Young Writers Society

*Warning-Swearing-Zombies*

Leaves ruffle all around me, as I sit by our small handmade firepit. In a mere moment, my knife is instinctively in my hand and I'm standing in the fight or flight stance. We have recently run out of arrows and ammo, so now I'm stuck with this semi-sharp knife to defend against who knows how many rotters.

The rustling keeps getting closer and closer. My heart beats faster and faster. My body keeps telling me to run but my own damn arrogance tells me to fight.

"Woah, C. Calm down, it's just me." I breathe a sigh of relief and lower my knife.

"You scared the living crap out of me Jacob! I thought you were a Rotter!" I whisper yelled. I was never a loud person, and now that being loud is sort of a death sentence, I'm ok with that. Grateful even.

"Not yet," He grins his stupid grin. I cross my arms.

"Don't joke about that," I pout and smack his chest. he grimaces in mock pain.

"Ok, ok. Just stop beating me up," he fake sobs, "Sheesh, for a short girl, you hit hard..." I shove him to the side and let out a light, breathy chuckle.

"Hey! I'm not that short! you're just a... Giant!" he rolls his eyes.

"Trust me C, I know short when I see it and you, My dear, are short."

"Am not." I huff.

"If we had pictures of every short person standing beside one another, no one would see you." He smirks.

"That was a terrible representation." I struggle not to smile at his Derpiness.

"I know." He laughs before kissing me lightly. I pull away. Rolling my eyes at his smug smile, I pick up all my stuff and throw it in a backpack.

I'm not that short, really. I'm probably about 5 foot 6 inches, so I guess I'm actually pretty tall for a girl. It's just that 'Sir.Jacob-The-Stubborn' here is so freakishly tall. At 6 foot 3 inches he's like a 50-foot flagpole in a sea of 30-foot trees. The trees being Rotters. It kinda counteracts my whole 'Quiet voice doesn't attract Rotters' thing, doesn't it?

Jacob stomps out the fire and we finish packing all of our stuff in our 2 bags. It's not much. We have 1 sleeping bag (It fits both of us, plus body heat is about the only thing we have to warm us up at night.) 3 bottles of water, 2 cans of soup, a package of about 10 crackers, and a small, half-filled hotel shampoo bottle. Oh, and a hammer. For weapons we have 2 almost dull knives (one for each of us), Jacob's machete, my bow and empty quiver, and 2 pistols with no ammo.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize we might be more screwed than I thought.

"You ready C?" Jacob asks while shrugging on his backpack. I lift myself to my feet and brush off my hands and knees.

"Yea, I think so..?" I knit my eyebrows, "Do you have everything?"

"That sounded like more of a question than an answer." He tickles my side. I stumble sideways a bit, surprised at the sudden attack on my side. My dark brown hair falling in my face. That's a definite no-no. I stop and flip my head upside down quickly tieing my hair in a high ponytail.

"What is this? Pick on Camilla day?" I groan.

He makes a buzzing sound, implicating that I was wrong. "Try-again," he says in a metallic robot voice. I laugh slightly.

"Ummm... Be a jerk day?" He shakes his head and makes the buzzing sound.

"Make annoying sounds day?" I smile smugly, without teeth, exposing the singular dimple on the left side of my face.

"Wrong-Again" Jacob-bot claims. I sigh. I hate guessing.

"Then what is it?" I'm starting to get a little irked. I may have a bit of a temper.

"Its Thursday," he states bluntly. I give him a look that would make probably make any on-looker think Jacob just he could shoot rainbows out of his ass or some shit. I try not to laugh.

"And how do you know that?" I test, raising an eyebrow.

"I... uh... I..." he rubs the back of his neck. "You see... the sun is highest on Thursday... and if you'll look up.. I...uh..-" he starts babbling.

"You actually have no idea do you?" I laugh, grabbing his hand.

"Not a god damn clue." he laughs with me, rubbing little circles on the back of my hand with his thumb.

Its been like this since the beginning. Well... Not the beginning-beginning. We met a month after the outbreak, I was an aspiring author with a rather messed up the childhood, and he was an Engineering student with protective parents, a rebellious attitude, and a big heart. And now, here we are, like 2 peas in a pod. We have barely been seen apart. That is how we've survived, I guess. We're two different people, With a similar goal. He helped me when I sprained my ankle running away from a herd of Rotters, and I helped him when people attacked our old group and shot him in the arm. He tried to help me find my best friend. I tried to help him find his sister. It's a team effort.

"So, what's the plan champ?" I ask, eager to get arrows and ammo so we can get some squirrel or something to eat. Sheesh, before the end of the world, I never would have ever even thought of eating squirrel, and now it's the only thing I want. Rationing the last cans of food really makes you desperate.

"I was thinking we look around for any abandoned campsites before going to that little town off the highway. I remember seeing a hunting supply store. it's probably raided, but we might get lucky and find some bullets someone had dropped in a rush." he shrugs and I nod. I pull my hand from his and look up at his face.

