Fight or Flight

It was starting to get harder to breathe as Janie ran with her brother, Jake, thundering along behind her. The muscles in her legs were screaming at her to stop; she hadn’t run this hard since college track, and that had been almost eight years ago. They had to keep running though; there was no other option, besides being ripped to pieces by the things chasing them, like Angela and Mark had been.

Don’t think about that now, Janie told herself, but she couldn’t help it. As she ran, she remembered how the things had come out of nowhere, seeming to surround the broken down car in an instant. Jake had dropped the lug wrench he had been using to take the flat tire off the car to pull his gun, but even as he shot the thing attacking Mark, it was too late. Angela had become hysterical and ran towards Mark before Janie could do anything, and then it was too late for her, too. At that point, with the dead still coming, Jake had shot a path through them to the trees, and the brother and sister duo had high tailed it.

Even though she was half convinced that they would meet the same fate anyway, Janie still kept running, twisting through the trees and leaping over roots, glancing over her shoulder to make sure her brother was still behind her.

There was a root she jumped over that Jake didn’t see, and she heard him crash to the ground behind her. She doubled back, and in the process of helping him to his feet, dropped the lug wrench she had paused long enough to pick up earlier.

“I don’t – think – I can keep – going,” he panted out through harsh breaths. He wasn’t like Janie; he had spent most of his time since he was fifteen getting high and partying, not staying in shape. Janie looked behind them. They had managed to put some distance between them and the dead, but they were still coming. She searched the woods with her eyes, frantically looking for anything that might offer them a chance.

There. Further left than their original trajectory, Janie saw where the trees thinned out.

“Come on,” she urged her brother, “just a little further, I see the road.” Bending down to pick up her only weapon again, she then grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him after her.

We can make it, she thought, we have to.

The tree line broke and their feet pounded on the hot asphalt. The sudden brightness of the afternoon Georgian sun shined in their faces, blinding them so that they didn’t see the truck that was speeding towards them.



“Shit!”

Daryl slammed his foot down on the brake pedal, making the tires squeal as the truck stopped just short of the two people who had sprinted out of the woods into the middle of the street. One guy doubled over, seeming hardly able to breathe. The other was a woman, whose dark messy hair whipped around in her face as she turned to stare at the truck that was only a mere 10 or so inches away from her. Her gaze moved from the truck to Daryl, who held her gaze for a moment, until she ran over to his side of the truck.

“Please,” she shouted through the window, “help us! They’re chasing us!”

From beside him, Daryl’s brother Merle grunted. “Don’ even think ‘bout it li’l brother.”

Daryl stared into the woman’s green eyes for a moment and she looked back into his blue ones.

“Please –”

Just then, geeks began emerging from the woods. Daryl watched the woman run over to help her companion who was beating them off with a baseball bat. The woman herself had a lug wrench in hand that she quickly used to cave in one of the geeks’ skulls.

“Drive ‘round ‘em,” Merle said.

Daryl was already reaching for his crossbow. “We can’t just leave ‘em,” he yelled at his brother as he got out of the truck.

There was a geek coming up behind the woman, its rotted hand almost within reach of her throat. Daryl took aim with the bow and it fell to the ground with an arrow lodged in the back of its skull. She turned, looking from the decaying corpse on the pavement to him, her eyes wide as she realized how close she had been to being done for.

Daryl jerked his head towards the truck. “Get in.”

The woman turned, lodged the lug wrench in a geek’s skull, then grabbed the man and started towards the truck. Daryl covered them as the man jumped up in the truck bed before she shrugged her pack off her back and tossed it to him. The man reached down to help her get in the back, but the geeks were getting closer.

Daryl shoved the woman inside the cab of the truck to save precious seconds that they didn’t really have anymore, before diving in behind her and slamming the door. Geeks slammed into the truck, snarling and snapping, trying to get in.

“God dammit baby brother,” Merle said.

Daryl slammed down the gas pedal. “Shut up Merle.”