2 | We Are Survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse | ✅

Chapter 1 - Finley

"I hear there's a newcomer," Alicia says as she takes her seat at the head of the table, "but they had to keep him detained because he refused to give up his weapons."

"That's interesting," Seth says. We're sitting down for breakfast, and all pretty much still asleep.

I look around the table at everyone. Doyle, with his shaggy red hair, has his chin resting on his fists, his hazel-explosion eyes barely open. Seth is yawning at the moment, his wavy black hair messy and his brown eyes sleepy. Izzy is staring grumpily at her plate and tugging on a strand of her curly black hair, her golden-brown eyes burning holes through the table. Dark-haired, beautifully-tanned Natalia, glaring across the table at Doyle. Well, she seems to be glaring. But she usually looks like that, so....I don't think she's mad at him. And Alicia, at the head of the table. She's Natalia's mom, they look just alike, and she's like the "leader" of our house. Seth, Izzy, Doyle, and I are basically like boarders, except we don't have to pay rent. We just have to help out around the house with chores and what-not.

And me, trying to keep my eyes open, wishing I'd remembered to pull back my brown hair, because it keeps falling in my face.

Alicia and Natalia bow their heads in a silent prayer, but the rest of us just start piling our plates full of food. I'm sure God, if he even exists, will understand that, after months of nearly starving to death, we'd much rather eat than talk to him.

When Alicia and Natalia join us in filling our plates, Seth restarts the conversation.

"A newcomer," he says, "Who do you think they'll stick him with?"

"I don't know," Alicia says, salting her eggs, "Mrs. Norris, perhaps, or Mr. Simone."

Those are two of our neighbors, the only two who don't have packed houses. Apparently, a lot of the houses were destroyed, and are on the outside of the wall that surrounds Finley.

"Think they'll give him to us?" Seth asks.

Doyle, Izzy, and I are too busy stuffing our faces to speak. We've been here a month, but she still eats her food like somebody is going to take it away from her if it's not inside of her in a matter of minutes. I'm just a fast eater. And Doyle's just been starving for too long to not eat as much as he can as fast as he can before his stomach tells him to stop.

"Perhaps," says Alicia, taking small bite of her eggs. There's a pause as she chews, then, "They probably will, since we only have one or two people to a room, unlike others who have four or five to a room."

"Well, the more the merrier," Seth says.

Sure, as long as none of the "more" is insane.

+++++

I sit on the porch, scraping blade against knife sharpener, my feet swinging over the barren flower bed. It's cold out here, being November and all, but after spending so much time outside on the road, surviving, being inside for too long can be suffocating. And then there's Natalia, halfway between totally creepy and strangely silent. Her favorite hobby is staring at people. Seth and Doyle mostly. I don't know if she's just threatened by all of us, or what. It was just her and her mom before we came along.

After we were "observed" for a couple of weeks, Ellie, the leader of this establishment, gave us our weapons back. She seemed genuinely happy to give them back to us, but her "co-leader", Matt, didn't. I practically had to pry my Glock out of his hands.

Seth tried to teach Izzy how to shoot yesterday. He lined up some old glass bottles in the backyard of Alicia's house and told Izzy to hit them. Long story short, they got into a huge argument, and it was all Doyle and I could do to keep Izzy from beating Seth with his own gun. Those two are a handful.

I hear a creak and look over my shoulder to see Doyle standing on the wooden porch, pistol in hand.

"Mind if I join you?" He asks.

"Nope," I say, quickly looking back down at the knife I'm sharpening. I've gotten better at not blushing every time I'm in the presence of Doyle. He sits down beside me, his feet reaching the mulch in the flower bed. I don't know if my crush on him is just leaving, or I've just become more comfortable with it. I guess I'll find out with time.

He starts disassembling his pistol, spreading the pieces on the porch beside him. I continue to sharpen my knife until I'm satisfied with it. Then I just watch some kids up the street playing catch.

I bring my legs up and fold them underneath me. "Doyle," I say, chancing a glance in his direction. He's deeply concentrated on cleaning his gun.

"Hmm?"

"Do you think things will ever go back to the way they were before?" I ask, "Or go back to anything even remotely similar?"

"This place seems remotely similar, you know, aside from the wall," he replies, still looking down at his gun.

"Yeah, but I mean, like, the whole world," I say, looking over at the kids playing catch again.

"Don't know," he says, doing something to his gun that makes it click!

"I guess nobody does," I say, starting to stand up. "I'm going to get another knife to sharpen."

Doyle just nods as I turn to head back to the house.

I walk into the living room to find Seth and Izzy arguing. Again. Over what appears to be a couch cushion.

"Hey!" I yell, because they're so loud there's no way they'll hear me if I don't, "HEY!"

"What?!" Izzy snaps at me, never taking her eyes off of Seth.

"You two need to act your age!" I scold them.

"Well, he started it!" Izzy exclaims angrily.

"No, she did!" Seth yells.

Natalia lurks in a corner of the room. "Could you get those two to stop?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I ask her, turning to look at her. She shrugs. The split second I take my eyes off of the two arguers is long enough. I hear a thud and a groan and turn around to see Seth clutching his nose and Izzy triumphantly holding the couch cushion.

"I think you broke my nose!" Seth moans.

Izzy laughs. "Good!"

I just roll my eyes and leave. They're hopeless.

After heading upstairs and placing my newly sharpened knife with my Glock, I get my other knife and go back to Doyle.

While I was gone, he put his gun back together. But although he's finished, he stays with me while I sharpen my second knife.

We sit in silence for a while, my insides fluttering with the excitement of spending time with him, and the nervousness of us not talking, or having to talk to him at all. I try to think of something to say.

I'm about to open my mouth and probably say something stupid when he says, "Wynne, look." He points down the road to the right, in the opposite direction of the kids playing catch. "Here comes what's-her-name."

I follow his finger and spot Ellie, tall, muscular, coming toward us. "Ellie," I tell him, studying her companions. The human one is the same height she is – probably about 5'6" or 5'7" or something,– and is wearing a large coat, fingerless gloves, mud-covered jeans and knee-high, caked-in-mud rubber boots. The only part of his head that's not covered by a hat or scarf is his eyes. As he and Ellie near, I see the color of his eyes: icy gray, so light that they almost appear to have no irises at all.

The canine companion is a very large, three-legged brown, shaggy mutt, and is so large, in fact, that it looks more like a small bear. It's fur is matted and also caked with mud. The hair around its eyes appears to have been cut. One blue eye stares at Doyle and I. And the other isn't there.

Ellie ascends the stairs, this guy and his massive pet on her heels. Ellie acknowledges us with a nod, her black bob shifting, then knocks on the front door.