Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2013 22:36:28 -0600
From: Writ Er <madness.writer@gmail.com>
Subject: What's Left

**So this story is entirely my own. I have no idea where it is going, nor
did I put any sex in it. But I did put a ton of violence and gross stuff!
So if you are insulted by either lack of sex, and or homosexual advances,
and or violence, and or gross things, I have no idea how you found this
story in the first place. All I know is that the Internet is a strange and
wonderous blackhole. If you choose to read it, it's zombie themed. But I
don't know what to call the Zombies yet, so I try out a few things
here. Give me suggestions, but I have no idea if I will continue. My track
record for finishing stories is pretty bad.**

What's Left.


"Run!" She screamed at me.

The door slammed behind Jess, and I passed her a thick metal pipe. Not a
moment sooner than it was put into place, the door began to pulse forward
and groan against the pipe. Sickening grunts and scratches came from the
other side.

"It's overrun." I said to her, sweat rolling down my brow. "There's no way
that we can get back there." She punched the door, causing the noises to
flare up for an instant.

"We need into that drug room!" She pulled a knife from her belt, and looked
about to do something incredibly stupid. "Cover me?"

"Jess, no!" I grabbed her arm, and pulled her towards me.

"Jake!" She shook free of me, brandishing the knife at me. "My sister is
dying! Your girlfriend, is dying, and you just want to stand there, and let
it happen?"

"There is no guarantee that there is anything even back there! It's been
over eleven years. This place would have been raided before now!"

"Then why did we bother coming here!?" In a flurry, she tucked the knife
back into her belt, and took off running down the hall. I wasn't sure if
she was running from the situation, or what the door held back.

The hospital was disserted, beds pushed against doors, overturned. The mess
was everywhere, making running in a straight line impossible. I could have,
and should have stopped to grab some of the blankets that littered the
ground, but that would have, ultimately, been a waste of time.

"Jess!" I called out through the hallway, when a door slammed against its
frame beside me. Startled, I flung myself against the floor, as loud
pounding noises echoed through the emptiness.

She pulled me to my feet. "You fucking idiot, let's go!" She was a touch
bitch, and I looked up to her in many aspects, but she had this way about
talking that let her make you feel like crap.

Rounding a corner, and arriving at the nurses' station, one of the doors
behind us splintered open.

"Fuck!" Jess ducked down behind the counter, breathing heavily. Her tone
changed into a whisper. "Stay down."

"I know what I'm doing, Jess..." I mumbled.

"Apparently, ya fucking don't, kid." She shook her head, and took her knife
back out, passing it to me. "Take this, don't fuck it up." From the other
side of her pants, she took out a long, silver pistol, and checked it. "If
I shoot, we leave. Immediately. Do you got me?" She all but waved the gun
in my face.

"I got you." I confirmed. My heart was racing, and my lungs couldn't get
enough air.

From the other side of the counter, I heard the gentle scraping of feet
across the laminate flooring. It was slow, methodical, and it petrified
me. A snarling, wheezing sound that was almost a breath crept along with
it. I had been trained over the years to freeze at that sound, to expect
the worst when I heard it. But most importantly, to be terrified.

Jess's hand crept over to the knife in my hand, and gently, quietly removed
it from my hand. In a flash, she bolted upright, and grunted as the sound
of a skull crunching found my ears. The form collapsed on the opposite side
of the counter. She landed back down on her butt, chest heaving. She wiped
the blackened blood on her dark jeans, and handed the knife back to
me. "Be. Ruthless."

She stood up, urging me silently to do the same thing. I nodded, and stood
up, not looking behind me. "Jess," I began.

She turned to look at me, and raised her gun. I dropped to the ground and a
shot rang out through the hollow building. "Run!" And she was off. Two
steps, and I happened to catch something in the glass cabinet, left
untouched. A small pill bottle, and I wondered.

Hastily, I whipped open the cabinet, and it fell off its hinges, making
more noise. I heard that familiar scraping along the floor, but faster than
I normally heard. It was absolutely running to the best of its
ability. Scrambling through the cabinet, I grabbed the small bottle, not
even bothering to look at the label.

"Ah! Fuck!" As I stabbed my finger on a shard of glass from the dilapidated
cupboard. Hearing the deep breathing in to my right, I fled like the wind
down the hallway, after Jess.

The hallway was deserted, no matter which way I turned. She was gone. But
she couldn't have gone far. Then, a howl from behind me. It could smell my
wound, and it wanted to make it much worse. "Fuck it."

I picked a direction, and ran. Jess would be at the entrance, if she didn't
assume I was dead. Fuck, if she left me behind...

Opening the door at the end of the hall, I stepped into the dark
stairway. It was muggy from all the years of being closed off to the
world. Dust plumed up, making me cough. But I slammed the door behind me,
closing me off from the light.

I felt my way around the dark room, and found the railing. One floor down,
just one. Taking a step, the metal stairs beneath me rattled. I began
hurrying down them as fast as I could, and then there was nothing. I fell,
only a few feet, but I fell flat on my back, grunting in the dark. I bit my
teeth together, at the piece of metal that ripped across my arm from the
broken stairs. More blood was not good.

