Fatal Flaw

It had been a long time since anything felt normal. As stupid as it sounded and as impossible as it was, Eden felt like life had been abnormal longer than it had been normal, but that was a gross over exaggeration.

Eden did her best to try to remain positive, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. The trust was, if she hadn’t latched herself onto her roommate, Jenny, and Jenny’s kind boyfriend, she would have been dead a long time ago.

And that was absolutely terrifying.

The road was longer than any other road they’d been on, Eden thought, and there were less zombies there than they’d seen in weeks. The group was in a comfortable silence as they walked along, with the boys ready for a fight if need be.

“What’s that you’re looking at?” Jenny said to Liam, and Eden turned her gaze just quick enough to see him folding up the same photo he’d folded and unfolded a thousand times before. She’d never actually seen what it was, but her and Jenny liked to talk about it in secret.

“It’s nothing,” Liam said, brushing it off as though it really was nothing.

“Is it your girlfriend?” Eden asked sweetly, pausing for a moment before she corrected herself. “Or was it your girlfriend?”

In the short month since they’d met Liam, he hadn’t shared much about his life, so any thoughts they had were merely speculation.

“It’s really nothing,” Liam said again, looking at the girls with a smile that wasn’t really a smile.

Eden and Jenny looked at each other, deciding to just drop it, and Jenny turned her attention back to Louis.

“Lou, I’m tired,” Jenny said beside her, putting her hand lazily onto Louis’s arm. They had been walking for hours, and it was nearing dark. Aside from that, Louis always seemed to do what was best for Jenny, so what she wanted, she usually got. “Do you think we could stop here?”

Eden looked around her. They were just a few steps from the entrance of a small town, which was sure to be overrun with zombies, but it was the only place around with some cover so they could sleep for the night. Although Eden still didn’t know much about plowing down zombies or chopping heads, she did know that needed cover for the night.

Louis pulled his crossbow out of the pack he always kept slumped on his shoulder, so he was now wielding the crossbow in his right hand and a small hunter’s knife in the other. Eden thought it seemed like overkill, but hey, Louis always seemed to know more than she did anyway.

“If we’re quiet, we might be able to find a house on the edge to sleep in for the night,” Liam said, his gaze twisting around the perimeter looking for something Eden probably wouldn’t even know if she saw. He was pulling a large axe from the belt he’d made, which sat in his hand alongside his knife.

Without another word from anyone, it was decided that they were going to stop into this town and find a place to sleep until morning. And maybe a little food too.

Louis and Liam led the way, much like they’d done in the past month since Liam had been added to the terrific trio, as Eden liked to call them. Eden and Jenny kept to the back, each holding a knife like they’d actually know what to do with it if they did get attacked.

Jenny had killed a zombie once - mostly by accident - but Eden never had, and that was why they were lucky to have Louis.

“What are we looking for exactly?” Eden asked in a whisper, so quiet only Jenny could hear. They’d established they were looking for a safe place, but nothing beyond that. Truthfully, nothing looked safe to Eden.

Jenny just shrugged her shoulders, while the two of them kept following the boys, who had their weapons aimed in opposite directions, both on the lookout for any movement whatsoever.

That movement came in the form of a few trashcans being knocked over. Both the boys pointed their weapons in that direction, Louis with his crossbow and Liam holding his axe up.

A zombie popped its head up from behind the cans, and Eden gasped like she’d never seen one of them before in her life.

Louis quickly shot it right between the eyes before moving forward to retrieve his arrow. When he reached the monster, he pulled the arrow out, with what Eden knew to be brain matter coming out with it. It was disgusting, but Louis never left a weapon behind.

Then things were happening much too quickly for Eden to figure out what was going on. Louis was shooting his arrow again, and Liam was running towards him with his axe.

There was one, then two, then three more, and the whole thing had quickly turned into a horde of zombies that Louis and Liam were battling against. They looked like true warriors, Eden thought, and Jenny just looked absolutely horrified, like she still wasn’t used to the fact that Louis was in danger more often than he wasn’t.

