"Where They Wander"

[Aliceinchains36]

"Andrew! Katt! Get in here! You guys need to see this!" Came Tommy's terrified voice from downstairs. Katt closed her book and rolled off the bed. She made her way into the living room where her brothers were watching the news with looks of horror on their faces. "...I can't believe I'm reporting this, but from all over the city we're receiving reports of murders, looting, rioting... maulings and cannibalism... and-and we're receiving reports of dead bodies... of dead bodies coming back to life..." The pale reporter on the TV spoke, her voice shaking with disbelief and fear.

"This can't be real. It has to be a hoax. Right, Drew?" Katt asked her big brother, trying to keep the fear from her voice. "I don't know. It looks pretty real to me. And the news wouldn't report something like this unless they were sure of it. Maybe..." Andrew stopped speaking as his phone rang. "Hello? Dad! Have you seen... Ok. Ok I'll put you on." Andrew said into the phone before turning on the speaker.

"Kids listen close. We don't got long." Came the voice of their father, sounding stern, strong, loving, weary, scared, sick, and tired all at once. "There's something bad going on here. There are screams coming from downstairs and we've been told to stay in our rooms. Me and your mother... I don't think we got long. I want y'all to pack up. Anything and everything you think you'll need. Then load up Drew's truck and go to the cabin. I don't want any of you near this city after tonight, and I mean it. Don't try to find your mother and me. Drew, you're in charge now. You're the man of this family. Look after your brother and sister. And know that your mother and I love you very much. Their father's voice said from the phone. "He's right kids. We love you both. Please listen to him. Don't come to the hospital. It's too dangerous... Their mother's sobbing voice was interrupted by a scream that sounded like it was right outside of their father's room. "We both love you very much. I hope we see each other again. Goodbye, Andrew, Katherine, Tony. We love you." Their father said before hanging up the phone.

"Dad? Dad!?" Tony shouted staring at the now black phone screen. "Drew? Drew!" Katt yelled at her older brother who was staring at the phone with an unreadable expression on his face. "What do we do, Drew? What's happening? Katt asked, the fear and stress of the past few minutes finally bringing tears to her light green eyes. "I.. I don't know..." Andrew breathed. Andrew looked up at his crying siblings and shook off his fear. "Ok... Ok. Listen up. We're going to do what dad said. Tony, you pack the food. Cans, dry stuff, anything that won't go bad. Katt, you get clothes for everyone. Warm durable stuff. Practiced stuff. Blankets too. I'm going to get the truck in the garage, then get dad's guns. Be fast you two, I want us gone in twenty minutes or less." Andrew said with new resolve in his voice before grabbing his keys and heading for the door.

"Ok, ok. Clothes. We need clothes." Katt muttered to herself as she sprinted up the stairs. She went to her room first, packing everything she could fit into her suitcase. She also grabbed the biggest backpack she could find, and filled it up with books, CDs, and her CD player. She then went to Tony's room, filling a suitcase with his clothes and a backpack with his stuff. She finally went to Andrews room, doing the same thing she had in here's and Tony's rooms. She finally striped all the sheets and blankets off of the beds and stuffed them into a final bag. She carried the entire load down the stairs in one trip, depositing them by the garage door, before heading into the kitchen to help Tony gather food.

A moment later Andrew came back inside. "I've loaded the truck with weapons and tools. How're you two doing?" He asked quickly looking through the already packed bags. "Good, we're good" Katt lied. "I got everyone's clothing together as well as blankets and personal stuff. It's all by the door." She said pointing to the pile. "Alright. Good job, both of you. I'm going to do one last run through the house, you two start packing the truck. Put the food in the backseat, as much as you can fit. Everything else in the back." Andrew said before running up the stairs. "C'mon Tony, help me load the truck." Katt said grabbing a bag.

