Day 4

Zombies killed: 7

We got to the fishing shop by sunset and without any problem.

Though we were tired from all the adventure sooner that day, we weren’t kids anymore, and just couldn’t just go to sleep by the hour it gets dark. Obviously, there was no working electricity in our base, and though we used the lighter to search for candles (there was none), the tool had an important limited amount of fuel, that I convinced my twin sister to spare instead of keep burning it to read a few magazines. In the dark, we couldn’t even play rock, paper, scissors. However, we could drink.

I thought about sparing the booze for special occasions, or for when we had a short of water, but not only we already were in a short for water, with just a few bottles, and with the river still too much polluted from the recent city overtake, the alcohol would also help us to sleep.

The bad side of it was the sudden and frequent times I waked up at night to piss: delicately, I unraveled myself from the snoring Morgaine, pushing her arms away and getting up. Both of us remembered when I argued we shouldn’t sleep away from each other, and honestly, I still thought the same way.

I tapped the walls until I got to the toilet.

The worst part of sleeping in the bathroom, however, was that… well, we were sleeping in the bathroom. At least if I didn’t lit the lighter I kept some privacy.

“Damn, sis, you really snore”, and I used to thought dad snored too loudly… Anyway, I was already laying on the ground again when she replied:

“Wait, wasn’t you the one snoring?”

“Hu? Are you awake?”

“Are you awake?”, Morgaine answered again. And we kept listening to the sounds.

I rushed to the plastic bags that should be at our feet and to the lighter inside of it: the fire revealed that we were the only ones inside the bathroom, but the sounds let pretty clear that the creatures were close.

Morgaine and I were already pretty awaken and with weapons in hand, and by the looks in her face, equally nervous. Should I open the door to inside the shop? We were a bit drunk when we went to sleep, so the zombies may have broken in, and depending on their numbers, if they noticed we were there, they could break the door, like when we ran from the horde that killed father, and, in this case, we should wait until they get out. Though, if that wasn’t the situation we were in, the wrong answer would be to just wait: if the sound came from, actually, a group of undead still approaching, we should act as soon as possible and get the hell out of there.

What should I do?

What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?!

“The glass!”, I whispered. “Morgaine, can you make a small mirror so we can look outside thru that window?”

“I got it”, she lifted her free thumb up. Only then I asked myself how could we break the mirror without making noise; but once again, and this was becoming pretty frequent, my twin sister proved to be more creative than I: she covered the thing with her school’s uniform jacket in a way that the glasses fragments didn’t fell all around. Morgaine proceeded to lay the glasses in the sink and take only one piece with the right size, then, as if she had already done that before, or was reading from a manual at the same time as working, proceeded to untie the rock from her club and tie the mirror on it, giving the tool to me: “here!”

“Thanks”, I used the thing like I had explained and looked outside thru the bathroom’s window: it was dark outside, but not as dark as inside, part because of the burning woods, part because of the moonlight, and, in any case, I could see the mass of undead coming straight to the cabin we were in. From the direction we exploded the car… Were they that intelligent then?! If that was the case, there was no way they would just ignore this place: “we have to run.”

“What?”

“Zombies, a lot of them: we have to run!” I opened the bathroom door just a bit and used on it the mirror-stick again before giving it back to Morgaine. Taking my twin sister’s hand, I continued: “Keep close to me! Don’t even think about letting this hand go! Just to let you know, even if you try to act cool and stay behind to save me, I won’t let you go, this is my job! I will dive into the horde and try to save you even if this mean certain death!”, I wouldn’t allow myself to left a family member behind.

“I can say the same, you idiot!”, Morgaine held tighter my hand.

We sprint out of the bathroom, thru the fishing shop, and straight to the entrance. Outside, I noticed even more zombies coming from all directions. And they noticed us.

Dashing faster than the fuckers could walk and going in between then before they closed Morgaine and my possible escape routes, I could only blame myself: I had committed the same mistake as everyone. A grave mistake. A mistake that, the same way it costed my city from its people, it could cost the life of my twin sister and mine.

I just assumed how reality worked without really knowing it.

It took us a long time to let all the zombies behind, and even then we didn’t stop to run.

The sun had already raised when we saw ourselves, drenched in sweat, in the middle of the woods, panting, too tired, but finally having pierced thru the lines of hundreds of undead who were attracted by our actions while in the fishing shop: hopefully, the zombies would continue in a straight line and lost track of us.

At least we still had the water bottles and food in our plastic bags.

“Bro… I’m tired...”

“Me too...”, we needed to find a place to rest, we couldn’t just sleep in the opens; even if we take turns, both of us were so tired that, if the awaken one didn’t fell sleep, this one wouldn’t be able to fight nor run in case of danger latter. “Lets continue just until we find a place to stay.”

Having seated on the ground for a couple of minutes and let our heartbeats go back to their normal rhythm, we wandered the woods for a while. Though we found lone zombies scratching threes’ barks while staring birds at their nests, and tripping at roots after trying to catch us, Morgaine and I agreed that it was for the best to conserve energy at that moment and we avoided all them.

We drank from our water bottles just to discover that it’s not a good idea to drink a lot of water at once while making heavy exercise, we saw our paths blocked by black smoke that was too thick coming from the burning forest, and big settlements filled with brain-eaters, and avoided places where we could be seen from far away.

And so, we reached an old dirt road and an abandoned red pickup truck by its side.

