Beginning of the End

"Shouldn't she be awake by now?" Brian asks, standing at the foot of Rita's bed, analyzing her unconscious form with a frustrated expression.

Abigail shrugs, stretching her muscles to try and bring her mind to focus. The night before had been a hard one on all of them. The storm had come back full force just as they had settled down for the night, and the girls discovered that Brian has vivid nightmares when he cried out unexpectedly, rousing them all from their slumber. All in all, they had each only slept around two hours.

Allison strolls in casually, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Maybe her body is just worn out. It's still early anyway," she says, checking her watch. "Not quite eight o'clock."

Brian nods, scratching the back of his head. "I hope, anyway," he replies, the exhaustion clear in his voice.

"We need to get some more wood for the fireplace," Abigail says, tilting her head to the side as she watches Rita's face for any signs of consciousness. "The cold can't be helping her any."

"We've been needing to do that," Allison agrees, "but it's dangerous."

The only place they have been able to find decent firewood has been in the woods a couple hundred yards from the house. Once, while trying to gather wood to cook, Abigail had nearly been killed when one of the infected cornered her. Since then, they have become overly cautious of that area.

"So we'll take a gun," Abigail says, pressing her palm to Rita's forehead. "She's running a little warm."

"Well, we can't just leave her here by herself," Allison reasons, gauging the expression on Brian's face as he takes a step closer to the bed. "One of us will need to stay here with her."

"I'll stay?" Brian offers, though it's clear he's not sure what the girls will think of the idea.

"No," Allison replies, "I need someone to help load up the wood. Would you mind helping?"

Brian feels uneasy about leaving Rita, but he knows that he owes them this much -- God only knows where he and Rita would be if they hadn't helped them. He shudders at the thought. "Yeah, sure. No problem."



It only takes them another ten minutes to prepare. Abigail is elected to stay with Rita while Allison and Brian head out into the dense forest behind their make-shift home.

Armed with a handgun, an axe, and an empty wheel barrell, they walk cautiously through the trees. "Over here," Allison beckons him father east, towards a tree that is leaning against a larger oak, probably as a result of the previous night's storm. There are several smaller branches hanging from the oak tree, with even more scattered on the ground.

They work in unison, taking turns with the axe and loading the wheel barrell as quietly as they can; no need to attract any unwanted attention.

Several moments of comfortable silence pass before Brian speaks. "Is Abigail your sister?" he asks by way of starting conversation. Allison seems guarded, though he can't blame her, but for a reason he can't explain, it makes him want to earn her trust and have her speak openly with him.

"No," she answers after a short pause, "she isn't."

"How did you meet?" he questions, raising an eyebrow in her direction.

She sighs, letting the head of the axe rest on the ground beside her foot as she fixes him with a calculating look. "We ran into each other in a grocery store in Jersey," she finally says, scratching the back of her neck. "I thought she was infected so I shot at her. Thankfully, I missed."

Brian nods, a small smirk playing on the corner of his mouth. "Thankfully," he agrees, which earns him a smile in return.

Just as Allison lifts the axe to take another swing, a blood-curdling scream sends her spinning on her heels.

"Help! Please, someone help me." It's a man, clearly under attack.

Northwest. Too close to the house. Abigail. Oh, God.

Allison is running before she even has time to think of a good defense strategy. Brian is following close behind her, yelling for her to stop and think.

"Help!" Another desperate cry from the victim, and his eyes widen as he sees Allison and Brian. He nearly trips over his own feet as he runs towards them, blood smeared across his face, dripping from his fingertips. A mass of matted black hair sticks up from his scalp in every direction. His clothes are torn, covered in sweat and blood.

Brian tugs on Allison's arm just as the man's attackers -three of them - come into view, halting Allison's movements as she suppresses a strangled groan. Brian lifts the gun in his grip, aiming as best he can and pulls the trigger, narrowly missing his intended target. His action only proves to gain the attention of the infected as their eyes snap in his direction.

Pushing Allison behind a tree and out if view he mutters "fuck" and fires again. The bullet flies straight into the eye of his target, sending blood and brain matter flying into its victim's startled face.

Allison pulls herself from Brian's grip, flexing her hands on the handle of the axe. Her heart is pounding mercilessly in her chest as she watches another infected go down, this time only mere feet from where she is standing. Her gaze flickers to the bloodied man as he falls to ground, heaving violently.

As the stranger struggles to breathe, the last standing zombie - Allison winces as the word enters her mind - leaps onto his back, biting down harshly on his neck, ripping and shedding with his blunt teeth. Blood immediately flies out in sickeningly rapid rivers, forming a morbid pile on the forest floor.

She doesn't even hear the gun fire when blood sprays on the tree beside her, the wood splintering off in every direction. She turns her head sharply towards Brian as he lowers the gun, taking a cautious step towards the man who is now grasping at his wounds, desperate to stop the bleeding.

"Don't," Allison says, putting an arm across Brian's chest. "He's infected."

Brian looks at her, a quizzical expression on his face. "How can you be sure?"

"Because I've seen it happen a thousand times," she answers, aggravation written across her face. "You haven't?"

He answers with a shrug, taking another step closer to the man who is looking at them with pleading brown eyes, though it appears he has lost the ability to speak; his vocal chords were probably damaged in the attack. That, or he is as aware of his fate as Allison is.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" he replies. "We're out of bullets." He still looks apprehensive, like he doesn't know whether he should believe her or not, and Allison can't help but wonder how it is that he's so damn ignorant that he hadn't figured this much out yet.

Before she has a chance to say as much, the man coughs violently, blood dripping down from the corners of his mouth. As quickly as Brian pulls back, an emotion similar to shock painted across his features, the man falls face forward onto the ground with his hands splayed beneath him.

As the infected man lifts his head, Allison notices the odd angle of his jaw; his head is turned slightly askew, eyes wild and glinting as they trail along her shock-still form as though he sees her. "Brian, get back," she chokes out in a barely audible tone.

Brian complies slowly, not removing his eyes from the threat in front of him. "Ki-" His response stops dead in his throat when he's tackled, teeth poised at his face as he grips the hair at the nape of the man's neck. Blood and spit flies from its teeth, its fingertips trying desperately to rip into the tissue in Brian's arms. "Allison!"

At the sound of her name, Allison pulls herself from her stunned silence. She lifts the axe in her hands, bringing it down swiftly across the back of the man's head. The sound of the metal breaking bone makes her stomach flip, but she forces herself to repeat the action until Brian pushes away the unmoving corpse.

"Were you bitten?" She wastes no time to ask the question, ready and more than willing to so the same thing to Brian if she has to. "Or scratched?"

"No," he answers, "not hard enough to break the skin anyway." His legs are shaking as he stands up, breathing hard and fast as he surveys the macabre scene in front of him. "Thank you, by the way. For saving my life, I mean."

Allison visibly relaxes though he can tell she's not entirely convinced he's being completely honest. It's just in her nature he assumes.

With a sigh she glances in the direction of the house, she quips, "Next time I tell you something, you better fucking listen. You could have gotten one or both of us killed."

"Is that your way if saying 'I told you so'?" he retorts with a laugh, but only to break some of the tension, because honestly, he doesn't find the situation all that amusing himself.

"You could say that," she admits, "but right now all we need to do is take what we've got and make it last. After all this, I don't feel safe out here."

Off Brian's nod, the two of them load what they've managed to cut and walk back in comfortable silence until Allison hears a voice drifting from the house.

"Abigail?"