Katt and Tony quickly loaded everything into the truck, even filling the extra space in the truck bed with more food. "Well have to eat this stuff first." Katt said wedging a bag of fruit in with the rest of the perishable food. "Yea, what's taking Andrew so long?" Tony asked with fear in his voice. "I don't..." Katt was interrupted as Andrew came through the door with a small backpack. "I was getting these." He said opening the backpack to reveal three revolvers, a 9mm semi automatic pistol, and various boxes of ammo. He tucked the largest revolver in his waist band before handing the pistol to Katt. "You remember how to use it right?" He asked handing Katt two extra clips and a box of ammo. "Yea, dad taught me." Katt said loading the weapon.

Andrew began to zip the backpack, but was stopped by Tony. "What about me? Don't I get one?" He asked his older brother. "Tony you're too..." "I'm not too young! I'm thirteen! And besides, dad taught me how to shoot too. And if things are as bad as they said on the news, I'll need some kind of protection." Tony said. "He's right Drew. We don't know what we'll come across out there." Katt said. "Fine." Andrew sighed loading a revolver and handing it to his younger brother. "It's for emergencies only. Life and death. If anything happens, you get me first. That goes for both of you. Now get in the truck we've got to go." Andrew said. The three siblings climbed into the truck in silence. Andrew pulled out of the garage and sped down the street. "This is the last time I'll ever see home." Katt thought sadly. And she was right...

 

[Aliceinchains36]

Three years later...

...keep away
I'm not giving up my soul today
Evil men trying to eat at me
Is there a lesson to be learned
Another night another damn fright
I'm holding on to my head
If they look like dead and act like dead...
Well dead shouldn't walk in my house

Calling my name, begging my brains
Inviting me in, making me one of them
I'd rather tear my heart out

I don't wanna give in
I don't wanna...

"Fuck..." Katt groaned as the car she was driving died. "I really thought I could make it. She said to herself looking at the gas meter, it's needle pointing to empty. "Guess I'm walking." Katt sighed grabbing her gear from the passenger seat. She removed the key from the ignition before exiting the vehicle. She locked the car before making her way down the road.

After a few minutes of walking Katt saw a sign on the side of the road.

Bakersfield: 7 miles

Great..." Katt though passing the sign and continuing down the road.

Katt made the walk to the town without incident. She saw a few zombie shambling through overgrown corn fields, but they were too far away to cause trouble. She made her way past the welcoming sign, walking down the abandoned Main Street. She made it about half way down the street before she heard what sounded like a woman screaming. "Now what?" Katt thought quickening her pace. "Yea. That's definitely screaming." She thought moving into a run.

Katt ran quickly but quietly down the street until she located the source of the woman's wails. The sound was coming from a bakery with the front window display smashed out. Katt silently entered the building, readying her crossbow as she looked around. She saw a staircase behind the counter, and slowly climbed it, preparing herself for what she'd see.

The stairs led to a small one room apartment. And against the back wall, being held down and raped, was the screaming woman. Katt's hands were lightning as she readied, aimed, and fired her crossbow. The bolt sailed through the air and pierced the back of the man's skull. He fell to the ground with a startled grunt as Katt loaded a new bolt onto her crossbow.

"Are you ok? Are there more of them?" Katt whispered urgently as she approached the semi-naked woman.

 

[RennyStyle]

Shannon had been seconds away from an orgasm, the first one she's had in ages that was induced by another person. And all of a sudden, the man she was with wound up with an arrow in his brain, and she was left with her legs spread open and exposed to a redheaded stranger standing in the door.

"What do you think you're doing?" She asked with her southern twang as she started to gather her clothes and cover herself up.

 

[Aliceinchains36]

"Wha-what? I thought he was... You were screaming! I heard you down the street! I just saved you!" Katt said in confused disbelief. That man was a rapist. An evil thing that had given up on being a human. She'd killed people before, but never innocent people, and she refused to believe that she had taken a life that didn't deserve to be taken. "You're in shock. Or you have Stockholm syndrome. Or something like that. That man, he was hurting you. Did he have any friends? Are there anymore around?" Katt asked scanning the room for attackers again.

 

[RennyStyle]

Shannon scoffs. "I was payin' him!" She straightened out her clothes. "We just bartered for all these supplies, and money ain't exactly worth much these days!"

She almost chuckled. "I guess I was makin' too much noise. Sorry about that. But yes, there's more, his two idiot brothers. And they're already pissed that they didn't get the same VIP treatment he did. I think we better get out before they come back."