Picking myself up, I took out my bandana and wrapped it tightly around my
arm. "F-" I began before catching myself. Tightly tied, and ready to go, I
opened the door, slowly.

The hallway was clear, but I assumed that it wouldn't stay that way for
long. From what I understood from the stories that they told us, once this
all began, people flocked to the hospitals. Unfortunately, that was the
perfect place for everyone to fall victim. Never stay in a place with too
many people, it's deadly.

Grunting to my left, and I sunk to the ground. A squishing, wheeze came out
of the door, just up ahead of me. There was no end to them...

Looking ahead, there was the lobby. If I made a break for it, I could make
it there, then be out and clear. I took a few deep breaths to ready myself
for the sprint, to psyche myself up for it.

"Ok, ok, ok!" Run for it.

But it was faster. A nurse lunged at me in her torn white gown. Fingers
grabbed a tight hold of my arms, blackened from years of decay, only a few
fingernails left. I threw my arms up before my face, catching her in the
neck. Somehow, the white bonnet remained on her head, though very little
hair still did. Her entire face was maimed, scratched, and nose broken. One
eye sagged lower, seeming to pop out. Her eyes were clouded over, and
white, while her rotten mouth bit at me.

This one still had a lot of fight in her, the virus enhancing her strength,
while stripping everything that it meant to be human. She simultaneously
clawed at my bandana, while lunging forward and trying to grab a bite of
me. Her breath was rank, drooling a thick black ooze down onto my shirt.

"Fuck you!" I reached for Jess's knife. Her hand smelt the blood on my
finger, and she lunged for it, forgetting all about my face. I was able to
roll over on top of her back, as she snapped at my finger with gnarled
teeth.

The knife made it in front of her mouth, and she began to bite down on it
relentlessly. Pushing forward, the knife sliced its way cleanly through the
sides of her lips as she strained to get at my finger. Her black blood fell
out of her mouth, though it didn't seem to bother her. She was getting too
close to my finger for comfort, and so I rolled off of her, freeing my
hand.

She crawled over to me, and began trying to climb up my body towards my
wounds. If it weren't for my thick jeans, I would have been infected from
her craw marks. Stabbing the knife at her, she managed to swat it away from
me, and it skipped along the floor. I held my breath as she reared her head
to look towards the knife, and the noise it made. When she twisted her head
back to me, it exploded with the sound of a shotgun.

The corpse fell on top of me, coating me in a thick layer of thick, black
blood. With her inside all over me, I let my head fall backwards in relief,
my arms flailing out at my sides. I blinked, and the shotgun barrel was
placed against my head.

"You bit, boy?" A deep voice threatened me.

I stumbled, "No," and shook my head frantically.

"What's this?" The gun moved down to my arm.

"I fell. In the stairwell, I fell and cut my arm." I think my heart was
beating faster than when I was about to be eaten alive.

"Yeah," the gun was removed from my vision, "that stairway there is out."
It sounded like the shotgun was slung over the man's shoulder.

I pushed the body of the nurse off of me, and I managed to stand on weak
knees. I placed my hands on them to steady them, and to catch my breath at
the same time. The man was wandering away from me, both arms hung up on the
gun.

"Thanks, man." I panted, before retrieving the knife.

"You owe me a shell." He said, turning slightly over his shoulder. "What
the hell you doing out here anyways?" He chuckled. "Hospitals' been out of
supplies for years."

"I could ask you the same question..." Then it hit me. "Fuck." I turned to
try and run.

"Now, now. Hang on there." I heard the gun rise up and I put my hands in
the air. "Turn around." I did. He was older than I expected him to
be. Dirty blonde hair, more than a little scruff on his face, probably a
week or two old. But the gun was covering most of him. "I ain't no
Vulture. So you don't need to worry about that. I'll at least ask questions
first, that's why I saved you. So let's be smart about this."

"What do you want?" I asked, rather worried to hear the answer.

He lowered the gun, revealing a definitive jaw line, and a big scar down
the side of his forehead and temple. His green eyes seemed soft, but the
way he carried himself was intimidating as all hell. A thick brown leather
jacket hid who knew how many weapons, it was certainly bulky enough.

He snorted a laugh. "I wanna know what you found up there." He tilted his
head, gesturing upstairs with it. He slung the gun over his back, a strap
keeping it in place.

"Nothing." I said quickly.

"Well now, I know enough about people to know when they're lying." He
walked over to me, standing right in front of me. I lowered my head
instinctively, submissively. He grabbed my chin and forced my head to look
into his eyes. "How old are you, boy? Seventeen?"

"Yeah." I answered, wishing he didn't make me look into his eyes.

"Then let's see if we can get you a few more years. What did you find?" He
threw my chin to the side.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the pill bottle, and meekly held it
in front of him.

"Expired, you know." He took the little orange bottle from me, and read the
label. He gave a little smirk, and put the bottle in the inner pocket of
his jacket. "Penicillin. Might still work. Thanks, boy." He turned and
started to walk away.

"Hey! I need that!" I sprinted after him, and grabbed his shoulder.

Before I knew it, I was on the ground with him on top of me, a long hunting
knife to my side. He pushed a heavy hand onto my chest. "Look, boy, I
respect that you've got a lot of fight in you. I bet when you grow up,
you'll be a real killer. But I gotta say, you're gonna have to drop this,
because I am not afraid to kill you."

