Love, Zombies and the End of the World?

*Aidan’s P.O.V*
I wasn’t sure why I had gotten up so early, but the first thing that came to mind was Food, well besides hoping that Charli was okay, but let’s just go with food. Makes things much simpler than worrying about that idiot that gets herself into bad situations and I call my best friend.
I checked my wristwatch, showing it to be half an hour before sunrise, a terrible time to get up, but it seemed like I wasn’t the only one getting up at a god awful time. Patrick along with the other guys was either already awake or just getting up like I was. I could hear a few stomachs growling while watching the others rub their stomachs, which I happened to be doing. It had only been a few hours that Char put me to bed again, but I felt like I could take on an army of the undead, but to be honest, just the thought of rotting flesh made my stomach turn.
I was a pacifist before the outbreak happened. I was hoping to stay one too, but you know things change when you’re forced to pick up a gun and empty a clip into an undead member. Let’s just say that, that night ended with me crying and Charli comforting me and whispering softly that it was hard to do what I did but she was still proud that I wasn’t laughing about putting someone back in the grave. We – Charli, had to send someone away from the group because they were sadistic. It was quite sad to be honest.
“Aidan,” Ethan walked over to my bed, a soft smile on his lips. I wanted to kiss them, but no one knew that we had been together more than a few times. “Do you know where Ben is? He wasn’t in his sleeping bag and I noticed that Char isn’t around either.” His brows rose, “Do you think they’re finally together somewhere tangled up?” His brows wiggled making me laugh while shaking my head.
“Nah, Char said something last night about that she was going to go look around the mall. There’s probably a lot out there just waiting to be found so I bet that night in shining armor of Char’s followed after her.” I put on my best thoughtful façade, trying my best not to giggle. “I bet he would have a grey horse to ride upon if we were in medieval times.”
“I think it’d be a demon horse instead. He isn’t all what he acts to be, you know.”
“What do you mean? He isn’t as wonderful as Charli and I think he is?”
“Benji used to get in a lot of trouble as a teenager. He actually had to spend the night in the police station because he was drunk and was causing trouble at Burger King when he was 14. I hate to admit and destroy the innocence you seem to think I have, but I was sitting right next to him on that bench.” He shrugged a little like it was no big deal, but I was pretty surprised. He or Benji didn’t seem all that bad, but maybe that night in the station really changed them, but how Ethan put it, I don’t think they stopped after that.
My stomach gave a loud growl, immediately my hand flew to my stomach. Was there a way to stop your stomach from growling? I don’t think so.
“Seems like I’m not the only hungry one,” Ethan grinned one of his lopsided grins. If it wasn’t for everyone around, I would have grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him in for a sloppy kiss.
“Course not. I was hearing everyone’s stomach grumble. It was quite funny, actually.”
“Well, let’s go find Benji and Charli and get them to find us some food.” He held out his hand which I took in my own, both of us walking off to wake up the rest and tell them to get ready.
With everyone in tow, Ethan and I lead the medium sized group through the mall, noticing the dead lying about with an arrow jutting out of their eye socket. Charli had a good eye, she kind of reminded me of Hawkeye, that Avenger’s hero. The actor that played him was hot, also one of the first famous to get bit. Irony, really.
Then what did we walk upon? Charli and Benji shoving their tongues down each other’s throats. I was hit with a pang of jealousy. How come Charli could make out so freely while I could only make out with Ethan every so often? Lucky bitch.
“I hate to break up the party, but we’re hungry,” I gave one of my sweetest grins, only to frown when Charli pulled away from Benji with a groan. I wanted to say Okay bitch, listen up, you can make out with Mr. Perfect after we eat I don’t care. But because I mentally bit my tongue, I didn’t say anything more.
“Alright, let’s go check the food court” Benji smoothed back his hair. I almost giggled when I saw how puffy his lips were from the rough kissing. Good god Charli, keep hold of your raging horny hormones. “There’s probably a ton there, but you’ve got guns, which I’ll have to borrow a hand gun, Derek” While they exchanged weapons, I walked over to Charli, who’s lips were just as puffy and hair just as messed up. They were like teenagers, really.
“Nice to see you get comfy,” I said, a grin forming. I was truly happy for the two, but also wished they had met before the “end of the world” because this was the worst time to have a relationship. And I know I have no right to say this either since I’m secretly with Ethan, but Charli and I both chose the worst time to get with someone. Bad timing as one of our old, deceased friends would say.
“You ever going to make a move on Ethan?” I grinned sheepishly while her grey eyes widened. “No way. Are you and Ethan already together?”
“Well the cats out of the bag...” I wasn’t exactly ready to tell Char, but glad at the same time I did because it was hard keeping things from her. “Just don’t tell anyone else--“she cut me off.
“Why not? We’re all friends…” her eyes glancing towards Niall, who was surprisingly interacting with Patrick. “Well most of us anyways…”
“Well, I want to wait and see if things progress before I tell anyone else…”
“Welllllllll,” She imitated me, or at least tried too, “I would just blurt it out now so everyone knew to keep their hands off your man.” She had emphasized the last two words, making my cheeks darken with color.
“Hey girls, are we going to get going or what? I know it’s not social time…” Patrick had turned from Niall, both having easy-going smiles. That was sort of odd because Patrick hadn’t really liked Niall at first, but things changed, I should know that by now.
“Yeah, yeah,” Charli waved her hands at them laughing before she knelt down and grabbed her bow and quiver. I was never very good at using the bow, but it didn’t bother me. It was way easier popping a clip into a gun instead of reaching way behind you to grab an arrow then have to use all your strength to pull back the string. But Charli made it look easy, doing all of these things in a matter of seconds.