“Eden, go find a safe place!” Louis was shouting in between shots of his arrow and stabs of his knife. “Take Jenny with you and keep her safe!”

What a load of shit that was, because Eden was more useless than Jenny, and Louis had to know that. She guessed he just liked the idea of someone protecting Jenny at all times. After he lost Grace, he never wanted Jenny out of his sight.

Jenny was standing completely frozen, with her face locked in horror, which made Eden incredibly thankful that no zombies were actually attacking them. She could barely get Jenny pulled away from where she was standing, let alone fight off any zombies while she was doing.

With her hand wrapped around Jenny’s arm, she pulled her friend towards the nearest house that looked safe. Well, as safe as a house could look in a town filled with zombies.

The house was locked, as was the next one, and the next one, and the next one. For some reason, it never occurred to break a window or something, because no one could really get mad, so she didn’t stop shaking doorknobs until she landed on one that opened.

It was much further down than what Louis had probably intended, but she could explain away the whole locked door thing later.

Eden pushed the door open as quickly as she could, pulling Jenny in with her. She had her knife up the second she shut the door behind them, but if a zombie actually had been in the room, it would have already been too late.

“Here, we’re safe in here, Jen,” Eden said, as she pulled her friend towards what was once someone’s living room. “You just sit here while I go check the place out.”

Louis would have killed Eden for leaving Jenny alone, but it was only going to be for a moment while she made sure they were alone.

Her knife was out in front of her, the way Louis had taught her to do, and she knew she looked more threatening than she actually was. Too bad the zombies weren’t as afraid she was.

After scouring the entire house, Eden ended up back in the living room with Jenny, having found that they were truly alone. It would have been great news if she hadn’t been a bloody moron and left the door unlocked, because apparently, though they had lost their humanity, zombies hadn’t forgotten how to unlock doors.

Three zombies were in the room as quick as Eden could turn her head, and good lord she was not thinking fast enough to make any sense of this.

Running only on muscle memory, she went through the motions of everything they’d learned in their intruder drills at the hospital, back before all of this began. Of course, those drills were meant for facing actual, living people, but Eden’s body apparently didn’t care and her mind couldn’t correct her.

She grabbed ahold of Jenny’s arm and pulled her toward where she remembered the bathroom being. Throwing Jenny into the bathroom, she locked the door before closing it in front of her, leaving Jenny alone and in a panic.

Eden still didn’t have a clue what she was doing, but she knew that the zombies would have broken down the door, so now she could leave Jenny safe in there while she distracted them.

It wasn’t that Eden was brave, because she wasn’t even close to being that. She just had some form of dumb luck on her side as she ran through the small house, the zombies chasing after her while she wished and wished that Louis or Liam would come to the rescue.

Her luck finally ran out when she turned the wrong corner, leading herself into the kitchen, which had only one small window above the sink. She probably could have climbed out of it, but she definitely couldn’t do it quick enough to not get eaten.

Turning around with her back pressed against the countertop, Eden was sure that her time had come. Dumb luck could only last for so long in a place like this, and she didn’t have any skills to counter the fact that she couldn’t be lucky forever.

Liam and Louis weren’t coming, Jenny was still sobbing in the bathroom - even audible over the sounds of the groaning zombies - and Eden had no idea how to actually kill someone with a knife that was no bigger than her hand.

She closed her eyes with the zombies practically licking their lips being the last thing that flashed through her mind. She started counting up, just to know how long she was on this earth knowing for certain that she was dead.

When she hit fifteen, she knew that couldn’t be right.

Her eyes popped open, more out of fear than anything else, and there were no zombies standing in front of her, ready to eat her to bits.

Well, the zombies were in front of her, but they were collapsed on the ground with large gashes crushing their brains. The only thing standing in front of her was an actual living, breathing human, who was neither Louis nor Liam nor even sweet Jenny. He was a total stranger in every sense of the word, and he only said one thing.

“Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

Eden was just standing there with her mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, like a fish out of water. She was in shock, she was sure, because that was something she actually did know a thing or two about.

