The Dead of Night

I walked around for a bit trying to find some sort of sign to which way they could have possibly went. There were footprints everywhere in every direction. I sighed and thought to myself, “there has got to be something, somewhere”. Moments later, there was rustling coming from the bushes about eight feet from where I was standing. I quickly tucked myself behind the trunk of a tree. There was that uneasy, familiar feeling of something watching your every move, and it was just on the other side of that tree. I was too scared to peek just in case that might be the last thing I do. "You can do this... he could be looking for you", I whispered to myself as I took a deep breath. I tried building up the courage to see what it was, but my anxiety was way too high. The slow shuffling footsteps got closer, as leaves and twigs crunched underfoot. My heart was in my throat, it was getting hard to swallow. Finally, after a brief moment, I decided that it is either now or never. I grabbed the only thing I could find at the base of the tree and took another deep breath. With a rock in hand, I raised my arm and stepped out from behind the tree trunk. I instantly froze. stunned with what was standing in front of me. It was a lonely deer that was passing by. I slowly lowered my arm, hoping I would not scare it off. It stared at me so intensively and ready to bolt back into the bushes. Maybe it was trying to figure out if I was going to try and eat him like the rest of the 'humans' it came across. Taking one steady step to the side, my foot slipped off a root that was sticking out of the ground. The deer got spooked and took off farther into the woods. With a sigh of relief, I dropped the rock and continued to search the area for any clues on where or better yet, what happened to Damien and the rest of them. About an hour or so later, the heat from the sun was extraordinarily unbearable. I walked as far as I could until I felt a little dizzy from heat exhaustion. I had to stop and rest.

While leaning against a big boulder in the middle of nowhere, my stomach growled in hunger, “there has to be something around here, like a berry bush or something", I said to myself under my breath. My headache was not getting any better and walking was not much fun either. Thinking about what I should do next, I decided to try and find a safe place to stay until I could get back on my feet. For hours, I wandered through the trees and open valleys scavenging for food wherever I could find some, but there was not much to choose from. Food was not the only thing that seemed to be scarce on this planet anymore. I finally found a little place to stay for a while. It was a small, little run down cabin with a shack just off to the right side. There was a blue pickup truck parked at the side and its front bumper was completely smashed in. I slowly crept over to the driver side and peered in, there was blood all over the inside of the truck. Something did not feel right, something felt off about what happened here. I looked in the bed of the truck and found a small tire iron under an old tarp and some rope. “At least it’s something… I guess. Hopefully, there is something better inside”, I said to myself with uncertainty. While scanning the area in every direction to see if anyone, or anything was there, I grasped the tire iron firmly and gradually inched towards the front door of the cabin. As I stepped onto the porch, “Don’t come any closer!”, a voice nervously yelled through the door, “I’ll shoot you! I swear I will!”. I raised my hands and placed the tire iron in front of me, “I don’t want any trouble, I’m not here to hurt you. I just need some help.”, I anxiously said as I stammered over my words. The cabin door slowly crept open with a dull creek and the end of a double barrel shotgun appeared through the crack. “What do you want?”, the voice asked cautiously, “how did you find me?”. I stood tall, still holding my hands up in front of my chest, “I got separated from my boyfriend, wandered through the woods for hours and ended up here”, I responded, unsure if they were going to pull the trigger. The voice stammered, “you’re... you’re lying! Where did you take him?!”, they stated as they started to sob and waved the shotgun in my face. I took a step back, “I’m not lying, I swear. I just need somewhere to stay for a while to get my bearings”, I declared as I tried to reassure the mysterious person behind the wooden door, “wait, what are you talking about? Take who, where?”. There was a moment of silence, followed by sniffling, “my… my dad”, the voice divulged. The door steadily swung open, and to my surprise, a boy and a little girl, with her arms around his waist, were standing right in the doorway. He was probably about ten years old, and she looked to be about five, maybe 6 years of age. The boy lowered the gun, as his sister nervously tightened her grip around him and hid her face. “Its okay, I’m not here to hurt you, I promise”, I reminded them as I lowered my hands, “can you tell me what happened? Maybe I can help, somehow. Where is your mother?”. The boy looked at me with hurt in his eyes, “she died… a long time ago”, he answered full of sorrow, “as for our dad, strange people came to our house last night… he left, and he hasn’t come back. He told me to stay safe and not let anyone in the house”. I knelt down on one knee, “I’m sorry to hear that, I’m sure he’s somewhere safe. What are your names?”, I asked sincerely, showing concern. The boy glanced down at his sister, then looked me in the eyes, “I’m Kyle, and this is Lily”, he answered hesitantly as he placed his hand on Lily’s back. I smiled, “my name is Michelle, I live about an hour or so from here. At least I did, before all of this”. They both looked at me with a puzzled look on their face, “before what?”, Kyle asked, “did something bad happen where you are from?”. I lowered my head, “yes, I had to leave my home. It was not safe there anymore”, I said truthfully as I looked him in the eyes. “Oh…”, Kyle responded with hope, “but you’re safe now, and that’s good. Right?”. Seconds later, the rustling of the bushes and haunting groans flowed through the tree line like a dense fog. “I know your daddy said not to let anyone in, but it’s not safe out here either. Could I come in? You can trust me”, I anxiously asked while looking in the direction of where the noise was coming from, “please?”. Kyle took Lily’s hand, “I guess so, but only until our dad comes back, okay?”, he said restlessly while stepping back away from the door. I picked up the tire iron off the porch and went inside. After a little while, the sound slowly drifted off into the distance. We were safe, at least for now.