Looking thru its window, I couldn’t see any zombie inside it, nor, actually, any signal that

it had been used in at least a few days, so we wouldn’t need to worry about any angry survivor; though we hadn’t seen any yet, I knew they existed after all. I didn’t even care about the dozens of burned cigarettes inside it and the probable stink the car would have by that point: I offered my twin sister my school jacket (her having become completely useless after the movement to make our small mirror, filled with small glasses fragment and all torn), so she could break the window, but Morgaine declined, saying that once that we were in an open place, the noises wouldn’t be that loud in the first place, and a big part of the glass fragments would fall inside the car and in the soft seats; however she pointed that silver tape would come in handy in the future.

And she was right: when she hammered the pointy stone she asked me to hold against the car window, it shattered and part fell inside the car almost noiselessly, while the rest touched the earth beneath without any bigger problem.

Both of us had forgotten about the alarms, though; it was too soon for the batteries around the town have died out.

The beeps and lights of the deemed vehicle alerting the entire universe of our presence, we dived into the forest, running once again, this time without waiting for the horde that would come for sure, and getting away from the car before the approaching zombies got too close to each other and we get in a complicated situation like before.

It was the first time we saw ourselves homeless during the night.

Of course, there were no stars or moon that night too, but complete darkness.

My twin sister and I holding each other’s hands tightly, we advanced very slowly thru the dark woods under total blackness, each step more uncertain than the previous one, hearing things growling at or right and at our left.

I knew the creatures were close, I could smell their stink, listen to their snarls. Lit the lighter would mean certain death, reveal our position, we would be surrounded in an instant; we having no choice but to walk without knowing even if heading straight into a horde or stepping over an undead on the ground… this, if this assumption wasn’t wrong from the begging, like my two last ones. What if the zombies could see in the dark? What if Morgaine and I were the only ones at a disadvantage then?

I didn’t know what to do.

Then, we stumbled on a camp.

We could see the back of a tent just ahead, and no zombies close to it. I didn’t know if it was a good idea to sleep inside a tent, but we definitely couldn’t keep roaming the forest, aimlessly, during the night. I knew it was risked in its own way to use that tent, but I could do nothing but to feel relieved.

It was only when we skirted the tent to its entrance that we saw the enormous pile of fur, claws, and teeth there. The bear that we just had just waked up.

“Bro…!” Morgaine almost craved her nails in my hand while we slowly retreated. “Bro!”, the bear’s growl was deeper and louder than the one of any zombie we met until that point, and I knew even without experiencing it that its bite was way stronger and its claws way longer too; that one could make thru my shoes with ease.

It was coming closer, angry. It probably hadn’t torn us all apart until that point because it got used to zombies and was waiting for us to attack.

“Th- The bags!”, I did the only thing I really understood and used our resources. Untying the plastic bag from myself and throwing its content before the animal, I instructed: “throw it to him! Let's distract him with our food and get away from here!”

I didn’t need to tell Morgaine a second time: she did like I had demonstrated and, my strategy unbelievably working, the bear stopping momentarily, even retreating one step, then going to investigate the plastic bags and the smelling fish bait and dried meat inside it, as soon as we couldn’t see it anymore, my twin sister and I ran, once again lost, and then without any supply.

A few days ago, I was sure that we would be able to keep one or two nights awake without a problem, but then, panting, tired, hungry and thirsty, I was once again punched straight in the stomach by a reality that didn’t work like I thought or wanted at all. I couldn’t keep going straight for much more, and though I couldn’t see Morgaine’s face, I doubted she was in a very different state…

Running away from the bear, an insuperable enemy, then carrying less about being stealthy than being chewed alive by a savage beast, I guided Morgaine in no specific direction. And yet, somehow, in the wrong direction.

Lights were lit ahead. I was blinded for a moment, but, my pupils adapting, I saw an enormous and luxurious walled mansion revealing itself by the river. Men heavily armed and wearing protection of military level, though branded by a commercial logo of a happy shrimp, showed up. Their faces were covered by masks, but by the way they just casually and without any specific target, pointed their machine guns to the woods, I could tell they were almost bored when shooting even before verify if we were really zombies. No, maybe they didn’t even cared.

My twin sister and I dived onto the ground and we tried to protect ourselves the best we could, seeing earth being lifted in clouds of dust all around, branches and trunks being pierced with easy by the bullets and entire three tops falling to the ground.

“Anyone there?”, one of the many men over the concrete wall asked. And, listening to something by Morgaine and mine’s side, pointed: “There”, he started to shoot with his companions.

While the happy shrimp-men were distracted by whatever made the previous sound, knowing that maybe we wouldn’t have another chance, I got up and dragged my twin sister with me yet again. For God only knows how much time. We ran. We walked. We proceeded and never stopped.

Then, a mount of trash ahead.

Tires, oil rusty barrels, and plastic everywhere. And, right before us, a bathtub filled with dirt and more garbage.

“Help me...”, I pointed to the bathtub and tried to explain my point, only to discover that even talk was hard at that point. “Help me to empty this.”

In the middle of the night, in the forest, having just run away from a bear that could be still after us at that exact moment, and keep listening to strange sounds all around, with Morgaine’s help I turned the disgusting bathtub around and used it as a shelter, hiding myself in the smelly small space with my twin sister and succeeding in fall sleep just because of the extreme tiredness I felt. Though still more afraid than in any other moment of my life.