Zombie Country. Chapter 1.

It was 10:30 in the morning when Arya heard of the infection, at first she thought it was something like the Swine Flu, but when the part about people completely changing and turning on fellow human beings and actually eating them? She knew it was much worse.

The streets were unsafe to be on, people ran around like headless chickens and screamed that they were going to die. The military were doing all they could to keep the infection under control, but it was just spreading too fast. Arya knew she had to get out of the city, but she also knew her dad would never let her leave.

She moved into the lounge room where her dad was perched on the arm of the couch as he watched out the window. The street was swarmed with SWAT teams and members from the army; they were heavily armed and shooting at something down the road.

"Dad? We have to leave." Arya stood next to her father and looked down at him; he took his eyes off of the display outside for a quick second to look at her. "We aren't going anywhere, they have it under control." He tilted his head toward the street as it was filled with popping of gunfire.

As Arya looked outside again, she saw what they were shooting at. The way they held their bodies, the way their heads were and their mouths gaping open gave Arya an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She nearly screamed when one of the infected caught a SWAT member off guard and bit down into his exposed neck, tearing flesh away and gnawing down as blood splashed to the floor.

"What-," Her dad gasped, Arya tried to pull her dad away from the window as some of the infected spread out across the lawn and spotted them in the window, but her dad flung her away and opened the curtains even further.

She shook her head and turned, running up stairs and into her room, she locked the bedroom door and ran over to her cabinet. She'd kept a secret stash of weapons that her uncle had given her; he'd been hell-bent on making her a hunter much like himself and had succeeded, much to her father's disgust.

She had learnt quickly and became an exceptional tracker; she could take down any animal with just one shot and became deadly accurate with her bow.

Arya grabbed her duffle bag from under her bed and began shoving her weapons in there, two hunting knives, over seventy arrows, one pistol, over 200 rounds of assorted amo and she strapped her shotgun to her chest along with her bow and quiver, she grabbed her rifle off of the wall and shoved it into the bag too.

She grabbed her baseball bat from the corner of her room but was stopped short when she heard yells from downstairs, her father was crying out for her to help him but his screams began to grow quieter and quieter.

She pulled her hunting jacket on and then her hunting boots, she tied the laces up as fast as she could and stood up.

Taking one look in the full-length mirror across the room, she unlocked the door and ran down stairs; over twenty infected were standing around the living room, around her torn apart father. The infected turned towards her and started to stumble forwards, Arya span around and sprinted down the hall to the back door.

She slammed the door behind her and made a beeline across the backyard, running through the gate beside the house and into the front yard, there wasn't as many infected out there as before and for which she was glad.

Arya had the baseball bat poised incase anything faced her, running as fast as she could manage down the road, she approached an old hotel, she stopped at the main entrance when she heard an unusual noise coming from the inside of the building.

It all happened extremely fast, Arya was on her back and one of the infected was on top of her, chomping towards her face. She held the baseball bat up and pushed it into her neck, watching out for her fingers as the infected nearly bit into them.

Arya tried to get enough momentum to flip them both over so she could smash its head in but she just wasn't strong enough, before she was about to give in and let the thing tear into her, it's body went limp and fell on top of her, the floor below her back was rumbling violently and smoke began to roll into the air.

The weight was lifted off of her and she was hauled up from the ground, she didn't have time to look at who had saved her but as she was being pulled away from the oncoming smoke, she took time to actually study the thing on the floor.

It was a male, his eyes had sunken into his head and his nose had caved in, his lips had rotted away, exposing his disgusting, rotten teeth. His ribs were clearly visible as something had ripped most of the flesh away and most of his fingers were gone.

Zombie. She thought to herself, she clutched onto the person who'd saved her, letting them drag her along until they stopped by a truck, she finally allowed herself to look at her savior.

He was rather handsome, he had an array of knives in his belt and had a Beretta in his hand while his other was clenching Arya's jacket.

The back of the truck opened and an older man appeared, he reached down for Arya and hauled her up into the back of the truck, the other boy jumped in and closed the doors and locked them.

Arya sat down and rested her duffle bag on her lap, closing her eyes for a moment as the truck rumbled underneath her and lurched forward.

She heard the boys up front talking quietly and was just able to pick up some of the conversation.

"Where'd you find her?" The older man asked, Arya lay on her side and used her duffle bag as a rough pillow; she kept her eyes closed and waited for the other boy's response.

"After I blew up the building, she was pinned under a zombie, she hasn't spoken a word to me so I think she's a little startled." The younger one replied.

"She is a girl." The older man sighed, swinging the truck around a sharp bend and slamming the gas pedal to the floor.

"Sexist much." Arya mumbled and the older man laughed, "Ah! Look who finally decided to speak, I'm Vex."

"Arya." She replied, sitting up and dragging herself along with her duffle bag to the front of the truck, sitting behind but in between the two seats.

"Nice name, this is Splash." Vex gestured to the younger boy, he did nothing, he kept his eyes on the road in front

"Thanks by the way, for saving me and all." Arya sighed, sitting cross-legged so she could sift through her duffle bag, she began making sure all of her guns were loaded and ready.

She placed her hunting knives and pistol in her belt, she noticed that Splash was watching her in the rearview mirror, once he caught her looking back at him, he snapped his eyes back to the road.

"So, where are you from?" Vex asked, Arya looked at him after she filled her quiver with as many arrows as possible, she could hear the definite Russian accent in his voice.

"Murmansk, Russia – you?" She replied hesitantly.

"I'm from Russia too! Penza to be exact." Vex smiled and Arya smiled back, "Splash here, is from Galway, Ireland, he doesn't like speaking to people he doesn't know."

Arya sighed and looked at the road, she noticed that they'd moved onto the main road.

"Where are we going?" Arya asked and Vex replied with, "We're going up into the mountains, there wouldn't be many zombies there and we'd probably have more of a chance of surviving."

She nodded, "Wait- shouldn't we at least get some supplies first?" Arya suggested, she clenched her hands in her lap as she waited for the boys to reply.

"That is a good idea, I mean, we have plenty of ammunition but no food, water or anything else." Splash said.

"Clothes too." Vex added as he turned off of the main road and down a strip of department and grocery stores.

"This'll be fun." Splash rolled his eyes as Vex pulled the truck up next to a store.