I've been running for a while, I've only got a couple of bullets left for the pistol. I don't know how far or how long I've been running, but I just keep running, there's still about 5 or 6 walkers on my trail. I notice a building up ahead, stop behind it to catch my breath and swipe away the sweat beading from my head. I can hear them, coming closer and closer, craving for my flesh. I turn from out around the corner, pull my pistol up and shoot what I have left, I hit 3 of them dead on in the forehead. The other two I hit in the arm and in the leg, the one that's hit in the leg falls.
"Shit, dry out." I say out loud, taking the clip out of the pistol. I take my axe and swing at the walker that's still coming towards me, I strike him clean in the head and watch as his lifeless and rotting body falls to the ground in a heap. I pull my axe out of the walker's head, look over at the other walker. It's attempting to get up and move closer to me, but it can't, it's trapped and hopeless. I start to think that I shouldn't kill something helpless, but then I realize, these things wouldn't even think close about sparing us. So I start to swing the axe back and let it come full speed towards the walkers, chopping it's head clean off.
I just sit with my back against the wall, trying to regain energy. I sit there for a little while, just listening and watching the outside world. I start to look at it as though nothing was different, I mean everything's so nice outside and unharmed. But I think of the things that have happened over the course of the last few days and realize that nothing will ever be the same. That's when I hear something.... A voice? I quickly turn my head in both directions, looking for the source of the voice, but no one is there.
"Micheal, can you hear me?" I hear the voice again, it sounds muffled.
That's when I remember the walkie-talkie I still had in my back pocket. I quickly reach for it and pull it out, push down the button to let me talk. "Yeah, yeah. I can hear you! Who is this?" I ask, in a rushed voice.
"It's nice to hear from you Micheal. Are you okay?" The voice asks.
"Yeah, I'm okay with the situation given. But who is this and how do you know my name, your voice doesn't sound one in which I have heard over the last few days." I say.
"Well, that's the thing. I'm not with you, I'm somewhere safe and you know me."
I pause and think, but I can't really recall who it could be. "Wait, somewhere safe? Is anything happening there?!"
"No, it's completely safe. No one's trying to bite anyone here. No infection, nothing."
"Can we get to you? I've got my sister and a group of good people with me, we're trying to survive." I say, kind of excited and exhausted.
"I'd like that kid, but it can't happen." I pause when I fully realize who the voice is, it's.... Phil.
"Phil...?" I ask, my hands are shaking like crazy by now. He died, he was killed by the walkers. I saw it and Grace saw it, No! No, this can't be happening. "No, Phil, I didn't mean to leave you. Th-They got you! There... there was no w-way for me to... to get to you, you were g-g-gone...." I'm trembling with fear, I don't know what's going on, but I know this can't be real. It's my mind, it's playing a trick on me. I slam the walkie-talkie to the ground, it doesn't break right away, so I jump to my feet and starting crashing my axe on it. It smashes into a bunch of pieces.
I can feel the tears coming down my face, I just brush them away with my sleeve and then sit back down. I just sit there, thinking of how Phil died. That's when I hear something, I quickly turn to my right and see a walker approaching. I jump to my feet and pull my axe up to me, I turn towards the walker and as it gets closer I see... "No, no, absolutely not!" I think to myself. It's Phil, but it's not really him, it's the walker Phil. But I don't know if it's real or just in my mind, but I can't focus, I just swing for the head and the axe crashes into the walker's head. Blood gets on my shirt, I look down at it, but look right back up.
It's not actually Phil, it's just a random walker. My mind is playing tricks on me and it's hard enough to think, so I look down the road and start walking down it. I focus on the road, but I can hear whispers and voices all over the place. I see eyes watching me, but I know they're not really there. I see Phil all over the place, but I ignore him, I know they're just part of my imagination and they're not real. I walk further and further, until I see the gates of the camp, I can see Jim and Grace and others gathered around. I see Jim kneeling down in front of Grace, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the paper I had given to him.
I can see tears rolling down Grace's face, I look over and see she isn't the only one, a couple of people have tears rolling down their faces. I give off a little laugh, but it hurts, I've been running and walking too far and I'm out of energy. My mind fucking with me the entire trip here, all I can do is hope that this isn't an imagination.
"Guys, it's Micheal!" I hear a familiar voice call out. I look over to see Christina standing at the front gate, I guess she's been watching the gates, waiting for me to arrive. I turn back to see everyone else stare over at her and then look over at me. I see Grace start to run to the front gate, all I want to do is give her a big hug, but I can't. I fall to the ground, without feeling anything else, I just fall and I am unconscious once more.
I realize that by now, waking up in a dream should be normal. But this doesn't feel like the other dreams, it feels so much more real than I could imagine. It's a hellish dream and feels like I'll never wake up from it.
It's an un-ending army of the undead, wave after wave. It's like an unlimited amount of zombies and there are just more and more coming each time. But they stop, as if forced to by something. I look around, I've been so busy fighting for my life that I hadn't realized Grace had slipped away and so did Christina.
"Grace! Grace, Christina, where are you?!" I yell, looking around. I see everyone else staring around as well, we've been shooting for quite a while now and I've just been so focused. Everyone from the camp is here except Grace and Christina, I start to get a terrible and gut clenching feeling coming from my stomach.
I hear some screams and look over towards the front gate. It's terrible, the worst thing I've seen so far, and it's the most terrifying thing I've seen. I see Christina standing, blood dripping from her hands, blood dripping from her hand, and then I see Grace standing not too far in front of her. Grace is screaming, very loudly, so I dash over to her as quick as I can. I pull my gun up to shoot at Christina, but it's out of ammo and I only have the knife in my pocket.
