Only one chapter for today. I'll get more out later tonight/early morning.

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Chapter 1!: The Departure

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Sam was just leaving the portable restroom when the jet passed overhead going towards the city. He also had his suspicions about its objective so he quickly stood behind the largest vehicle he could find.

No sooner had he done so that the blast swept through his part of the camp.

He hid underneath the vehicle but the forceful gale started tipping the car over.

It flipped and rolled several meters away from him, lying on its side. Sam had no way of fighting off the wind on the ground so he was picked up as well and he was flung towards the toppled vehicle.

CRUNCH.

His back slammed against the underside of the vehicle that had been upturned. Coughing out blood, Sam could only slump on the ground, out of breath. His vision blurred and he felt a warmness spreading from his diaphragm.

He struggled to move his head to look down and he saw a long piece of metal protruding from his body. He could not move and every breath felt like magma coursing through his lungs.

The front axle of the car had broke off and jabbed him through the back and out the front.

He bloodied his hands trying to stop the bleeding around it but it would not stop.

“Help.” He whispered, barely getting the word out. A pain pierced through his entire body and he used it to channel his voice, “HELP ME, SOMEBODY!”

No one came. He looked around in desperation, trying to find someone who could save him. Everywhere, he saw people slumped over, either dead or unconscious.

Burning tent pieces floated through the air and sounds of roaring fire could be heard all around him. In the distance, he saw the fence collapsed while a swarm of infected pushed their way into the camp to pounce upon the view survivors. More screams in that area could be heard.

A low growl sounded a few meters away from him. He looked and to his horror, an infected, completely cut from its lower torso and legs, was crawling its way towards him.

Sam was too weak to fight in that position. He looked around and found no weapons he could use.

Breathing fast, he held onto the axle.

“One...two...thre-ARGH” He tried to push the axle back out while pulling himself out, but the pain almost caused him to pass out. He was seeing dark spots in his vision as he slumped back down defeated. The metal rod re-impaled his torso, ripping through more flesh and organs.

Sam had no more energy to move. His hands slumped to the ground as he looked towards the crawling infected. It was a small girl with pigtails and a pretty white and red dress, stained crimson by the blood from her missing body parts.

“No, please, no.” Sam said as he squeezed tears out of his eyes, closing them and looking up at the sun.

The girl’s groans could be heard almost upon him.

“Just do it.” He whispered softly.

Just as the girl was about to bite down on his neck, she hesitated.

He opened his eyes in confusion, and he saw her moving her hand back.

The hand sped towards him and shoved itself through his throat. Sam’s eyes went wide for a moment, looking at the small petite hand that had gone through his neck. Gurgling, blood came out of his throat. His eyes rolled back and his body slumped, never to rise again.

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John looked at the unconscious girl slumped next to him in the car seat.

After driving away from the collapsed fences on the far end of the camp, they had driven towards the military section of the compound which had fallen into disarray. The soldiers were trying to maintain order and hold back the horde but were failing miserably. They only had a few minutes before the defensive perimeter would completely collapse.

They drove the Escalade towards the Humvee that John stole the keys from. As he hopped out, he saw two infected around the vehicle. One wore civilian clothing while the other was the officer who he had stolen the keys from.

Seeing this, John felt guilt again, but it didn’t stop him from pulling out the gun and quickly dispatching the two.

“Come on, load those crates in the cars.” John said as he pointed at the supply crates near the Humvee.

David, Sophia, and his mother all got out and worked together to move four crates into the Escalade and another 4 into the Humvee. They had filled the cars up until they were packed.

John then used the keys to startup the Humvee and hopped in. The two cars drove off together, continuing deeper into the camp. The group had all changed into their disguises while packing and were not stopped as they moved along. John had gotten the officer clothing through similar methods as when he acquired the keys to the Humvee.

As they drove, they looked left and right, hoping beyond hope that they would spot Sam amidst the chaos. The blast had destroyed much of the camp and incapacitated ,many of the soldiers. The ones that had survived in battle-ready condition scrambled for weapons and moved towards the approaching infected, opening fire upon nearly anything that moved.

The civilian survivors also rushed towards the army camp trying to find safety, only to be shot down by the rain of lead from the soldiers. It seems they had given up differentiating friendlies from targets.

The two car group passed by a large, collapsed green tent.

Suddenly, Sophia yelled out. “Stop the car!”

The two cars stopped, and Sophia got out the car, moving towards a dazed girl in a hospital gown standing next to a humvee, looking at something in the distance. The way she was shuffling forward listlessly almost made John think that she was infected.

John got out of the Humvee and walked over to Sophia, who was yelling at the girl to get her attention.

“Abby! It’s me. We have to get you out of here!.”

John could not believe what Sophia was doing. They had just survived what seemed like a nuclear blast, a horde of infected, and were currently trying to escape, but Sophia had stopped them to save a random girl.

“We have to go! We’re running out of time.” John eyed the front lines. The infected had turned a majority of the civilian populace at this point and were engaged in a one-sided massacre with the soldiers. He took out his guns and started shooting down the few infected that had gotten through.

Although he was holding them back while Sophia was struggling to bring the girl towards the Escalade, the girl was struggling very hard, making it difficult to move her. John was running out of bullets so he walked towards the girl and hit her across the back of her head with the butt of her gun.

Sophia was surprised at his actions but quickly started picking her up, putting the girls arms around her neck.

“Put her in the Humvee. There’s not enough room in the other.” John said. Because of the crates, the group had originally been piling up on top of each other in the cramped interior of the car. Now that John was driving the Humvee, there was finally room for the others to sit somewhat comfortably.

John put the girls arms around his neck as well and they dragged her to the car, dumping her into the passengers seat.