*Charli’s P.O.V*
“Alright guys, 10 at 11’o’clock, 6 at 3 and a few more right under the escalators,” Derek explained, having just got back from scoping out the food court. Not bad I suppose, but not wanting to waste any of my arrows, I grabbed out my favorite hand gun. I wasn’t sure why it was my favorite, it had nothing special added to it…maybe it was because my uncle’s? I wasn’t exactly sure what the reason was, but whatever, the gun suited me fine.
“Well let’s get this over with,” one of Niall’s goons sounded annoyed, maybe it was the lack of food his stomach held. I knew I was pretty grouchy from the lack of food.
“A few need to stay up here and make sure none show up because of the gunshots,” Ethan glanced around, picking 4 to stay upstairs, which I guess they were willing to comply, none of them pleading to go down stairs.
After we got into 3 small groups of 3, we split up and walked to where we were planned to head. I was in a group with Patrick and Niall, go figure.
I couldn’t believe how wrong Derek was with how many were under the escalators. There were hundreds milling around. No way could they have showed up in the 2 minutes we had taken to set up groups and what not. No fucking way. Glancing at Patrick and Niall who were on both sides of me, I noticed they had the same look of fear. There was no way that we’d be able to take them all down with the small amount of ammo we had. We planned for killing about 20, not 120. I was going to kill Derek, that’s for sure.
With the first shot of a gun over near Applebee’s, a ton of the undead looked right at us, some moaning, others screeching. That was not a good sign. There was infected in there. I know what you must be saying, of course there’s infected, Charli. Shut the hell up, there are different types of zombies, walkers, infected, crawlers and a few others I can’t name off the top of my head. Either way, each was dangerous in their own way. Walkers and crawlers are pretty self-explanatory, but the infected could run, very fast. Before they ran at you though in the most violent of manners, they always gave off a screech, which was also kind of a warning bell. I always thought of it as that the humane side of them was just telling you to hightail it out of there, which in all cases, I usually did. I hated these things. Even with the screech, it was always unexpected when they actually were almost right on top of you. I bet Aidan could name a few movie stars that died because of the infected.
“Guys!!” I screamed for the others, getting my gun in the right position and making sure the safety was off, I took a few steps back, making sure Niall and Patrick were set. I wasn’t about to lose more friends, the losses I’ve had were far too great in number. Fucking undead took to many lives and didn’t give many survivors back. Hearing heavy footsteps from above and behind, the others took their formations next to us, guns raised, determined looks masking the fear. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid. I’m pretty sure all of us would be.
-
We lost David and Sal, one of Niall’s friends. It was a sad rest of the day. Niall kept blaming himself for Sal’s death, but truthfully, Sal was at fault, putting himself in the middle of a smaller horde thinking he could take them on, but none of us were in the right spirits to tell him such things.
Throughout the “cleaning” as Jim put it, I kept having flash backs to what had happened in Wal*Mart. I had watched almost everyone die before I finally had forced Aidan and me to move. I seriously had watched David get torn apart by walkers after a crawler had bitten into his ankle and didn’t do a damn thing. I felt so useless. Pathetic. I was beating myself up about these guy’s deaths. I felt terrible, knowing that if they still had family alive, they’d probably leave me out in a field full of zombies and feel no regret if they were given the chance. I’d let them too.
Benji was sitting next to me against the wall. We had gotten our food, gratefully because I wasn’t sure if we’d last much longer without it. We did clear out the food courts, putting up the gates that surrounded it so if more undead were to come, we wouldn’t have to waste more ammo and lives. I was leaning my head against Benji’s shoulder at the moment, tears threatening to fall. I wasn’t the best of friends with David or Sal, but it still hurt knowing our numbers had decreased and Jim had lost his cousin. Everyone was in a bad mood. Aidan and Ethan were in the same position as Benji and I but they were in a bit more private area of JCPenny’s which was good I guess. We were planning on giving David and Sal a funeral, but when we went back a little bit later, there weren’t enough parts to put together and bury somewhere.
“Do you want to go to another part of the store?” Benji was looking down at me, his thumb stroking the top of my hand in a comforting way. As much as I didn’t want to move, I did want to be with Benji alone, whether anything “fun” happened or not.
“Sure…” We both slowly got up and walked to the stairs, heading up them to the second floor of the store. There wasn’t much up here but women and men’s clothing, which everyone was grateful for when we first had gotten here.
“Are you going to be okay?” Benji started, jumping head first into waters I wasn’t sure that I wanted to talk about yet.
“Yeah…” It wasn’t exactly a lie and it wasn’t exactly the truth, but I felt accomplished that I had found a word to use without crying. I didn’t want to cry. I was sick of looking or acting weak. We needed to clear out the zombies from the mall and the only way to do so was to be strong.
“You don’t seem it,” Benji took a finger and lifted my chin up, lightly placing a kiss on my lips. He was so sweet at times but he had hit the nail on the head.
“I’ll be fine, I promise…” I murmured against his lips, not wanting to pull back to talk correctly. Of course he had to pull away, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and made me sit on a bench again. The only thing I really could do was curl up against him, forcing myself to stay stony faced.
“You promise a lot of things…” He kissed the top of my head, the gentle gesture causing my lips to turn into a small smile.
“It’s the best way to keep everyone happy if I can keep giving them things to be happy about.”
“And why can’t you be happy?”