Chapter Text
I don't really remember much about anything that happened the week after mom and dad died. Everything went by in a blur, and I tried to not think about them, and Clara did the same. We had eventually reached papaw's house and we welcomed us with open arms. I had been the one to tell him about mom and dad, and he said he would protect us to the best of his ability. He was seventy-nine years old, so it wasn't saying much. Clara and I helped to protect the house as much as we could.
We set up an electric fence around his farm, set up a trap by the barn so the animals couldn't get infected, and even started gardening for food. Our grandmother had passed away several years ago, so it was just me, Clara, Papaw, his two cows, three sheep, horse named Samuel, and his sheep herding dog, Grover. We lived comfortably, living off of the fruits and vegetables growing in his garden and occasionally eating meats he had saved in the freezer in the cellar. It wasn't until Christmas that things started going bad.
It was Christmas Eve, but neither Papaw or I told Clara that. We obviously couldn't get her any presents and we couldn't tell her that Santa had become infected, too, so we just never mentioned it. It was snowing pretty bad, and we were running low on wood, so I decided to go out into the woods by the house and get some. I then learned that zombies aren't effected by the cold. It was a grown man, with blue lips and his face half torn off. It was a more intelligent zombie, who wasn't fooled by our electric fence and began to circle around it, his good eye staring at the house with the other one hanging loosely out of its socket.
I called him Harvey Dent.
The snow storm had started on Christmas. It was a week later, and the storm still wouldn't let up. Eventually, the box that kept the electric fence on couldn't take the cold and the wet snow and stopped working. Once Harvey Dent realized that, he hopped it and ran straight for the house. Papaw then told us that he had served in the military once, and he could handle some "undead scum." Sadly, Papaw forgot he was seventy-nine, and the zombie didn't hesitate to take him down and bite him. I had shot a bullet through his head before he could do any serious damage, but the most fatal damage had already been done.
Clara and I then had to pack up all of our stuff, because neither of us had the heart to shoot him in the head and we weren't in the mood to let our undead grandfather eat us alive. We figured that we would take his old pickup truck and drive over to the nearest city, wherever that was. We first attached the horse trailer on the back of it and ushered Samuel inside. Gas couldn't last forever in conditions like this.
We brought all of his equipment and medical supplies and headed off. It was a long five hour drive, with my little sister complaining all the way about Samuel's poop smell, but it was worth it in a way. In the city, there were buildings collapsing right before our eyes. Skyscrapers were toppled over one another and fifty story buildings were broken and leaning on one another. Abandoned cars littered the streets and police tape was everywhere.
Apparently, the last remaining officials of the city had banned together and began to make a set list of rules and even started a food pantry. The biggest rule in the city was that you could not be outside of a building after dark or you were shot and killed on the spot. Up until the next spring, Clara, Samuel and I lived dull lives in an abandoned apartment. It was then that we met Daniel.
I was at the food pantry in town, getting Clara some chicken noodle soup for her minor cold when a boy, around my age, started talking to me.
"Hey," he eyed me closely. "I've never seen you around here. Are you new?"
"No," I kept my eyes on the food pantry working and then onto my sister's soup. I didn't like making eye contact. "I've lived here for five months now."
"Then why have you never come here?"
"I never needed to."
"Then why are you here now?" I looked up at him and glared.
"My little sister is sick. Now will you leave me alone?" His ice blue eyes seemed to pierce straight through me.
"Hey," he smiled apologetically. "I didn't mean to pry. I was just too curious. I'm sorry."
"It's fine. I'm still a bit uptight about everything that's going on."
"Yeah, my mom is the same way."
"You still have your mom?!"
"Yeah, my mom had me and my brothers when she was really young, and my father left her. So I'm eighteen and she's thirty-five." He smirked.
"Wow," I said with a sigh. "You're all lucky."
"Yeah..." He put a hand on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry you lost your parents. If you want, I could probably help you out with your little sister."
"Wouldn't it be strange to let a stranger into 'my' apartment?" He laughed.
"I'm Daniel."
"Leslie." I smirked. "The apartment is this way." It was only a five minute walk and we passed the time by talking. Him, his two brothers and his mother lived on the opposite side of the food pantry, so it was a short distance. We walked inside to see Clara coughing on the old stained couch and our horse on the opposite couch snoring.
"Is that a horse..?!"
"What? Never seen a horse in an apartment before?" Daniel laughed whole-heartily and sat on the floor by Samuel. I carefully handed Clara the soup.
"Who's this guy?" she crinkled up her nose to Daniel.
"This is Daniel. Don't worry, he's okay."
From that point on, Daniel and I had become close friends and it wasn't until two months later that he introduced Clara and I to his two brothers and his mother. His brothers, Draven and Sam, we're twins that were only ten and his mother, Martha, looked around twenty-one. We all worked well together, so well that we all began living together.
We helped each other out by finding food, keeping our shelter zombie-proof and finding medicine when any of us were sick. Every weekend, we walked thirty minutes to the woods and practiced shooting and using knives. I became a melee expert in our group and my little now-seven-year-old sister became too comfortable with a gun.
Sometimes, it was nice remembering the past; when we first met. Now it's been four years since the beginning of this hell, and it's been three years with this small group. We're still holding onto our lives and still optimistic about finding a cure.