- our people are dying and leaving and just going, much faster than we’d like. We need more people here, we can all help out each other, your friend Alexa left too and after that people in our group started getting anxious, we can’t have that.”

“I’ll stay for a week, after that, I’m out.”

“Thank you.”

We walk away together towards the hotel. “A week and you leave. We all leave.” I say.

Once inside the hotel April calls out, “Seems like your little escape plan didn’t work out too well.”

“Escape plan?”

“We all try leaving this place, once you realize you’re stuck here you kinda lose hope.”

“This is April?” Serafina asks.

“Yeah, that’d be me.” April smiles.

“So our rooms?” Serafina walks up the stairs.

“You two can stay together, I’ll go with Ria, she’s a heavy sleeper,” Sophie says.

***

Around six at night I decided to visit the restaurant. I sit on a stool, a man sits down next to me, the same man that watched Serafina.

“Hey, kid.”

“Hi.”

“You wanna know something?”

I stay silent.

“This place can be good, that is if you’re older and a white guy like myself, now these leaders, the Eastons, they use the younger women for… a bigger population.”

“Huh?”

“They pair fertile people, younger people, not too young but close to your age and they make them give birth. We have children, lots but they’re all newborns in a place they like to call a birthing center. Your friends aren’t safe here at all. I saw what happened at the gates, that’ll keep happening until they force you to do labor twenty-four hours and eventually kill you.”

“How do we leave?”

“They’ll send out groups when they need supplies, whenever someone in your group’s turn has come, leave, one after another.”

“Why haven’t you left?”

“Not as easy as it sounds and although this place is bad for some people, people like myself can thrive here.”

Before I go to sleep I tell Serafina about what the man said.

“We can’t just wait, we’re getting out tomorrow.”

“They won’t let us, we have to organize a shift together.”

“How do we do that?”

“I saw a list on a table near the gates, we put our names in for similar times and they’ll send us out around the same time, we can meet up near that retail store.”

“Sounds good.”

***

“Not this again,” Serafina says, waking me up.

When I sit up to see her pacing the room I ask, “What happened?”

“They can’t find Sophie.”

“Who?”

“No one, not the Eastons, the store owners. She’s gone.”

“Did you ask everyone?”

“Eli and Logan did.”

“We should fill out that list for two pm. She probably managed to escape.”

“Yeah… yeah, you’re right. So two O'clock with different minutes? I’ll tell the others.”

Serafina can’t lose her cool, not now, after what that man said. I’m very worried for Sophie but what we need most is to leave.

When I walk downstairs everyone else is standing there, but April isn’t at the desk.

“Where did April go?” I ask.

“She left a note that says, ‘Gone for now will be back soon put first and last name and amount of rooms here please’.” Ally says.

“I’ll put my name down first, for the escape,” I say.

***

The list reads,

Scavenge Party Reservations

Name:

Time - From, Until:

Age:

I write down my first name and mother’s last, mine was the same as my father’s but I can’t even remember if my mother told me it.

Nitro Henderson

2:09 to 3:48

Fourteen

By two pm I was sent outside to search for zombies, I waited at the retail store for a few minutes until Zander appeared.

“Hey, you ready? I ask.

“They did take the damn bus.”

“Wow, that sucks complete ass.”

Ally runs over and sits next to Zander, he smiles at her differently, a way you wouldn’t smile at your best friend or sibling in. The way they look at each other, it shows that they care about each other a lot.

I hear a loud, banging noise in the distance. From the corner of my eye, I see April slashing through zombies with an axe. So she was gone on shift. I walk over to her and gun down the remaining four with my gun.

“Hey, on shift already?” She pants.

“We’re leaving.”

“Oh, I’m guessing they lied to you?”

“What?”

“About Sophie. They… I really don’t want to tell you this but they killed her.”

I can't say anything, I don't know what to say.

"Used her body for uh firewood. I'm sorry."

"Firewood really? Like she's that useless."

"It's stupid I know but, that's what happens when you try leaving this place."

More people meet up with Zander and Ally behind me.

"We won't let them catch us."

"Your bus?"

"We don't need it. You have a gun, right?"

"I kill more biters with the axe, why?"

"Because you're coming with us."

"No, I can't!"

"Don't shout." I reach my hand out to her, she's so much shorter than me, too short for her age.