"Listen, my girlfriend is going to die without those meds." This time, I
found the courage to stare him in the eye. "Please."

"Heartfelt. But I think that I need it more." He raised his left sleeve,
revealing a nasty, infected gash that had been stitched together with what
looked to be dental floss. "Now I'm sorry about your girl, but I'm on my
own out here, so I can't lose this arm. If your girl has someone to look
after her, she'll do just fine."

"She's got a fever, and it hasn't gone down in days. She's going to die,
you can't do this to me!" I struggled against him, but despite the wound,
his muscles held me in place.

"Calm down!" He shouted at me. A growl answered the man's shout, and the
pair of us looked over to where the sound came from.

A man in bloodied scrubs wandered out of a doorway down the hall. In an
instant, we were on our feet. My companion slung his gun over his shoulder
and aimed it at the walking doctor.

"Stand back, I've got this one." He muttered. But when four more followed
the doctor, he rethought using another shot. "Scratch that, boy. Let's get
outta here." When we ran, the five of the dead ran after us.

The man knew exactly where to go, dodging around corners and kicking open
doors on his way through the forgotten hospital. It wasn't surprising then,
when we quickly arrived at the entrance to hospital. Sunset was not too far
off, making the sky that odd orange colour that enveloped everything.

While the dead were not averse to going out into the daylight, they avoided
with an almost nocturnal tendency. Few could be seen out on the streets
now, but with the onset of night, more of them would find their way out
from wherever they lurked during the day. No matter what though, any time,
day or night, it was dangerous to be out on the streets of a city. It was
always better to seek shelter.

The man grabbed an old piece of a broken car, and secured the doors closed
with it. "That's not going to hold them. Don't stop running now, boy." And
he took off down the street. I didn't know whether or not I was to follow
him, but with the darkening sky, I would never make it back home in
time. The slam of a body and clawing sounds from the other side of the door
confirmed that I should follow him.

A few streets over, I managed to catch up with him, breathing heavily. He
sported one bead of sweat down the scar on his face. "We need to get off of
the streets." I panted. He looked down at me with a stern look, as if to
question how I'd managed to survive this long if this was my level of
fitness and combat skill.

After a full, agonizing minute, he nodded to me. "Right, let's go then. I
know a place nearby that should be safe."

We reached the place that was `nearby,' long after it was dark. He had a
small flashlight that flickered every now and then that he brought out once
we were safely inside a heavy metal door. "This way." He grunted, climbing
a back access staircase. Up about four floors, he threw his shoulder into a
door, and it slid open with a loud scraping sound. He grabbed my shoulder
and pushed me through the opening.

"Hey! Watch it!" I protested, and a hand covered my mouth as I was slammed
up against the wall. His other arm went across the chest, and a knee came
into my groin less than gently. I whimpered.

"Shut up, boy!" His gruff face looked sternly at mine, though I was unable
to see it entirely in the darkness. "Now you listen here, I've taken quite
the risk in bringing you here, so you're going to do exactly what I say, do
you understand me? And if not," he pushed into my chest and groin harder,
"let's just say that I have other ways of shuttin' you up. Got me?" He
pushed me again, and walked away, through another doorway. When I followed,
he looked back at me judgingly, and slung his shotgun onto an old, dirty
mattress.

I didn't dare to talk for a long time. He lit an oil lamp, and I was able
to see the room, but did not dare to comment on it. It appeared to be an
old office, fairly upper management if I guessed correctly. There were
still a few picture frames hanging on the walls, mostly with certificates
and awards. The desk had been overturned, and forced up against one of the
walls, with a bit of window visible over the top edge of it. The windows
were boarded up, mostly with bits and pieces of other desks, presumably
from the other offices of the building.

Without speaking, he opened up a can of some sort of long expired food with
a great stab of his hunting knife, which disappeared as quickly as it
flashed through the lamp light.

"Where-"

"Shaddup." He cut me off.

Gathering a few piece of fibrous wood, he made a quick fire with a longer
piece that he dipped down into the lamp and lit aflame. I could not figure
out if this was his home or not. It seemed awfully ragged, but then again,
so did he. But whether he lived here or not, he definitely knew his way
around. A few camping bowls were produced, and once there were coals, he
put the can in amongst them. A few minutes of awkward silence later, and a
bowl of lumpy broth was thrown at me.

I ate slowly, while he drank his down forcefully, getting a good portion of
it on his scruff. With some of it still in his cheek, he said grumpily, "Go
ahead, if you think I'll answer."

I didn't know how to proceed, so I just went back to my original question,
though I had gathered up so many more since we sat down. "Where are we?"

"Vulture nest. Killed a bunch of them and made a safe house out of what
they left, `bout a month ago now." He swallowed the rest of the meal and
stood up, tossing his bowl in my direction. "You ate my food, boy. You
clean up."

"But, where do I do that?" I asked sheepishly.

"On the roof, there are buckets. Should be full of water. No light though,
too dangerous. We're right in Vulture territory now."

