the weight of living; c.g.

[0.1]: help

Dust floated across the wrecked living room, beams of light coming through the roughly boarded windows. Every step made a crunch in the glass covering the floor, making me wince with each second that passed.

To my left, a crunch sounded, followed by groans that could only come from a biter. It seemed to come from the kitchen adjacent to this room. I began walking towards it, machete held in front of me.

It popped out sooner than expected, and its body weight pinned me to the wall, trapping me under its carcass. I had the handle of the machete across its neck, but my arms weren't in a position to get the blade there. I pushed and pushed but it was so heavy and its biting mouth was inches from my face.

Suddenly, the pressure dropped as it fell to the floor, a knife stuck in the back of it's head. I looked to my sister Grace, standing behind it, knife-less. I dropped to my knees and hugged her.

"Gracie, I'm so sorry you had to do that." I said before kissing her forehead. Christ, she was only seven after all, she shouldn't have to be killing biters for me.

"It's okay, I was helping you." She looked at me with her big brown eyes, full of childlike determination. I smiled at her and stood back up, readjusting my machete. I crouched down again to yank her knife out of the biter's skull, handing it to her.

"Now, that probably alerted every biter in the house to us. We gotta go." I told her, making her get in front of me as we went the way we came, across the broken glass. Groans became louder as more came down the stairs from the unchecked second story.

I told Grace to start running for the door, so at least she could make it. As the biters made it to the living room, she was opening the door, and bolting outside. They were so close, and I didn't want them going after her so I turned to hold them off.

The first came at me, but was quickly cut off at the neck. I had to back up, practically in the doorway now, which Grace had thankfully left open. After ending the second, I was granted a quick reprieve to look behind me. Grace was standing on the porch, seemingly waiting for me.

"Go! Get under something and stay there!" I shouted to her and turned back to the biters, who were clawing at me. I slashed through one's nose and stuck another in the eye. It seemed like there was no end to them, and that I would be stuck killing forever. My arms were getting tired of slicing, and each movement getting sloppier.

At last, there was one left and it lunged towards me and my machete. I went to stab it's skull, but it stumbled at the last second and fell at my ankles. It's forceful grip on me ended up dragging me down. It's mouth was open and gnashing, trying to get a bite of my foot. I kicked it right in the forehead, temporarily loosening its grip. I crawled backwards, finally gaining strength to stand. I planted the machete in it's eye and pulled it out again.

I turned quickly, to see where Grace was, hopefully hiding as I told her to. Right in the middle of the street, a car was stopped, with Grace right in front of it. The door was opening, a man getting out. I started running across the lawn, hopping over dead rose bushes to get to her. The man was talking to her, and I pulled my gun out of the back of my jeans, pointing it at them.

"Hey! Get away from her!" I kept my gun aimed at him as I walked into the street and grabbed my sister's hand. He took a few steps back, thankfully.

"Hey, hey, hey. I didn't mean any harm here. I was just asking her where her group was." He put his hands up, away from his weapons.

"Well, you found it. You can go now." I lined my gun up with his head, a threatening position to take. I looked past him into the car, where there seemed to be another. I really hoped this wouldn't come down to a fight. I didn't know if I could take on both of them.

"Are you sure you don't need help? It must be hard out here on your own. We have a group, we can take you to them." The man said. Before I responded harshly, I looked down at Grace, who was looking back up at me with big eyes.

How could I deny her safety just to save my pride? She's been through the worst since this all happened, she deserves to rest, if only for a day.
Still, I didn't trust these people. How could I, after all we've been through? The disastrous groups, weeks on our own, how could any of that not break our trust in others?

"How do I know I can trust you?" I lowered my gun slightly.

"I guess you don't. But we have kids in our group, I have a baby there. It's safe. I wouldn't let my baby stay anywhere that wasn't." He said. I thought this over. The baby could be a lie, a ploy to get us to trust him. But the look in his eyes when he was talking about it's safety seemed to say otherwise.

"Do we get to keep our weapons if we come with you?" I asked. The past groups we had been with had made us hand over weapons, like they didn't trust us. It made escaping a whole lot harder.

"If you can answer my three questions, then yes." He said.

"What are they?" I was curious to see what three questions defined his trust.

"Alright, first of all, how many walkers have you killed?"

"I don't know. However many I've needed to kill to survive."

"Good answer. How many people have you killed?"

I hesitated. How did he know? I considered lying, but I knew honesty would always get me farther.

"Four." I looked at the ground, gun at my side. I waited for the shock, for the rejection.

"Why?" That was all he said.

"They weren't good to us." I could barely muster the words, thinking about what happened. I prayed he wouldn't ask for specifics.

"Alright, you passed. If you've got other things you need to grab, get 'em now. That is, if you've decided to come with us." He gave me a look, humor in his eyes. I exchanged one last look with Grace, who only needed to nod her head to get me to agree.

"Ok, we're in." I smiled, giving Grace's hand a small squeeze. We were gonna try to make it work.