My eyes scanned our surroundings. None of the buildings had a single window intact. We were passing by the mall as we usually do. After four months it had been picked dry of practically everything useful. I know as most of it was done by the rioting and the rest was done by me and Alec.

I saw Alec’s six foot frame out of the corner of my eye. He had stopped and was looking through a wired fence. His light brown hair was being tossed by the winds and I reminded myself that I needed to cut it when I got the chance. As I approached him, I noticed the small orange tabby cat in the alley that he was trying to coax over to him with a piece of tuna. He had opened the can earlier so that we could snack on it as we did our rounds.

The cat seemed to decide it was more hungry then scared and slinked over to us. With a quick swipe, it grabbed the tuna from his fingers and began to growl as it chewed it down. As much of a cat lover that I was, I knew that we shouldn’t be wasting our few food supplies on stray cats.

“We can’t keep it.” I announced.

Alec’s dark eyes looked up to me as he had been bent over. “I know, but we can share can’t we?” Standing up, he stood four inches taller then me.

“With humans, sure.” I surveyed the area as he gave the cat another piece, “Come on, it looks like rain. We should head back.”

He straggled behind for a moment before catching up to me and offered the can of tuna up. I snatched it from his hand and finished it off, before throwing the can over my shoulder. “What’s up?” I asked when I noticed the worried look in his eyes.

“This isn’t working.” Alec sighed, “We aren’t going to find anyone not affected by the virus by walking around in circles everyday.”

I nodded in agreement, “Yeah, we are going to have to move. It’s a tough choice to make though, because at least here we know where everything we need is.”

“Those supplies won’t last forever.”

“And if we head out in the wrong direction we could end up starving to death or worse.” I tried to ignore the frustration that I heard in his tone.

He looked up to the dark clouds forming in the sky, “I doubt anything will be there, but tomorrow we should pack up and head to the hospital. We might find some drugs there or better yet, it’s a good place for people to hole themselves up in.”

“We don’t need drugs.”

Alec frowned at me. He knew that I suffered from back pain. It was a spinal injury that happened to me when I was a young girl. I was in a car accident that had paralyzed me for nearly two years, but I refused to give up on myself. I went to rehab every week until I was walking again. Unfortunately, my back would still object occasionally to holding my weight and I would find myself bed ridden for the rest of the day, at least without pain medication.

I could feel the prescription bottle in my coat pocket, and knew there were only four pills left. I had been trying to ration them out and only taking them when the worst of pain hit. Neither of us knew what we were going to do once I was completely out. If there was one thing that Alec couldn’t stand, it was seeing his older sister in pain. Even if I tried to pretend that it didn’t exist, he knew when I was having a hard time.

“So, to the hospital then?” He asked once the McDonald’s was in sight.

I nodded my head, “Yeah, we will head out tomorrow.”

He opened the door for me and I made my way over to the small campsite we had made inside the fast food restaurant.

We both began to make ourselves more comfortable by removing any excess clothing and weapons from our bodies. Alec was wearing his army combat uniform, where I was in a pair of jeans, a black sweater, and one of his camouflage jackets. I had a black leather jacket, but Alec insisted that I wear some camouflage.

My clothing wasn’t exactly clean, but I wasn’t too worried about bathing or laundry at the moment. Both us probably stunk to high heaven, but we had gotten used to each other’s unwashed smells.

When I was comfortable, I began to dig through some of our canned goods to find what we would be having for dinner. I settled on a can of chili, and opened it with the small can opener on Alec’s key chain. It was a pain in the ass to use, but that was all we had.

I used my fingers to dig my portion of the meal into my mouth, while Alec waited patiently for me to finish. He took the can from me when I offered it to him, and ate in the same fashion. We gave up on spoons and forks, because we didn’t want to waste water cleaning them.

