Revenant

Settled (1.3)

I scanned the surrounding area, and finally saw them, off to the right, a group of four of them, chowing down. The poor bastard was probably held up in one of the houses and thought it might finally be safe to come out.

Armed with her loaded crossbow, Leah raised her weapon to aim.

I made a quick, sharp 'sh' sound to get her attention. The three of them looked at me, so I shook my head side to side, and made a 'walking' motion with my index and middle finger, following that with pretending to jab a knife into a Biter head.  each of us lowered our guns, and grabbed our blades. No need in wasting ammo, especially when there could be more around. We do not need that attention.

The three of us stood side by side, and tip toed towards the feeding Biters. "Let's make this quick, guys. We need the supplies." Johnathan said as he motioned for Jerry, who was armed with a simple kitchen knife, to stay behind.

We nodded, and I rolled my eyes. Always have to take charge, huh?

As we got closer and closer one of the Biters heard us. As it raised its head, it let out a mumbling groan. It was missing an eye, and its teeth were half missing. Its rotten flesh clung to the bone, as if it had dried in the hot sun.

Before the others had noticed us, we ran over to them, and I swung my machete, cutting its head clean off. The head laid on the ground, still moving its mouth and looking around. I stomped on it three times, crushing the skull, and splattering the brain all over the place.

As Johnathan and Leah killed two more, I raised the hunting knife my father had given me on my eighteenth birthday, and plunged it into the head of another biter. When I pulled the knife out, the body dropped to the ground. I looked up to see the other monsters dead, and Johnathan jabbing at the man's skull.

Leah stopped to utter a prayer, and give mercy to this man, but Johnathan and I turned back to see Jerry turned away from us, keeled over sick. It is as if he'd never seen this before. Weak minded—no, weak stomached idiot. How is it that he has survived this long? Oh wait. He mooched off of everyone.

"Good job, kid." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him smiling.

"Why the hell are you smiling? We just killed four biters, and you murdered someone who hadn't even died yet, let alone turned."

His smile dropped. "I am just glad I didn't have to kill that one for you, too."

I bit my tongue not to say something to him. Seems that I have been doing that a lot lately. Instead I looked at Jerry and spoke. "We have to go now, if we want to get back by dark."

Jerry spit on the ground, and then he wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his long sleeved shirt."Yes, you are right. Come on Leah, hurry up." He spoke just loud enough for her to hear.

I turned around to see her getting up from her kneeled position on the ground, into an up right standing position. "Coming." She spoke as she stared down at the bodies.

The jog down the rest of the street was short. We soon came to  the end, and turned left, and almost immediately had to slow to a fast walk to get down a steep hill. This would have been faster with a car, but cars a noisy, and take fuel. Two things that should be used sparingly, or if at all possible, not at all.

At the bottom of the hill, we saw the bloodbath. At the end of the street, under the bridge over the river adjacent to the road we were on, were fifteen Biters. On the road, were eight of them.

"We gotta do this. Now. If we run, we can make it." Leah said.

I nodded and looked at Johnathan. "Jerry, stay behind us until we clear these ones out. Then run."

Johnathan returned my gaze and winked. "Lets go, kid." With that, we ran full speed into the crowd of rotting walkers. Each of us with a handgun in one hand, machete in the other.

The first few that came after us were fast, as if they had just turned. They were too close, we didn’t have time to react with melee, so we each raised our guns and shot all three in the head. It was then that the rest of them had noticed us. We pushed on, decapitating some, and slicing through the brains of others. We couldn't hold on much longer though. There were too many.