Cold as the Dead (the walking dead fanfic)

Chapter 2

My head snaps to look in the direction of the screams; coming from the city and getting closer to us by the second.

Anne jumps up and we follow behind her as she moves her way to Mike.
"What do we do?" She asks carefully, everyone in the group looking in the direction of the screams.

"Get in the cars," Mitch stars to say. "Get low, stay on the floor boards of the cars, lock the doors and stay out of view. Stay quiet." He says and we all silently agree, packing anything we had out up and loading them back into the cars. Mike and his family hop into their Ford Escape, Mitch and Joey into their smaller car, and my family into our SUV. Of course, as usual, I have matt with me as I climb into the very back seat, and slide down to the floorboard, my back against the panel under the window. Mom and Dan climb in a few seconds after, staying on the floorboards of the second row seats.

It takes about three minutes as the screams get closer, and the running people whiz past our cars unknowingly. Soon after, I hear the beastly growls of the things and I hold Matt tighter in my arms. The growls move slowly and last longer than I had originally thought they would. The curiosity gets the best of me though because I peek my head up just enough to catch glimpse of the dead things. There are at least 20 of them that I can see still straggling behind. I take the moment to really look at them. One walks by- a woman- with regular mom jeans on and a blue t-shirt... Her face is ripped open down across her left eye and her lip is cut in half because of it. She stumbles her way forward, eyes focused lifelessly on the poor people she used to be like. More and more of the things walked by as if they'd fall forward any second. They need walkers or something to stand up on, like old people. I move my eyes from the window as soon as one of the things trips and falls right next to the car, followed by it stumbling back to its feet and moving forward.

I just hope and pray that Matt or Kara don't cry, for both our family's sake. After a few minutes of total silence from outside, we start getting out of the cars. We notice other people down the roads did the same thing as they get out of their cars.

"What the hell was that?" Britt asks, eyebrows raised, eyes darting around us all as if she's still expecting one of those walker things to attack. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if one did.

"Some sort of group of them. All walking together, like they're- they're some sort of pack or something." Joey says, tousling hair at the back of his head and me being 16, I've never had a thing for older guys, but he looks seriously hot.

"What are they? What are we supposed to even call them?" My mom panics.

"Walkers." I speak up, not even thinking. They all look at me, me simply bouncing Matt on my hip.

"What?" My mom looks at me like I'm crazy, like I'm stupid.

"They walk around like they need walkers or something. They're falling over. It's not much, but we might as well make fun of them if they're gonna try to kill us all." I say and Mike is the only one laughing after I say it, and a few others have smiles, looking down and shaking their heads.

"Well at least you've found the humor in all of this." Mike laughs. "Walkers it is."

"Where do we go from here?" Anne looks around us all. "The highway obviously isn't safe, especially coming out of the city."

"We can't get the cars out of here, what do you suppose we do? Walk?" Joey asks, quite rudely if I add.. Which is hot.

"That's what's going to have to happen." Mitch steps in. "We aren't going anywhere with the cars and obviously we all agree that it isn't safe here."

"So where do you suppose we go?" Dan asks.

"Anywhere but here. Anywhere less populated is my guess. Somewhere high ground, a camp site, or make our own maybe." Mike says.

"And we just walk with the babies? No thank you." I add in. There's no way I'm carrying Matt that whole time.

"I have a stroller... Hopefully you guys do too?" Britt suggests.

"We do." Mom says, acting like she's the real parent.

"Alright. It's settled then, yeah?" Mike asks, confirming with everyone. We all seem to nod, no matter how little the nod is.

"Alright. Here's how we decide what to bring and what not to bring. Backpacks are best. Any light and least perishable foods, minimal clothing, anything to start a fire with... It's gonna be tough out there." He says and dismisses us to go get our things together. Of course, I'm the one grabbing all of Matt's essentials, bottle, formula, many many diapers, onsies, blankets. I grab a few of my clothes too. And some granola bars, I mean who doesn't like granola bars? Hopefully none of them. They're all for me.

When we all get our individual things together, strollers and all, we start walking. Mike has some sort of knife, as do Joey and Mitch. Dan of course resorted to his hand gun that he had failed to mention he had in the glove box.
Everyone else just seems to be chilling on the highway (which is a stupid thing to do). They all also are giving us weird looks for packing up and doing something with our lives instead of just sitting there doing nothing on the highway as the sun sets. Beautiful sight. Horrible time.

We walk along and away from the highway for what seems like hours. The sun has set and has been long gone and the urban look of the city is now the hilly rock-side landscape that Missouri is.

"Stop." Anne says. "Can we stop?" She cringes and holds onto her legs. Thank god someone said something, my legs are killing me. I need a couch.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah we can uh-" Mike says, stopping us all and looking at the road around us. "Joe, Mitch. You guys have tents right?" Mitch nods.

"Just two. One large and one... Not so large."
"Ahh.. Okay." Mike takes a second to think things through. He points to us.
"Are you guys okay with being split up for the night?" He asks mom and Dan. She looks to him for approval and he looks at the three of us. He takes his hand from my moms waist and timidly nods his head.
"Great. Okay so guys in one tent, girls in the other... Babies go with girls."

"I'm going with you dad." Kyle says and walks toward him. He's a very quiet child but when he does speak it's either important or demanding I've noticed.

"Wouldn't want it any other way bud." Mike smiles at his son as he walks toward him. Just the look of pure happiness on Mike's face makes me happy. I smile and shake my head as Joey comes to us with a tent, helping put it up.
"Joe." Britt calls. "Can you help me with this?" She asks as she tries to put the steak in the ground.
"Of course." He has a sly smile as he walks over to her. I shake my head at his eagerness.

The ground shakes and there's a sudden rumble. I look to the sky first, thinking it was thunder even though I didn't see the lightning.

"The city.." Mikes jaw drops slightly then picks back up into a clench. We all look back toward the highway and all I see are what looks like bombs dropping. One over the bridge we were stuck on just hours ago. And all those people are just gone now, no chance left for them. The lights of the bombs glisten off the water.
Beautiful sight. Horrible time.