Young Terror Prologue through Chapter 4

Prologue



I remember waking up every morning and seeing my friends, the ones that counted anyway. I always had a very close-knit group of friends, the people I knew I could really count on, the people that I cared for and that cared for me. Painfully enough, many of those friends are gone now I fear, and the ones that are left, as much as I wish I could see them, are nowhere to be found currently. As far as I knew I would never see them again, but I still had hope. There was no point in living in this world without a goal anyway, and mine was to be reunited with my loved ones.

I had become a little bit of a traveller, at least ever since I had became part of a group of other survivors who took refuge at an old RV park. I was in upstate New York, I knew that, but I wasn't near any towns that I knew of, despite much of my youth growing up in a small upstate New York town. I began to walk down the road, being in the country side there wasn't much to see, just fields and trees. It had rained last night and the pavement was still dark and wet, large puddles formed around the edges of the road. The air was clean smelling, and the morning was surprisingly warm.

I listened to the birds sing and thought to myself, as I always got lost in my thoughts when I walked. Usually I thought about life as it was before the outbreaks, how simple things were back then, how much I had taken for granted. This time however I thought more about how much I enjoyed the freedom of a

broken society. I'm just the kind of person who prefers life's freedoms over societies structure and control, I suppose. Though I was no anarchist, I never exactly felt bound to follow the rules set by the people around me.

I stared at the clouds in the sky and tried to think about what day it was, even before the outbreaks I was never any good at remembering the date. I had been on the road for only one day now, sent on a little looting trip into town, check the pharmacy, look for food, just a simple run for supplies. Then after I was done with this trip I was free to leave and search for my friends once again. I had left on the sixth, which meant it was now the seventh of October. The trees leaves had changed color, which made a nice distraction to keep me from thinking too deeply. My head ached, and I felt the scar on my forehead, it still hurt.

By the late morning I had made it to the outskirts of the town. It was just a small town, but we had heard there was still some supplies left there from some merchants, and the group desperately needed food and medicine for the quickly approaching Winter. I sat down behind some trees on the side of the road and grabbed my pair of binoculars. I was actually rather paranoid, even though the infected were extremely scarce in this area I took no risks, which is probably one of the reasons I was still alive. In a world where there's danger, and possible death around every corner it helps to be extremely cautious.

I surveyed the area from on top of a tree. I loved climbing, I could never manage to climb trees as a child,

but once I developed as a teenager I was finally able to. I scanned through the streets that I could see for about twenty minutes before I was satisfied that there was no movement. No movement means no danger, as the infected are restless and will keep walking, always searching for stupid people making stupid mistakes. That's the scavengers motto, no movement means no danger, and to not check out the area before you enter means almost certain death, so we were told. But I didn't need to be warned or scared into such actions, I was determined to live, to find my friends and family, and being infected means that will never happen.

I climb down the tree and grabbed my back-pack, once again I was on the road into town. It was a quick five minute walk, but it felt like it took at least thirty, I was edgy, towns were dangerous and I had to keep quiet. Even more dangerous than running into a couple of infected was attracting the attention of more looters. Most of them would simply shoot you on sight and take anything of value from your corpse, but you might get lucky and be spotted by someone with morals, good luck with that though.

I walked through the streets of the town until I came upon the pharmacy. The eerie silence because of lack of human activity didn't bother me, I could stand silence, I just couldn't stand the lack of movement in the world now. I was used to seeing people everywhere, walking, driving, living. Now that's a rare occasion, and that bothered me. I looked in the window in front of the pharmacy, no movement, I was good to go.

I opened the door to the pharmacy quietly, slowly, I wanted to make no noise at all. Unluckily I am a rather large person, and my footsteps aren't exactly the softest, but I can stay rather quiet when I need to be. I was surprised when I looked at my surroundings. Most of the shelves were still standing, there was no blood anywhere or signs of a fight, that was always a good sign. I quickly began to scavenge what I could, painkillers, cold relief, antibiotics, cough syrup, all important for the survival of the group, or at least useful in one way or another.

The electricity in the store was out, but luckily the stores front windows faced east, and the sun flooded into my dusty surroundings. As I was checking through some bottles of cheap store-brand medication I heard a noise behind me. Something had fallen from behind the register counter, and I froze. Something was scratching back there, and I started backing towards the door.