She grabbed her bag and threw it over her shoulder, then put her cowboy hat on. "Name's Shannon, by the way. End of the world don't mean we can't be polite. What do they call you, red?"

 

[Aliceinchains36]

What the woman said shook Katt to the core. He hadn't been raping her. She was willing... "I... I think I'm going to be sick." Katt said leaning against the wall and heaving up what little food she'd had for breakfast. The distinction between innocent and guilty was a slim one in this new world, but it was one that was important to Katt. And breaking the rule of never killing an innocent man was affecting her deeply. She held herself up on the wall with one hand, while trying to hold her hair back with the other. She felt tears burn her eyes as she grappled with the mistake she'd just made.

 

[RennyStyle]

"Well don't take it TOO personally, I mean, I was a call girl before all this started. You know, you got a talent, make it work for ya. And if it's any consolation, he might not have been rapin' me, but he wasn't exactly a good guy either. Especially if those brothers of him are any indicator."

Shannon picked out a few extra supplies from the shelves and pocketed them in her bag.

"Hope you got a car, cause they do."

 

[Aliceinchains36]

"Ok, yea. Sorry." Katt said wiping her face and swishing out her mouth with water from her bottle. "I'm Katherine by the way. But everyone called me Katt. And I've got a car, but it needs gas. If you can help me find some I'll give you a ride." Katt said picking up her dropped crossbow. She crossed the room and quickly looted the man she'd killed, pulling a .44 magnum revolver, a handful of bullets, and a switchblade from his body. She also recovered her bloodied, but mostly undamaged, crossbow bolt. She looked at the corpse for a moment, silently apologizing and contemplating what she'd done before standing and walking back to Shannon. "So do you know where we can get gas?" Katt asked putting the new gear in her bag.

 

[RennyStyle]

"Now I appreciate that. There's a gas station a couple blocks away. And if your car has one of them yellow gas caps, there's also a liquor store that we can probably raid."

Shannon smiled and pulled out her pistol, a shiny chrome-plated number. She spotted Katt eyeing it. "Like it? Belonged to my former manager, you'd have liked him. You could empty a tree's worth of arrows into his skull and walked away feelin' pure as the driven snow."

 

[Aliceinchains36]

"It only takes gas, so getting to the gas station should be our first priority. But if we have time stopping at the liquor store is a good idea. It never hurts to have a Molotov on hand." Katt said giving the room a last look over before heading for the stairs.

"Was he really that bad?" Katt asked following Shannon down the stairs. Katt knew next to nothing about prostitution, but it seemed to her it would be better to keep the workers happy. On the other hand women willing to themselves probably didn't have much of a choice on where they went. And a man who sold them probably wasn't a good person.

 

[RennyStyle]

"We'll swap biographies when we get out of here, but you better stop thinking of me as some kind of victim. Unless I'm surrounded by the braineaters, that is. Things aren't always what they seem."

She checked the gun and was ready to move.

"It is nice to meet ya, though."

 

[Aliceinchains36]

"Sorry. Sex was never a causal thing for me. And I hope can say it's nice to meet you too." Katt said, unsure of what else to say to Shannon. "She's right. We can play twenty questions later. Right now we need to get the gas then get out of here." Katt thought, feeling herself switch into combat mode as she and Shannon emerged onto the street. Katt scanned around for any movement for a moment before deciding it was clear. She nodded to Shannon, and the pair began to make their way to the gas station.

 

[FireyIce]

3 Years Ago:

Terry Williams had just moved to the nice, quiet, yet small town. He had just finished college and had started to work at a local tech company. It wasn’t until he was home one night when he heard some gunfire at night. “What the hell is that about?” he asked as he started to hear more. Though he had no problem with people hunting, it never occurred at night.

As he got up from the couch, the TV switched to the emergency system notification. He heard the news anchor come on and start talking as the story was breaking about the dead rising. When he opened the door, he saw so many of the towns people running around like crazy. It took him a moment to see that some of them were running away from a group of people that were sporadic. “What’s going on?” he asked loudly as he heard more gunfire. It had taken a moment to realize that some of the people weren’t—well, alive as he saw one of the zombies run towards his place. “Oh, fuck!” he stated as he slammed the door.

