The Apocalypse: The First Year

Small Sacrifices

"Into the house on your right!" Tim yells from behind us. We all go into the house.

"Clear the rooms." Tim says once he enters behind us. The four 'teenagers' head upstairs while Carmen and Tim clear the downstairs.

"We'll check those rooms down there." Aiden says in a whisper, pointing down the hall.

"Yeah, I'll go with." Glen pipes up.

"I'm sure." I say and shake my head. If he wants to call me out on my sporadic moaning I'm gonna call his ass out. He fakes a smile then pulls Aiden's grinning self down the hall. "I'm over those two." I turn to Ashley and say.

"It's new and I'm sure it's been a while for the both of them. They'll get past this phase." Ashley smiles then her face turns serious. "Ready." She asks, standing in front of a door.

"Mhm." I nod. She readies her bow then slowly opens the door. There's a walker sitting on the floor eating what I'm guessing used to be the family's pet dog. A Great Dane it looks like. The walker, who's probably the owner of said dog, is too distracted to notice us coming in. Ashley lifts her bow and readies it to shoot before turning to me with a smile. "What?" I question.

"Ever stabbed one of these in the head with a knife?" She whispers.

"No." I shake my head.

"Here." She says and hands me a knife that was on her belt clip. "Do it." She nudges me forward and I stumble a bit before regaining my balance. The walker still hasn't noticed us. I walk towards the walker slowly, not wanting it to notice me and then come at me cause let's face it, I've been there once and it almost ended horrifically. When I reach the walker it finally notices me and looks up but it's too late. Ashley's knife is already lodged into it's eyeball.

"Nice." Ashley commends me with a head nod. "You sure that was your first time?" She questions me with a raised brow as I pull the knife out of the walkers eye.

"I'm positive." I say, making a disgusted face at the remnants of the walkers brain that remains on the knife. Ashley takes the knife from me and wipes it off on the walkers clothes.

"Then you're a natural." She says before walking off out of the room and down the hall to clear the next room. After we cleared all the rooms we gathered up as much stuff as we could and headed to the next house.

We continued scavenging for a few more hours before heading back to camp with all our scavenged goods.

–

"Wow, you guys really got a lot of stuff." Jo says and we dump the contents of our bags on the living room floor.

"The houses were really giving." Ashley says with a smile.

"We're not still seriously thinking about leaving in the morning are we?" Rick says coming down the stairs.

"Yeah, we are." Ashley says matter-of-factly. Rick rolls his eyes and scoffs as he walks over to examine the products of our scavenge.

"I'm taking these." He says, picking up a pack of smokes off the floor and pulling a lighter from his pocket.

"Rick you know you shouldn't." Santana shakes her head at her husband but he just waves her off and walks out the front door.

There's a zombie apocalypse going on outside and he wants to step out to smoke.

Wow.

Some people.

"Are you two coming with us tomorrow?" Tim asks Santana who shrugs. "It's important that we find out. And from you too, Owen." Tim turns to the guy from Ashley's group who voted against leaving yesterday. "We're gonna need this information tonight." Tim says just as a deep scream rings out from outside. We all get up and run to look outside.

"Rick...noooooo!" Santana yells as five walkers start to pile on him, falling over each other, all trying to get a taste.

"There's nothing you can do now." Jayden says, holding her back.

"Well I guess we got his answer about going to Atlanta." Aiden says nonchalantly with a shrug and I try to stifle a laugh. I look around and see everyone else doing the same.

"Young man..." My mother scolds Aiden.

"How dare you!" Santana shouts as she rips out of Jayden's arms and run out of the house. She tries to pull some walkers off Rick but to no avail. She gets over powered and now it's her screams we hear as the walkers devour her flesh. The walkers look up from the two bodies they're eating and start to walk towards the house. Carmen slams the door shut and her Aiden and Glen lean against it while other people push stuff against it.

"Crap. We need to leave now." Tim turns and says.

"It's just five of them, we can take them out." Ashley says grabbing her gun off her hip.

"Look." Tim says lifting the blinds on the far side of the house. A massive herd of walkers are headed right this way.

"We're not ready yet." My dad says.

"We're gonna have to be." Carmen shakes her head and shrugs.

"Everyone pack up!" Tim shouts. "Quickly." He adds.

"A herd that size will rip this house apart." I say moving next to Tim.

"I know, that's why we need to leave now!" Tim tells me sternly before going to help his wife pack up their things.

"Maybe this was the bad feeling I had." Ashley says, coming up beside me.

I shake my head as I stare out at the herd of walkers headed this way.

We never get a break.