¨Where are we mom?¨ I asked with a whimper.
¨I’m sorry sweetie, but I don't know.¨ She replied and curled up beside me and my crying brother. I heard a door open.
¨Why, hello there! I am Jack Sliver!¨ said a man with a voice like gravel.
¨Where are we?¨ my mom asked him.
¨Well, I had my son go scouting and he saw you three. It gave him quite a scare since, well, the outbreak. He thought you were changed!¨ He said and sounded very formal.
¨W-What's an outbreak, Momma?¨ I heard my little brother asked with a sob.
¨It’s... let's say monsters are out there, my little blue jay,” she said and held him. They always were close. I'm too jumpy to be around many people.
¨Are we forced to stay here, Sir? Or can we change lodging?¨ I asked him fast and then huddled back to the corner where I was sitting just a few minutes ago.
¨Oh of course you will be moved! We wanted to make sure you weren't bit or anything so my son, Damian, put you in-!¨
The sound of the man's voice cut off when someone started yelling my name.
¨Wake up, Lily!¨ my best friend yelled.
¨Are we still in this dang zombie apocalypse!?¨
¨Ye-¨
¨Is Hazel still around?¨
“Okay, so, Hazel went to look for food. And yes we are still in this zombie apocalypse!¨ he said, shaking me some more.
¨Then let me- Wait. No Hazel?¨ I asked, my eyes popping open almost immediately.
¨Ugh, yes she is gone! When are you gonna admit you like Damien?¨ he said, practically pulling me out of bed.
¨I am up then!¨ I said ignoring his question, jumping up and ran to the bathroom to brush my hair and get dressed.
¨Got this for you. Stole it from my sister.¨ Jake said, handing me a bag that held something heavy but soft in it.
¨No way, Jake! Thank you so much!¨ I said and hugged him. Once my clothes were on I looked at myself in the mirror I found a few months ago in an abandoned Walmart. Camouflage leggings and a tank top with my bow and arrow to go with it. Now time for hair.
¨Want me to do a braid, Lily?¨ Jake asked me from the hallway and walked towards me. He always did my hair.
¨No. I was thinking of just a ponytail today.¨ I said and he threw my hair up.
¨You have long hair you know.¨ he said as we were walking out the door of the house I ‘owned’.
¨I know. I just never cut it.” and Jake ran off.
¨Hey there, Newbie.¨ I heard Damian yell, a few minutes after Jake ran off, behind me and I let him catch up.
¨I'm not that new, Damian.¨ I said and blushed a little. Okay, so I like Damian. A lot. But, my other best friend is dating him. So he isn't up for grabs. I love his brown hair, and how tall he is with his ocean blue eyes. And when I say he is tall, I mean it. He looks like a giant beside Jake.
“Sure, you’re not. But that is still your nickname. Now, time for exercise.” He said and we ran towards sector twelve, which is where the gym is. We refer to things as sectors because it keeps things in order around here.
“Okay, so how has Hazel been?” I asked when we arrived at sector twelve.
“I don’t know honestly. She has been distant,” He said.
“Yeah same for me. Hey, did you know I’m better around more people now? I am stronger, too.” I asked him and smiled when he looked at me in surprise.
“That’s great,” he said and we got busy working out.
A few hours later, we finished working out and got busy training the baby cougars the camp had. We also had wolves, tigers, lions, and a few other dangerous animals. Some people here were travelers that found them and brought them here. The animals are for protection.
“Okay, so here is the truth. I hate wolves.” He said and I slapped him.
“No one hates wolves on my turf.”
“Okay! Sorry for mentioning my hate for wolves.” He said and fed a baby cougar that was curled up in his lap.
“Good. Also, Jake said that he saw a group of zombies over by the-” I heard screaming and a horn.
“So, zombies? Get the baby animals.” He yelled and ran out the door saying he's getting my brother and Jake.