It rose up from behind the counter, a female infected wearing a blood stained white shirt with a name-tag on it. First it just stared forward, not moving. Then it's arms rose, and it's throat emanated a deep groan. It started walking towards me, and I started running. Rule number two, if they start walking, you start sprinting. Some of the infected were surprisingly fast, able to move at the equivalent of a jogging speed so I had heard, and they would never stop. They endlessly hunt you down until you either outrun them, found a place to hide, or kill it. Seeing as I had no real weapons I was stuck with running. They don't allow us to carry guns on our scavenging missions, they take up too much space along with the ammunition, which was not in great supply.

I ran outside the store and took a turn at the nearest street corner, running beside a large red building. I had to get out of the village immediately, that groan they make was like a dinner bell, and if there's one there's bound to be more. As I took the corner, sprinting at top speed, back pack bouncing, I slipped. Landing on my stomach and scraping up my hands, but as

soon as I fell I began to get up, I couldn't stop moving. The infected girl was moving rather quickly, I could hear her getting closer, her footsteps, mouth open, making that loud, terrible groan. I spilled some of the medication when I had slipped, and I picked them up as quickly as possible, fumbling with the pill bottles. I gasped when it turned the corner, I wanted nothing to do with those monsters.

She was tall, skinny, and definitely in a working outfit. Probably just another pharmacist who was unlucky, but I had no pity for her, she made some stupid mistake and now she was infected. I began to run, but suddenly from in front of me another one, a big male, turned the corner. The street was narrow, and I didn't have much time to act. I was terrified, my heart was pounding and I began running to the other side of the street, which had a large chain-link fence to the side of it. I had nowhere to go, I made a stupid mistake, and now I was never going to see my loved ones again, unless I was hunting them. Even after all I had done, all I had been through, I was never going to see them again. I sat down, back to the fence, defeated. I had nowhere to go.

Just as they were closing in on me a truck rounded the corner, people shouting and gunshots being fired. They hit the male infected in the side, and then the head with what must have been a hunting rifle, as these weren't military personnel. The large Ford truck came to a screeching stop at the next intersection. The second one went down soon after, only five feet away from me. I covered my face and hands, my only exposed body parts, as to keep infected material off of my bare skin. I absolutely thought I was next, and once again prepared for death. I closed my eyes when I heard the most shocking words of my life so far.

"John! What the hell?"



Chapter 1



I heard the sounds of a chainsaw, as well as a rather heavy guitar riff, and fast drums. Anatomy, by The Devil Wears Prada off of The Zombie EP, was blaring out of my headphones, but nobody would bother me about it, I always played my music loud, and everyone knew it. The school in my town, Whitington, was tiny, everyone knew everyone, and what they were about. But I didn't really care about what most people thought, whether I played my music too loudly or not. The only people I cared about were my nine best friends.

I sat next to Lia on the bus, as I did every morning. Lia was seventeen, a junior in school, rather petite, and with brown hair. She was known to have a bit of an attitude, even towards me, despite our being very close friends. We never talked on the bus in the morning, just listened to our music and waited to get to school and get the day going. School was coming to an end, and seeing as Summer vacation was very soon many of the students, and teachers, were becoming restless. That made the school noisy, and I didn't enjoy that.

I sat down at our table in the cafeteria before our classes started, Jaykob and Ashley already waiting for us as always. We sat and discussed weekend plans and what-not while more friends arrived. I left the table to get my school work from my locker, though I doubted I would do any of it. I was glad that I ate breakfast this morning, and ignored the water fountains as I passed them. Anyway, people already had them taken, and I didn't feel like waiting. The day seemed to drag on, and by fourth period I was already beginning to nap through my classes. I knew most of the material, and I was an expert at looking awake as class continued around me.

I got lost in my thoughts once again. I thought about how much I wished I was in bed sleeping, instead of in at a school desk. I thought about how monotonous the days had seemed to become. The same story everyday, and even though I was content, it was getting boring. I tapped a drumbeat on my desk to convince the teacher I was still listening and awake, but I couldn't hear a thing he was saying. Suddenly the intercom came to life.