Pulling out a hairbrush, I pulled my hair from its French braid and brushed my dark blonde locks. When I was finished I re-braided my hair and then brushed my teeth with no toothpaste just the brush. Laying my head down on my bundled up jacket, I closed my eyes. Alec and I switched off during the night to take watch. Every two hours we would switch, but he always took first watch.

“Elliot?” I heard him say after a few moments, “You asleep, yet?”

“No.” My eyes fluttered open and I looked at him.

He was sitting crossed legged beside me with a shotgun in hand. “You think…” He began then looked down at his feet.

“What is it?” I asked as I propped myself up on my elbows.

He inhaled deeply, “What if we are the only ones like us? Maybe this virus was suppose to take us back to our more animalistic forms. Since we didn’t, maybe we are the weaker species and are suppose to die.”

I frowned, “I certainly don’t like the thought of that.” My words did nothing for him, so I continued. “Let’s not worry about that until we’ve tried for a little while longer. There has to be more people out there like us.” I put my head back down and closed my eyes. After a moment, I felt Alec take my hand into his for reassurance.

Even though he was bigger and more capable then I was, he still saw me as his big sister. The one who protected him from bullies as kids, and that he had to listen to when I babysat for our parents. It was comforting in its own way, I suppose. Even though I would have probably been killed by now without him, he needed me by his side for strength.

Mabel didn’t like the idea of going back to the hospital, but she didn’t argue with us either. She obviously was use to allowing the adults to make decisions and following through with them. It was also nice to have another person carrying some of the items. She was small for her age, which turned out to be ten and not nine, so she couldn’t carry much. Alec refused to allow her to carry anything of his and had her take some of my load. We hadn’t asked her to carry the tents, but she insisted on being of some use.

I had worried that she would chat our ears off and we would have to constantly tell her to be silent, but she held her tongue. There were times when I forgot that she was even there. Except there were times when she needed reassurance and would touch me. Most of the time it was my hand, but when I had both hands on my gun, she would grab a hold of my belt. As the day went by, she began to do the same with Alec. Though where I glared down at her, he would smile and offer her the reassurance that she needed.

That evening, we were sitting around a campfire and eating our small canned meal of lima beans and tuna. I could tell by the way Mabel crunched her face up every time she ate one, that she didn’t like the lima beans. Still, she ate them as if knowing that this was what we had and there was nothing that complaining could do. When she was finished, I gave her my last Jolly Rancher, which she sucked down happily.

“Do you know how many people are in your group? And are they all family members?” Alec asked her when she started drawing in the dust on the floor of the abandoned building. He probably thought that now that she was safe, she might be able to remember more about her group.

“I don’t know, but there is a lot. We took people from the hospital too and found some while we walked around.” She told him.

“Can you guess how many?”

“Don’t push her, Alec.”

She ignored me, “Twenty?” It came out more like she was asking us if that was a good number.

Alec seemed to discard his line of questioning and finished off the can of tuna. With a growing child with us now, Alec and I didn’t eat as much as usual. Not that we ate very much at all. I use to be slightly overweight by about fifteen pounds, but now I am pretty sure that I am ten pounds under. However, that doesn’t include the extra muscle I have gained from our excursions and the training Alec gave me.

“I got to piss… err pee.” Alec corrected himself.

“Elliot?” Mabel said. Even though I had told her to call me Elly, she had heard Alec continue to use my full name.

“Yeah?” I looked over to her.

She had written all of our names into the dust. “I didn’t tell him, but I know there were only five girls in the group. My mother, me, my big sister, and two others. My Uncle Cole said that most of the women didn’t survive the virus.”

“Oh that’s… not very good news.”

“With you it’ll be six, though!” She said hopefully, “Then we can save humans like my mother said.”

“Save humans?”

“Yeah by having babies.”

I arched my eyebrow, “Uh…” I honestly had nothing to say to that, so I just gave a nod. “Did your father not make it?”

She frowned, “No.”

“Mine didn’t either.” I told her, “Neither did my mother. You are lucky at least there.” I really don’t like kids all that much, but Mabel was starting to become an exception.