I rounded up all the baby animals and put them in kennels in the room I was in and made sure they stayed calm even though I could tell they were scared because of their wi“Open the door, Lily!!” I heard Damian yell from the other side of the door, and rushed over and threw the door open.
There was my brother, Jake, my mom, and our dog.
“Get inside guys! Zombies behind us!” Damian yelled and they all pushed into the room and slammed the door shut.
“Okay, Lilly, do we have all the animals in here? And the food?” He asked and checked all the kennels to make sure there was the right amount of animals.
“How did you know where Jay and I were?” My mom asked Damian and held Jay close to her.
“I saw you and Jay and just told you what was happening. And I knew where your job was.” Damian said and sat down beside me.
“Okay. Why are we here?” She asked and this one I answered, “Because it was where we were. And I found a momma wolf in the corner of the room. Probably snuck in when someone left.” I said and ts’d the wolf, which crawled over to me and curled up beside me, and Damian sat across from us looking at the wolf warily.
“Oh. Okay, and we have enough food to last how long?”
“At least a week. Maybe two, if we ration it enough But, this was always going to be an evacuation room, so we have food, milk, anything animals and humans would need.” I said and got up to go to a secret door, “The food is in here and the other hidden door has heat sources, inflatable beds, lanterns, anything that isn’t food-related.”
“Okay, how do you know all this, Lilly?” Damian asked, “Even I didn’t know that.”
“Well, I sometimes spend nights here cause I like having the animals around me and I found the doors and looked inside. There is a paper that I found.” I grabbed a paper and read it out loud.
“This paper is for emergency use only. Read the following before use.
This is how to ration food and care for animals here:
Red cans for wolves, cougars, and lions
Blue for tigers, bears, and wolves
Green for all birds
Pink for any baby animal
The rest of the food is for humans and dogs
Warning! If red, blue, or green are eaten by humans or dogs use antibiotics and tallied medicine
Heat source plugins are in gray totes
lanterns in black totes
Beds in white totes
Thank you for reading and understanding”
“Very informative,” Damian said once I finished reading it out loud, “Have you found all the colored ones?” He asked me and tried finding something.
“Yes. Ya’ll don’t know where it is though. So go into the other room and get four beds, they are on the left corner once you enter, while I get food for us, the baby animals, and momma wolf. I named her Emerald.” I said and he went off to find the beds while I grabbed the food, “Oh, and some lanterns. It’s gonna be a long and dark night without those.”
Once Damian had the beds set up and my brother laying down trying to sleep we got an idea set up for tomorrow.
“Okay, so, Mom you will stay here with Jay and the animals. Jake you will go outside animal shelters to see if anything survived. Damian, Emerald, and I are gonna try to find a breach and any survivors in houses, But Jake in the morning we are gonna go to the arena and see if any grown animals survived. They will be our main protection for a little bit.”
“She is right. Those animals are our protection. At least until we finish fixing this place up. And getting all the zombies out.” Damian said and sat down on a bed.
“Okay, what time is it right now? Cause if we have enough time we can go out and get checking the arena out before dusk.” Jake said and tried finding something to tell time by, “Anything in the totes we can use for time telling? Cause if we go out right now and it is night time then we are dead meat.”
“I don’t think so, but there could be and we just don’t know it. I didn’t look through it much. Just sorted colors and did some other stuff.”
“Well, that is not good. How about Damian, you, and I go out to scout. If it is dark we come back. If it isn’t then we go to the animals first. Then we will come back and figure out what to do next.”
“W-What if they break through the door?” My mom stuttered when she spoke.
“The door is titanium steel, Mom.” I said and tried to calm her down, “Trust me, they won’t get in. I promise.”
“Why are you not huddled in a corner, Lily?” Jake asked me and I realized I forgot to tell him I can be around more people.
“Cause I’m ain’t huddled in a corner.”
Jake just 'mhm’d' me and grabbed an apple.
♦002.00♦
Once we got out we had to find out if it was daytime or nighttime. That meant going outside.
