Original (Paul Rovia)

Three

My own special way of training with my gun is extremely dangerous. It involves me climbing the walls. Going beyond and just finding things to shoot. Sometimes it's walkers. Other times squirrels. Birds if I'm feeling lucky, but I almost always miss them. Charlotte's better than me with a gun, but there's no way in hell I'm trusting her with one. She learned when she was eight, because our dad was a huge conspiracy nut. He always thought that the world was going to end one way or another, and he only started thinking that after I was too old for him to care about. So he went to Charlotte and taught her so much. Guns. Snares. Hunting. Hand-to-hand combat. The one thing she never fully mastered was knives, but lucky for both of us, that's basically the only thing I'm good at.

Our dad had plans for everything. Nuclear war. Regular war. An ice age. Hell, aliens. It's just too bad that he never thought about the dead coming back to kill us.

Every week I go out and practice. I never tell anyone, because I know it doesn't matter if I die. I'm just another useless mouth to feed. A waste of air. So if I die during my training, the only thing they have to care about is my gun. All guns are checked out of the armory, so everyone knows when one is missing.

Today, though, something is different. There's another person sneaking beyond the wall. Enid, one of the teens.

I try my best to hide from her, but I watch her at the same time. She's done this before, and I can tell by the way she scales the wall. From my spot in the woods, she's tiny.

My method involves jumping over the wall from my balcony, but Enid is much more careful. I don't know why she's out here, but I don't want to question her. Instead I wander deeper into the woods, listening for any tell-tale sounds of walkers. My boots crunch on the fallen leaves, not loud enough to attract attention, but loud enough to make me more than a little nervous. I reach a clearing, my eyes landing on a small cluster of walkers.

My instinct is to turn tail and run, but the entire point of this is to do the opposite. I press myself to a tree, glancing around and counting.

One female.

One male.

One... I don't even know what.

"God I'm such a fucking idiot," I mutter to myself.

I put two fingers between my lips and give one sharp whistle. The walkers spin around, and the female starts to stumble toward me. I aim my gun, backing up. I have to glance back to make sure I don't hit a tree. Once she's close enough, I fire. It's an okay shot. I hit her shoulder, and she falls back a bit. Not a killing shot, but fairly close. I aim again, trying to control the shaking in my hands. Fire the goddamn gun, Ronan! Kill it! Kill it!

I fire. This time I manage a headshot, but right now the other walkers are coming and I can't congratulate myself. "Fuck me," I hiss, aiming at the I don't even know.

It's eyes lock on me, and I bite down hard on my already chapped lip. Aim. Fire. Headshot instantly, but there's still one more. Ronan, please! Shoot it! Ronan, don't let it get me!

I aim. My hands are shaking and sweating. I feel like I'm going insane. Ronan! Oh my God! Get it off of me!

My Mom is screaming at me inside my head. My fingers inch toward the trigger. God, it hurts! Ronan, shoot it!

I fire. This shot is way far off, in the stomach of the walker. "Oh, God," I whisper.

He's getting closer, and the very thing I don't want to happen, happens. I hit a tree. Panic mode kicks in, and I aim again. "Come on, Ronan," I urge. "Come on. You can do this. Get it together."

I've only got one bullet left. I fire.

Miss.

"Fuck," I state.

I try to shimmy my way around the tree. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

My eyes land on a branch, and I make a quick decision. I jump up, pulling myself onto the limb of the tree. There's another branch just above me, and I climb onto that one next. The walker claws at the bark, leaving trails of red as it's nails splinter and chip. I'm reminded of Jordan, and I have to slap myself to get the thought out of my mind.

I'm stuck in a tree.

There's a walker right below me.

No one knows I'm out here.

I fish for the knife in my pocket, because I always try to have a backup plan. But instead of getting a grip on it, it slides out of pocket and hits the ground. "Shit."

My only option now is to wait it out. To wait for the walker to give up and wander away so I can jump out of this goddamn tree and get my knife and go home. Then I see two people.

It's Carl and Enid. They seem to be deep in conversation, but I really need help. "Hey!" I call.

Their heads jerk up, and Enid's eyes narrow when they land on me. Carl leaps into action. He runs over, seeing my knife on the ground. He grabs it and takes care of the walker in mere seconds. "What the hell are you doing out here?" he asks me.

I catch myself trying to scold him for swearing. Instead, I just hop down from the tree. "I was trying to practice my shooting. My gun ran out of ammo, and I dropped my knife."

"What were you going to do if no one showed up?" Carl demands, and I seem to forget that I'm getting berated by someone no older than my sister.

"I don't know," I mutter. "Die, I guess? Wait for the walker to go away?"

Enid glanced between us, clearly confused by this entire interaction. Carl shakes his head at me. "Wow," he states. "You're going to need to get stronger if you want to live."

He doesn't wait for me to answer before he stuffs my knife into my hands and walks away, Enid following.