"My mom won't be okay."

"Think about it, she's a grown woman who can take care of herself, but you. You're important to these people, you know how they're using the young girls here?"

"Yes, but she-"

"She'll be fine."

When I turn around everyone's by the retail store. I walk over to them, April follows.

"What about Sophie?" Ria asks.

"She didn't make it. All the more reason why we have to go fast." I say.

***

“You call them biters?” I ask April.

“Yeah, I thought everyone did.”

Julia asks, "It's cold, how long have we been walking?"

"Not long enough," Eli responds.

"When's the last time you saw a goddamn road sign?" Logan mutters.

I point to a parking lot with a little green sign, "There's your 'goddamn road sign'."

"Lake?" Logan looks over his shoulder at a frozen-over lake covered in holes and bumps.

"On the bright side, there's some houses and a dock over there." Ally comments.

"This ice doesn't look safe," April says.

Eli steps onto the ice, "Must've frozen over while it was windy."

I follow after him and my foot falls into a hole, freezing fucking cold. Eli pulls me over to him, my back touches his stomach, he's not cold for some reason, I like the feeling of him holding me like that, but that's weird, really weird. I shouldn't even think stupid things like that. He looks down at my foot, "You okay?"

"I'm fine, let's keep going."

Julia says, "I remember this one time when my family and I went skating on a pond and while I was putting on my skates this little boy, wearing normal shoes fell into a patch of water. His mom was wearing these big ass heels, model type shit but she ran into the puddle and fell, the kid got out fine but she didn't pull herself out until her leg was drenched up to her knee."

"What a dumb kid." Zander scoffs.

"I hated it when people would bring all their little toddlers to ski lodges and shit. They think starting them off young will do any good."

Ice starts cracking below Logan, he jumps forward and as he does the spot he was just standing on splits apart. He gasps to catch his breath, "Ice fishing hole."

"What's ice fishing?" I ask.

"Yeah," April adds.

"It's when you drill a hole into ice and fish while sitting in a chair. Very anticlimactic." Ria says.

"Why not just fish when it's not cold out?" April asks.

"It's more of a Canadian thing. Canadians are weird like that."

Halfway down the lake I slip and fall. Not like the others have fallen. I fell hard, on my chin, it felt like my bottom teeth were pushed up.

Serafina sits down next to me, "Fuck!"

"Are my teeth okay?" I ask.

"They are PERFECTLY fine, but the problem is how much your chin is bleeding."

I rub my jacket sleeve across my chin, when I look down there's a ton of blood. I've learned not to do that and that blood doesn't come off easy but that doesn't stop me from doing it all over again and it doesn't stop Serafina from shouting, "Don't do that!"

"Don't over exaggerate, we're almost there," I say, standing up.

We make it to the dock, below it isn't frozen. In fact, there are a few zombies in the water, probably because they don't need to breathe, the thought of them being everywhere is horrifying.

“There should be a first aid kit or something in one of these houses,” April says.

“I’m fine, it isn’t that bad.”

“Biters can sense human blood.” She replies.

“What?!”

“But you’re right, I haven’t seen that many, that many that can actually get us…”

We go inside a house with a couch moved close to the door but not against it.

“Must’ve tried to barricade the door,” Serafina says.

Ally walks into the bathroom, Zander follows, “Well we found. . . something.” He says.

I enter the small bathroom, there’s a first aid kit with more supplies on the ground than inside. A deceased woman is gripping onto the first aid kit with one hand and a small knife with the other.

“Killed herself.” Ally says.

I pick up the first aid kit, bandages, a needle and thread, Neosporin.

“No butterfly stitches?” Zander asks.

“What’s that?”

“Like little clear things, you’ll know when you see them.”

“No… is it really that bad anyway? Stitches?”

“See for yourself.”

I stand up and look in the mirror. Some of my skin is barely attached, like two little flaps of skin hanging down from my bloody chin.

"Stitches it is," I say.

"Well don't ask me." Zander raises his hands.

"I can do them." I declare.

I walk down the hall and enter a bedroom with colorful drawings on the walls and lots of stuffed animals. There's a paper on a desk that looks like math homework with something spilled on it. I sit down on the blue and orange bed and realize I don't have a mirror, I haven't even seen someone get stitches on a tv show. I said I could do it but I can't at all, I at least have to try, I can't look like a little bitch that needs other people's help, and what if it does get infected or something. I pull the thread through the little opening in the needle and take the sharp end, I raise it to one side of my chin.

