The next day we began to move. Gina remembered that the group was going to head west, and she had a pretty good idea of where the ranch was. She told me that she had been there once before with Cole. We began our journey and by the next evening, we would be out of the city. Though there would be other cities ahead of us. We had been discussing taking the long routes around the cities, as we knew large groups of zombies would be within. With as little food as we had left, we didn’t know if we could survive the long routes.

We had made camp in an alley that had a dead end. This way they could only come at us from one side. The four of us had to share a can of beef stew. When it was obvious that one can wouldn’t be enough for us, Alec opened a can of sauerkraut. It was disgusting, but we ate it as that was all we had.

Gina and Mabel were the first to fall asleep and for the first time in a few days, Alec and I were relatively alone. I knew that he wanted to talk to me from the worried stares he tossed my way.

“What is it, Alec?” I asked when I could stand no more.

He cleared his throat and shook his head, “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

With a roll of my eyes, I crossed my arms. It was something that I had done all my life that told my siblings that I knew they were lying.

A gentle sigh of defeat released from his lips. “You don’t think that virus will effect you now, do you?”

“What?” I asked with my eyebrow up.

He nervously pointed at his own neck to indicate my own.

I touched the bandage that was wrapped around my neck, and shook my head. “They aren’t really zombies, Alec. It’s just a nickname, a joke, remember?”

With a slow nod, he again cleared his throat. “I know, but… you know, it has me worried.” He poked the small campfire that we had built with nearby debris. “If you start to feel sick or anything, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course.” I swallowed. I had felt light headed and sick to my stomach, but I had thought it was due to blood loss. Now, Alec had made me concerned, but I wouldn’t say anything until tomorrow evening. “I wouldn’t put you or the others in danger. You know that, don’t you?”

He continued to nod in a way that informed me he was still nervous. I decided that I didn’t want to prolong the conversation, so I ignored his behavior. I chose to look into the fire and ignore the gaze that Alec was giving me.

“I see them when I look at you.” Alec said.

My eye rose from the flames, “Who?”

“Olivia, Lesley, Mom, and Dad. They are all there in your face.” He ran his dirty hands over his face while he sighed, “At first, I hated it. Now, I am glad to have you around to remind me of them. I don’t want to lose that. You’re all I’ve got, Elliot.”

I grinned sadly, “I won’t leave you.”

“I know you won’t mean to, but if it comes down to you having the virus, I… I…”

“Will kill me. I know and I appreciate that you won’t let me suffer.”

Alec returned the grin that I had given him, before turning his eyes to the fire.

“You remind me of them too. I’m glad you’re here with me, Alec. I don’t know if I could have made it this far without you.”

Before he could respond, we heard a blood curdling scream in the distance. It was so loud that both Gina and Mabel awoke. Mabel jumped into her arms, while Alec and I stood up to guard the entrance of our camp. We pulled our guns and prepared for an attack.

We saw a man running towards us. He was bald, thin but muscular, and wore nothing but a pair of pants. The look in his eyes told of the pure terror that he was experiencing, neither Alec nor I rose our guns to him. He ran past us, leapt over the fire, and crouched down in the corner. With his head in his hands, he started to mumble to himself.

We turned our attention back to the darkness in front of us, and found two zombies running down the alley after him. Lifting up our guns, we fired at them. It was strange that we didn’t hesitate as we normally did, or even question if they really were zombies. Both men fell dead before they reached us. Once we were certain they were dead, we turned our attentions to the stranger in our camp.

He was still mumbling to himself in the corner.

“Are you alright?” Gina asked him, still holding tightly to Mabel.

The man didn’t answer her.

I stepped closer to him and he shuddered as I approached. He knew that we could help him, but seemed terrified of us anyway.

“It’s alright. We aren’t going to hurt you.” I said as I kneeled down in front of him.

I noticed then that his age wasn’t much more than my own, but the strange thing about him was his bald head. It didn’t look like he had any hair follicles on his head, nor hair on his arms. I ignored it for the time being, and reached out to touch his arm. I excepted him to yank himself away. Instead, he looked at my hand and then into my eyes. He had pale blue eyes, and was strangely handsome.

