Dash Dash Dot Dot

Food & Factions

Willow was woken by a scream, unlike anything she had heard before, it was a scream of terror, not fun house terror or jump scare terror, it was true terror, the person was literally screaming for their life. It sounded close. She peeked out the window to see if she could find the source of the scream. She saw movement on the road. The zombies within earshot moved in the direction of the noise. Another scream ripped through the still morning air. She heard feet pounding on the road as the person who had screamed began running. The footsteps were getting louder. The person, a young woman, rounded the corner of the building next door. Willow swallowed the lump in her throat and called out to the woman. She looked up to the window and nodded. Willow quickly ran over to the front door, she had to pull the couch away from it before she could open it. She swung the door open as the woman got to the landing; she closed the door behind the woman as she bolted past her and locked it then pushed the couch back into place.

They listened to the scuffling of a dozen feet on the stairwell as the zombies bounced off the walls, doors and each other. It sounded like they weren't sure where their meal had gotten too. Willow put her eye to the peep hole and looked at the zombies milling around. She sighed and went to the front window, opening the side with a missing screen, she tossed a fist sized rock onto the neighboring car port and listened to the metallic thud as it hit, it did what she wanted it to, drawing most of the zombies away from the stairwell. Then she gently closed the window and turned to look at the woman standing nervously in her lounge room. She wore a light grey hoodie and black pants with dirty white sneakers; her long brown hair was pulled through the gap of her grey baseball cap in a braid and hung down over the blue backpack she wore.

She offered her a smile. "Hi, I'm Willow!" She said pleasantly, realizing she was still in her pajamas with cats and donuts all over it and probably looked a mess with unbrushed hair.

The woman seemed to snap back to reality and stuck out her hand. "I'm Tiffany."

"Nice to meet you Tiffany," Willow shook her hand. "Please, take a seat. You'll have to wait till the zombies clear the stairwell before you can leave. But welcome to my little slice of heaven in this new hellish world." Tiffany shrugged off her backpack and sat in one of the armchairs, Willow claimed the other. "If you don't mind me asking, what were you doing out there anyway?" It had been a week since the infection had hit Queanbeyan and Tiffany was the first survivor Willow had met, or even seen, since it had taken over.

"I was trying to gather some supplies, my food and water is getting a bit low so I was checking out the houses around the area, seeing what kind of stuff they had left. I guess I was a little too noisy trying to get into one of the places and when I turned around to check behind me there were three zombies headed my way, and that’s when I screamed and ran, but there were more in the direction of my place so I had to come this way, and then I saw you calling to me so I bolted up here, and here we are. But thank you so much, you saved my life; I would probably still be running if you hadn't seen me."

Willow smiled. "Glad to help another survivor when I can. You actually woke me up, I was still asleep when I heard you scream, then I looked out the window and saw you coming in my direction, so please excuse the PJs and messy hair."

"Not a problem." Tiffany laughed and pointed towards the radio. "Does that thing work? I've been hearing on the radio about the factions that are being set up around town, at all of the schools, even that one down the street with the church, but unless you're religious I'd probably avoid that one. By the sounds of their introduction they've gone all 'end of days' religious. There's even one out at Harman, but they aren't accepting members, but they are working to keep the peace between the other factions. I've been contemplating heading to one myself, I mean you are the first person I've talked to since all of this started. Which is the reason I'm rambling so much at you, sorry."

"Don't be, it's the same for me. But I had closed myself away for two weeks before this started. I was in a car accident, with my sister. I got lucky and walked away with a few bruises and scratches but she didn't make it. She was on the side of the impact, the truck absolutely crushed her side of the vehicle, it t-boned us. Driver was finishing a sixteen hour shift and fell asleep at the wheel." Willow sniffled and wiped away the tear that ran down her cheek.

"Oh my god, that's so terrible, I'm so sorry, especially since all of this crap went down so soon after." Willow nodded. Tiffany dug through her backpack and pulled out a photograph. "This is me and my fiancé, he had travelled to Western Australia for work when this all hit, he got stuck over there when they shut down the airports, I know it's nowhere near the same as losing your sister, but I haven't heard from him this week. He was attempting to find a way to get back to Canberra, last I heard from him he had made it to South Australia." Now it was Tiffany's turn to wipe at her cheeks. "Oh, I'm so sorry; we make a great pair, don't we."

"This whole thing is shit, but we have to adapt, if we don't then we either die or become one of those things outside. I know Katie would want me to survive, and I'm sure your fiancé would want the same thing for you. And at the moment, I invited you in, so we have to do it together. Did you manage to find anything before you had to run? I have some assorted cans of food and a few bottles of water left. Let me get this fire going and we can have something to eat. I have baked beans or spaghetti, your choice." Willow said with a small smile and threw some wood into the fire pit with some scrunched up newspaper.

"I wish I'd thought of something like that. I've been having cold stuff straight from the can. And I only found a couple cans of some peaches, pears and a couple of corn and peas. The zombies heard me at the second place, so I didn't get very far at all before I had to run."

"This was one of the first things I bought when the world started going to shit, I figured it was better to have it and not need it than to not have it and need it. It may take longer to cook something over the flames, but the fire adds a little extra flavor that a microwave or stove doesn't. Hopefully the zombies leave the stairwell by tomorrow, I don't have a lot of wood left to burn, this should do until tomorrow morning, if we don't have it on all day today, but that's pushing it. Luckily the sun is out so if the windows and doors are kept shut it should keep warm enough in here. I have enough blankets for you too."

"I have a sleeping bag in the bottom of my bag just in case."

"Well damn, I wish I'd thought of that instead of just fluffy blankets, it probably would have made it easier, especially if I have to vacate the premises." Willow laughed.

They ate and talked quietly, Willow asked Tiffany more questions about the factions around town. Apparently they had been set up just before the virus hit Queanbeyan instead of the community shelters the prime minister had talked about on the TV. They seemed to be a smarter idea, making use of the equipment and the tall fences around the school yards. The tall fences had been put in halfway through her attending school, before that they were just low fences that were easy to hop over. That feeling of being in prison probably felt more like safety with the zombies roaming around everywhere.