"Put that fucking thing down." Eli giggles from the doorway.

"Shut up." I stab the needle through my skin and grunt in pain, "Fuckkk!" My eyes start tearing up and I pull the needle out which hurts more than when I inserted it.

"Tough guy huh?" Eli sits next to me.

"It's fine," I say through sharp breaths.

"Move your head, pussy." He lifts up a napkin and dabs it on my skin or where my skin used to be. It hurts but after that needle it feels like an ant bite.

"Gimme that." He looks down at my right hand holding the needle and thread.

"No way." I jerk my hand back.

"Fine, have it your way." He sits there and waits, he's waiting for me to do it myself, knowing I won't.

"Whatever." I hand the makeshift medical supplies to him.

"You already know this'll hurt." He says.

Before I know it the thread is being tugged through my skin over and over again, it hurts a lot, so much worse than when I fell down. Is this even necessary?

"Stop moving your head."

I'm shaking for whatever reason, it's not something I do often, or at all. It's been a long time since I've felt this kind of pain which reminds me of how easy I've had it in this apocalypse.

Eli picks up a bandaid and puts it over the wound, "Done."

"Thank you, Eli," I say.

He smiles, "I got a huge scar on my knee running away from my old teacher on the playground." He lifts up his pant leg to show a scar across his right knee.

"Running away from a teacher?"

"Bad words weren't allowed… neither was skipping detention."

“Hey, you don’t happen to still have that map, do you?”

“I left it in the truck. We know where we are though, this is uh… Lake something and I think I saw a camping park.”

“Those campsites have big map things, we could break the glass and take it.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“We’ll head to the campsite.”

***

At the campsite, there aren’t any tents, just zombies that aren’t ‘alive’ anymore. There are a few dead rabbits and some of the tables are flipped over, a good portion of the zombies look more recently dead than the rest, some even with weapons in hand.

“This it?” Ally asks.

I walk over to her along with the others. There’s a big map inside a little glass case protecting it, on two wooden legs.

“How do we break it without making noise?” She turns around to Zander.

“We don’t, so” He pauses “who would like to do the honors?”

“I can do it with my axe?” April offers.

Everyone looks at her affirmingly. She raises the axe and doesn’t even hesitate - once the glass is smashed the map falls out, Ria picks it up and we all start running back to the house.

“We’re just supposed to make it on foot?” Logan argues.

“Me and Nitro have been on the road since the day this happened, it’ll be fine,” Serafina assures.

“This is different, it’s fucking winter up North and it’s not just you and Nitro, it’s all… what, nine of us?!”

“I think Logan’s right, maybe we should just stay somewhere like our old school. We don’t really have to leave. Humans can go a long time without food anyway.” Julia says, looking at the wall but none of us.

“Julia, seriously?” Eli shakes his hands through his hair. “You’d rather freeze to death in some weirdo’s house or a fucking department store instead of freezing to death trying?”

April stands up and gently slaps Eli then pushes Julia back, “You all sound like my brothers! They used to argue and argue but none of them were right, ever. We leave or stay but fighting isn’t going to decide.”

She walks over to the kitchen cabinet, pulls out sheets of notebook paper and pencils then rips the paper into little pieces, “This is how my mom would decide things in the house. An-oo-nym-us votes.”

“Anonymous,” Zander says quietly.

“You write down what you want and count the papers when you’re done, most votes win. Put leave or stay then fold it up and hand it to me.”

The ten-year-old girl we just met is more civil than the rest of us, if we didn’t have her we’d still be fighting, even worse by now.

I don’t know what I think is best, Serafina and Eli want to leave and I wouldn’t go against them, but maybe we could leave at a better time, we also don’t have many supplies. What if we just sit around and wait out the winter, then we get eaten or kill ourselves like that lady in the bathroom? The sooner we leave the better.

April shuffles through the votes then looks up and smiles, “Pack your shit, losers.”

Even though it's still bright out I lay down on the blue and orange bed, under the comforter. It's cold but the sun peaks in through the blinds and shines onto my eyes making them flutter. I toss the blanket over my head to hide from the sun when I hear someone enter.