“Are you hungry?” I asked and took his hand into my own. Standing up, he followed me and I placed him around the fire.

Alec was opening a can of kidney beans, he offered it to me when I settled down beside the man.

“Here you go.” I handed it to him and before it left my hand completely, he was already digging into it with his other hand.

“What is your name?” I asked him when he had eaten half the can.

He mumbled something that I couldn’t understand.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear that.”

“Vion.” He said slightly louder, before shoving more food into his mouth.

“What did he say?” Gina asked.

“He said Vion.” I responded to her then looked over my shoulder at my brother, who looked as confused as I was. “Vion is a strange name, where are you from?” I asked when I turned my attention back to the stranger.

He looked at me like I was speaking another language, before slowly scooping another handful into his mouth.

“Elliot, I need to speak with you, now.” Alec growled and walked down the alley.

I followed behind him and we stopped near the bodies of the zombies we had just killed.

“This guy is really strange. He might be a zombie, I think we should ditch him or kill him.”

I looked over at Vion, who was drinking the liquid from the kidney bean can. “He seems foreign to me and perhaps a little shocked. I think we should give him a day or two to come around.”

Alec frowned, “We have others to care for, Elliot. We can’t…”

“We can’t just ditch people because they seem weird. I won’t let you do it. One of us is always awake so we can watch him. Just give him a day or two, and then we will talk.”

“Why do we have to keep every person we come across. We barely have enough food…”

“Safety in numbers, Alec. The zombies don’t attack people in large groups, we will just have to figure it out.”

“What about food?”

I sighed, “If we have to eat dogs or rats than we will. Hopefully, we will find Gina and Mabel’s group soon. Now, let’s go to bed.”

---

In the morning, Vion seemed like a different man entirely. Perhaps it was because he knew he was now safe with us or that he was fed and not being chased by zombies. Either way, I was glad to have another male around and hoped that he would be able to over come his fears to help us in the future.

When I had first awoken, Vion and Mabel were sitting next to the fire. He was laughing at her as she made circles with her fingers and then placed them over her face like glasses. For a brief moment, I thought he might be mentally handicapped, but for some reason or another, I just couldn’t accept that explanation. Who was this man? And how did he survive for so long? Judging from the night before I couldn’t imagine him surviving on his own.

Standing up from where I had been sleeping, I sat down around the fire. Gina was on guard in the corner, though it seemed she had drifted to sleep during her shift. That was unacceptable, but I wasn’t going to cause a fuss. The last thing I needed was Alec to throw a fit. No harm, no foul, but I would talk to her later when we were alone.

“Morning, Elliot!” Mabel said cheerfully.

“Morning, Elliot.” Vion echoed, but with less enthusiasm.

I smiled at each of them, before noticing Vion’s incredibly light eyes. The center was a gray that was outlined with a dark blue, but I had never seen eyes like that before. There was something strange about this man with us. He was almost inhuman in the way that he looked, but on the same token he was most definitely human. I suppose the best way to describe him would be that he looked like an angel. If at any moment two dove-like wings popped out of his back, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Looking over my shoulder, I heard Alec stirring from his slumber. At times, he could be hard to wake. I knew, though, that even though he was laying down, he could still hear us talking.

“Vion, how have you survived this long?” I gathered up the courage to ask over a few moments.

He looked at me with confusion, “Survived this long? I don’t understand.”

I hadn’t heard it the night before, but I could detect an accent this morning. I just couldn’t put my finger on where I had heard it before. “From the infected ones. The ones chasing you last night.”

“I stay hidden most of the time. They caught me while…” He stopped talking briefly as if he were thinking, “while I was digging through the trash for food.”

I brushed off his pause as embarrassment. I wouldn’t want to admit that I ate trash either, so I nodded. “Where are you from?”

“Here.” He responded quickly.

“Oh, you have an accent, I thought maybe…”

“No, I’m from here.” He snapped and looked at the fire before him.

“Alright, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Alec came to sit next to me. He frowned at Gina, who was still asleep in the corner. “How long has she been asleep?” He growled.

“I told her to nap.” I responded before Mabel could answer.