When he ran to the kitchen, he got a knife to use for protection in case whatever it was tried to get in. He had decided to sneak out the window and head over to the sheriff’s office to find out more of what the hell was happening. When he got there, he saw it was mostly under siege. Sadly, he started to hear screams as he saw people trying to get out, followed by some blood, blacker than he’s seen before, start to flow out from under the door. Without knowing what to do, Terry grabbed a gun from one of the fallen sheriffs that was outside. He started to shoot at some of the zombies as he continued to loot the body. Luckily he found the keys to one of the patrol cars and managed to drive away.

Present Day:

Terry had spent the last three years nearly on his own. He had found a farm that was about 20 miles away from his town that looked like it was completely deserted. He was tending to some of the plants thinking about all the improvements he had made to the building, mainly the wall. What had started out as just layered wires, the foundation now had an 8 foot tall wall surrounding a lot of the land. On top of that, there were two doors with two large steel beams helping hold the doors from being broken down.
As he continued to work, he thought about how much more peaceful it was out here in the country. The only downside is that there wasn’t really any electricity around here. One of the nearby trading groups was working on a way to fix that problem. In the meantime, he didn’t have much to worry about. At least not at the moment.

 

[RennyStyle]

Shannon carefully opened the door to the street and let the barrel of her gun peek out before she did.

"All right," Shannon whispered to Katt. "Seems clear, but keep your eyes open. You'll know these two idiots when you see 'em. But hope we don't see 'em. Grew up on a farm so they're experts with rifles."

She crept out and began walking down the street. Her cowboy hat kept the sun out of her eyes, and she scanned the street from behind her sunglasses.

 

[Aliceinchains36]

"I'll keep my eyes peeled." Katt said as they slipped out of the bakery. The pair of them moved silently down the street, avoiding the occasional zombie they saw. As they were about to reach the end of the road Shannon pointed to a small alley way. The two crept through it and down a few back streets, until they were across the street from the gas station.

"I see one, but where's the other?" Katt whispered to Shannon pointing to a man sitting with a rifle across his lap on the curb outside of the gas station. "Is there any way to do this without killing anyone?" Katt asked, her eyes still searching for the second brother.

 

[RennyStyle]

"Well, I can think of a way, but you're not going to like it." Shannon smirked. "But I don't think I would either, the option of using our feminine wiles went out the windows when the last guy's brains went out his ear."

She crouched down and took her binoculars to get another look.

"Whatever we do, we don't shoot until they're both in sight."

 

[Aliceinchains36]

"Agreed. On both points." Katt said scanning the area through her crossbow's scope.

They two sat in silence watching the building for a few minutes, but there was still no sign of the second brother. "This isn't going to work." Katt said in annoyance. "The second one isn't going to come out by himself, so we'll have to force him out. But how? Neither one of us is going to be bait, and holding the first one hostage seems like a good way to get sniped from wherever the second one is hiding. Any ideas?" Katt asked still looking around in the hopes she'd see the other brother.

 

[RennyStyle]

"Down." Shannon whispered to Katt, and crouched down behind a garbage can. A zombie started shambling towards the gas station and the fleshy treat on guard.

Shannon kept her breathing in check, eyed the zombie but kept scanning the perimeter. They rarely traveled alone. This could easily become a situation where they're fighting in a three-sided battle, or into a tsunami of the undead.

 

[Aliceinchains36]

Katt had the zombie in her scope as soon as Shannon had pointed it out. She tracked the lumbering creature, her finger twitching on the trigger of her crossbow. She wouldn't fire unless it came down the alley way, but she was prepared if it did. She watched as the first brother on the curb noticed the creature shambling towards him. "Zombie bro! Just one! Get it!" He shouted towards the building to the right of the alley. The zombie took three more steps before the crack of a rifle sounded and its head exploded.

"We found brother number two." Katt said checking her knife. "The zombies will have heard that rifle. I'll go up and deal with brother two, then shoot brother one from the window. Once he's down get the gas. I'll cover you from the window. Once you've got enough we'll run." Katt said before disappearing into the alley way.