“Okay, Lily, what are we gonna do?” Jake asked me
“Uh why ask me? I mean, you should be thinking too.” I said and we started to bicker.
“Shut it!” Damian said and we stopped talking and stared at each other like he was gonna give us a lecture, “We don’t need to fight when we have a job to do.”
“Sorry.” Jake and I apologized to each other.
“Now who has an idea for where to go?” Damian asked and turned to us - he was facing a wall rubbing his hand together.
“There is an upstairs room with windows.” I said, and he looked at me, “What?” I said and he looked away real fast.
“Nothing, I was just gonna ask that question actually. So, what?”
“I like exploring! I found the room and I thought it was weird to have an upstairs room with nothing in it.” I said putting my hands up like ‘hey it’s not my fault I’m an explorer’ and Jake just laughed.
“I will ask later. Right now we need to get up there and see if it is night or day.” Damian said smiling at the way I reacted like they would make fun of me.
“Good idea.” Jake said after Damian just stared at me for what seemed like forever, and Jake leaned down and whispered “I ship it.” in my ear and I smacked him.
“Don’t mess with me, Jake. Now let’s get upstairs. I do not trust being down here right now.” I said and Jake backed away laughing.
“Show us where it is. We don’t know where it is.” Jake said.
“Yeah, yeah I get it. C’mon.” I said and led the way to a stairway and up the stairs to a room that was empty as heck.
“This is it. And we have to move those boxes-” I pointed to a pile of boxes to the left of me “-if we’re gonna see if it is night or day.”
“This would make an awesome extra room for animals,” Damian said and started grabbing the boxes to move them out of the way.
“Or an extra storage room,” Jake said and they started talking about how they could change the room.
“Are y’all gonna move the boxes or talk about renovation?” I said after a few minutes as I was grabbing the first box I found and moved it to the other side of the room.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re coming.” They said at the same time then looked at each other and started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I said and stared at them while they were laughing.
“Nothing. Let’s just get the boxes outta the dang way.” Jake said and grabbed a few small boxes humming a song that was rarely sung or hummed because it was considered a “devil’s curse”.
“Don’t you dare start singing, Jake! You’re singing is horrible.”
“Mhm sure. How good is your singing, Lily?” He said and stopped humming.
“I don’t know. I never tried singing.”
Damian chimed in, “You should try sometime. Singing helps a lot of people calm down after they had a bad day or something like that. Like with your shyness singing can sometimes express how you feel.” he finished getting the last of the boxes out of the way by then.
“Maybe. Anyway, go take a look. Then if it’s day we go down there and kill some zombos.” I was thinking about what we would do if there were no survivors because this place would need to be fixed up and the zombies need to be killed. Then there is the fact that people did survive but could be seriously injured and need medical help immediately and have nothing that can help the-.
“Earth to Lily! You there?” Jake was talking about something and I had zoned him out.
“I’m here. Just thinking. What were you saying?”
“That it is daytime and it looks about three P.M. so we will have about four or five hours to kill some zombies and check the houses.”
“Okay! Let’s go back to Mom and Jay and tell them what we found.”
“Sure! We can grab Emerald and then head out.”
Once we got back we knew something had happened.
“Where is Mom and Jay, Emerald?” I said in a worried voice as I pet the wolf and she whimpered and ran in circles at my feet as I tried to calm her down. “Something’s wrong, guys. Emerald is acting weird. She never whimpers and acts like she is right now.”
“Yeah. She is by far the calmest wolf this place raised.” Jake said and he sat down on one of the beds that was set up.
Suddenly I heard another whimpering–type sound and walked slowly towards the hidden room that stored anything edible.
“Jay! Where is Momma?” I said and picked Jay up.
“Momma said I had to hide from the bad man that came...” He said and started crying.
“It’s okay. Momma is okay.” I hope I added silently.
“We need to recruit. Who is the bad man, Lil guy?” Damian said.
