Before the Storm

My throat was dry and my breathing was raspy as I finally came to a stop and let myself collapse down onto the damp pavement. I sat there on my hands and knees trying to take deep breaths to calm myself down as drop after drop of sweat pelted down onto the ground below me. I was light headed and I was seeing tunnel vision everywhere that I looked.

My adrenaline was beginning to diminish and my arm muscles shook under the weight of my upper body, threatening to collapse from under me and send me falling the rest of the way towards the pavement. Zack, however, stood behind me with his arms raised up and pointed the gun at a couple of walkers that had gotten behind us and had been chasing us for the past fifteen minutes. We tried to outrun them, or even just lose them if we could so that we didn't have to use what little ammo we had, but it was looking like those odds weren't in our favor.

He fired off two rounds, putting the two walkers down and then falling down to the pavement himself to take a breather. I swallowed hard, my mouth not having any moisture at all. My body was begging for food and water, but since the raiders had taken the SUV with literally all of our stuff inside it, we had close to none. The only supplies we had was what was already on us and in Zack's back pack he was wearing, and our only weapon was the gun we had taken from Trevor's dead body.

Zack laid back and covered his eyes with his forearm, breathing heavily and chest heaving up and down. I glanced around at our surroundings and saw that for the moment, the coast was clear. I sat back onto the road and crossed my legs in front of me, running my fingers through my damp hair before letting my head rest in my hands. The right side of my face was tensed and sore to touch from when Trevor had smacked me.

"Are ya okay?" I asked once my breathing had calmed down a bit.

He didn't answer me, however. He just laid there in front of me, trying to get his own breathing under control. He rolled over onto his side and it was then that I heard quiet sobs begin to come from his direction. I glanced up from under my lashes and saw him curled up in the fetal position, crying.

I moved closer to him and lifted him up so that he was leaning against my chest, and I cradled my older brother as if he were a five year old child that had just fallen and skinned his knee. I rocked back and forth in a soothing motion. He had been the strong one since the very beginning, and not once through out this whole ordeal had he shown any type of emotion that would have made him seem weak. He was finally breaking down, and now it was my turn to be strong.

"I miss her, too." I whispered, thinking back to the last time I would ever get to see my best friend.

Just the fact that I had mentioned her caused a whole new wave of emotions and tears to wash over him, and he clutched at me as if I was going to disappear at any given second. The both of us had lost so much since the outbreak began, and it was only getting worse and worse by the day. Still, giving up was not going to be an option.

"I don't think I can do this anymore." He sobbed, his words coming out distorted.

"We have to." I looked down at him, my eyes beginning to mist up but I refused to let anymore tears fall. I ran my fingers through his hair, smoothing it out before I continued. "Things can always get better. Isn't that what you've always said?"

"That was before the dead came back and started eating people."

I pursed my lips together, trying to think of a way that I could make this situation better. I was never any good that this kind of stuff. I was never really put into a situation where I had to be the strong one for Zack's sake, so this was all foreign territory to me.

He sniffled a couple more times and wiped is nose as he sat up straight and faced me. I pushed a few pieces of hair behind my ear and breathed in deeply. "Things are not going to stay this way forever. We're going to get through this and we are going to survive."

He stared off at a spot at the edge of the road and shook his head slowly. "How can you say that we're gonna make it when I couldn't even protect you or Madisen?"

"I'm still here."

"But she's not!" He snapped, making me jump slightly. "You just ... You get so wrapped up in what going on now that you forget what living people are capable of doing."

"Zack, this was not your fault." I said sternly. "None of this was your fault. None of us knew what was gonna happen."

"That doesn't make a difference! I should have stayed up and kept watch. I should have reacted differently when we got thrown out of our car. I am - was a soldier for the United States Army, Jaycee! I was trained how to react in situations like that. I knew what I was supposed to do, and I just froze up! How do you think that makes me feel?!"

I looked on at him sympathetically, not knowing what to do or say to make him feel better. What I did know was that we needed to find a place to go to get shelter before we got surrounded when we were at our most vulnerable. We needed food, and we needed water. But most importantly, we needed weapons and ammo.

"I don't know how you feel 'nd I'm not gonna pretend that I do. But I do know that we need to get our asses up and moving before something else decides to happen." I said, trying my hardest to change the subject. I pushed myself up onto stiff legs and looked around once more.

"Psh, there's no where left for us to go." He mumbled in a harsh tone.

