The Dead Are Living

"Well, if we want to eat we are going to have to scrounge." I looked at Luke. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be I guess..." He looked around. "I don't think we should split up... last time I was almost killed and the time before that you were almost killed."

I nodded. "Let's go look in that Chevron station. Stale food is better than no food, right?" I tried to convince myself.

"Yeah." He nodded as he pulled his pistol from his back pocket. I grabbed my gun and we slowly went in the door. "I don't hear anything. Maybe it's clean."

I looked around and shook my head. "Hmph. Not even close." I pulled my air horn from my backpack's drink holder and held it up. I looked to Luke. "Get ready."

He smirked. "Nothing's here. Why are you doing that."

I laughed. "I said get ready."

"Whatever." He held up his pistol and I pressed the top of the horn. The loud noise instantly awakened a loud group of gurgling screeams and shouts as all of the back rooms opened and infected ran out. I quickly put the horn in my back pack but looked up to see two infected coming at me.

I narrowed my eyes. "Oh hell no.." I flipped my gun and caught it's barrell. I held it better with both hands and swung, causing the two infected to get hit and fall to the ground. I flipped the gun back and shot them. I aimed again and soon had shot ten more and the room was empty. I looked around to see Luke bent over, panting for air. "Nothin' here, huh?"

He looked up. "I'm sorry." His face was dripping with brown goo.

I smirked. "Your covered in shit, Luke." He quickly wiped across his face and smiled. "Better. Now, let's find some food." I was once again convincing myself. The shelves were bare. Other survivors must have raided... before they themselves slipped up and were infected too. I walked into the back room to see nothing but one box in the corner. I bent down and opened it to see two bags of chips, a small box of beef jerky and three bottles of water. I grinned. "Holy shit! Luke, we got lucky!"

He ran in and his eyes widened at the sight! "Real food!?"

"Yeah!" I grabbed my half of the food, he grabbed the other and the extra water bottle. This was something to be happy about. Out here, a lot of the food has either been taken or burned up from the people who weren't infected and some food is just infected from getting zombie guts on it, ya' know? The brown goo that come out when you kill them. That stuff can spread the infection.

We both ate, but still saved some for later in case would wouldn' be able to find anything else and we packed up and headed out of the store after grabbing a package of towels, some bandages and a tube of Neosporin left over from a raid. It was all that was left.

We walked out to see it was already beginning to get dark. The moon was visible but the sky was still orange and pink on the horizon. Luke walked up beside me. "The only moment of beauty we get to see now-a-days. Cherish it."

I smiled. "Yeah. But we can't. All of this area is open space and we need to get somewhere that we can make sure we will be hidden so we can actually get some sleep. Agreed?"

"Your the boss." He saluted with a smile.

I looked around and pointed to my left. "There. Woods. We can go in there and find a cave or a dense area and camp out there." I saw him nod from the corner of my eye and I bolted and he followed. We ran for a good five minutes until we made it to the edge of the woods. It looked thick. We's find somewhere to stay in it. Somewhere.

I hope.

Exhaustion was taking over my body and by the way Luke was running, it was doing him the same way. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a machete I found in a 1960s pickup and I led the way, cutting the branches and vines in the way until we stopped the rest.

I leaned against the tree only to jump back when Luke cursed. "Shit! Jade.."

I looked up. "What?"

He pointed forward toward two people under a thin blanket, almost a towel, cuddled up together. Two stuffed backpacks were being used as pillows and a rifle was sitting on each side of the couple. "What do you think?" I heard Luke whisper.

I shrugged. "We don't know if they're infected or not! They could be clean, infected or already be killed and that's where they were left. I doubt they are clean though. We haven't incountered any normal people in four months. It's not likely."

"Well, let's go over, slowly and caiutiously and if they are infected or dead we can see what supplies they had and ya' know... it's not like they'd need them if they aren't clean."

I nodded. "Good plan but what if they aren't infected... or dead?"

"You said that was unlikely. Why worry?" He turned the safety off of his pistol.

"I guess your right." I pulled my shotgun from my back and we went towards the couple.