Sara Dawson's Story

Feet pounded onto the ground and breath came out in strangled huffs and puffs, a few choice curse words flying out of slightly cracked lips with every stride. It was just her luck to end up getting the attention of a fucking runner. To make things worse, Sara was pretty sure it was that kind of hot girl from Spanish, who wasn't really all that hot anymore.

"Balls," She glared at the dead end in front of her, and then down at the sharpened ruler in her hand. Girl fucking scouts hadn't prepared her for this shit, that was for sure. The not so pretty zombie was right behind her, and now she only had one choice. Perfect. I would rather do math than this. Sara sighed and spun around, her legs spreading out and her arms rising into a defensive position.

Things hadn't been too bad at first, the teachers had helped a lot of the kids, keeping up lessons, the gym teacher had taken to chaining up a few zombies in the gym and giving us lessons on how to kill them. That had lasted a total of one day when some moron got close enough to get bitten. Anyway, things had been great until the zombies came in a herd and took out the school. Honestly, it's not like it was a big surprise. We knew they were out there, we knew they had basically taken over the damn world. We knew, and we ignored it. It's our own faults.

Whose idea was it for her to go scout the area again? Not like that mattered anymore, because in a minute she might be dead. If I get turned into one of those ugly sons of bitches I'm so going after that bitch from AP English. Sara crouched down lower as she running came into the sight. Without a moments hesitation, she charged it head on. Just mere inches from the Zombie, Sara dropped down and slid between it's legs. She twisted around and popped up as soon as she was clear, driving the ruler through the back of its head with such vigor the piece of wood snapped in half.

The Zombie made a gurgling noise before it fell forward, and landed in a heap. Sara let out a shaky breath and took a step back-
only the plunge into an ice cold river. Honestly, it's funny how to can forget to take in your surroundings when you're so focused on pinpointing near by zombies, a few years ago Sara would have picked up on the river first, as a kid she had loved rivers, loved to swim and play in them. Her father had taught her all she knew about the wilderness.

Now, the eighteen year old was sinking down into darkness, wondering with disdain how this had all even happened. The worse part about this apocalypse shit is that none of the survivors knew how it started. No one knew what their friends and family had to die, all they knew was that it was shit.

Sara let the air leave her lungs and travel up to the surface in bubbles, before she pushed up and out of the water, heaving her drenched form from the river bank, and slowly trugging back to camp. No doubt she looked like a drowned cat, but at least she had found an unaffected water source, and that was the first bath she had had in in nearly three weeks. Fan-fuckiong-tastic.

"You know my cousins gay. Maybe this is a good thing Lex, I mean.. boys are really stupid anyways and theyre rude and they smell. Well you kinda smell too so before we work on getting you a girlfriend we need to work on your hygiene a bit." said Chloe looking at Lexie and mimicking the idea by plugging her nose and waving the air in front of her face. Lexies tears quickly stopped, she chuckled and threw a pillow at Chloe. "You butt, I do not smell like a boy!" "Well you sure do throw like a girl!" exclaimed Chloe, throwing a pillow back at Lexie. The girls laughed and the ensuing pillow fight took place.

Lexie smiled at the memory and looked down as her fingers idly played with the cross around her neck. Chloe was dead. Her parents dead. Her brother.. dead. She remembered leaving in the morning, grabbing a poptart and kissing her mother on the cheek saying "I love you." Her brother was asleep and her father was at work. She never got to say goodbye to them. Now they are dead. Lexie sighed, moved her hands through her hair and took a deep breath, not letting tears fall out. She turned around and made her way back to camp.

She walked in the house, grabbed a quick cup of the last of the coffee that Urainie had made that morning, and went back to ironing the laundry. Lexie didn't know how to shoot, she didn't know how to use a weapon, but she did know how to iron, she knew how to cook, she knew to clean, basically everything that Urainie knows how to do except for the leading, socializing, and combat. Urainie knew how to do everything Lex does but Urainie does it better. That didnt stop Lex by any means to try and contribute. She took up the chores as Urainie usually had more important stuff to do. The least Lex could do was help out with the basic housewife duties. She may not be able to use a weapon and protect herself.. but she can do this.

