Taylor is a college student home alone when the outbreak hits her small town. One minute she is working on a project, the next she is hiding away from the monsters outside. Taylor will have to find it in her to survive until her parents can -hopeful...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"We need help." The soft voice of a woman stops me from running down the hall to the exit. Looking at the mostly open door now I can see her, behind a man. He's maybe in his forties, with a scraggly beard and dark circles under his brown eyes. He looks like he hasn't eaten or slept in a very long time. She on the other hand looked flushed, worried but otherwise mostly healthy.
"And I can trust you?" I ask - it was said with a bit of malice, and I meant it too.
"As much as we can trust you." The man responds to me. Well, I guess fair enough. I was the one with weapons on me, he didn't have any that I could see. There's a loud banging from the inside of one of the other apartments. His eyes go wide and he opens the door more. "Get in!"
It isn't said loudly, but it was urgent enough to get me moving. Zombies might not care about me, but they would care about these people. I didn't want to draw a zombie right to their door. Moving into the apartment, the door is closed behind me and I get to fully look over the couple. The man had ten years on the women I think, with deep tan skin and worn features that made me think he worked hard for a living. She's petite, blond, and has a full figure, including a rounded belly. I wouldn't say she was about to pop, but she was close to it. When he walks over to her, I notice a slight limp.
"The firehouse down the street has a group of people there," I tell them. "It would be safer there."
Her shoulders drop and I could see the start of tears, relief. He looks at her and I notice that look of love I've seen with Kendra and Eric. "We need help to get there."
"The zombies around here have thinned out." I mention, I hadn't seen as many as I expected. I guess those grenades pulled quite a few of them.
"I have a bum knee, my wife's pregnant and we have two small children." He said it defensively. Surprised I finally look around to notice all the toys, coloring books, and things scattered about the apartment.
She puts a hand on his chest, shooting him a look, and turns to me. "Georgia and my husband Ramone, our children aren't little, ten and six. They are still young enough that we've been trying to hide them away from what's been happening."
I nod in sympathy to that. The zombies were monsters, and no doubt would mentally scar the kids. I get at some point they would have to see what was going on, to experience what was out there. Why rush it though? Try to keep the kids, kids for as long as you can. We didn't know how long the zombies would last, or if there was ever going to be an end. It didn't mean we had to throw kids to the wolves and traumatize them.
"If you pack what you can carry I can lead you over there." It would be thirty or so minutes of backtracking, but maybe I could get some help out of them. Pulling the envelope from my jacket pocket I hold it up. "There are some keys I need, I found this in the van. Can you tell me which apartment it is?"
Ramone takes the envelope from me and snorts when he sees the front of it. He moves over to the door, where keys are hanging from the little hooks. He picks out a cluster of a handful of keys that are together and tosses the keys to me. "Take the van whatever you need."
Well, that was lucky. "We can't take a car to the firehouse, it would draw attention."
"We can walk, if you can protect us." Georgia gives her husband's arm a squeeze as she passes him to go farther into the apartment.
Ramone doesn't look away from me, and I got the impression he still didn't fully trust me. That was okay, because I didn't fully trust him, or anyone but Miss May and Hendricks. They had proven to me that they wanted to help anyone they could, sure some of the other firemen had but I still didn't know them that well. Ramone only leaves me when Georgia calls for his help packing, leaving me alone in their living room