"All students and faculty, do not drink any water. We were just warned that it is causing people to get sick in the area. All students who have drank any water from the school today must go to the nurses office immediately." said one of the ladies who spoke far too loudly over the intercom.

"What's this crap?" said Lia. "I don't know, maybe if the school got a damn filtration system for the water things like this wouldn't happen." I practically mumbled back to her. "Right?" said Lia. None of the students in class moved, and the lessons continued, so I went back to sleeping. The day continued, and after lunch I just wanted it to end.

The monotony of the day ended, however, when I heard sirens outside. I couldn't see any vehicles as I was in a room of the school that was far from the main entrance and front doorway. But I was sure that within the next thirty minutes I would learn about a fight that broke out, and how the police were called, which would at least make the day more exciting. Once again the intercom sounded.

"We are in a lockdown situation." was simply all they said. We moved lazily to a corner of the room and stood around talking, not being quiet at all despite warnings of repercussions from the teachers if we made too much noise during a lockdown. I wondered if the sirens had anything to do with the lockdown, and if this might be serious after all. Along with the sicknesses the water seemed to be causing and the lockdown, today had proved to be a rather exciting day. There was a knocking at the door, slow and continuous. We were immediately silent, and listened as the knocking continued. Eventually our teacher answered to it.

"Hello?" he said. The knocking continued. "Yes? Hello?" he said again. Once again, no response. The teacher went over and opened the door, only to be greeted and bit by the first infected I had ever seen. It was a little girl from seventh grade whom I didn't know, but she got our teacher by the hand and bit him. He gave out a cry and pushed her away, but she just got up and came at him again. It all seemed to happen so fast, but within seconds I knew what to do.

I was shocked, but immediately realized the situation. I had watched too many movies, played too many video games, and read too many books not to know what was happening. I had to get out of there fast, that's all I could think about, so I ran through the back door after grabbing my closest friends in the class as my other classmates screamed at the sight of the monster. We ran through the chemical closet and out into the hallway through the biology room, moving quickly, as I was sure our classmates would follow us soon after, and I didn't want to attract too much attention.

Lia, Emilee, and I were then in the hallway, running towards the exit as I lead the way. We heard the cries of our classmates behind us, but I knew we couldn't stop, we had to get out as soon as possible. My friends didn't even question me as we ran down the hall, I had talked about it too much, and now it was finally happening. An outbreak, in our school, in our town.

When we got out of the school using a side door we ran towards the front of the school. There were many police cars outside, and when we turned the corner they spotted us. One of them yelled into a loud-phone.

"Stop where you are now, or you will be shot!" he yelled. Apparently they were taking this very seriously, so much that they would shoot us on sight. This only confirmed what I had believed, this was really happening. I turned us around and ran as quickly as possible, I knew what would happen after they got us. Extensive and experimental medical testing, something I would not go through. We went to the back of the school and caught our breath.

"We need to go back in there..." said Lia. "Why would we ever do that?" asked Emilee. "Because our friends are in there, we can't just leave them!" replied Lia. "Here, I'll go in, you two go hide, call me later and we'll meet back up." I said. I didn't know why I was being the hero, but I guess I felt I had to for my friends.

The girls began to run off in the other direction as I went to the main back door of the school. I couldn't believe what I was doing, it went against everything I knew about survival in this situation. I waited a minute, took a deep breath and ran into the school, and just hoped that I would make it back out with my friends. Sadly, sometimes, just hoping isn't enough...



Chapter 2



I pushed my way through the doors, and looked around slowly. I heard screams in the distance, and the sounds of footsteps echoing through the other halls. Many of the red lockers lining the walls were opened, papers were sprawled out in the hallway. This terrified me, how quickly the school fell into disarray, I instantly compared this to society. If this was widespread I assumed that the world, or at least the continent, would respond the same way, crumble and die. I walked slowly down the hall, trembling, my only comfort being that the lights of the school were on, obviously this was too early in the outbreak for the schools over-expensive generator to fail.

I made it four rooms down the hallway when I made the mistake of looking through an open door, only to see an adult and a child devouring a student, all of whom I couldn't identify, as I usually didn't go down this hall too often. I almost yelled, but I caught myself because I knew that making too much noise would get me killed. I moved quickly away, hoping they didn't hear me.