“My brother died too.” She sighed and looked into the fire.

“Yes, our sister was killed by zombies not long ago.” I don’t know why I was talking about these things to her. It had to be that Alec refused to talk about it, and I needed to just say something. Actually saying my sister had been killed out loud, I don’t know how, but it just made it real.

“Ex-excuse me?” A voice that I didn’t recognize said from behind Mabel.

Immediately, I yanked out my gun and held it up towards where I had heard the voice. Three men stood not ten feet away from us, and placed their hands in the air when I pointed the gun at them.

“We aren’t infected.” The eldest man who was around thirty seven said. “We just saw your fire and came to see if you guys were.”

I noticed that they all had their own guns on their belts. They must of overheard Mabel and I talking and decided that it was safe so they holstered their guns. With a little reluctance, I lowered my gun and stood up. “Alec!” I yelled as I positioned myself between the three men and Mabel.

Alec appeared within a few seconds and looked at the three men. He raised his gun to them, which in turn made me raise my own back up.

“We really aren’t infected.” The man said again, “I’m Hal Fulbright, and these two are my brothers, Will and Tim.” He pointed to the two younger men beside him.

“What do you want?” Alec barked his question.

“Just safety in numbers. We have food and guns, but those infected creatures are less likely to attack us in groups.”

My brother lowered his gun and so did I. “Bring it here.”

They all nodded and scurried off. It was like some kind of initiation process and they had to prove they were who they said they were. They returned with some meager supplies, but it showed us that they weren’t the zombies. I’ve never seen a zombie carry supplies with them, because they store everything in one place. They never hunted far from their lairs and did not wander out of their territory.

Alec gave a nod and before long we were all settled around the campfire. Hal seemed to be the only one who talked among his brothers. Though Tim’s eyes were glued to me throughout the evening. My brother must of noticed this, because when it was time to sleep, he had both me and Mabel lay near him.

He didn’t trust them and neither did I, so we both decided to continue our two hour watches. The last thing we needed was for these guys to take our food or hurt one of us. During my watches, I sat next to Alec and Mabel’s sleeping forms. My gun was in hand, practically daring these men to make a move.

By the next morning, we were again walking the streets. Alec didn’t trust the three new men with any of our supplies, so it was up to Mabel, him, and me to carry it all. Tim, who walked uncomfortably close to me, kept asking if he could lighten my load, which I would always decline. Something in my stomach told me that these men were not to be trusted, and I was glad that my brother was feeling it too.

Around noon time, we made it to the hospital and Mabel began to tell us the easiest route to medication storage. I didn’t question her on how she knew as she had probably been living there for a while and had made many visits to it with her uncle.

It was obvious that the zombies were using the place as a base camp. We were hidden away in a building across the street from the large white building. Just standing there discussing what we were going to do, I had witnessed no less them six zombies exit the building. What they were up to was anyone’s guess.

“We have to check for medication. We could use it to trade for items.” Alec was arguing with Hal about why this had to be done. I was glad that he was being coy about my back injury, the last thing they needed to know was that I had a weakness.

“If it means that much to you, then go it alone!” Hal barked, “We aren’t looking to get killed. We’ll watch the kid and the supplies.”

Alec looked over at me with uncertainty. We were going to have to leave our supplies behind, but had hoped that Mabel would be hidden away with them. The three men could then enter in with us, which would cut down our time inside.

“Don’t be a pussy!” I growled at Hal. “This is being done for everyone in the group. We know where another party is and we may need leverage to get in. This medicine will be just what we need.”

Hal snorted, “Fuck you! We aren’t looking to get ourselves killed. The three of us managed to last just fine without you and we sure as hell can go on that way.”

“Hal, maybe we should help. They do have an awful lot of supplies.” Tim said and for a moment I thought Hal would backhand him.

