The Dead Always Win

Last Hope

"Oh, it's freezing," Alice grunted, shaking as she grabbed her arms while they were folded.

"It's fucking shit is what it is." Max groaned, their groaning almost becoming convergence at this point.

Woody was bouncing along, seemingly unaffected by the cold weather nor his now fully healed bite.

It had been two months since the city and Woody's bite. They had travelled on down the road, constantly moving after no signs of Joel or Nate, the two had spent almost two weeks primarily searching for them, but to no avail.

They made it over a small cobblestone bridge with a deep green lake running underneath it, the two were tired and aching as they had been making some distance between them and the town at a rather fast pace, hoping to leave the horrors behind them.

The cousins and Woody trudged on, Max suddenly coming to a halt as he felt something on his nose. Instinctively, he looked up and at the clouded sky as small white specs fell from the light clouds, the snowflakes gently resting on the ground and the three on the bridge.

"Wow..." The corners of Alice's mouth turned up as she watched the snow fall from the sky. "Maybe it's like December now or something?" Alice wondered aloud.

Max nodded, weighing the pros and cons of snow during the apocalypse. "It might look cool, but it makes life harder for us and for Woody."

Alice sighed upon hearing this, nudging Max lightly to signify that she wished to continue and the three did, Woody still on the lead as he trotted down the bridge, his nails making that all too familiar noise as if he were running around the kitchen, excited to go on a walk. Everything reminded Max of home, of his family that was long gone.

"We need a place to stay. Unfortunately, it's gotta be somewhere really warm." Max admitted, shoving his hands into his grey jacket's pockets and zipping it up as Alice copied him, suddenly wondering why she hadn't thought of that before.

The group continued on, choosing right at the old-styled crossroads, the buildings resembling that of old London architecture as they walked down the roads and out into the countryside once again, the cities now seemed too dangerous for them.

To the left were lush, green trees that were untouched by human beings, wildlife slowly but surely consuming the world as they knew it. It was chaotic beauty, the sights were serene but the unfortunate connotations not so much.

Slowly they crept around the old barns, some so untouched from even before the apocalypse that they had rusted as creaked, an eerie sound emitting from them. Max entered from within a hole in the brick walls, his legs dipping into the long, wavy grass as Alice and Woody followed in, the two helping him over the rather large step into the farm area.

"First, we clear it of deadens. Then we find as many soft things as possible fora warm night." Max stated their plan, wandering in further as Alice followed and Woody sniffed around in front, almost leading them.

He perked up once he caught the smell of a decaying corpse, his ears were raised as if to sense even the smallest particle of kinetic energy that would come from the immediate area. Once Woody heard a deaden in the short distance for even a split second, he was off and crunched the head of a deaden who was slumped against a rusted red tractor, blood pouring onto the dead yellow grass below.

Max couldn't help but smile, obviously it wasn't a very pretty sight, but it was empowering to know that even a simple dog such as Woody would want to keep him and Alice safe, a dog that couldn't even think properly for itself, one that went off its instinct- which was to protect his owner at all costs.

They slowly trekked through the long wavy grass until the three halted upon sight of a blanket of stingy nettles that covered the floor and any access to the broken houses.