And then it struck me, I was being an idiot, I was going to get myself killed in here and end up some teachers meal. It pained me to abandon my friends, but the school seemed rather deserted except for the occasional scream. Maybe they had managed to get outside and run away, or worse yet, maybe they're

with the police outside. I began to run, almost panicking. This was indeed the most terrifying thing I had ever experienced, despite my years of "Mental preparation". Though for some reason I did feel as though I was better off than almost anyone else.

I ran through the same back door and was horrified to see some infected wandering in the fields, most likely people from town that were probably attracted by the noise of the sirens. I was scared for Lia and Emilee, what if they got bit, what if they were captured? As scary as these thoughts were I ran

to the garage where they store the shot-puts and discuss' for track and field by the track. I took out my phone, and was nearly mortified to see it was at low charge. I definitely had picked a good morning to decide to charge my phone after school.

My hands were shaking, and my heart was pounding, but the whole experience was almost as thrilling as it was terrifying. I soon realized, however, that I couldn't think about the whole picture right now, I had to focus on surviving and finding my friends. I failed to enter the pass-code on my phone because of

my shaking hand, and cursed in my head each time it told me I didn't get the code in, wasting battery power. After four tries I got it, I then immediately found Lias contact and called it.

It rang twice, and then I got an answer. "John!" she said. "Yeah, where are you?" I replied, speaking quickly. "Emilee and I are on Kenes Mountain, climbing to the tower on top. Where are you? Where are our friends?" she said, breathing heavily into the phone. "I couldn't find them, we'll worry about that later." I said quietly. "What?" she nearly yelled. "I couldn't find them, alright? We'll just have to find them later or something. For now we just need to meet back up. I'll meet you at the top of the mountain." "... Alright" said Lia.

It was about one-thirty now, and I could hear the sounds of the infected in the field directly to the right of the garage. I heard one approaching, slowly walking by the garage door which I had lowered mostly. I hid behind some boxes and held my breath. It continued walking by as I viewed it's feet under the garage-door, but it felt like it was moving at such a slow pace, slowly

shuffling, I almost couldn't handle it. My mind was racing, a million different "What ifs?" running through my head, and I knew it was a mistake to think like that.

After I knew the coast was clear I walked out from behind the boxes and crates. "Calm down, keep focused, you have to get out of the school property, across the golf-course, and up the mountain. No problem..." I told myself. I went to the garage door and opened it as quietly as possible, but it made a

rather loud creaking noise. I checked around the corners, and only saw a few of the infected wandering the field. Gunshots in the distance from the police, most likely, which seemed to keep them distracted as they moved slowly towards the front of the school. I found comfort in the fact that gunshots meant some of the infected could be destroyed, but at the same time cursed them for making so much damn noise.

I began to run across the track towards the fence on the other side. Beyond the fence was a bit of a swamp, and a golf course, then a rode that circled around the mountain, and finally the hike to the tower at the top, which I could

see quite clearly. I was glad I knew the area so well, clearly that was an advantage for my survival, another "good thing" to put on the list. I jumped the fence, and made my way through the marsh, checking every step in fear of a hidden infected, or a snake. You can't forget about the normal dangers of life in an outbreak, getting bit by a poisonous snake and not being able to move quickly, or without assistance, made surviving far more difficult. As that thought ran through my mind, I turned around and checked what was happening behind me, and suddenly, the wind shifted direction, blowing from my back

directly towards the field with at least eight or nine infected in it.

Terrifyingly, they all turned towards me slowly, for a moment they stared. That was enough for me, I started sprinting, running through the marsh with large strides, covering my shoes in mud. I stumbled up onto the golf course and looked behind me once again. They were already moving quickly across the track,

and I was alone. I didn't look back again, all I did was run, every other thought then "Get out of here" had disappeared from my head. As fast as I could I ran across the field-like golf-course, and through the country-club parking lot. I moved past a golf-cart with a bag full of golf-clubs. I grabbed one as I ran by, it was light and I could use it as a walking stick, or in the worst case, beat back a single infected. I could see them, they were slowed down by the marsh because they weren't cautious about their steps and fell, I was their only focus, and that scared me.