"There's gotta be somewhere for us to go; A building, a cabin, something." I looked down at him still sitting at my feet, and I leaned over and grabbed hold of his bicep to pull him up next to me. "We jus' gotta keep walkin'."

Zack's eyes scanned over me momentarily before he slid one strap of his back pack off his shoulder and reached around to pull something out of it. I watched as he pulled one of his shirts out and began wiping gently at my face.

"How'd you even manage to keep that?" I asked, referring to his camouflage bag that he had gotten from the Army.

"I almost didn't." He said, wiping away at the mud and dirt that was caked onto my face. "Those assholes tore through it, taking what food an ammo I had at the bottom. I grabbed it back before they threw me over with you guys."

I shrugged. "I guess it's better than nothing, right?"

He was silent again as he continued to rub away at my skin in an attempt to get all the dirt and grime off my face. I winced away from his touch when he wiped across the spot where I had gotten hit, and I knew that it was more than likely bruised all to hell. Possibly even swollen. I swallowed hard, trying not to let it show how much it really hurt.

"Ya know, I'm the one that should be askin' you if you're okay." He said, dropping his hand back down to his side.

"It looks worse than it feels." I lied. Truth was that it hurt like hell, and if I could I would have just fell to the ground crying again. But I wasn't going to do that.

"I'm not talkin' about just your face, Jay." He retorted sympathetically.

I knew what he was talking about. He was talking about me almost getting raped not even twenty-four hours ago. I felt my chest beginning to tighten up again, and I bit down on the inside of my lower lip, nodding my head.

"It'll be fine. Let's jus' not talk about that."

He just blinked a couple of times and shoved his now dirty shirt back into his back pack and grabbed out another clean-ish one, handing it over to me. "I'm sure you wanna get out of that filthy shirt." He chuckled, and I smiled lightly as I took the shirt from him and walked away a few steps to get changed.

I held it out in front of me and saw that it was the red and black Tap Out t-shirt that I had gotten him for his birthday this past year. I hadn't even realized that he still had it, let alone thought to bring it with him during this whole thing. I slipped the over sized shirt on over my head after taking my own off and balling it up into my hands, deciding to just leave it on the side of the road. It was so ripped and tattered, stained with walker blood and mud that no amount of scrubbing could get it clean.

"So, which way are we goin'?" Zack asked after he zipped his back pack back up and slid the strap back over his shoulder.

I looked around, seeing nothing on either side of us except open road and trees. I had the feeling that if we stuck to the road, we'd have a higher chance of being seen by other people or walkers. Or worse, Len and his leader. Our best bet would probably be to head into the trees and just hope that we stumbled upon some shelter.

I smiled weakly towards him and wrapped my arm around his lower back, his arm snaking its way around my neck, and we began walking towards the tree line.



We couldn't have been walking for any more than a couple of hours when we came across a one bedroom cabin that had been abandoned way before the end of the world began, from the looks of it. The counters and other surfaces had a layer of dust that a days worth of scrubbing couldn't get rid of. Cob webs littered every nook and cranny that was visible to the eye, and then some. It was clear to see that whoever owned this place didn't keep up the maintenance on this place. But I wasn't exactly complaining. The fact that nothing had been touched for a while just proved that nobody had already laid claim on this place.

Once we had opened up the overly creaky front door and gotten inside the dark cabin, Zack let his back pack fall to the floor with a light thud, causing a small cloud of dust to rise up from the floor boards. The first thing that I did was go over towards the cabinets and began looking for any food that we could have taken.

Zack was looking around the rest of the cabin, double checking that everything was safe for us. I smiled to myself when I came across a couple cans of chicken noodle soup, and even more packets of Ramen noodles. It wasn't much, but it'd be enough to last the two of us for a few days at least.

"Hey, Jay," I heard Zack say from towards the back of the cabin. I looked over and saw that he was looking out the window, and I furrowed my brow as I walked over to him, wondering what it was he could be looking at. "I don't think we'll have to worry about water for a while."

I got up next to him and saw that what he was looking at was a small water well jutting up from the ground, and the sight was just about enough to make me want to cry. Now days, finding good drinking water was like finding a gold mine. And after the hell we had just been through, it was nice to finally have something good happen to us. Even if it was just something small.

"I found food, too." I quirked, holding up a couple packets of Ramen that I had in my hand.

Zack wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close to him. "Maybe we could stay here for a week or two while we put some supplies together again." I nodded.

"Sounds like a plan."