I don’t think that Alec believed me, but he wasn’t going to argue with me in front of the others. He had told me and Olivia that we needed unity and that little things had to be allowed to slide. He was practicing what he preached in those moments.

He began to dig through one of our bags with the canned food, “Not much left. It might last us three or four more days if we stretch it.”

“We have to find meat.” I told him, “Rats, dogs, anything will do. There has to be something around here.”

“We should see an animal or two as we move out of the city. Speaking of which we should get moving.” His eyes wandered over to Vion. “You aren’t hurt, are you? You can carry some items, right?”

Vion’s eyes were blank as if he were trying to understand what my brother was saying, “Yes.” He answered right before Alec was about to repeat himself.

“Yes, you are hurt or yes, you can carry some shit?”

“He’s fine, Alec.” I snapped. “What the hell is your problem this morning?”

He didn’t answer me, instead got up and shook Gina quite roughly. “Wake up, we need to get moving.”

Gina’s eyes turned to me with annoyance as Alec walked past her and began to gather our items.

“We can’t have our shit spread out like this!” Alec barked, “We have to be ready to go at any moment!”

Mabel looked frightened from his sudden outburst. She clamped onto Vion’s hand. It surprised me to see that she would turn to this stranger for safety. From the look on Gina’s face, I think she was just as shocked.

Vion stood and dropped Mabel’s hand, “I will help.” He told Alec while he picked up one of the bags.

I wanted to say something to Alec about his attitude that morning, but in front of the others was not the best place. I would have to discuss it with him later.

---

We spent the next few days traveling out of the city and into the nearby farmlands. For the most part, we were safe from zombies outside the city. They seemed to be pack oriented, even though they hunted in small groups of no more then three. It was easier for them to find a pack once they were inside the city. I learned this from speaking with Gina, not from my own observations.

It took a couple days, but Gina admitted to be part of a team that was looking for a cure and studying those infected. Her partner was Colin Giordano, Mabel’s uncle. He apparently was one of the world’s foremost experts on exotic diseases. She spoke of how they never determined how the virus spread or even how it attacked the body. Cole knew more as she worked mostly with the sick, while he tried to study the disease.

She had read some of his reports that stated there had been no females who had been mentally deformed by the virus. Only males seemed to go into the state that I called a zombie. She said that females were either immune to the virus or they would die from it. It was unknown to them why the virus acted so differently with the male and female brains. There was also proof that around eighty percent of females died from the virus. Fifty percent of men died, while an even number of men were immune or were mentally infected.

What shocked me the most was when she told us that there was no single point of origin of the virus. It appears the same day in multiple areas on earth. The spread was so quick that it was impossible to prepare people for it’s coming. They knew months in advance that most the world’s population would not survive.

I remember the first day that I saw news footage of what was taking place. It was Houston, Texas that was first attacked. The hospital halls were filled with the dead or dying. The shops were being looted, children were crying for their parents, and parents for their children. I had looked at Drew, my boyfriend, and mumbled a truth that at the time I didn’t actually believe. “It looks like the apocalypse.” I had said.

Rumors of terrorism spread about, until reports of the virus taking roots all over the world began to come in. Every country was under attack, there was no safe haven from this virus. No where that we could hide. All we could do was sit and wait for it to find us. We knew it would come for us and we only prayed that we could be some of the lucky few. Now that we were among those lucky few, we wished that we hadn’t been.

Death would be so much easier then the hell that we were living in now. All this could end with one bullet, but there was more on the line. One of us falling could mean that the rest would die with them. We all needed each other to endure. No matter how strong we thought the others were, because the truth was, everyone was just carrying around their strong faces. We all acted as if we weren’t afraid of what was to come. No fear in the horrors that we had already been through. No regrets in what we had done. It was all a lie.

The truth was that every single one of us was terrified. Afraid of any slightest movement around us or anyone who was not part of our group. Even some in our group kept us on our toes and left us suspicious.

We were also tired. The combination of physical exertion and total fear just drained us all of any energy that we had. Some of us showed our exhausted with angry outbursts, others were just too beat to even talk, and I was just empty.