I was breathing heavily as I ran across the road, not looking back as I made my way up the mountain. My legs burned and I sweat as I made the rough hike up the mountain, though it is not very large at all. Finally, the gate surrounding the tower was in sight, giving me motivation to move just a little

bit faster through the trees and over the rocks.

"Open the god-damn gate!" I almost yelled. They ran out from under the tower to the gate. "About freaking time John!" said Lia. I made my way through the gate as they locked it, catching my breath. I couldn't even speak, but I was so happy I had at least two of my friends with me, and that at least I had made it back to them. After I had caught my breath, I found a nice place to sit on the first floor of the little radio-tower. It was wooden, and broken, but it was quiet at least. I looked around, glad that the infected didn't manage to follow me. I still heard sirens in the distance.

"Lia, can you climb up there and see if you can check out what’s going on?" I asked from my position on the first floor. "Yeah, sure." she said. She climbed up to about the top, and looked towards the school. "Cars are moving, they're loading people into trucks and moving to... the armory. There are trucks in town too, also going to the armory..."

Then I realized it, our friends, our family, locked up in a fortress at least for now. I wanted to help them, but I didn't know how. Under governmental control that thing was impenetrable, and we were just a couple of teenagers, how could we possibly manage to get in there and release our loved ones?

"So what do we do John?" said Lia as they turned to me. "Well, I guess first, we need a pair of binoculars..." I replied. We knew where we could find some though, in town, and towns are dangerous.



Chapter 3



Our little base at the top of the mountain was more than suitable for me, so long as we didn't attract any attention. It has the tower, a little shack, and a ten foot fence with rusted barb-wire at the top. I spent my time checking around the fence, placing rocks wherever it was bent, and there was a chance that they could make it through. Lia did the same, and climbed the tower to survey the town again. Emilee just went into the shack and sat down, she had been very quiet, but that's just her personality.

I enjoyed the quiet, and the birds chirping, the wind blowing. It made me glad that I could appreciate nature more than many people I suppose, but what would help me the most at the time was some music blasting in my ear. Music helps me focus, makes my thoughts much clearer, but most of all makes me

courageous. I could do anything as long as the right music was playing, or so I believed.

When it was about six, Lia made the remark "I'm hungry." As simple as that saying was, it also made me have a great realization that I was no hunter, and we would have to scavenge for food and clean water within the next few days. After I was satisfied that the tower was fortified enough, I went to sleep, it had been a long day.

I woke up to a cloudy morning, but I knew it wouldn't rain, I had watched the forecast yesterday morning, just like any other. I wanted t see my family and friends so badly, but I couldn't let that demoralize me, instead I needed to use it as motivation. I needed to focus on making a plan, at least a way to survive, and that included binoculars as a very essential item. There were no cars moving in town, so I assumed that many of the citizens of Whitington were in the armory, or moved to another containment area, herded like animals, I was sure. I sat down on the first floor of the tower again, and thought for a while as the girls slept. I made plans, always have a plan, and a back-up plan. You can't survive in such a world without knowing what you're doing, I knew this, and thought through many possible scenarios and what to do if they occurred.

"So, what's the plan?" said Lia. "We'll head down the mountain into town soon, run to my house, grab supplies and my dads high-powered binoculars, whatever we can carry that's useful, and we'll bring it back here. Then we'll observe the armory, find out what the patrol schedules are, and eventually make a plan to infiltrate it, and save our friends." I replied quickly, as if I had been practicing it like a speech, and I may as well have been. "Alright, so who's coming with you?" said Lia. "You can if you want, honestly I don't want to go alone at all. Do you want to come Emilee?" I said. "No, I think I'll just stay here... How long do you think you'll be gone?" she asked. "I can't tell you exactly, but we'll be back before night-fall, I'm sure. Lia and I'll head out at noon"

When noon came we hiked down the mountain, and ended up in the back-roads of the tiny town. We kept our heads down, as we felt dangerously close to the armory, which was just a few streets away. We moved quickly, and came upon one of the two bridges that crossed the canal that split the town in two, running right through the middle. It was very eerie that the town was so quiet, nobody was around to recognize me and talk to me, and nobody drove by and yelled out my name. Lia and I didn't talk as we walked, we were too focused on our surroundings, which I thought was a good thing probably. I was not happy about having to cross the bridge and risk being seen, but we couldn't risk swimming through infected water. Begrudgingly we started moving across the bridge with our heads down. On the other bridge trucks were crossing, and I hoped with everything I had that they couldn't see us.