"Nitro, I have a question," Ria calls out.

I pull down the blanket, Ria and Eli are at the doorway.

"Shoot."

"Eli's name is Elijah, right?"

"I thought your name was just Eli?" I say, sitting up to look at him.

"It is, but Ria's an asshole." He turns to her.

Ria sits down next to me and lays out the map on the bed. From down the hall, Logan yells, "Eli, you coming?"

"His middle name is Hawk, fucking unbelievable. My parents couldn't decide on a first name so my middle one is just 'Italia' it was an option for the… you know first name."

"That's a nice name," I say.

"Too bad it's not my first. My parents aren't even Italian, they're Filipino."

"I don't have a middle name."

"Lots of kids don't."

"Can you believe Eli's full name is just Eli Hawk Clarke? That's so weird."

"Elijah?" I ask.

"That's like the only long version of Eli… Where are we headed?"

"New York. Elmira, New York."

"So" she points somewhere in Vermont then drags her finger along the map "doesn't look too far."

***

It's already 6pm and being in the woods in the evening during winter isn't fun, not like it used to be.

“Have you ever been on any vacations?” Julia asks.

“I visited my brothers in the military sometimes. Where they were stationed.” April responds.

“How many brothers do you have?”

“Four on my mom’s side, two half brothers, and a half-sister on my dad’s side.”

“What happened to them?”

Everyone looks at Julia disapprovingly.

“Still in the military. I like to think that they’re alive, helping people but so many died so fast. Jacob wasn’t in the military he was twelve and was at my dad’s when it happened so we couldn’t do anything.”

“All we talk about is the past and present.” Ally comments.

Ria says, “The future is too depressing to think about.”

“Wanna raid that store?” Julia asks, pointing at a small store.

“Fuck it,” Zander says.

There are a couple of zombies outside the store but we walk low and quietly, they don’t spot us, or smell, sense?

It’s a drugstore, lots of things are missing, things like toothpaste and

Medicine.

“Come help me with this vending machine,” Serafina says, walking over to a knocked over but still stocked vending machine.

“How?”

“Find something long.”

Logan approaches and hands me a crowbar. “Here.”

Serafina stands up and holds onto the vending machine then pauses, “You’re taller than me.”

I stand up and hold onto it like she was. Serafina sticks the crowbar up the vending machine and tells me, “Shake it.”

I do as she says. She starts grabbing food through the slot in the machine and stuffing it into her bag. The others are scattered across the store gathering supplies when three kids step out of a bathroom, one holding a crossbow, one holding a shotgun, and the other with an assault rifle. Those weapons must have been hard to find around here.

“Hands up! Drop everything.” A girl says with a raspy tone.

Everyone follows her orders. She walks closer and her friends follow. The girl in the middle, holding the crossbow, has curly, auburn hair and a purple bandana wrapped around her head. She has one of those shark tooth necklaces and hair ties around her wrists, she’s wearing flannel and cargo pants. The girl beside her holding the shotgun looks just like her but with longer hair and a leather jacket, she looks more nervous too. On the far left a dark blonde-haired boy with a green beanie, denim jeans, and a white sweatshirt.

“Floor, slowly.” The middle girl orders again.

We lay face down on the floor, she walks over to search our bags, her friends stay back, covering her. I notice Eli reaching for his gun and whisper, “Don’t.” He brings his hand back to his side. The other girl kicks the gun away from him, “Don’t do anything stupid.” She says, her voice shaky and soft.

“How many?” The girl still checking our bags asks.

“About nine. All kids.” The boy says.

“About?”

“Exactly.”

“Where you from, that Easton place?” She asks, standing up.

“What Easton place?” April says through her teeth.

“Don’t play dumb with me, girl. You’re way too close and there’s way too many of you, besides we were on our way there and this is the only way there from here.”

“I am. Just me.” April mutters.

“Louder.”

“I’m from there, I left!”

“What are y'all doing here then?”

“Heading to New York,” Ria says.

“You good fighters?” She asks.

“What?” I ask.

“We could use a group of good people.”

“Just let us leave.”

“We have a safe camp with necessities.”

“If we go with you can we keep our things?” Serafina questions.

“You’ll need ‘em.”