She hadn’t seen anyone aside from her three friends in what felt like forever, so the fact that there was another person breathing the same air was sort of overwhelming. And the fact that that person had been the only thing standing between her and death was even more overwhelming.

“I guess I just thought they looked hungry?” Wow, a joke. That was definitely not funny.

The boy - no, man - didn’t laugh, and Eden probably wouldn’t have either.

“Are you with someone?”

“Yes,” Eden said, and she could tell by the look on his face that wasn’t really much information. “It’s me and my friends.”

Louis had told her once about talking to strangers, like she was some kid in a drug awareness program, but since this stranger had saved her life, she figured he probably didn’t count.

“Well, you should probably get back to them then. I don’t wanna find out trying to bite my head off in the morning.”

And then the stranger turned off towards the front door, walking away like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just saved Eden’s life.

“Wait,” Eden called after him, but he didn’t stop walking. She took a few quick steps towards him and grabbed onto his arm, turning him towards her, which didn’t occur to her as being a bad idea until after she’d already done it. He had his eyes wide open and his knife lifted up like he thought she might kill him. “I just wanted to say thanks,” she finished quickly, pulling her hands off from him and up in the air as she took a step back, “you know, for saving my life.”

The man nodded his head. “Not a problem. Now, you should go find those friends of yours. I don’t think you’ll be able to do much with that knife.”

The guy had known Eden for all of 3 minutes and he was already able to pick up on the fact that she wasn’t a warrior like the rest of them. No wonder the zombies weren’t afraid of her.

“Right, it’s just,” Eden said quickly, trying to talk fast before he could walk away again, “we don’t really have anywhere to go right now. We’re just passing through and looking for a safe place for the night.”

“And?”

“And you’re here,” Eden finished. “Maybe you know somewhere safe to stay? Just for the night.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, there was a whole lot of shouting and Louis was coming towards them with his crossbow, and Liam with his knife, and this strange had his knives out again. And holy shit, Eden thought, it was like testosterone city.

“Put the knife down!” Louis was shouting, his crossbow pointed at the man. “Put it down!”

Bad things were clearly about to happen, and although she’d never been great with weapons or zombies, Eden had always been kind of decent with people.

“Louis, listen,” Eden said, stepping towards him in the space between Louis and the stranger. In hindsight, it would have been a great way for the stranger to use her as a human barrier while he killed Louis, but luckily that didn’t happen. “This is, uh, this guy. He just saved us, me and Jenny. We were getting attacked and I locked Jenny in the bathroom and I was just about to become dinner until this guy showed up.”

Louis was looking from Eden, to the guy, back at Eden, and to the guy again before he finally lowered his crossbow, just a bit.

“Where’s the bathroom?” He asked, looking only at Eden. She pointed him in the direction, where Jenny’s crying could still be heard. It probably would’ve been smart for Eden to have let her know a while ago that they weren’t in any immediate danger, but no one’s perfect.

Liam still had his axe out, and the stranger was still holding onto his knives, and it looked sort of like when two dogs are fighting over the same toy, though neither of them were barking.

“Li, it’s okay,” Eden said as she stepped towards him until her hands were on the handle of his axe. She forced him to lower it, which she could he wasn’t happy about.

As soon as the axe was at Liam’s side, Eden turned back to the stranger.

“My name’s Eden, by the way. Yours?”

He bit his lip as he hesitated for a moment. “Zayn.”

“Right, Zayn.”

“Well, I’ll get going now that you’ve got your gang back.” He was going to step forward and around Liam, to the front door, but they were still in a bit of a stand off.

“Wait.” She paused, and seeing that he wasn’t going to move, she continued. “Do you know somewhere safe? Just for the night.”

Zayn said nothing, just stared at her like he was thinking of a million impossible things. She thought he might never actually speak again.

Louis came around the corner, holding Jenny in his arms while she had her head on his chest. He was whispering sweet things into Jenny’s ear about which Eden could only imagine.

“Just for the night,” Eden said again, holding her hands in the air like that made her more innocent than she was.

Zayn let out a deep sigh, which Eden took for a bad sign, before he repeated her.

“Just for the night.”