My entire existence was wrapped around keeping the group organized and alive. I had stopped caring about what would happen to me. I had stopped caring in general. All my attention and effort was spent watching the country side around us. Half the time, I didn’t hear what people were saying to me. With so little food, I barely ate my own share. I gave most of it to Mabel, who in turn would often share it with Gina and Vion.

Vion, on the other hand, seemed to have endless energy. He was nothing like the scared man that we had first met. He seemed braver and stronger now that we had left the city. It might have been due to the fact that we hadn’t seen a zombie in days or perhaps the group brought him courage. He had even stood up to Alec during one of his temper tantrums. I will never forget the look of disbelief on Alec’s face when Vion ordered him to silence himself.

I think Vion stood up against him, because I just lacked the strength to keep Alec calm. All his life, Alec looked towards me for courage and I was failing him. He could see that my will had been taken from me. I had to force each step to be taken, each breath to be inhaled, and each thought to be spoken. I was so tired and I just wanted this all to stop. I just wanted to wake up and find myself in bed with Drew.

It would never happen as I wasn’t so delusional to not to recognize reality. I knew all our lives were hanging in the balance. I just didn’t care anymore.

Those were my thoughts as I sat in the field a good distance away from the campfire. The stars were shining so brightly and so beautifully. The grass beneath me was still green and moist from the light shower an hour before. I had seen several birds flying above us that day and even a rabbit had crossed our path. Nothing was affected by the death of most humans.

It was almost like nature had enough of us. She no longer wanted to deal with how quickly we were spreading and how much we were destroying. So, she sent the virus. One that did to us what we were doing to her. She spared a few people, just like we spared a few forests. Yet, she also mutilated some of us like we do to her landscape. I didn’t want to believe this was Earth’s punishment, but at times, it just felt that way.

“Your share.” I heard Vion’s voice say behind me.

I felt him put a coat over my shoulders and then he offered me a small bird on a small branch. I had no idea what kind of bird it was or how Alec had managed to catch it. I honestly didn’t want to know. “Let Mabel have it.”

Vion sat down and offered it to me again, “Starving yourself to death? Would be better for us if you just shot yourself in the head.” He pulled the handgun that I had given him out of his belt and offered it to me.

“What is that for?” I asked.

Both of his hands were out, one with food and one with the gun. “Giving you a chance to live and a chance to die, pick one.”

“That isn’t funny. Mabel needs the food more than I do.” I turned my eyes back to the skyline.

“That’s not true. Mabel gets her fill.” Vion nudged both of his hands towards me. “Alec may give the orders, but you are the real leader here. He looks to you for strength and advice. He needs you in order to go on. You are failing all of us by allowing yourself to be taken by the darkness of your heart.”

“I don’t give a shit who I am failing. I am too damn tired to care about…”

“That’s not true. You do care. If you didn’t then you would have laid down a long time ago. You wouldn’t had stood up for me that first night that I found you. You wouldn’t be walking on tomorrow. You do care and I think that’s your problem. You don’t want to care.”

I stared at him for several moments as I was unsure of what to say. “You don’t know me. Don’t think you know anything about the secrets in my heart.”

“I don’t think that I know, Elliot. I feel the same way. We all feel the same way. Everyone of us wants to lay down and die. We want the others to just not care if we do, but we know that they do care. You know that if Gina, Mabel, or Alec… hell, maybe even me, if one of us chose to quit you would fight us. You wouldn’t leave us behind, just like we wouldn’t leave you behind. Unless you give us no choice.” He nudged me again with the gun. “Now, I am asking you. Do you care about what happens to us? If you don’t, use the gun.”

I looked down at his hand. My mind wanted me to pick up that gun and as I reached for it, I found myself with the bird. I began to nibble on it, which brought a smile to Vion’s lips.

“You had me worried there for a moment.”

“Who are you?” I asked him.

He looked at me curiously, “I am Vion.”

My head slowly shook. “No, there is more to you. I know you aren’t from around here. I know that is something strange about you.”

He grinned and stood up, “I get that a lot.” He said to me before walking back to camp.

PLEASE READ: The rest of this story can only be read on my forum for those that post 30 times. You can find the link to my website in my profile (RHunt). Hope that you have enjoyed the story enough to come visit us!

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