"Holy fuck..." I said without thinking. Vultures, the scourges of this
broken world of ours. They were merciless bands of cannibalistic
scavengers. As far as I knew, they adopted the name after being called it
for too long, and made a sort of gang out of it. They hunted people and the
dead alike, making little differentiation between the two, except that one
was ok to eat, and the other was not. The only time I had seen them was
when they were carrying off a woman from our stronghold on one of our runs
into the city to scavenge for food. I only remember a large black circle on
the man's back, with a big yellow outline of a vulture in it. She screamed
until they were out of sight, as I hid behind a dumpster, ashamed I could
not help her.

"They won't come here unless you make too much noise, boy. And if they do,
I'll let them have their way with whatever hole they want before I take you
and them out. You got me, boy?" He sat down in the old swivelling office
chair, and peeked behind a piece of black fabric that covered a hole in one
of the broken pieces of wood.

"Who are you?" I asked, taking another sip of disgusting soup.

"That ain't none of your business." He said quietly. After placing the
fabric back carefully, he swirled to look at me again, leaning back in the
chair with his legs spread out. He put his hands behind his head and took a
long look at me. "I saved you, and that should be enough, boy."

"I can't thank you enough for that. I guess I owe you one." I nodded to him
in respect.

"You don't have anything else that I want. Trust me." He snorted a laugh
through his nose, and his eyes travelled down the length of me, then back
up to meet my eyes. The look he gave me was unsettling, I was still having
some difficulty believing that he wasn't a Vulture. His eyes looked hungry,
and I had just finished the last of the food he had given me.

"I'll just go clean these up then..." I hurried up with both of the bowls,
and took off down the hallway, back towards the stairs we had come up.

Quietly, I made it to the roof and began to freak out. I was up there for
the better part of an hour breathing in what I was sure would be the last
bit of air that I ever would, without being brutally fucked then
eaten. Maybe at the same time. I tried to distract myself by washing
methodically in the buckets of rainwater that were, indeed up there with
me, and instinctively staying low to the ground.

When I managed to get my bearings, I searched around the rooftop for
something to kill him with when I made it back downstairs. Finding a loose
pipe, I quietly unscrewed it the rest of the way free, and snuck into the
stairwell.

I may not be the best with a weapon, but I could move quickly, and
quietly. It had served me well in evading the Vultures that day they took
one of us. Now, here, I would utilize it again to kill one of them. Get
revenge for the one that I was too afraid to kill. Don't get me wrong, I
was still petrified. He was much bigger, and older than me, and I tried not
to underestimate what tricks he might have tucked away inside that bulky
jacket.

The oil lamp was still on when I crept into the hallway. I left the door
open to avoid it making too much of a noise in closing it. Sticking to the
walls, where hopefully the floor would not creak, I made it to the office
where I had left the man. My heart was beating so fast that I thought it
might explode out of my chest.

The room was silent, and empty. Where did he go? Oh fuck, I thought to
myself. I might as well be already dead if he was hunting me. My only
opportunity was to catch him off guard.

"What are you-" I spun around and went for his head with the pipe I held in
my hand. "Fuck!" He shouted, showing some vocal restraint. He dodged the
first blow, and then caught the pipe in his hand at my second attack.

The pipe was ripped out of my hand and thrown into the office chair. The
hand that held the pipe was brought around my back, and my face hit the
floor as I grunted in the pain of falling, and in his pulling of my arm in
all of the most uncomfortable ways he knew how. It hurt, but not enough to
make me scream, which I'm sure he thought about. He straddled my lower back
and pushed my head into the ground with his free hand.

"What the fuck are you doing, boy? What the fuck are you doing?!" he was
still subdued in his tone, but forceful, and angry as ever. I could feel
him breathing heavily, letting the adrenaline in his blood run its
course. "What's wrong with you?" He demanded when I wouldn't answer. He
forced my head into the rough and dirty carpet of the office. "Huh?!"

"Please don't..." I couldn't get all of the words out. Not the ones I
wanted.

"Kill you? Fuck, boy. I wasn't going to, but now the idea seems real nice!"
he pulled my arm up and I let out a grunt of pain. "I told you, I ain't a
fucking Vulture." He released me, and got up off of me.

I stood up quickly to face him, but his back was to me. He had removed his
jacket and shirt, and he stood there, barefooted in his worn jeans. His
back was covered in scars, imperfections in his sinewy back. His hand
ruffled his own hair as he struggled with what to think, and to calm down.

He turned around and stuck a finger at me, his entire body flexing, showing
how little of the bulk that was contained in the jacket was really just
muscle. His chest was damp, glittering slightly in the lamp, revealing hair
that made it from collar bone, to beyond the belt and pants below. Not
thick, but prevalent. "Now don't you ever go fucking doing that again,
boy. Got me? I took a risk for you!"

"You stole the only thing that can save my girlfriend, and I'm the bad
guy?" I said, remembering how I got myself in this mess in the first place.

He looked down at his arm, and stretched the skin a bit, testing the
pain. I assumed that he had taken at least a few of the pills, and the
millisecond flash of guilt on his face showed me I was right. I had to get
back home, and to her and Jess. But it was not going to happen tonight. I
dared to think what might happen tonight.