As he was going around the car to get into the driver’s seat, he saw a slumped figure. Looking closer, he realized it was Sam, impaled by a metal rod, his neck split open to reveal the insides. His eyes were bloodshot and he was groaning while trying to move. There was no way he could be alive like that unless he was infected.

John clenched his fist and grit his teeth. Lifting his gun, he pointed it at the reanimated Sam and took the shot.

Moments later, John hopped back in and kicked the car into drive and they headed out again.

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Abby awoke suddenly. She had suddenly fallen unconscious, giving her the feeling of dunking herself into a sea of darkness, only to be jerked right back out into the light a moment later.

“Ahhh!” she sat up screaming but a hand moved quickly to cover her mouth.

She desperately tried to move the hands away from her mouth. She didn’t know what was going on, where she was, and who this person trying to silence her was.

“Shh! You’ll bring them to us.” A young man around her age with dark brown hair and eyes looked at her in a mix of annoyance and anger.

She tried to tell him to let go, but only a muffled voice came through.

“Only whisper. If you scream, I swear we’ll leave you here.”

She looked around to find that they were in what seemed to be a small warehouse. No lights were shining through the few windows present so she assumed it was night time. Boxes upon boxes were piled up around the room.

She looked back directly into his eyes and nodded. He stared at her for a few seconds before moving his hand away from her mouth.

No sooner had he done so, did the questions most on her mind come rushing out. “Who are you? Why did you bring me here?”

“My name is John. I heard you’re an acquaintance of Sophia.” He looked behind Abby. She turned around to see the brown haired girl from earlier in the tent standing behind her, looking at the two with her arms crossed. She raised one hand in greeting.

“As to where you are…” John continued. Abby looked back at him.

“We think it’s some kind of food warehouse that some organization had stockpiled to feed the homeless.”

She observed the boxes more carefully and they did seem to be filled with cans, boxes of cereal, juice boxes, apple sauce, and anything she could imagine in terms of food stockpiled in them.

“It’s one of those charity food warehouses. We’re going to stay here for a while and then make our way South, try to find survivors and answers.”

At the mention of survivors, she remembered her family and their deaths but she had no more tears to cry. She just lost all her energy and slumped even further than she already was.

“What do you want from me?” She asked. Clearly they had saved her, but for what purpose?

“I’m not too sure myself.” John replied. “But Sophia seems to want you to stay so until you find something useful to do, just get some rest. We’re going to be leaving in the future so you have some time to decide whether to join us. As for the rest of us, we can see how you do and decide whether we even want you.”

She felt indignant at his tone and words. Frowning she shot back, “What’s so great about you guys that I’d want to stay.”

He shrugged. “Then leave. The doors are right there. That’s one less person to worry about.”

She looked towards the doors and remembering what waited for her outside, she shivered and said nothing.

Seeing no response, John nodded toward Sophia and walked off towards another young man, a woman, and a younger boy.

“He’s just being careful. I’m sure he’s worrying more about safety than being nice to people.” Sophia said sitting next to her.

“How come you don’t sound convinced?” Abby asked. Indeed, Sophia had said that in a detached manner that seemed as if she wasn’t quite close to the young man.

“He’s a classmate from school but we never talked before the incident. We escaped together with his buddies but we never really got to know each other.” She said somewhat regretfully.

Abby smiled a little. “Did you want to?”

Sophia just looked at her before looking at John’s back. “If I stick around, I’m sure there’ll be a lot of chances to. But at this point, we’re more worried about staying alive.”

Abby remembered that the world they lived in was no longer the sunshine and buttercups she had known just a few days before.

“How are you feeling?” Sophia asked Abby. She was referring to how Abby was handling the deaths of her parents.

“Better than before. I’ll live, thanks to you.” Abby replied.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Why did you save me?” Abby asked. She was just one among many and they had only met for a very short while.

“You seemed like a nice girl. But truthfully, it was more for us than it was for you.” Sophia looked at Jacob who was sleeping next to his mother in the Escalade, his body stretched out over the back seats.

“The others and I had seen a lot of bad stuff out there, done a lot of bad stuff. I guess we wanted to atone for it in a way. Make sure we still had our humanity intact.”

Sophia stood up and handed her a blanket.

“You should get some rest.”

Abby nodded and found herself a corner and quickly went to sleep.

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“How is she?” John asked Sophia who walked up to them.

“She’ll hold up. Not sure when the grief will sink in but she’ll live through it. Hopefully.”

“Alright. But if she turns out to be more weight than lift, we’ve got to cut her loose. You understand that, right?” John asked.

“Yeah, I get it. Did you finish running inventory on the place?”

David broke out into a tired grin. “Food for months and the boxes we picked up are full of weapons. Assault rifles, pistols, grenades, a rocket launcher. You name it, we’ve got it. There’re even bulletproof vests.”

“Quite the haul.” John admired.

“So what’s next?” His mother walked up. She had left most of the decisions to the teens but they still looked for her input.

“I’d say we wait it out here. We’ve got everything we could want. Just stay here and wait out the storm.”

The others hesitated. The place was a very attractive place to stay in and the road ahead was treacherous.

“I say we start recruiting.” John said.

“I thought you don’t like new additions.” Sophia asked.

“I don’t like dead weight. But we need people to help us if we’re going to fight those things. We’ve got the supplies, we just need the manpower.”

“How do you know they’re not just going to steal it right from under us?” David asked.

“We’ll watch them. If they seem like someone we can use and trust, we take them in. Take real people. The ones with something to protect. We treat them like family and hopefully they won’t hit us behind our backs. If they do,” John paused.

“We kill them.”

David thought. He shrugged. “The more the merrier.”

Sophia added, “Might as well try restoring some order to this hell hole.”

John smiled. “Alright then, let’s go rally the troops.”