"Sounds like a plan." I pull my knife from my belt." Are we going together, or are we splitting? "

"Splitting, we will cover more ground that way. But, we stay within screaming distance, just in case. If you find anything worthwhile or if you get into trouble, use the bird whistle. I will come running. I'll do the same. And for gods sakes, be careful. Got it?" he asks strictly. His dark, ocean blue eyes contain worry. I roll my own grayish/blue eyes.

"Of course, I'll be fine. I wouldn't be here today if I couldn't take care of myself." He kisses me before walking towards the brush. I watch his tall and slightly muscular frame, strong shoulders and the head full of knotted black hair walk away, before turning to walk in the other direction.

I feel like I'm walking forever. My feet ache, but I trudge on. I get slightly lost in my thoughts a couple times even though every time I do start thinking too much, I get startled out of them every once in awhile by a bird, or a squirrel, but I haven't found one Rotter, or anything other than trees really. I groan and look around. I start panicking.

Where the hell am I?

I do the whistle. Nothing in return.

Shit.

I whistle again. Still nothing.

I hear moans and groans coming from my left, and I see a few bushes move. I stumble backward. That's not just one rotter. They are coming from every direction and I'm standing here like a mouse caught in a trap. This just keeps getting better and better.

I'm frozen in place for what feels like forever, when in reality, could have only been a few seconds. My hands are trembling and my legs are shaking. I tell myself to run, but my feet stay planted firmly on the ground.

Now don't get me wrong, I can handle my own. But when there is a hoard of them coming towards me while I'm BY MYSELF, I may or may not be having cold feet.

My common sense and my feet only seem to grasp the situation when a few tufts of filthy, unarranged, practically non-existant hair enter my line of sight. I'm suddenly running as fast, if not faster than I would have thought humanly possible.

"I ain't gonna die today bitches," I mumble between breathes.

I feel like I'm flying. The world around me is going by in a blur. I

can still almost feel their leather like fingers on the back of my neck. can almost hear their forces pants, gurgles, and moans. I can smell the wretchedly sweet smell of rotten human flesh that I have become so accustomed to. I can imagine the horrific pain when their teeth sink into my pale skin, and how I would scream. Those thoughts just make me run faster. I trip on an exposed tree root and my ankle twists in a way no joint in the human body should, and in the process, my worn leather work boot slips off my foot and flys backward .

"Damn it!" I hiss before I push myself up as quick as I can. My left ankle is throbbing with every step as I limp in the direction I was going. There is no time for the shoe. My life is more important than the shoe anyways.

I'm acting frantic now. Searching for a place to hide. I may have lost them temporarily, and they may be slow, but at the moment, I'm basically a model exposed on the runway. All eyes on me. Every step I take sends extraordinarily painful jolts up my calf, causing me to have to hold back my scream by biting my lip until I taste blood.

There is a tree I could climb, but I don't know if I can make in up with my assumingly broken ankle. The sound of hundreds of uncoordinated feet are coming in my direction. I look at the forest behind me and back to the tree, and I groan.

I don't think I have a choice.

I bite my lip and grasp the branch above my head. I pull. My hands are sweating and I feel myself slipping. The Rotters are getting closer. My chest is tight and it's hard to breathe. Everything is going to fast, the sounds, my breathing, the footsteps...

In my panic, my injured foot pushes itself against the trunk of the tree. Tears fill my eyes and make my world all glossy. I hold on. My other foot joins my injured one on the trunk, I hug the branch I'm hanging from and walk up the side of the tree.

They are much closer now. If I don't get up this tree in a matter of a minute, I am going to be nothing but a pile of dismembered body parts.

'Breath Camilla, it's just like when you were a kid and you used to climb trees with Ami... Do you remember that?' I start saying to myself, 'You used to have so much fun! Now all you have to do is climb this tree. They can't climb so you will be safe up there, ok? now on the count of three your going to pull yourself up." I nod to myself.

"Three..." I take a deep breath.

"Two..." my muscles tightened"

"...One!"

I am almost all the way up when a hand grabs my ponytail and pulls. I almost lose my balance but I let go of the tree with one of my hands and use it to shove off the hand. I turn on the branch and hug it. The branch is now underneath me. I get on my knees and look down. On the ground beneath my tree, there is a group of about 11 Rotters. they all are looking up at me with their big, foggy, dead eyes, and their hollow faces. There are seemingly hundreds of others walking by without a care in the world.

I sit down on the next branch up and put up my middle finger at them. They started making louder noises and clawing at the tree and I just laughed. Well.. I tried to laugh. my ankle lets out a throb right as I do and turns my laugh into a quite moan in pain. I lift up my ankle and examine it.

My foot looks like it just fought Mike Tyson. It's bleeding from the bottom because I was walking and climbing a tree without a shoe on. it has major bruising around the ankle area. and it's filthy. However, I don't think it's broken. it might just be sprained.

The adrenaline has finally worn off and now I'm thrown it not a spike of pain. Tears run down my face and I clutch my ankle.

This is going to be a long night.