"Look, boy, I'm sorry, but it's a cut throat world out there now. I don't
know your girl, and I doubt I ever will. I'm trying to survive just as much
as the rest of what's left out there. Vultures, people,
animals... Whatever's there. I don't have the time to care about this crap,
you hear me?" Realizing he was showing vulnerability, he cleared his throat
and straightened his shoulders, dropping his big arms to his side. "Go to
bed, I'm done talkin'."

"On that?" I asked, gesturing with a nod to the mattress. He grumbled and
sat down in the office chair, and picked up a book that he seemed to be
about half way through. It was well worn, and I could only faintly see the
title `Utopia' on the cover. I smiled a bit at the irony.

"What?" He shot at me, along with a stern glare.

"I... It's nothing. I mean, my brother was reading that book for school,
back when there was school. I remember looking at it once, and not
understanding a word of it. My dad said that it was stupid communist
stuff." But when I looked to him, he wasn't paying me any attention, and
flipped a page with a sour expression on his face.

With no more conversation to have that night, I resigned myself to going to
sleep. I refrained from taking anything off, and instead just laid down on
the mattress that felt damp, even though it wasn't. Using my arm as a
pillow, I stayed awake for a long time, still scared about what the man
might do if I was to fall asleep. But soon, I found it too much work to
stay awake, and I drifted off.


***

When I woke up, I was laying on my side with the man's heavy arm holding me
tight against his body. It took me awhile to realize that the hairy forearm
was foreign to me, and the stiff morning wood poking into my lower back was
not supposed to be there. Of course, my immediate thought was that he was
raping me. I began to struggle, but a leg wrapped around my legs, and his
strong arm was more than capable of immobilizing me.

"Please, no." I whispered, and he harshly silenced me. His other arm's
tricep slammed down on my face, smooth from the elbow up, and a loud bang
deafened me.

I was rolling around on the mattress holding my head in intense pain for
some time before I realized that he was no longer restraining me. He was
standing, back to me. Through his legs I could see the corpse of one of the
reanimated dead. Its face was mangled, half eaten. It was oozing that thick
black liquid that used to be blood from a mouth with its teeth only barely
hanging on to the rotten gums. Its hands were out in front of it, like it
had been crawling. I could only just see that it didn't have any legs, and
upon closer examination, its nails were non-existent with only bone
showing. It had crawled a long way.

I grunted, and he came rushing over, and put two hands over the hands that
were already covering my ears. Our eyes met, yet his looked back and
forth. "You'll be ok." He said, pulling my head next to his body. I got a
mouthful of his chest hair, but his strong hands kept me there, but
somehow, I felt safer, and glad to be out of harm's way, for now.

Just as quickly as he had pulled me close, he seemed to recognize what he
was doing, and forced my head away. I flopped onto the mattress, as he
gathered a few things into a canvas backpack. Hastily, he threw on a plaid
button up shirt that he did not bother to button up, and his
jacket. Slinging the shotgun over his shoulder, he thrust the bag at me.

"Let's move. The Vultures will have heard that. It's not safe here
anymore." He ran out of the office, and towards the stairwell. He stopped,
staring at the open door, then spun to face me. I could see the anger on
his face at my mistake. I had left the door open when I was trying to kill
him the night before. I held my breath in fear that the gun that never left
his hand might be pointed at me.

"I'm sorry... I was scared last night, and I didn't know what to do." I
rushed out. He shook his head in disgust at me. "If I hadn't left the door
open, it would have bitten you when you opened it." He sucked his teeth,
and fled down the stairs with me on his heels.

In the distance, I could hear the sounds of shouting, as the Vultures were
mobilizing to see what the shot was so early in the morning. My eyes took
time to adjust, and it was difficult to follow the man at first, being
blinded and deafened slightly still.

But when I caught him up, he forced me back against a wall, with the gun to
his lips to shush me. He mouthed the word `Vultures,' and I nodded.

Instinctively, I looked around the alley that we had come down. It was
incredibly overgrown with weeds emerging from the asphalt. There were few
possibilities of escape, except for the way we had just come, but since the
Vultures were swarming around that location, it was impossible to even try
to go back there. The man before me took hold of my arm, startling me
slightly, but when he began to run, low to the ground, I followed without
thinking. I was placing a great deal of trust in this man, and I think it
was because he had saved my life twice now.

We hid behind a broken and looted car that was held up only on one side by
cinder blocks. He kept a hand on my head, letting me know that it was not
safe for me to look up through the dirty windows. I felt like a child,
incapable of doing anything that he might find acceptable. Still unsure of
how I felt about the situation, he dragged for forward again, this time
across a small alley, and behind a large building.

He peeked out from behind the corner of the building to see if we were
being followed, while he kept my head down below a window at chest
height. My head was still hurting, but I felt as though the adrenaline was
helping me to push through the worst of it.

When the window above me smashed, and a Vulture reached through, grabbing
at my companion, I froze. The Vulture was a burly man with too much of a
tan to be Caucasian, and wearing a hat. That symbol of the black circle
with the yellow silhouette of a vulture, the one that haunted my dreams was
on the breast of his winter vest that he wore, despite being mildly warm
out.