A few weeks went by and I still could not help but wonder what happened, or where everyone went when I got separated from Damien. Kyle and Lily’s dad has not returned either. It was starting to make them worry. We were running out of food, so I decided to go exploring to see if I could find something to help keep us going. Eventually, I came across a small stream not too far from the cabin. Back before all of this, Damien would teach me things he learnt from his dad about survival. I never took it seriously, but now I know he just wanted me to stay safe in case of an emergency. I do not think this is the kind of emergency he had in mind. As gross and slimy as it was, I stepped into the algae infested water. I was able to catch a fish or two, even though I got soaked in the process. It started to get dark, very dark, and being out in the woods by yourself at night was never a good idea, even before the apocalypse happened. I could hear coyotes howling in the distance, raccoons fighting in the bushes and crickets chirping in the grass. However, what scared me the most was that I have been alone in the woods this whole time, watching over two little kids that do not have parents. Based on the blood I saw in the truck out front of the cabin, I do not think their dad is still alive. I am not even sure if Damien is still alive… but holding on to that hope has gotten me this far.

On my way back to the cabin, my body was tense and feeling exhausted, so I stopped to rest for a moment. I was so tired, I started falling asleep sitting up. "No, wake up… you can't fall asleep, not now", I thought to myself. As I forced myself to get up, I took a couple steps towards the direction of the cabin, but my foot slipped into a rabbit hole. I twisted my ankle and collapsed. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get up. It hurt so much, I howled loudly in pain. It felt as if my leg was going through a high speed woodchipper. Suddenly, the terrifying sound of groaning and moaning faded in from the dark abyss. There had to have been at least a dozen of them, I could not tell, it was too dark to see. Before I knew it, two of them came out of the bushes and glared me. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and shivers rushed down my spine. They got closer, and closer as each second slipped away. I instantaneously begun to drag myself backwards across the ground towards the base of a big tree, and with my luck, there was nothing within reach I could defend myself with. One of the decaying corpses tripped over a root in the ground and grabs my bad foot. I shrieked in pain once more, probably the worst thing to do in that situation. The other one was not far behind. "Is this how it's going to end?", I thought to myself as I painfully struggled to get this man-eating carcass to let go of me. It painfully twisted and turned my ankle as it squirmed farther up my leg. It was just about to sink its teeth into my calf, when out of the bushes, a silhouette ran over, stabbed in the head and pulled it off me. A hand reached down to me, “are you okay?”, they asked as they tried to catch their breath. I sighed heavily, “yeah, I… I think so. Thank you”, I responded as I took their hand to sit up. I instantly grabbed my ankle; it was throbbing in agony. I looked over into the distance and saw two others taking out the rest of the dead. One of them resembled a woman with long hair and some sort of long sword. The other looked like a man, with shorter hair and handy with a pistol.

Once they were finished clearing them out, the man and woman walked over to where I was sitting. "Who are you?", the man said sternly as he stood in front of me, "hey, I asked you a question". I was in so much pain I could not answer him. "Dad, calm down... look at her, she's needs our help", the boy said with concern. The man sighs and asked hesitantly, "how many walkers have you killed?". I replied, "none". The man asked as he reloaded his gun, "how many people have you killed?". I replied with the same answer as I stared into his eyes, "none". He looked back at me as if he didn’t believe a word I said, “okay, why? But more importantly, how have you survived this long if you have not killed anything that has tried to kill you?”. As I went to answer, the boy looked at his father, stepped in between us and asked with attitude, "now that she answered your questions, can she come back with us?". The man glanced at the woman holding the sword; she nodded as if she agreed with the boy. The man sighed again, looked down at me and said, "alright, fine... but if you do anything stupid, I won't hesitate to kill you". The woman put her sword back in its sheath, then knelt to help me up. I put my arm around her shoulder and hopped up to a standing position. “You okay? You ready?”, she asked as she regained her balance. “Yeah, I’m good… but there is one problem”, I stated nervously. The man, woman and boy all turned to look at me, “what is it?”, the woman asked in confusion. “There is a cabin not too far from here, there are two young kids there. I found them a few weeks ago. Their parents are gone; they have nobody… nobody but me. We have to go back for them”, I stated eagerly. The man turned to the woman, then looked at me, “once we get back to our camp, we’ll send out a search party for them. But I can’t promise we’ll find them”. My heart sank, “no, we have to go now. What if they were your children?”, I asked with impatience. The man glared at me and I just stared back, “Dad, we can’t just leave them out here… you know we can’t do that”, the boy said to his father. “You know your son is right… we can’t just leave two children out here when they need our help. We can grab them on the way back”, the woman chimed in with concern for their safety. The man could not help but feel like he was outnumbered, “fine, but we better make this quick… the walkers are more active at night and we can’t afford running into a herd right now”, he declared as he holstered his pistol. We started walking back towards the cabin, and the feeling of perplexed relief coursed through my body. Finally, we were not alone anymore, and deep down I started to wonder; maybe they found Damien too... I hope.