Lexie saw Sara come through the door. Stopping herself from getting too hung up on Sara's beautiful looks, she realized Sara was soaking wet. Lexie quickly grabbed a fresh set of clothes and walked over to Sara. Lex helped Sara get out of her wet clothes, took a few unnoticed glances at Sara's body, blushed hard and handed her the fresh clothes. Lexie took Sara's wet ones to go and hang in the secured backyard so they could dry.

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Location
Top floor of Macy's
{Clothing department store}.

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that cash register that Urainie somehow had the thought to collect as much as she could whenever she makes enough to move out into a new state, or maybe country ever since the corpse's that took over town no more than a month or two ago. Things went down hill then; families and friends were practically getting eaten alive, people thought it'd be best if they commited suicide, hell, some even through themselves at the corpse's like a sack of potatoes. Everyone except for Urainie Amethyst Patel, that is, and a few other of her classmates that managed to survive the catastrophe in one piece: Oliver, the airhead. Sara, the pessimist. Donnie, the stoner. Lexie, the wallflower. Manny, the outsider. Alex, the optimist. And, Anubis, the prick. If Urainie was informed that she would be paired up with a couple of her classmates during a zombie apocalypse, she would've never expected it'd be with seven kids that either was truly insane or off the edge. Guess it was Jesus Christ himself who wanted Urainie to be the one in charge of guarding their life since she was already practically the one at their side making sure they kept their sanity.

off guard. Footsteps. And not the slow staggering one's that kept at a rhythm, but the one's that indicated for Urainie to get the hell outta there. As soon as she pulled herself up, at least seven or so zombies came charging through the door. They were Runners. All of them. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..." She hid under the counter and bit her lip to hold back any sudden noises that might give her away. One Runner, a balding man with scrapings used as clothing, passed her nearly brushing her leg until she quickly pulled them up close to her chest. Her heart pounded simultaneously with each step man took. Either he couldn't hear her heart pounding or he was just playing her for a fool, he was doing one hell of a job. Urainie turned around cautiously to get a peek at the other Runners and was relieved to see that they had each lugged to their separate ways. Some went to the Men's Dressing Room, while others aimlessly moved over toward the escalators. She sat there making sure they were full out of sight when suddenly she felt a hand grab at her ankle roughly. Immediately, she whirled her attention onto him as he was pulling her towards him. He didn't even slacken his grip even when she yelped out in pain, though ignoring the sudden urge to scream she tried to dig her nails into the linoleum floor, but slipped and her head fell back with a deafening crack. Almost instantly, there was this tingling feeling running through every part of her body and her head felt light, hollow even. However, she continued to fight for her life, for her team mates. With a grunt, she kicked at the men's eye causing him to release her ankle and fall back. As she scrambled to her feet, she leaned over the man who now laid still on the floor. His eye socket was now dark and empty as where is eye should've been, but Urainie knew it wasn't over yet from the short twitching in his fingers. She reached pulled out a hanged from inside the box under the counter, snapped it in two, and plunged the sharp and into the man's chest, hard, until she heard the snap of his ribs. A small smile plastered across her face as she pulled her head back and spat out a loogie at the now dead corpse, "Motherfucker."

twelve, but fifteen zombies. Runners. They all stalk towards Urainie in her moment of terror. She was unable to peel her eyes away from their ghastly towering features. Their faces was sunken in, eyes unfocused. Their mouth twitched and drooled as if craving for something, anything. They craved for her. The smell of rotting face made her stomach churn and it was all she could do not to vomit then and there. Each one of their nails were dark and caked with blood, but she wasn't sure if it was their blood dripping from them. Finally, she saw the stomach-churning discolored skin close enough to see that it was falling apart. It was falling away from muscle, and bones. She saw everything that she never intended on seeing. In that instant, somehow, her body found itself, discovered how to move again. It was possible to murder one zombie, but the whole pack was impossible. And with that she ran for the exit. She made no attempt to look behind her to know that the Runners were tagging along after her. One of them had managed to catch up to her, and she threw her forearm back, sending the corpse flying back into two others.

others place. Twenty. "Crap," the word wasn't even a whisper as Urainie began to pick up her pace into a dead sprint. The soles of her shoes patted hard against the pavement of the parking lot. Her breath came gasping out in short wheezes, but she dared not slow down. This was a situation between life and death.