The Vulture grabbed my companion and began trying to push his head down
onto the shards of glass in the windowsill. The symbol starred at me,
daring me to do anything to stop my companion from dying, impaled by a
shard of broken glass.

"Help me!" the man gurgled, as the Vulture's hands moved down to his
throat.

I went to move, but the symbol urged me not to dare. If he dies, then I am
next, I thought. He has a knife. A large, hunting one.

I sprang up, startling the Vulture enough for the man to attempt to break
free, but the Vulture regained composure and tried with renewed effort to
kill my companion. Inside his jacket pocket, I felt the knife in a sheath,
which I promptly ripped off, and drove the knife into the Vulture's right
eye. The knife scrapped along the bone with sickening vibrations running up
the metal and into my hands. He stopped pulling at the man's head, and
simply fell backwards in a heap on the floor behind the wall.

The man lurched forward, away from the spikes of glass that had threatened
his neck only moments before. He steadied himself on his knees with one
hand on the ground, the other on my knee. He heaved a few quick breaths,
and then turned his head to look at me. "Thanks, boy."

His knife.

I leapt through the window, taking out a few of the spikes of glass with
me, and the man tried to grab me, but to no avail. I made it through the
window, unscathed.

Hovering over the lifeless body of the first living being that I had
killed, I wasn't sure how I felt. It seemed a surreal experience, like I
had seen it in one of those movies that I watched as a kid. There certainly
was a great deal of blood in all of us, though I had seen more blood come
out of a head than any other part of the body I had seen bleed. As I stood
there, the blood pooled around my shoes.

"Are you listening to me?!" The man whispered harshly at me. "I said, let's
go, boy! Fuck the knife!"

I quickly reached down to grab it, but it would not release. I put a
bloodied shoe on the corpse's chest, and I simultaneously stomped down, and
pulled. Ribs cracked, and the scraping that I had felt before reverberate
through the knife, did once more.

I threw myself through the window, and right into the arms of the man. We
toppled over each other in a messy pile, ending up beside each other, heads
sore, and leaning against the opposite wall of the alley.

"You alright, boy?" He asked me, rubbing his head and standing up. He
offered me a hand, half of his shirt and jacket sliding open as he leaned
down.

"My name is Jake." I said, accepting the hand that was given to me. He did
not return his name, like I had hoped the friendly gesture might have
done. "Your knife." I handed it to him, still covered in blood.

Taking it, he wiped it on his jeans, losing a few of the threads that held
the denim together. "Thanks for this." He looked long at it, showing that
he had at least some sort of emotional attachment to it, if only that he
had had it forever.

He began to run before he placed the knife back into his jacket. I was
unarmed again, something that had become slightly uncomfortable over the
past night. I had never been unarmed since the dead began walking around
the streets with us. It was not settling, and I began to fantasise that I
had searched the dead Vulture for any hidden weapons.

"Where are we going?" I whispered to the man.

"Relax, I'm going to get you home."

Home? The meds. Fuck, what was I going to do? This man had saved my life,
and I had saved his. In this world, that was all that there was. A series
of trusting each other enough to keep your friends alive. That's how I felt
towards my girlfriend, Amber. Fuck, what was I going to do? What was I
going to do?

"I... Really appreciate that..." Not knowing what else to say, I followed
him, although I wasn't entirely sure if I knew that he knew how to get to
the sanctuary of my little enclave of people.

"Sure thing, boy." He either refused to learn my name, or simply
forgot. Either way, I did not feel comfortable telling him again. If he
really did forget, then that would serve me well in the future. If he was
captured by the Vultures, he couldn't give me up, and if I didn't know his
name, same deal. This was good.

For another hour, we were able to avoid any more search parties of the
Vultures. We appeared to have outrun them for now. It would only take a few
more hours on foot before we reached the enclave. Hopefully, everything
would be fine with Amber when we got there. With the Vultures out of my
mind, and with the pair of us heading in the right direction, I wasn't able
to get Amber out of my mind. But how would I wrestle the meds from him? If
there were even any left? I hadn't seen them since last night. It was
troubling, but not too farfetched to assume that there were none left.

Our camp was a small compound, a modest compound of about one hundred
people. We had managed to put up walls around the perimeter two years ago
made of some overturned transport trucks and fencing that we had scavenged
from an abandoned camp. We managed to pick up stragglers with the promise
of food and shelter in return for loyalty towards our council that had more
or less elected themselves.

They were five people who had escaped from one of the cities long ago into
the wilderness, and began to search for a more permanent place to settle
down. They managed to find a hamlet with only a few survivors, and they all
integrated well together. Since then, many of us found our way there
through the forests, or along the empty roads and were all welcomed.

This past year, after the walls went up, we managed to establish three
fields outside of the boundaries. They were too big to put up anything but
a meager fence, and any dead that managed to wander in were quickly killed
and disposed of; though there were not that many. It was safe, which is why
many people chose to stay.

"Here we are, grab my hand." I reached up, and took the wounded arm, and he
grunted in pain.

"Hang on a minute." I said, when I was up on the small cliff that I could
have absolutely reached by myself. "You have to slow down, the infection
will spread faster, the more you move."

"That's an old wives tale, boy." He kept walking, rubbing his arm slightly.