“Shut the hell up!” He growled instead then turned his eyes to me, “We ain’t going in there.”

Alec crossed his arms and sighed. With a look towards me, I knew that he wanted me to follow him so we could discuss this away from their ears. When we were a fair distance away from them, he leaned against the wall. “What do you think?”

“I don’t trust them alone with our shit and Mabel. Maybe we should just forget this whole idea and go look for her family.”

“And what are the odds of us finding them? We have to go in there. You need some pain meds, Elliot.” He rubbed his upper arm and looked over my shoulder at the group. “We are just going to have to risk it. Make sure you put as many supplies on you that you can, but make sure you can still move quickly. Our bullets and guns are more important then food, there are plenty of animals running around to eat.”

I wanted to stick out my tongue because I knew he meant rats, dogs, and cats, but I kept my composure. “What about Mabel? We can’t leave her here with men that we can’t even trust with our food.”

Alec wiped his nose with his hand, which was a habit of his when he became stressed. “I feel terrible saying this, but she’s safer with them then with us in there. We’ll tell her to hide and to try to stay away from them while we are gone.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond, which told me that was exactly what we were going to do and I had no say in it. We made our way over to our supplies and began to strap onto our bodies all the ammunition and weaponry that we could. Something about the way that Hal and his brothers looked at us while we did it made me uncomfortable.

My brother walked across the mud filled room and waved Mabel over to him. I assumed that he was telling her to find a hiding place and to stay away from the men. He kneeled down in front of her, so that we couldn’t over hear him.

“What’s going on?” Tim asked me.

“Mabel is going to go hide and you guys can watch the rest of the supplies.” I informed him as I strapped that last handgun I could carry to my belt.

Hal’s eyes went to slits, “Why are you taking all that crap?”

“In case we need it, we need to make sure that we are prepared.” I looked over my shoulder to watch my brother and Mabel leave the room.

“You plan on declaring war? And why can’t the girl stay with us, you don’t trust us?” Hal growled.

“Damn straight we don’t trust you, we don’t even know you. She’s hiding to ensure her safety from the zombies.” And from them as well, but I didn’t want to add anymore fuel to the fire.

Hal snorted at my response as Alec returned to tell them that we were leaving. I gave Tim a quick glance. I don’t know why I did, but for some reason I knew that it would be the last time I would see the trio. Something about the guilt in his eyes told me that my intuition would prove true.

Gina surprised me with her strength. She must have been in horrible pain with all those cuts, bruises, and the rape, but she acted as if nothing was the matter. Perhaps she didn’t want to appear weak to Alec who had made it obvious that she was a burden. Had I been in her shoes there would have been tears and I don’t know if I could have gotten up.

We made our way down the hospital hallway one step at a time. Gina told us that the pharmacy area had been crawling with zombies the last time she had seen it. They could have moved onto bigger and better things like the morgue, where there were dead bodies to feast on. I prayed that they had because the last thing that I wanted to do was kill anyone, zombie or not.

It was strange how silent the hallways were. I had expected the zombies to be loud with their steps and possibly even moan, but there was nothing. The only noise heard was that of my group’s breathing and footsteps.

“They broke the glass door.” Gina mumbled as we approached a hallway, she had leaned against the wall and peered around the corner. I had her scoot over and did the same. There was a doorframe that had once had a glass panel in its center.

“What would they want with drugs?” Alec asked in a whisper.

She shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“Do you think there will be anything left?”

“I don’t know.” She repeated to him, “I told you, it’s been a while since I was last here.”

“There is only one way to find out then.” I peered around the corner to see if I could detect any zombies. “Looks like they’ve abandoned the area.”

“Those bastards can hide anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew we were here.” Gina whispered to me and then grasped her gun handle tighter.

I gave a nod and looked up to Alec, “Do you want to take point?”

He shoved past us and looked towards the door. “Yeah, cover me.”