She ran through the parking lot until she rounded a corner down an abandoned Market place where she bent down on her knees to catch her breath after what felt like a minute, she peeked behind the corner and realized that she had lost the Runners until she suddenly seen one of them coming towards her, then another, and another. Next thing you knew they were multiplying. Without thinking, she pushed open the doors to a local convenience store and seen something that made her feel relieved. Angy. Or both. There in the far end sat Oliver on a fallen shelf eating what looked like chocolate pudding, and at his side was Donnie smoking his usual Camel pack. She stomped over towards them in a huff. She was sure she looked like hair at that moment. Eyes sullen. Hair tousled and caked with blood from the fall. Clothes grungy and torn. "What. In. The. Actual. Fuck," she said every word breathlessly, aware that she was gritting her teeth. She scowled at her two slackers. "Twenty, hell, maybe even more then that. And you know what kinds they were, mhm? Well, I'll tell ya'. They were Runners. And you know where they're going?" She waited until the room was enveloped into utter silence. "Here. So, either you get your asses up and head to base grounds or neither of you will see daylight." Suddenly, there was a loud pounding on the door just as Urainie turned to see that they were already trying to break through the glass doors. She quickly lifted Oliver to his feet and snatched the cigarette from Donnie's mouth. "Go to base grounds. See any of us, tell them to follow. I want everyone back at the warehouse. Go." And with that she shooed them towards the back door as she did so her head began to to feel heavy. Ignoring it, she continued to push them, but the pain only grew worse. It throbbed and pulsed in her skull; not a sharp pain like a knife-inflicted wound, but more of a dull pounding with a hammer over...and over...and over again. Her brain felt like it was on overdrive, but at the same time can't process properly. Images and ideas and plans and deadlines run through her head, but they're chasing each other round and round. Her mind couldn't catch a single one, but gets pounded with all of them at the same time as they ricochet and slam into the walls of her head.

"Dammit!" she screamed as she pressed her hands against the sides of her head until the pain went away. "Go. Now! I'll meet you guys later." she barely managed to say the last part through clenched teeth.

Nothing. Thats what all there was to do. Nothing. Actually, strictly speaking this wasn't true. Technically speaking Alex was on sentry duty. So there he sat on top of the warehouse making sure there weren't any hordes of flesh eating zombies or potentially dangerous people heading their way. He sighed deeply, this is what things had come to now. Still there were things that needed doing and supplies that needed gathering. He had only just arrived at this school and though he often had an easy time making friends this time was different. In international schools everyone was new and everyone wanted to make friends. Here everyone had been friends since they were younger and he was just an outsider, and Canadian at that. That was why he wasn't along on the supply run, he was a bit of an unknown quantity to them. Still this was who he had and he'd have to make the most of it.

With that in mind he set about making a list. "We need food, medicine, weapons and shelter." He muttered to himself. Actually it looked like he was going to need a couple lists. "Food: Non-perishables are best of course, but dehydrated meals and army rations will be best if we want to move, if not cans are probably easier to find. Medicine; well we'll need ...." He trailed off as he started mentally thinking of everything they'd need. He was going to need some paper and a pen.

He took one last look around and satisfied that there were no immediate threats he went downstairs to find some list making material. He walked through their common room and started shuffling things around looking for paper and a working pen before he noticed that there were other people in the room. In fact Sara was changing. He blinked a couple times and looked away. "Sorry" he mumbled "Just need to write some things down." Then it registered. "Wait how did you get wet? Anyways I'm just writing out supplies we're going to need." The food, shelter, and weapons were fairly self explanatory so he started with medicine, talking aloud as he wrote.

"We're going to need; bandages, gauze, bandaids, as well as disinfectants, hydrogen peroxide works and antibiotic cream and lots of it." He looked up briefly. Thankfuly Sara was dressed again by this point and Lexy was in the room now too. "Infection is going to be our biggest preventable worry right now" he said addressing them before turning back to his list. "We ALSO need painkillers, and suture kits." He looked up again. "Anyone know how to do stitches? Hmmm well I guess I've seen it done ..... Are the others not back yet?