"What happened to you anyways?" I skipped a few steps in order to catch up
to him. "It's not a bite, you'dve been puking up black shit long ago."

"Nah, nothing like that." He slid down a rocky slope, finding himself on
the riverbed that ran close to the enclave. "I'm ok."

I slid down beside him, and tripped. He caught me, and I stood up straight,
and threw my arms out to my sides. "Look where we are. Who's gonna know
that you might not be the alpha male that you're trying to come off as?"

"Shaddup." He spat, taking a mouthful of water from the river. "This is
clean, right?"

"Clean enough. We're up river."

"Good." With another sip, he let out a satisfied `ahh...'

"Here, let me clean that." I knelt down beside him, and took hold of his
wounded arm. He recoiled, stood up, and walked away. "You really should
take care of that, you know."

"You're not a doctor." He grunted.

"No, but I know that that penicillin is only going to go so far, if at
all. It's expired."

"And you need it."

I looked at him quizzically. Was he really going to give it to me without
my begging? I immediately thought of what had changed his mind. The knife?
Offering to help? Or just being through this experience together. I always
felt closer to people with whom I narrowly escaped death from.

"I don't, my girlfriend does." I corrected him.

"Yeah." He hopped over a log with mild discomfort. I guess that since he
was older, he had a harder time maneuvering around the larger
obstacles. Honestly, it made me giggle a bit. But the man did not seem to
like that too much, and pushed me over the log as I tried to pass it.

We continued on mostly in silence, until we got to the outskirts of one of
the farmer's fields. I knew from standing sentry up at the town, that they
would have already seen us approaching, and so I waved my hands; the signal
that I was, in fact, alive.

Far in the distance, I heard the scraping of one of the trucks being loved
ever so slightly to allow a person in. That was policy the groups of three
or less, just let them in and see if they need help. Make no mistakes,
there were snipers, and everyone in the village carried a knife after the
point in which they could be trusted; after about a year. It had managed to
keep out a few Vultures set on harvesting a few from the ranks of our
population.

Passing through the farmland that was in desperate need of a rain, we
approached the entrance, guarded by three men that I recognized as Sam,
Devon, and Kasey. They did not seem too happy to see me, which made me
worried for what I might find inside when I had passed through.

"Is that him?" I heard Jess say from across the street from the entrance.

"Jess!" I waved at her and she ran over. "How are you? How's Amber?' Her
face turned on me, and I received a devastating blow to the face.

"You mother fucker!" She screamed at me, spitting as well. The man was in
front of me with his shotgun aimed at her, but the guards had more guns
pointed at him before he could even turn the safety off. "Where the fuck
have you been? Huh?!" She kicked me in the stomach, sending me flailing to
the side, groaning in pain.

"You left me." I managed to get out. The guards had restrained the man, and
taken his shotgun, aiming it at his head.

"Left you? I didn't fucking leave you! You disappeared you little fucker!
And now Amber is gone! She's fucking gone!" She kicked me again, and pulled
a knife on me. The glint of silver in the sunlight widened my eyes, while
the guards, my friends, looked on, doing nothing.

"What...?" I asked in disbelief.

"She's fucking dead! She's fucking dead!" Jess threw the knife at me,
striking the ground where my leg had just been. "And now you have the
fucking nerve to come back here?!" She was crying now, and tried to hit me
with her weakened strength, taken up by sobbing. "You left me, you left
her. You're a fucking traitor to us..."

"But I found – "

"Fuck you! Get the fuck out of here! I don't ever wanna see your fucking
face again! You fucking took my sister! You fucking killed her, you mother
fucker!" I tried to speak, but she was hysterical. "You fucking have
medicine? Where the fuck were you four hours ago? Huh?!" Unable to reach me
since four people had seen the commotion and were holding her back, she
spit on me.

"Let's get outta here, boy." The man said calmly.

Jess raged on. "Yeah, you fucking go! You fucking get outta here! I never
wanna see you again. You hear me? Shoot this mother fucker on sight! You
fucking kill him the next time you see his fucking face! Let go of me!" She
struggled, trying to get at me.

I managed to stand, and holding my stomach, I lurched off, back through the
gate and passed through. Kasey turned to me and said "I'm sorry dude, I'll
see if I can talk to her."

I shook my head to indicate that it was worthless, and turned away from
him. He patted me on the back, and I held back a world crushing tear
through a tensed jaw. When I couldn't manage to fight it anymore, I ran;
instead of facing them all with a wet face.

I wanted to run away, and never be found. It just wasn't real. I would wake
up in that shitty office after the guy was dead, since he really was a
Vulture, and I would grab the meds, and bring them back to Amber, and she
would be fine. I just had to wake up.

You can't die in dreams.

I ran to the river, jumped the log, and fell flat on my face.

It was ages before I bothered to move again. I laid there, listening to the
water rushing over the rocks on its way towards what I thought was
home. But there was nothing. I had no home anymore, cast out into this
unforgiving wilderness, with only the words that she was gone. I hadn't
seen anything, hell, I hadn't even really done anything. None of it made
sense, and I tried to fit it together. I tried to see if from Jess's point
of view, but I couldn't. It was more or less useless from that
perspective. Her sister was dead. But so was the girl that I loved, and I
wasn't even given enough respect to know what had actually happened.