“Momma said he was a man that hurt people.”
“Blake.” Me and Jake said together.
“Okay who is, Blake?”
“Ex-boyfriend’s dad who was creepy as heck and rude as heck also. He liked my Mom and he would always come over to our old house and would follow her around town.”
“How did he find her though?” Jake asked me.
“I don’t know.”
“We need to head out, Lily. Are you staying or coming?”
“I’m coming. One second though.” I said and grabbed a backpack type thing and put Jay in it. “Stay in this, Blue Jay.” I said and made sure he was tucked in safely.
“C’mon, guys.” Jake said and he took the lead with Damian behind me.
“Zombie on your left, Jake!” I said and he shot it. “Be sure to make those bullets last, we can’t run out of them right now.”
This went on for about an hour, me telling them where there were zombies and them shooting. We ran out of bullets and so we started using our knives and anything sharp that can penetrate a brain.
“Check the houses, Jake. Me and Damian will check and see if there are any resources.”
“M’kay. We will meet up at the gym area.” Jake said, looked at me then Damian, and ran into the first house followed by a zombie falling in the doorway and a scream from what sounded like a little kid, in which I hoped they were okay.
“Why did you go with me instead of Jake?” Damian asked me.
“Because I already spend almost all day around him.”
“Cool. Anyway, is Jay asleep?”
“I don’t know. Can you check real quick please?”
“Sure.” He checked it. “Yep he’s asleep.”
“Did you know me and Hazel broke up?” He told me after about an hour.
“You did?” I said, surprised.
“You seem happy.” He said.
“No I’m not happy. It’s just a surprise.”
“Well I am surprised cause Jake told me if I told you it would be something different then surprised.”
Dang it, Jake. You just had to tell Damian I like him didn’t you?
“Well I don’t know what he is talking about.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get the resources and get back to the safe spot.” He said, grabbed my hand, and let go. Almost like he didn’t realize he was even holding my hand.
“Y-Yeah.”
Once we finished we met up with Jake at the gym and found there were a lot more survivors then we thought. Five kids, two babies, and ten adults.
“The kids were in the school with Mr. Jamond and Mrs. Mason. The rest of them were spread around in a few houses.” Jake explained.
“Where is your mom?” Mrs. Raymond asked me in a serious tone.
“She was with us but someone took her. Jay told us what she said but I am really worried about her. She may be in serious danger.”
“Where is Jay?”
“He is in the back pack. I made it a holder because I had to help Damian and Jake with killing the zombies and recruiting you guys.”
“Where is my mommy, Lily?” A little girl asked me.
“I don;t know right now but I promise we will look. For now we are gonna bring you guys to the nursery. How about you go get Wolfie then we can hurry and get there.” I told her and she ran off saying, “Okay”.
“Wolfie?” Jake asked me laughing.
“We need volunteers to help find the break-in and bury anyone killed. We also need people with severe injuries to follow the little kids and me. The nursery has food, beds, water, and medical kits.” I said and got five people with severe injuries and four people that volunteered to help find the break in.
“Can I talk to you alone?” I heard Damian whisper behind me and I jumped in surprise.
“Sure.” I replied and asked Jake to watch Jay.
Me and Damian walked to a quiet area and I thought I felt someone watching me and Damian but thought nothing of it.
“So all I wanted to say is I know you were happy about me and Hazel breaking up and wanted to say I was happy too.” He said and, since he is taller than me, bent down and kissed me.
It was like everything around me went away. All that was there was me and Damian. Until Damian broke the kiss off.
“You like me. Don’t you?” He asked me and I noticed he was blushing a slight bit.
“Y-Yeah..” I said and he kissed me again.
“Can we try dating then?”
“Sure.” I said and blushed.
We started walking back holding hands and Jake stared at us for a second and then handed me Jay.
“Thanks.” I put Jay back in the backpack and made sure he was in it safely and wouldn’t fall out. “Five minutes until we head out guys!!”
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