ALIVE: The Aftermath Chronicles (Book 1)

Chapter 12 - BAD BLOOD

Five Months Ago, Savannah

They'd damn near cleared out every drug store in the area for the pregnant girl. A task, proving to be more and more difficult with each trip. Not only did they have the undead to worry about, but they also needed to be on guard for strangers. People from the colony, rogue, dangerous survivors, and starved animals that no longer avoided areas where people once were prevalent.

Nick had his knife, his guns, his talents for survival— being pampered back into the old way of living in the world came naturally to Nick Miles. His career built on this, his life, his childhood, the foundation it thrived on.

Looking to CiCi, the young girl he saved in pursuit of trying to find his sister, he knew they would be safer within the walls of the colony, rather than out here running errands for Paige and Isaac. The vitamins and medicine needed for Emma and her pregnancy made it a mission Nick felt alright with risking his life on. CiCi, however, was still learning the ways of survival and how to defend herself. It had only been a couple of months ago that he thought her how to use a compound bow. A bow that meant business and took serious strength to draw back and aim.

Luckily for them both, the girl was a natural.

Not one to generally pick wars, Nick felt that the time for drawing in on the colony was imperative for Emma's survival, for CiCi's survival. Ana Maria sent in not long ago, they eagerly waited for news on if they'd be welcomed, or if the opportunity came for them to get rid of the powers that be there. The likes of Russell, which half of their group had come to meet and end up on the wrong side of the tracks on.

Mulling over where all roads were leading, Nick focuses on the present when they arrive at the abandoned hospital. Covering the lower half of his face for the fear of flourishing diseases that came with the piles of long-dead bodies inside, Nick climbed over the corpses, occasionally checking for CiCi behind him to make sure she was keeping stride.

"Ya got tha list?" He drawled through the handkerchief covering his mouth. Nick was ready to get these damn pill things and get the hell out of here. The bodies with the possibilities of the risen infected among them made him uneasy and searching each one he crossed over for the possibilities of reanimation.

"Right here," She offers it out, but Nick refuses to take it, "Alright, I'll hold on to it. Sorry, thought you wanted to see it."

She apologized often and usually, over nothing. A timid, insecure girl, Nick took an instant role as her guardian when he found her at the campus. Herself and Dalton had been held up for months, near death from starvation, with bodies like these littering the floors below them. The dormitory, not one where his sister took residence, but Nick left no stone left unturned in his relentless search for her. A search that ceased, when he didn't find her there and with nowhere else left to look.

"Looks like we're here," She says, her wide-eyes pointing him toward the pharmaceutical room on the second floor, "I think we need a key to get in..."

Before she can finish her suggestion, she's cowering away when Nick kicks once, twice, three times till the door breaks from the hinges. Only, to reveal a locked pull-down gate behind it.

"Good job," She says, catching the glare he tosses her way. Bending down, she takes the key from the nearby dead that's swollen from its decay. Gagging against it, she hands him the keyring in his expecting hands. Again, the third times the charm when he guesses which one on the ring matches the lock.

He lifts up the rickety gate, one that reminds CiCi of the gates at the mall that they'd bring down when her friends wore out their welcome.

Covering the open doorway with his drawn gun, Nick checks the room. CiCi struggles to read the long words on the list after she clears the pre-natal vitamins from the shelves.