I was numb. I hadn't let that one tear fall out, and I was damned proud of
it. The tear lurked on the outskirts of my eye though, threatening to break
free, sending me into a violent fit of wailing and shaking that those on
sentry duty would surely hear. But fuck them. I wasn't going to give them
the satisfaction of it all. They'd make a game out of it I bet. I sure as
hell would have, given their predicament. I was cast out, they no longer
had to feel anything for me. In this world, that was all there was. A
feeling of trust, of mutual suffering, that held us all together. Once that
was gone, what was left?

Nothing but death and pain. Fuck it.

I willed my arms to move, to lift me up into a sitting position. Of course,
there was nothing to hold me up, so I fell forward, but this time, catching
myself on my hands. They buried into the river stones, and hurt a
bit. Round rocks still hurt. Remember that the next time you're in the
middle of nowhere and feel like being dramatic.

I stood up in front of the river. I needed to get in, to just sit in the
flowing waters, and allow it to take all this shit away from me, and
hopefully, the memories too.

I stripped, and got into the water. It was cold, but it felt good on the
muscles that had just recently been kicked, bruised, and had fallen into
stones. Once my stomach was in, it was blissful. I swam for a few feet
against the current, and grabbed onto a protruding boulder, then let the
current take my feet out from under me. They wagged in the current, and it
made me feel much better.

The thoughts of the events quickly passed, but the pain stayed on in my
stomach, and in my heart. It was like a void that sucked up every feeling
that I was having. Sadness, happiness, hunger, everything was just gone,
and I felt like an empty shell of a person, just floating. Just floating.

I lost myself in the feeling of the rushing water for ages it seemed. There
was nothing important, and nothing that I needed to do. It eventually was
the realization that I was hungry that made me open my eyes, and take in
the bright sunlight. It was well past midday, not surprising since we
started the day running from the Vultures, then a few hours walking through
the wilderness. An hour more of washing away the darkness in my soul, and
the time made perfect sense to me.

So, soaking wet, I stepped out of the river, in a daze of relaxation. Next
to where I had thrown my clothes was a medium sized flat rock that I sat
down on to get myself together. Damp socks on damp feet, I learned, is not
the easiest to put on. Standing up, I let my underwear slide up over my
butt, and felt it cling to the water that still made my butt wet.

I sat down again, with one thought running over and over again in my mind:
What was I going to do now?

"Done yet, boy?" I heard from behind me. I stood up quickly, and turned
around to face the man. Embarrassed, fumbled to pick up my pants and put
them on, and realizing that he could see most of me through the white, wet
underwear that I wore. He was sitting on that damned log, fiddling away
with his knife on bit of tree branch.

"How long have you been sitting there?!" I demanded, tucking a dirty shirt
into my pants and doing them up. I felt cheated in my suffering in peace.

"Since you... Well, since you got in, really." He smirked. "But not to
worry, I had other things to occupy myself on." He held up a stripped piece
of wood, sharpened to a perfect point. "I was watchin' out."

I didn't know what to think. It was like he was taunting me. I wondered how
much of him was watching me, and how much was watching out for us. The
memory of waking up with him shirtless, arm around me, and a hard on
grinding into me flooded back, and I touched my head to see if doing so
might help the memory fade. What if he...

"Look, you need to leave me the fuck alone, whatever your name is." I
collected my shoes that I had not put on yet, and started storming away. "I
don't need protecting."

"You need a weapon though. Do you want a weapon?" He hadn't moved from the
log, but when I turned, he was wagging the pointed stake at me.

Cautiously, I approached, with the feeling of his body pressed against my
back weighing heavily on my decision to take each step. But, I made to him
and made a grab for the stake, which he pulled away.

"I don't wanna play fucking games."

"Good, cause I hate that shit. The way I see it, you need me. You're alone,
defenseless, young, and stupid enough to get eaten the second that you
leave my sight." I wanted to protest, but I was feeling so poorly about
myself that I just let the blow hit me. "And I hate to say it, boy, but I
kinda need you too. You're a pain in the ass, and I'm going to regret this
later... But I'm all alone out here too. Now what happened back there at
your place, that kinda got all these things I'd put away a long time ago,
it brought them right back to the surface. We've all got lots of shit to
deal with in the end, and I'd hate to go through it all alone again."

"I don't wanna talk to you about this crap." I said, grabbing the stake
from him and walking away.

"Course you don't." I heard him hop down off the log as I walked away from
him. "But you will, eventually. One day. But hell, might as well go at it
with someone, hmh? Better than being alone." He was on my heels, and I spun
to face him, causing him to knock into me. Damnit he was solid. I all but
bounced off. "Now, this is temporary, though. I don't need you dragging me
down forever."

I thought about this business proposition for only a few moments before
speaking up. "If I'm going to drag you down, might as well be there to
catch you." I held out my hand, and he shook it twice. Then, looking at the
sky, I nodded a few times and breathed in deeply. "We're going to need a
fire, and some shelter. It looks like rain."


**Hope you enjoyed. Maybe another? I haven't decided yet. Sorry to waste
your time.**