When we got across the bridge we ran up the street to one of the main roads of town, Broadway. My house was on this street, not too far from where we were, just down the hill. We ran across the main road to the back roads once again, and ran down the hill. We jumped the small chain-link fence that surrounded my backyard, and moved to my backdoor just as I heard trucks move down the main road. If they saw us on the bridge we were in big trouble, they would send people after us, I knew this without a doubt.

I checked our back-door, which was locked. "If the back-door's locked, then the front door is too, which means the only way in is through the basement." I said. We opened the basement entrance in my back yard and walked down the concrete stairs, which was covered in cob-webs. I always hated the basement, it wasn't well lit, and I guess child-hood fears applied now, something could be waiting to get you in the dark. We moved through my basement, which is rather

large. My house is pretty large, often described as a "little mansion" it's made of bricks, and it's box shaped.

I opened the door that led into the kitchen, and walked quickly to my dads office. All the animals were gone, our cats, even the bird. I grabbed the binoculars, which were laying on his desk. I also saw my dads cross-bow, which I

had completely forgotten about. Lia had stayed behind to grab food and water from the kitchen. I looked in the closet under the stairs, and got two large back-packs. We quickly filled them with canned foods, and bottles filled with clean water, which my family always bought. I looked out the front window, soldiers were marching down the street, they were attempting to control the situation, I'm sure. I could see out the curtain, but they couldn't see in. I thought for a moment, they feared us, we were dangerous, so much to the point that they sent people to come and capture us. This thought almost made me smile, but more important than a feeling of power from being feared is the feeling of getting shot, which I did not want to deal with.

We had to sneak out, but they had patrols out in town now. I didn't regret having a cross-bow, it was silent, powerful, and accurate. Anyway, you can re-use cross-bow bolts, bullets are a one-time shot. They moved in groups of six, way too many for us to take alone. After three patrols had passed we ran back out through the basement, through my back-yard, and into the back roads once again. I was encumbered by the load I was carrying, but I didn't want to have to go back into town again.It was getting late, and we would have to get back to Emilee soon. We turned the corner to go on the street that led to the bridge when we saw another patrol of soldiers. They saw us too, which distracted them from the fifteen or so infected that were moving towards them from out a

building right next to where they were situated.



Chapter 4



Lia and I only saw a horrifying glimpse of the soldiers fate. They were surrounded, guns shooting wildly, people yelling as the infected surrounded them, and eventually tore them to pieces I was sure. However, we didn't stick around to watch, we ran in the opposite direction, and were forced to listen until the guns were no longer being fired, and the yells and screams were no longer echoing through the valley. I knew that more soldiers would come, backup to reinforce the areas defenses now that they knew there were infected roaming the streets still, and of course, the danger of two rogue humans running through the town.

We ran and hid in a church at the top of the hill, the heavy wooden doors were unlocked, luckily. We made our way into the dimly lit church, our footsteps echoing throughout the large room as we carefully observed our surroundings. We both grabbed some of the pews and brought them to the door, sufficiently barricading it. Suddenly, I heard footsteps, each one a few seconds after the other. I stopped moving and put my hand out to tell Lia to stay quiet as well. I looked around for a little, and that's when I noticed the door in the back, slightly cracked open with a trail of blood leading into it.

That was enough for me, I began to load the cross-bow. "Get over by the door..." I whispered to Lia. She simply nodded, and then backed up slowly. The footsteps were getting louder, obviously moving closer to us. I raised my weapon

and pointed it at the door, ready to shoot. Suddenly, the footsteps stopped.