"NO!" I yell, yanking out my knife and stabbing Christina in the head. We fall to the ground, I watch as Jim comes running over to me. Complete rage, fear, overwhelming sadness and lots of tears rushing down his face. I turn back towards Grace, she's crying and I see she's been bitten. The overwhelming thing about it is that Phil is standing beside her, laughing, mocking me, knowing I lost and that I couldn't protect her. I still have the knife in my hands, so I run and stab him too, I can't help it. I can't take his face in my head anymore, nothing, he won't go away. I try to run, but he's there, always mocking me, always keeping me in fear of the walkers. But no, I won't let him get the best of me, not this time, I've stabbed him and I'm now with Grace. I'm standing in front of her, I can feel the tears rolling down my face.
"I thought she was okay Micky.... I-I-I didn't know...." I hear Grace's trembling voice.
"It's okay baby girl, it's not your fault. You didn't do this." I say, falling to my knees as she runs to hug me.
That's when I truly wake up, I'm still in pain. Pain everywhere, head is killing me from so much thinking. So I just try to relax instead of rushing to get up. Grace, Christina, Jim, and Tom are in the room. Tom and Jim are talking to each other, while Grace and Christina are sitting at the end of the bed with their heads down. I try to sit up, but there's so much pain. So I just remain laying down, avoiding moving.
That's when Grace and Christina look up and at me. I can see their smiles growing. "Micky, you're awake!" Grace jumps up and walks over closer to my head.
I don't care how much it hurts to move, I sit up slowly and hug her. "Yeah kiddo, I'm awake." I say.
I see Jim and Tom look over at me, both with grins on their faces. "You are one tough son of a bitch." I hear Tom say.
"Well, gotta make for this little kid right here." I pull Grace closer to me, the happiest I could possibly be right now.
"Think you can get up?" Jim asks.
"I guess we're about to find out now, aren't we?" I ask, with a whole lot of sarcasm in my voice. I'm already sitting, so I twist my body to get my legs off the bed. Trying my best to stand, I just fall back on to the bed. With excruciating pain all over the place, I try to ignore it, but I do give in a little and just lay there for a second.
"Come on Micheal, you can do it." I hear Christina's soft, caring voice. So I look at her, then sit back up. I try one more time to get up, successfully standing up with still enormous amounts of pain.
"Well, it hurts... A lot, but I can stand up at least..." I say, giving a bit of a laugh.
"It'll hurt for a little bit, I mean you've been laying here for about 2-3 days now." Tom says, I look at him. 2 or 3 days? There's no way I've been out for that long, that's ridiculous!
"What's happened since I've been out?" I ask, confused as hell.
"Well..." Tom begins to say, but pauses. "We had to put Matt out of his misery, he turned yesterday. He was trying so hard to fight it off, but he didn't win."
I don't say anything, shocked. I knew he was going to turn, but I hadn't known he would have fought it off for so long. "Tom.... I'm sorry...."
"No, it's okay man. It wasn't your fault, he told me what happened and he should have been more careful." Tom, waving my apology off.
"Anything else?" I ask.
"Nothing really." Jim says. "But that day you came in, we thought you were a goner. Let's go show you to the rest."
"Don't you think I should at least get used to moving around again?" I ask, chuckling.
"Yeah, that's true." Jim says, laughing. He looks at Christina as if he's giving her the okay stare. "Well, I'll be outside. I think I might walk the perimeter, care to join me Tom?"
"Uh... Yeah, sure, I don't see why not." Tom follows Jim out the door.
Christina is still standing, silently waiting for her turn to talk. I look down at Grace. "Well, go ahead, run along kiddo. I'll catch up with you as soon as I can." Smiling down at Grace.
She smiles and laughs. "Okay, I'm gonna go play with the other kids!" Joy in her face, she runs out the door and closes it behind her.
"I was wondering when I'd be able to talk." Christina laughs, walking up to me and hugging me.
I hug her back, even if it still hurts. "Well, you can now." I smile.
"I thought you were dead, but when I saw you making your way to gate. I was so happy for the moment, until you collapsed and then it all went away...." She says.
The hug fades away, but I'm still holding her arms. "Well, don't worry, I'm here and I'm safe now."
"I know." She says, a smile creeping back onto her face. "I got to know your sister. She's beautiful and she's smart. And she's fun to be around, I see why you want to protect her."
"Yeah, she's the only family I've got left in this world." I keep Phil out of my mind.
But she puts him back in my mind. "You were saying a name while you were unconscious the day you stumbled upon the front gate. The name was Phil." She pause, noticing my face change. "You don't have to...."
I cut her off. "No, his name is Phil. He's my brother, he was killed the day this shit started to happen. I made a promise that day that I would protect my sister no matter what."
She puts her head down. "What about your parents?"
I think back to being with my parents, living a happier life style. "It happened about 6 years ago, Grace was in the car with them. Grace was only 4 years old, strapped in the car seat, never knowing that another car was going to come speeding down that highway. My mother died on impact, my father died in the hospital the next day, my brother and I lived with Grace from then on."
"Oh, I'm sorry...." She says, trying to comfort me.
"It's okay, nothing could have been done." I say, hugging her again.
She brings her head back, then leans in again. Our lips crash together and I feel the amazing bliss that I had felt a couple of days ago. I don't focus on anything but kissing her.
When we finally stop kissing, I lean back and look into her bright beautiful blue eyes. Just smiling as I look at her, she smiles back. "Well, let's go have a look at what's going on outside in our fucked up world." I smile and grab her hand.
We hold hands and walk to the door, kissing one last time.