The Dead Always Win

A Community at War

Two weeks later, still on a journey. They travelled down the monotonous road, it made them all weary. But they were used to it by now; loot somewhere, camp the night, get food, move on. It was a simple pattern that kept them alive.

"When the hell are we gonna stop?" James huffed, his legs ready to give in.

Max kept his mouth shut, eyeing the endless road, no end to be seen.

"When we find somewhere, James." Grace replied, looking for animals to shoot for dinner amongst the fields on the left of the road.

"We need somewhere that we can stay. Like long time. Like Oakby..." Megan was sick of being homeless.

Alice rolled her eyes. "There's no where to go. We've been walking for what? A few weeks?"

Just then, the sound of a car came from behind them, they turned around and moved out of the way of the car that stopped in the middle of the road. The blue car rolled its window down. Max and Alice recognised it straight away.

"Hey, there!" A blonde woman waved from within the car in the drivers seat.

"Uh... hi?" Grace walked up to the window.

"I'm Beth, nice to meet you." She offered her pale hand from within the car. Her voice was high pitched, she looked like she was in her young twenties.

Grace took up the gesture. "Grace." She simply said, shaking her hand.

"You guys look rough, how long have you been out on the road?" She asked.

Max looked at Alice, concerned for what would be spoken. She returned a scared look.

"Quite a while now. We had a good place, it was secure and we had plenty of food and water." Grace informed her, cautious to trust a stranger.

Beth took a look at their family. "What's your name?" She asked Nanna.

"I'm Mary, Grace's mum." She smiled.

"We have a place, not far from here. It's huge and we have a big community of people of all ages there. It used to be a school but now we use it to save struggling survivors." She told them, frantically searching around the car for something.

"Here, it's circled in red on the map." She handed the map to Grace.

Grace studied it for a few seconds. "Bookings School?" She gasped in disbelief.

"Holy shit, I went there." Max walked over to Grace and looked over her shoulder at the map on his tiptoes.

"We'd love to have you there, our community is growing and people are surviving, together. No one can survive alone out there." Beth admitted, waiting for a response from the Oakby survivors.

They looked at one another, unsure how to take the news. They huddled together, so that Beth couldn't hear them as Woody ran up to her car and jumped, his paws on the open window as he studied Beth.

"This sounds like a good idea. A chance to finally be safe, never having to worry about the deadens." Max gave his opinion.

"I think we should do it, all agreed?" James asked. Everyone nodded in sync and it was decided.

They turned back to face the car. "We'll come." Grace said, pulling Woody away from the car.

"Awesome, anyone want a ride there?" She asked them.

"Nanna, you should take the ride." Megan suggested, turning to her.

"Are you sure, darling?" Mary asked, more concerned about her grand kids than herself.