"Hello?" I said, my voice cracking in fear. The door was swung open, and it looked at me, a bloodied man whom I didn't recognize. He was right in the sights

of my scope, and I fired. The bolt went straight through his head, and he dropped without making a sounds except for a "thud" which echoed through the room. I was breathing heavily, scared to death, but relieved it didn't make any noise. I had no clue as to whether those infected were still out there, or any more military personnel. I walked over to the body as Lia ran up to join me. He wasn't moving, so I continued towards the body slowly. I was surprised at how good a shot it was, and blamed it on luck, despite not being that bad when it comes to marksmanship, though I was no expert shooter. Lia averted her eyes as I retrieved the bolt, and cleaned it on the dead infected's clothes.

Lia and I went up to the bell tower after making sure the rest of the church was clear. We grabbed the binoculars, and viewed the area right where the soldiers were ambushed, as the church had a good view of the area. We could see no movement, but there were bodies in the street. I thought for a moment, could I really kill one of those soldiers? Just a man doing his duty? I understood their perspective as well, they were just as much a "good guy" as I was. However, I couldn't allow them to hurt my friends and family. Besides, they knew what they were doing when it came to a fight, so far I just blamed my survival on luck. A few minutes later trucks arrived on the scene, and we watched as the soldiers quickly and professionally emptied out the back, split up into squads, and entered various buildings throughout the street, on a search for the infected. We heard gunshots, and remained still, just listening as they did their job. Not much longer they all moved back to the truck, regrouped, and began riding back to the armory. However, one of them had a large bag, moving, squirming around violently. Obviously they had captured one of the infected, and I was too terrified to think about what they might do with it in that fortress of theirs.

"Well, it looks like we might have a safe run home." I said, trying to be positive. "Yeah..." was all Lia responded with. She seemed deep in thought, and I decided it was best not to interrupt her. After a bit of waiting around, still observing the area, we decided it was safe to move on. It was getting dark out anyway, and I wanted to make it back to Emilee as soon as possible.

We moved past the bridge, just sprinting across it now, as we were already seen. However, there was no activity on the other bridge this time, perhaps they had moved back to the armory for the night. We made it back up the mountain, and

managed to hike back up with our new, heavy equipment. I was glad that we were successful though, if we had failed on that mission it could've been the end of us already. Emilee was ecstatic to see us, and I was glad to see she was alright

as well. We emptied our back-packs, checked all of our supplies, and retired for the night after making sure all the fortifications were in check. My first looting trip had left me a bit shaken, as it was very eventful by my standards.

When I awoke in the morning I walked outside to smell the fresh air and think a bit. Later, I talked to the girls.

"Lia, I need you to be our scout. Observe everything they do, watch their patrols, and record the times they are out." I said as I handed her the binoculars, a pen, and a notebook. "Emilee, I want you to ration our supplies. We could spend a little bit of time up here, so we need to make sure we don't

use it all up too quickly." I said. Both of them nodded back at me in agreement.

The next few days were spent gathering information, formulating plans, and thinking about those who I cared about. I wondered where my family was, if I would see them in the armory, or if they were moved for some reason or another. I thought about my friend Tom, who was working when the outbreak began. It was mentally exhausting, but eventually we felt we had gathered enough information to make a final plan. Lia made some very important observations, the one that I was interested in most of all was the fact that at the same time every day, and ambulance-like vehicle would drive through the armory gate, and leave about an hour later in the evening. I thought that perhaps that could be our way in, as we watched them preform a very important action. They picked up the dead soldiers bodies off the street, as well as any slain infected we could see in town.

"Alright, this is the plan. At seven thirty we will be waiting for the ambulance to enter town. We'll get their attention by 'playing dead' in the road, and then ambush them when they get close enough. There's only two men in the ambulance anyway, a driver and a passenger. Now, I don't want to kill anybody... but if they try to hurt one of us, I won't hesitate to take action." I said, finishing that part of the plans narration with a rather dark, quiet tone. The girls looked almost scared, but they understood, desperate times meant desperate measures. "We'll move out tomorrow, once we have the ambulance we'll make our way into the armory, locate our friends, and get the hell out. Then, using the ambulance we'll find some place safe where we can hide, at least until we get news as to where our other friends and family might be." I knew that my plan was vague, and left a lot to unexpected possibilities, but it seemed like our best shot. It was risky, obviously life threatening, but somehow we had the courage to actually want to go through with such a mission. Not half bad for a sixteen year old, I thought.