Katt found the entrance to the building and quickly went inside. She silently ran up the stairs and found the second brother leaning against the window, his back to her. Katt silently crept forward and slit the man's throat with her knife. After he fell to the ground, she fired a crossbow bolt through the first brother's eye.

"Go Shannon." Katt thought to herself as she grabbed a brick from the floor and used it to crush the skull of the man she'd just killed to prevent him from coming back. She put her crossbow on her back before grabbing the rifle the second brother had been using. She leaned out the window and watched Shannon's progress, while still scanning for zombies.

 

[RennyStyle]

Shannon stowed her rifle over her shoulder gracefully and broke into a sprint, aiming for the gas station but keeping her eyes open. She stopped before she reached open space, then peered around the corners. Shambling, but on the horizon. Gave her a five minute window.

She tried to communicate this information to Katt with hand signals, hopefully she'd be understood.

Then, Shannon crept low and scrambled across the cracked, weed-infested road towards the pumps.

 

[Aliceinchains36]

Katt watched as Shannon appeared out of the alley way. Shannon waved her hands and pointed to her left, before continuing towards the pumps. Katt assumed that Shannon had just given her a zombie warning, and she checked the rifle she was using. It had a five round clip, plus one bullet in the chamber. Katt removed all of the ammo from the dead man and reloaded the weapon. Then she waited, either for the zombies to be in sight, or for Shannon to finish gathering gas.

 

[RennyStyle]

Shannon reached the pumps. Luckily the brothers weren't as dumb as they looked, they had already started siphoning and collecting gas, knowing they would need it in the future. Beats having to do it herself.

She found two full gas cans and picked them up. She used to lift so it wasn't a problem, but she would welcome Katt helping her out before too long. She kept her head low and started to hustle back. She glanced and saw those zombies were closer than she first thought. She'd better start running.

 

[Aliceinchains36]

"Head for the town's welcome sign!" Katt shouted as Shannon began to sprint away from the gas station. A few moments later a horde of about thirty zombies came rushing after her. "Shit!" Katt said as she fired at the first zombie. It's head exploded and it fell to the ground tripping several other zombies. Katt continued this patter until she emptied the first clip. She reloaded the rifle, and threw the second brother's body from the window before running out of the building. She hoped that the brother's bodies would serve as enough of a distraction for the zombies, so that they wouldn't follow Shannon.

Katt stealthily made her way to the town entrance, silently killing four zombies with her crowbar on the way. She waited anxiously for Shannon to arrive at sign. "Three minute. If she's not here by then I'll go look for her." Katt thought, hoping Shannon would arrive soon.

 

[RennyStyle]

Shannon did her best to catch up, she already felt her arms straining, holding those heavy gas cans. She wished she could grab her pistol and fire back, but she knew it would be pointless. It was unlikely she could get off a good shot, and she'd waste half the haul. They could be back in this same situation much sooner if she dropped them.

A few of the zombies started for the brothers' bodies, but most of them kept on Shannon's tail. They understood a moving target was the right target.

She turned a corner and found herself in spitting distance of the town entrance.

 

[Aliceinchains36]

Katt was about to go looking for Shannon when she saw the woman running towards the entrance with more than a dozen zombies behind her. "Fuck!" Katt hissed as she ran towards Shannon. Katt emptied the rifle, killing four of the lead zombies, wounding another and missing the last shot. "I hope you're up for a good run." Katt said tossing the rifle strap over her shoulder and grabbing a jug of gas from Shannon. The pair ran down the road, with Katt occasionally firing her pistol when a zombie got to close.

Katt and Shannon ran for about three miles before the hoard started to slow. After another two miles the ravenous pack gave up chase. "I think we can stop running now." Katt panted before sitting in the middle of the road. The pair just sat in the road caching their breath before Katt spoke. "Let's keep going. We're almost to the car. Two more miles and we can rest." She said getting to her feet. She grabbed her gas canister before continuing down the road. "That was intense! We make a good team." Katt said drinking some water before offering the bottle to Shannon.