As Alec made his way to the door, he kept his back toward the wall. I peered around the corner, before leaving my hidden position so I could better protect him. A rumbling noise came from Gina. I turned my head to look at her, and she grabbed her stomach while mouthing the word sorry at me.

As I went to turn my head back to Alec, I felt a sharp pain to my side and my feet leaving the ground. With a hard thud, I landed on the linoleum floor with a heavy weight atop of me. Gina screamed in fright, when I felt the sharp pain in my neck. It was then that I realized one of the zombies had tackled me.

When he pulled his mouth away from my shoulder, I could see his dark facial features and blank eyes. I struggled to fight him off, but he was much stronger then I was. I cried out for my brother, not realizing that he was dealing with his own problems.

Gina couldn’t shoot her gun, because she may have shot me as well. Instead, she turned the gun around and started to beat my attacker in the head with the handle of her gun. Blood from his head wound splattered across from my face, but he didn’t seem phased nor did he act like he knew of Gina’s presence.

He pawed at my clothes, and I realized then that the bite had merely been to stun me. Murder was not his intent in those moments, which made the entire situation even more frightening to me. Gina pulled the gun up as far as she could before delivering a final firm blow. He went limp and his full weight pressed my body against the floor. With help from Gina, we shoved him off me, before I turned my eyes to Alec.

Three zombies were trying to not only keep him away from me, but most likely kill him as well. They always seemed to be more aggressive towards him then me. There was no doubt in my mind now what their reasons were. There wasn’t enough room for him to shoot had he wanted to, but he was more interested in keeping away from the zombies then killing them.

Jumping to my feet, I raced closer towards the brawl. One had gotten a hold of Alec’s arm, so without hesitation I shot the one furthest from him. Gina was right behind me and let out a shot. I don’t know what she was shooting at, but she didn’t hit anyone. Better she hit nothing then one of us, I had thought, before I shot the other one that didn’t have a grip on my brother.

Alec tried to beat the zombie off him with his gun, but realized that it was useless. He dropped it and reached for the hand gun in his belt. Shoving it into the belly of his attacker, he fired. Gina cried out beside me as the bullet landed in her right upper arm. The zombie fell limp to the ground with the others, and Gina kneeled down to hold her fresh wound.

“Shit, are you alright?” Alec ran over to her and fell to his knees in front of her.

“You shot me.” She cried out. There was more shock in her voice, then anger.

I touched the wound on my neck and could feel the deep gashes. Alec looked up at me and immediately noticed the blood on my face and shoulder.

“Are you shot?”

I shook my head, “No, zombie bit me.”

He jumped to his feet and peeled back my layer of clothing. “It’s pretty bad.”

Gina stood up, still holding her arm, and checked my wound. “Yeah, we need to stitch that up. I hope we can find some Novocain and sutures.” She looked around as if she could find them in the hallway.

Alec nodded and ran into the pharmacy, while Gina went to check in one of the nearby supply rooms. I was left to watch the hall, though I was beginning to feel lightheaded. As I watched a small puddle of blood form under my dangling hand, I realized that the wound must be deep.

I was lucky enough that the zombies had no interest in the supply closet, and Gina was able to find some sutures. Alec, however, found that the pharmacy had been mostly picked dry. He found a large bottle of ibuprofen pills and some Hycodan.

“Nothing that I can give to her through a syringe?” Gina asked as he held up the small and large bottle, neither were very powerful dosages.

He shook his head and Gina dropped the syringe in her hand.

“Let’s wrap this up and get out of here. This might take a while, and I don’t think it will be safe.” Alec said.

Gina agreed and began to bandage my wound up, ignoring the fact that she was bleeding from her own arm. When some of the bleeding had stopped, Gina turned to her own wound. My stomach began to hurt and my lightheadedness continued. I didn’t bother to tell either of them of my new symptoms.

When Gina was done, we began to make our way out of the hospital. I prayed that Mabel was alright, and hoped that the group we had left behind was still waiting for us.